RE: Put It On The Banned List

I thought Linda's view on cigarettes was really interesting to me in Put It On The Banned List. Interesting to me considering I did used to smoke and I have a significant amount of family members and friends that do smoke. I thought she made a lot of great points about why cigarettes should be banned. Cigarettes are extremely dangerous to the society and it does slowly kill people and it's just simply completely unhealthy for anyone. However, whether or not the government is trying to stop people from smoking cigarettes now, do I think that they should make cigarettes illegal along with Marijuana, Heroin. Cocaine, Ecstasy, etc?
My answer is No. I do think if it were made illegal, plenty of people would stop smoking and the lung cancer rate and every other negative thing that comes from cigarettes would significantly drop. While at the same time there would be many negatives that come from banning cigarettes. First of all, people would keep smoking illegally. Tobacco companies would go "underground" and sell illegally. Tobacco farmers would keep producing and selling their tobacco. Crime rate would increase involving tobacco, and so many other negatives would come from banning cigarettes. It would be a new prohibition, and if we learned anything from the alcohol prohibition, banning cigarettes is just not a smart idea. 
I think everyone in their right mind would agree that cigarettes a bad for you, even the avid smoker. However, I just don't think it would be an intelligent decision by the government to ban cigarettes. We don't need a new prohibition and people have their own unalienable right to make their own stupid decisions. 

Cain under Rain ..of fire

Current presidential Republican candidate, Herman Cain, is being accused, yet again, that he has been unfaithful to his wife. The most recent claim came from a women named Ginger White, who claims that they have had a thirteen year relationship. Cain has done nothing but deny the fact that he has done anything with any of the women that have accused him of similar things. Which I believe is now three women that have accused him?


Cain stated that he will be "reassessing" his candidacy strategy after this claim. He's worried that these allegations against him will create "too much of a cloud, in some people's minds, as to whether or not they would be able to support us going forth." All of this can pass over, or not. This could be enough allegations against him for people to look the other way and decide not to support Cain any longer. He's been accused of sexual harassment, and now it seems to be becoming a trend for him to be accused of having affairs. 


Personally I don Not think that these allegations against him should affect his campaign and whether people support him or not. And for the record, I'm not a supporter of his. I just think people should look at his presidential claims and whether he can, I don't know, fix the economy? People shouldn't focus on his personal life. Saying that, if the allegations are true, I don't think he should lie about it. Again though, I think that's his personal life. Clinton lied under oath about his affair and what not, and people didn't like him and still don't, but he was a great president. A really great president, and most people know that. But more people know him for cheating, and lying. I just think American's should focus on what a presidential candidate would do as a president and base their support and decision of their vote on that. That's what I'm going to do. Can we just bring Bill Clinton back?

When are we going to legalize this?

I read a post by Ethan Nadelmann from The New York Times called Reefer Madness. He talks about how many states now are legalizing marijuana for medical use. There are medical dispensaries that supply the mary jane and it is regulated by the state and local law and is taxed. However, is still completely illegal under Federal law. He talks about how the Treasury Department has done everything in their power to close down the marijuana business's that are operating Legally under state law. The Federal Government is doing everything to keep marijuana illegal, even though President Obama defended the use of medical marijuana during his election, and even though 70% of the United States are for it being legal.
Obama hasn't done anything to stop what the Fedral Government is doing even though he said to be for the use of medical marijuana. It seems like he wants it to stay the same.
I think Ethan Nadelmann makes a really good argument here. I mean, he is the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. He's really not giving much of his opinion on the matter, whether he thinks mary jane should ultimately be legal or not. He shows us the facts. He points out that the majority of Americans are for marijuana becoming legal, but that doesn't change much. He tells us how there are business's that are legal under the states rights, those business's are playing are important role in the local economy, creating new and legal jobs, and contributing to the tax bases. However there are still Federal busts that close down these businesses. The big thing that he points out to us, and what I like most is the fact that during Obama's election he showed to favor the use of medical marijuana and it being legal. However, throughout his presidency, his actions have shown otherwise. He needs to step up now and defend what he initially said and protect the state and local rights of having medical marijuana legalized.
I agree with the point he's making in this post. The Federal Government should protect states rights and not abuse there powers and harm individuals. It's the states right to have it legalized and it does a lot of good for the local community to have these business's. Also, 70 percent of Americans are for it becoming legal, and that percentage is growing. Something needs to change.

"Let him die" nonsense

The truth behind the "let him die" nonsense is a column that talks about the question that Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul at the GOP debate last week. It talks about how people in the audience had no compassion to the question, chanting out a few, "Yeahs". It then goes into talking about conservatives and liberals different view points on the question. Conservatives don not say "let him die" they basically say let him rely on his community to help him. It's his choice not to pay for insurance, but that doesn't make it the governments responsibility. However, liberals say the government should take care of him. But while the liberals are saying that the conservatives are letting a man die but not helping, they're not contributing to the community as much as conservatives do. For instance, in the column it talks about how conservatives donated 30% more than liberals in 2006. So basically, the articles defends the conservatives in their response to a question like that.
I think the article is worth reading because at first you (or at least me) kind of side with the liberals. Don't let the man just die, help him out. But then, as you read you begin to think that the conservatives are right in saying that he should seek help from his close community, rather than a random tax payer, in helping him with his medical expenses.