Affordable Healthcare and the related search for Aliens, Munchkins and Utopia

I just heard someone on the radio defend the new Healthcare Mandate by citing how efficient the post office is running. Huh???

The USPS is hemorrhaging money these days but to be fair, it wasn't that long ago (early 2000's) that they in fact WERE generating a net gain. That is of course until Congress did something unusually sensible during the Bush Administration (2006).  They started requiring the the USPS to pay 5.5 billion per year into an account to fund their future retirees' healthcare 75 years in advance. This quickly converted their net profits into net losses. Actually, they should have been funding them all along.  This tells me that the USPS was perhaps fibbing on its books or at least finding creative ways to leave certain things off of the liabilties column on their balance sheet. This is a huge no-no.  Even if you can disregard it legally it is highly unethical and self-destructive.  Paid employee benefits even if in the future are considered liabilities. Did they not report those in order to allow what would have been the offsetting asset values to be moved over into the revenue pile?  If they did report it, how did they offset them on the balance sheet with assets while showing a profit?  I thought the government REALLY hating "book-cooking" a la Enron.

Accountant friends, chime in here and help me out if I am incorrect on this.

It must be because of their big, mean CEO that makes $800,000 a year while the average CEO in this country makes about $145,000.  Ok that wasn't necessary but it doesn't hurt pointing that out.

Anyway, the comment was in lieu of a debate on the The Affordable Healthcare Act.

The problem I am seeing is I'm not exactly sure what is "affordable" about it.

Admit it - you could care less about making health care more affordable, you just want someone else to pay for it for you.  Kids being allowed to stay on their parents policy until they are 26? Sure - that won't drive the price of their parents policy up.

Before your blood pressure spikes, allow me to explain based on tangible reality....

The new Affordable Healthcare Act is going to force both public (Medicaid) and private insurers to cover the costs of preventative health care maintenance such as obesity counseling and smoking cessation programs.  When Obama says that investing in preventative health measures will lead to overall lower costs of health care for the masses, in theory, he'd be correct - if the plan would actually work.

Just like a politician, he has discounted the element of Human Nature and how it will ultimately neutralize these efforts.  Human nature, which is genetically and evolutionally hard-wired into each and every one of us, brings out the best in some while bringing out the worst in others.  Now I believe his intentions of getting American healthy are noble and decent but I can't insult his intelligence by suggesting he actually "believes" this will work.

Here is a scary thought.  1 in 3 Americans are overweight now. That's 100,000,000 of our roughly 300,000,000 citizens.  Let's just say only half of them agree to the counseling. Let's also pretend that these counselors don't take advantage of the suddenly bullish job market in their favor created by the government and don't charge anything astronomical for their services. Let's say maybe $1000 for a year's worth of therapy. This equates to $50,000,000,000. And of that number, how many of those people will succeed? If all 100,000,000 people decided to jump on the service and were charged maybe $5000 per year, this is now half of a trillion dollars for ONE YEAR. Where will they get that money? eBay? Oh that's right, China again - the holding bank of the National Credit Card!  Then of course there are the other preventative counseling services for other ailments and conditions and there are plenty of unhealthy people that will require more than one.

Keep this in mind; obese people know how to lose weight. Smokers know how to quit smoking.  They just don't want to. And quite frankly, if they are happy living this way, I say let them as long as it doesn't cost me any money.

Ah, but wait... it does.

Roughly 18,000,000 more Americans will qualify for Medicaid under this new Act.   Medicaid is known for only paying about half of what they owe to healthcare providers. This new windfall of patients with lousy coverage will lead to greater losses by the providers as they get stiffed.  This in turn leaves the providers with limited options of which to make up for the lost revenue.  They will have to either deny Medicaid patients all together OR start raising what they charge for services in order to compensate for their shortfalls.  (Kind of like when you wanted that 1:00 AM curfew so you asked for 4:00 AM and negotiated down.) They will in turn charge the private insurance company more which will in turn cause them to raise their rates. This and of course dropping some people which I still don't see how the government can stop them from doing that. If they force them by law, they are literally forcing a business to sell a service to someone at a tremendous loss. When this goes uncorrected with not enough positive net cash with which to offset it, it can cause insolvency with some insurers which only takes a few years at the most to completely shut some of them down.  Then what? Oops!

Adding these extra people to Medicaid is moronic because it doesn't take 18,000,000 poor people that were ineligible for it before, but rather it takes 18,000,000 people that didn't need it in the first place.  Some are just irresponsible young people that choose to pocket the $100 per month and party with the money instead. By the way, yes, catastrophic insurance is about $100 a month or less. It's not expensive.  Get it with the big deductible and a very basic Rx plan and you can pull it off. I've done it. If you catch a cold you'll have to get some Afrin and wait it out. If you break bones in a car crash, you're covered. You'll get by I promise. 

People never seem to look at the big picture and think things through. (Human nature at it again).  Once people are happy about how something affects them, they stop caring about everyone else.  If the government forced your employer to give everyone a 50% raise, you'd think it is good thing because it benefits you.  This despite the added that costs could literally drive them into bankruptcy or at least to the point where you and some others could lose your jobs. Now what?

Remember that health CARE and health COVERAGE are two different things. And people like to say you are entitled to one or the other or both. I say you can declare yourself entitled to anything you'd like provided it doesn't also include you being entitled to someone else's money or making someone pay for your stuff.  If you get in a car crash and get rushed to the emergency room, you will get care. That is protected not only by law but a doctor's Hypocratic oath. You will however be stuck with a bill you have to pay if you don't have the insurance coverage to do so.  If it was the other driver's fault, he can pay. If it was yours, hey - be grateful that some people came to your rescue, put you back together and you're alive now. You couldn't do it on your own now could you?  And don't ask the doctors to do this for free considering they give up about 12 years of their life to education and start working with well over $100,000 in debt. They have to feed, clothe and shelter their families just like you do.

There are two primary reasons our health insurance is so expensive:

1) I say this at the risk of insulting my lawyer friends but LAWYERS (well, some of them). For every lawyer that is doing something frivolous, there is one fighting them and I thank God for their efforts. But the dark-side of the legal profession drives costs up with law suit after law suit keeping doctors, hospitals and drug companies tied up in expensive legal battles and then some of these same lawyers eventually get into public office and continue their assault - only with greater firepower. This is scary. I appreciate a good lawyer but why so many in Washington? What about economists? What about financial experts or accountants or even MBAs?

2) It should be.  We abuse it and expect them to pay for everything. You want them to pick up the tab on prescription DKNY glasses.  You want to go on prescription anti-depressants because your cat died  You want your high blood pressure medication paid for even though you eat fast food every day and smoke a pack of cigarettes.  The more they are going to cover, the more you are going to pay for your premiums.  When the insurance company pays for something, you add a third-party payer into the mix.   When you create a third-party payer, costs go up. People will be frugal with his or her own money but not someone else's.

When you take your dog in for an MRI and pay $250 dollars for it, it is the exact same machine as the one hospitals charge us $3000 to sit in for 30 minutes. Why is this the case? Because it is a single-payer system that comes out-of-pocket.  The veterinary industry has has done its price-optimum homework and have calculated that if it is much higher than what they charge, then the out-of-pocket payers won't even bother with the service and they will make nothing.  The medical industry knows that with a 3rd party payer, they CAN in fact charge as much as they do. This is THEIR optimum price.  And this cost issue is worsened when your insurance refuses to pay for your MRI when you truly need one. I suffered through this personally for almost 20 years before I was finally approved for one.

The only thing that will drive costs down are when people have to pay more out of pocket. Consumer mentality kicks in and people begin to shop around for better deals and make wiser purchasing decisions.  Perhaps make some lifestyle choices like eating healthier and exercises and maybe "dealing" with a broken heart sans the medication. This in turns forces the providers to become more competitive with one another.  This is not a panacea for everything. Illnesses and accidents will still occur but it will be more manageable if not abused by the consumer driving costs back up. And the greatest part? With some leftover money we can legitimately insure those that really need the help - those that are trying their best but still can't make ends meet and have health issues they are unable to manage on their own. See? I do care. I just don't like being taken advantage of.

This will never happen though. Main reason is because who'd like to go first? Will someone step up and say "I'm not going to use my Rx card to pay for my prescription? No. I challenge Washington to step up and think of creative ways to encourage people to start driving the costs back DOWN.  Reward good decisions and let those who do not learn the hard way. THEN we can help them out.  People have to be allowed to make mistakes. They don't have to be fatal ones - just harsh enough to drive the lesson home.

Promoting tough-love is not a realistic task for most career politicians though.  It may in fact be career suicide trying to promote this behavior.  Telling someone you're not going to take care of them anymore nor give them someone else's money is just not in their language. Politicians can't say "no" to anyone. 

Suggestions for how the GOP can stop sucking at elections

     As the GOP begins to get on with its life after another tough loss and begins to "soul search" as the media so likes to call it, there are some very simple quick-fix changes that would benefit the party by as early as 2016 if their leadership could set aside its stubbornness and accept the new reality. 

     First, accept the fact that America as a majority does not like us right now.  It is now considered mainstream and socially acceptable to do so.  We are expected to be tolerant of others' opinions while they are not expected to be tolerant of ours.  And the more we whine about it, the worse it will get.  Bite your tongue and take the high road and realize that we have a destroyed image that we need to address first and foremost.  It will not happen overnight but by focusing on the key elements, it will happen eventually. 

     Second, stop arguing on "WHO" or "WHAT" is the definition of a "true conservative".  Conservatism is based very simply on "personal responsibility".  All other principles are rooted from that. It is not a race, a religion, a gender, an income level, a region of the country nor a sexual orientation. Those are just examples of our diversity. Yes, I said "diversity". We have it too.  We have women, African Americans, Latinos, homosexuals and other minorities on our leadership teams.  Just because we find it inappropriate to parade them around as trophies of social acceptance, it does not need we should bypass the opportunity to make them known to the outside.  They are on our team so let's use it as a basis for unity and not segregation. 

     Third, gay marriage. Leave it the heck alone. Some of us are fine with it like myself and others are not.  Personal opinion is where it should remain.  You don't have to all agree but it's not your life. It's someone else's.  When someone asks your opinion, simply say "It's none of the government's business" or better yet, "I think the government should get out of the marriage business." Marriage is an institution that is dictated freely by different religions.  If a church wants to recognize same sex marriage, the government's stance should be irrelevant. 

     Next, start readdressing the Latino population and the fact that you recently pissed off the largest minority in the United States with your attempts to make immigration the number one hot topic in the last election. It's not. There is a concept called "prioritization" that I suggest you review the definition of a few times. Immigration is not the #1 problem in this country and those that sneak across the U.S. / Mexico border are far from a statistically bad group of people no matter how hard some try to paint them as hardened criminals for trying to escape Mexico's economy for a better life in ours.  

     Next is abortion. You can't change this from your pulpit.  If Roe v. Wade ever changes it will have to be a non-partisan grassroots effort but the moment you take a side from the perspective of your party, you lose at least 50% of the vote.  Stay out of it.  But if you are absolutely compelled to take a public stance, use my answer which just so happens to be accurate: "I personally hate abortion but at the same time understand that sometimes it is the lesser of two evils when certain conditions exist such as the mother being the victim of rape or if their is a major risk to her life in carrying to term." 

      And stop treating liberals like they are horrible people.  When you do, you strengthen their resolve and make the walls of communication that much more difficult to penetrate.  Liberalism is founded by the notion that seeing one person struggling while others are affluent upsets them.  This is a noble attribute that stems from human decency.  This is also compounded by the fact that we are all emotional creatures that when faced with stresses, we seek the path of least resistance in order to remove the source of that stress. We're not pre-wired to care about the financial aspects involved or perhaps why that stress is there in the first place.  It takes too long to think that through and it fails to satisfy our basic human need to find what upsets us and make it go away now.  They are not stupid.  Just probably a little nicer than we are and don't necessarily believe in using "tough love" on someone in order to motivate them to do better.  In a variation of the proverb, we prefer to teach someone to fish while they choose to simply give them a fish (or someone else's fish). They care about people too, just not the same way. 

      And stop getting pushed back on your heels and start swinging.  Democrats have the courage to aggressively defend their convictions and we have a tendency to be their punching bags.  Remember, the best defense is a strong offense.  They take jabs at us so throw some back for a change.  Here is some ammunition backed by the U.S. Census; Democrats statistically have higher salaries than Republicans, donate less money and time to charitable causes and actually have a slightly lower effective tax rate. How they pull that off I still don't exactly understand.  But they have hidden this fact for decades by going on the offense and accusing us of being rich, cheap and uncharitable.  Oh, and regions that tend to lean Democrat also have higher crime and pollution rates.  I'm just pointing out a statistic. If you choose not to use it against your opponent than he will most certainly use it against you.  And while we're at it, don't hesitate to point out that a Republican pushed for the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery while the Democrats in the South lobbied for Jim Crow laws and built up the Ku Klux Klan. FDR had former Klansmen in his administration including his successor, Harry Truman. The Republican party supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by margins in the 80's percentile range while Democrats were down in the 60's. Ronald Reagan signed Martin Luther King Day into law at the same time the Democratic Senate MInority leader, Robert Byrd was a former Klansman. And lastly, George W. Bush had more black Americans on his staff than any other president including Obama today. Quote me on these facts the next time a Democrat quotes Kanye West. 

     In closing, Mitt Romney is good human being with nice family and an impeccable resumé.  Nobody bats .1000 in the business world and occasionally, painful decisions must to be made in order to make room for a higher proportion of good ones.  He may or may not have done a fine job as president but sadly, a majority of people in this country wanted to hate him so much that they fabricated facts and repeated them among their constituents so many times until people began to believe them as gospel.  It's not his fault that he looks like the stereotypical tycoon as painted by his detractors.  But selling someone like that to over 50% of the American voter is a P.R. nightmare.  We have become a pop-culture society to selects leaders based on a perception of coolness regardless as to whether or not that person has any degree of competency.  So it is OK to drape your jacket over a chair, loosen your tie and go casual from time to time.  Stop being so stuffy at your local meetings.  These are stupid rules I agree but the era of the "statesman" is over. 

      Fortunately for us, presidential performance is dictated more so by the people he or she surrounds themselves with and less by his or her immediate qualifications.  Let's face it.  Most presidents have no military experience.  Yet they become in a sense the CEO of the military once elected by default.  Nobody is expecting he or she to make extremely difficult life and death military decisions alone.  That is what their top military advisors and decorated experts on their team are for.  The president makes most  if not all decisions based on a committee of his or her different leadership panels.  Everything else is just a good sales pitch made to the American voters in order to keep him or her in that position to select those teams that make those decisions.  This requires salesmanship in being a good speaker and knowing how to address your target audience. Democrats are exceptional at this.  Republicans are not.  Republicans have been trying to force more people into their predetermined market segment against their will and this never works.  If you guys try to use the angle that our society should function like a business then you need to back track and Google some articles on basic marketing.  The majority in power gets the set the rules and you can either learn to play by the rules of engagement or lose.  It really IS that simple. 

    

Tax breaks aren't about the money

Tax breaks are NOT about the money……

They are about the power.  

I'm going to let you in on a little secret that some of you may or may not be familiar with.  Taxes are more about power than they are about money. As the government takes an increasingly larger chunk of your take-home pay, they take more and more of your freedom to spend and invest your hard earned money the way you see best fit. Their power over you increases. They now have more power while you have less.  

Now tax breaks are for ALL working Americans.  Rich and poor, young and old, black and white, men and women, tall and short, fat and thin.  History has shown that when the government takes a trillion dollars in taxes, they have a trillion dollars.  But when the private sector gets a trillion dollars of their own money back in tax cuts, their spending and investing actually yields MORE than one trillion dollars in tax revenue back to the government.  The Bush 43 administration alone projected some 2 trillion in tax revenues after the Bush tax cuts but the government actually yielded some 4.5 trillion! Over twice the projection. Yay private sector!

The private sector historically gets a better growth rate on its invested money than the government does. The private sector also realizes (eventually) they have occasionally work harder and/or live frugally for an amount of time in order to pay off their credit cards and loans while the government simply takes out new ones and spins its debt out of control exponentially. 

i.e., Washington sucks at financial planning. 

It's your money and your power and you deserve to have it back. You are better with it that Washington is.  This country's economic engine functions most efficiently via a wealthy private sector.  Just as an internal combustion engine consumes fuel to yield horsepower, money is the primary source of fuel in our economic engine. The government's engine however is not so efficient. Bloated, heavy, sluggish and far too much payload on board with which to get much more than a few miles to the gallon. 

And the frightening part is that Washington knows this!  But they still opt to take your money up front never letting you do anything with it.  Why?  Because it is about the power and they are greedy for it.

It's time to give it back. Time to give it back to everyone who earned it. Washington can take it's predetermined minimal amounts in order to fund roads and schools and our military and other things that we share in the private sector but lack the shear size to get it done.  That's perfectly acceptable. But other than that, keep your hands our of our pockets.

Why can't presidents just admit when they are wrong?

Every now and then I come across yet another article regarding the United States' epic failure in they call their "war on drugs". Since this futile effort started some 40 years ago during the Nixon administration, it has cost the American taxpayer over one TRILLION dollars, hundreds of service men and women and of course the occasional innocent bystanders.  

So what do we have to show for it? Well, in terms of success, the answer is NOTHING.  I mean if the government measures success by the number of jail cells occupied by non-violent pot-peddlers then I suppose they are hitting it out of the park but wait, don't we have a current problem with our prisons being overcrowded? And what are the latest statistics that do a side-by-side comparison between fatal alcohol related car accidents and pot-related ones?  I find it alarming that the government can't seem to distinguish one drug from the next and views an 18 year old brat that is smuggling a Zip-loc bag of marijuana in his underpants with the same public ire as that of an armed Cocaine or Heroin dealer sneaking across the border.

Alcohol is a drug and it is legal. Why? Because the government realized many years ago that it was unconstitutional and even a bit morally reprehensible to tell a U.S. citizen that he or she can not enjoy and adult beverage any longer. And that as long as they enjoy it responsibly without doing harm to others then it is a case of freedom of choice.  Most of us are able to abide by these rules however that doesn't stop the occasional idiot that goes too far and causes a fatal crash. The government was able to admit (with of course a bit of "encouragement" by its citizens) that the Prohibition was a horrible idea.  And as long as it is able regulate alcohol and create laws to deter citizens from irresponsible abuse, then it should be allowed.  The idea of this country is freedom and liberty to do what you want to make yourself happy as long as it doesn't harm others. Laws are created to prevent that from happening. Outlawing the entire practice goes against our foundations.  I have the right to flail my arms all over the place right up until the point I hit you in the nose with them. That would be where the illegality starts.  And it is my responsibility to know the difference.

I personally would like to see harsher sentences for multiple DUI offenders to act as a greater deterrent against irresponsible behavior.  How many times have we seen a 45 year old mom pulled over while driving the speed limit in her own neighborhood at 2AM with a BAC of about .081 getting the book thrown at her? The punishment doesn't match the crime. Careers literally are destroyed over a mistake. I could go on a tangent regarding that fact that the vast majority of violent alcohol related car crashes are caused by people whose BAC is way over the limit and are often multiple offenders. Not a grandmother who had a glass of wine at the Olive Garden. But that is another story.

My entire case is regarding the fact that I have to assume that the past several administrations are smart enough to off-the-record realize that the car on drugs is a blithering failure and a horrible die ago continue. But at the same time it is horrible P.R. and quite frankly political career-suicide to step up and insinuate that perhaps the government should reevaluate the entire campaign. Perhaps drop it entirely and consider legalizing and strictly controlling a few of the more manageable substances.  

Below are some statements by the past administrations I've read. I've found a few variations from source to source so these are slightly paraphrased but the gist is conveyed properly. 

PRESIDENT RICHARD M. NIXON: "We’ve turned the corner on drug addiction in the United States. Drug addiction is under control."

Well of course drug addiction is under control. There are some that choose to avoid all substances while others are hooked on any variety of crack, beer, pot, pain killers, sniffing glue, aspirin, herbal tea and eating fertilizer. People make this choice without government intervention. Washington has simply decided which ones are "controlled" substances and which are not.  And when a neurologist puts a 6 year old on anti-depressants because she gets a little separation anxiety when dropped off at kindergarten, he or she creates an addicted patient for life, someone whose brain never gets the opportunity during developmental years to learn basic coping skills and will thus almost certainly end up at the very least on psychiatric medication for life if not picking up a few other "self-medicating" habits along the way.  I realize that neurologists are more educated and more intelligent than I am.  But smart people do stupid things all the time. That's why they call them "stupid mistakes". If only stupid people made them, they'd just be run-of-the-mill mistakes. Oh but wait, they are "controlled" by Washington and a doctor gave them out as an Rx. So it MUST be OK then. Right? 

PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN: It’s time, as Nancy said, to just say “no” to drugs.

When it comes to drugs, there have always been those that "just say no" and those that "just say yo!" Educating the children on the dangers of drugs and alcohol is a campaign I support 100%. I actively participate in that practice by my own volition all of the time.  People were doing it long before the "Just say NO" campaigns.  But drug-traffickers don't respond well to a stern "no" and getting smacked in the head by a rolled up newspaper.  And STOP making ads with this so called "Drug pusher" on the corner that is praying on school children. He is as real as the Boogey-man. He doesn't exist. Children are broke and make lousy customers. They also can't drive cars nor keep secrets well and therefore make lousy traffickers as well.  

PRESIDENT GEORGE H. W. BUSH: It is imperative to put more resources into our fight, so I am asking Congress to put $12.7 billion to wage this war on drugs. If Congress approves my request, funding for the war on drugs will have increased by 93% to nearly double the rate just three years ago when I took office.

Well of course that is the solution! I mean in the real world when a business fails at a project, they either replace the leaders, change the strategy or scrap it entirely.  But everyone knows that in Washington, our offices are filled with wizards and magicians and that when they have a failed project that hemorrhages money like the US Postal Service, they just throw more and more money at it - OUR money. And it fixes it EVERY time! Right? um.... right?   (crickets crickets)    

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: If we ever expect to reduce crime and violence in our country to the low level that would make it the exception rather than the rule, we have to reduce the drug problem. We know it is a difficult battle. We know that overall drug use and crime are down in all segments of society but one: young people. And that makes the battle more difficult and more important.

I like Bubba's quote because it is the hardest to follow and thus the hardest to counter. Violence and crime used to be considered something that directly harmed or injured another person. Otherwise you can harm yourself as much as you want. Drug related violence for the most part does not come from an addict shooting up. The majority is from illegal trafficking. I'm not saying legalize it entirely - just accept that your approach is still wrong.  The fact remains that if you are going to call this a "war" then treat it like one. Take up heavy arms and go on the offensive and start carpet bombing their strongholds. You know where they are now go get them. An ad campaign is NOT waging a war and neither is setting your sights on the victims. 

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Drugs help supply the deadly work of terrorists, that’s so important for people of our country to understand … which is why the budget I submitted to Congress calls for $19 billion to fight drug use.

I appreciate W because he is correct in pointing out where much of their funding comes from. It financially backs their cause because the black-market of illegal substances has ALWAYS been a gold mine for organized crime and now terrorists. Look how well the mob did during the prohibition. If you legalize and control certain substances, the violent crime goes down, the addiction rate does not go up and the goverment stands to make money as opposed to wasting it while absolutely devastating a major revenue source for our enemies. The problem here is there are entire foreign governments that participate in drug trade.  By calling it illegal, you know have foreign states that are actually illegally exporting drugs across our borders. If it is a war then you have to engage them. Otherwise they will keep on keeping on and laugh their way to the bank. Of course you have the compounded issue of narcotics trafficking coming from some of our allies with whom we trade with and must remain diplomatic. Oops. Now what??

So you may assume my premise is to legalize drugs. Not exactly - just some of them.  When you create an environment where certain drugs are available in a society and the government has established regulations that control the distribution outlets, age-minimums and of course the concentration of ingredients in the drug, you allow for a stable, non-violent use of the drug. When you allow certain substances in, you remove demand from the really nasty ones - the same ones some addicts use because they are either easier to obtain or cheaper to buy.  That's the main reason they use them. Let's choose the lesser of two evils and actually let them get their hands on the controlled less reactive kinds.  People rarely steal alcohol or cigarettes even though they can get a little pricey. Why? Because paying a little more for them legally is far easier than going to jail over it.  People always ask "What about the drugs that cause people to go on violent rampages?". First of all, most substances do NOT do that. Oh wait, alcohol sometimes does. Oops. Regardless, my point again can be understood when you look at places in Europe where they are permitted and regulated.  Is crack in widespread use in these regions? No.

In closing, I am a good example.  Aside from beer and wine occasionally, I have no interest in putting mind altering substances in my body. In fact I rarely even allow myself to get intoxicated on the few drinks I have.  I actually feel guilty having a second cup of coffee in the morning. This has nothing to do with peer pressure, government programs nor even the illegality. It's a combination of being informed as a kid and what experimenting I did as a kid. Pot was as far as a went but I hated the way it made me feel, dress and smell. I was lazy, unshaved and started putting on weight.  I think actually a good sense of vanity is the best deterrent.

I challenge someone in Washington (perhaps one close to retirement) to step up and say the obvious - that you need to drop this entire "war" and try a different malady. Stop worrying about the raging Moms out there that will then accuse you of trying to let drug dealers kill their babies. Moms who are widows of men killed in this nonsensical war will have your back I guarantee it as will THEIR babies.