The "German Christian Church", with membership open only to Germans. Here's their version of an old favorite: (this is actually for real, oh thou skeptics)

"Silent night! Holy night!

All is calm, and all is bright

Only the Chancellor steadfast in fight

Watches o’er Germany by day and by night

Always caring for us.

Silent night! Holy night!

All is calm, and all is bright

Adolf Hitler is Germany’s wealth

Brings us greatness, favour and health

Oh give us Germans all power"

I'm glad we have a Commander in Chief making us safer!

You said: "And usually people are shot trying to leave. You are still free to go".

Try going to Canada if you are one of the over 800,000 people PER YEAR who are arrested for simple possession of Cannabis flowers. You will be turned back at the border to the tender mercies of the fascist "War on Drugs".

No country can be called free when it aggressively prohibits its citizens from growing and consuming, in the privacy of their own homes, cannabis medicine.

Who benefits from this evil prohibition? Corporate paymasters (big pharma, big pulp and paper, privatised law enforcement, privatised prisons), and the enforcement apparatus (police, jails, courts, prosecutors, parole officers). And the filthy liars in the ONDCP and the DEA, who use MY money to propagate oppressive lies, and persecute the sick and marginalized.

How many SWAT teams does it take to destroy the Constitution? How many TASERS does it take to neuter a free citizen?

How many non-violent "offenders" in jail does it take to cow the populace?

They're pushing the limits on ALL of these. To those who say we need to push back to prevent a police state, I say - TOO LATE - IT'S ALREADY HERE! It's just not uniformly applied. But the "War on DRUGS" has provided a useful dry run for the past 35 years, and allowed the apparatus of Fascism to be installed under our noses. WHo cares about a few ghetto brown men, or DFH's? We're all right with our Hummer, and fast food, and HD TV, and lower taxes! Yay!

We in the USA are in good shape for peak oil - the population per Sq Mile is low relative to the "old world", the people are reasonably well-educated and hard-working, and the land is good and fertile (despite our best efforts to pave, poison, and pollute it).

How does the world look with energy consumption 10% of today's?

IMHO, much like the thirties:

1) Only the wealthy have cars;

2) people who can grow their own vegetables are better off;

3) most people spend all their income on necessities - housing, food, clothing.

4) economies are local - oranges and bananas are luxuries, fresh vegetables are very expensive in winter, and manufacturing is also local.

5) Houses will be necessarily smaller and closer together and VERY energy-efficient.

6) everybody will be materially poorer.

7) There will still be a strong need for military defence - since over-populated areas like China will attempt to expand aggressively to feed their own people.

How is it different to the thirties?

1) Information is global - computer and internet technology will not go away. It consumes little energy, and ultimately will completely supplant TV.

2) It could well be a Golden Age - remember that the Greece that produced Euclid, Plato, Socrates, Alexander, and Sappho fought wars with spears and swords, and farmed with donkeys and muscle.

3) However, it could produce a nuclear winter and the end of the world that can support humans. But this will NOT be the end of life on the earth - only of this poor species that forgot that God-like abilities require regulation.

mine does not. My frustration and outrage is directed at corporatist authoritarian Amerika, not at your ideas.

Which ideas, more to the point, spark the discussion, and help us learn from one another.

And provide an entertaining pastime while I wait for my partner to be ready to hike out on a fine almost-spring day.

Tell me, why does Dick Cheney hate America so much?

Then the whole corrupt edifice of DC is comprised of America-haters.

Thanks for jumping in!

How can you say this? Humans have drugged themselves for thousands, and most likely tens of thousands, of years. Would you ban coffee? Aspirin? Xanax? Which "drugs" would you have America "be free of"?

The entire premise of your argument is false. So your conclusion: "Generally, I must assume that those who force the drug war meme into EVERY thread are simply those who seek, for selfish and nonsensical reasons, to gain official and widespread sanction for their personal failings (getting themselves hooked on drugs or seeking to constantly addle themselves on drugs)",/i>

is also insultingly false. Try reading my earlier post - and consider that an infinitely greater number of people die from prescription drugs than from cannabis. Infinitely greater since there is NO toxic dosage of cannabis - you could eat a pound of the stuff and not even get sick.

How is prohibition other than I argue - a purely fascist intrusion into the lives of free citizens. The War on Drugs has been the greatest destroyer of the Constitution in the past 35 years - Abusing the Interstate Commerce clause (how is a sick granny growing cannabis for her own use engaging in interstate commerce?), the right of persons to be free from unreasonable searches (have you peed in a cup recently?), the right of persons to be free from unjust seizures of their assets (police can seize "drug assets" on a suspicion, without a conviction), and so on.

You're entitled to your opinion about "hijacking" the thread. But IMHO, the excecution of the "war on drugs" is absolutely germane to the topic at hand.