Same-sex marriage and public acceptance of legal equality for LGBT folk has broken out of the beachhead phase; defenders of inequality have turned to erecting enclaves for discrimination like the failed “religious freedom” law in Arizona. Marijuana legalization is still in the beachhead phase. We’ll know it’s broken out when enclaves start being built against that. But redoubts almost never hold.
We need to stop this insanity. Drugs are bad, but the War on Drugs is far worse. We should repeal this Prohibition as we did the last one. It really is beyond sane debate. The War has accomplished nothing good, and made many bad things worse.
True, we have always known that the outside of any envelope we place in the mail can be seen. We have always known that the phone company had access to “pen register” information, and that the bits and bytes that make up our e-mails are “known” to the various providers transmitting them. But we also did expect that the keepers of the media would take no interest in our metadata, would in fact be bound by rules of confidentiality, and that they would not only safeguard the contents of the communications, but also, to the extent practical, the fact of the communications too. We certainly didn’t think that the metadata would be analyzed by a government agency.
Time to rid ourselves of some laws that block up the hallways of our national home and impede the country’s progress. I have three that I would suggest hauling away.
But by the same token when you hear expressions of longing like I Get A Kick Out of You and All Through the Night, you cannot be blind to the fact that the lyricist knew a thing or two about the emotional side of love as well. He knew about being in love when the object of your affections doesn’t reciprocate.