Our Nanny State

My husband has cancer, and so far chemo isn't helping.  I only bring that up because he has been dealing with pain for nearly two years.  Increasing doses of Oxycontin do nothing to alleviate the pain, only increase his dependence on Oxycontin.

He has been left, at age 76, to skulk around trying to find connections to procure weed in order to ease his pain.  And this pisses me off.  Our legislators, drinks in hand, are quick to point out that marijuana is too dangerous to allow us simple folk access.  Meanwhile, they whine about having to clean up the air we breathe and the water we drink, claiming that the polluters would suffer if forced to clean up our living space.

In defiance of the facts, we are encouraged -- encouraged -- to bring guns into bars, schools, pretty much anyplace except the state and US capitols that these idiots inhabit.  And because facts would prove the need for gun control, they pass laws preventing the collection of data about gun control.

On the other hand, they are concerned enough for our bad behavior that they allow cameras on every street corner and permit police to invade our houses in search of illegal poker games and, of course, medicinal marijuana.

Just as much psychotic legislating goes on regarding our health care:  laws that grant the government the right to monitor our decisions about our bodies, while denying health care to pregnant women and infants.  Death panels?  Not from Obamacare, but from our own legislators, the ones whose stated goal is to protect us from the evils of providing health care to all.

Here we are, listening to bullshit about freedom from the people who are attempting to limit our choices, curb our freedom to live in pursuit of life, liberty and as much freedom from pain as possible.  These are the people who are all too quick to make laws that deny us our rights while granting them to corporations.  Regulate the people, not the banks, or the pharmaceutical industry, or Monsanto, or the Kochs.

So why do they get elected?  In the beginning, this time around, in the 70's, our good lives had some setbacks, and the fearmongers turned us against ourselves.  They had been waiting for their moment, and it came, and so they preached the evils of unions, and regulation, and ungodliness.  And they found a teflon coated actor to lie to us, and the American people bought it.  Morning in America.

And as corporate America became more powerful, even those of us who knew they were wrong began to believe we could not win.  We stopped voting, we stopped fighting.  Our unions compromised themselves out of existence.  Our politicians leaned ever more to the right in order to not fall off the sinking ship.

You don't have to look too closely to see the hypocrisy.  On the one hand, control the individual, with the Patriot Act, with electronic spying, with laws that make our lives more dangerous and on the other hand pass laws that prohibit us from making decisions that would keep us safe.

Meanwhile, my husband would just like to be able to buy some grass so he can get a little rest from the pain.