Dealing With It

I am still trying to deal with what we did. I am still trying to come to grips with what just happened and trying to get past the terror of what may come next. Every day I am getting a little better, at least until some of the worst things that may come happen anyway. There have been a ton of editorials of what happened, and what Trump did right, what the Democrats did wrong, and how the issues of Trump voters should have been addressed and not dismissed. I don’t want to write about any of that, partly because it has been done, and even more because everything I read is either trying to rationalize everything or make it fit their worldview. What I want to write about is how this moment has possibly forever altered me and how I see my fellow countrymen. Because for me this feels like a watershed moment, at least on a personal level.

Going into Tuesday, polls showed Trump with a 15-20% chance of winning, we know now that these polls were wrong. Or if not wrong that the polls had overestimated the number of democrats that were going to vote, or that said they were going to vote. The funny thing is deep down I never really believed the polls and I suspect that most of my liberal brethren didn’t either, but we were wrong about them the exact opposite way than they turned out. I felt confident that there were people being polled that said they were voting for Trump because they were registered Republicans and that is what they were supposed to say, but as soon as they were staring at their ballot they would vote for Gary Johnson, or hold their nose and vote for Hillary. I just naively believed that many people, maybe even most people were good people, that morally they couldn’t bring themselves to endorse and vote for such a reprehensible monster. Clearly I was wrong, and I am still trying to figure out how to move forward with that knowledge.

I feel like Roddy Piper in They Live; that is most accurate metaphor I have come up with. If you are not familiar with that movie it is an 80’s cult classic where Roddy Piper comes across some sunglasses and when he puts them on he can see aliens among us, they look just like us to everyone else, but these glasses allows him to see them for what they are. This election has been those glasses for me and I see people differently now. I go for walks at lunch and I pass people all the time and I saw them as pleasant folks, people who probably were good people with interesting lives. Now I see them differently, I walk past a woman and think she probably wants all the Latinos that don’t always speak English out of her country. I walk past a man who is probably pissed that a black man got promoted over him at work, another one that is mad that his boss is woman and thinks she needs to get back in the kitchen. I keep walking and wondering just how many of the people I am passing believe in a Jewish controlled media? How many of them want to bring back Jim Crow laws? How many of them want to roll back marriage equality and force gays back into the closet, or maybe in a prison cell? How many are deeply angry that they no longer live in an all-white neighborhood? How many of them would like to use or condone physical violence against a transgender person just for living openly? Right up until November 8^th I would have thought the answer to most of these questions was none or almost none. Now the results of this election tell me that it is almost half of them.

In 2012 I just assumed me and the average Romney voter had a difference of opinion, the same for the McCain voter in 2008, and the Bush voter before that. But with Trump it is different, almost the only actual positions that he took was that we should ban Muslims, kick out the Mexicans and keep them out with a wall, and that if your important enough you can get away with doing whatever you want to a woman. Sure I guess there is Obamacare too, he said he didn’t like that, which is almost the only position he took this election that wasn’t misogynist, xenophobic, or racist. So even if a person was voting for Trump because they don’t like Obamacare, or because he is an outsider that will shake up the establishment, that had to do it at the very least not being bothered by his racism, xenophobia, or misogyny. That just doesn’t make sense to me, let’s go back to 2012, if Obama had said that he believed Jews started all the wars and secretly ran the world and we need to bar any Jews from entering America and start a registry for any that are here, I would have voted for Romney or a third party candidate in a second. The only conclusion then is that people didn’t vote for Trump in spite of his evilness, they voted for him because of it.

So how do I move forward, I am going to do my best to find the silver lining here. Maybe this is the case of it always being the darkest before the light. I have said before that I thought Donald Trump’s candidacy represented the last gasp of good old American racism. That the old guard is dying out and the future belongs to open minded progressive youth, I still think that is true, it is just this last gasp was stronger than I thought and will probably push us back quite a bit. Maybe Trump voters aren’t the enemy maybe it is just the advances in medical science that has allowed them to live longer and cast their bigoted votes. So my hope for the future is the same as every parent, it is in my children. Two of my boys didn’t really pay much attention, but my Weebie and my daughter were shocked and devastated by what just happened and I have heard of a lot kids that feel the same way, they wonder what is going to happen to their gay friends, their transgender friends, their black friends, their Hispanic friends, and their Muslim friends, this is very personal to them. And the next election my daughter will be a voter, and she won’t be on the sideline, she will be exercising her right, because I am sure this administration is going to do their best to marginalize minorities and underprivileged and all they will really manage to do in the long run is invigorate them. We have been blindsided and dealt a devastating blow by the bullies, the bigots, the racists, the xenophobes, the misgonists, and the stupid, but they have not won the war, and they can never win the war, I truly belive that love always beats hate in the long run. The people that are the majority right now scare me, but the future should scare them because they have to know their hateful way of life can’t continue. We will get stronger and we will take back our country in the name of love, compassion, and empathy. So maybe I should thank Trump in the end for uniting us.

Tragedy & Tenderness

I have a tragic tale I want to share with you. But I want you to be warned, you might not want to read this if you have things to do today. The best example I can give you is sometimes when I drop my son off at daycare in the mornings, as soon as I hand him to one of the ladies that works there, he turns and looks back at me and starts crying and reaching out for me. The first time this happened was not with him, but almost five years ago with my daughter. For me there is nothing that is more likely to screw up my whole day more than my son or daughter crying for me not to leave them. After that the rest of my day is pretty much shot and I only have that image swimming around in my head all day. I think there is a good psychological explanation for that I will perhaps get into another time. But you are warned, if you don’t want to risk screwing up your day or your night’s sleep don’t read this right now. Wait until you have a better time, or not at all. I would totally understand if you never want to read this. What I have to say might do more than tug on your heartstrings, it might rip them out and piss all over them. I don’t tell this story to bring anyone down or have them share in my grief, I tell it because there is a tender beauty at the end of it that touches me deeply. It is this beauty that might do more to screw up your day or night than the tragedy, it was the beauty that kept me awake until midnight last night. It was this same tenderness that was fresh on my mind this morning and in my thoughts all day.

Sunday, we were doing a little house cleaning, big stuff this time. It was brought about by the intolerable disarray of our girls’ bedroom. Kimberly went through the room and decided she wanted to throw out a lot of stuff. We found other items that were taking up space too and decided to get rid of them. I pile stuff like this up in the backyard for months, old water hoses, large empty boxes, old appliances, sticks, and boards. When either the pile gets too big or we decide to do this kind of cleaning, I burn it. Sunday, especially considering it had just rained I decided to burn it. The pile was big and Kimberly kept bringing me more stuff to burn. My dog, Pepsi, stayed on a chain that’s limit was a few feet away from the fire. Kimberly decided to let her go so she could stretch her legs and so she didn’t have to feel the heat, or breath the smoke.. Pepsi bounded around the yard enjoying her temporary reprieve.

I was in the backyard burning, MaKayla was in the front yard sitting on the sidewalk playing with some chalk, the rest of my family was inside still cleaning. Can there be anything more beautifully innocent and serene than the image of a five-year-old girl with long blonde hair blowing in the wind drawing pictures and nonsense words on the sidewalk while the family dog bounces around her, both happily enjoying a beautiful, cool late summer day? I would have you see this image very well, it is nice isn’t. My sweet little girl whose vocabulary is well beyond that of a toddler, but who still possesses that problem with annunciation that makes all children’s voices so cute, my dog who has a problem with her odor because she sweats, but who has the sweetest temperament, totally unaware of her own size and confused as to why the smaller animals don’t want to play with her. Do you see this well, I wish I could tell you my tale ended here, I really do, but I can’t.

Nature has a sick sense of humor. My dog had a bad habit of chasing cars, not everyone that came by, one out of every four or five maybe. There was no predictable pattern. Sometimes she would see a car and the mood would strike her and she would give chase. Sometimes she would see a car and not. We had left her off the chain for sometime and decided that since she couldn’t stop chasing cars we had to put her back on a chain, she was a danger to herself and drivers. People that have dogs that chase cars can only expect one end to come of this. Eventually the dogs luck or ability to pull up in time would run out. Sunday was Pepsi’s day. A large white truck passed and the mood struck Pepsi. She let loose with her barks of excitement and gave chase. My daughter looked up at the sound of Pepsi’s barks and watched her. Watched the truck run down my big, friendly canine. There was no mess and my dog didn’t die straight out, she was either thrown or got back up and ran. My daughter would report to her mother while they were taking a bath that she could still hear Pepsi in her ears, this was hours later too.

Pepsi in her final burst of energy ran toward home and what she hoped was her safety. She ran so hard with her last effort that she ran into the side of the house and my wife heard it and came to investigate. After running into the house Pepsi turned and saw MaKayla. This is what I choose to believe here, this last act of Pepsi’s could be no more than coincidence, but I don’t think or want to believe that. Pepsi saw MaKayla and felt the blackness closing in around her, some part of her, instinct perhaps knew the end was here. With the last ounce of strength she walked over to my sweet daughter, one of us that Pepsi so loved, and laid down next to her. My wife looked out the window at that moment to see what the noise was. There was MaKayla sitting with her legs crossed on the sidewalk, her chalk spread out around her, colorful happy images peppering the gray of our walkway, and next to her was Pepsi lying on the sidewalk, her tongue hanging out limp and her eyes vacant and lifeless. She saw Pepsi’s chest rise a single time, then no more. Pepsi died right there next to my daughter, and I choose to believe that she found some comfort in being close to someone she loved there at the end, maybe even peace. It is a horrible and beautiful image at the same time, both tragic and tender. When I think about it, as I do now, it rips me apart with equal measures of grief and something akin to pride.

My greatest concern after this and probably something on the forefront of your mind as well was whether or not this incident would traumatize my daughter. I don’t think it has, though it is too soon to know for sure, I am writing this the day after this event, but she seemed okay yesterday and seems okay today too, a little sad maybe, but that is to be expected. I have not talked to her about it, I don’t know if that is the right decision or not. I don’t know if it was a decision at all. Part of me believes that I should talk to her about how it made her feel, and part of me believes that such a talk might add weight to it in her mind and cause the trauma I am hoping to avoid. The only mention she has made of it since then, outside of the journalist point of telling us what happened, was when she told her mother that she could still hear the sound Pepsi made after the truck hit her. She slept well last night, and that is good. If any of you have thoughts on this I would surely listen.

I hope you see why I told you this story, sometimes at the worst moments of life there is still beauty. And it is moments like those that can touch us most deeply. I buried my dog next to her favorite bush in the backyard, but my last memory of her is not burying her, or the last time I saw her frolicking before the accident, it is of something I didn’t even witness. It is of her laying down next to my daughter to be close to someone she loves, and find comfort in that love. Tragic it may be, that is still a great and powerful memory to have.

It's a celebration, it's a national party, it's a holiday, it's a signifigant event. No, wait it's none of these. Then why haven't I been able to go anywhere for the past two weeks without hearing about it. I walk into class and hear, "Today is Katrina's Birthday", I look at a paper and see headlines like, "One Year Later". What is this fascination, why are we marking this passing of time.

I know this isn't the first time we have recognized and dwelled on tragedy. I was around in September 2002 and remember all the rememberance. And maybe I accepted that one as almost necessary because September 11th was definitely a watershed moment in American history. Perhaps some would argue that Katrina is too, but I don't know about that.
To me it seems a little morbid to mark the passing of time from this tragedy. Yes, I know we should remember lest we repeat the mistakes of our past, but personally I find this fascination of celebrating or at least acknowledging the anniversary of Katrina more disturbing than the publics inexplicable fixation on Brad and Angelina's baby.

But lets go deeper, because there is something about all of this I find deeply disturbing. Hurricane season is well under way now and every little tropical storm is now being watched with greedy fascination. Do your own people-on-the-street poll and you may find that there are more people that can tell you at least one storm in the gulf now then their are who can't. Maybe it was this way before Katrina, but I would be skeptical of that. There seems to be a feeling o f anxious curiousity to see which if any will develop into the next Katrina. Nevermind that decades passed between major hurricane disasters in the past. Some people are determined that Katrina II is coming this year. Some of this could be put down to soothsayers who have said Katrina was a sign of end times, but is that all of it. I would like to believe so.

I don't want to believe that some people in their secret hearts want to see another disaster because it is exciting or it affirms their beliefs, religous, political, or other. I don't want to believe that people watched the endless hours of September 11th coverage because it fascinated and excited them. I don't want to believe that people watched the O.J. Simpson car chase because they were curious to see if he would commit suicide and wanted to be the first on their block to know if he did. I don't want to believe that people slow down at a car crash to see if they can see a body. I don't want to believe that some people get upset if the details are left out of a murder on the news. I don't want to believe that some peoples belief in hell comforts them to know that those they despise will be tortured. I really don't want to believe any of these things.

Follow-up:
Drugs: Our Misunderstood Friend

Well, I must say I am truly flattered. I had no idea that the Mexican president reads my blog but apparently he does. If you haven't heard the story yet Mexico will legalize the possession of small quantities of drugs. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/03/world/main1575608.shtml

Now this is not certain at this point. United States officials are trying to push the Mexican government to not do this. Which is funny in a way. All Mexico is really doing is closing a loophole in their law. These quantities of drug possession is dropped by judges but the police still have to arrest the people before the judge drops the charges. With all that extra income and financial security that Mexico has I can certainly understand why they want to close this loophole.

In the article listed above here is a snippet:
On Friday, Mayor Jerry Sanders of San Diego, said he was "appalled" by the bill. The city of 1.3 million people is a short drive from the Mexican border town of Tijuana. "I certainly think we are going to see more drugs available in the United States," Sanders said. "We need to register every protest the American government can muster."

Here is something else the mayor said, “I view this as a hostile action by a longtime ally of the U.S.,” the mayor said at a new conference, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

Here's another politician:
“Mexico is becoming the second Columbia,” Rep. Henry Cuellar, D.-Texas, told The Post. “This is a serious and a ruthless situation.”

Another one:
Earlier Wednesday, U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Judith Bryan said U.S. officials had "urged Mexican representatives to review the legislation urgently to avoid the perception that drug use would be tolerated in Mexico, and to prevent drug tourism."

Something else:
Bryan said the U.S. government wants Mexico "to ensure that all persons found in possession of any quantity of illegal drugs be prosecuted or be sent into mandatory drug treatment programs."

Okay I am going to ask small children to look away, because I am about to use profanity. It is the only way I know to truly express my outrage at this point.

What gives us the fucking right to now look at Mexico and try to tell them what to do. What gives us the right to tell them how to govern their people. People that we have decided in this country that we want nothing to do with. This law does not affect us and still we try to force our will on other people. Every country does not have to be America, every country does not have to hold to our ideals. Are we fighting the crusades again a few hundred years later. Mexico can pass whatever law they want and it does not fucking concern us. They could pass a law that states that every Thursday at noon everyone in Mexico has to stick a blue dildo in their ass and sing Tutti Fruitti. And you know what, that's right, it does not fucking affect us.

This is abso-fucking-lutely in-fucking-sane. Truly it is. We have been yelling at Mexico like a bastard child for the last few months. Telling them that they better mind their children, we don't want to deal with them. Demanding that they do something to keep those horrible Mexicans out of our country and for them to stop stealing our jobs. We tell them that we don't want their people and we don't want anything to do with their people and then we try to tell them how to govern their people. That is bullshit.

Hey I know what this is really all about it has been referred to in the articles above. We are worried about "drug tourism" we are worried about Americans going down to Mexico to get high. Well so fucking what. For years people have been going down to Mexico for cheap booze, drugs, and hookers. Will that increase with a law like this, yeah probably, but so what. People can go to Amsterdam and get high if they want, but most people don't have the money for that kind of trip, but a few buddies can pile up and head for Tijuana easy enough. So once again we have class warfare here. Because the poor and middle class can do it now, we have to stop it. It is bad enough when we tell our fellow citizens in our own nation what they can and can't do because we don't want it to influence people, but now we are imposing ourselves on a soveriegn nation, a nation of democracy, an ally, and one of the few friends the United States has left in the world.

America's message to Mexico, "Hey if you want to sit by us in class you have to do what we tell you to." If I were you Mexico I would cave to the pressure though, don't forget if there is anything America is good at it is putting big holes in countries where brown people live.

During the writing of this article I found this follow-up story on CNN. Well, it looks like the big bully gets its way as usual.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/05/04/mexico.drugs.ap/index.html?section=cnn_latest

Different

Every human being is different. This goes without saying I know, but I am saying it anyway because it intrigues me. From the moment of birth are differences are there. A baby may look similar to it’s parents and even as he/she grows that may hold true, but they will not look just like their parents, nor will they think just like them or act like them. I believe if you locked to babies in a room together and made sure they experienced and saw the exact same things you would still have two totally separate, completely independent individuals. This fascinates me to no end.

Is our differences controlled by DNA or is it a more subtle means. I don’t know and I don’t really care too much about that. Although I am sure that whatever it is, is at the root of all that I am about to say.

Two undecided people, as in a political election, are presented with both sides of an argument and they may make completely different judgements. Two different judgements with the same information. I know this goes deeper, becomes more primal. People make decision on what is important to them, but there we are back to differences. The two people will have a different measure of what is important to them.

I find this simply amazing. Today more than any other time in our history we live in the information age. Of course we also live in the misinformation age too, and that is a culprit of differences in a negative way. Almost every piece of information, every fact, every statistic is available to every individual of this country and most of the world. We have the ability to learn everything there is to know about anything we are interested in. All it takes is time and patience. The sad truth of the matter is that most people don’t even bother to look at a fraction of the information available, I myself am guilty of that on more than one occasion, but then again I rarely profess to be an expert on anything.

Our country is divided on nearly every topic. Sometime not even divided in two, but into many pieces. Some say there should be no capital punishment, some say we should use capital punishment in only the most heinous crimes, and some say we should use it in all murder crimes. Given the same information, or at least with the ability to get the same information, people have divide on everything, gay rights, prostitution, alcohol, flag-burning, we can’t even decide if Miller Lite tastes great or is less filling. Given all the information that every other citizen either has seen or has access to I have decided that I am an atheist and that there is no higher power. People all around me have decided differently some being agnostic, some being baptist, cathlotic, deitist, buddhist, hindu, and jewish. So many different groups and all with access to the same information, but all with different interpretations and conclusions from that information. That is astounding, is in not?

It is amazing this capacity for difference. The only thing that amazes me more about this is how oblivious many people are to others differences. There are many times during a week or month where someone will starting making comments or jokes to me that are racist or homophobic. They do this because of an assumption that I as a straight, white male am like them. That I share the same likes and dislikes and have come to the same conclusions about life and people that they have. People that believe in a higher power can not fathom how someone can not believe in a higher power, and atheist can not imagine how some believes there is a higher power. We understand inherently that we are different form others, but we set up limits on differences and suddenly become oblivious to those that are different from us. A lot of this probably comes about because once we recognize what makes us different we immediately begin to seek out like minds. Once we find a group of like minds we associate and become one together molding our beliefs and ideas together. Somewhere in this we forget that it is our differences that brought us here, then we begin to believe that others are wrong. We forget that they are just different from us.

I know I have presented more than a few radical ideas in the past and I am sure I will shock you with more in the future. Please just remember I am different from you and you are different from me. We don’t have to agree, and I would be flabbergasted if someone agreed with me on everything. And while I don’t understand how anyone can not come to the same conclusions I have, I do understand that is the case. And I do realize and appreciate life is so much more interesting with the differences.

What Makes an American?

There has been a lot said lately about illegal immigrants, and it has left me to think just what is it that makes them less American than me.

So what exactly is it that makes an American, or a citizen of any nation for that matter. Is it simply the random chance of the origin of birth? Is it decided by this factor in conjunction with the color of one’s skin, the accent in one’s voice, and one’s firm grasp of the language of the land? Am I an American simply because I am a white man, fluent in the English dialect, who happened ,by luck of the draw, to be born in Bossier City, Louisiana? I would like to believe that what makes me a citizen of our great land is my love for this country and the ideals that it holds to. I know I may complain quite a lot about things that happen here and decision that are made. I have on more than one occasion uttered the phrase, "I am moving to Canada." But I know that my love for this land will always remain and I will die under the red, white, and blue.
So, should we as a country have an open door policy? Should everyone that wants to be an American be allowed to become one? Do we have a responsibility, in our effort to spread democracy, to allow individuals that live under a system that they deem unworthy to ours become citizens of our nation? Is someone that sneaks into this country, not to terrorize it, but to enjoy all the benefits that naturally born citizens enjoy a criminal? Do we send these people back to a government that might look unfavorably on them as deserters? Do I have any answers to these questions?

No, not really.

There is no simple answer, but I do know one thing. We should not look down on these peoples as thieves. I ask you to put yourself in their shoes, you look at America and see a land of opportunity, a land of freedom, a land of love, kindness, and tolerance. Wouldn’t you want to be there? These people in many case risk life and limb to escape and seek out freedom and opportunity. Is that not the very embodiment of American, or at least what we think America should be?

If you go to see an Ozzy Osbourne concert, you may get to see an event that is similar to our past immigration laws. People at these concerts try and try to get on stage with Ozzy. Security Guards are positioned all around the front of the stage and almost all the time they manage to stop the concert goers from getting on stage, but every once and a while someone gets through and makes it on stage with Ozzy. I saw this happen myself, and Ozzy's reaction. He threw his arm around the guy and let him sing part of a song with him and when the guy was ready he dived back into the crowd. That is a lot like what we have been doing. We guard our stage and stop most of the body surfers on their way up to our microphone and spotlight, but when one makes it. For the most part we throw our arms around them and let them mow our lawns and pick our fruit, sing in this democracy that we love. When they are ready, they dive back into the crowd they came from, which a lot of the time they do. But that does still leave the question, if they don’t dive back into the crowd, do we let them become part of the band?

I Wish I Understood

First off, let me state that I am not trying to offend anyone's beliefs or make light of them, but this is something that has been bothering me greatly and I want to get it off my chest.

A few months ago I read a story about a family who lost seven children in a crash. A car plowed into the back of the car that was carrying them and killed the children, five of whom were siblings the other two were cousins of those siblings. Upon hearing that he had lost all seven of his grandchildren, William Scott, 62, died of a massive heart attack. here is the CNN link if you are interested in reading the story.http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/26/bus.crash/index.html

The part of the story I am concerned with and the part that has not left my mind since I read it is the very end. I read a couple of versions of this story, but they all include the minister spokesman comforting the family and speaking for the family. At times like this I am dumbfounded. I just can't understand the rationale and reasoning at a time like this to concieve that there is a loving god, but these people obviously still believe and that amazes me. What amazes me even more than this is that this god they believe in took eight members of their family and they can still love him. I myself am not burden with the belief in an almighty, but I would have to believe that if I was I would hate him with every fiber in my being for letting something like this happen.

A few weeks ago I watched an episode of Bullshit!, this episode was about endangered species. On this episode there was a woman with cerebral palsy, she is wheelchair bound. She is also homeless, in a way, she lives with a friend. The reason has to do with The Endangered Species Act, but I don't want to get into all that. The friend she lives with has no downstairs bathroom, so this poor woman has to be bathed in the yard with a waterhose. I really admired the woman because she seemed so upbeat about the bad hand that life has dealt her. But once again I have not been able to get this out of my head. She is a church goer and "thanks god because things could be worse." It would appear to me that this woman is living on the threshold of hell, I don't know in what way she thinks things could be worse. I guess she could become paralyzed and comepletely unable to move, but does that mean she is thanking god because she is scared of him and what he could do to her, that is sort of like an abused woman saying,"It was my fault Randy him me, I shouldn't have talked back that way."

I am really not going anywhere with these thoughts, they have just been bothering me alot and I wanted to see if writing them would get them out of my head. I don't pretend to understand religion. I know I used to be religious, but I guess I have forgotten the mindset that brings people to the conclusions they do. I also don't pretend to know everything, if there is a god he is obviously way smarter than Brandon Collinsworth, and maybe he/she/it will have a very good reason for all these things I don't understand, but I am not holding my breath. It would appear to me that if there is a god, he is a drunk wife beater and the most prolific and disturbing torturer/serial killer ever, but then again maybe he/she/it just doesn't care at all. I don't know and I am not trying to piss on anyone's religion, I just get confused and angry when I read these things.

People of faith are for the most part good, caring, kind people. The only thing I wonder is if they ever step back and examine their beliefs objectively and maybe let the thought into their mind to wonder if maybe they are wrong. Faith and logic seem to be opposing forces and that is a shame because I think both make a person strong and if they could work together, oh what a mighty person they could create.

Drugs: Our Misunderstood Friend

I am going to propose a radical idea and I know that it probably won't fly with many people, but I will ask you to bare with me and give the idea some serious thought. Let's just jump right to the idea and I can spend the rest of my time explaining my reasoning. The idea is this, all illegal narcotics should become legal. Marijuana, Heroin, Cocaine, LSD, every illegal mind and sometimes physique altering substance should be legal.

I feel that maybe I have already lost some of you, but for those that haven't completely closed their minds let me explain. Let's start with why these drugs are not legal.

They are harmful.
So are cigarettes, beer(in excess), hamburgers, and indirectly television. But yet these are all perfectly legal. Also, in some cases, Marijuana for instance, there is not one documented case of someone having died, directly, from smoking too much marijuana. In fact as levels of health, marijuana is probably less harmful than a pizza, chili dog, or taco. So obviously our obligation as a culture is not to protect citizens from themselves otherwise cigarettes, fast food, and other legal harmful substances would be made illegal and marijuana would be made legal for being virtually harmless, not totally, but in comparison to the above it is virtually harmless.

They are addictive.
Okay, why don't we just get this all out of the way. I can address this question almost exactly as I answered the one above. Yes most of them are addictive, but not all. Cigarettes, alcohol, fast food, and television are addictive too, but yet they are legal.

Who wants people in our society "high" while they drive, work, or take care of our children.
completely correct, of course I don't want anyone drunk while they drive, work, or take care of my children. That is why that is illegal, "driving under the influence", a law that actually governs not only alcohol, but also medications, prescription and over the counter. You could be arrested for driving under the influence if you have taken benadryl.

We would be empowering the criminals.
No one can actually say with 100% percent certainity but in all likelihood the opposite would happen. By legalizing these products that grow easily, are cultivated easily, and would employ more people than the porn industry the market value of these items would probably decrease. So, for starters there would be no value in selling something that could be purchased for a lower price at your 7-11. That is if they were sold there, maybe there would be specific business to sell these special items or maybe we would sell them at pharmacies.

They are just morally wrong.
That may be, but as I keep reminding people, we are not to legislate morality. If you have a moral objection to these drugs, you would have the freedom to not buy and use them. You would have the right to no longer shop at any store that decided to sell them. You would even have the freedom to protest said store. Those are your rights to offenses to your morality. You do not have the right to tell another person how they can live their life, you can tell them how they should if you feel you must, but you should not be able to force that on them.

They would take this country in the wrong direction.
I don't have any actual figures in front of me, but let's for a moment think about this. There are a large number of criminals in jail for drug possession or distrubution. It costs money to house these people, but if their crimes were no longer crimes we possibly wouldn't be housing these people. Now some, maybe even most of them, are bad people and would find ways to break the law and go to jail. I am by no means saying that a society without drugs would have no criminals, but I believe it would have less. Oh yes there would still be drug crimes, driving under the influence, drug induced crimes such as battery, theft, and rape (all of which can be found as by products of legalized alcohol and over the counter narcotics). But there would be fewer drug crimes, that are victimless crimes. If Beauragard wants to smoke a little weed at his house at night, or snort a line of coke, he is the only victim here, not me, not you, not even your kids. The money that would be saved by this reduction in prisoners and their costs could possibly raise our education standards back up to where they once were.
Also, along the same topic. There is a large amount of money that flows out of this country into the foreign countries where our drugs come from, we could keep that money and crush the druglords and the corrupt governments that overlook them. I am not saying it would actually help foreign countries, in fact it would devastate their economies for some time, but then maybe they could find their way to more constructive means of survival. On this same thought line, think of the jobs that would be created by this, farmers, gathers, and chemists. People that didn't have a moral objection to this would thrive. If America did this other countries would likely follow suit, but we would have been the first and would have a leg up. We would start exporting to these countries and every man, woman, and child in this country would flourish from the increased income.
How can all this be considered the wrong direction for our country? You still have the right to not like it, but you could reap the benefits from it. Like taxes on liquor, cigarettes, and porn, that pay for education and medical care.

Let me set the record straight on one thing though, I am not advocating drug use. If all these drugs were made legal tomorrow I would touch one of them, I have no desire or interest in having my head screwed up. In fact I think, other than creativity, these drugs are bad. But I do not pronounce myself morally superior and think that my moral judgments should be the law of the land. I have always felt that these drugs were not legal because they were uncontrollable. A person of a mind can grow and smoke marijuana they raised for themselves. That means the only way our government can make money from them is to make them illegal and fine people for using them. I don't think that would happen, for starters Americans are lazy and most people won't have house plants because they forget to water them and they die, people will pay to not do the work themselves and they are already used to paying high prices for them, so the government could tax the hell out of drugs and people would still be happy. They could also force business that want to sell them to pay a high fee for the right to sell them.

The public moral objection is valid, I don't mean to make light of that, but when you look at the facts it is hypocritical. Where do we draw the line, we outlaw drugs because of a moral objection, why not porn, why not rock-n-roll, why not alcohol. We either have to let people be free to make their own moral judgments or not. I understand that people would fear their children doing these drugs, I would myself, but children do not make up the entire population of this country, and adults should have rights to enjoy what they want too. If you are going to take away adult entertainment I demand that we shut down Disney, I have a moral objection to that crap they put out, over-charge for, and call entertainment. But even if drugs were legal they would be guarded just like alcohol, porn, and cigarettes. Would that stop kids, no not all the time, they would still get their hands on the drugs and try them, but I got bad news for you, they will anyway, I could and did in some cases. It is the job of parents to educate their kids, give them all the information so they can make an informed decision, let them know why you are against it, your moral objection, but in the end they will have to make their own decision, their own choice. Everyone though should have the right to make a choice about something that only concerns them.

I am sure many of you are unconvinced, of course I am sure that many could not be convinced no matter what argument they were presented. I totally understand that, really I do. Drugs are bad, I am not going to deny that. But like I have tried to state so are many other perfectly legal substances. People don't want to make bad things legal. I am sure that if cigarettes, alcohol, and pornography were not already legal, they wouldn't have a hope in hell of becoming legal. I think that is evident in the many new laws that are passed limiting them. Some towns in the United States have become completely smoke free where the only places you are allowed to smoke is in your own home. I have a lot to say about that kind of stuff too and maybe we will examine it later, but all I am trying to say is that we are a compassionate people. We want nothing more than to protect people, even from themselves. I think that is admirable, but I also think that goes against everything that makes America great. People should be free to choose. If they want to destroy their bodies with cigarettes, alcohol, pork ribs, or heroin, that should be their choice. Sure there would be some people would not behave responsibly, just like now. But most people would do this themselves and leave everyone else alone and behave like adults. That makes it no business of ours. What one does behind closed doors is no business of ours and if they leave it there then there is no reason it should ever be.