Everybody Does It

How ironic that the tragic death of singer Whitney Houston, at the age of 48, should have occurred on the eve of the Grammy Awards.   She joins a heavenly chorus of singers and entertainers who pushed the envelope, attained fame, and also abused drugs and alcohol.  They were everybodies who became somebodies and died ignomoniously - nobodies.

Bix Beiderbecke was a jazz pianist and self-taught cornetist, a contemporary of Louis Armstrong’s, who drank himself to death at the age of 28 in 1931.  Judy Garland died at the age of 47, a year younger than Houston.  Janis Joplin, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley.  More recently, Amy Winehouse.  The cemeteries are full of stars who fell in their prime, as immortalized for their untimely deaths as for their talent.

Yet the fight to legalize drugs, particularly marijuana, goes apace.  The legalization battle is supported by everyone from George Soros to the Cato Institute, and even Brian Sack, on GBTV.  The titters from Sack’s audience as his guest described his illustrious career imbibing in and sanctioning the use of pot was more alarming than the ridiculous performance.  Could this man see himself?  He was the very caricature of why pot should not be legalized and what happens to someone who makes a career of it.

The argument itself is framed as a joke.  It’s totally harmless.  Look at how funny this guy was.  What a dope!  Tee-hee.  What a dopehead!  Tee-hee.  Calm down, relax, be cool; it isn’t hurting anyone.  Millions of people, particularly black people, are being jailed for nothing.

Rapper LL Cool, in commemorating Whitney Houston, made a plea for the legalization of drugs.  If only they’d been legalized, she’d be alive today.  Wait.  What?!  Houston had more than enough access to every drug imaginable.  She was one of those ultra-rich people who, if not above the law, easily find their way around it.  Michael Jackson is Exhibit A.  The problem isn’t that they didn’t have access to drugs; they had all too much access to drugs.

Pot isn’t addictive, experts claim.  But it is an hallucinogenic drug.  It makes you believe things that aren’t true.  It makes you think things are okay when they aren’t.  Pot is also the ultimate collective drug.  Just about every other drug in the known universe must be done individually. If you walk into a club, you can make the decision whether to pick up that glass of whiskey, or inject yourself with heroin or what not.

Smoking pot, however, is a collective act, a “shared” experience.  You have no say in the matter once the thing is lit up, except to leave.  Authorities right now are in quandary because they want to ban cigarette smoking, but allow marijuana smoking.  Cigarette smokers are a mighty unwelcome bunch.  But don’t worry about the pot smoke because once you inhale it, even second-hand, it won’t bother you anymore.  Tee hee.

Pot promulgators boast that their ambition is to get the whole world “high.”  No doubt.  Then we’ll all be of one mind.  No one will ever disagree.  No one will even think to disagree again.  They’ll just laugh it off.  If you don’t think so, just look at what sheep we have become about issues such as gay marriage, nationalized health care, and the ultimate nationalization of every industry in the country.  “Public-Private Partnerships?  Duh, what are they, man?”  “Uh – huh-huh, I dunno.  Let the politicians worry about it.  Here, have another toke.”

Not every pot user is so goofy as that Poster Boy for Pot on Brian Sack’s show.  But practically everyone under the age of 65 – the Baby Boomers - has done it now and while the effects are more subtle, they’re telling.  Standing up for what is right – traditional marriage and family, personal responsibility, hard work, saving your money instead of spending it all – are social faux pas; politically incorrect.  Don’t offend anyone.  Don’t say anything critical of Obama.  After all, he seems like a nice guy (and boss, I’ve heard that from many people, so don’t take it personally).

Pot is all about weakening individual resolve.  Pot may or may not be addictive, but peer pressure is.  Marijuana just helps the peer group along to undermine individual thought and initiative.  That’s why they call it the gateway drug; it was useful to drug dealers in getting their customers hooked on the stronger, more expensive addictive drugs.

The stuff plays on the ego, pretty much the way alcohol does.  “It doesn’t affect me; I can stop anytime I want to.”  Only, you’d have to drink half the bar away to get the same effect taking one whiff of that organic poison has on someone.  Some say it’s similar to the stuff in the American Indians’ peace pipes.  Except that we’re not exactly loin-clothed savages whipped up into a frenzy to scalp each other when the war is already over.

To the Liberals, we are savages, though.  Individualists who love their freedom and would ordinarily balk at the notion of collectivism.  They started passing out the peace pipe back in the Progressive Era back in the early Thirties to win over the young and avenge themselves on the West for the Opium Wars of the 17^th Century that decimated China.  Ask them (especially after they take a puff two) – they’ll be happy to tell you.

The real savages are the drug dealers making a fortune from fools.  They can well afford to buy off politicians and front pro-legalization, and kill anyone who gets in their way.  The ultimate goal is the institutionalization of this miserable drug.

People back in the 18^th Century were perfectly okay with slavery.  They saw nothing wrong with it and rationalized the practice by saying that the blacks were culturally and genetically inferior.  Who would buy such an argument today (other than some extreme, right-wing knuckle draggers)?  They even laughed and tittered about it.  Blackface routines, a scourge today, were extremely popular on the vaudeville circuit in the 19^th Century.

How was that idiot pothead cajoling Sack’s audience different from the Minstrels of the Victorian Era?  Whitney Houston admitted to being a party girl.  In fact, a pre-Grammy Awards party was going on in the hotel where she died, as she died.  She went on from pot to bigger things, just as she went from singing in her New Jersey choir to the Big Time.  Drinking and doing that stuff ruined a marvelous voice.

Most singers like Houston have what is called “Perfect Pitch.”  It means they can tell – and name – one note from another just by hearing it.  The drug and alcohol abuse corrupted that perfect pitch, and in her death, she has become the “Perfect Pitch” for banning drug use and cautioning against alcohol abuse.  No one should be laughing about pot today.