Would Christ bless all the trouble those addicted to illegal drugs get into? No Way!
A conservative would not push drugs on people on a conservative site. The conservatives would be against it.
Posted on 09/12/2005 4:36:47 PM PDT by freepatriot32
TORONTO (Reuters) - Comedian Tommy Chong has spent almost three decades wringing laughs from cigar-sized joints and smoke-filled vans but now a nine-month jail term has turned him serious and revitalized his flagging career.
Promoting his documentary "a/k/a Tommy Chong" at the Toronto International Film Festival, he hopes the film will expose what he says is the U.S. government's heavy-handed dealing with marijuana offenders in the post-September 11 era.
"The United States is under martial law, it's under dictatorship," the 67-year-old father of four said in an interview.
The film chronicles the Canadian-born comedian's 2003 arrest and imprisonment for selling drug paraphernalia online to an undercover U.S. drug enforcement agent.
The bust was part of a sting operation known as "Operation Pipe Dreams," which the film likens to a witch hunt by former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft following claims that drug trafficking financed terrorist activities.
The film's producers say the federal government spent $12 million pursuing Chong and compare that to the $25 million bounty for the capture of Osama bin Laden.
Chong has been an outspoken marijuana advocate since his days in the Cheech and Chong comedy team, which rode pot culture to fame in the 1970s with films like "Up in Smoke" and "Still Smokin."
The documentary suggests the government's motive was not to rid the Internet of a mail-order pipe-and-bong business but to send a message about Chong's three decades of movies and stand-up routines celebrating marijuana use.
"DEA AFRAID"
"The DEA was afraid that 'Up in Smoke' (the 1978 movie that made Cheech and Chong a household name) was going to be around forever and ever subverting young kids," Chong said. "Now, we've got this documentary that's going to be around forever."
Faced with the prospect of seeing his wife and son -- who was running the pipe business -- being prosecuted, Chong said he made a deal to serve nine months in a minimum-security prison
"It was easier for me to go to jail and do the time than it would be to fight," he said.
Since his release in 2004, Chong has worked the ordeal into his comedy routines and has been enjoying a larger stage than in his recent past.
"Jay Leno is a good example," he said. "He had me on the 'Tonight Show' before but just for little peripheral things, never on the couch, and when this happened, now I've been on the couch twice now."
"It's like the weed culture. You just wait, it'll change. Everything changes. Bush won't be in power forever, Ashcroft is already gone. There's going to be another cycle and it's going to go the other way."
You deny the evidence of your own error, and demand that everyone else do likewise.
Would Christ bless all the trouble those addicted to illegal drugs get into? No Way!
A conservative would not push drugs on people on a conservative site. The conservatives would be against it.
Recreational self medicating is evil. I think I've been very accurate.
Here's what mainstream religions thought about drugs.
I'm sure you think you have. You have also been evasive unwilling to consider the relevance of that "fact" in the context of political discussion.
You are a free, sovereign citizen of a self-governing nation operating under a government of strictly enumerated and limited power. No such nation can exist if it's citizens deny the foundations and inherent limitations of that government. Even a government of unlimited power cannot give you the society of perfect virtue and absence of vice that you want. You cannot have what you want, but you can lose what you have in pursuit of it.
But, you live among other humans and you effect them with your behavior and abuse of the freedom you have.
The people have come up with laws that best serve this generation, if you wish to live like a hermit and do whatever you want, buy an island and be your own king.
That aside, you are restricted to some extent and can't just do any darn thing you please because you step on other's freedoms.
We are in a populated society and many more things effect others around you then in the 1700s.
What abuse of freedom have I committed by arguing that the Constituion is not irrelevant, and that whatever Constitutional issues may be involved should be discussed and reconciled? If that becomes an "abuse of freedom" how long do you think that freedom will endure?
"mainstream religions"
Romans 9:32 Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone;
So now it is only freedom of mainstream religion in your America? Is that the living Constitution at work? I would be less frightened for the world if I thought you merely suffered from angelism. That you are unique, I pray. It is my hope that you have not lost your sight altogether. Please open your eyes to the word. For, it is your puritannical zeal for the status quo of man's law rather than the foundational truth of the supreme law of this land, the Constitution, which exposes you as a fascist. And, it is your disregard for the greater law of the universe, the word of the Lord, which defines you as his adversary.
Ro 14:22 Hast thou faith? Have it to thyself before God. Blessed is he that condemneth not himself in that which he alloweth
You need to get with the God you are quoting by way of mainstream religious thought on the matter.
Or if you prefer the original Church only, go to the Vatican.
When you start using scriptural reference to make Constitutional arguments, you've entered the realm of theocracy.
"When you start using scriptural reference to make Constitutional arguments, you've entered the realm of theocracy."
I was talking about the freedom of religion guaranteed by the Constitution not being specific to "mainstream" religion. I am certainly not advocating instituting a theocracy, only protecting the letter of the law? On the other hand, if I were seeking to compel others to my religious beliefs and force their will by my actions then I would be entirely in the realm of a theocracy. This is precisely the present state of affairs with government sanctioned militant puritanism. In fact, it approaches the terrorist techniques of the taliban in its highly selective and publicly displayed attacks on the unbelievers. When everyone knows these busts are a drop in the bucket, then they know it's only purpose is to instill fear and terrorize others to follow their will.
"...rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our own will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law,’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual." - Thomas Jefferson
"A great example of not bringing strange gods before the God."
You have put your nation above God so that it is no longer one nation under God. You submit your will to even make a choice to partake of a gift from god because a short time ago your nation's leaders under the influence of racism, fear and corporate manipulation sought to ban and eradicate this gift despite it being wholly outside of their purview. These elect of a time you have put before God and his word.
I put my nation in the proper place, but God is above all for me. When I die, I will go to visit God, not my nation.
As far as the drugs are concerned, that and the behavior associated with it are beneath my feet and not worthy of America at all. It weakens the nation, doesn't do a darn thing to better anything except maybe the pain of some cancer patients.
In a context of a discussion of the freedom of religion, you may have valid arguments. Outside of that context, arguing different constitutional interpretations based on different scriptural interpretations attempts to drag the Constitution into a religious argument.
You're not dead yet. Like I said earlier, you are a citizen of a self-governing nation. That means you have a role and responsibility in that nation. If your religion will not allow you to assume that role and engage in the necessary debate of it's laws and policies based on it's fundamental principles no one is going to force you. But you cannot expect that no one else should be able to do so because you chose not to.
I guess that would put you on the same side as Clinton then. No surprise there.
President Bill Clinton on the Constitution:
"When we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount of individual freedom to Americans ..." "And so a lot of people say there's too much personal freedom.
When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it.
That's what we did in the announcement I made last weekend on the public housing projects, about how we're going to have weapon sweeps and more things like that to try to make people safer in their communities."
-- President Bill Clinton, 3-22-94, MTV's "Enough is Enough"
A CA Guy: "I put my nation in the proper place, but God is above all for me. When I die, I will go to visit God"
You are right about what will happen when you die. However, it is looking like that is going to be a short visit.
"As far as the drugs are concerned, that and the behavior associated with it are beneath my feet and not worthy of America"
You probably start the day with three cups of coffee and end it with chocolate ice cream. You probably pop prozac like pez to live with yourself and need viagra to get with someone else. That is America in a nutshell. Is it weakening the nation?
"...doesn't do a darn thing to better anything except maybe the pain of some cancer patients."
Is that an admission to lack of mercy?
Matthew 5:7
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
I hope you enjoy your visit.
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