Hoping For Better Ways, Signing Up

I SIGNED THREE PETITIONS TODAY, a personal record. Petitions are one of the greatest inventions of the human kind, a real backbone for democracy. Anytime anyone has the opportunity to sign a petition, go for it, no matter what the thing is all about. Signing any petition at all is a way to express your citizenship, to ensure that your voice, at least on paper, is heard. The lady sat at a table in front of the public library, with three petitions, and I was glad to sign them all. One would allow two or three casinos to commence operating in my heretofore casino free state, probably under highly regulated circumstances. Another would legalize marijuana for medical purposes in my small conservative state, and the third petition would limit attorneys fees in tort cases. Quite a trio for one day. All important issues, involving fundamental American values, such as freedom. Reprehensible and destructive an activity as gambling may be, enforcing prohibitions against it are of highly limited effectiveness and enforce-ability, and limit a person's freedom to use money. Most states have lotteries: it seems unreasonable to prohibit other forms of gambling. Finally, at long last, we are beginning to understand and explain the positive medical benefits of marijuana, and there are many. Eventually this wonder drug will be perfectly legal with reasonable regulations all across the fruited plain of freedom's land. As Abraham Lincoln said: "prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason, in that it attempts to control a man's appetites through legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. Prohibition strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our nation was founded." Well spoken, Lincoln. Couldn't've said it better myself. The tort reform thing is a bit tricky, because there you're limiting a person's capacity to make a living, a slippery slope, but, hell, lawyers are after all lawyers, so who cares? A little financial sanity never hurt anyone. Maybe the day will arrive in America when we pay teachers millions of dollars, and entertainers make about fifty grand a year, however good they are at entertaining us. But don't hold your breath. Although the free market is demonstrably unreasonable, at times even insane, we Americans cling to it like an outdated religion, which, in a sense it is. Intelligent, logical economics, politics and religiosity remains an unfulfilled dream for the time being, a hope for mankind's future, but, we hope not too distant future.