Category Archives: Taxation

Culture, Economics, Foreign Policy, Governance, Taxation

20-20 Vision

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Wither Freedom?

What shall we do, we American people, holders of the temporary promises of freedom and individual sovereignty, with our new gift, the year of our Lord, 2020?  What will be our direction?  Toward greater wisdom and enlightenment, growing nearer to God as we know Him… or Her?  Or, as this millennium has presented, toward firmer rejection of God, morality, purpose and humanity; toward greater animalism and destruction of the Constitution?  Big choices, either way.

We err terribly if we devote ourselves to any politician, thinking, dreaming, hoping or wishing that that one person will “fix” our own lives, our uncomfortable feelings or our deep concerns about the future of America.  A terrible mistake, that.  The only true value of a political leader is that he or she might cause large segments of the constituent population to develop a new sense of hope, of good expectations and of a belief in their social abilities to solve problems.  Unified purpose – not coordinated, necessarily, but unified – is the most powerful force on Earth.

Unified purpose can ignore the pain of sacrifice, as it has during times of war, for example, or during the 8 years that created the Apollo space program.  Tyrants create a form of unity by instilling fear.  Dominated subjects believe they will suffer if they act on contrary thoughts.  Free people, unified in purpose and hope, will overturn the dominator every time.  Nothing can resist the power of free people who believe in freedom.

The only way a free and sovereign people can be defeated is to render them less and less free over time – even it takes 4 – or 20 – generations.  Those who are threatened by freedom, who fear it, never stop trying to destroy it.  They, too, have a unified purpose.  When they are the only unity on the playing field, freedom cannot survive.  When young citizens are at an intellectual point where socialism appears preferable to “capitalism,” several of the methods of rendering a free people less free are revealed.

First is re-education.  Naturally conservative people, enjoying freedom and responsible for themselves, have to be taught to rely on “the government” when ill fortune finds them.  That purchase of philosophy might not have worked if the “government” hadn’t created a misfortune, like the Great Depression, that seemed too difficult and complex for individuals to withstand on their own.  Social Security easily became law and was tiny, a mere minimum for old widows.  Today Republicans defend it as if part of the granite of Mount Rushmore.  Older former conservatives speak up for “their” Medicare, now that the government has made health care so costly and complex that individuals cannot contend with it on their own.  A little socialism goes a long way.

Second is education, itself.  The best plan would be to populate the education licensing bureaucracy with unified liberals/leftists who could guide education degree programs such that new teachers would tend toward socialist ideals of equality, fairness, anti-racism, anti-discrimination of all sorts, feminism, bi-lingualism and multi-culturalism.  Pretty soon they’ll be teaching youth that our Constitution fails to defend these important principles and needs to be changed or supplanted with new thinking.  Pretty soon a proto-communist can be elected president, and the long march to the end of this democratic republic will be underway.

Thirdly, enough rope, in the form of creature comforts, new cars, easy credit and wide-screen TVs, must be provided for erstwhile Americans to hang themselves while their heritage is forgotten and their freedoms swept away.  Let illegal entrants have the country – we don’t seem to want it any longer.

Lastly, promote new “rights” that no one ever heard of, but the lack of which can be made to appear oppressive.  Link the denial of such rights to the constantly re-boiled slavery-guilt/systemic racism civil rights struggle, and soon these new rights gain the power of civil rights that once nearly split the nation… politicians must respond.  Shortly after, laws are proposed, agitated for and passed to, perhaps, force boys and girls to bathe or perform their toilet together.  What, “never,” you say?  Or, as a fantastic example, licensed, educated teachers could actually lose their jobs for failing to call a boy a girl.  “Impossible.”

We have contributed mightily to our “mis”-education and “mal”-economics.  The worst of our economics has two parts: Unconstrained debt creation, and incredible inflation.  You’re objecting, now, that “inflation” is only at 2%, or some such low number.  You’re talking about price increases, which are not what inflation is.  Prices go up and down for reasons of supply of goods, demands (desires) of consumers, including competitive products, and availability of spendable cash (or credit, nowadays).  “Inflation” affects only the last factor: spendable, or “excess” cash and credit.  “Inflation” is inflation of, or artificial expansion of, the money supply, something individuals cannot control.  Politicians do that or allow it to happen by government agents.

Don’t confuse inflation with a rise in the cost of goods.  Inflation is tolerated or actively promoted when government needs more money and is politically unwilling to raise taxes.  Foolishly, we have converted our money system to a debt-based system whereby the federal government borrows every new dollar it wants to balance the federal budget with.  As it does so, it infuses added dollars into the economy as a whole.  This will increase sales of thousands of products as companies that do business with the government get new contracts and, presumably, hire more people or raise wages.  Increasingly, more of those products are imported, sending a lot of those “excess,” “new” dollars to other countries.  This increases domestic profits, but not domestic, widespread, individual wealth.  Consumer prices don’t experience much upward pressure because the actual inflation of the money supply is siphoned into the hands of multi-billion dollar companies, or concentrated in the hands of external multi-billion dollar companies or government-run companies, which is to say, in the hands of foreign governments.  What does this mud puddle of excessive profits and concentrations of wealth have to do with most people?

It diverts their freedom and personal sovereignty, and… it so corrupts free enterprise that socialism, despite its total history of failure – history little known by today’s youth – can be made to appear attractive.  Step by step, the never-ending plan to destroy freedom and independence (non-globalism) is being carried out.  Our government education systems, including “private” universities and colleges made wealthy by government-promoted student loans, are almost the last places to depend upon to correct this historic ignorance.

And all of those inflated dollars?  Since our prices haven’t risen too, too badly, can we pretend they are no concern of ours?  Every dollar “bill” is a bill America must eventually pay.  If the rest of the world no longer wanted (thank you, Saudi Arabia) U. S. dollars, our economy, and those of several other countries, would collapse.  Along the way every dollar, printed or electronic, would drop in value like a stone.  How’s $50 or $80 gas sound? At those prices the “national debt” will be manageable, won’t it?

Meanwhile, we, who should be totally pissed-off, are comfortable enough that we worry about climate change, UFOs and the NFL standings, rather than what should be job-one for American citizens.

Culture, Economics, Governance, Representation, Taxation

Innocence, Debauchery, and the American Dream

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America suffers in the 21st century not from a loss of innocence, but from a loss of discrimination… a loss of judgment. Mankind has never lacked for debauchery nor for ways to debauch nearly every civilized function, from work, construction and development to education, medicine, churches and religion. Everything “we” have discovered or invented, we seem to have figured out how to besmirch and cheapen… like government.

Government, at least since Saul fell on his sword and bequeathed kingship to David, however inadvertently, has been occasionally a good invention, often completely inimical to human growth and perfection. Okay, okay, humans are perfected only in the rarest of circumstances, but, still, government is mostly inimical. In the long sweep of history, despite themselves, governments have brought a semblance of order, enabled scientific advances, established widespread education – some of it good – and provided measures of safety and peace within which individuals can seek happiness, or perfection, or both.
The last we call constitutional republicanism which stands out among the dozens of forms of tyranny still in use. Nevertheless, despite its promise, this form of self-governance has not been immune to the diabolical inventiveness of the forces of debauchery, of which there is space enough to discuss only a few.

Money is big in the debauchery field, as it is in the politician field, making it frequently difficult to discern between them. There never is enough money in the politician field, particularly where it intersects with socialist whims. Money, money, money means taxes, taxes, taxes and from time to time the working people object to taxation and politicians, who have the clarity of vision denied to workers, can perceive – if not create – hordes of dependents for whom that tax money is so sorely needed. That some dependents are billionaires is of little importance in the grand scheme of dependency. You’ve got your troubles, I’ve got mine.

So if taxation can’t be trusted to produce money fast enough, it becomes increasingly crucial that ways to expand the income of government be devised and, politicians having been elected and installed for their unique efficiencies, recognize that there is no point to re-inventing the wheel, as it were, in the matters of government income, so turn to the financial successes of debauchery for new ideas. Humans have left no stone unturned in the search for ways to cheat others out of their hard-earned money and one of the neatest tricks is the infamous “Ponzi Scheme.” It is easily explained:

A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud where clients are promised
a large profit at little to no risk. Companies that engage in a Ponzi
scheme focus all of their energy into attracting new clients to make
investments. This new income is used to pay original investors their
returns, marked as a profit from a legitimate transaction. Ponzi
schemes rely on a constant flow of new investments to continue to
provide returns to older investors. When this flow runs out,
the… scheme… falls… apart. [From “Investopedia”]

When the government, itself – who convicted Ponzi for fraud in 1920 – follows Ponzi’s formula, it takes a longer view and fewer dollars from each “investor,” and calls it “Social Security.” No slouches in the debauchery of public trust, politicians are able to compel workers to “invest” by force of police power, and then restrict the “returns” to only so many dollars per month and only after leaving the “investment” fallow for decades. That way the originators of the fraud will have passed on before the scope of the trick is figured out by the “investors.” “Invested” funds are then used to get future “investors” to vote for future perpetrators.

Prudence would suggest that “investors” should contemplate the consequences of having personally (actually) invested 15% of their pay over their entire working career. Upon retirement they would have had a huge financial asset and they wouldn’t be dependent on government to dribble back their own money! Of course, empowering citizens to live WITHOUT government is as anti-socialist as it could be and virtually never allowed even lip-service.

We need to give politicians the power to make life, health and death decisions for us.

Social Security really took off after World War II, as payrolls grew and pay rates along with them. The river of money was “re-invested” in all sorts of vital, crucial, crisis-averting expenditures that any sane and humane investor would endorse… had he or she known of them. After 1968 especially, the number of non-citizens who arrived on our shores seeking the “American Dream” exploded, and the means to support their “disabled, disadvantaged” selves derived from the “lockbox” of Social Security cash. Naturally, thanks to Ted Kennedy’s (the lyin’ of the Senate) legislation (Hart-Cellar Act), the colors and origins of immigrants are more important than the needs of the United States, and their relatives became more important than immigrants who can actually contribute to the strength of the nation. Many had/have no marketable skills or are “disabled” and “qualify” for SSDI or SSI support derived from – you guessed it – the “investments” of those canny worker-investors who are so proud of their own district’s Representative and state’s two Senators… oh, yes.

Unexpectedly, the Social “Security” lockbox tends to empty more quickly than promised. More money is needed! What to do? What to do without “raising taxes,” of course? There must be a form of debauchery… uhmm, we mean, outright mendacity and fraud… well, not that, of course, but some kind of “wool” that can be pulled over enough people’s eyes… naw, that’s just an old political joke, ha – ha – ha. There must be a form of courageous legislative governance that can find “new” revenue to meet the nation’s vital, crucial, crisis-averting expenditures. Aha! Loans!

Fortunately, globalist bankers had finally convinced Congress to approve the creation of a means to provide constant DEBT to the federal government. Now, if you’re one of those worker-investors we were talking about, you’re asking yourself: “Who in Hell would want a supply of debt?” (And you’d be right, but it’s a different topic.) “Everyone wants to get OUT of debt,” you’d say to yourself, being right a second time, “and anyone trying to get more debt should have his head examined!” (Or, his ledgers… again, right!)

Growing governments while controlling countries is a long-term plan. The international socialists have been at it for a long, long time. The “income” tax was instituted by amendment in 1913. This provided a large enough river of funds to enable the government to “help” itself and more and more people. Interestingly and, it certainly must be coincidentally, the Federal Reserve Act – a 20-year project of the largest banks – was passed at the end of… well, ha!… 1913! Both long-term efforts needed a global statist like Woodrow Wilson to be president in order to come to fruition.

The only way to quietly undermine the nationalism and freedom of the United States was to plant the seeds of debt and a private bank that controls the nation’s money supply is the best tool to do so. The “Fed,” as it’s called, makes economic policy as it sees fit. The “governors” don’t take advice from elected representatives, most of whom are happy to not be responsible for too awfully much. Whenever the Chairman of the Federal Reserve testifies in Congress it’s to tell Congress how things are going to be and not to ask the people’s representatives how things should be. The “Fed” is about as “federal” as Federal Express.

So what about how a central bank can control a nation’s economy? Why would any Congress vote for that? Well for the first 20 years or so the new “Fed” was practicing frog boiling, and the financial waters were just pleasantly warm… until the crash of 1929 and the attempts by, first, Hoover, and then by Roosevelt, to force an end to DE-flation and unemployment by running deficits and pushing the private economy to adapt to federal pressure. The federal government could borrow in the face of the human problems that bad economics had wrought.

Adopting the programs initiated by Hoover, FDR managed to keep the U. S., and much of the world, in depression until the Second World War broke out. Prior to the emergency legislation passed during the “Banking Holiday” of 1933, the 12 “Fed” Districts made policy on their own, enabling some to do severe damage in parts of the country while recovery was stumbling forward in others. Naturally, the preferred answers to the crisis were always based in more central control, essentially the story and the outcome of the “Great Depression.”

Until the Federal Reserve was created the U.S., like most industrial nations, was on “the gold standard.” United States Dollars represented a number of grains of 90% pure gold. That is, an ounce of “.9 fine” gold “cost” $20.67 and had since 1900. Never failing to take advantage of a crisis, 1930’s era leftists – FDR and the “brain trust” – used the banking and international gold crises to obtain emergency legislation making private ownership of gold coins, metal or bullion illegal! That is, everyone had to turn in his or her gold in exchange for $35.00 worth of U. S. “dollars” (actually, Federal reserve notes) that were now backed by so many grains of silver or by 60% as many grains of gold than prior to the seizure. It was pretty slick.

The federal government had acquired tons of gold for, in effect, next to nothing, but gold was now valued at $35 an ounce of .9 fine purity. Suddenly the government had a lot of money to spend in its attempts to correct the severe deflation and unemployment afflicting the U. S. and other industrialized nations. Most of it helped but did not solve the fundamental problems in the economy; it took a big war to do that.

We have got to give the federal government total control over our life, health and death decisions.

Where there is a name for schemes like Social Security (“Ponzi”), there isn’t a moniker for what happened to America between the two world wars, except, perhaps, “Progressivism,” not to be confused with “Progress.”

In a Constitutional Republic, “Progress” is measured first by how large a fraction of the population DOESN’T DEPEND ON GOVERNMENT for basic needs like housing, food, clothing, employment and health care. It’s also measured by the quality of citizenship, the honesty of jurisprudence, of police agencies and individuals, the clarity and even-handed enforceability of laws, the honesty of education and the level of cultural agreement by and amongst the vast majority of its citizenry.

The worst chicanery of all is the structure of the federal budget, which is barely a budget at all since it is about 75% “entitlements.” Congress has NEVER cut the budget, has never cut an “entitlement,” has never gotten rid of an “executive” department, has never paid down the national debt, at least in the past 60-odd years, has not failed to borrow from our great-great grandchildren for a like period, and has never audited the “Federal” Reserve. That’s because it’s.., well…, too busy. They are so busy on our behalf of course, and so tired from “fighting” for the middle class and “working” families who are non-working families to a significant degree, fighting to “improve education” and “leveling playing fields,” that there is barely enough time to begin to explain why what rational people think should be done simply can’t be done, unless they write a check for the campaign.

Mostly, they are too busy raising money for re-election, which is the number-one mission after a couple of years in office, and helping their real constituency: the congressmen and women and senators who sit nearby, because THEY can help in the fight for re-election more than any other group in the country.

We elect them, you and I, because their counterparts in the other party – pick one – are such scurrilous bastards and bitches that we have to keep “our” representative or senator in there so that we can continue the fight to “take back our country.” And a check for the campaign is not only vital, right at the moment you tear open your mailer, but may be multiplied up to FIVE times if your check is received by midnight 4 or 5 days hence.

Save yourself and the “campaign” even more, maximizing the value of your support, by using a (bank) interest-bearing credit-card to make your nation-saving donation!

Leftists are loathe to argue principles but they love to set the terms of public discussion. To effect that control they have to change the meaning of words… like “democracy,” for example. Where ”democracy” once meant a system of civic governance where the majority ruled – right or wrong – it now means “when Democrats rule… right or wrong.” So, when non-Democrats are in power, having been elected by a majority of votes, they are “threatening democracy.”

The United States is not organized as a “democracy.” It is a Constitutional Republic with democratically elected representatives and, interestingly, democratically elected executives, part of an extraordinarily well-designed system of dividing powers and constituencies to which each must answer. But power is vested in representatives of the citizenry who, the original theory is, are knowledgeable, honest and willing to sacrifice for their fellow citizens. That last is where the system breaks down. There no longer is any sacrifice! Right under our noses “our” representatives have turned the tables on us and we didn’t smell the odor!

Being an elected official, legislator or appointed officer in any of our states’ governments, the federal government, certainly, most cities and in virtually every public school system on up through state colleges and universities, is a very sweet deal – far more lucrative and secure than any “private” sector position, and with better benefits, more holidays and many “perks.” The “public servants” in today’s equation are you and me: taxpayers… and we don’t get free healthcare when WE retire.

“Representing” ignorant taxpayers is the best job many reps and senators will ever have: high pay, big benefits and almost no responsibility beyond re-election. Americans, themselves, should have it so good.

And, finally, for this chapter, the biggest scheme of all: that “debt” we looked at earlier. A “ponzi” scheme would seem a bad enough swindle for elected representatives to foist upon their “constituents,” but the worst is far, far greater, and so slick that Republicans are regularly denigrated for attempting to slow it – not STOP it, slow it – by just a few billions from time to time. Somehow, Democrats tell us, not going further and further into debt to pay the INTEREST-only on earlier debt, is tantamount to treason and threatens to “ruin the credit rating of the United States of America!” God save the Queen!

If you are seeking a way to judge the veracity, competence, integrity, legitimacy or sensibleness of ANY federal Congress-person, just consider the CURRENT national debt. You do know that it’s closing in on $21 TRILLION dollars, yes?

You do realize that it threatens our very economic existence? That it represents how far beyond our national means we have lived for the past 60 years? That it exemplifies the utter inability of our elected representatives (so far) to manage the budget for which they ARE responsible… and for which job they have earnestly sought our votes?

Do you recognize that unlike wars and other existential threats, since the “Great Society” kicked in, in 1968, every social discomfort has been labeled a “crisis,” confirmed by rigged congressional testimony, making raising the so-called “debt ceiling” every year an act of “courage” and of patriotism. Those 21 Trillion dollars are the proof that socialism will destroy our freedom. It is taking a long time because of the exceptional work ethics of Americans, but our economic destruction is a safe prediction, given that the history of the last 6 decades of representative government in our (ostensible) 2-party system is one of utter economic debauchery.

But then, there’s always Broward County.

Politics 2018, Taxation

Happy Days Are Here Again

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The soft-head-long rush to legalize “pot” reveals a gigantic weakness shared across institutional and political leaders of every stripe. Much of the “leadership” each claims on this “complex” subject is craven followership, at best. At worst, and fairly common among political types, is the abject desire for money, regardless of source. “Drug Money” is perfectly good for society if the definition of mind-altering, stupefying drugs can be changed sufficiently as to make everyone believe a new thing. After all, the beautiful new taxes that may be collected will provide all of these “goods”:

1) We’ll pretend to give some to education, proving that official endorsement of brain-altering and brain-retarding substances will help children – not hurt them, no, no, no. There will be an age limit on their sale, too… see?

2) Some of the funds will be diverted to imaginary drug-treatment programs which will HELP the tiny minority of human brains that may be negatively affected – and there is no proof of this effect, but just in case – so that’s a new benefit legal drug sales will enable… see?

3) The funds will also go to repair our crumbling infrastructure, which will save lives and create good-paying, campaign-enhancing union construction jobs. This will make our roads and bridges safer, especially since drug-users will not be allowed to work on these vital projects when there are still some drugs in their system, no, no, no.

4) Experimenting kiddos who are caught with some marijuana won’t have a black star on their records that might interfere with their parents’ plans for their college careers – not just for one little mistake – so unfair, laws be damned. Besides, they’ll be 18 years old in college and a little pot won’t be able to hurt their brains a bit, there is absolutely no proof of that if someone told you otherwise, and who doesn’t need to relax now and then under the tremendous pressures of college, for Pete’s sake?

5) Finally, the corrupt racketeers in our many statehouses will no longer be perceived as mean, nor will their jack-booted police minions, who will now spend their valuable time chasing REAL criminals (unless they are illegal entrants) and we’ll all be safer. Safer!

Well, that’s all certainly a win-win-win-win-win. What possible reason was there for not doing this, decades ago?

The sixth great “good” has been described as “getting pot out of the hands of criminals,” which actually doesn’t happen, it turns out, and, even better from the glazed viewpoints of congenital regulatory types, “we’ll finally be able to regulate its purity and safety so that buyers won’t be getting other drugs mixed in with their legal pot.” That’s a big one.

What is equally as large a benefit in the eyes of pot buyers, is that legal growing has quickly facilitated development of much, much, much stronger variants of marijuana, and has permitted – wait for it – edibles(!). There are pot cookies, brownies, cakes, cake mixes, crackers, breads, gummy-bears (gummy bears?) and other candies, none of which will be sold to minors, not ever, no, no, no.

Nor will pregnant moms ever, ever use pot… except medicinally, of course, because just like there isn’t any evidence of pot harming anyone, ever, it certainly can’t harm the developing brain of a fetus. Besides, pot is far less dangerous than cocaine or heroin, so shove it. And, everyone knows it’s far less dangerous than (shudder) alcohol. Goodness gracious, look at all the drunk driving and people dying from cirrhosis and flying into angry outbursts when they’re drunk! You never hear of a cannabis user getting angry or, worse, hitting someone, no, no, no.

Just because that unfortunate David Njuguna fellow blacked out after enjoying his medical marijuana, and then murdered state trooper, Thomas Clardy – left his wife and 6 kids – on the Mass Pike, it certainly wasn’t the fault of the marijuana, no, no, no. The driver did it: he must have been taking other “medications” at the same time and made a bad choice to drive. Too bad he didn’t use a gun to kill the trooper; the gun would have done it, in that case. Only THC was found in his blood samples.

Did you know that George Washington grew “hemp” to make ropes and other products? So, shove it.

There used to be a fairly simple marijuana landscape: marijuana and hashish, which was stronger. Different sources of marijuana offered variations in how high a smoker could get, although some of that was marketing myth. Still, Hawaiian pot was better than mainland-grown, which was perhaps a little better than Mexican stuff, except that the Mexicans could flood the market and the damned narcs kept local weed in short supply.

Hashish was like living on the wild side, and if you smoked it the right way, could really separate a person from reality. “Assassin” derives from hash user: “hashishim.” Many assassination jobs were suicide missions and required that the perpetrator was not “himself,” as it were. “Pot” today is in a whole different realm.

Controlled cultivation has rendered some 120 strains of marijuana, most are 4 times stronger in THC concentration (the psychoactive chemical) than the weeds of even 15 years ago. It’s like trading a “beer” for four vodka nips and figuring that you’ve drunk LESS, since 4 nips don’t even fill half a beer glass. Yeah, well, better pot means you don’t smoke as much, man… so shove it. Besides, we don’t have to smoke it anymore, they’ve got tabs that dissolve under your tongue and they’re 80% pure THC, so shove it. And alcohol is way worse than pot, man, so your example isn’t worth… ahh, some bad dope, like.

In the interest of public health the many, many health agencies, the surgeon General, no less, and lots of PSA’s and subway posters have slowly driven down the number of TOBACCO smokers in the U. S., to the point that catching a whiff of smoke is uncommon, and all restaurants are now smoke-free as are most bars and lounges. By all measures the anti-smoking campaign has been a huge success, aided, no doubt, by the $3, $5, or $9 per-pack taxes and the billions of other dollars extorted from tobacco companies over the past 25 years. Those taxes were for health coverage for children, for goodness’ sake, and helped fund… well, education and infrastructure projects and, umm, ahh… oh! Helped fund anti-smoking campaigns of course.

However, with the significant decline in smoking there has been a dangerous decline in crucial revenues for childrens’ health coverage and stuff. Did you know that State Police officers can cash in unused sick days when they retire? Regardless, states were carefully spending their tobacco windfalls and simultaneously decriminalizing marijuana use: smokers are smokers, some we like, some we don’t, and there is no campaign we thrifty state managers can foresee that is going to reduce the number of pot smokers. Besides, all that tax revenue that legal pot produces will go to education, crumbling infrastructure, children’s health care and permanent housing for the homeless. Stop pot smoking? Over our dead bodies.

THC is readily absorbed by fat cells, which doesn’t make a lick of sense to a pot smoker but it’s true, and the largest, diet-proof pile of fat cells is a human brain. Funny. And it’s also a fact that purging toxins from brain cells is very difficult to do, since the nature of the body is to breakdown every fat cell it can find (if a person eats a low-carb diet and forces the body to shrink a little) EXCEPT brain cells. They tend to live long and die slowly and even, recent research shows, replace themselves, even building new neural pathways and synapses if properly stimulated. The disruption to brain development in youngsters who use pot is well known, especially in the realms of short-term memory, initiative, sports abilities and other things a growing child hopes to have.

It is not yet accepted that cannabis in the bloodstreams of older or elder humans will have any effect on healthy brain cells or on the new cells trying to grow. God forbid it has anything to do with Alzheimers, or the acceleration of Alzheimers. Let’s hope not as both become more widespread. May God also forbid any effect on the incidence of autism.

Ohh, sorry. For a few sentences I went off track there, imagining bad side effects from the barely researched impact of the broad array of THC and other marijuana chemicals’ concentrations in the incredible, balanced biologies that enable human existence, development, survival and procreation. Glad I caught myself. There’s just no way potently psychoactive drugs have some “lasting effects” on human brains. Besides, with Suri, Alexa and what’s-her-name, plus GPS satellites talking through every phone and car, people don’t really need to remember all that much… or even learn it in the first place. So, shove it.

Back to brains: THC likes being in brains and the owners of the brains like its being there, too. The most active part of pot attaches to the same receptors as does heroin and fentanyl, but it’s not as strong. You may have gone by a billboard here and there that proclaims fewer opioid deaths in states with legal marijuana. There’s no direct connection between the two conditions, but like every other pot-related argument, the slightest case for justification (“alcohol is way worse, man” and “pot’s therapeutic”) is pure gold, the mountain of evidence of personal destruction ain’t worth… ahh, some bad dope, like.

Everything we ingest, however, has the potential of causing changes to our bodies. Some are foods, some are pharmaceuticals, some are pollutants, some are poisons. Some make us stupid in ways we find enjoyable; some cause us to forget or ignore our problems real and imagined; some, we think, make sexual relations more likely. Whatever, all of them have long-term effects.

Some are addictive. Pot users know that addiction is bad so they swear up and down that pot doesn’t “cause” addiction. Maybe we can pretend that, but regular users know fellow tokers who never miss an opportunity to get a “hit.” Pot may not “cause” addiction but, like so many, many substances, starting with sugar and caffeine, pot can create withdrawal discomfort when there isn’t a fresh infusion at an appropriate time. Users will go to a lot of trouble and, flailing governments hope, expense, to resolve their withdrawal anxieties. “Medical” marijuana can relieve anxiety. Call it what you will.

That terrible scourge, alcohol, is mildly psychoactive, much less so than original pot and way, way less so than the modern types. Still, ethanol can “teach” the brain to cause a lot of strange actions and reactions, hallucinations and psychoses, while it chemically damages cells in livers, kidneys, throats, blood vessels, hearts and other places. A certain fraction of humans is very susceptible to becoming addicted to alcohol, but many more can make themselves alcoholics if they work at it. Sugar can do the same to lesser degrees; heroin is fairly quick to train the brain to “need” it; cocaine in some forms needs but a single “hit” to turn on debilitating cravings. Pot, however, stands alone in its ability to interfere with dopamine receptors, like all psychoactives, and NEVER create dependency, no, no, no.

Like heroin and cocaine, THC affects many areas of the brain and consciousness, memory difficulties perhaps the best known (hypothalamus). But it also distorts time awareness, key to vast tracts of decision-making, not least of which may prove to be was there a car entering the intersection from the right just now or was that earlier? Otherwise, pot is much like alcohol in terms of motor skills, psychoses and lethargy, but waaay better than booze, as everyone knows, and you don’t wet your pants as much.

Like so many activities rapacious governments legalize for money, the comparison of this one with the stupid laws, and their poor enforcement, against stupid uses of alcohol is sufficient justification if the money and votes are there. Maybe pot doesn’t make a person as stupid as booze… observers of a side-by-side test of stupidness would be hard-pressed to choose a “winner.” However, alcohol can be metabolized while much of marijuana cannot; alcohol flushes from the system renally, much of pot does not, staying in fat cells for days and weeks somewhat cumulatively. From the clarion viewpoint of a pot user, on the other hand, the winner is obvious and that’s where the money is. And, from the corrupt viewpoint of government and wealth-seeking former politicians, two stupids make a lot of money.

Some smokers we like, some we don’t.
Curious? https://americanaddictioncenters.org/central-nervous-system/