Globally Optimistic,

I love The Daily Show and I think that it is probably the best source for actual reasoned commentary on TV (we all now the NPR is still the best in general).  Jon interviewed Cliff May about torture this week and I think it was one the most interesting and honest debates on the subject that I have ever heard.  I don’t really agree with either one of them, but it was refreshing to hear things discussed in an adult fashion.

Part 2

Part 3

There is a great article over a the Washington Post about the loss of freedom of speech in most of the world (even the west).  This is a very scary trend that seems to be a spreading around the world.  The U.N. Human Rights Council recently passed a resolution condemning speech that is critical of religion.  The New York Times had this to say about it.

Last month, it endorsed an ill-considered Pakistani resolution against defaming religions that could easily be used to justify censorship and official persecution of unbelievers.

This is an attempt to satisfy certain religious groups.  I do not mean to offend people with religious beliefs, but they need to learn how to take criticism and learn to live in a world with diverse views.  I realize that the majority of religious people are not the ones that I am referring too.  This is a small minority of people, at least in the west and probably most of the world.  The beauty of a free society is that anyone can say anything they want, but that does not mean you are required to listen or even agree.  Freedom of speech is the right that all other civil liberties are based on.

A recent article on salon goes into Jim Webb’s proposal for reforming our prison system.  I do not understand the logic of locking people up for simply possessing marijuana (a drug that is far less harmful than tobacco and alcohol).  When we imprison these people we are vastly increasing the cost to the tax payers and actively causing these people physical and psychological harm.  Wikipedia states the following.

In a survey of 1,788 male inmates in Midwestern prisons by Prison Journal, about 21% claimed they had been coerced or pressured into sexual activity during their incarceration, and 7% claimed that they had been raped in their current facility.^[22]

Common sense tells us that forcing people to live under those conditions will only magnify any problems these people might have had to began with.  Thus making it more likely that they will return to prison later in life or at the very least become more likely to [re]turn to drugs.

When we look at the number of incarcerated over time it is easy to see the effect of the war on drugs.  This graph is even more striking when we realize that other types of crime (violent crime and property crime) have been declining since the early 1990s.^[13]

And yet we have nothing to show for it accept a vast bill and millions of lives that have been ruined.  According to the Washington Post we spend an estimated 60 billion dollars annually on prisons in America.  It only looks worse when we compare ourselves to other countries.  China, which has the second highest incarceration rate in the world, has an incarceration rate that when normalized for population is 18% of the U.S.’s rate.

All of these arguments are really just a side note, because the real argument for legalization is that we live in a free country.  Being able to decide what is acceptable to put into your own body seems like a very basic freedom to me.

When Mr. Obama was asked about decriminalizing marijuana, he had this to say.

The thing that really gets me (and a lot of other people) is that it is some how crazy that people are asking him this question.

His views seem to have evolved over the years, because in 2004 he had this to say.

Perhaps he feels that he can not politically express his true beliefs.  I hope that is not the case because it would mean that he is not the leader I hoped he would be.

Mr. Obama should support Mr. Webb’s brave leadership on this issue.