Random Thoughts (Political Edition)

Dear world,

I'm tired of people making legal issues about morality (gay marriage, the legalization of marijuana, etc).

Your morality is not "correct" because there is no absolute morality. People tend to believe that their choices are right and correct, but that does not mean that they are inherently moral. Morality simply refers to a set of values and ideals, what makes one choice moral and another immoral is simply the value system upon which the choice is based.

Legalizing marijuana or gay marriage would do no more to cause the downfall of society than the legalization of alcohol or tobacco. It would no more cause widespread debauchery than allowing men to look upon a woman's face, allowing women to drive a car, work or vote. It won't cause the downfall of justice and peace any more than making the "mercy killings" of rape victims illegal.

Every single one of these acts is considered "moral" today in some part of the world and "immoral" in another part.

So everyone, please knock it the fuck off and start thinking about things logically.

Thanks,
Blind_Io
 
This was a response on Walter E Williams Facebook page, in regards to how America is slowly giving up liberties:

First it was the republican George Bush, and then it came for the democrat Barack Obama, to attest to the disbelieving voters as how a government without public officials faithful to the Constitution makes for a citizenry reined by an... autocratic president and bullied by an oppressive democrat or republican bureaucracy.
We The People do not matter any more. Our unalienable rights are an idle hope.
Karl Marx?s spell has become true for Americans.

The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them?
-- Karl Marx

Notwithstanding, the Founding Documents written in a profound way to stop tyrannical forces from ascending to positions of power. However, they foreknew some corrupt men would get pass the voters, hence; the Supreme Law of the Land would be there, to guard against tyrannical legislation.
However, the Founder's worst fears for the Republic have materialized.
The executive branch of the Government has become a dictatorial position with autocratic powers to bribe for illicit budgets, and circumvent the responsibility of congress with the appointment of czars; and with the power to issue executive orders, which is a presidential authoritarian malpractice, probably conceived by a tyrant.
We as voters failed to keep our eyes on the prize: the Constitution.
Our allegiance somehow changed from the Constitutional Republic, to an addictive codependency for a peculiar party identity.
For years voters have taken the collective personality of a conservative republican or a liberal democrat; which meant forfeiting intellectual individuality and surrendering our unalienable rights to a particular political party.
We gave up our American Citizenship, to become a republican or a democrat tumor inside the Republic.
Some have settled for the liberal democrats who take their loyal sheep to a bureaucratic slaughterhouse; others have settled for the conse...rvative republicans, which keep their Nationalistic flock in a constant unconstitutional intervention session.
To the Independently minded voter, and I do not mean Independents like the senator from Vermont Bernie Sanders, who is a declared Saul Alinsky Communist or like Senator Joseph Lieberman from Connecticut who is a progressive voting machine, or as his republican fellow conspirator Juan McCain. I am angry and preoccupied just like you by this Patriotic election. However, when I read comments on Facebook from people that have awakened from the two party system traumatic betrayals; I feel Liberty has gained a foothold in someone's heart and that the Founders have recruited another voter for the cause.
I want a bureaucrat that loves his country as much as he loves his children. I want a political office holder that is meticulous about balancing his checking account and wants to do the same for ours. I want someone in congress that loves this nation more than his job and exposes wrongdoing... And I want to start now by electing candidates who are humbled by the original intent of the Constitution.
Let us not vote as a collective for conservative republicans or progressive democrats; but pledge our indivisible allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Constitutional Republic for which it stands. To be confirmed as American citizens fighting for the Principles of Federalism.
 
So everyone, please knock it the fuck off and start thinking about things logically.

As you know it is substantially more complicated that you described it. People have been legislating on morality for literally thousands of years. And while it all may sound silly when this legislation is about drugs or something like that when it comes to a subject like Sati, or widow burning, then it becomes more complicated. Here is a quote from Charles James Napier, the British Army's Commander-in-Chief in India during the mid nineteenth century.

You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.

As I assume you are not in favor of Sati then does that mean we should only legislate on morality in certain situations? Perhaps when only personal rights are at stake? People who do not agree with legislation on morality seem to assume that all share the same overall sense of morality. No killing, no stealing, etc. That is a mistake. That sense of morality is not a constant.
 
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Well said Blind.
I think people who aim to impose their ?morals? on me are acting immorally. I have no wish to impose mine on them.

* * *

Also, Politicians and the media have got themselves in a bit of a froth about this:
BBC News ? Air freight from Yemen and Somalia banned.
Both seem somewhat vexed that nobody told them how the airfreight system works.

* * *

.. and Happy mid-term Voting Day America, let sanity prevail.
:thumbup:
 
Of course you agree with imposing morals on others. Especially if the behavior you are trying to suppress interferes with yourself in some way.
 
As you know it is substantially more complicated that you described it. People have been legislating on morality for literally thousands of years. And while it all may sound silly when this legislation is about drugs or something like that when it comes to a subject like Sati, or widow burning, then it becomes more complicated. Here is a quote from Charles James Napier, the British Army's Commander-in-Chief in India during the mid nineteenth century.



As I assume you are not in favor of Sati then does that mean we should only legislate on morality in certain situations? Perhaps when only personal rights are at stake? People who do not agree with legislation on morality seem to assume that all share the same overall sense of morality. No killing, no stealing, etc. That is a mistake. That sense of morality is not a constant.

I see what you are saying, but you can take morality out of the equation and still find plenty of logical reasons to condemn killing and stealing.
 
Of course you agree with imposing morals on others. Especially if the behavior you are trying to suppress interferes with yourself in some way.

I have yet for someone to explain how gay marriage or legalizing marijuana adversely affects me in any way.

Driving while under the influence? People do that now with pot and alcohol and we already have laws against impaired driving for both legal and illegal substances.
Gay marriage? I'm not gay, but someone else marrying another man or another woman doesn't bother me or affect my relationship in any way.

These are a bit different than stoning a woman to death or burning a widow, don't you think?
 
These are a bit different than stoning a woman to death or burning a widow, don't you think?

It is a smaller leap than you would think. Those who speak out against the legalization of marijuana often warn of more deaths due to people "being high". Those against gay marriage often speak of the "breakdown of civilization". The validity of those two viewpoints does not matter. What does matter is that they believe them. For them it is not just marriage or a drug. It is life and death, civilization and chaos.
 
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And Ike believed that the gays were a communist plot to make the west weak. Doesn't make it less bonkers.
 
The problem with the "red scare" was that there indeed was a kernel of truth in their fears. Unlike the United States during the post war period the Soviets were on top of their game when it came to espionage and the funding of communist organizations around the world. That was one of the reasons they were able to build the bomb so quickly. Here is a recent article I found:

A Fresh View of Cold War America
4-26-10
By Ron Radosh

Ron Radosh is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at The Hudson Institute, and a Professor Emeritus of History at the City University of New York. This piece originally appeared at Minding the Campus on April 22.

Teaching in the universities about the so-called McCarthy era has become an area most susceptible to politically correct and one-sided views of what the period was all about. One historian who strenuously objects to the accepted left-wing interpretation that prevails in the academy is Jennifer Delton, Chairman of the Department of History at Skidmore College.

In the March issue of The Journal of the Historical Society Delton writes:

However fiercely historians disagree about the merits of American Communism, they almost universally agree that the post-World War II Red scare signified a rightward turn in American politics. The consensus is that an exaggerated, irrational fear of communism, bolstered by a few spectacular spy cases, created an atmosphere of persecution and hysteria that was exploited and fanned by conservative opportunists such as Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy. This hysteria suppressed rival ideologies and curtailed the New Deal, leading to a resurgence of conservative ideas and corporate influence in government. We may add detail and nuance to this story, but this, basically, is what we tell our students and ourselves about post-World War II anti-Communism, also known as McCarthyism. It is fundamentally the same story that liberals have told since Whittaker Chambers accused Alger Hiss of being a Communist spy in 1948.

This conventional narrative of the left has been told over and over for so many years that it has all but become the established truth to most Americans. It was exemplified in a best-selling book of the late 1970's, David Caute's The Great Fear, and from the most quoted one from the recent past, Ellen Schrecker's Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America. My favorite title is one written by the late Cedric Belfrage, The American Inquisition 1945-1960: A Profile of the "McCarthy Era." In his book, Belfrage told the story of how he, an independent journalist who founded the fellow-traveling weekly The National Guardian, was hounded by the authorities and finally deported home to Britain. American concerns about Soviet espionage, he argued, were simply paranoia.

The problem with Belfrage's account was that once the Venona files began to be released in 1995--the once top secret Soviet decrypts of communications between Moscow Center and its US agents---they revealed that Belfrage was a paid KGB operative, just as the anti-Communist liberal Sidney Hook had openly charged decades ago, and as turned KGB spy Elizabeth Bentley had privately informed the FBI in 1945. The Venona cables revealed that Belfrage had given the KGB an OSS report received by British intelligence concerning the anti-Communist Yugoslav resistance in the 1940's as well as documents about the British government's position during the war on opening a second front in Europe. It showed that Belfrage had offered the Soviets to establish secret contact with them if he was stationed in London.

Facts like these did not bother or budge the academic establishment. Most famously, Ellen Schrecker wrote in her book that although it is now clear many Communists in America had spied for the Soviets, they did not do any real harm to the country, and also most importantly, their motives were decent. She wrote, "As Communists, these people did not subscribe to traditional forms of patriotism; they were internationalists whose political allegiances transcended national boundaries. They thought they were 'building...a better world for the masses,' not betraying their country."

Schrecker's views were endorsed by former Nation publisher and editor Victor Navasky, who regularly in different articles argues that the Venona decrypts are either gossip or forgeries, irrelevant, or do not change his favored narrative that in the United States-- only McCarthyism was a threat. As Navasky wrote, Venona was simply an attempt "to enlarge post-cold war intelligence gathering capability at the expense of civil liberty." If spying indeed took place, it was "a lot of exchanges of information among people of good will, many of whom were Marxists, some of whom were Communists... and most of whom were patriots." As for those who argue against his view, they were trying to "argue that, in effect, McCarthy and Co. were right all along."

The lens through which McCarthyism has been seen, therefore, is one seen exclusively through the left-wing prism, which regards defense of one's own democratic nation against a foreign foe as evil, and sees only testimony against America's enemies as McCarthyite. What is therefore necessary is to look anew at the McCarthy era, not in the terms set by its Communist opponents, but from the perspective of examining dispassionately the nature of the entire epoch. Those who have chosen to do this, however, have been met with great opposition. A few years ago, the editors of The New York Times claimed that a new group of scholars "would like to rewrite the historical verdict on Senator McCarthy and McCarthyism." Fearing such a development, the newspaper warned that it had to be acknowledged that it was McCarthyism more than Soviet espionage or Communist infiltration that was "a lethal threat to American democracy."

If one disagreed with that assessment, the Times' editors implied that such scholars were themselves closet McCarthyites. This became a common tactic. Most recently, John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr and Alexander Vassiliev published their definitive volume on the KGB in America, Spies:The Rise and Fall of the KGB In America. They made it quite clear in their book that McCarthy's "charges were... wildly off the mark. Very few of the people he accused appeared in KGB documents (or the Venona decryptions), and by the time he made his charges, almost all Soviet agents had been forced out of the government and Soviet intelligence networks were largely defunct." That disavowal did not help them. In the major review of their book that appeared in TLS, Amy Knight refers in passing to "the McCarthyite style of Haynes and Klehr." Evidently, any argument that American Communists who spied for the Soviets did some real damage and were not victims of repression, is enough to brand the authors as "McCarthyite."

If they accepted the failure of their old narrative that Delton summarizes so well, it would interfere with their cherished and still held view that all anti-Communism, as Schrecker wrote, "was misguided or worse," that the anti-Communist or Cold War liberals were just as bad as the McCarthyites of the Right, and in fact served them intelligence agents who identified Reds, and who "tapped into something dark and nasty in the human soul." If any harm took place "from Soviet-sponsored spies," she wrote, it was "dwarfed by McCarthy's wave of terror."

That is precisely why the new article by Jennifer Delton is of such importance. For the first time, a young historian at a major liberal arts institution has dared to challenge the consensus view, and to declare that it is time for mainstream historians to acknowledge that their old framework of studying the "McCarthy era" was both misleading and incorrect. As she says near the beginning of her article, "New evidence confirming the widespread existence of Soviet agents in the U.S. government makes the Truman administration's attempts to purge Communists from government agencies seem rational and appropriate---even too modest, given what we now know." (my emphasis)

That remark alone is quite different from the conventional analysis offered by historians of the period: that it should not be called the McCarthy Era, but the Truman era of repression, since it was Truman who paved the way for McCarthy's rise to power, by acting as if there was an actual Communist threat. Moreover, Delton continues to argue that even if the Communists were not among those who became actual KGB agents, whether in unions or political groups or in Hollywood, "there were still good reasons for liberals to expel Communists." Rather than accept the framework of the Popular Front so beloved by the Left and by left-wing historians, who continue to think workers and Americans could not make real progress unless liberals and Communists cooperated in the post-war era, Delton notes that the Communists "were divisive and disruptive," could cripple the groups they entered, and harm their very ability to attain their desired ends.

What Delton argues is that expulsion of the Communists actually enabled liberals to prosper politically and to have a political effect. She does not endorse all that went on, particularly the much documented violations of basic civil liberties. Rather, she writes "to challenge the entrenched and misleading characterization of post-World War II anti-Communism as hysterical and conservative." To do so, she writes, is to "ignore the real threat Communism represented…to the ascendant liberal political agenda."

Second, Delton takes on another mainstream argument of the left, displayed in a quote from historian Robert Griffith, who wrote "the left was in virtual eclipse and the distinction between liberals and conservatives became one of method and technique, not fundamental principle." To the contrary, Delton argues that the Left historians have distorted the period, by confusing their own failure to chart a radical path with one that actually triumphed, that of postwar liberalism. Liberal anti-Communism was not, she argues, a "self-protective, even cowardly response to the conservative version" of anti-Communism, but a necessary position for attaining liberal goals- that were quite different from the pro-Soviet agenda favored by the radicals.

Delton writes: "Liberals could only benefit from the disappearance of Communists, who disrupted their organizations, challenged their ideas, alienated potential allies, and invited conservative repression." This, precisely, is what a liberal leader of the Hollywood trade unions, Ronald Reagan, understood so well. Reagan came out of his stint in the armed services joining a fellow-travelers group, and quickly saw what the secret Communists had in mind for the union movement. Breaking ranks with them, he was among the first to challenge their hold in the actors and writers colony in Hollywood, which then had a strong activist Communist base. When he later testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities during the Hollywood investigation by the committee, Reagan stressed that he did not believe the Communists should be politically suppressed, because he understood the need for free speech. What he did oppose was their machinations that led to control of the various Hollywood guilds, and the tactics they used to keep control and to push out anti-Communists.

What Delton knew is what Reagan claimed at the time; that the Communists alienated those with whom they worked, made enemies easily, a development that "was due in large part to their participation in an international movement that was directed from Moscow." Just because Reagan said it then, or J. Edgar Hoover argued it too, does not mean that it was not in fact the absolute truth. The Communists worked, as Delton puts it, "to infiltrate and take over [liberal] organizations," so that they could then pass "resolutions upholding the party line positions." To put it more bluntly, in a phrase I'm certain Delton might shy away from, "The Red-baiters were right!"

Delton has written a lengthy and essential article that is a breakthrough in academia, especially in the history profession. She goes on to discuss the impact of the 1948 campaign of Henry Wallace for President, reveals the self-defeating tactics of the Communists that would have hurt their supposed union allies had they been adopted; the necessary fight of the liberals against "Soviet totalitarianism" which she correctly notes "subverted liberal ideals and aims;" and concludes that while the Communists were once only bothersome, by the dawn of Cold War they had become "poisonous."

Delton also praises the institution by the Truman administration in 1947 of the Loyalty-Security Program, which has become the number one example offered by leftist academics of Truman's supposed "McCarthyism." The Boards that were established kept from employment in the federal government any person who was a member of the Communist Party or its various front groups. When most academics teach about this, they damn them as a purge of citizens for their constitutionally protected civil liberties, "on the injustices that occurred" to people who lost their jobs or who were forced to resign, and as a major example of "unwarranted repression." Delton, to the contrary, says that one has to evaluate the program in light of what we now know to be true---"the existence of an underground arm of the CPUSA that had cooperated with Soviet intelligence agencies."

In other words, the Boards and the program Truman instituted were vital and necessary, even though in some cases- as with any program- abuses took place and some may have lost their jobs for scant reason. Her point that recent evidence- especially that established by Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes, has proved that "the Communist Party USA was involved in recruiting spies." This means that the conclusion reached by David Caute in his best-seller, that "there is no documentation of a direct connection between the American Communist Party and espionage during the entire postwar period" has to be thoroughly discarded. It should come as no surprise, however, that to many students being taught the era in their classes, the old discredited view is still being taught.

There are of course, problems that arise from Delton's analysis. What, for example, was the real contribution of conservative anti-Communists in the period? Did they all follow the foolish path of Joe McCarthy? We know that this is not true, and that Whitaker Chambers, for one, warned William F. Buckley Jr. in a well known letter that the conservative movement would be ill-advised to support and welcome the antics of the junior Senator from Wisconsin. Moreover, if liberalism gained in America as a result of the liberal success in purging the Communists from unions and the civil rights movement, does that mean that conservative programs might have stemmed the tide of liberalism in the post-war era had the Communists maintained the policy of a Popular Front?

Delton also raises the question of whether or not government programs against the Communists went far enough? After all, as she writes, the Communist Party may have been politically weak, but it still managed to infiltrate the highest ranks of government without being detected, and many who were actually spies, like the major atomic spy Ted Hall, were not arrested and indicted, and were able to remain free, even though the FBI knew of his and others' probable guilt from the secret Venona decrypts. Delton stresses that most historians "overemphasize the betrayal of democratic principles [in fighting the Communists] rather than helping students understand the need for and rationality of the government's repression of the Communist Party." This means, in effect, that left-wing historians in the academy teach in essence what the Communist position was in America of the 1950's---which is that they were no threat, and that those who claimed they had to be suppressed were "fascist" Red-baiters who sought to make America a proto-fascist state.

Thus in her revised introduction to the paperback edition of her book, Ellen Schrecker actually writes that even if Hiss was guilty--a judgment she now accepts -the really bad thing was that his guilt "gave credibility to the issue of Communists-in-government," as if there was no reason for that having credibility. As Delton firmly acknowledges, "the Republicans were right." Hiss was guilty; the blame for the fiasco lies with those who defended him, and if the Republicans exploited the foibles of liberals, she points out that "any party would have done the same." To attack Hiss' apologists, in other words, was hardly something that should have shocked anyone.

After a lengthy discussion of the union movement and Communism in Hollywood, Delton ends with these words: It is required "that we reevaluate our understanding of Cold War-era anti-Communism." As for the attitude of conservatives, she argues that it should be acknowledged that their anti-Communism was not born "out of fear or anxiety, but rather conviction about the wrongness of Communism based on principle and experience." Even conservative anti-Communists, then, were not all demagogues like Joe McCarthy. As she puts it. The achievements of liberal anticommunism need to "be recognized and perhaps even celebrated, not hidden, regretted, or equated with McCarthyism."

Her important article, then, is hopefully a bellwether for what hopefully may be a strong new wave of young scholars- -honest liberal historians as well as conservative historians- -who will begin to teach the truth about the anti-Communist period that took place in the early Cold War era. One must note, however, that her article appears in the journal of The Historical Society, a relatively young group created a decade or so back by Eugene D. Genovese, its founder, as an antidote to the staid and left-wing major historical societies.

I wonder what would have happened if Delton had submitted this paper to The Journal of American History, the publication of the Organization of American Historians, the main professional group that represents historians of the United States. That organization, and its journal, leans heavily towards what is politically correct---manuscripts loyal to the race, class and gender paradigm--and toward accepted leftist positions on issues like American anti-Communism. It would have been a major shift for them to have published anything comparable to Delton's manuscript. After all, this is the organization that ran uncritical and laudatory accolades to the late Communist Party historian Herbert Aptheker after his death, without publishing serious criticisms of his very biased and obsolete Stalinist methodology and assumptions.

At any rate, Delton deserves a major award for daring to break through the academic wall of blue that exists when the issue of postwar communism comes up in the classroom. I hope she is ready for the many nasty e-mails I suspect she will shortly receive.

http://hnn.us/articles/125833.html
 
No it was known that there were a large number of Communists in the US in the early 50s, especially in the media of the time.

McCarthy did not actually help clean matters up in the slightest and anyway this should have been down to the security services of the time. However the FBI was led by probably the most ineffective and corrupt US official of all time. You remember the bloke who told every one that there was no Mafia in the US - why do you think he said that when it was clearly wrong?

Many people spied for the USSR because they were being blackmailed over their sexuality - well if no one gave a stuff then they could not be blackmailed over that anyhow.
 
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That is the risk one runs when damaging the property of others.
 
It is a smaller leap than you would think. Those who speak out against the legalization of marijuana often warn of more deaths due to people "being high". Those against gay marriage often speak of the "breakdown of civilization". The validity of those two viewpoints does not matter. What does matter is that believe them. For them it is not just marriage or a drug. It is life and death, civilization and chaos.

In the case of the marijuana one, I can understand people being opposed to it, as they might not completely understand the exact effects, or marijuana smoke makes them utterly nauseous - actually marijuana smoke makes me extremely nauseous, I'm only for legalization with limits on smoking locations as a result, same as regular smoking.

But for the "breakdown of civilization" reason, that is not a valid reason. What does not matter is that people believe them, what matters is if they have genuine consequences for someone else.

Murder, someone's dead, very bad, should be illegal. Drunk driving, extremely dangerous, someone could be killed, very bad. Theft, someone loses their stuff, very bad. Hell, even tax evasion, government needs taxes to run, can't do necessary spending without, evading paying them is thus very bad.

Two men get married, then they live together and have a happy several years together. Nothing bad happens, nobody loses anything, nobody outside of the couple is affected.

If you look at an issue logically, the only reason for something to be illegal is if there is genuine, quantifiable harm to a second party. Morals do not enter into that.
 
In the case of the marijuana one, I can understand people being opposed to it, as they might not completely understand the exact effects, or marijuana smoke makes them utterly nauseous - actually marijuana smoke makes me extremely nauseous, I'm only for legalization with limits on smoking locations as a result, same as regular smoking.

But for the "breakdown of civilization" reason, that is not a valid reason. What does not matter is that people believe them, what matters is if they have genuine consequences for someone else.

Murder, someone's dead, very bad, should be illegal. Drunk driving, extremely dangerous, someone could be killed, very bad. Theft, someone loses their stuff, very bad. Hell, even tax evasion, government needs taxes to run, can't do necessary spending without, evading paying them is thus very bad.

Two men get married, then they live together and have a happy several years together. Nothing bad happens, nobody loses anything, nobody outside of the couple is affected.

If you look at an issue logically, the only reason for something to be illegal is if there is genuine, quantifiable harm to a second party. Morals do not enter into that.

What I was trying to say, but with more words.
 
It is a smaller leap than you would think. Those who speak out against the legalization of marijuana often warn of more deaths due to people "being high". Those against gay marriage often speak of the "breakdown of civilization". The validity of those two viewpoints does not matter. What does matter is that believe them. For them it is not just marriage or a drug. It is life and death, civilization and chaos.

Sorry, jetsetter, but there's a guy who believes that aliens are using his penis to broadcast antisemitic messages to Micky Mouse - that doesn't mean it's true. There's a whole group who think the world is flat, another that thinks it's a cube and a bucketload of whackjobs that believe aircraft vapor trails are actually the government spreading mind-control chemicals over the population.

For some reason we give equal time and credence to whackjobs - even when they are nuttier than squirrel turds.

As for the marijuana smoke argument: No Smoking laws are already in effect and would apply to marijuana as well as tobacco - also marijuana can be consumed in food or inhaled with the use of a vaporizer that keeps the product below the smoke point.


10 shots and only two hits? Go to the range.
 
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That's what I'm saying really, if it's legal keep it in the smoking areas. Totally don't give a shit about baking it into things, or vaporizers, just keep that freaking smoke away.
 
That is the risk one runs when damaging the property of others.

because egging the car justifies murder? You are really a reasonable person.
 
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