It's Hemp History Week!

How much do you know about industrial hemp?

Hemp is not Pot

First, let's get one common misconception out of the way. Marijuana and industrial hemp are not the same thing. Let's hear from Dr. David P. West, who holds a Ph.D. in Plant Breeding from the University of Minnesota. (There's lots more information on the myths and realities of hemp and marijuana at the link.)

Botanically, the genus Cannabis is composed of several variants. Although there has been a long-standing debate among taxonomists about how to classify these variants into species, applied plant breeders generally embrace a biochemical method to classify variants along utilitarian lines.

Cannabis is the only plant genus that contains the unique class of molecular compounds called cannabinoids. Many cannabinoids have been identified, but two preponderate: THC, which is the psychoactive ingredient of Cannabis, and CBD, which is an antipsychoactive ingredient. One type of Cannabis is high in the psychoactive cannabinoid, THC, and low in the antipsychoactive cannabinoid, CBD. This type is popularly known as marijuana. Another type is high in CBD and low in THC. Variants of this type are called industrial hemp.

The conflation of the word "marijuana" and the word "hemp" has placed a heavy burden on public policymakers. Many believe that by legalizing hemp they are legalizing marijuana. Yet in more than two dozen other countries, governments have accepted the distinction between the two types of Cannabis and, while continuing to penalize the growing of marijuana, have legalized the growing of industrial hemp. The U.S. government remains unconvinced.

The Tipping Point

"In matters of fashion, swim with the current.
In matters of conscience, stand like a rock."
Thomas Jefferson
Important lessons and a glimmer of hope for liberty activists can be found in the conclusions of research conducted at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, as well as in the work of Malcolm Gladwell.

Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society. The scientists, who are members of the Social Cognitive Networks Academic Research Center (SCNARC) at Rensselaer, used computational and analytical methods to discover the tipping point where a minority belief becomes the majority opinion.

To reach their conclusion, the scientists developed computer models of various types of social networks. The initial state of each of the models was a sea of traditional-view holders. Each of these individuals held a view, but were also, importantly, open minded to other views.

Once the networks were built, the scientists then “sprinkled” in some true believers throughout each of the networks. These people were completely set in their views and unflappable in modifying those beliefs. As those true believers began to converse with those who held the traditional belief system, the tides gradually and then very abruptly began to shift.

It's important to note that these results are based on a core of "true believers," completely set in their views, but that the traditional-view holders were open-minded to other views. Those assumptions hold two important lessons for liberty activists.

The first: As Thomas Jefferson argued, "In matters of fashion, swim with the current. In matters of conscience, stand like a rock." Know your principles, stand firmly in support of those principles, and don't get distracted by secondary issues.

The second: Remember the assumption that "traditional-view holders were open-minded to other views." Don't waste your efforts on other "true believers" who are as committed to the growth of the state and the curtailment of liberty as you are to freedom. Leave that fringe to their own devices; the only power they have over you is the power to distract you from the education of the open-minded.

Fellow Travelers and Purity Tests

Author's Note: I'm not a big fan of the whole "voting" thing, agreeing in large part with those ideological purists who consider voting a validation of the system. Nor am I seriously convinced that political action will ever reverse the current course of government. As an agorist, I think that replacing the functions of government one piece at a time in our own lives and focusing locally will have more long-term impact.

That said, I'm philosophically a pacifist, too, but in self-defense I'd certainly be willing to pull the trigger. Thus my pragmatic approach to politics, and voting. Read on and you'll understand why this explanation was necessary. I'm simply laying out a game plan for those who are convinced political action can still turn the tide. I consider them fellow travelers too, regardless of what label they self-declare, and I write for the whole "more freedom, less coercion" movement, not just those most closely aligned with my beliefs.

P.S. In this essay, I use the term libertarian in as "big-tent" a context as is possible... excluding Bob Barr, of course.

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This weekend, two-time New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson won the Presidential nomination of the Libertarian Party, kicking off quite likely the most successful of Libertarian Presidential runs to date. The Ron Paul Revolution cleaned up in Nevada and Maine, claiming 22 of the 28 national delegate slots in Nevada and 21 of the 24 of the slots in Maine. While 20 of the Nevada delegates must vote for Romney on the first ballot at the convention, the Maine contingent is free to vote their conscience, since the Maine "primary" was nothing more than an unbound beauty contest staged for the press.

In a recent column, The Underground is Surfacing, we discussed The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What's Wrong with America, by Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie. The book's thesis is that "we are in fact living at the cusp of what can only be called the libertarian moment." Independents are now the largest voting block in the country, their 41% share outstripping both Democrats and Republicans, and they hold political positions very similar to those reported for Millennials (18-to-29-year-olds) surveyed in a recent Harvard study.

In general terms, only 20% of Millennials feel the nation is generally headed in the right direction, opposed to 43% who think it's off on the wrong track and 36% who aren't sure. Only 15% disagree with the statement "Politics today are no longer able to meet the challenges our country is facing."

Criminalizing Dissent

In First Amendment (1791-2012) R.I.P. we discussed H.R. 347, the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act, that further criminalized the First Amendment. Slate concisely summarized the new law like this.

It is a federal offense, punishable by up to 10 years in prison to protest anywhere the Secret Service might be guarding someone. For another, it’s almost impossible to predict what constitutes “disorderly or disruptive conduct” or what sorts of conduct authorities deem to “impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions.”

Instead of turning on a designated place, the protest ban turns on what persons and spaces are deemed to warrant Secret Service protection. It’s a perfect circle: The people who believe they are important enough to warrant protest can now shield themselves from protestors. No wonder the Occupy supporters are worried. In the spirit of “free speech zones,” this law creates another space in which protesters are free to be nowhere near the people they are protesting.

Among others, three major upcoming events will test the impact of this new law on First Amendment activities. First comes Chicago's NATO Summit, May 20-21. The Presidential nominating conventions follow this fall, first the Republicans in Tampa, August 27-30, then the Democrats in Charlotte, North Carolina, September 3-6.

Millennial's Libertarian Leanings

As we saw in The Transformational Generation, the generations that grew up on the Internet have a different view of the future than that represented by the left-right, progressive-conservative, Democrat-Republican paradigm. We saw that play out when The Largest Libertarian Society in History took on the crony capitalism machine and sent SOPA and PIPA to the graveyard.

Most recently, we observed that The Underground is Surfacing, with people of all ages taking their destiny into their own hands, refusing to wait for solutions from an increasingly bloated and incapable political machine. And now, courtesy of the Harvard University Institute of Politics, we have data on the 18-to-29 year old generation that backs up these observations.

Although Harvard's report leads with the possible impact of their findings on the 2012 election, the real story goes far beyond November, and it's mostly bad news for the two-party system and the political machine in general. Forbes took their own look at the data and arrived at somewhat similar conclusions, although they too generally focused on the short term and the upcoming election.

These attitudes betraying both the traditional left and right fall generally within the bounds of libertarianism. Live and let live. Individual responsibility is as important as collective responsibility. Avoid military interventions. Distrust both government and corporations. Protect civil liberties.

Where in the World is Ron Paul?

... and what's Wolf Blitzer doing in that tire swing?

On April 4, FOX Nation asked "Where in the World is Ron Paul?" They weren't looking very hard. Ron Paul is all over the place, and he's drawing crowds the other Republican candidates only dream about.

Government Integrity Analyzed

A consortium led by the Center for Public Integrity, a "nonpartisan" watchdog group, released a report on the integrity of state-level governments on Monday.

Not one state got an "A," the breakdown was 5 "B"s, 19 "C"s, 18 "D"s, and 8 "F"s.

I found it particularly telling that this "nonpartisan" watchgroup did not issue grades for either the District of Columbia or the federal government.

Here's how they begin their lament.

California's Broken Sex Registry

Meet Joe. Joe is a convicted sex offender. He will remain on the California Sex Offender Registry for the rest of his life. His crime? Consensual sex with the woman who is now his wife. He was convicted of statutory rape, defined as lewd and lascivious acts with a child, because he had sex with his underage girlfriend.

Her parents found out about their relationship and chose to press charges. She was just shy of 16. He was 18. After his jail term, and the three-year period when they were not allowed to see each other for fear of his reincarceration, they were married. They are still married ten years later. Joe and his wife deal with the issue every day. They've had to put a restraining order on a neighbor who was constantly harrassing him. Because registered sex offenders are not allowed to live within 2000 feet of a school or a park, even finding a place to live was extremely difficult. Joe and his wife now live in a trailer park, and Joe hasn't been able to find a stable job since he was required to register.

"We're together, we're married, he did everything he was supposed to do... and it's sad to live this way. I'm scared all the time." says Joe's wife. Having been declared a victim by the state, she is still being victimized by the state ten years later.

Why People Are Irrational About Politics

Author's Note: This is one of those articles almost guaranteed to make you mad, no matter what your political persuasion. I felt the same way reading the essay that forms the backbone of this column. So please read it all the way through before collecting your pitchfork, lighting your torch, and heading off to the comment section to slay the village monster. Thanks.

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We've all had political discussions with people who refuse to think rationally about the issue at hand. In the face of overwhelming opinion, they stick religiously to their own, obviously errant, views. And of course, we've never been guilty of such transgressions ourselves, right?

Dr. Michael Huemer, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado, has some distressing news for all of us. He recently gave an interesting TEDx lecture that I discovered on YouTube. The lecture is a distillation of his paper Why People Are Irrational About Politics.

Why the World Thinks I'm Crazy

The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world,
are the ones who do.
Apple advertising campaign, "Think Different," 1997
From our earliest experiences, we are taught to respect authority. This teaching continues through the socializing experience of our schooling, and its value is proven in the success that people achieve in their careers by learning to "go along to get along." Peer pressure and the media reinforce the lesson every day. It's hardly surprising that those who develop an anti-authoritarian attitude are considered somewhat outside the mainstream of conventional society.

Bruce Levine, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist known as somewhat of an anti-authoritarian himself. He recently published an interesting piece at Mad in America examining the relationship between the mental health profession and anti-authoritarians. He begins by noting a couple of interesting conclusions he's drawn during his career.

In my career as a psychologist, I have talked with hundreds of people previously diagnosed by other professionals with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD), anxiety disorder (AD) and other psychiatric illnesses, and I am struck by (1) how many of those diagnosed are essentially anti-authoritarians, and (2) how those professionals who have diagnosed them are not.

He follows with a definition of the anti-authoritarian personality.

Who'll Slash the National Debt?

In a 51-page report titled Primary Numbers: The GOP Candidates and the National Debt, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget puts the budget plans of the four GOP Presidential candidates through a detailed review. The results show that only one candidate has a budget plan that will halt the growth of the national debt over the next nine years. That candidate? Ron Paul.

Only one candidate reverses the deficit curve over the next decade. (CRFB graphic)
The plans of Gingrich, Santorum and Romney are similar to a large degree. They all propose big spending cuts, lower taxes, and major changes in Social Security and Medicare. Only Ron Paul proposes a plan that would reduce the national debt over time and protect those currently enrolled in Social Security and Medicare, while giving younger workers the ability to opt out of those plans.

The Great Depression of 1920??

Everybody knows about the Great Depression, beginning with Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929, the secondary crash in the late summer of 1930, and an initial recovery beginning in 1933. Unemployment peaked at about 25%. Recovery was lackluster, with a secondary recession occurring in 1937. Unemployment stayed high through a weak economic recovery, still at 15% just before the war machine cranked up for World War II in 1941.

Although war production boosted GDP, the standard of living stayed depressed throughout the war years, with widespread rationing a major cause. Society as a whole didn't really recover until after the war ended in 1945. In total, the Great Depression significantly impacted the standard of living for most Americans for a period of 16 years.

Many people aren't aware that there was a depression almost as severe in October of 1920. The impacts in the first few months were on the same level as those of 1929, with the market down 33%, industrial production down 30%, GDP down 17%, and a spike in the unemployment rate from 4% to almost 12%, all occuring in a short time. Nor are they aware that by the fall of 1921 the recovery from this major crash was well underway.

Delegate Count Media Misinformation

The Wall Street Journal and FOX credit Mitt Romney with 123 delegates to the Republican Nationa Convention in Tampa, Florida in August. CNN says no, it's 127, unless it's 106. CBS argues it's 111, the New York Times 105, Quinnipiac 102, RealClearPolitics 98, and National Public Radio says it 73. Every news source seems to disagree just as widely about the counts for the other three candidates as well.

Everyone seems to agree there will be a total of 2,286 delegates, and it will take 1,144 to win the nomination. Everyone also seems to agree that there are four remaining candidates. That's about where the agreement ends, however.

Reviewing the table below, you'll find that there's very little agreement among news outlets as to the current delegate count.¹ I'm sure I could check a few more sources and find a few more sets of widely differing numbers. Why all the confusion?

Source	Romney	Santorum	Gingrich	Paul
CBS	111	44	30	15
CNN calculator	106	37	35	27
CNN scorecard	127	37	38	27
FOX	123	72	32	19
New York Times	105	71	29	18
Quinnipiac	102	37	35	27
Real Clear Politics	98	44	32	20
Wall Street Journal	123	72	32	19
NPR	73	3	29	8

Don't Throw Away Your Vote

How often have you heard it said that voting for anyone but a Republican or a Democrat is "throwing away your vote?"

There's the "lesser of two evils" argument, which declares that if you "throw away your vote" the candidate who's worse than the candidate you should vote for will get elected.

There's the "wasted vote" argument, which declares that if you don't vote for a candidate who the pollsters say has a chance of winning, you might as well not bother voting, because your candidate won't win anyway.

Then there's the "half a loaf is better than none" argument, suggesting that it's better to vote for a candidate who supports a few of the issues that are most important to you, and who has a chance of winning, than voting for the candidate truly aligned with your ideals, but who can't possibly win.

And finally, there's the "winner vs. loser" argument, wherein the voter who chooses the winning candidate gets a license to boast about it, at least until that winner starts implementing policies the voter absolutely detests. While this last example represents an argument with real payoff when placing bets with a bookie, it seems extremely short-sighted when it comes to choosing a leader.

Is Gary Johnson a Threat to the Two-Party System?

Theo Anderson, writing at In These Times, makes a good case for Gary Johnson's impact on the Presidential Race as a third-party candidate running as a Libertarian.

First, he points out that Gary Johnson holds a lot of the same positions that Obama supported during the 2008 election cycle, but which he has failed to deliver on.

Gary Johnson is, in some important ways, the candidate that the Left once hoped Barack Obama would be. He vocally opposes the death penalty, the use of torture by the U.S. military, and the indefinite detention of people charged with a crime–even suspects charged with terrorism.

He’s pro-choice. He calls for deep cuts in the defense budget and an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and from many of our military bases around the world. He unequivocally supports marriage rights for gays and believes that legalizing marijuana–rather than building a wall–is the key to solving illegal immigration. He also favors a two-year grace period for immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally, so that they can obtain work visas and continue living and working here.

He goes on to point out that the threat isn't so much that Democrats might abandon Obama, but that Johnson's message has great appeal to independent voters, those in the middle who, in the final analysis, will choose the President in the 2012 election.

The danger for Democrats isn’t that Johnson will win a significant percentage of the Left’s vote. The danger is that he’ll peel away a sizable share of the much-prized independent voters, who tend to be fiscal conservatives and social liberals, and who might feel, understandably, that Obama hasn’t played it straight with them. He backed away from his early-career support for gay marriage rights, for example, and endorsed civil unions when he became president. His position is now reported to be “evolving.” Does anyone know where it has evolved to, or when he might come to a definite conclusion? Or where he’s at on immigration reform? Or on the drug war?

You Might Be a Terrorist If...DHS Edition

Having apparently learned absolutely nothing from the Missouri Information Analysis Center fiasco of 2009, when their report "The Modern Militia Movement" leaked and stank up the blogosphere for a while, the Homeland Security Science and Technology Human Factors/Behavioral Sciences Division (now that's a great bureacracy name, isn't it?) has issued a report titled Hot Spots of Terrorism and Other Crimes in the United States, 1970 to 2008.

Of course, the fact that it's 2012 doesn't speak too well as to the timeliness of the report. But give them a break, they're a massive bureaucracy, after all, and can't be expected to react to myriad threats in a timely manner.

The report is actually produced by START, otherwise known as National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, based at the University of Maryland. Aren't those government acronyms cute?

After a thorough reading I am now completely convinced that the authors were paid by the word (why else all the redundancy and round-about modes of expression?) and per scholarly cite, as well as a hefty bonus for colorful charts and graphs.

I think this report is certainly worthy of reasoned, scholarly analysis in the manner of Jeff Foxworthy, so to that I dedicate these humble efforts. Now remember, after reading each of these bullet points aloud, you should encourage those around you to join you in the chorus: "you might be a terrorist!" It will provide the most entertainment if you read it in a library, on public transportation, or beside an open window in a crowded apartment or office complex.

The Santorum Theocracy

In 1940, noted science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein's short novel "...if this goes on" was first published. The story was set in a future theocratic American society ruled by a "Prophet." The first of these "Prophets" was Nehemiah Scudder, a backwoods preacher elected to the Presidency in 2012. No elections were held in 2016, the Constitution having been disposed of in the meantime.

Perhaps equating Rick Santorum with Nehemiah Scudder is a bit harsh. He's no backwoods preacher, after all. He's a big government (voted for No Child Left Behind), big spending (voted twice for Congressional pay raises, voted to increase the national debt limit five times and voted for the Bridge to Nowhere), liberal (opposed right to work legislation and repeal of Davis-Bacon, voted for the prescription drug entitlement), buddy of Wall Street (supported the airline bailouts), but he's no backwoods preacher.

Whitney Houston - Drug War Victim

It was no secret to anyone that Whitney Houston had a major drug problem. If drug abuse were treated like any other illness, family and friends would have encouraged her to check herself in for treatment and stick with the recommended regimen just as anyone faced with a life-threatening disease is prone to do, and perhaps she would have taken to heart the magnitude of her disease.

Instead, we've made criminals out of drug users, and consequently, out of addicts who are in the grip of a disease they can't fight on their own. The poor ones end up overdosed in an alley somewhere, but the rich ones earn an outlaw cache, an attitude that some have expressed as "I don't have a drug problem. I can afford all the drugs I want."

As long as we have a criminal attitude toward drugs, we're going to treat drug addicts as criminals, the rich ones will achieve outlaw status, and we're going to continue to lose people with an illness because as a society we treat them like criminals.

It's reminiscent of the early days of AIDS, when the assumption was that if you got AIDS you were engaging in illicit if not illegal behavior. The stigma that created in the minds of the public delayed serious response to the AIDS crisis and cost the world dearly. Yet today we invest drug use with the same stigma and fail to see that it's costing us much more than AIDS ever did, in sheer volume of victims alone.

RIP, Whitney. You chose the path you chose, but we failed you as a society as well. You were ill, but we invested you with outlaw chic and splashed your illness across our media, treating it as entertainment. Perhaps we should have listened when you sang.

Everybody searching for a hero
People need someone to look up to
I never found anyone to fulfill my needs
A lonely place to be
So I learned to depend on me

...and that's all I have to say about that.

What's Your Candidate Done to Change the World?

"An idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by any army or any government." -Ron Paul-

Four years ago, Ron Paul was completely marginalized by the political-media establishment. His contrarian views on the increasing centralization of power in the hands of a tiny minority residing in Washington and on Wall Street, endless military intervention abroad and economic intervention at home, the fiat money perpetuated by the Federal Reserve, the ongoing attacks on personal liberty, and the destructive war on drugs were literally mocked by other presidential candidates, debate moderators, political pundits, and the press who reported the stories.

Four years later, those topics are all at the center of the political debate.

SOPA/PIPA - A Legislative Litmus Test

The Internet is now the primary tool for the advancement of liberty in the world. Wherever you look, this is glaringly obvious. Here in the US, both the Tea Party and Occupy movements have made extensive use of the Internet. The Arab Spring would not have happened without the Internet. Every day, individuals around the world are using the power of free information exchange over the Internet to escape from, or subvert and replace, coercive factions in their own society.

Those who seek to bring the Internet under the control of government are the enemies of liberty. At worst, they are actively plotting to corral First Amendment freedom of speech through control of the medium. At best, they are useful idiots serving their corporate donors at the expense of basic rights, too ill-informed to be trusted any longer with the reins of power. I wrote of the technique used to promote legislation like this in an earlier essay, and we know that power once abused will be abused again.

The November elections are nine months away. The Internet community came together virtually overnight to defeat SOPA and PIPA. If we fail to do the same to those who supported these bills, we will have only ourselves to blame when they finally sneak equivalent legislation through in the dead of night while our guard is down. A man bitten once by a rabid dog can reasonably blame the dog. If he allows the dog to remain in the House (or Senate) after that, he has only himself to blame for further injuries -- no matter how friendly that mutt seems to be in other circumstances.

With that mission in mind, I suggest those efforts be prioritized for maximum success.