The Japanese government was obviously lying to their own people about the nuclear radiation danger instead of serving them with the truth that some of them were in great danger. Even now if the winds shift toward populated areas many of our Japanese friends may soon glow in the dark. The government needs to put a lid on both problems ASAP. Why did governments approve the early nuclear plants on the ring of fire anyway? Who lied to the people about their safety in order to get these plants approved?
Obama and team are not serving America or the world because they do not have the qualities required for leadership. Leaders of the world are now quite aware that America has lost her ability to lead the world. Obama cannot make the hard decisions, he is always looking for the easy way out. His Secretary of State claims that if we move too fast against Gaddafi we might get a Russian and Chinese veto at the UN. Oh darn! I guess without world consensus this administration is doomed to do nothing. So, then why are we fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan? All Hillary Clinton had to offer at the meeting about Libya with European leaders was “all options are on the table” or “there are problems” in taking action. Duh! No kidding!
Had America really been leading, we would not be asking for the UN to bless any NATO militarily operations in the first place. Obama thinks you first have to get a consensus from the world to take military action but there is no consensus in the world. Russia, China and others do not want us to act against Libya because they might soon be mowing down the people that they are oppressing, if the people in their own country should come out and demand their freedom.
Ronald Regan figured out how to deal with Gaddafi in the days they Gaddafi was developing WMD. He went after the head with cruise missiles. He just missed taking out Gaddafi but he was injured and the missile strike took out some of his immediate family. After that wake up call nobody heard a peep out of Gaddafi for two decades. I worked on those cruise missile projects so there is no doubt in my mind that we already have everything that is dear to Gaddafi targeted. So why are we playing games with him? If Obama had made it perfectly clear to Gaddafi that he and his family were leaving dead or alive he would not still be there killing people.
By the time anyone does anything now, it might be too late to remove Gaddafi. Once he has control only a foreign army could remove him. I also would not put it past Obama to cut a deal that will allow Gaddafi to remain in power. I can almost see Farrakhan or the peanut farmer going over there to play “let’s make a deal”. Now certain leaders are demanding a cease-fire. Why even talk about a cease-fire unless you are considering making a deal with him? Do they think they can talk someone who has been a madman for forty years into sudden sanity? Why do I get this nagging feeling that soon some Americans will be held as hostages. Maybe it has something to do with Jimmy Carter black occupying the White House (between outings).
It would have been a lot easier to support the freedom fighters when they were still alive, don’t’ you think? The delay is because Obama and team are subservient to the UN. They need to get permission from the UN before they take any action. Don’t you think permission from the Arab league is quite enough in that area of the world? Don’t think the Arabs are not aware of America’s double mindedness. We say we want democracy in the Middle East but it appears to them that we don’t want democracy in nations that sells us oil. It seems that when oil is involved it is okay if the king or a dictator oppressing the people.
I read an article today from a pretty good source that said that the freedom movement is spreading to the far East. The biggest unrest right now seems to be in Vietnam and North Korea but shortly it will be in China. With this freedom movement going on in many places tyrants are getting nervous. Even so, I do not think any democratic vote is going to bring any lasting freedom in most of the world. We cannot even keep freedom in the United States through Democracy and a Constitution with a Bill of Rights. In most places in the world, democracy will just change the tyrants that get power. For example, the oppressing kings in the Middle East by popular vote will just be replaced by Islamic tyrants..
If Americans do not take back their country from the Obamamites in 2012 we will see the same freedom uprisings taking place right here in 2013. We may have uprisings anyway because this nations is now so divided, any change now will bring a counter reaction. The Wisconsin protests is just a foreshadow. There is also the massive debt issue and rising costs of living reality at home and abroad that will insure more instability among the people in the future.
Our government tells poor people that prices are not rising but when poor people buy the necessities of life they know they are lying. Government tells people that unemployment figures are falling but those without a job and those now forced to take a job that does not provide a livable wage know that government is hardly being truthful. Government tells us that the debt problem will be resolved through cuts and growth but the astute know that this is impossible.
We are not going to be able to continue business as usual if this nation is to survive. The drug war has cost trillions and has put millions of people in jail or put them on felon lists for life. The drug war has created huge police forces that is turning America into a Orwellian police state that is much more dangerous and oppressive than potheads. A second Prohibition has made drugs the main money-maker of men in the inner cities. On both the criminal and the enforcement side of the Drug war it is mainly about money.
Half the nation uses marijuana on occasion including people in government and law enforcement but lives are ruined because you happen to be in the small percentage that got caught. The enforcement of marijuana laws is somewhat like a crap shoot. If you are unlucky and get stopped with marijuana around you lose. Or SWAT might break your door down some night because some informer was trying to get out of their own problem. There is nothing fair about such selective justice, if prosecuting people for possessing a weed is justice at all. More dangerous drugs like tobacco and alcohol are legal.
Read what Vicente Fox, the former President of Mexico, has to say about the consequences this prohibition in the U.S. has brought to Mexico.
Read Chuck Baldwin’s article on The Bureaucracies that Marijuana feeds
Outlawing what many people use for a crutch is not going to stop them from using it. This very expensive and very deadly police war on Marijuana has about as much chance of success as getting people in other nations to give up their Khat, Coca leaves and Betel nuts etc. Trying to force people to comply with unpopular laws helps create a police state that wars against the nation of criminals that the very laws created. The main thing that gets people off of crutches is finding out they can walk much better without them. We have to reduce the number of people that we make criminals in this country. The United States has by far the largest incarceration rate of any major nation in the world. Do you think the millions that were prosecuted for drugs laws in America even look at America as being a free nation?
Instead of lying to people and oppressing them, Government should serve them by staying out of their personal lives as much as governmentally possible.
Great article, Don, and right on target. I have long thought the war on drugs was stupid and is mainly a ploy to exercise more control over the American people — just as the TSA and Homeland Security is designed to do. But that’s a whole ‘nother ball of wax, and I wouldn’t want to drift off topic. ;-). This is a fairly recent phenomena. Back at the end of the Nineteenth century no one cared about drug use. Heck, the Parke Davis company even manufactured cocaine cigarettes. You can’t tell me life was worse back then than it is today.
On Libya I’m confused. Why does the UN or anyone else think they have the right to impose a “no fly zone” and intrude militarily in another sovereign country’s internal affairs? If the people want to overthrow Gaddaffi, fine. Let’s encourage them. Let’s even sell them guns. But in the end, it’s Libya’s problem and Gaddaffi, much as I think he’s noxious animal, has the right to defend his regime against the people. The isolationist inside me wonders why the untied States can’t be like Switzerland; remain neutral and hold everybody’s money? After all, who wants to attack their banker?
Don,
Agree with all your comments about the war on drugs. We can’t afford this drug war and it doesn’t benefit the lives of those who have a drug problem to put them in prison. Seems our govt learned nothing from prohibition. It’s none of the govt business what I choose to put in my body, whether it be opium, marijuana or alcohol, or what plants I choose to grow on my property.
I’m not so much concerned about Obama getting UN concensus, since all of us live in this world together as a community of neighbors, as I am about him not getting congressional approval for an act of war. Didn’t Obama criticize Bush for acting unilaterally (without congressional approval) without an imminent threat to the US? As far as Libya goes and the so called “Freedom Fighters” versus Ghaddafi, I suspect they are both Arab and both Muslims and don’t think American forces or taxpayer dollars should be wasted in support of either side. It has nothing to do with America, so why don’t we just stay out? Just another war among rival clans that America can’t afford to be involved in. We could be energy independent if we would convert our truck fleet, buses, garbage trucks, ups, fedex vehicles to run on North American shale natural gas. Then what happens in the Arab/oil world can stay in the Arab world. No, instead we have devolved internally and externally into a police state. Our govt is broke having pissed away the social security trust fund money that most in our society need to live on in their old age. Yet any day now we could suffer a bond market melt down like what has happened in Greece or the other piigs countries. The other day I read an article about the austerity sweeping through Europe. One guy, a bus driver in Greece had his monthly pay reduced from $2500/mo to $1660/mo and he is worried it will be reduced again to $1100/mo. Imagine the deflationary impact when social security checks, food stamps and military spending are cut in half to balance the budget. The knock on effects of that reduced spending could reduce our GDP by 50% further reducing the governments tax revenues leading to additional spending cuts ad infinitum in a vicious downward spiral. Don’t think it can’t get that bad? An analyst from Goldman Sachs said the proposed Republican deficit savings of $61 billion would reduce GDP by 2% or a cumulative impact rippling through the economy of $300 billion. Imagine the impact of reducing the budget spending by $1.5 trillion in an effort to balance the budget.
I’m afraid there is great devastation and economic ruin coming to many in this country and it can all be put at the feet of the politicians who have run this country since Lyndon B Johnson put the social security trust money into the general fund budget. Every president and congress since has blown these funds to the great detriment of the people.
Doug,
There was also Cocaine in Coca Cola. Then with prohibition big bucks was made refining it into the mind blowing stuff on the streets today. People still chew coca leaves where it is native. It is a only a mild stimulant. Less so than tobacco.
On Libya. I got mixed feelings but when a tyrant has all the aircraft, tanks and big guns how can the people overthrow the tyrants at all without help? Even in the days of ancient Israel nations formed alliances.
Since these people are Arabs it is probably best to let the Arab league take care of their problem but we should have got their permission to drop arms to the resistance, jam their weapons systems and ground their air force. I suspect they asked us to do that but instead of doing it we gave it to the UN.
Another way to take care of a snake is just cut off his head the people will do the clean-up.
Tim, staying out of it is a novel idea, but if the same thing happened in Saudi Arabia and gas went up to 10 a gallon the people here would have obama’s head if he did not take some kind of Military action and I do not think a resolution from Congress would be that hard to get in this case.
This is not going to cost a lot of money.
T-Storm coming I better shut down this computer.
And Biden uses the “R” word to attempt to discredit the REPs for doing what is right (attempting to address the financial realities with some sense of responsibility), and yet it’s Biden that’s doing the lying. After all, not just GOV, but the DEMs primarily, have been “R’ing” the country for decades.
I remember Johnny Carson making jokes about Biden and his plagiarizing activities waaayyy back when… Biden is a terminal liar.
Oppression is the DEMs ongoing goal. They have no respect for freedom, nor solutions to the countries ills.
I guess you all know by now that NATO forces recently struck Libya’s defense systems with over 100 cruse missiles.
The U.S. is playing the lead air role because we have the most resources but I think France is really calling the shots. Along with Great Britain they probably recently read the riot act to Clinton and Obama and possibly threatened to do it without us. Which would have just about finished us in NATO.
I think France has a legitimate concern for genocide. Also remember that there are four french speaking nations that border Libya. France also gets much of their oil from Libya and operates one of the largest oil fields in Libya.
By the way, I believe the courts have always ruled that it is within the Presidential powers as Command-in-Chief to do police actions without a declaration of war and that is why it has happened so often. Like I said, Ronald Regan also used cruise missiles against Libya.
Don,
It is beginning to appear as if the Untied States is taking a secondary role in this new conflict. Here is a snippet from the BBC site as if a few minutes ago:
2144: US Defense Secretary Robert Gates is quoted on Reuters saying the future leadership of the coalition’s operation is unclear, but it could fall to Britain and France, using NATO’s “machinery”.
Over on Eschatology Today, Sean has an article that seems to confirm the above quote.
http://eschatologytoday.blogspot.com/2011/03/revived-rome-flexes-its-military-might.html
Doug,
I agree. France and Britain unannounced on Saturday they would be launching air strikes and they said nothing about America. Up until that point The US had made no decision to go forward. However, if the US would not have supported France and Great Britain with Cruise Missiles after they already made it clear that the air-strikes would take place. The US might have lost NATO, or at least and leadership role.
Sean thinks ground forces will be necessary to remove Gaddafi. This probably is correct. Obama has already said we will not send in US ground forces so either Europe does it or Egypt backed by the Saudis do. The other alternative is that Gadaffi will remain mostly in power and be a problem in that area of the world for years.
I really do not see Europeans intervening with ground forces in North Africa at this time because of their past history, it would not be well received. It might even rally the Libyan’s to fight against the European invaders. I also do not think the Europeans have the stomach for taking casualties and fighting a real war. Their best hope would be to send in special forces, locate him and his military leaders, and quickly cut off the head of the snake and declare victory.
Don,
Agree with the majority of all you are saying on this one. I do think the pot laws should stick however but don’t make someone a felon if they get caught. Felon’s are doomed after they get out of jail, no hope at all really.
Pot needs to remain highly illegal and mainly because it is a gateway drug.
One thing you stated, “More dangerous drugs like tobacco and alcohol are legal”, is just simply false. Marijuana is a gateway drug bigtime. I did not ever know of anyone who started using Cocaine and other hard drugs that did not FIRST use pot. In fact growing up all the druggies (myself included but delivered from it for 30 years now) used pot first. Any of the jocks etc used beer but did not go headfirst into harder drugs like we did. It was marijuana that got me and many others interested in Cocaine, LSD, Speed etc. Pot was the drug of choice. So to say tobacco and alcohol is more dangerous is simply false. I think they all have the potential to be dangerous but I have never met someone who is addicted to tobacco almost destroy their life at an early age as does a pot user. Sure a pack a day cig smoker is going to most likely die, but that takes decades to happen.
Yes Alcohol is highly addictive in large quantities but when I was using, 3 hits of a bong you are stoned, 3 beers and yes your buzzed but nowhere near as stoned as the pot user. You can take a stiff drink of vodka vs 1 joint, that the pot user is significantly more stoned than the vodka drinker. You combine 2 beers and a joint, you are out of your mind stoned.
The pot user is destined for harder drugs, and I am talking the daily/weekly pot user not the occasional user. I progressed quickly after using pot to harder drugs. 100’s of other kids either in high school or college did the same. I just take issue with anyone who tries to say Marijuana is not as harmful as alcohol. This is just not true. My personal experience, having been a drug addict says the opposite. I could now, 30 yrs later have a glass of wine but if someone gave me pot, I would be an absolute mess. It would be simply a downward slope to addiction again.
Thanks be to God in Christ I was delivered from this evil. People need the Lord to fill this void they are trying to fill with mind altering substances. That is their only hope.
Eric
Saying it is a gateway drug has been the big argument for a century but it is bogus propaganda and its mainly used as an argument because there are no good other arguments for making Marijuana illegal while making Alcohol legal. There are no gateway drugs or else all drugs are gateway drugs. People that use any drug as a crutch are much more likely to use harder drugs than the saner population.
Take Marijuana out of the picture and people will find something else even more dangerous. In fact, they are doing that right now because of the drug war and some of these new substances are still legal. By the time they pass the laws, those looking for highs already have something else. Government cannot stop people that want a chemically altered mind and when they try they just make it something of value and they make the problem worse.
Frankly, the only way you can win a drug war without converting people to Christ is to become a very repressive police state that kills the people they do not want. Even so, in those states they do not have total success either. This war has been going on for quite some time and we are not stopping the drugs. All we are doing is creating drug gangs that kill people over turf and money and militarizing all police forces in this nation.
Those who get drunk are also much more like to use marijuana and harder drugs than the general population so using your own rational, alcohol would still be the number one gateway drug, yet it is legal. Also alcohol abusers do not stop at three beers at all. There would not be a bar in business if they did. By the way, potheads are also more likely to drink than the general population. People that abuse anything are more likely to abuse other things.
Thanks to government, marijuana growing is now a big money business. Many species are being developed that are now many times more powerful than the natural weed. Marijuana is getting more dangerous all the time because of the money there is to be made in it.
As for tobacco I think the facts speak for themselves. In average it will take 10 to 20 years off of a lifespan, yet it is legal.
I have known both potheads and drunks and I will tell you I would rather have a pothead around me than a drunk. Many drunks are dangerous to others. That usually is not the case with potheads.
I also knew people with the highest security clearances that used pot in common social circles with others that had the highest security clearances. I have seen others join in but I have seen none complain or blow the whistle. Obviously even the most trusted in our government see nothing wrong with using pot. Even most of our Presidents admitted to using pot or something harder. So then why the big drug war against it? The answer is power, politics and money.
I do not discount your own experiences but you should hear the stories of those that abused alcohol they are just as bad or worse. Still, I would like to see any statistics at all that shows that marijuana is as dangerous as alcohol, and where government stopping people from using it is worth the social cost and worth creating a police state.
Don,
Pot is a gateway drug, you are just simply wrong. I do believe alcohol can also be a gateway as well but most go from alcohol to pot to harder drugs.
I have one question for you….
Have you ever been a drug addict, and I mean hopelessly addicted? If you don’t want to answer that within this public forum I understand.
Eric
All mind altering drugs are gateway drugs and nobody is hopelessly addicted. Obviously you and others have got off your drugs somehow. Certainly nobody is hopelessly addicted to marijuana.
I got off of tobacco which is probably more addictive than Cocaine. Just ask the President. The real point is not which drugs are gateway drugs. The point is it the role of government to put a million people in jail and spend trillions and create a police state to stop people from what they are going to do anyway. Seems that we have learned nothing from Prohibition.
No matter what you or I think, the government fought drug war is a big loser for America. We simply cannot afford the costs in lives, money and freedom to continue it. Even conservatives are now coming out saying the same thing.
The real drug war should be fought in homes, churches, education centers and treatment centers not with black boots and merciless imprisonment centers that put the addicted and people caught at random in together with the hardened criminally insane.
Everyone who is addicted, without Christ, is hopelessly addicted if they get on these drugs. When you are in the middle of addiction, when you NEED cocaine, heroin, etc to function on a daily basis, yes you are hopeless at that point. An addict knows nothing of the hope we have in Christ, that is what I meant.
To say these things is simply dangerous and wrong. Marijuana is horrifically destructive and a gateway drug bigtime to the other drugs.
To say tobacco is more addictive than Cocaine is simply laughable. Same goes for any of the Opiates. I have never, never met anyone who’s life was completely destroyed because they smoked cigarettes. (sure yes people get cancer but it does not make their lives unmanageable during their productive working years) Yes nicotine is highly addictive but the destruction cocaine or crack does on your body/brain is 1000x worse, it literally kills your brain, like throwing gasoline on your brain.
Marijuana also severely dulls the mind and makes one very lazy. Never met a tobacco user who had this. Also when one smokes pot, there are no filters. They also destroy the lungs more than tobacco.
We can agree to disagree on this topic of addiction however I personally am an expert on the topic because of more reasons than one. But I agree on what you are saying about the government. What I do continue to know is Marijuana should NOT be made legal ever. You just simply don’t understand the mind of an addict.
Rather than trying to enforce morality, which has historically never worked — will never work — and only ends up empowering the government to take away more of our Constitutional rights, why not concentrate on Evangelizing society and let Jesus deal with the addiction? Our mandate as Christians is not to be activists and change the world. Our mandate is to preach the Good News that Jesus paid the penalty for our sins . . . our addictions . . . and through Jesus we have eternal life. I’ve never taken any illegal drug, but I am absolutely opposed to anyone telling me I can’t should I want to try. The war on drugs is a ruse, a cover to give the government access to our lives. I suspect the government is covertly enabling the drug dealers in order to maintain this control. Making drugs legal would remove one of their tools to oppress you and me.
Doug,
I agree that mandate is to preach the Good News. I also have meet many addicts who get the Good News preached to them but are never delivered because the addictions to these drugs are so powerful. Many Christians are simply without a clue as to addictions. Yes Christ is even more powerful than any addiction, but when you are stuck in one, for say 6-7yrs, you only hear the voice of the addiction. I do believe it is demonic and almost a possession.
You state you have never taken any illegal drug but oppose the government outlawing them. With all due respect you don’t know at all what you are talking about. Had you been addicted like I was or had a son/daughter that got addicted, you would simply not say this at all. To this day, I refuse to even travel/visit a place like Amsterdam where you can go to pot/hash bars and get it easily. It would be an evil feeling that I don’t want to experience. I won’t got to Jamaica either where its easy to get.
Certain people are predisposed to having an addictive personality. I cannot explain it but it is the fact. Some people, even if the drugs are made legal, would still not use/abuse. But there is a vast amount, especially during the younger years in high school and college that would use and get addicted.
It is very good that these drugs are illegal and not easily available for retail sale. I can’t explain it sufficiently for you to be convinced, but had you been an addict you would not say this.
Eric,
It simply is not true that people have not kicked their addictions without Christian conversion. Many have. They might be hopeless without Christ but that is not the same as kicking a physical addiction.
Marijuana may be a gateway to harder drugs for some but so are many other substances. When a drug is used by a large percent of our population it obviously will be the gateway to other things but so is alcohol. I doubt if the percentage that use Marijuana that go on to be drug addicts are any higher than the percentage of people than drink become alcoholics.
What makes Marijuana a gateway drug is not usually the Marijuana it is that those that are selling illegal Marijuana are also selling and pushing illegal harder drugs. The way to put them out of business is take out the profit.
Marijuana is already legal in some states for medical reasons so obviously it already was made legal for some.
I was not talking about the destruction on the brain. I was talking about addiction. There also is a difference between those who get cocaine from chewing coca leaves and those who use pure crack.
Heavy use of Marijuana has the effects you describe but that was never the issue. Overall in the population it is less destructive to the body and to others then some legal drugs like Alcohol and tobacco.
I am not saying anyone should make it legal it should never have been made illegal. It should be regulated as any natural herb. If people want to abuse themselves with natural herbs or any other common substance government is not going to stop them. There are plenty of herbs in “health food stores” that can do great damage to people if not used as directed. All government is doing with their war on marijuana is creating a criminal drug subculture and a control freak police state.
My 19yo son and I have been having this discussion lately too.
He approaches this from an almost strictly libertarian view that it’s simply not government’s business to oppose this to the degree it does (he’s a budding political scientist!).
I have to say that my view has been shifting in recent years as I see what is happening, and compare it with history and what I understand of other people around the world. Josh and I seem to be able to agree that at least marijuana should be legal, but regulated, much as alcohol is today.
It seems that we need a more balanced approach than either extreme suggests: i.e. prohibition vs. unaccountable freedom. But, isn’t that so much of what real life is about?
I’m coming to the sad realization that we as His Church (at least in America) have been more focused on pursuing our “holy-causes,” having “lost our first love.” For example, instead of constantly telling homosexual people and women who have had abortions, that they’re going to Hell and that God hates them (which IS the message these people have gotten from evangelicals), we should be loving each other and loving them with the sincerity and strength of love that will encourage them that it’s more healthy to live in the light of Jesus than to try to make it through life without God. And when they come, we simply and humbly show them that it’s not what we do, but who we’ve giving ourselves to and what He’s done that will make us whole and holy. Like the early church, we should become know for our love and what we are for; in this time and our culture, the Church is known (both rightly and wrongly) for what it is against, and for stridency, and for arrogance. Many unbelievers have respect for Jesus, but they have utter contempt for the Church.
I don’t know of any true evangelical Christians who tell homosexuals that God hates them. There are a few fringe nuts like the Westborough group who say horrible things, but it’s unfair to tar all Christians with that brush. So were not to tell people to repent of their sins anymore?
I agree with Eric about marijuana. It is a gateway drug to other drugs, and a gateway into the occult that alcohoil isn’t.
How does a christian overcome a felony? I ask because my life was “destroyed” in 2006 and although i had no jail time and probation is long over, it does seem like there is no hope, as stated in a previous comment. I hear people go thru trials, and then God restores. But a felony is permanent, and altough they do have a pardoning process, that probably won’t work for (me) or for everyone. And what I’ve lost, seems permanent. The probation counseling was very non-christian, and I did not have the muscle or body to follow their advice – which was to forget about my past career in corporate financial services and become a carpenter instead, a field which most have a felony they tell me.
Who says drunkenness cannot be a gateway into the occult? I do not know what people in those nations that were worshiping Baal and Moloch
were smoking but they certainly were getting drunk in their religious ceremonies. Even Paul felt he had to warn the church leadership about using too much alcohol but, I see nothing about herb abuse. Even TM and Yoga is a gateway into the occult but that does not stop some Christian leaders from having people on campus that promote it.
This gateway drug concept is not surprising since the government has been feeding Americans that line for a century to keep this drug war going. And where has all this referrer madness education brought us? The drug problem is not where they are growing the stuff as much as it is here where government police try to keep it out but use it themselves at the same time.
In reality we only have a couple of choices in this nation about illegal drugs:
!. continue the drug war as we are now and watch tens of thousands of more people be killed through the drug wars. See another trillion dollars spent fighting it. See the corruption of governments through money. Give up all our inner cities to the drug gangs and make criminals out of another million people. Nevertheless, at the end of the decade things will even be worse than they are now.
2. We go all out against drugs and send in the military and live in a police state. But be aware that the enforcement will spread to other things besides drugs. Soon the police forces will be on the take and the black boots might then turn against those not politically correct evangelicals.
3. we learn from our past Prohibition mistakes and take the money out of selling drugs and take the treatment approach to those using drugs.
Which approach would you want to be taken with your own children that are using. Well, I have news, for most they are using.
So you that want marijuana to remain criminal what are your solutions to ending this drug war madness? And don’t tell me conversion. When you all get your own block converted and your own inner cities converted and even your own church converted to Christ. I might be more inclined to believe that is a realistic solution to our national drug crises.
Michael, All is forgiven in Christ the real question is how do Americans get a clean slate to start over once they are convicted of a felony. In general they do not, and a felony is a felony no matter if the crime was great or small. No matter if the person lives a respectable life in the future or not.
Let’s face it our justice system sucks and American’s need to fix it. Some are talked into pleading guilty to a felony charge because they are promised no jail time if they do. What they do not realize is that they will pay for that plea the rest of their lives.
For example, you can become a felony sex offender because you were a 17 year old that had consequential sex with your 16 your old girlfriend in some states even if you married her. Then for the rest of your life you have to registrar in any state you move to, as a sex offender and you are put on all the Internet lists and everyone in the neighborhood thinks that they have a pervert in the area that is a threat to their children.
It might be politically correct but this is not justice, and that is true in much of what goes on in our criminal “justice system”.
Don’t get me started! And no I have never had a felony, but I could of been, and some people I know have that tag.
I don’t know of any true evangelical Christians who tell homosexuals that God hates them. There are a few fringe nuts like the Westborough group who say horrible things, but it’s unfair to tar all Christians with that brush. So were not to tell people to repent of their sins anymore?
Sadly, Lynn, I’ve seen this **A LOT**. I’ve also befriended a number of people such as these, and this is what they “hear” when evangelicals talk to them. Many times, there is this occurs on an individual basis, and it is blasted in the Christian media. Way, way too many true Christians treat groups they think are “especially sinful” almost as non-human, and very nearly the first things out of their mouths is some comment about how sinful they are. I may have painted with a broad brush, but at least in America, I believe it to be accurate.
Now you also wrote: “So were not to tell people to repent of their sins anymore?” Certainly not. BUT there is a time and place and way for everything. The people in these two groups know they are sinners even if the particular behaviors we are reminding them of are not seen by them to be sins – like anyone who is marginalized, they have almost certainly looked inward and they see that the fall-short, if not in these “super-sin” areas, them others that fit with their worldview. The problem with evangelicals (and I have been one my entire quarter century with Jesus), is that we feel like we have to “love” someone by blasting them with a reminder of their sin and that they need to repent. Now there will be times when that’s appropriate, but you only harden the hearts of people who already know they are sinners – they turn away from whatever you have to say and look elsewhere for salvation. In this way, we very much grieve His Spirit because what we justify to ourselves and our fellow Christians as “tough love” has only served to make it harder to reach the “target” of evangelical message. Yes, such people think of themselves as our “targets” and that we don’t really love them, rather we are trying to get another “notch” on our Bible. Lynn (and others who may disagree), I would humbly ask that you would consider what I’ve express here in prayer, and ask some of your unbelieving friends what they honestly think about the Church.
(Don, sorry to be off-topic.)
Let me clarify something here: “tough love” is a necessary form of love, but as parents, we know that it’s not first way to express love, rather it’s the last form of love we extend to the beloved because it is usually perceived as “unloving,” and harsh – it’s a desperate, “last-ditch” form of love. HOWEVER, when we are commanded to love others as we love ourselves, we understand that to mean “love” in the kind, gentle, considerate and self-sacrificial sense, yet holding the “tough love” in reserve for when it is necessary. This is God’s pattern of dealing with us; He wants to reach us in as gentle a manner as possible, BUT His love is absolutely terrifying in that He will get tough with us in His love.
Remember how Jesus treated people. He was harsh only with the people who thought they were better than everyone else. He *was* pointed and honest with people, yet they knew they were loved. We are to imitate this.
When I meet someone who has advised me that they are homosexual, I *don’t* remind them of what we think God thinks about this unless they want to discuss this. In time, that discussion will happen as they come to trust that I care for them as a person. Part of the reason is because they have heads *so much* about this from evangelicals they expect it to come-up. Instead I am patient and I put aside who they care to have sex with, because it’s ***NOTHING*** compared with not having a relationship with Jesus. When they come to Him, His Spirit will deal with whatever issues He wants to work on, in His way and in His timing. We have to trust His Spirit to do this in others, just as we have to learn to trust Him to do it for us.
Please resist the “knee-jerk” reaction to say that this is being “soft on sin.” Please go to His Spirit and ask Him how He would have you minister His love.
Michael March 21, 2011 at 4:10 pm
Michael, is it forgiveness or forgetfulness you want?
Men are unforgiving and do not forget and we must all of us live with that, but as far as the Lord is concerned he has removed our transgressions far from us, Psalm 103:12.
Take heart, for the Apostle Paul found it very hard to forgive himself for his persecution of the Church; he could not forget.
Time softened his self reproach and he was able to say “…forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus “(Phi 3:13-14), and at the end of his life he could say, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith…” (2Timothy 4:7-8).
We pray you too will overcome.
Don, I know this is your blog, but I’ll have to respectfully disagree with you on the issue of legalizing marijuana. All governments legislate morality, depending on your point of view. Laws do not prevent people from breaking them, or there would cease to be murders. Yet, we continue to punish murder. Perhaps it seems arbitrary that we punish the use of one drug over another, and sure, alcohol and tobacco are powerful industries that have a lot at stake. I agree that we’ve overreached, overspent and overincarcerated in the enforcement of those laws. However, to suggest that some of the commenters here are parroting a government line re: gateway drugs is being unfair, even if you are the king of this blog. 🙂
JW
I never said anything about me being for the legalizing of Marijuana, it never should have been criminalized in the first place and we would not have most of the gateway pushers today. Also if putting chemicals in your body is immoral then don’t just single out pot smokers. Tobacco, alcohol. legal drugs and even refined sugar kills and addicts more people than marijuana. Governments may legislate morality but I thought we the people run the government here.
There was a day when our government decided that alcohol was immoral and the end result was almost 200 proof corn whiskey and a whole lot of illegal activity and organized crime syndicates. People were dying from lead poisoning because they made the stuff in car radiators. So they repealed it. But now after almost one hundred years of fighting a losing war against a weed that is creating revenues that is corrupting every level of whole nations and that has got 100,000 people gunned down in Mexico and the rest of the Americas, and that is bringing more and more toxic creations and a huge organized drug gang problem, some think the same prohibition and criminalization methods are suddenly going to bring about change when half the nation are users.
At the rate were going it won’t be long before government makes everyone pee in a cup anytime they want just like your employers do. I can see it now, the pee brigade knocking at your door and watching you while you take a leak to make sure it is yours. 😯 If you fail the test they will sell the house that you committed the crime in and of course they will have the right to do it without a trial.
I am still waiting for someone to tell me how the government can win the drug war without creating a police state?
I agree with JW.
Don by you saying ” it never should have been criminalized in the first place” you are boldly proclaiming it should be legal.
I find it ironic that the people who have never been addicted to marijuana are the ones saying it should not be illegal in the first place. With all due respect you have no clue on this topic of pot legalization. Marijuana is a horrific drug and when in the hands of a 12-13 yr old, that kid, if predisposed to an addictive life, will go knee deep in addiction to not only pot, but other harder drugs. People who try to correlate or make alcohol = to pot, are on the wrong path. I don’t mean to be disrespectful to you or anyone else who advocates this but you are dead wrong. I am glad you cannot go buy a pack of joints in your local store.
That a side, I do beleve that the government botches and blunders everything it tries to get it’s hands on. A person who gets caught with a few ounces of pot should not be given a felony against their life, however the person who has been caught with a few kilos of weed selling to minors should have the book thrown at them! But it needs to remain illegal and unfortunately the laws/govt is the only way to do that.
Abba, we all stand before You convicted, and You have offered each of us a pardon through what Jesus sacrificed. We have all done things to deserve death, and I know *I’ve* done things deserving of punishment by earthly authorities (and worse things in my heart). You *do* wipe the slate clean between You and us, when we accept Your pardon – that’s what reconciliation is about! Yet it took me years to accept that when You the, Creator of the Universe, say I am clean, then I am truly clean. Abba, please give Michael this sense deep in his being; please remind him that there is now NO CONDEMNATION for those who are in Christ Jesus – that means the evil one may not condemn him, nor may others, nor may he condemn himself. The price has been paid in Christ! We all bear some consequences for our sins, some greater than others, and Michael must bear his felony record. PLEASE give him strength and grace to do this; help him to surrender even this to You so that he may bear this in a way that others see You shining through him. Perhaps You will use Michael to help the self-righteous among us to recognize their own sin and poverty in a way that will reach them for You? We all have our “stuff” and You call us to “bloom where we are planted.” Please remind Michael that he *NEED NOT* bear this alone, but that You are there whether the trial was of our making or whether it has the “Suffering-for-Christ-Seal-of-Approval” – when we surrender them to You, even our screw-ups become holy-ground, and become a channel through which Your grace will flow to us and to others. Please glorify Yourself through each us, Your children, and please help Michael to understand that You will take his “record” and turn it into mark of redemptive beauty if he will let You. We are each challenged: please help him to see that living to Your glory despite this “mark” will demonstrate the royalty he is in You. Oh God: Father, Jesus and Spirit, Thank You that redemption and renewal are possible in Christ!
OH! And Abba, please guide Michael into the work You want for him. Please provide a job and meet his needs; he is Your child and he is desperate! Please come to his aide to meed his physical needs, just as we lifted his emotional and spiritual needs to You in the our prayer above. Come to his rescue for Your name sake and that we may all celebrate Your greatness, and that Michael may testify to others of Your amazing and *extravagant* grace! Amen!
There are tens of millions that agree with the position that you and others stated, so the opposition to what I said does not surprise me, but don’t put words in my mouth either. There is a difference between saying that government should never have made marijuana illegal then there is in saying we should now legalize it and allow corporations to package it for sale.
We would not be in this drug fix that we are now in had there been no prohibition. Almost all of drug problems came about because outlawing it made it profitable for sleaze balls. Drugs are now available to 12 and 13 years old’s because sleaze balls make huge amounts of money selling it. Nobody would be buying a pack of joints in their local store if prohibition did not first create the drug subculture.
Why would anyone be selling kilos of weed if they were not making a profit doing it? People who want marijuana would pretty much grow their own as a potted plant. You and others here admit that government is screwing it up but you can’t see that government created much of the problem. Is drug gangs and drug wars less dangerous to society then some people using?
I am still waiting for anyone’s solution to win the war on drugs without creating a police state.
I also have a prediction. Marijuana will be decriminalized because you cannot continue to criminalize a substance that half the nation has used and that almost all of the elite uses regularly. If your 12 and 13 year old is using weed, you as a parent have to be pretty detached not to know it. Also, I have been telling Christians to get their kids of out public schools for a long time now. Its not just weed that is toxic and readily available there.
Singapore has a solution for drug traffickers and users.
Don? The drug problem and the way we are trying to solve it in America, reminds me of some metal and wood puzzles that I’ve solved before:
Very often what *seems* to be the solution to such a puzzle is merely a dead-end. In the most challenging of puzzles, you have to do improbable things in a certain sequence in order to progress to the solution.
What happens with some is that they will impatiently insist upon solving a puzzle in the way *they think (or have been told) it should be solved* instead of the way that it actually works. They become frustrated, trying the same things over and over, and they get hung-up on the way they WANT reality to be instead of the way it IS…
So with the drug problem, and many other cultural problems we face, we’ve come to expect that if we push on the political and legal levers of power hard enough, then we will solve the problem. But Jesus didn’t tell us that this was the way the world was going to be changed for Him (or for the better) – His way is PERSONAL, and actually more difficult, while being more doable for us as individuals: we let His Spirit change our lives, and those around us will inevitably “catch” His Spirit (to some degree) as a result. It’s not that we save them, but we become God’s “vector” to “infect” others with His life, as He influences others through us. This doesn’t mean that we should abandon our responsibilities to society. But it does mean that we should should focus on our growth in Him and let Him work through our personal spheres of influence.
It may very well require that for the drug situation to become better, we will need to de-criminalize aspects of it – THAT could be the unexpected-twist that THIS puzzle needs next. Look at the abortion issue as an example: What are the policy fruits of our efforts to overturn Roe vs. Wade? Yet, despite the political and legal disappointments, we find that the abortion rate is declining as more people come to realize that the lives of babies are involved. Laws didn’t make this happen, people being influenced by other individuals has made this happen in the context of relationships grown over shared coffee, work, joys and sorrows.
I think that Don pulls-back the covers on the drug issue a bit such that we can the what seems like the solution, clearly isn’t. We need to move in another direction. He is right: what we are doing leads to a bondage worse than the problem we now face.
I also think that as Christians, we need to allow ourselves to be comfortable with the fact that things are not going to change on our timetable and not necessarily the way exact way *we think* God has to move. AND we shouldn’t feel as if we’ve failed because, for example, someone we’ve tried to lead to the Lord, doesn’t want to hear it, or we spoke to a person, building a relationship, but we didn’t recite the “Four Spiritual Laws” (this time) or our the cause we campaigned for did not prevail (yet). God’s timetable is not ours; we assist Him, not the other way around. What ***FREEDOM*** we have when we throw-off all these expectations we (and others) have put upon ourselves as to our Christian “duty” and “performance.” This freedom is NOT unto laziness, instead it is unto joy in our moving aside and letting God work through us instead of our striving in our own strength.
What *IS* the WORK of God? Jesus said that it is to believe in the one the Father sent. God’s greatest work involving us as individuals, beyond salvation, will be in making us each, individually, like the character of Christ. This too is ***FREEING***!!!
Brett, well said like ususal.
Christians do not want drugs in society but we have to face the facts. We live in a evil fallen world and it was not the commission of the Church to try to force morality on the lost. It is not even possible. We need to provide love and hope to those that are lost and enslaved to chemicals or any other stuff.
I think for our own sake in this nation we need to be more concerned about continuing down the road to becoming an oppressive police state because some in high places are also trying to take the nation to war against Bible believing Christians.
We are very much their enemy because we will not conform to their secular humanist(Marxist fascist) idealism. Fighting evil with evil is exactly how Satan works to get power on earth to accomplish his agenda. Nevertheless, thank God that he has no power over those that trust in God.
Satan doesn’t care about his own either – he wants them dead as well. Satan will have more ease or “luck” getting that accomplished than war’ing with Christ’s ambassadors, who are protected by the Lord (in some fashion beyond my comprehension, of course).
In line with what Brett and Don have just written; it is not a Christian’s task to push people into our mould, it is our task to believe and obey God’s commands as individuals, to believe and obey the two great commandments – love God with all our heart mind and strength, and our neighbour as ourselves. In this we will be living witnesses to the reality of God in the world, and if/when people want God’s truth we will be able to give them OUR reasons for the hope WE have.
God’s laws, i.e. the laws of cause and effect will carry greater weight in pressurising the ungodly to change their minds; and we are seeing those pressures being applied today, in the addictions and individual tragedies of our own societies, and the traumatic events throughout the world. If the ungodly will not heed these warnings they will remain without excuse and will continue to suffer the consequences. We see this happening in Revelation, where instead of crying out in repentance they call upon the rocks to fall on them and hide them from the wrath of God.
It has been my prayer for many years now that Christians (me included) will be as lights set upon a hill and that HE will deal with the ungodly to cause them to seek the light.
The Las Vegas deputy District Attorney who prosecuted Bruno Mars and Paris Hilton for cocaine possession was arrested Saturday night for possession of cocaine.
A world without virtue & righteousness, surely~
Amen to Mr Bretts prayer. You are a peacemaker! The war on drugs is proof that satan is ruling the USA. The big drug traffickers get no time and the small time user gets a record, mocked and labeled for life. Thats why theres so many people doing it on a large scale. Marijuana is sorcery. Its a spiritual thing. Anybody that uses it is committing spiritual harlotry with satan against our creator. legalizing it is gonna open up more violence, family abuse, problems in the work force due to law suits etc. But, this is not our country anymore. We are born again. We are now foreigners here. Lets not let satan use these arguments to divide us. Thats what he whats to do. We dont even use drugs, yet look how it divides us just talking about it!
Stephen,
I think your completely right on target.
When I see the youth of today embracing the “Mother Earth” liberalism from public schools that denies the true and living God, Jesus Christ, but respects Islamism and the other ‘ism’s, it’s disheartening.
I certainly don’t have any solutions to the drug problems, wars, violence, sexual perversions, etc. running rampant all over the world.
I, personally, get cynical @ times when I see the world news & even the local news, but I shouldn’t…these things must happen as the Biblical prophets said.
This is in the news today. Read what Vicente Fox, the former President of Mexico, has to say about the consequences this prohibition in the U.S. has brought to Mexico.
http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/VicenteFox-Mexico-DrugWar-Cartels/2011/03/22/id/390385
Well, how do my fellow Americans feel about U.S. Government agencies telling us via the news that radiation from Japan is spreading across the U.S. & Iceland…but it’s no threat ? Lets see, birds falling out of the sky, thousands of ocean life washing upon shores (before Japan disaster) all over the world…but no worries, everything is good…really ?