Kort Explores conundrums of the human condition

How important is your ability to think clearly? Most people take their mental functions for granted, never having experienced a time when they weren't readily available - except perhaps when intoxicated. It's possible to at least partially imagine the effects of various physical handicaps. You can close your eyes and grope around in the dark to get a hint of what it must be like to be blind. You can plug your ears and get a hint of what it must be like to be deaf. But thinking about what life would be like without the ability to think becomes a circular conundrum.

There are a few potentially useful measures of the importance we put on mental functions. Consider Stephen Hawking and the late Christopher Reeve. The loss of the use of the rest of their bodies didn't stop their brains from continuing to participate in and contribute to human society. The fact that the bulk of their physical bodies were for all practical purposes moribund, didn't mean that the person inside was dead. But even with an otherwise perfectly functioning body, a diagnosis of "brain dead" marks the point where we consider the person to no longer exist.

Loss of high level mental functions is the threshold condition for withdrawing medical care in most living wills. Many people fear losing the ability to think more than physical pain. There are many terrible illnesses that cause great pain and suffering. But one of the most traumatic diseases for both the afflicted and those around him is Alzheimer's, which doesn't cause physical pain.

There appears to be a general consensus that merely existing isn't enough to constitute a life worth living. For most of us, being conscious and aware, able to think and understand the world around us, is the essence of being alive.

Thinking has always been a risky exercise for me. In addition to the potential intellectual dangers of stumbling into dark places where madness lurks, in my case there is a malignant evil loose in the world that is actively trying to prohibit me from being able to think clearly. While this assessment may at first blush sound like the ravings of a paranoid, even paranoids can become the intended victims of evil. However, unlike a true paranoid, I have no illusions that my personal trauma is the specific objective of the evil that seeks to do me harm. I'm just "collateral damage" in a larger dynamic.

The medication that allows me to function is one of the least harmful and least toxic substances known to man - especially when administered with a vaporizer. But the insanity of drug prohibition has made every moment of clear thinking a potential felony punishable by more draconian penalties than cold blooded murder.

Consider the alternatives imposed on me by the prohibitionists - to be an intellectually functional outlaw, or an intellectually crippled lawful citizen. Given a choice between breaking arbitrary and irrational drug laws, or giving up the ability to think clearly, now many who have known the joys of thinking would willingly choose to deaden their minds, and abandon all hope of rational understanding of the world around them?

The prohibitionists continue to outright lie that the only medication that is effective for my condition has no medical value. These malicious individuals are quite willing for me to suffer any harm and hardship if it serves their unholy lust for power and prestige.

As I wrote in "Power and Purpose": "Power isn't yours unless you can abuse it. Those who use the power with which they have been entrusted, to accomplish the purposes of those who entrusted that power to them, make themselves the servants of the powerful. Only when an individual abuses power does the exercise of power become an extension of the individual. Only the powerful can abuse their power, and only by abusing their power can the powerful prove that they are powerful."

Using the power with which they have been entrusted, to bring the real enemies of freeman citizens to justice, would only provide these "public servants" with the satisfactions of performing their duties with honor and integrity. The violation of the fundamental rights of freemen citizens in the name of the war on some drugs and all of our rights, is an overt abuse of power that allows the prohibitionists to demonstrate that they are personally powerful. The greater the abominations they are able to impose on the rest of the population, the greater the proof of their personal power.

Can there be any greater evil than to willfully deny another the essentials of life itself, solely out of a venal lust for the power and prestige that results from such a gratuitous abuse of power? Yes there can be, and it is being perpetrated by the same evil that seeks to deny me the ability to think. That greater evil is the willful infliction of terrible physical agonies on the sick and dying. We loudly protest the use of torture on even our avowed enemies, and yet we continue to honor and respect those who routinely torture the sick and dying.

The medical profession has abandoned its Hippocratic oath, and its honored role as provider of compassionate care, and become an active accomplice of the prohibitionists. Those who falsely claim ownership of the health and medical care of America's citizens are rapidly degenerating into an abusive, exploitive enemy of the sick and suffering.

Consider the needless suffering inflicted on an acquaintance of mine with lung cancer that metastasized into terminal bone cancer. Her cancer had gotten to the point that she was in a lot of pain, and her doctors put her on a morphine injection pump. She needed so much morphine that she was basically a vegetable - she couldn't talk, think coherently, or understand what was going on around her. The "medically preferred" treatment provided by her "doctors" was directly inflicting even greater suffering and degradation of her quality of life during the terminal phase of her illness, than her cancer. They were artificially killing her mind even while her brain still possessed the ability to truly live out what little life remained to her.

A friend of mine stayed with her in order to give her large quantities of cannabis extracts. After only a couple of days the cannabis greatly reduced the amount of morphine required, allowing her to become a person again - aware of her surroundings, able to think and carry on a conversation. She decided she wanted to go to Texas to be with her family, but came back to Oregon after the "doctors" in Texas refused to "allow" effective treatment of her pain. They were far more interested in obstructing and restricting her access to an arbitrarily controlled substance than easing a dying patient's agonizing pain. In their lust to deprive her of any meaningful control over her own medication, they even withheld her "legally" prescribed morphine unless she came begging to them for each individual dosage. These sociopaths masquerading as "health care professionals" would have been right at home on Dr. Mengele's Auschwitz medical staff.

The needless agonizing pain suffered by this dying woman served no other purpose than to feed the egos, and confirm the arrogant power of the prohibitionists who arbitrarily denied her the means of easing her pain. This dying woman's suffering as a direct result of the willful obstruction of effective medication by these heartlessly cruel prohibitionists, was no different than if they'd personally tortured her with bloody knives and needles. Are the perpetrators of such abominations worthy of the honor and respect they currently enjoy? Or does the real world suffering directly caused by their practiced contempt for basic human decency earn them a place among the panoply of evil incarnate?

Does anyone really believe that the primary result of the war on some drugs and all of our rights has not been an escalating level of government violence against citizens? Is there anyone who hasn't seen videos of the paramilitary "dynamic entries" that have become the standard means of "interacting" with citizens for so many government agencies? Is there anyone who doesn't recognize that the "standard procedures" for "securing" places and people are nothing more than an armed assault that would be considered criminal acts if the perpetrators weren't immune to accountability because of their badges?

Remember that our nation was founded on the principle of "innocent until proven guilty". When the paramilitary storm troupers assault a private residence, they are by definition targeting citizens who have not been proven guilty of any crime by a jury of their peers. And yet, every action of the storm troopers is calculated to cause the greatest violence to the property and rights of the targeted citizen. Every aspect of our criminal justice system has been distorted into a means of intimidating and harassing the innocent into pleading guilty to crimes they didn't commit, out of the well founded fear of being falsely convicted of even greater crimes they didn't commit, in a rigged trial where truth, reason, and any rational concept of justice, are aggressively excluded.

Of course, in reality, due to their arrogant incompetence and callous disregard for such minor details as properly identifying their intended victim, and checking the street address of the residence they've decided to attack, the storm troopers quite often assault and even murder entirely innocent citizens. But then, who cares if a few innocent citizens are brutalized and murdered by gangs of government thugs, as long as the killers can fill the palaces of the ruling elite with blood drenched wealth seized with maximum violence from the terrorized peasantry.

Just what is the fundamental justification of drug prohibition in the first place? Is it to protect those who would otherwise harm themselves using drugs? Or is it to protect the rest of society from the actions of intoxicated individuals? The major negative effects of drug abuse on society are caused by prohibition, not the prohibited substances. Criminalizing the voluntary possession and use of substances can hardly be claimed to be for the "protection" of the individual user - except perhaps within the Viet Nam era logical perversion of destroying the village in order to save it.

Some drug war advocates claim that they have the right to prohibit all use of arbitrary substances by others in order to ensure that those others will act safely and properly in public spaces. But this extends a personal right into an infringement of the rights of others. In a free society, only those aspects of an individual's exercise of his personal freedom that infringe on the rights of others fall within the valid scope of coercive societal intervention. Society only has the right to impose arbitrary preemptive conditions on the self-contained behaviors of individuals if society possesses some degree of ownership of that individual.

In a free society, my right to restrict your freedom ends at the point where your actions no longer infringe on my rights. In shared public spaces I have only the right to expect you to act responsibly, and to make reasonable efforts to protect me from harm resulting from your actions. It doesn't matter to me whether you're stone cold sober, falling down drunk, angry at your boss, or distracted by your cell phone or other toys. Your actions only become a valid issue for me if you cause me harm.

If you cause me harm, I see no reason why the fact that you willingly ingested intoxicants, negligently operated you car while distracted, or had just been fighting with your lover and were looking for a surrogate victim, should in any way diminish your personal responsibility for the harm you have caused me. I'm just as dead if you ran me over because you were drunk, or were distracted trying to change the tape in your stereo while eating a burger and yelling at your feral offspring in the back seat. On that same basis, I'm just as unaffected by you driving by without running me over regardless of whatever chemicals are in your bloodstream or thoughts are in your head. As long as you don't cause me or anyone else harm, your biochemical condition is no one's business but your own.

As individuals, we each have the freedom to voice our personal opinions of the behaviors of those around us, and to adjust the nature of our personal interactions with other individuals based on whether we approve of those behaviors. Social pressures have historically been far more effective at regulating the nature of society than authoritarian sanctions. Restoring the value of personal honor and the respect of our peers would be a far more effective strategy for encouraging responsible behavior than putting a cop in every home. Not to mention a whole lot cheaper.

Where in the constitution is the clause specifically empowering the prohibitionists to use lethal armed paramilitary violence in order to infringe on the individual rights of free citizens to lawful medical treatment? The people of Oregon and other states have clearly and intentionally passed laws denying the prohibitionists their claimed "right" to torture and abuse the sick and dying. The prohibitionists in "our" federal government refuse to respect the laws passed by the citizens. Which law should free citizens respect? The one the citizens themselves created through the direct democracy of ballot initiatives, or the blatantly unconstitutional edicts of the armed criminals currently claiming to be the "lawful" federal government of America?

The courts have granted the police the "legal" right to intentionally lie to citizens, while even an unintentional misstatement by a citizen to a government agent becomes a justification for depriving a citizen of his liberty. Martha Stewart wasn't convicted of committing a "traditional" crime against other citizens - she was convicted of misleading government agents who were "investigating" false charges for which she was later exonerated.

Every sitting judge is guilty of participating in a criminal judicial conspiracy to deny citizen jurors their rightful powers and duties, in order to seize unconstitutional power and authority. Judges openly lie to jurors in every drug war trial about their right and duty to judge, by their own conscious, the fairness of the law as well as the guilt of the accused. How can a system based entirely on the principle of officially protected lying produce anything but the most perverted and corrupted outcomes?

It's the first right and duty of every freeman to resist unjust laws - and those who attempt to impose unjust laws on a free society. No law that violates the constitution or bill of rights is valid, and citizens have no obligation to respect such invalid laws. Those who attempt to enforce unjust laws are themselves committing fundamental crimes against the constitution and the nation.

Who are the real criminals here?