philosophy – Page 96

The Case For Cannabis: It Doesn’t Matter That Substance Abusers Use Cannabis

Some people are hesitant to support cannabis law reform because they don’t want to make it easier for substance abusers to destroy themselves. Their fear is that legal cannabis will simply provide another substance for substance abusers to get wasted on. This article will explain why cannabis prohibition is not the best way to deal with those fears.

Like many of the arguments against cannabis law reform, this one is mostly based on a misconception of the psychology of cannabis users, and of substance abusers in general. It could be called the Trainspotting myth, because some people believe that the trajectory of cannabis use proceeds much like heroin use does in the film based on the eponymous Irvine Welsh book.

The fear is that legal cannabis will simply provide another way for degenerates to destroy themselves, and so why should the Government facilitate this? The fewer legal drugs available, the fewer easily-accessible avenues for self-destruction. Better to keep cannabis illegal to persuade people to go straight.

The sort of moraliser that makes arguments like this is generally not the same kind of person that hangs out with actual heavy substance users. As such, they don’t understand the psychology of them. Almost no-one goes from living a completely clean life to misusing any drug just because they “got addicted”.

The reason why people become substance addicts is usually because they have untreated mental illnesses, and this leads to a much stronger sense of enjoyment from the feeling of being drunk/stoned/wasted. The more unpleasant one’s thoughts, the more pleasant to escape from them. Therefore, it’s not so much the drug that leads to the abuse but the way the mind and brain are wired.

There are cases where people are substance abusers, and it may be that, for some of these people, legal cannabis means that they abuse more cannabis than they would have done if it was illegal. If this means that they avoid abusing worse drugs, then this is a good thing. All things being equal, it’s better for a person to use cannabis every day than to use several of the drugs listed in the image at the top of this page.

There’s no guarantee that any individual cannabis user is going to smoke cannabis until they die. Plenty of cannabis users, even heavy ones, get sick of smoking it and move on to other things. After all, although cannabis can be great fun, it can also get boring, much like alcohol and women and loud music and all the other things that people like to indulge in for a while.

So it’s better for them to get their fix on a drug that they are going to survive than on one that is going to kill them. Let them get their kicks on something that’s not going to do any long-term damage. It’s much, much better for people to use cannabis – and to perhaps need a few weeks to come back to normal – than to use something that will permanently change their brain chemistry.

An intelligent approach to cannabis law reform would put the emphasis on harm minimisation. If a person is honestly concerned about the total damage and suffering that a substance abuser might cause themselves, then a regime of regulated, legal cannabis would lead to less harm, for a variety of reasons.

Substance abusers are much more likely to get help from mental health professionals if their substance is legal. This fact has been clearly demonstrated by the willingness of patients to talk to their doctors about their alcohol or tobacco use compared to their willingness to talk about their methamphetamine use. If a substance is illegal there is a lot of fear associated with it.

Legal cannabis would make it easier for actual substance abusers – the sort who are destroying their lives – to trust their doctors or drug counsellors. This would make them more likely to take advice to either quit, or, if necessary, to go on a treatment program such as one that tapers off cannabis.

Legal cannabis would also make it possible for accurate and honest educational campaigns to exist. Right now, there’s no reason for any cannabis user to believe anything the Government says about the substance, because everyone knows they lie about it. So if the Government gave intelligent advice about protecting the lungs, it may not be heeded.

This article is an excerpt from The Case For Cannabis Law Reform, compiled by Vince McLeod and due for release by VJM Publishing in the summer of 2018/19.

The Empire vs. The Nations

All throughout history, there has been a neverending struggle between two implacably opposed forces. Much like good and evil themselves, human history has been characterised by an eternal struggle between an Empire that sought to conquer the world and the Nations that sought to resist. This essay elucidates.

Much as the Sun beats down from above, its rays bringing order to the Earth that receives them, so too does the Empire impose itself from above, onto the Nations that form from below.

On the world stage, the Empire is the force that seeks to subjugate all the nations. It is based around the idea of central rule, where a single leader imposes a code of laws on its subjects. The Nations are those who rise up from the soil and who self-organise based on natural similarities between members of a wider kin group.

On one level, the words democracy and republic means the same thing. But they reflect different perceptions. Democracy means rule of the masses, deriving from demos, which means people, and -cracy, which means form of rule. Republic also means rule of the masses. The difference is that democracy is a national concept, whereas republicanism is an imperial one.

The concept of democracy, in a Greek sense, is easy to understand if one if familiar with Aristotle’s Politics. In the same way that the head of a family makes decisions of behalf of their family, who gives them power, so does a chieftain make decisions on behalf of their village, a baron on behalf of his county, and a king on behalf of his nation. This is all good and well, but the bottom-up structure of every nation clashes with the top-down system imposed by the Empire.

This conflict between top-down and bottom-up systems can be seen all throughout history. In a sense, it doesn’t really matter what or where the Empire is, or whether it’s Roman, Mongol, British or American. At the centre of the Empire is the one who wields the Spear of Destiny, for they are the one who directs the course of this Empire, and the course of Empire reflects them and their will.

The two are fated to clash because the morals of the two systems are entirely different.

The moral virtues of the Empire are all about expedience. The Empire cares about control and profit. Its basic inclination is to expand. Enjoyment of life comes from glory and domination. The Empire believes that it has a moral blueprint that can serve for all human life, and therefore they’re doing the Nations (i.e. the barbarians) a favour by subjugating them. The Empire has no problem with the Big Lie.

By contrast, the moral virtues of the Nations are the same moral virtues that allow one to thrive in a state of Nature. The Nations care about the physical and mental health and strength of their peoples. Their basic inclination is to remain the same, and to enjoy life, which comes from interaction with people and places that they love, and from being at peace with God.

Alchemically speaking, it could be said that the Empire was of iron and silver while the Nations were of clay and gold. The Empire values cheap labour, willing mercenaries and the kind of science that builds artillery, battleships and railroads. The Nations value good sex, good food, being healthy and a direct spiritual connection to God and the Great Fractal.

In most cases, the desires of the Empire and the Nations are the same. Both want peace. Both want order. In most cases, they also agree on how to achieve this. Both the Empire and the Nations strive to keep their citizens fed and entertained. Their approach is, however, entirely different.

The Empire believes the state of Nature to be a state of war, and consequently declares it a good thing that the Empire imposes order. The greatest motivation of the Nations is to resist the impositions of Empire and to live a life in accordance with Nature, which they believe to be a state of peace until disturbed by Empire.

Because of this difference in approach, certain political issues cause great tensions.

Open borders seems like a great idea for the Empire, because it allows them to import cheap labour en masse to any territory they desire. If a Caribbean island starts a sugar plantation, the Empire can’t wait to import 10,000 Africans to work it. The Nations, however, hate open borders, because open borders means the destruction of all national, regional and local solidarity and culture.

The question of open borders has divided our societies into imperialists who want to import capital and workers as fast as possible, and who are pro-immigration, and nationalists who want to emphasise bonds of solidarity between kin and neighbours, and who are anti-immigration. Both sides declare the other evil, accusing one of being soulless money-worshippers and the other of being narrow-minded bigots.

The matter of religion and spirituality also causes great conflict. The desire of the Empire is to have a “Holy Land” that all of its children look to, and a single religious template into which all spiritual inquiry must be forced. The Nations, however, tend to resist this centralisation. The spirituality of the Nations tends to revolve around great local men who have achieved gnosis by discovering or developing a particular methodology.

The religion of the Empire is that which inspires them to conquer and to impose their order; the spirituality of the Nations is what which inspires them to resist and to tell the truth in the face of expedient lies. In our iteration of the world, societies are split between imperialists who usually support some form of Abrahamism, and nationalists who are more interested in direct gnosis and local traditions.

In many of the great issues of today, it’s possible to see that, fundamentally, these issues have arisen because of the conflict between the Empire and the Nations. Where it really gets tricky is that this conflict, much as the conflict between good and evil, runs through every human heart.

There are two types of people, therefore: children of the Empire, and children of the Nations. If you are a child of the Empire you probably speak English as a native language. You probably feel most at home in universities and airports. If you are a child of the Nations you might speak anything as a native language. You don’t feel home in places but in one particular place.

New Zealanders, like all children of the Empire, have a unique dilemma. The vast majority of us are raised speaking English, the Empire’s language. As such, we have a very weak national identity. Many New Zealanders are perfectly happy moving to Sydney or London and working there. There is almost no culture shock when one moves from one part of the Empire to another, but the economic opportunities may be many times greater, and so the pull is extremely strong.

Over the past century, however, a nationalist sentiment has slowly risen. This was first inspired as a reaction to the indifference with which Empire administrators treated the well-being of our soldiers in World War One. After Gallipoli and Passchendaele we came to understand that being children of the Empire was to be so much cannon fodder. Self-rule was the only way to have the requisite dignity.

Therefore, many of us suffer from divided loyalties. A line runs through the hearts of many New Zealanders: do they choose the Empire side, and emphasise the great wealth and economic opportunity that comes with being a native English speaker with an Anglosphere passport, or do they choose the Kiwi side, and emphasise loyalty with their neighbours and region?

If you enjoyed reading this essay, you can get a compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2018 from Amazon for Kindle or Amazon for CreateSpace (for international readers), or TradeMe (for Kiwis). A compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2017 is also available.

The Case For Cannabis: Legalisation Would Not Increase Drugged Driving Deaths

The resistance that many people have towards cannabis law reform is fear based. Like a panicky chicken, the prospect of any change at all is met with terror. One of the fears that people have at the thought of cannabis legalisation is that it will lead to carnage on our roads. As this article will examine, these fears are misguided.

As with many of the misgivings that people have about cannabis law reform, the fear of an increase in drugged driving deaths is based on a misconception about how dangerous cannabis is. This is partially based on ignorance, and partially based on the idea that being high on cannabis is like being drunk on alcohol.

The idea seems to be that perfectly otherwise normal people will smoke some cannabis and, because cannabis makes you go crazy, they will get in a car and drive like a crazy person. This perception has been stoked by sensationalist media reporting involving headlines such as “Stoned driver faces jail” when the driver in question had also been smoking methamphetamine.

The idea that cannabis legalisation will lead to more road deaths is not accurate for three major reasons.

The first is that it ignores the substitution effect (for the sake of argument, let’s agree here with the lazy assumption that legal cannabis will lead to more use). An individual driving under the influence of cannabis might not be as safe as a sober person. But evidence from elsewhere shows that, if cannabis was legalised, a proportion of incidents of drunk driving will be replaced with incidents of stoned driving, which are safer.

Research has shown that rates of alcohol use fall in places where recreational cannabis is made legal. This is because cannabis and alcohol serve as substitutes to a large extent. Because rates of alcohol use fall after cannabis legalisation, rates of drunk driving also fall, and this means that traffic fatalities also fall – significantly.

It’s better for a driver to be sober, but if they aren’t going to be sober, it’s better for them to be stoned than to be drunk. It’s a grim calculus, but if legalising cannabis would lead to twenty extra drugged driving deaths but would prevent fifty drunk driving deaths, it would be a worthwhile move.

The second is that the actual science is inconclusive as to whether being stoned impairs driving safety. Various studies have provided contradictory results. The lazy assumption is that being under the influence of any psychoactive drug, including cannabis, will make a person worse at driving. The reality is that stoned drivers take a variety of measures to reduce their risk of crashing.

Part of the problem is that unregulated cannabis contains a great variety of various cannabinoids, and these cannabinoids can be present at a great variety of frequencies. Studies appear to be clear that high doses of THC impair driver safety, which follows logically from the fact that THC is known to have a psychotogenic effect, but there is no such evidence suggesting the same about high doses of CBD.

It also appears to be true that, unlike alcohol, cannabis tolerance has an effect on whether it impairs driving performance. For many cannabis users, cannabis is merely a background substance that quietens distracting thoughts. All these reasons mean that, although no responsible person would advocate driving after using cannabis, a person who has just smoked it is not necessarily unsafe to drive.

The third is that it is irrelevant. Like with many arguments against cannabis law reform, focus on the specifics misses the bigger picture.

Not everyone trusts the Government when it says that cannabis is a substance that isn’t safe to drive on. As the linked articles above demonstrate, there are indeed instances when a person who has consumed cannabis is not safe to drive. But why would a person trust a Government public safety notice on the subject, when they have previously lied about cannabis full stop?

Over recent decades, governments all over the world have denied that cannabis was medicinal. But because people all over the world knew that it was medicinal, the end result has been decreased trust of governmental pronouncements, particularly when they relate to cannabis. So if the a government would give the perfectly reasonable advice to avoid driving within two hours of smoking, it might well be ignored.

If cannabis was legal, and if the Government spoke to the public honestly about it instead of lying, users might trust them when giving intelligent and prudent advice about smoking cannabis and driving. This would save many more lives in the long run than could possibly be saved by putting cannabis growers and users in prison.

The idea that cannabis legalisation will lead to a spate of fatal traffic accidents is fearmongering. It’s the same kind of fearmongering that claimed that legalising homosexuality would lead to everyone dying of AIDS. The experience of overseas territories that have legalised cannabis shows that these fears are little more than hysteria.

This article is an excerpt from The Case For Cannabis Law Reform, compiled by Vince McLeod and due for release by VJM Publishing in the summer of 2018/19.

Is New Zealand Now A Tyranny?

In the Greco-Roman world, tyranny was defined as a form of government in which the rulers were unrestrained by laws. If the rulers are unrestrained by laws, then they are capable of inflicting any amount of cruelty upon the people, without there being any obvious way to stop them. This is widely agreed to be a terrible and evil form of government. This essay asks: is New Zealand now a tyranny?

One of the clearest examples of a tyranny is the presence of arbitrary and seemingly random punishments. New Zealand man Philip Arps is facing 14 years imprisonment for sharing a video of the Christchurch mosque shootings last month, on the grounds that the video was “objectionable content”. This is an incredible potential punishment if one consider the seven years imprisonment that Myron Robert Alf Felise got earlier this year for punching teenager Eli Holtz to death.

If New Zealand would bring in a 14-year maximum sentence for common assault or petty theft, it would be an obvious case of tyrannical overreach. So how can it be possible for them to introduce equally as severe a punishment for an action that did not harm anyone? It seems especially bizarre if one considers that New Zealanders are sharing and viewing videos of murderous terror attacks every day, but none of these are likewise criminalised.

A second example of tyrannical behaviour is the numerous laws and actions carried out by the New Zealand Government without the consent of the people, or even in cases when the people had explicitly withdrawn their consent. A current and ongoing example of these is the campaign of harassment currently being conducted by the New Zealand Police against anyone thought to be right-wing.

There are several anecdotal reports on social media about people having Police officers come to their house, often without warrants, in order to intimidate them and to gather intelligence (and one hilarious recording of such by New Zealand alt-media legend Vinny Eastwood). According to these reports, Police officers are demanding information about other right-wing people, and demanding to know if people are racists or if they supported Branton Tarrant.

One of the worst examples was what happened to Adam Holland in Queenstown (see image at top of article). Holland had two airguns and a crossbow removed from his possession on the grounds that Inspector Olaf Jensen had personally decreed Holland was “not a fit and proper person to be in possession” of such, and that “Police hold serious concerns regarding [Holland’s] mental and emotional wellbeing”.

Police officers have zero psychological education to justify any serious concern about anyone else’s wellbeing, and their whimsy is nowhere near a sufficient basis to remove possessions from a private citizen who has not used them in commission of a crime. What sort of country strips citizens of possessions on the basis of one Police officer’s judgment? How long until they take machetes and kitchen knives away?

Holland’s experience is just a further example of a process that started before the Sixth Labour Government. The Fifth National Government was happy to sell national assets, despite a referendum that explicitly declared the public unwillingness to do so, and all recent Governments have refused to acknowledge the clear public desire for cannabis law reform.

If a clear and direct expression of the public does not constrain our rulers, then what does?

A third example is the ongoing free speech violations. Justice Minister Andrew Little currently has a giant warboner over the possibility of introducing so-called “hate speech” laws, in which criticism of certain power structures becomes a criminal offence. As has been seen in Austria, where a woman was given a criminal conviction for saying that Muhammad was a pedophile, hate speech laws soon lead to the criminalisation of dissent.

The Government hasn’t started stripping our rights to speak away quite yet, because they are currently in the process of sounding out how much they think they can get away with, but the process of using propaganda to soften public resistance to such tyrannical laws is in full swing. The mainstream media is busy acclimatising the public to no longer being allowed to speak freely.

The really frightening thing is that such laws directly violate Section 14 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, which guarantee New Zealanders the right to impart opinions of any kind in any form. If the Government is not bound by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act when taking our rights to speak away, what are they bound by? And if they are bound by nothing, as appears to be the case, then how are they any different to the literal definition of tyranny?

A fourth example is given in the image above. The Spinoff regularly runs articles attacking the enemies of the Government and making apologies for unpopular Government actions (although rarely are they so blatant as in the example above). The worrying thing is, as they admit on their company page, The Spinoff “works with NZ on Air and Creative New Zealand to fund our work” – in other words, they take Government cash to produce propaganda.

When the Government works hand-in-hand with the free press to create propaganda pieces, you don’t have a free press. In fact, the need for an authoritarian government to totally control the narrative was even mentioned by Josef Goebbels in his Principles of Propaganda. So the Government funding a media enterprise that pretends to be independent, but which in reality attacks enemies of the Government and propagandises for Government policies, is something fully in line with tyrannical Nazi principles.

The only way New Zealand can get out of this is to come together as individuals, ignoring the government, and to decide on a set of our rights that are inviolable and which must be respected by anyone who wishes to rule us. A starting point could be the essay published here expounding a seven-fold conception of inherent human rights. If all Kiwis agreed that every other Kiwi possessed such rights, we would be free of tyrannical measures.

If this doesn’t work then we’re left with anarcho-homicidalism.