As quickly as you, the readership, set a new feedback milestone with your outpouring of thoughtful replies on guns and Second Amendment issues, you then outdid yourselves with an even bigger response to Friday’s missive, “Will California Go to Pot?”

So now ol’ Jimbo and I have an excuse to rib each other in the one-upmanship department. Who’s going to raise the response bar next? Heck, maybe Adam Lass will be a dark horse and thunder ahead out of nowhere – we’ll see. Of course, the more you forward these pieces to friends and foe alike, the more the Taipan Daily word gets out. And for that we can only be grateful.

You (the Readers) Have Spoken

There were so many excellent responses to Friday’s tax-and-legalize question, I only wish I could post more of them. As usual, though, I read and appreciated them all. (Rather than keep you in suspense, I should reveal to you, too, that your verdict was overwhelmingly in favor… a loud and clear YES vote, to the tune of roughly nine to one. Y’all are some freedom-loving folks.)

We’ll soon enough get back to Washington, Wall Street, and ways to profit from the world at large. But for the rest of today’s TD, I’d like to highlight some of your more informative and amusing responses (while giving a fair chunk of response time to those who disagreed).

We are already three quarters the way to hell so why not go the rest of the way. A very sad state of affairs on both drugs and alcohol. I thought I bought a financial newsletter not a running commentary on society.

– TD Reader Stuart S.

Hmm. The last time I checked, Taipan Daily was completely free… if you had paid top dollar for a high-powered trading service and were regularly getting pontifications in lieu of recommendations, I would understand.

But as far as we’re concerned, Taipan Daily is a (free) place to get some real thinking and observing done on what’s happening in the world… in respect to matters that affect our freedoms as well as our wallets.

It is interesting you bring alcohol into the “sad state of affairs” equation too. According to many a source, it was Benjamin Franklin who reputedly said “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” Does that mean America has been on its way to hell from the time of the founding fathers? What about the link between free-flowing alcohol and free-flowing liberty, as Jim previously pointed out here?

Many of you shared sad stories of how alcohol ravaged the lives of friends and family members (in stark comparison to the way marijuana did not). These anecdotes are helpful in highlighting the utter hypocrisy of outlawing one substance yet not the other, but let us be clear: We Also Like Beer! And wine, and bourbon, and whatever other spirits might tickle one’s fancy in a free society where responsible use is the province of the mature individual…

Keep it illegal!
We can spend our way to prosperity without a marijuana tax.
How would the millions of pushers make a living?
What would the thousands of law enforcement and DEA agents do to justify their salaries?
Lose all that confiscated money and property?
How could the Mexican cartels prosper with it legal?
What would the moralists have to rail against?
On what could the schoolteachers blame their failure to educate?
Who would bribe the police and lawmakers?
What would we do with all the empty prison beds?
Keep it illegal!

– Anonymous

Ha ha, I see what you did there. That’s called “sarcasm.” Some say the capacity for subtle humor is a sign of keen intelligence. Clearly you don’t smoke pot…

I would like to buy calls on the first company to market marijuana… here in Canada, they grow it in an abandoned mine for medical purposes.

I personally know one of these growers. He is one of a group of medical doctors. He told me that they have been approached by the U.S. government to grow opiates, it seems that they are running into a shortage of morphine, I suppose due to their spraying of poppy fields around the globe.

I find that ironic and pretty two faced…

– TD Reader “Maverick”

Jackpot! Now where’s that guy who was complaining about a lack of financial commentary? See man, we’re just trying to make some money here… get ready to call your broker and put on a long rolling papers/short black helicopters spread.

My thoughts are this… why in the heck would we legalize something that is not good for people. Your argument is a liberal point of view. We want people to stop smoking and switch to toking?? Yes it is a window for kids to get messed up. I know a few amateurs that still live in their mothers’ garage. These days everyone has an opinion but no wisdom…

– TD Reader D2000

That’s a very interesting starting point: “Why would we legalize something that is not good for people.”

Because, I tell you what, if the rationale for what should be permissible is what’s good and what’s not – or more importantly, what I personally judge as such – then a whole lot of stuff should be illegal.

Take television, for example. I think A.J. Liebling had it right in characterizing television as a “ridiculous gadget” that is “utilized in the sale of beer and razor blades.”

In other words, I think television is seriously not good for people. When you listen to the stats on how many hours a day the average citizen plops his or her butt down in front of a TV, you can almost hear America getting fatter (and many other countries too).

So television kills by way of obesity (couch potato syndrome)… saps drive and morale by presenting viewers with impossibly plastic ideals… deadens family relationships and kills conversation… adds to the moral breakdown of society (I mean good gravy, have you seen some of these Fox reality shows?)… I could go on and on here. So we should obviously ban television outright. Right?

No. The problem with going down that road is that, if you take the thought process to its logical end, pretty much anything that is in any possible, conceivable way deemed “harmful” to someone winds up getting banned. Fatty foods, playground swing sets, you name it – if we try to make our society idiot-proof the idiots will just keep piling up until the lawyers have all the money. You can’t protect foolish people from their own foolish notions in a truly free society.

I don’t want to see any more taxes. Period. You have a new program – fund it by removing or reducing something that exists.

Recently had some computer problems. It was labor – no tax. I had some work done at the tailor shop – no tax. How long will that last?

More revenue for government means more government. No thanks. We need to work at reducing the size of government. Is there anybody on the warpath? I suspect there is but the politicians are not listening and the mainstream media blows it off.

It’s like a kid in a candy store. I want that and that and that. It never ends.

– TD Reader JR

What truly “never ends” is the mind-boggling tsunami of hidden costs associated with the ongoing drug war – a war that, by any sane measure, we clearly lost a long time ago.

We are coughing up hundreds of billions of dollars a year, maybe trillions, in terms of lost productivity and wasted effort as a result of the unwinnable war on drugs. As many of you have pointed out, prison beds are overflowing – and so are the pockets of the Mexican drug cartels – as a result of America’s utter hypocrisy.

The war on drugs is also a powerful driver for funding and supporting hidden government… various ‘black-ops’ type wings of the DEA, the CIA, the FBI and what have you. Part of the reason the war on drugs will likely go on and on, with no conceivable end, is because there are far too many powerful entrenched interests in Washington to ever let that gravy train get cut off.

When you make a substance illegal, you raise the “street value” substantially by making it harder to obtain. This is simple supply and demand. What supporters of the war on drugs rarely mention is that the government agencies fighting this war benefit as much from the blood and the crime and the high prices as the drug dealers do. It’s a manufactured problem that has spawned a powerful host of self-serving entities, and the invisible “taxes” they assess are costing us a hell of a lot more than visible, legal taxation would.

Both should be illegal, but as you so eloquently put it “fiscal need” usually wins the day in most cases. Money it would seem directs the political landscape and drives the wind of change in this country. Whether we consider either moral or not is of little concern. When politics becomes involved in an issue it’s all about the money. We all know the Golden Rule, he who has the gold makes the rules (I think they call them lobbyists – bought and paid for by those with the gold).

– TD Reader Mike B.

It is, indeed, all about money and power. One is the currency of Wall Street, the other is the currency of Washington, and both are more addictive (and dangerous) than any illegal drug.

But again, why should marijuana and alcohol both be illegal, even under “ideal” circumstances? Why should a mature and responsible adult be denied the privilege of enjoying something just because others can’t handle it?

Let’s say the hot new fad (among idiots) was to start hitting yourself in the head with a hammer hard enough to cause a concussion. Would that mean hammers should be banned? Or going back to the “what’s good for people” debate, we know that obesity is one of the true “silent killers” in this country. Should those gigantic desserts at TGI Fridays and Applebees (served as a chaser for a mountain of greasy food) be banned?

The central debate, it seems to me, is over what people can handle and what they can’t handle. Those who err on the side of freedom say it is better to live in a society where responsible people can do what they want, accepting of the consequences, and where foolish people must accept the consequences of their actions in a like-minded way. Those who err on the side of legislation seem to suggest that people are overgrown children who can’t be trusted – and hence their prescriptions are those of the nanny state.

I first smoked pot 40 years ago. Having been permanently disabled twice in the space of the last 20 years, I have found marijuana an effective pain-management tool, one that my doctors have professionally tut-tutted against, but privately agreed is probably at least as useful as the drugs they do prescribe for me, including methadone and fentanyl.

As a cigarette smoker of over 25 years – I quit 15 years ago – I also found marijuana to have nowhere near the negative effects of tobacco. Just look at the statistics: alcohol and tobacco kill over half a million people in this country every year. Marijuana? None. And yet guess which of these substances is subsidized by the government with billions of taxpayer dollars every year?

Most people have no idea why marijuana is illegal. Many have just simply bought the propaganda about its “dangers,” which at best are deliberate distortions, and more often just outright lies. Who is behind this, though? Google a guy named Harry Anslinger, a particularly ambitious bureaucrat of the 1920s who inherited the Bureau of Narcotics – a new division of Treasury – in 1930. Realizing that cocaine and opiates alone wouldn’t be enough to help grow “his” precious agency, he pounced on marijuana, and with the help of William Randolph Hearst, one of America’s most vicious yellow journalists, and the stable of congressional thugs Hearst kept on his payroll, they waged a national campaign of misinformation, fake “science,” outrageous claims, and run-of-the-mill lies, depending heavily on racism and violence. This monster grew into the DEA, which now squanders billions of taxpayer dollars on chasing people who smoke flowers and stuffing the prisons full of non-violent “drug offenders”…

– TD Reader Kent P

Fascinating stuff. I will indeed check out Harry Anslinger, as a number of you mentioned his name and I had not heard of him before.

There is so much more to this topic… many areas worthy of deeper exploration and comment that we simply didn’t have time to touch on. Thanks again to all of you who provided top-notch information, anecdotes and feedback in your replies – including those who disagreed. Your passion is a powerful motivator as we seek to continue making Taipan Daily the most hard-hitting, tell-it-like-it-is, provocative and, of course, profitable e-letter on the Web. Cheers.

Source: Drugs, Freedom and the Freedom to Inhale

“I don’t believe gun owners have rights.”
– Sarah Brady, 1997

“…the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
– excerpt from The Second Amendment, 1787

I know you’ve all been waiting for the second installment of this series, in which I promised to give you my personal firearms recommendations — plus share with you some revelations about how you may be able to make money from the modern boom in guns and ammunition…

But before I get to that, I’ve just got to take this opportunity to respond to the extensive feedback that part one of this series garnered from the Taipan Daily readership.

Nothing gets me revved up like passionate responses to something I’ve written — be they good, bad or ugly. Remember, I read and carefully consider every piece of feedback I get, whether it’s a subject-line-only e-mail or the most detailed multi-page dispatch (some of your responses rivaled my article in length). And it would feel wrong to me if I simply launched right into a bunch of analysis and recommendations without acknowledging, thanking or admonishing the large number of readers who took the time out of their busy days to write to me…

So I’m going to shoehorn an extra piece into this series to address this feedback, and use it to put even more flesh on the bones of the pro-gun, pro-Constitution position.

Also, it’s worth mentioning that beyond simple gun-talk, the volume and tenor of your feedback proved that my “evergreen” point — that the care and feeding of liberty is at least as important to your bottom line as the investments in your portfolio — rang true with a huge number of Taipan Daily readers…

Of course, I figured it would. But a commentator never knows how a new audience will react to his core tenets (or hers — yeah, I know) until a few weather balloons have been launched overhead. So, many thanks to the reader in the Carolinas, who summed up the sentiments of a large number of others when he wrote:

“Yes, it is good to get financial advice but other things matter just as much!”

Also thanks to the Oklahoma woman who told me:

“Put my vote down on the side of the readers who DO want political commentary with our investment info.”

And to the westerner who so eloquently summarized:

“Finally someone understands the simple truth that making money is meaningless without the freedom to protect yourself… Investment advice is pointless in a society that isn’t free.”

Of course, thanks also to:

• Those who wrote in with recommendations of your own on what kind of firepower should be in every self-respecting American’s arsenal
• Those who relayed true tales of how a gun saved yourself or your family from harm (the lady who wrote in with the hilarious story about how she sent some would-be robbers fleeing in a panic with her AR-15 was priceless)
• Those who were reprinting or forwarding this series to their friends, family, elected officials — and most importantly, people they knew it would anger
• Those who replied with certain mostly unprintable (but no less valid) criticisms about folks that don’t see the need for guns — and about the sorry state of the “America” we’re trying to defend ourselves in, and from
• Those who wrote in to take me to task, call me names, and even wish death upon me — you give me grist for my mill, fuel for my fire, and a reason to write.

How’s that for irony? For exposing a bit of the little-told truth about guns in America, I get death wishes from those who claim to abhor the violence and bloodshed they believe guns are responsible for. Here’s exactly what one of these kooks wrote in response to my opening essay of this series:

“For Amrhein: If there are enough of you macho gun-loving paranoiacs, maybe you will kill each other off, an outcome that sounds good to me.”

Nice, huh? To that particular reader and all like him, I say this:

When you’re cowering in a pistol-whipped heap, pondering your ignominious death behind a dumpster in a dark alley, peering into the unblinking black .38 caliber eye of the Grim Reaper himself, realizing that the street value of your life is the $12 in your wallet, you’ll be praying for one of us “macho gun-loving paranoiacs” to come along and save your helpless, whimpering self…

And based on my 22 years’ worth of experience with gun owners, most of them would do it, even at their own peril — and even knowing how much you despise them.

Gun nuts are nice like that.

The Four Self-Evident Truths Upholding Gun Rights in America

I could’ve made a career out of writing solely about guns and gun politics. Want to know why I didn’t?

Because I always figured that any minute, the anti-gun argument would for once and all be crushed under the weight of the accumulated data. The longer time goes on, and the more liberal the gun laws become in some areas, the more undeniable becomes the truth that guns in the hands of civilians are of overwhelming net benefit to American society…

I also figured that at any minute, all the journalists, educators, lawyers, judges and politicians would wake up and realize that it makes no sense to hold that Americans don’t have every right to own and carry whatever “arms” they can get their hands on…

Why? Because four things are inarguably true with regard to the Second Amendment, which reads:

A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Here they are…

1) The Second Amendment does not contradict the Bill of Rights — The overarching purpose of the Bill of Rights is to strictly limit the federal government’s power over citizens. In order for the phrase “well-regulated militia” in the Second Amendment to mean what the anti-gun lobby claims — that the Framers were calling for federal regulation of private gun ownership — it would mean that Amendment 2 would stand in stark defiance of The Bill’s whole raison d’etre. That’s just not tenable.

2) “Well regulated” does not mean “overseen by The Feds” — Since it can’t mean “governmentally controlled” and be consistent with the Bill of Rights’ intent, the phrase “well regulated” in the Second Amendment can only have one meaning: “to make regular.” To be a unit of citizen soldiers suitable for defending a free state, all those who stand united must be similarly armed. A militia makes a poor fighting force when one man has a musket, the next a pitchfork, another an axe, the next one a slingshot, and so forth. Therefore, the Second’s “well regulated” means that it’s every American’s duty to possess and be proficient with the very latest in weaponry, so that an adequate defense of liberty can be mounted. This is the only interpretation that makes contextual sense.

3) “Militia” does not modify “the people” — Before it was twisted by the media into a synonym for “domestic terrorist,” the definition of militia was: “The whole of the able-bodied citizenry eligible by law for military service.” The anti-gun crowd uses this definition to claim that the Second limits the right to keep and bear arms only to those who are fit for soldiery. They then use this flawed premise to buttress their claim that the Framers envisioned regulation of private firearm ownership. However, the Amendment only uses the “militia” angle as a justification for what, at that time in history, was a revolutionary (no pun intended) concept: The total democratization of gun ownership among all classes of citizens. And the language of the Second makes it clear that the right to keep and bear arms applies not simply to that militia, but to “the people.” That means old, young, poor, rich, black, white, gay, straight, God-fearing or Allah-loving, so that ALL may be ever vigilant. The phrase “shall not be infringed” proves this.

4) “Arms” does not mean “slingshots” — A lot of gun-haters use the fact that the Second Amendment does not explicitly define “arms” as a justification for regulating our right to guns, or as a reason to deem certain types of firearms as off-limits to citizens. These folks are clearly in need of a history lesson. It wasn’t until relatively recently that the citizenry didn’t have far more advanced weapons than did the regulars in the standing army. In the Revolutionary War and War of 1812, whole companies of soldiers used their personal guns, ultra-accurate Pennsylvania and Kentucky long rifles, to devastating effect at more than double the effective range of the regulars’ muskets. In the Civil War, lots of Union soldiers used their own money to privately purchase 16-shot Henry repeating rifles for use in battle, since they far outperformed their regular issue muzzle-loading rifle-muskets. In the settling of the west, U.S. civilian scouts carried their own Winchester lever-action repeaters, while the Army was equipped with single-shot, breech-loading “trapdoor” Springfields, which were nothing more than modified Civil War-era guns. Even the legendary Thompson submachine gun was available to civilians first (in 1921), 17 years earlier than they were adopted by the military. So the idea that the American citizenry shouldn’t be AT LEAST as well armed as the government is a revisionist concept, and without much precedent in our country’s history.

Now here’s the gauntlet, all you gun-haters that have written to me before: I DARE you to dispute the logic and correctness of these four assertions, in print…

It’s one thing to call names and issue threats — but quite another to duel it out, fair and square, man-to-man and barrel-to-barrel. I promise, if any of you provides anything like a cogent and valid refutation of any one of these four points, you’ll see your words in print in the next installment of this series, along with my concession.

If you can’t, then open your mind and shut your mouth. I’ve got better things to do than read your empty threats…

The Second Amendment, Translated From Marxist PC Spin to Plain English

Taking all of the factors I’ve just outlined into account, it’s clear that there’s a huge gulf between what the mainstream powers-that-be would have us believe the Second Amendment means, and what it actually means.

Here’s what they want us to think it means…

A domestic army and human-aid force directed by a benevolent centralized authority being necessary to the nurturing of an open-borders welfare state in which all are dependent on the government, the right of American citizens to keep and bear arms shall be pared down, phased out or restricted until ineffectual against the central planners.

But what it actually means is this…

Because it’s the duty of all Americans to be ever vigilant against enemies of liberty, whether foreign invaders, common criminals, or despots of our own election, every citizen of sound mind should have the latest arms at their constant disposal.

Now, here’s what I don’t get: If a sparsely educated, marginally literate half-redneck rube like me understands all of this, why don’t the journalists, judges, lawyers, professors and politicians we’re all listening to? It seems like the longer these people go to school or hold office, the more wrongly they interpret the most important part of the U.S. Constitution…

Which makes me wonder: Is the problem that the Second Amendment is ambiguously drafted and flexible in its meaning, as the gun-haters would claim? Or is the problem that the major institutions of influence in this country (courts, schools and government) have an anti-Second Amendment agenda that we common folk aren’t privy to?

What do YOU think?

Coming Soon: Gun-Play for Protection and Profit

Folks, these Taipan Daily essays are typically around 1,200 words or so, and I’m pushing 2,000 here. What can I say? This issue, and your thoughts on it, warranted additional commentary.

However, I have not forgotten my promise to make some specific recommendations to you of not only the right firearms for every purpose, but some ideas about how to perhaps turn a legal buck from the current gun and ammo craze…

Plus how to avoid losing your money by doing what some in the alternative investment advice community are suggesting you do to play this boom for a profit.

And I will do exactly that in the third and final installment of this series. But a word of warning: My suggestion may be the opposite of what you think. Also, be forewarned that my analysis of the state of “all things gun” in the U.S. may surprise a lot of you — and seem in stark contrast to what you might expect to come from me.

I’d ask only that you keep an open mind, resist the urge to be knee-jerk offended, and above all things, to be objective…

Unlike the people and institutions that run our country, make and interpret our laws, and teach our children.

Always firing for effect,

Jim Amrhein
Contributing Editor, Taipan Daily

P.S. Folks, keep your comments coming — it only improves the quality of your Taipan Daily. Also, keep forwarding these essays to those you know will read, discuss and disseminate them. Or just for fun, to those who will get their panties in a bunch. Who knows? Maybe they’ll embrace truth and reason instead of the mainstream dogma…

Editorial Director’s Note: Well, you broke the record. “A Kind Word and a Gun (Part One)” received the largest outpouring of feedback of any Taipan Daily piece thus far… and that’s clearing a pretty high hurdle, as there has been no shortage of passionate response to any number of issues touched on this past year.

Now Jim is back with the promised part two – and he wants to know how you feel about the Second Amendment (among other things). As always, speak your piece and I’ll faithfully deliver: justice@taipandaily.com

Source:  A Kind Word and a Gun (Part Two)