Martin Luther tried to reform a corrupt Catholic Church. One of the main features of the Catholic Church before he came along was that you could tattle on your neighbor and the priests could then confiscate your property, whether you were found legitimately guilty or not of whatever transgression, and give it to your accuser.
Here in Iowa we have flag-waving war-monger, Joni Ernst installed by the Republican Party to represent us in the US Senate. While the overthrow of Roe v Wade was big in the news yesterday, to me, Ernst’s vote against the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution was an even bigger issue because any literate person could already see that abortion is a state, rather than federal issue.
Really! I could call up the ATF and say so and so down the road seems a bit agitated and he has guns and they could legally go to his house and steal his guns.
Ernst should sponsor a literacy program and enroll herself.
The flag she’s waving should be that of the German Democratic Republic.
Everybody knows high gas prices are simply a matter of greedy oil companies, right.? And then we see the little stickers on the gas pumps; a picture of Biden pointing at the price saying, “I did this.” It looks like somebody should duke it out.
Now we look around and those of us who look past the “greed” thing and “Biden” thing see there is much more to it than white hats or black hats.
Prices were rising way before “Putin’s inflation.” even before Trump dished out the first of the Covid handouts. Despite drug companies having all the incentive in the world to fund their own research he gave them a billion dollars each, no questions asked. Then an already extravagant unemployment (so-called) insurance program was supplemented, the Paycheck Protection Program, and on and on. Every penny of it comes from working families through the inflation tax.
The safety net was totally in place and adequate for a pandemic, but not for the hysterical overreaction.
Remember the greatest attack on American soil? Same deal. Osama bin Laden was the pandemic of 2001, supposedly killing 3,000 people and wrecking a few lungs and buildings. Ron Paul went before Congress and immediately proposed using Letters of Marque and Reprisal as specified in the Constitution to pay for the capture of self-proclaimed instigator, bin Laden.
As with a logical scientifically guided plan to limit the pandemic’s damage, Paul’s idea for capturing bin Laden was way too cheap: Or maybe would delve too deep?
Europe and Russia had an ideal business relationship. Russia had gas and Europe had manufacturing acumen. Things were going along pretty well with no Cold War to divert cash from useful purposes but…
Some point out record profits for oil companies now, so let’s follow the history of this price runup just to pick a small piece of the puzzle. Without the Cold War, Covid, or Islamic terror, what are the leaches to do without these crises? Well how about placing missiles on the Russian border and doing airplane practice around there like when Jimmy Gladhart taunted me in junior high. There’s a lot of that junior high mentality infecting our rulers. Jimmy didn’t intend to profit from it but what about that militaristic grandstanding along the Russian border? Russia’s reaction was predictable considering the coup in Kiev, Putin’s eight years of warnings, and Kiev’s shelling of Russian loyalists in the Donbas.
Duke it out? Heck, we are all on the same side. There is not a single thing about high fuel prices that can’t be traced back to inept government bullying, whether it’s bullying Russia or bullying the fossil fuel industry. But still there’s those record profits. Might there be more to this story than meets the eye?
The whole purpose of this “Biden” vs “greed” thing is to have us fighting among ourselves. Yeah, the oil companies may be guilty of greed. Is the U.S.government simply a tool for the oil companies doing things that ultimately raise prices? Any attempt at increasing supply is thwarted by green posturing. “Gas tax holidays” lower prices enough to increase demand and ultimately raise prices.
Where greed comes in is where the oil companies watch everything fall into place politically to limit supply. Maybe the oil companies have influence promoting war like in their long history in the Middle East. But ultimately it is government doing the damage, not oil companies following a politically distorted market which is to blame for high gas prices.
We got an email from Senator Charles Grassley that was titled, “Helping Iowans Through Bidenflation.” Very cute.
This from a guy who voted to send $54 billion of fiat money to our offense contractors for the defense of Ukraine against Russia whose total defense budget is $56 billion (ours is $800 billion). Is it still a mystery who controls Congress? He goes on to say “Bidenflation” is a direct result of reckless spending coupled with disastrous energy policies.
Grassley is not speaking from a position of innocence here. He has supported all manner of so-called renewable energy subsidies that ultimately are “reckless spending.” The reason for a representative form of government is because the people need to be busy churning the wheels of productivity. We should be able to do this while our representatives do the research required to make laws. The trouble is that their research ignores their job description in the Constitution.
The reason Republicans never approach the real reason for inflation is because they have their own agenda to finance with fiat money. They just call it “reckless spending” if it’s by Democrats. By the way, higher corporate taxes would do the same thing as those costs are passed along to us as well.
Democrats are really the most “callous” (as a famous public radio DJ called me when I said George Floyd overdosed). They constantly puff out their chests about new programs to help the poor while those programs mostly reduce incentive and destroy productive social structure and are financed by the poor who they pretend to care about.
Maybe they don’t get it. It’s possible. We all have our specialties and that’s what enables civilization; each person excelling at their own interest. The people with the ethics and critical thinking skills are pushed out by the people who specialize in getting elected.
The Founders of our organization of individual states understood that. They wrote in the Constitution a list of the duties of the government along with a stipulation that this list was complete and anything else was left to “the states or the people.”
I asked Mr. Grassley why he thought the government does all these unconstitutional things and he said it happened incrementally through rulings of the court. What a collaboration! Congress breaks the rules so they can get reelected and the court changes the rules. Basically, partners in crime.
3 years agoLong time J.B. Weld user, but still amazed by the results. One application it’s not suited for: muffler repair — or any continuous exposure to very high heat. Very suited for some rather unorthodox repairs: I used it to seal up a turtle’s shell that I apparently ran over with a bush hog and cracked it very severely, so that you could see his insides. By the time I found him, the flies had already blowed his innards, so I had to flush out the maggots with hydrogen peroxide. I always wondered if the repair worked to save his life, until I found him again over 3 years later, very much alive and kicking, J.B. Weld repair still intact. Needless to say, I named him J.B.
3 years agoThis story made me quite happy. I’m always saving animals most people never give a thought about. Like nursing frogs back to health that had been injured by cats or caring for injured birds. It’s the little things in life that make life worth living. I’ll JB the next turtle I find! lol
3 years ago @Gruntsworth — Good to hear. If you think the story made you happy, imagine me finding him alive over 3 years later. Fortunately it was in an isolated hay field, well off the road so no one could see. But, I’m sure I looked the perfect fool, jumping up and down, whooping and hollering, and dancing all about, all while holding J.B.up in the air waving him around. LOL And to think, all it took was a little turtle to make me feel so happy. Your sentiments are spot on.
In “Cannabis and the Violent Crime Surge” Allysia Finley does an excellent job of alerting us to the dangers associated with marijuana.
She then joins gun control advocates in her opinion of what to do about it. Isn’t 80 years of failed supply control enough? Apparently it has been enough to create a society where personal responsibility is becoming extinct through a shift to obedience to the blessed state and an embrace of ignorance.
In all aspects of our lives we have become accustomed to obeying such intrusions as seat belt warning chimes instead of putting knowledge to use for safety.
With all the great information in this article and then a conclusion supporting more big government, Ms. Finley treats us as what we have become because of the meddling state.
Marijuana products from a dispensary in Bellmawr, N.J.PHOTO: HANNAH BEIER/REUTERS
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The stigma once attached to marijuana has vanished. Nineteen states have legalized cannabis for recreational use, and politicians of both parties increasingly treat it as harmless. Asked during the 2020 presidential campaign about her pot use in college, Kamala Harris giggled and said marijuana “gives a lot of people joy” and “we need more joy in the world.” But the public needs an honest discussion of its social and public-health risks, which include violence and mental illness.
Alex Berenson, author of “Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness and Violence,” pointed out that the New York Times had curiously removed from an article about the Uvalde school shooter a former co-worker’s recollection that he complained about his grandmother not letting him smoke weed. The Times didn’t append a correction to the story as it might be expected to do when fixing a factual inaccuracy.
Assuming the elided detail was accurate, it would fit a pattern. Mass shooters at Rep. Gibby Giffords’s constituent meeting in Tucson, Ariz. (2011), a movie theater in Aurora, Colo. (2012), the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla. (2016), the First Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas (2017), and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. (2018), were reported to be marijuana users. It could be a coincidence, but increasing evidence suggests a connection.
Isn’t pot supposed to make you mellow? Maybe if you smoke only a joint on occasion. But youth nowadays are consuming marijuana more frequently and in higher doses than their elders did when they were young. This is leading to increased addiction and antisocial behavior.
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THC, the chemical that causes a euphoric high, interacts with the brain’s neuron receptors involved with pleasure. Marijuana nowadays on average is about four times as potent as in 1995. But dabs—portions of concentrated cannabis—can include 20 times as much THC as joints did in the 1960s. It’s much easier for young people to get hooked. One in 6 people who start using pot while under 18 will develop an addiction, which doctors call “cannabis use disorder.” As they use the drug more frequently to satisfy cravings, they develop psychological and social problems.
That’s what happened to Colorado teenager Johnny Stack. His mother, Laura, wrote a harrowing book chronicling his descent into cannabis addiction. He started smoking weed at 14, after Colorado legalized it, and progressed to using more-potent products such as dabs. He gradually withdrew from social activities and developed psychosis. Substance-abuse treatment and a stay at a mental hospital failed to cure him because chronic marijuana use permanently rewired his brain. Delusional, he jumped off a six-story building and killed himself. Alas, he’s not an anomaly. “People who have taken large doses of the drug may experience an acute psychosis, which includes hallucinations, delusions, and a loss of the sense of personal identity,” the National Institutes of Health notes.
Roneet Lev, an addiction specialist who previously led the Emergency Department at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego, said in a recent interview with the American Council on Science and Health that California cannabis emergency-room visits climbed 53% in the three years after the state legalized recreational marijuana in 2016. Daily marijuana emergency-room visits in San Diego nearly quadrupled between 2014 and 2019.
Cannabis-induced psychosis, she said, is fairly common. Some patients she treated experienced cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome from long-term use, which causes “scromiting”—screaming and vomiting. There’s no antidote. Some patients spend weeks in the emergency room waiting for placement in mental-health clinics.
Countless studies have also linked chronic cannabis use to schizophrenia. A meta-analysis in January examining 591 studies concluded that early marijuana use among adolescents was associated with a significant increase in the risk of developing schizophrenia. Researchers have yet to prove a causal relationship, but the weight of evidence is hard to dismiss.
Some legalization proponents claim that other countries where marijuana is widely available have fewer mental-health problems than the U.S. But a study from Denmark last summer found that schizophrenia cases associated with pot addiction have increased three- to fourfold over the past 20 years as marijuana potency rose 200%.
Young people are especially vulnerable to cannabis’s effects because their brains are still developing. Scientists in a recent study reviewed scans of teenagers’ brains before and after they started using pot. They found that parts of the brain involved in decision making and morality judgments were altered in pot users compared to nonusers.
But can pot make people violent? A study last year found that young people with such mood disorders as depression who were also addicted to pot were 3.2 times more likely to commit self-harm and die of homicide—often after initiating violence—than those who weren’t. A meta-analysis found the risk of perpetrating violence was more than twice as high for young adults who used marijuana. It’s possible that pot can trigger dangerous behavior in youths who may be predisposed to it for other reasons such as prenatal exposure to drugs.
Also worrisome, legalization seems to be leading to more pregnant women using pot. About 20% of pregnant young women in California tested positive for marijuana in 2016. THC crosses the placenta and can impair neurological development. Prenatal exposure to marijuana has been linked to behavioral problems, mental illness and lower academic achievement in children and adolescents.
Maybe it’s time that lawmakers and voters rethink their pot-legalization experiment before more young lives are damaged.
Ms. Finley is a member of the Journal’s editorial board.
That character who shot those teachers and children in Uvalde, Texas turned out to be only half of the story.
Apparently the police neglected their duty to stop the attack. Again, I wonder why. Is it because nobody told them to do so?
In a country founded on INDIVIDUAL rights and responsibilities we have now devolved into a country where we depend on AUTHORITY over ethics or morals. We look toward legality rather than what is morally right, the basis of that being The Golden Rule.
The welfare state is based on a philosophy of authority negating individual rights. It’s obviously wrong to steal, yet we justify it for the nobility of the end result.
The policemen who stood outside and did nothing to stop the maniac are a product of this society where authority rules over common decency. If they had not been indoctrinated into blindly following orders they would have seen the need and done anything to save an innocent life.
We have drone pilots bombing weddings, politicians keeping drugs illegal (which keeps them outside of a safer regulated market), and people who knowingly accept a mistake in their favor at the cash register and are proud of it. Where have our morals gone?
Our country has changed over the years as Jefferson predicted. Government has grown and the rights fought for in the Revolutionary War have diminished. Government and individual rights fight for the same place. One is the opposite of the other. As we see deficiencies, we seek to ameliorate them and the simple way is legislation. Legislation, like language, has to be generalized. That process leads to a loss of the concept of the individual.
As prevention becomes a more accepted way to deal with bad situations, individuals become blameless. I vividly remember the day of the Columbine shooting. I thought to myself, “They acted like the government.”
I think Eisenhower’s warning to beware of the military industrial complex has much wider meaning than just the Pentagon draining the economy. Our government’s macho attitude is infecting troubled people who then… act like the government. We are shocked!
Then the police show up and they can’t act without authoritarian approval.
Nearly every one of us has gone to school funded by coercion. We are coerced into attending school. Don’t misunderstand me to be saying our schools are evil. But a lifelong precedent is set accepting coercion as normal. We shouldn’t be surprised.
Let’s do some math regarding the performance of our elected representatives in Washington.
131,000 schools in the U.S.
$54 billion sent to Ukraine and defense contractors.
$54 billion divided by 131,000 =
$412,000 per school that could have been available to the states to help secure the safety of students and teachers.
I suggest that Charles Grassley, Joni Ernst, and my representative in the house, Randy Feenstra, should sell their assets and donate it to Ukraine and the defense industry as a sign of honesty.
alternativebyfritz 