Subject: Fw: [v-nv-mobilize] Only Dopes turn in their father
Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 17:26:47 +0100



----- Original Message -----
Subject: [v-nv-mobilize] Only Dopes turn in their father


> >
> > DOPE
> > by Dan Savage
> >
> > After a teenager in Covington, Washington, turned
> > his father in for
> > growing
> > marijuana, local TV news reporters and daily
> > newspapers fell all over
> > themselves calling him a hero. Was I the only
> > pot-smoking parent who
> > was
> > horrified?
> >
> >
> > KIRO 7 Eyewitness News reporter Karen O'Leary does
> > sanctimonious piety
> > better than anyone else in local television
> > news--and that's saying
> > something. As a group, TV news reporters excel at
> > sanctimonious piety,
> > especially when a story involves drugs. Last week
> > O'Leary, a.k.a. Our
> > Lady
> > of the Pursed Lips, reported on "a drug bust turned
> > into a family
> > affair."
> > Aaron Palmer of Covington, Washington, was turned in
> > to the police by
> > his
> > 17-year-old son for growing pot in his garage.
> >
> > "Neighbors say the kid is responsible and
> > hardworking, a member of
> > the ROTC
> > program," the scowling O'Leary intoned at the
> > beginning of KIRO's
> > coverage.
> > Palmer was arrested late Tuesday night, and O'Leary
> > was on the air
> > Thursday
> > with an exclusive interview with Trevor, "[who] told
> > me about his
> > gut-wrenching decision and the fallout from it."
> >
> > Cut to Trevor, the busted dad's clean-cut
> > 17-year-old son. Trevor
> > showed
> > O'Leary and her camera crew around his father's
> > garage, the spot
> > where his
> > father was allegedly growing pot.
> >
> > "It's messed-up," Trevor said, complaining about the
> > King County cops
> > who
> > busted his father, tearing his house apart in the
> > process. "They
> > trashed it
> > too thrashed."
> >
> > Apparently no one warned Trevor that cops called out
> > on a drug bust
> > don't
> > tiptoe through the grow room, or any other room in a
> > suspect's house.
> > Like
> > all kids his age in Covington, Trevor is likely to
> > be a "graduate" of
> > Drug
> > Awareness Resistance Education (DARE), a class
> > taught by smiling
> > uniformed
> > police officers. In DARE classes, cops tell kids
> > that marijuana
> > destroys
> > lives, people who smoke marijuana need help, and
> > cops are the good
> > guys who
> > can provide that help. DARE doesn't warn kids that
> > calling the police
> > on
> > their own parents--as DARE graduates all over the
> > country have done--
> > can
> > result in their homes being torn apart.
> >
> > Trevor shook his head and looked grim.
> >
> > "It was affecting his behavior. It was starting to
> > take over his
> > life,"
> > Trevor said, sounding like a DARE pamphlet.
> >
> > "One of Trevor's biggest concerns now," O'Leary
> > broke in, "is that he
> > knows
> > his dad will find out that he was the one who turned
> > him in. That's
> > because
> > the sheriff's department reported it in a press
> > release."
> >
> > "He's going to blame me," said Trevor, who does a
> > pretty good version
> > of
> > sanctimonious piety himself. "It's one of those
> > fatherhood things.
> > You want
> > your kids to look up to you, not turn you in."
> >
> > "A very strong young man," O'Leary said at the end
> > of her report.
> >
> > There's so much wrong with the story of the
> > Covington teenager who
> > turned in
> > his dad for growing pot that I hardly know where to
> > begin. O'Leary's
> > performance on KIRO seems as good a place as any to
> > start: People who
> > work
> > in mainstream media like to brag about their
> > objectivity, their fair
> > and
> > balanced reporting. Over here in the alternative
> > press, we get both
> > sides of
> > a story but we're allowed to take positions (repeal
> > the Teen Dance
> > Ordinance) and we're not afraid to grind our favored
> > axes (build the
> > monorail), unlike the men and women at daily papers
> > and on television
> > news
> > broadcasts who pride themselves on being objective
> > and balanced.
> >
> > Except when it comes to drugs.
> >
> > O'Leary's reporting on KIRO was a lot of
> > things--hysterical,
> > melodramatic,
> > sensationalistic--but balanced wasn't one of them.
> > The police said
> > Aaron
> > Palmer had "at least 40 plants," "bags of dried and
> > ready-to-sell
> > marijuana," and "scales to measure the crop."
> >
> > But Aaron Palmer's lawyer disputes the police
> > account. "Forty plants
> > is a
> > gross exaggeration of the actual number of plants
> > recovered or
> > seized," said
> > Lisa Podell, the criminal defense attorney
> > representing Aaron Palmer.
> > Also
> > missing from O'Leary's report was the reason why
> > Aaron Palmer was
> > growing
> > pot. "Mr. Palmer uses marijuana for medicinal
> > purposes," Podell told
> > me.
> > "He's got bad arthritis, knee problems, and back
> > problems." Palmer's
> > doctors
> > were aware that he was using marijuana to treat his
> > pain, according to
> > Podell. Also missing from O'Leary's report was the
> > fact that
> > Washington
> > state voters approved a medical marijuana initiative
> > in 1998.
> >
> > Confronted with a chilling account of a kid turning
> > in his own father
> > to the
> > police, KIRO, KING 5, KOMO, Q13, and both daily
> > papers stuck to the
> > drug war
> > script: People who use pot, very bad; people who
> > grow pot, even
> > worse. Aaron
> > Palmer, Drug Lord. His son Trevor, Brave Young Man.
> > If the cops say
> > it was a
> > commercial operation, it was a commercial operation.
> > If the police
> > praise a
> > teenager for turning in his parent, then turning in
> > your parents for
> > having
> > pot in the house is praiseworthy. The mainstream
> > media is terrified of
> > deviating from the drug war script, but is it too
> > much to ask the
> > mainstream
> > media to get its facts straight? For instance, The
> > Seattle Times
> > reported
> > that Aaron Palmer had been previously convicted of a
> > drug felony,
> > which
> > isn't true, according to Palmer's lawyer. Guns were
> > found in Palmer's
> > home,
> > as was widely reported, but they were locked in a
> > safe and may yet
> > prove to
> > have been legally registered.
> >
> > So where's the other side of the story the
> > mainstream media is always
> > promising us? Not just Aaron Palmer's denials that
> > he was selling
> > marijuana,
> > but the other side of the pot story?
> >
> > Comments from people who don't think marijuana is a
> > dangerous drug
> > were
> > missing from every local news report I saw about
> > Aaron Palmer's
> > arrest. News
> > "consumers" in Seattle and Washington state who rely
> > solely on the
> > mainstream media for information may not even be
> > aware that there is
> > another
> > side to the pot story. So I suppose I shouldn't have
> > been shocked
> > when Keith
> > Stroup, the executive director of the National
> > Organization for the
> > Reform
> > of Marijuana Laws (NORML), told me I was the first
> > reporter to call
> > from
> > Washington state seeking a comment about Trevor and
> > Aaron Palmer.
> >
> > "Whenever the public hears about someone who has
> > kids having pot in
> > the
> > house, they get their backs up," said Stroup from
> > NORML's Washington,
> > D.C.
> > offices. "But just because you smoke a joint doesn't
> > mean you're not
> > a good,
> > loving, concerned parent."
> >
> > Had the daily papers or TV "journalists" bothered to
> > call someone like
> > Stroup, they would've been able to offer their
> > viewers and readers
> > some
> > balance and a little context: "Seventy-six million
> > Americans, one out
> > of
> > three adults, have smoked marijuana," Stroup told
> > me. "The vast
> > majority of
> > these people are good citizens, people who work hard
> > and take care of
> > their
> > families. The problem is our laws, not good,
> > responsible people who
> > like to
> > smoke marijuana."
> >
> > Stroup told me of other cases in which children
> > turned in their
> > parents for
> > growing or smoking pot.
> >
> > "These thing are always sad," said Stroup. "When I
> > hear of one of
> > these
> > cases where a child turns in his parent, I'm
> > distressed by the damage
> > done
> > to the family." Fifty-seven years old, Stroup went
> > to grade school
> > during
> > some of the darkest moments of the Cold War. "We
> > were constantly told
> > how
> > bad it was in the Soviet Union," said Stroup, "and
> > one of the things
> > that
> > was so awful about the Soviet Union was that Soviet
> > kids were
> > encouraged to
> > report their parents to the police. A police officer
> > was quoted in
> > regards
> > to the Covington story saying that the kid 'did the
> > right thing.'
> > Similar
> > things were no doubt said about children in the
> > Soviet Union who got
> > their
> > parents arrested. The result is, you've got a single
> > father locked
> > up, and a
> > family fractured forever. It's hard to imagine why
> > this should be the
> > case.
> > Who's been helped by this?"
> >
> > Like me, Stroup suspects that Aaron Palmer's son was
> > exposed to DARE
> > propaganda at an impressionable age. Seven years
> > ago, when Trevor was
> > in
> > fifth grade, the schools in Covington had DARE
> > programs.
> >
> > "A law-enforcement officer comes into a fifth-grade
> > classroom and
> > tells
> > children how bad marijuana is," said Stroup. "DARE
> > tends to place a
> > special
> > emphasis on marijuana, since that is the drug
> > school-age children are
> > most
> > likely to experiment with."
> >
> > Instead of telling kids the truth about the
> > drug--the truth is far too
> > positive, and we'll get to it in a moment--DARE
> > officers are free to
> > say
> > what they like, and many, if not most, fill kids'
> > heads with lies and
> > horror
> > stories: Marijuana is addictive; smoke marijuana on
> > Monday and you'll
> > be
> > addicted to heroin by Thursday; all marijuana users
> > wind up in jail;
> > pot
> > will ruin your life.
> >
> > "Then they ask kids to be on the lookout for things
> > in their own
> > homes,"
> > said Stroup. "Every year in this country, a handful
> > of kids, many
> > meaning
> > well, find rolling papers or a roach clip in their
> > parents' rooms,
> > and they
> > become frightened to death that their parents are
> > drug addicts, and
> > they
> > turn their parents in to the 'friendly' officer who
> > lectured them
> > about the
> > dangers of drugs."
> >
> > The DARE kids who turn their parents into the
> > police--some have been
> > as
> > young as 10--expect their parents to get a lecture
> > from a friendly
> > DARE
> > officer about the dangers of marijuana, just like
> > they did at school.
> >
> > "What the parents get, however, is arrested," said
> > Stroup. "People
> > who are
> > good parents--good parents who happen to smoke
> > marijuana--have lost
> > custody
> > of their children. Families have been torn apart."
> >
> > Kitty Tucker's family was torn apart in 1999 when
> > her 16-year-old
> > daughter
> > turned her in to the police for growing marijuana in
> > her home. Tucker
> > and
> > her family lived in Takoma Park, Maryland, a suburb
> > of Washington,
> > D.C., and
> > one morning she had a confrontation with her
> > daughter. The girl had
> > stayed
> > out all night, so her mother grounded her. Furious,
> > Tucker's daughter
> > called
> > the police to retaliate. "My daughter was scolded
> > for misbehavior,"
> > Tucker
> > told me on the phone from her home, "so she called
> > the cops, thinking
> > they
> > would scold us."
> >
> > "Our home was invaded by policemen without a
> > warrant," said
> > Tucker, "and
> > they took away my plants." Tucker suffers from
> > debilitating migraines
> > and a
> > painful neurological disorder called fibromyalgia,
> > and smoked
> > marijuana to
> > treat her pain. Tucker's husband, who didn't smoke
> > marijuana, was
> > fired from
> > his job with the Department of Energy. Both were
> > prosecuted for
> > growing
> > marijuana. Tucker and her husband eventually pleaded
> > guilty to a
> > misdemeanor, and were placed on probation.
> >
> > Four years ago, when I was about to adopt my son, I
> > worried that he
> > would
> > wind up in DARE classes when he reached the fifth
> > grade. What if he
> > found
> > out I occasionally smoked pot and turned me in? What
> > if he found pot
> > growing
> > in the basement of some friend's house and turned
> > the friend in?
> > Thankfully,
> > in the last four years DARE programs have fallen
> > from favor. Research
> > into
> > DARE's programs found them to be ineffective at
> > best. A University of
> > Kentucky study found that DARE had no measurable
> > impact on later drug
> > use; a
> > six-year study at the University of Illinois found
> > that children who
> > had
> > been subjected to DARE's scare tactics were more
> > likely to use drugs
> > in high
> > school than kids who hadn't. The Seattle Police
> > Department got out of
> > the
> > DARE program in 1998; Covington Elementary School
> > (part of the Kent
> > School
> > District) dropped out of DARE two years ago. Of
> > course, DARE might
> > not be to
> > blame. Trevor is a 17-year-old high-school senior
> > after all, not a
> > 10-year-old fifth grader. It could be that Aaron
> > Palmer's son, like
> > Kitty
> > Tucker's daughter, was simply pissed at his dad for
> > something and
> > called the
> > cops out of spite. The mainstream reporters in
> > Seattle were too busy
> > falling
> > all over themselves praising Trevor to pause and
> > consider his motives.
> > Couldn't he be a vengeful adolescent lashing out at
> > his full-time
> > parent?
> >
> > Many of us who don't fit the pot-smoking stereotype
> > are reluctant to
> > be open
> > about our pot use. Considering pot's illegality and
> > the stigma
> > associated
> > with its use, it's understandable that the average
> > user might not
> > want to go
> > public. Unfortunately, the silence of casual pot
> > smokers when other
> > marijuana users or dealers get busted is helping to
> > keep the War on
> > Drugs
> > roaring along. So I'm going to risk telling the
> > truth: I am a pot
> > smoker--and I don't fit the stereotype. I don't wear
> > hemp; I don't
> > have
> > dreads; I don't think deodorant is a plot; I don't
> > smoke pot on a
> > daily
> > basis; I don't have glaucoma; and I didn't vote for
> > Ralph Nader. And
> > unlike
> > most people who've "experimented" with pot, I didn't
> > start in my
> > teens. I
> > didn't smoke pot for the first time until I was in
> > my 30s. (Note to
> > The
> > Seattle Times: One of the very first times I smoked
> > pot was with one
> > of your
> > reporters.)
> >
> > Here's what my pot use looks like: Every once in a
> > great while, when
> > my son
> > is spending the night with his grandparents or
> > sleeping over at a
> > friend's
> > house, my boyfriend and I rent some videos, lay in
> > some ice cream and
> > potato
> > chips, and obtain one--one!--measly joint from a
> > close friend. We put
> > in a
> > video, crawl into bed, get baked, and eat Doritos.
> > We do this once or
> > twice
> > a year. We don't grow pot, we don't keep it in the
> > house. Did I say I
> > don't
> > smoke pot daily? It would be more accurate to say
> > that I sometimes
> > don't
> > even get around to smoking pot biannually.
> >
> > According to the National Household Survey on Drug
> > Abuse, I'm one of
> > the 20
> > million Americans who use marijuana at least once a
> > year; 6 million
> > use it
> > at least once a week, and 3 million Americans smoke
> > marijuana daily.
> > The
> > NHSDA puts current national consumption of marijuana
> > at 7 to 10
> > million
> > joints per day, or 1,200 to 1,800 metric tons per
> > year. These figures
> > may be
> > low, since most researchers believe the NHSDA
> > underestimated actual
> > drug
> > use. ("Hello, I'm from the federal government. Maybe
> > you've heard of
> > our War
> > on Drugs? Hey, we were just wondering how much dope
> > you guys have been
> > smoking lately?")
> >
> > According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human
> > Services,
> > Americans
> > spent more than $11 billion on pot in 1998.
> > Marijuana is the fourth
> > largest
> > cash crop in the United States, behind corn,
> > soybeans, and hay. It's
> > the
> > biggest cash crop in Alabama, California,
> > Connecticut, Hawaii,
> > Kentucky,
> > Maine, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia, and West
> > Virginia--and
> > apparently
> > Covington, Washington. "Marijuana is the most
> > commonly used illicit
> > drug in
> > America today, and is readily available throughout
> > all metropolitan,
> > suburban, and rural areas of the continental United
> > States,"
> > according to
> > the U.S. Department of Justice.
> >
> > The federal government and state governments will
> > spend $40 billion
> > this
> > year in the war on drugs, with billions spent on the
> > fight against
> > marijuana, which the government insists is a
> > dangerous drug.
> >
> > The only trouble with the United States' war on pot
> > is that pot is
> > neither
> > addictive nor dangerous--especially when compared
> > with other, legal
> > drugs.
> > The government's anti-pot message is undermined by
> > the life
> > experiences of
> > millions of Americans who have used pot and suffered
> > no negative
> > consequences. Meanwhile, 50,000 Americans die every
> > year from alcohol
> > poisoning; 16,653 people were killed by drunk
> > drivers in 2000,
> > according to
> > Mothers Against Drunk Driving; 25,000 Americans die
> > every year of
> > cirrhosis
> > of the liver. Cigarette-related illnesses kill
> > 400,000 Americans
> > every year.
> > Despite what the Partnership for a Drug-Free America
> > would have us
> > believe,
> > it's simply impossible to overdose on marijuana.
> > According to the
> > Lancet, a
> > European medical journal, "the smoking of cannabis,
> > even long-term,
> > is not
> > harmful to health.... It would be reasonable to
> > judge cannabis as
> > less of a
> > threat than alcohol or cigarettes."
> >
> > While the mainstream media in the United States is
> > inclined to praise
> > a kid
> > like Trevor ("hardworking," "a very strong young
> > man," "brave"),
> > mainstream
> > media outlets in Canada are actively encouraging
> > their government's
> > moves
> > toward marijuana decriminalization. When British
> > Prime Minister Tony
> > Blair's
> > Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD)
> > recommended that "all
> > cannabis preparations" be essentially
> > decriminalized, the report was
> > greeted
> > with enthusiasm by the media. "The high use of
> > cannabis is not
> > associated
> > with major health problems for the individual or
> > society," says the
> > British
> > government, "[and] the occasional use of cannabis is
> > only rarely
> > associated
> > with significant problems in otherwise healthy
> > individuals."
> > According to
> > London's Evening Standard, "[the ACMD] makes it
> > clear that alcohol is
> > far
> > more damaging than cannabis to health and society at
> > large because it
> > encourages risk-taking and leads to aggressive and
> > violent behavior."
> >
> > The Brits haven't discovered something we don't
> > already know. In 1972,
> > Richard Nixon's National Commission on Marijuana and
> > Drug Abuse
> > recommended
> > that marijuana use and possession be decriminalized;
> > in 1982, the
> > National
> > Academy of Sciences not only recommended that
> > marijuana use and
> > possession
> > be decriminalized, but that lawmakers "give serious
> > consideration to
> > creating a system of regulated distribution." In
> > 2000, a long-term
> > study
> > conducted by Kaiser Permanente found that not only
> > was there no link
> > between
> > regular marijuana use and death, but that "marijuana
> > prohibition
> > presented
> > the only significant health risk to the user."
> > (Don't believe Kaiser?
> > Ask
> > anyone who was raped in a holding cell after being
> > picked up for
> > marijuana
> > possession.) Kaiser recommended that "medical
> > guidelines regarding
> > prudent
> > use... be established, akin to the common-sense
> > guidelines that apply
> > to
> > alcohol use."
> >
> > So here's the story that KIRO, KING, KOMO, Q13, The
> > Seattle Times and
> > the
> > Seattle Post-Intelligencer all missed: Pot isn't a
> > threat to our
> > health. The
> > pot plants growing in Aaron Palmer's garage were
> > less of a threat to
> > his son
> > Trevor than the case of beer in his fridge or the
> > cigarettes for sale
> > down
> > the street.
> >
> > Here's the story the mainstream media wanted to sell
> > us about Aaron
> > Palmer:
> > He's a drug dealer. Never mind that Palmer denies
> > dealing pot, never
> > mind
> > that he may have been growing pot for a legitimate
> > and voter-approved
> > medicinal use, and never mind that the recreational
> > use of pot is
> > harmless.
> >
> > But suppose for a moment that Aaron Palmer was
> > selling pot for profit-
> > -is
> > that so awful? If using pot is harmless, why is
> > dealing pot so awful?
> > If
> > there's no harm in consumption, how can there be
> > harm in production
> > and
> > distribution?
> >
> > "There's this absurd distinction," said Keith Stroup
> > of NORML. "If
> > you have
> > an ounce or less, that's okay. But, my goodness, if
> > you buy two
> > ounces and
> > sell one to a friend, you're an evil dealer.... But
> > the reality is, if
> > someone didn't take the risk of selling, none of us
> > could buy."
> >
> > That drug warriors are eager to lock up pot dealers
> > comes as no
> > surprise;
> > what is surprising is the passivity of marijuana
> > smokers when our
> > dealers
> > get busted. For pot smokers, the dealer is a Very
> > Important Person,
> > someone
> > who vastly improves a pot smoker's quality of life.
> > So how come there
> > isn't
> > more anger from everyday users when dealers get
> > busted?
> >
> > "Selling is different from buying," a daily pot
> > smoker told me.
> > Although he
> > works in a field in which drug use can be assumed,
> > the daily pot
> > smoker
> > would only speak to me if I promised not to use his
> > name. We'll call
> > him
> > Henry. "Dealers run a much bigger risk, and they
> > know it." And there's
> > always another pot dealer out there, Henry points
> > out. When one
> > dealer gets
> > busted, you move on to a new source. "I might get
> > attached to a
> > coffee shop
> > in my neighborhood, but when it goes out of
> > business, I move on to
> > some
> > other coffee shop. I don't mourn the shop."
> >
> > Valid point, as far as it goes--which isn't far.
> > When a coffee shop
> > goes
> > under, its owners aren't sent to prison for 10 or 20
> > years for
> > meeting your
> > cravings for caffeine.
> >
> > To the hundreds of thousands of people in Seattle
> > and across
> > Washington
> > state who smoke dope, I'd like to say this: Pot
> > doesn't appear under
> > our
> > pillows in the middle of the night, left there for
> > us by the Pot
> > Fairy.
> > Someone has to grow it and someone has to sell it,
> > or no one can
> > smoke it.
> > In an ideal world, there would be a safe, legal,
> > regulated marijuana
> > market,
> > and we could buy pot in cafés or state-run stores.
> > But unfortunately,
> > we
> > don't live in an ideal world--we live in the United
> > States of
> > America. While
> > a legal, safe, regulated marijuana supply would be
> > nice, no one I
> > know who
> > smokes pot is willing to wait on decriminalization.
> > We want our pot,
> > and we
> > want it now, and we're quick to anger when people
> > get busted for
> > smoking pot
> > or possessing small quantities for "personal use."
> > (704,812 Americans
> > were
> > arrested for pot offenses in 1999, the most recent
> > year that figures
> > are
> > available.)
> >
> > But none of us makes a peep when someone gets
> > arrested for selling
> > pot.
> >
> > This is, in a word, crap. When pot dealers get
> > busted, pot smokers
> > shrug and
> > move on to the next dealer, and sanctimonious TV
> > newscasters cluck
> > their
> > tongues, purse their lips, and shake their heads.
> > (Does anyone for a
> > moment
> > doubt that someone in the KIRO newsroom is a
> > pothead? Or that there
> > isn't at
> > least one small pipe hidden in someone's desk at The
> > Seattle Times?)
> > If I
> > may borrow a catchphrase from the 1996 Dole for
> > President campaign:
> > Where's
> > the outrage? Every day in the United States people
> > who sell a harmless
> > "drug" (and a plant that grows wild all over North
> > America), a drug
> > that's
> > much less destructive than alcohol, are arrested,
> > prosecuted, and
> > sent to
> > prison for 10 or 20 years, or even longer. If
> > American pot smokers
> > had any
> > integrity--if we were willing to put some of our
> > money where our
> > mouths
> > are--we would create legal defense funds for busted
> > pot dealers.
> >
> > "No kid should have to grow up that fast," Trevor
> > told KIRO's Karen
> > O'Leary.
> >
> > Watching Trevor on the news, I wanted to reach
> > through the television
> > set
> > and choke him. Trevor was the picture of the
> > preening, tormented
> > adolescent,
> > equal parts self-righteousness and self-pity.
> >
> > "This sucks," Trevor told Q13 news. "Everyone I'm
> > related to thinks
> > I'm the
> > bad guy. But everyone else... thinks I'm a hero."
> >
> > Not everyone outside your family thinks you're a
> > hero, Trevor. Sure,
> > the
> > Seattle Post-Intelligencer published an editorial on
> > Monday praising
> > your
> > bravery and suggesting that "a local civic or
> > service organization"
> > offer
> > you a scholarship (and once again mentioned your
> > dad's guns without
> > mentioning the safe they were in), but there are a
> > lot of us out here
> > who
> > think you're a complete asshole. Oh, there may be
> > situations in which
> > a
> > father or a son or a brother is morally obligated to
> > turn in a family
> > member: The father of Luke Helder, the Midwestern
> > smiley-face pipe
> > bomber,
> > did the right thing; David Kaczynski did the right
> > thing when he
> > helped lead
> > the police to his brother Ted, the Unabomber. But in
> > both those
> > instances
> > lives were at stake.
> >
> > Despite what you were told in your DARE classes,
> > Trevor, your dad
> > wasn't
> > hurting anyone--not even himself. All your dad was
> > doing, Trevor, was
> > growing some pot--harmless, non-addictive pot. He
> > wasn't forcing it
> > on you,
> > your siblings, or anyone else. Although what your
> > dad was doing was
> > against
> > the law, the law in this case is unjust and idiotic.
> > We have a moral
> > right
> > to resist and break unjust laws, something they may
> > not have covered
> > in your
> > ROTC classes.
> >
> > "He's going to blame me, I know it," Trevor whined.
> >
> > Yeah, well, I suppose so. You are the one who called
> > the cops on your
> > father, after all. Who's he supposed to blame?
> > Osama? You could've
> > called
> > your mother, you could've moved out. If you felt
> > your dad was smoking
> > too
> > much dope, you could've called some of his friends
> > over to stage an
> > intervention. There were other options. But you
> > called the cops,
> > turned in
> > your dad, and then watched as cops burst into your
> > home, tore the
> > place
> > apart, and hauled your father--and your 15-year-old
> > sister's father,
> > and
> > your seven-year-old brother's father--away. Your dad
> > was a single
> > parent;
> > while you're old enough to be on your own, your
> > seven-year-old brother
> > isn't. So you not only forever fucked your
> > relationship with your
> > father,
> > but you may have fucked your siblings out of a
> > father. Nice work,
> > Trev.
> >
> > Maybe the DARE people will send you a T-shirt.
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> ====> "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of
> servitude better than the animating contest of freedom,
> go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms.
> Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your
> chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye
> were our countrymen."
>
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