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nigel99 151
QuoteAgreed.
To which I'll add - and I apologize for the thread drift - that this mania that the management end of Corporate America has toward drug-testing all employees, no matter what the job duties (as well as the sheep that go along with it) are bred out of more or less the same mentality.
Not that I disagree with you but
Can you expand?
I am not sure I see the relationship
I think I do. I again resort to one of my favorite quotations:
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken
In both cases, the wars on "terror" and drugs, we have become inured to cures that are worse than the diseases.
To assuage our fears of attacks by people whose goal is for us to fear attack, we spend staggering sums and relinquish fundamental freedoms.
To address the issue of people taking proscribed psychoactive substances, we spend staggering sums and relinquish fundamental freedoms.
With the excuse of avoiding blown-up airplanes or blown minds, we unleash a swarm of mindless drones without accountability, and accept whatever damage they when trying to keep us "safe."
A key parameter I use when evaluating credibility is Conflict of Interest (COI). If the source of the claim owes their plush lifestyle on the quixotic battle against a perceived evil, I am skeptical regarding the motivation of the source. If "racism" goes away entirely, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are out of business. If people quit using dope, the DEA and all the drug cartels are finished. If people quit being freaked out by murderous assholes with the deity du jour on their side, TSA is history.
The key to both wars - terror and drugs, is hysteria. Yeah, speed, coke and smack are bad for you. Yeah, the schmuck wanting to turn a bunch of infidels into burger is a major annoyance. In the grand scheme of things, neither dope nor terrorists are anywhere near as big of a problem as are the forces doing battle with either drugs or terrorists.
If I never had to deal with a drugged-up or drunk person again, or if anyone even thinking hard about performing a terrorist act was to sleep with his ancestors immediately, I would be cool with that.
OTOH, using these "problems" to empower an endless series of totalitarian bureaucracies is worse than the problems themselves.
Walt Kelly, as "Pogo Possum," observed: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
BSBD,
Winsor
Very nice post.
Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.
Quote........
Walt Kelly, as "Pogo Possum," observed: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
BSBD,
Winsor
Very nice post.
I concur
(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome
The war on drugs, the war on crime, and the war on terror are excuses for the most horrendous government actions (against its citizens) of the last fifty years. In addition to tearing down liberty and freedom, the all too common (unintended?) consequences result in more power for the things they are supposed to be fighting.
Damn right.
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
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