"The reality is not that I lack respect for the law; it’s that I have greater respect for justice. Where there is a conflict between the law and the higher moral code that we all share, my loyalty is to that higher moral code."
Tim DeChristopher, July 26, 2011
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A poll conducted by Elon University during the last week of February, 2013, found that up to 76% of North Carolinians support reforming our state cannabis laws.
It is my opinion that cannabis legalization may be the single most important issue facing our state and our nation today. No other issue addresses health, jobs, climate change, and human rights issues (to name but a few) as does the legalization of cannabis.
Why?
“One day we must ask the question, ‘Why are there forty million poor people in America?’ And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I’m simply saying that more and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society. We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life’s market place. But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. It means that questions must be raised. You see, my friends, when you deal with this, you begin to ask the question, ‘Who owns the oil?’ You begin to ask the question, ‘Who owns the iron ore?’ You begin to ask the question, ‘Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that is two thirds water?’ These are questions that must be asked.”
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Tag Archives: abuse of power
If Your Drone Comes Near My Home I Will Shoot It Down
Recently, and I don’t remember where, I questioned why anyone would need a rifle capable of hitting a target over a 1/4 mile away. Now I think I’ve found the reason. In less than three months, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will allow law enforcement agencies to operate drones in U.S. airspace, and by 2015, commercial drones will be permitted as well. More troublingly, the ink has hardly dried on the new FAA regulations and Pentagon officials are already pushing to fly … Continue reading
Build Your Drone Now Before They’re Banned
(Hat Tip to AZspot and Global Guerillas, where I stole this post, written by John Robb.) Francis Fukuyama isn’t your standard tech guy. He’s a policy guy at Stanford that writes hefty books on very philosophical topics. That’s why his detailed blog post on his efforts to build a surveillance drone are so cool. Here’s a little video of the test of his drone outside of his office at Stanford. Francis makes two simple observations that are worth repeating. Here’s the first one: “I … Continue reading
Know Your Rights: Employers Stealing Millions From US Workers
Perhaps the biggest shock I got while reading this is the part about Florida having no state department of labor. Seriously? But upon learning who made such a dastardly deed happen, one of the Bush Brothers, it’s really no surprise. Hat tip to the fine folks at the Institute for Southern Studies for bringing this to our attention. By Kathy Mulady, Equal Voice News Workers nationwide are losing millions of dollars each week to wage theft as their employers, some unscrupulous, … Continue reading
The Solution Is As Clear As The Nose On Your Face
Prison Nation: Slavery By Any Other Name
Here’s an interesting take on a recent article published in The New Yorker, on the subject of incarceration in the United States. It’s a commonly known fact that we imprison more of our population than any other nation on Earth, and there are plenty of theories out there as to why. Personally, I believe there are several reasons, not the least among them access to extremely cheap labor for public works projects. It’s far less expensive to lock a man … Continue reading
Americans: Fiddling While The Whole World Burns
Some 17,000 children die every day from hunger-related diseases. That’s the finding of a UN report prepared some time ago by Jean Ziegler, a UN specialist on hunger. I was going to title this post something like ‘Starvation is a Weapon of Economic Mass Destruction’, but the more I think about the article I read that prompted that thought, and the relationship of that information to some other things I’ve been reading lately, the more I realize that headline doesn’t go … Continue reading
No Trial, No Conviction, Just Two Years In Solitary Hell
This makes me very angry. Everyday it’s like there’s just one more incident of people – especially people who are supposed to be public servants and protectors of the weak – behaving like animals. We throw people in jails and let them rot away their lives for next to nothing (DWI is not next to nothing, but not worth 2 years in solitary). We’re willing to give up our basic human and civil rights in order to punish people we … Continue reading →