Category: politics

The Case For Cannabis: Prohibition Does Not Serve The Good of Society

Cannabis prohibitionists have a fallback position when none of the usual rhetoric succeeds. It’s a vague appeal to some kind of “good of society”. This argument encompasses a variety of different sentiments, most of them fear-based. As this article will examine, this argument is no more true than any of the others.

At the time this article was being composed, it was in the news that a Dunedin man named Harley Brown had just been sentenced to two years and three months in prison for growing over a hundred cannabis plants. Meanwhile, another man named John-Boy Rakete had been sentenced, two weeks previously, to two years and two months in prison for bashing a man into a coma from which he is expected to never recover.

Imagine going to prison for growing a medicinal flower at the same time as a gang member who beat someone into a vegetable state, and seeing that gang member get out of prison before you. It sounds like something out of a Kafka novel, but it’s the reality of our current legal approach to cannabis. Can it fairly be argued that this arrangement serves the good of society?

It’s hard to see where the benefit to society is in this arrangement. Brown will be incarcerated at the cost of $100,000 per year, which is greater than the total value of the cannabis plants he had, even if this value is calculated using Police maths. As a result of his incarceration, a number of people will be made to suffer without the medicine they would otherwise have had.

How does this serve the good of society?

Rather than serving the good of society, prohibition puts us at each other’s throats. The friends and family of Harley Brown will probably have contempt for the system for the rest of their lives. Most people who compare the two cases above and their respective sentences will conclude that something is fundamentally rotten with our justice system, which appears to dish out punishments with no consideration given to how much suffering the perpetrator may have caused.

The good of society is served by alleviating the suffering of the people in that society. Education is a public good because ignorance causes suffering. Healthcare is a public good because disease causes suffering. Infrastructure is a public good because mobility restrictions cause suffering. Anything that is genuinely a public good alleviates suffering somewhere.

Prohibition serves no such good. As has been demonstrated in the previous chapters of this book, it doesn’t prevent suffering, but, to the contrary, it causes suffering. There is no social good served by arresting people who aren’t harming any one. Neither is any good served by imprisoning these people. Least of all is any good served by lying about how cannabis causes harm to the community.

The ultimate reason why cannabis prohibition does not serve the good of society is that the people will never accept not being allowed to use cannabis. The people will always intuitively feel that they have the right to use cannabis, because it alleviates suffering, because it’s a social tonic and because it can connect people to God. Because of this, prohibition can only ever cause conflict between the people and those tasked with enforcing it.

The idea that people will eventually “come to their senses”, realise that cannabis is a dangerous drug, and stop using it, is nonsense. Cannabis prohibitionists have gone all-in on this puritanical delusion, and they have lost. It’s time to admit that reality does not reflect the idea that cannabis is dangerous, or that the harms of cannabis are in any way ameliorated by making it illegal.

The good of society is best served by honesty. Honesty is one of the most fundamental virtues, because it’s only through honest discussion that we can come to see the world accurately. Without being able to see the world accurately, we will make mistakes that lead to conflict.

This honesty would cause us to have a look at Colorado, where they legalised cannabis in 2012. In Colorado, none of the terrible things that the prohibitionists predicted came to pass. There wasn’t an outbreak of violence or other crimes, there wasn’t an epidemic of cannabis addiction and it didn’t become easier for young people to get. Everything continued the same as normal, only there was much more money on account of it no longer being wasted on enforcing prohibition.

Legalisation would serve the good of society much better than prohibition. A system of legal cannabis would not only increase social cohesion by removing one of the major wedges that drives us apart, but it would also increase the respect that the average person has for the Police, the Justice System and the Government. Not least of all, it would save us a ton of money.

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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 There Room For A Nationalist Green Party In New Zealand?

The Green Party of New Zealand, like the other Green parties of the West, is so closely associated with globalism that the two seem inseparable. This, however, doesn’t mean that environmentalist movements are necessarily globalist. In fact, as Dan McGlashan will examine in this article, a nationalist environmentalist movement might get even more support than a globalist one.

The Green parties of the West have grown to occupy a permanent place on the far left of the political spectrum. In New Zealand, the Green Party supports the current Government and is polling at around 5 to 6%. Incredibly however, the Greens in Germany – where the environmentalist movement began in earnest – are now the highest polling party. They could well climb from their current 26%.

There is one striking paradox about the Greens: despite being, on average, considerably wealthier than the average Kiwi, they claim to represent the poor and disadvantaged. The correlation between median personal income and voting for the Green Party in 2017 was 0.36, not that much less than for the National Party (0.49). Despite this, most of their rhetoric is aimed at helping the disadvantaged.

The poor who they claim to represent are not well served by the globalism that the Greens otherwise promote. Importing a great supply of cheap labour can only lead to the deterioration of working-class incomes, but the Greens flat-out deny this fact. The working-class individuals that the Greens claim to be representing, however, are well aware of the economic logic, which is why they are much more likely to vote New Zealand First.

The problem with all of the current Green movements in the West at the moment is that they are globalists. Many of them explicitly so. The logic is that the world’s environment is global, and environmental effects like pollution often cross borders. Because environmental problems are global, global solutions must be required. This means giving more power to, for example, the United Nations and its ancillary bodies.

The problem arises when the Green Party starts to forget whether globalism is a means to the end or the end itself. This can be seen when the New Zealand Greens introduce polices such as raising the refugee quota to 5,000. Such a policy can only bring great suffering to the New Zealand people, as evidenced by the results of similar policies in Europe.

It doesn’t make any sense, from an environmental perspective, to transport people from poor countries to rich ones, especially when those people are to live in the rich countries forever. That would entail that those people start consuming like people in rich countries do – great for the banks, terrible for the environment.

A more logical environmental perspective would reduce the refugee quota to zero. The $130 million this would save could then be used to grant tax-free status to the first $14,000 of every New Zealander’s income. Such a proposal would gain much more support from the working-class that the Greens claim to represent. However, a globalist Green party would never propose this.

If environmentalism is to continue to grow in support (as the current polling results from Germany suggest may happen), then the internal tensions within the Green movement might cause it to split. This would likely entail a split between the urban elites who form the core of the party loyalists (and who are much more likely to be globalists) and the working-class rural dweller who actually lives on the land (who are much more likely to be nationalists).

All of this suggests that there might be room in the electoral landscape for a nationalist environmentalist movement. Such a movement would be similar to that of the pre-existing Greens, but instead of being run by urbanites who place the emphasis on global solutions, it would be run by ruralites who would put the emphasis on local solutions.

This might involve focusing on local beautification programs, or revitalisation of threatened local ecologies. It might even involve collective labour efforts such as mass planting of trees. What it would mean more of is consultation with Kiwis and genuine grassroots movements, and what it would mean less of would be United Nations directives.

Any nationalist environmentalist movement would have to cope with being called Nazis by the globalist-controlled mainstream media. This would especially be true if they made the argument that opening the borders to the undeveloped world was a bad idea from an environmental perspective. It’s all but inevitable that the media would describe such concerns as a ruse to disguise racist sentiments.

However, there are ways around this.

Any nationalist environmentalist movement that would arise in New Zealand would have a high proportion of Maori support. The suggestion given above, to reduce the refugee quota to zero and make the first $14,000 of every Kiwi’s income tax-free, would benefit them heavily, on account of that a high proportion of Maoris are working-class. Their support would counter such accusations.

This hints at another point of divergence: a nationalist environmentalist movement might incorporate a return to native spirituality, celebrating Matariki and the solstices and equinoxes. This suggests an embrace of cannabis, because cannabis is a favourite not only of Kiwis but of the sort of Kiwi who cares about the environment.

They may have to go even further, and allow for the full-scale legalisation of psychedelics such as psilocybin and dimethyltryptamine. This would allow for a unique point of difference with the globalist environmentalist movement, because the United Nations is not at all interested in legalising psychedelics. It would also appeal to the rural voter who makes up a large part of such a movement’s likely target audience.

Environmentalist concerns will likely grow as the old unionism represented by the Labour Party continues to decline. If they become large enough in New Zealand, this will open up space for a nationalist environmentalist movement that appeals to those ignored by the globalism of the existing Green parties. Such a movement could become a major player in an age of mass refugee movements.

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Understanding New Zealand, by Dan McGlashan and published by VJM Publishing, is the comprehensive guide to the demographics and voting patterns of the New Zealand people. It is available on TradeMe (for Kiwis) and on Amazon (for international readers).

The Case For Cannabis: Prohibition Is Cruel

There are a lot of differing political philosophies in the world, and they disagree on a great many matters. The closest we’ve been able to get to a universally agreed-upon value is that the Government ought to act to minimise human suffering. This article will make the argument that prohibition ought to be relaxed because it is cruel.

Cruelty is a malicious disregard for the suffering of other sentient beings. It was cruel to perform electroshock therapy on people without their consent. It is cruel not to summon medical help when one encounters a person in distress. It was cruel to not allow homosexuals to express their genuine regard for each other. Cannabis prohibition falls into the same category.

Some people will argue that not being allowed to use cannabis doesn’t constitute cruelty because it’s not really a big deal. There are many other things that we’re not allowed to do, so what does it matter if cannabis is another one of those things?

But that’s looking at it around the wrong way. People naturally live, and part of life is to explore what comes your way. People will naturally use cannabis, because others will offer it to them. Some of those people will find they really like it, perhaps even enough to use it daily. Punishing people for an act that they do naturally – especially when that act harms no-one – is an act of cruelty.

It’s cruel to cage a bird, or keep a cat inside, because it’s a violation of their natural instincts to be free. The natural instincts of a human being is to explore consciousness. Isn’t it, then, an act of cruelty to prevent them? Preventing a human from exploring their consciousness is as unnecessarily restrictive as keeping a cat or dog in a small cage for their whole life.

Forcing people to follow arbitrary laws and dictates is cruel, because it makes those people feel like they are of less value than those imposing the rules. Putting someone in a cage where they suffer intensely from being in close physical contact with extremely dangerous people, just because they don’t follow those arbitrary decrees, is beyond cruel. Yet, that is what our system does in the pursuit of enforcing cannabis prohibition.

Perhaps the worst cruelty is that done to the family members of those who are incarcerated for cannabis offences. For a family member who is relying on certain other members of their family for income or support, it seems almost egregious for the state to incarcerate those others on account of a cannabis offence.

It’s unlikely that many cannabis prohibitionists would like to explain to a small child how the supposed dangers of cannabis are so great that it necessitates putting their parent in jail. They would much rather prefer that social workers and Police officers explained that to the children of parents imprisoned for cannabis offences. This cowardice exposes that cannabis prohibition is underpinned by an absence of compassion.

Some people ought to think about what sort of world they want to live in, because the compassion or cruelty of the laws under which we live have an impact on whether people act to ameliorate each other’s suffering or not. The legal system, whether we like it or not, sets the standard for whether we are compassionate or harsh towards those who really crash out.

Passing a law that says a person has to go in a cage if they grow a medicinal plant sets a precedent for what the appropriate level of compassion in our society is. And it’s a low one. Locking people up for using medicinal flowers shows that we are a brutal people. It shows that even if a person can provide a fair reason for using a medicinal substance, the Government can just bulldoze through and imprison them anyway.

Some of the older prohibitionists might like to consider that they themselves will soon be in need of compassion, because their bodies will continue to decline towards death. In a person’s final few years, they are just as dependent on the goodwill of others as they are in their first few years. If one is old, therefore, it’s to one’s own benefit to normalise compassion and empathy.

Even if the argument is made that the point of the cannabis laws is to prevent suffering (by way of preventing addiction and mental illness), the reality is that there are hundreds of millions of cannabis users who are happy to tell you that their use of cannabis prevents suffering. It’s cruel not to listen to these people, to tell them that their claims of being helped by cannabis are delusions and that they should be in a cage for their own good.

Ultimately, this argument asserts that there’s enough cruelty in the world, and that we don’t need any more. Cannabis should be legalised because it’s cruel to punish people for using a medicinal flower that doesn’t harm anyone. This would contribute to a world with less suffering in it – something that we all benefit from.

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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.

Old Colonialism and New Colonialism

‘Colonialism’ is one of the dirtiest of dirty words nowadays, bringing to mind images of Belgian Congolese getting their hands chopped off for failing to meet the day’s rubber quota. The problem with this simple sentiment, as this essay will explore, is that colonialism is still going strong. We used to plunder the world for its natural capital – now we plunder the world for its human capital.

Back in the Age of Discovery, there were great riches to be had from despoiling the world of its reserves of gold and silver. There was the minor problem of the people who lived on top of these gold and silver reserves, but in most cases they could either be driven off the land or enslaved to help mine it.

This didn’t stop once we ran out of gold and silver – we simply switched to Africa and plundered them of diamonds, slaves, rubber, more gold, cocoa, coffee etc. By the end of World War II, and in the aftermath of this great slaughter, we had come to realise that this course of behaviour was wrong, and we were very sorry – or at least pretended to be.

Since about 1960, the economic equation of production had permanently changed. No longer were the fattest profits in raping developing countries of their natural resources. We had moved from manufacturing economies to service economies, and that meant the fattest profits were now in raping developing countries of their human resources. This we do through the immigration system, and it’s the new colonialism.

It costs a lot of money, time and effort to raise a small child to the point where they can make a meaningful economic contribution to society. From kindergarten to the end of a Bachelor’s degree is usually 16 years of education, and for a professional degree even more than this. Every year requires, at a minimum, teachers and school infrastructure. The total cost is inevitably in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

With the new form of colonialism, we don’t send troops to developing countries and force the locals to build mines and collect rubber. As mentioned above, human capital is now more valuable than natural capital. Instead, we just let the developing countries stagnate – or cause them to – making it much harder for them to keep hold of the talented individuals who naturally arise among the population. Then the capital comes to us.

Proof that the new colonialism is no less nasty than the old comes from observing the actions that the West takes to cause those developing countries to stagnate. It’s common for Western countries to offer massive “loans” to developing countries, supposedly out of goodwill. Inevitably, the loan money gets stolen by local elites, and the country remains indebted with no way to pay the loans back. The Western countries who offered the loans then try to bargain this debt for influence.

In other words, developing countries are now enslaved by debts instead of by force of arms. Chains of iron have simply been replaced with chains of silver. One of the men who was employed to do this, a John Perkins, described his occupation as “Economic Hit Man“. This enslavement naturally leads to those with the greatest human capital trying to escape so as to get the best return.

When they do escape (usually to the West), they bring their human capital with them, depriving their home nations of the benefits of it. They also grant the West all the benefits of that human capital, despite that the West paid nothing to produce it.

Of course, it is spun as if we are generously granting rights to these unusually productive people. The propaganda tells a story of draconian immigration restrictions holding these people back from being able to make a real contribution to the world, and that we’re doing a great and moral thing by allowing them to emigrate and to work in the West.

The reality is that the nations of the West are impoverishing the developing world by sucking out its human capital. This means that the developing world now lacks the human capital that it needs to develop its own means of production and become wealthy themselves. This locks them in a vicious cycle of poverty.

Ironically, the West usually ends up getting a two-for-one deal from all this. Because we take in the most productive people from these countries, they are often left without the engineers, physicists and chemists that they need to develop their own natural resources. As a consequence, those resources often sit undeveloped until a Western company comes in to exploit them.

Desmond Morris makes an extremely insightful point in The Human Zoo. He writes that the moral values of any time and in any place are always dictated by the ruling classes to serve their own interests. In every time and place, the people tend to believe that their moral values are an expression of themselves, or the result of some process of moral development, but this is an illusion.

Many of today’s moral values have, likewise, been forced on us to suit the wishes of the ruling class, the new colonialists.

The reason why we are being encouraged to accept diversity is not because we realised that it’s the morally correct thing to do. It’s because accepting diversity makes divesting the developing world of its prime human capital a smoother process. There’s no need for blackbirding when you can induce the labour to voluntarily emigrate to the West instead.

Colonialism never went away – it simply changed form. In the same way that slavery still lives on in the private prison system and in people being paid less than they can live on for a full day’s work, so too does colonialism live on, in the rape of the human resources of the developing world. Much like colonialism was in the 19th century, this new colonialism is spun to us as being the morally correct thing to do. The lie is exposed by the fact that the new colonialists are the same people as the old ones.

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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.