6-24-90
(Noon) Gwynn called to say she isn’t coming by today.
I have been worrying about the trend in this country lately to avoid risk, but maybe it’s that we just aren’t passionate enough about anything to take risks? (The one edge we have left in international economic wars is innovation, but we are losing ground there, and this fear of risk is a major roadblock for us.)
I wonder if that is also why we are one of the few countries that doesn’t
consider ex-cons for political office? (e.g., Anwar Sadat spent years in solitary confinement in
Egyptian prisons and then became one of Egypt’s greatest presidents.)-(I suppose some
would argue he was a "political prisoner" and we don’t have those here, but
the prior government in Egypt labeled him a "terrorist" or some such thing, and
we have that here.) (I would say that many people in jail for drugs are really
"political prisoners". (e.g., drug laws exploit a minority for the political
advancement of the "warriors". (e.g., it’s gotten the majority to agree to
let them rape the bill of rights, and strip away privacy and individualism, therein
transferring even more political power to the government. (I keep thinking of the old
German story "When they took away the insane I said nothing, when they took away the
gypsies I said nothing, when they took away the Jews I said nothing, …, and then they
took away me."))-(Another thing the drug war does is to increase alienation and
separatism. (Get us fighting each other instead of against them.) (It also fills the front
pages and tv news with the illusion they are actually doing something about something, and
forcing the things they don’t want us to hear to page ten of the newspaper and off
the tv screen.) (Another is that it has given them an excuse to hire more cops, rather
than hiring more teachers, therapists and counselors.)-(And build prisons instead of
schools. (And turn schools into prisons.))))
I have been pondered on the dui thing some. (If they are going to stop dui’s, I think just making it illegal and increasing enforcement is very simplistic and creates many problems.)-(It does generate a lot of money for government and insurance companies. Governments spend a lot of it on enforcement, but insurance companies are getting a windfall as more people slide into the highest rate categories.)-(One of the problems the laws create is an increase in alienation. (A lot of people have started staying home in response to those laws.)) (The only alternatives I have come up with so far are:
1. Build a really good mass transit system that people will use and that runs at nite. (It would be real expensive, but we need to do it to solve environmental problems as well.)
2. Once upon a time each neighborhood had a small store and a bar. The supermarkets wiped out the mom and pop stores and the bible thumpers ran the bars out. (Now the small stores have returned (owned by large corporations this time), but the bible thumpers are still keeping the bars out.) (Anyway, this solution would be to reinstate the idea of neighborhood bars, so that people can go out without driving.)