Outsourcing Murder

I didn’t want it to start this way.

I’ve been sitting on this empty blog for months, trying to scrape together what original ideas I can. I could have gotten started much earlier, but it would have been based around what I’ve come to realize is a fatally flawed approach to social issues. I wanted to avoid droning on about boring political and economic theory, or making your eyes bleed with an endless list of words that end in -ism, -archy, and -ology.

The fact-of-the-matter is that political ideology doesn’t really exist. When people jump into the fantasy of, “I am a republican/libertarian/green/democrat/independent/democratic socialist/progressive” and “I believe we should do X, Y, and Z”, what they’re really doing is trying to avoid the harsh reality that government is simply a criminal enterprise masquerading as authority.

If a man beats the shit out of his wife, we would expect her to quickly divorce him and walk away with her dignity intact. The woman who covers her bruises with makeup and says, “He just gets stressed sometimes, but he really loves me!” has had her willpower and self-esteem completely broken.

And yet, when the U.S. government is constantly being caught red-handed sponsoring acts of terrorism, overthrowing democracies, killing unarmed civilians, oppressing sexual and racial minorities, covering up police brutality, harassing journalists, funneling money from the poor and middle class to the upper class, trading with south american drug cartels, arresting 1 in 100 people for committing nonviolent crimes, creating artificial scarcity of vital resources…

People just keep marching to the voting booths, convincing themselves that it’s possible to cooperate and coexist with cold blooded killers and thieves.

It’s fucking pitiful.

I want to focus this blog on ways in which people can raise themselves up to freedom by turning off the tv, burning the newspaper, and tuning out. People with dignity and self-respect deserve better than to participate in or talk about politics.

Despite all that, there’s no escaping this iron fist of toothless, flag-waving, middle american, soccer-mom fascism that’s firmly clasped around our collective necks.

The bill (HB 187) is an attempt to shutter so-called “head shops,” boutiques that may say they are selling paraphernalia to smoke tobacco but that lawmakers say is really used to inhale marijuana and crack.

….

The bill, cosponsored by Rep. Joseph Abruzzo, D-Wellington, would forbid Florida retailers from selling a list of pipes — including any made of metal, wood, acrylic, glass, stone, plastic or ceramic — unless 75 percent of their sales are tobacco.

Please don’t roll your eyes over the fact that I’m getting worked up over bongs and pipes, there’s much more to it than that.

When I walk around downtown Denver, it often looks like there’s a 1:1 ratio of homeless people to working folk. Even more frightening than that, a number of the ones I’ve spoken to aren’t the smacked-out creeps and invalids that you might expect. Those definitely exist, but a growing number are actually lucid, well-adjusted guys who just can’t find work.

Back to the subject of smoking implements, there’s a headshop right behind my apartment building with a hell of an impressive glass collection. Come to find, the guy running this shop is also supplying a number of others in the area. Can you imagine what would happen to them if this bill were passed in Colorado?

Of course, they’d be boarding a one-way train to Fucked Town, to join the ranks of the homeless folk I just mentioned.

“As I look at this list, I don’t really understand what some of these are,” Snyder said. “I want to make sure I’m comfortable that we don’t slam the mom-and-pop grocery store that sells whatever an electric carburetor pipe is, or a chillum. I mean, I know what a bong is.”

Well golly gee whiz, Beaver, we sure wouldn’t want to hurt the moms and dads who are just trying to make a living. After all, we’re here to help out the good folks of Main Street, isn’t that right Joe the Plumber? Derp derp derp.

Reality check, so-called “illict” activities (primarily drug trafficking and prostitution) provide a way for a number of people to make money, to survive. And jesus christ, let’s not forget that drugs are recession-proof!

Rouson, however, described the pipes as “destructive utensils” that “destroy communities.”

No. Don’t you fucking dare lecture me about the destruction of communities, when you’re willing to use the force of law to prevent people from earning money and putting food on the table! When you support prohibition, real people are going to suffer the consequences of your bigotry.

There is a special place in hell for folks like Rouson, and anyone else who thinks that it’s okay to ban and restrict certain kinds of economic transactions. Dirty and stinky though some of these activities may be, they still provide a way for mothers to feed their children, and for college students to get out from underneath crushing piles of debt. This bill, and all other laws like it, are thinly-veiled acts of cold-blooded economic murder.

Rouson and his cohorts are lucky to be members of the privileged political elite, they’ll never know the suffering they inflict on innocent people.

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