Tracing Our Roots
The last week has demonstrated so much about the battle lines in America. In many ways, I suppose it makes so little sense to those outside of the United States. It barely makes sense to those of us here. We are simultaneously becoming more open and more tolerant of activities that might be considered on the edges of societal norms while others desperately pass laws to prevent those things.
Some people call these things victimless crimes. That designation obviously depends on multiple perspectives. Often times there are victims but they are not necessarily a victim of the crime itself, but all of the danger surrounding the so-called crime.
As everyone knows, we were settled by Puritans. I liken them to the Southern Baptists and non-denominational Evangelical Christians of today. Nearly everything pleasurable was a sin. Therefore, it was strictly prohibited. I don’t think most people have thought about how this played on our collective psyche even to the present day.
You cannot drink. You cannot dance. You cannot read strange books. You cannot partake of other substances. You certainly cannot have sex outside of marriage or participate in any activity that might nudge you down that road. Since this is the case, you cannot have access to anything that would promote safe sex, access to safe drugs, or allow anyone to make responsible choices.
What we understand today (and I imagine even then) is that when you deny someone anything pleasurable and tell them that doing that thing is a sin they will begin to crave it. They always joked that the best way to keep a Baptist from drinking your beer is to invite a second Baptist. As silly as the notion is, some people still think that if no one sees them do it then they never did it.
This has produced some widespread problems. I’m not sure how one measures such a thing, but it has been reported that the United States sits behind only Russia in the rate of alcoholics in society. That’s not total alcohol consumed. It’s not even alcohol consumed per capita. It is the percentage of people that have a problem with the amount of alcohol they consume.
We can extend this to other situations. One of my daughter’s friends nearly died from an overdose. It seems she bought some marijuana and still is not sure what it was laced with. Some dealers love to do that. I suppose that even if it were legal universally, some people would still try to find it cheaper or without the hassles of acquiring it legally.
All that being said, we can’t help but wonder how much making it legal and available through traditional means would prevent things like that. We can’t help but wonder how many fewer people would have addiction issues if our attitudes towards alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana were healthier. We can’t help but wonder how many fewer people would need abortions if they had access to birth control measures and helpful education about sexual activity in general.
Unfortunately, we can’t have these things because we are still stuck mentally in 17th century New England. These things are bad. You cannot have those things and we certainly can’t talk about them. Furthermore, if we allow those things then the slippery slope comes in and we would then see an increase in those other things that all of us find abhorrent.
Instead, we could discuss things like adults. Legalizing marijuana doesn’t necessarily mean a sharp increase in the use of harder drugs we all agree should be illegal. Allowing for and helping children understand safe sex doesn’t mean a sharp increase will definitely occur. If you give someone a bowl of ice cream they won’t devour the carton. If you show it to them and them tell them they can’t have any, you might wake up to find the carton empty. This is our collective American experience.
You’re entirely too reasonable and rational.
You will never ever get such messaging through to the ‘minds’ of about 40%+ of the ‘Murikan population.
And after reading a recent diet of the drivel that I’ve quoted below [a very very small sample], I believe some alcoholic beverage drinking is in my near future.
[I’ve advocated for things like universal health care and drugs legalization since the ’60-70s. Especially since Nixon started the so-called “War on Drugs” that has been a total failure every year since, and has utterly corrupted our legal, LEO, political, and economic societal systems for 50 years. Pure ‘Reefer Madness’.
[and no, I never use the stuff, though I once grew a big plot of a certain leafy green plant on some of my early acreage for some friends…]
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But when you’re dealing with mindless propaganda-driven cretins who write, and fervently –believe– things like the below quotes from ‘NextDoor’ ‘inflation’ topics, we are in all likelihood -doomed-. I don’t think you can hardly cram more conspiracy theories and “fakery” into a few paragraphs.
[the “they” the first comsymp writes about are YOU, dear liberal progressive Democrats…]:
From some of my nearby NextDoor peeps– [absolutely factual material cough cough]:
“Yes it is going to get worse. They have destroyed over a dozen food processing plants, have killed 10’s of millions of chickens and turkeys over a fake virus, killed millions of hogs over a fake virus, killed millions of people over a fake virus…getting the picture yet?
They have taken out the factories that make farm equipment with cyber attacks, depleted our oil reserves and quit producing.
Do you know about Agenda 2030, how about the Georgia Guidestones. Know anything about how people have been murdered with Remdesivir, where does it end? Your Federal Reserve Notes (paper money) will become useless because there is nothing to back it. Better have assets in place and have extra goods. There is a bright side to every valley and that is getting back up to high ground but it is going to take fighting an uphill climb and a little sweat and pain.”
1 hr ago
…
“Biden Wanted $33B More For Ukraine. Congress Quickly Raised it to $40B.
Tens of billions, soon to be much more, are flying out of U.S. coffers to Ukraine as Americans suffer.
February: $350 million in military aid
March: $800 million in military aid + additional $500 million in aid
April: $750 million more in weapons
May: $150 million weapons package
Who Benefits? ”
[Not Komrade Donnei’s BFF Vlad Putin, for sure. I’m sure enjoying watching video clips of Russkies daily getting blown to bits by the expertly skilled Ukrainian forces shown on the very good Ukrainian war coverage over on Daily Kos. Pooty will rue the day he planned his massive clusterfuck of an invasion of his peaceful neighbors. There’s just something about the personality types of those autocratic assholes that leads them into disasters sooner or later; too bad the rest of us go along for the ride.]
1Do any of y’all think that you could ever reach or persuade such slavering MAGAots how wrong they are, or vote for a Democrat ?
Forgot to mention, most of those MAGAots are actively cheering for the Russians, and hating on the Ukrainians. Doing what their propaganda masters program them to do and think; totally without the blink of a single synapse in their gelatinous craniums.
2Actual only the Plymouth Colony was settled by Puritans.
3Jamestown was settled by the Virginia Company of London.
New Amsterdam was settled by the Dutch.
Outside of New England, most of the colonies were started by entrepreneurs, Catholics, prison colonies, etc.
“Legalizing marijuana doesn’t necessarily mean a sharp increase in the use of harder drugs we all agree should be illegal.” Really making most things illegal means massive miss use. ANd who am I to tell you what to use??? But when things are controlled and illegal by Vogons, does not mean it will be well done. War on drugs is a perfect example of a massive fail. The Vogons treat people like crap! Oh! NO! not cuz they are (fill in racist smear), but because of DRUGS!!!! I used Speed for a while and that showed me that the war on drugs was & is BS! No side effects except the right one…massive weight loss!! But since it can be misused, it is outlawed. Cars and water will kill when miss used, so let’s outlaw them both!!!
4Like L.Long, I question your statement about “harder drugs we all agree should be illegal.” You’re making a big assumption that “we all agree.”
5Some places, like Portugal, have de-criminalized ALL drugs, and the results have been very positive.
All is certainly a oversimplification, but I would say the overwhelming majority of Americans would say that drugs like crack, heroin, LSD, PCP, et al should be illegal. I suppose the point goes that someone could certainly use alcohol, tobacco, marijuana responsibly in moderation. I’m not sure how one would use cocaine or LSD responsibly. Of course, one could certainly dispute me on that and that’s fine.
I think drugs like speed, ex, and amphetamines would move into a separate category. Of course, the overarching point would be that a reasonable conversation would need to be had. I could certainly see possibilities for new laws (or expanded interpretations of the old ones) that would specify that being under the influence of any said drug would not be a crime, but any illegal activity conducted under the influence could not be mitigated by being under said influence.
6L.Long @4, You wrote: “But since it can be misused, it is outlawed.”.
Eggzactly.
I’ve always had allergies and sinus problems, went to EN&Ts most of my life, RXs, allergy shots, surgery, the works, with only marginal results. With advancing age, and much more ‘environmental control’ [not traveling for one thing], it’s gotten much better.
But previously, there used to be a very effective OTC anti-histamine drug, iirc a green gel cap, that when your head was just clogged up with swollen sinuses etc., one of those pills would cure it in minutes [judiciously and sparingly used of course].
Apparently the druggies liked something about that easily obtainable medicine and started cleaning the drug store shelves of it.
After some time the WaronDrugs do-gooders couldn’t stand it and had that useful medicine restricted or banned.
7One day I needed some more and went to the pharmacy, looked all over for that stuff, couldn’t find it [had been buying for years off and on].
Gave up and asked the pharmacist about it and where was it? Got treated very suspiciously and felt like the jerk was about to call the effing cops on me for just asking about it.
And now with it essentially unavailable, I just suffer for the duration of an allergy season.
Nick, your classing a psychedelic like LSD as equivalent with opiates and amphetamines just reveals how little you know about this topic. Please inform yourself more before you opine more.
8If we are going Puritan/Pilgrims, may I recommend: “Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War” by Nathaniel Philbrick? One important conclusion I came to due to this book is that the Puritans (Pilgrims?) sowed the seeds to their own woes by selling natives flintlocks, while they used matchlocks. For some reason they were sure their attitudes about God would always hold them superior as warriors no matter the facts of their technology. That and it was only those who understood/worked and lived with their opponents who saved their collective @$$es (ie, to fight and win against the natives one had to think & fight like the natives), in other words the people they reviled saved them. Not much has changed with religious zealots since, apparently.
BTW, the Puritans would use the power of their theocracy to violently suppress any and all other flavors of religion. So think Southern Baptists that had the power to lynch anyone for moral failures like supporting the Papacy…
9The most rebellious are the sheriffs sons and the preachers daughters.
I learned early not to hang around with them!
10I have lived my entire life with the mental weight of a “holier-than-thou” evangelical family that made me feel like a black sheep for decades. I smoked weed, did drugs, listened to rock, and had lots of sex in the 70’s, who didn’t? But I also had a successful career, retired at age 52, will celebrate my 44th Anniversary this month.
Had I not moved to the Texas I think I would be a different person (based on what I witness from my brother and sisters). I would have never known diversity, open-mindedness, questioned Religion, and maybe known happiness.
When I moved to Texas in ’74 I thought it was the best place on the planet. Now not so much. I feel like a “stranger in a strange land” – so sad what we have allowed Texas to become in the last 30 years.
to me whole drug conversation is just a blame game for more pervasive issues that have been around for a very long time.
11Haha, Sandridge #1…love the reference to the Georgia Guidestones. I remember when they were put up in 1980….big slabs of granite by an anonymous person (‘R. C. Christian’). 10 guidelines for rational living for the people of the earth in English, Spanish, Swahili, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic, Traditional Chinese, and Russian.
12I have an Australian friend who said to me, “We got the convicts. You got the Puritans. We got the much better deal.”
13As an educator I know plenty. I never said they were the same. In fact, this is exactly what I said, “I think drugs like speed, ex, and amphetamines would move into a separate category.” So, I would suggest reading more carefully before bothering to insult me.
14Opinionated Hussy @12, Those MAGAots are batshit crazy.
I’ve got to stop reading what many of my neighbors are writing and revealing [my rural TX county is at least 80% Rethug, and the % is increasing]. It’ll drive me to drink.
The ND thread’s author deleted the thread that I quoted some quite mild stuff from shortly after I posted here, which you cited; believe me it’s far worse stuff around.
It was getting rather heated because their RWNJ majority isn’t used to being challenged with facts and references, which reduces them to two year old level tantrums [I sometimes have a blast baiting the hell outta them until they’re smoking chitpiles, I’m so evvviiilll, heheh].
Anyway I had preserved the earlier version of the whole thread in a pdf so I gots much of it preserved [missing the later off the wall stuff prior to deletion].
Here’s the lede, you can see how she held her wingnutty in check until the last [this Bidenflation is a veery big topic hereabouts]:
” SKYROCKETING PRICES !!
I just got home from HEB and I’m still in shock!! The prices on almost everything have gone way up in a week!! Butter, eggs, dairy products are up. Meat, WOW.
Then of course there is the price of gas $4 a gallon!!!! I don’t know what we, who are living on our Social Security are supposed to do!!! Hope y’all who voted for Biden are satisfied with how he is ruining our country!!!!!!
Posted in General to Anyone”
Then after deleting the whole thing with about 100 replies, comes this no-apology’:
“FYI I deleted my post SKYROCKETING PRICES
Just so you know I was the one who deleted my post, not Nextdoor. It was getting too political and nasty. Not my intention.
Posted in General to Anyone”
If “Not my intention.”, why the catty opening “Hope y’all who voted for Biden are satisfied with how he is ruining our country!!!!!!” and all the other crap throughout [much worse by others]?
Hypocrites with the tenderest skins in the universe, squealing like stuck pigs when their worldviews are questioned the slightest.
And living in an upscale exurban small acreage neighborhood [avg home price $400-700K] drawing her Social Security payments, protected for generations by Democrats from the predations of the Rethuglikans they blindly worship.
[one commenter boldly stated that ‘unlike the Biden admin, the previous one [Kommander Bonespurs] actually really cared about all of us’…]
There’s so much hoot-worthy stuff on ‘ https://nextdoor.com/news_feed/ ‘ that I highly reccomend y’all checking out your area’s section. Of course YMMV, if you’re short on wingnuts.
Fairly, most of the posts there deal with lost cats, dogs, goats, donkeys, horses and gardening, wandering rattlesnakes, corals and copperheads, and scorpions, etc. With occasional mailbox bandits and suspicious ‘casing cruisers’ complete with surveillance pics/vids.
15And here in 21st century New England we’re (mostly) guided by science (no accounting for New Hampshire) and wondering why much of the rest of the country is batshit crazy.
16lazrgrl @16, Science!
In my comments about the Nextdoor forums I sorta left out the many squirrelly references to ‘te lawd ‘n tots ‘n pears’ will get us righteous peeps past the evil of dem Demonrats out ta destroy ore blessed world. Nick’s a might bit tetchy ’bout that subject.
Science! :
17https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Science+song&pc=OSAS&ru=%2fsearch%3fq%3dScience%2bsong%26form%3dOSASSB%26pc%3dOSAS&view=detail&mmscn=vwrc&mid=64A7624D62E17BCEDA9964A7624D62E17BCEDA99&FORM=WRVORC
I only get touchy when people attribute statements to me that I didn’t make. I can defend what I say. I can’t defend what others do in the name of religion or what others seem to invent that I’ve said. All that being said, I think the large problem is fundamentalism and not necessarily all religion. People often paint all of us with the same brush even though the Christian Left is an actual thing.
In general though, I almost never get angry at people challenging me or my beliefs as long as they challenge me in good faith. I’ve certainly learned how faith and is viewed around these parts and I have no issues with that as long as the craziness isn’t pointed my direction.
18We love the Nextdoor stuff by the way. We joined just to read the stupidity. My favorite is when people report seeing gators (which is a thing around here) but no one calls animal control. One of the local radio stations has a segment where they go through the worst NextDoor posts of the day.
19SANDRIDGE. BUDDY.
20I’ve dealt with allergies since I was a kid as well.
Believe it or not the best thing I’ve found is a homeopathic called ColdCalm.
I highly recommend trying it.
And I don’t even own stock in the company.
Seriously, it’s been a game changer for me.
Nick @18/19, I respect your views, I had fourteen years of excellent rigorous science/logic-based Catholic education [grade 1-uni], which was before the zealots took over I guess; was an agnostic by 15y/o.
It’s the batshit crazy Talibangelicals that drive me around the bend. They’re pure deluded evil, and one of the most dangerous threats to our nation ever.
Reading Nextdoor can be amusing, but there’s an awful lot of just plain scary that people can fervently believe so much crap completely without a question.
21We had the occasional gators down in the Valley, but not here; lots of sneks though, don’t mind unless they come in the house..
P. P. @20, Thanks, I’ll look it up. Mostly I just muddle through.
Nick, that radio program must be a hoot, do they have an online streaming feed? I haven’t hardly listened to a local radio broadcast since I got SiriusXM sat, and also started streaming in the ’90s.
22I’ll have to try that allergy remedy. I’ve been getting shots for over a year and haven’t noticed a lick of difference….I’ll have to get back to you on the station. Most of the stations around here are on an app called Audacy. I’d try there first.
I love the commercials we get around here for acres of land with “abundant wildlife”. We have the occasional gator, wild boars, coyotes, snakes, raccoons, possums, skunks, and an owl that seems to perch on our roof every now and then. I have more than enough wildlife thank you very much.
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