Archive for May 5th, 2009
So Why Do Cops Keep Talking About Medical Cannabis?
It’s hard to imagine that anyone in Minnesota still believes that the cops are a credible source of information regarding SF 97 and HF 292 — the state’s pending medical marijuana measures.
After all, it was only a few weeks ago when state lawmakers and the local media‘outed’ law enforcement for continually lying about the bills during their public testimony.
Nevertheless, in the interest of ‘balance’ (and I use that term euphemistically here), state newspapers apparently feel the need to give these tainted folks a platform to spew their lies and propaganda — even though it appears that no one aside fromGov. Tim Pawlenty is listening.
Of course, it’s arguable that by giving law enforcement a forum, editors are actually, if inadvertently, promoting marijuana law reform. After all, the prejudice, fabrications, and misplaced logic exhibited by those who favor prohibition clearly does more to undermine the policy than NORML could ever hope to.
A case in point. Writing in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, local sheriff Richard Stanek goes off on a tirade about marijuana. But if one reads between the lines, it becomes readily obvious (to anyone but the sheriff), that his gripe is really with cannabis prohibition.
Lighten up on marijuana?
By RICHARD W. STANEK… The connection between marijuana and violent crime should not be underestimated. The violence related to marijuana isn’t a result of the effects on the user but rather stems from the money people can make selling and growing the drug. Violence is part of the trade. By legalizing marijuana-growing operations and drug traffic, we would invite violence into our communities.
… We should never lose focus on the immediate connection between guns, gangs, kids and drugs — and marijuana is frequently the connection. I have been in law enforcement for 25 years and have seen this firsthand. When I was captain of the Criminal Investigations Division with the Minneapolis Police Department, we investigated a case involving a man from out-of-state who tried to buy marijuana for personal use. He unwittingly approached a gang-connected dealer. The man was shot and killed so gang members could keep his money and the marijuana.
Read about any gang-related violence surrounding the sale of alcohol lately? How about vicodin or paxil? Didn’t think so. The irony, of course, is that the very ramifications that Sheriff Stanek claims to lament are, in fact, direct consequences of the public policy he reflexively endorses.
Of course, Sheriff Stanek isn’t alone is his twisted thinking (another euphemism). In a pro/con piece published today in the Rochester Post-Bulletin, Dennis J. Flaherty, executive director and chief lobbyist of the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, also predictably plays the ‘violence’ card (among others).
The facts are that marijuana is a drug that is associated with violent crimes such as robberies and assaults. Many have and will resort to almost anything to get their hands on it.
And here I thought cops believed that pot smoking made people unmotivated.
The cop lobbyist goes on to make a number of other false accusations as well. You are free to read them here. (Have a strong anti-emetic handy.)
Fortunately, despite this deluge of deliberately false information, most Minnesota politicians — former sheriff and current Senator Bill Ingebrigtsen notwithstanding — are voting on the side of truth. Will Gov. Pawlenty do likewise? If you live in Minnesota, now might be a good time to ask him.
PS: Think that Minnesota is the only state whose cops blatently lie about medical marijuana? Think again!
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
American talk show host Michael Savage has been banned from entering the UK by the Home Secretary because of his political opinions and opposition to illegal immigration, which is considered “hate speech” in airstrip one.
“Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said she decided to make public the names so others could better understand what sort of behaviour Britain was not prepared to tolerate,” according to an ITN report.
The list of 16 “unwelcome” individuals includes Neo-Nazis, former Ku Klux Klan members, racist skinhead groups and Islamic preachers supposedly linked to terrorist groups.
Alongside these appears the name of Savage, who is a conservative talk show host in the mould of Rush Limbaugh who has consistently opposed illegal immigration and the declining stature of U.S. sovereignty.
“Coming to this country is a privilege. If you can’t live by the rules that we live by, the standards and the values that we live by, we should exclude you from this country and, what’s more, now we will make public those people that we have excluded,” said Smith.
Apparently the ‘rules that people live by’ in the UK do not include the right to free speech and political opinions considered unpalatable by what whistleblowers have described as a “Stalinist cabal of control freaks” currently in power in Britain.
As we have previously reported, people are mandated by government threats, peer pressure and cultural bullying to “tolerate” all kinds of minority groups and for the most part we do exactly that. The problem lies in the fact that the very same crowd that preaches “tolerance” is totally intolerant of anyone who dares utter a word against them.
The government in the UK defines “tolerance” as being banned from uttering a negative word against any minority group, and hate speech laws have codified the illegality of expressing an opinion which may be considered “offensive” to a minority.
Decrees of political correctness and the doctrines of illiberal mind control, which fronts as being liberally progressive when it is in fact fascistic, have swamped Europe to the point whereChristian ministers are being arrested for reading Bible passages. It is also an illegal offence in Britain to criticize homosexuality. Television presenter Robin Page was arrested by police after he said in a speech that farmers should enjoy the same rights as Muslims and gays. Police traveled from 200 miles away to question Page, before detaining him in a prison cell with dried feces on the wall and later charging him with incitement to racial hatred.
- In 2001, Gloucestershire Police set up ‘Operation Napkin’ in which senior police officers were sent to ‘ethnic restaurants’ to eat four-course dinners and at the same time listen out for “racist hate speech.” Arrests were made as a result of the program.
- In January 2006 a student who called a mounted policeman’s horse “gay” was arrested under section 5 of the Public Order Act for making homophobic remarks and taken to court.
- Also in 2006, a 14-year-old school girl was arrested in Manchester England for making a “racist comment,” after she refused to work with a group of Asians during a science tutorial because none of them spoke English.
- Reports of “hate crime raids” where PC subversives are rounded up like terrorists by police are commonplace in the UK.
- In the U.S., members of the Repent America organization were arrested and criminally charged, with prosecutors attempting to secure 47-year prison sentences, for the crime of reading Bible passages on the street during Philadelphia’s 2004 “Outfest” gay pride march.
It seems that the only remaining sectors of society it is permissible to lambaste or make fun of is pedophiles and Christians – question any other minority, sexuality, race, gender or religion and the thought police are on your back in an instant. The sheep herd the rest of the sheep and no one is allowed to step outside of the pen.
New hate speech laws are now being passed in the United States – such legislation masquerades as being for the purpose of protecting minorities when in reality it is solely aimed at crushing the free speech of all citizens.
Though we have fundamentally disagreed with several of Michael Savage’s views in the past, the fact that he has been banned from entering the UK, a country that poses as a haven of free speech, once again proves that free speech considered politically incorrect by the government has been all but outlawed.
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