Some Grateful Dead...
If a man among you
Got no sin upon his hand
Let him cast a stone at me
For playing in the band
Playing
Playing in the band
Daybreak
Daybreak on the land
Playing
Playing in the band
Daybreak Daybreak on the land
I'm a Deadhead... sorta. By that I mean I have a LOT o' the Dead in the library but I never really followed them on tour. I DID attend their concerts back in the day when said concerts were within a couple o' hundred miles o' me, where ever I might have been. That means I drove a couple hunnert miles down to the Bay Area when I lived in southern Oregon, yadda, yadda. Today? We pulled Volume 11 of "Dick's Picks" out of the archive and settled back with a couple o' brewskis and a Kuba Kuba to enjoy the sultry afternoon zephyrs. And we thought a bit...
Which brings us to this: why in the Hell can't we get a candidate for President of these United States who answers the mail for ALL of our issues, and not just some? Ron Paul is prolly the poster child for this sorta sentiment, in that I really LOVE his Economic Plan but get off the bus when it comes to his Libertarian isolationism. By that I mean THIS makes a lot o' sense:
Cuts $1 trillion in spending during the first year of Ron Paul’s presidency, eliminating five cabinet departments (Energy, HUD, Commerce, Interior, and Education), abolishing the Transportation Security Administration and returning responsibility for security to private property owners, abolishing corporate subsidies, stopping foreign aid, ending foreign wars, and returning most other spending to 2006 levels.
But then he screws the proverbial pooch by sayin' shit like this:
Avoid long and expensive land wars that bankrupt our country by using constitutional means to capture or kill terrorist leaders who helped attack the U.S. and continue to plot further attacks.
[...]
Follow the Constitution by asking Congress to declare war before one is waged.
These things, on the face of it, sound entirely reasonable until one examines them in the context o' Rep. Paul's further comments, such as taking issue with the killing of al-Awlaki. I won't deny that there are "issues" there and I've linked to discussions about such in the past. And then there's the matter of "sound money" (a return to the gold standard? As if...) and all that Federal Reserve bullshit. Those sorts o' things sound unhinged, to be polite about it.
The same goes for the sole Libertarian candidate in the race... Former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson. Some o' his stuff resonates with me, like ending the monstrously stupid "War On Drugs." Stuff like this:
First up, Johnson said, would be an executive order removing marijuana from schedule I (the category containing the most highly addictive and harmful drugs). "Because I would be controlling the federal agencies, including the DEA," Johnson said, "I would do everything I can to defang the DEA." Later in the conversation, Johnson was asked if he would issue an executive order pardoning non-violent marijuana offenders. Johnson acknowledged that the U.S. had pardoned nonviolent violators of the Volstead act after the repeal of prohibition, and said, "I think that same thing is called for with legalizing marijuana."
He called the DOJ letter ordering dispensaries to shut down "Obama's letter," because "the president of the United States controls all the agencies and the attorney general is appointed by the president of the United States." And that despite the coming crackdown, "We have a to celebrate this week with a poll that came out saying that 50 percent of Americans now support legalizing marijuana. We can say now we’re on equal footing with those who argue for the status quo."
That makes sense and Johnson is one of the very few politicians who has the guts to come right out and say it. But like Rep. Paul, Johnson screws the pooch with his neo-isolationist bullshit and his opportunistic visit with the OWS asshats, among other thangs.
