Victimhood

a good post from Gin and Tacos this morning...

VICTIMHOOD | Gin and Tacos:

"The amount of delusion necessary to allow someone to sit in front of a 70" TV in a giant house with two luxury cars in the garage and complain about the unfairness of it all is incomprehensible."

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Hagel

The Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community: asks "What was Gained by the Hagel Opposition"

Well,.... they put up enough of a fight that they didn't kill their chance for AIPAC campaign donations. Actually, they probably got big checks every time they were seen complaining about Hagel. so,... what did they gain,.....MONEY.

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Land of the Free

We lock up more of our citizens than any country on earth.



(charts from  Incarceration in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:)

This NPR story blames Nixon and Rockefeller but it looks like it really took off after 1980.




A couple of notes from Wikipedia....

Violent crime was not responsible for the quadrupling of the incarcerated population in the United States from 1980 to 2003. Violent crime rates had been relatively constant or declining over those decades. 

Perhaps the single greatest force behind the growth of the prison population has been the national "war on drugs." The number of incarcerated drug offenders has increased twelve-fold since 1980. In 2000, 22 percent of those in federal and state prisons were convicted on drug charges.

Our drug laws suck. Bankers and corporations can steal, cheat and lie. They can launder drug money but if you smoke a joint you're the criminal.

once again,... Our drug laws suck.


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A couple of maps from  www.salon.com: the_white_souths_last_defeat





The "American" entry on the second map sort-of pisses me off. Unless you're a Native American every American's ancestry is something other than "American". This is  a US Census map why the hell do they include "American" in the list of choices? They should know better. Are they write-ins?

In reality, the "American" on this map really means "Ancestry Unknown,...  but I'm dumb enough to believe that I'm a Real-American". Which actually, makes it easier to see why these maps looks so much alike.

tnb

Risk vs Freedom

From EconoSpeak: Risk = Freedom?:

Ample unemployment insurance makes it easier to work for a startup or switch jobs in general rather than being held down by too strong a need for job security.  A stronger public pension system encourages entrepreneurship: people can hazard their savings by starting a business rather than hoarding everything for old age.  Social guarantees for basic needs make it possible for artists to risk making art their day job.  Professors with tenure (big time risk reduction) can take more controversial positions on public issues.  (I don’t say they always do this, but they do it more than they would if all professors were temps.)  In each case there is a real tradeoff between freedom and security at the individual level, but society can create programs that relax it, so it takes less courage to live freely. 

That’s what I don’t like about the nanny state rhetoric.  Yes, of course the state can go too far and overprotect us from risks we would do better to face ourselves.  But the state we actually live in goes too far in the other direction.  With a stronger safety net we could have less risk and more freedom

And ,... universal health care would translate into less risk and more, not less, freedom for workers. It would encourage entrepreneurship since workers could leave current positions to try their ideas without sacrificing their current employer-provided insurance. It would allow those in the 60-65 age group to retire earlier since many are working now only for the insurance coverage until Medicare kicks in.


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New Monopoly Piece

The best thing I've seen about the quest for a new Monopoly piece.

"From Too Much Coffee Man". link here:

ny_1422.jpg (600×456):


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Drug Laws

Two posts that appeared close together in Indiana news this morning.

Addiction to opiates fuels flood of heroin | The Journal Gazette:

State: Pain med abuse ‘epidemic’

Heroin use is on the rise because prescription opiates like oxycotin are gateway drugs. A couple of quotes from one of the two links above.

"With prescription drugs as a gateway, heroin has been making a resurgence around the country," 

A Study "showed a clear link between the rise in the use of prescription drugs and that of heroin."

Prescription drugs also account for more a higher percentage of patients seeking treatment for drug issues. Twice the rate of heroin.




However at least one network is saying that yes they are seeing more Opiate abuse but its not Heroin that's the problem, It the prescription type.

,.. have not seen more patients needing care because of heroin use. However, the number of patients testing positive for opiates, not necessarily heroin, jumped 25 percent from 2011 to 2012, according to Lutheran spokesman Geoff Thomas.

But,....

Heroin will stay illegal because,... well,..... because it's ....."dangerous", and,..... "illegal", and will ruin your kids lives.

The prescription Opiates, which are a bigger problem at this time, will stay legal. We'll just try to regulate those.

Of course pot will stay illegal because,... well,..... because it's ....."dangerous", and,..... "illegal", and will ruin your kids lives.

In reality, Heroin and pot will stay illegal because they don't have a lobby as powerful as big-pharma.

Our drug laws suck..............

tnb

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Real American

BBC News - American Sniper author Chris Kyle shot dead in Texas:

Several things went through my head while reading this. First, it is tragic I feel for his family. Second, I'm sure it will trigger conspiracy rumors like the last couple of "Gun Guy" deaths but this stood out,....his quote

"Every person I killed I strongly believe that they were bad," he told the BBC in an interview a year ago. "When I do go face God there is going to be lots of things I will have to account for but killing any of those people is not one of them."

He was in their country, shooting at them, and he believed every one one of them was bad? He was part of an army that invaded their country, killed their people, and took their resources, all on basically trumped-up charges, and they were bad guys. I wonder what the British Red Coats thought when they were killing colonists during the Revolutionary war?

The scary thing is that I feel that most Americans, at least in my part of the country, feel the same way. "They" are bad or evil. It doesn't matter who "They" are or why were shooting at them. They are bad because,... well,... because we're shooting at them and "we're America god-dammit". We're good so they must be bad.

Americans believe we are in the right, all the time, every time, in every case. Fuck Yeah.....

That is a "Real Umerican".

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