“But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother [sic] abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light?

“… What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men [sic] brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employments for my time and strength, than such arguments would imply.

“What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can, may; I cannot. The time for such argument is past.

“At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.”

From Frederick Douglass’s 1852 oration, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?

mrfisher,

If you personally want to offer narcotics for free, then in a free society you’d have every right to do so. I hope you don’t propose to present me with the bill, however, or to force those who are selling drugs at a profit to stop doing so.

For what it’s worth, if you propose to ENFORCE a price ceiling of zero, that would virtually guarantee tremendous shortages of drugs unless those footing the bill have a nearly unlimited budget that they’re willing to devote to providing the drugs. If they don’t, and shortages and the attendant rationing result, then you’ll merely re-create the black market that exists under Prohibition: people will pay under the table for access to drugs now, or drugs over and above the amount on their ration card. Either you can let that market flourish (in which case you give up on the enforcement), or else you can escalate the use of force in the attempt to suppress it (in which case you end up with much the same situation that you have now).

Oh, but John Mackey doesn’t want us devaluing our “brand” by “aligning ourselves with these issues.” What are you trying to do, stop us from building a mass movement to evolve our society in positive directions? Don’t you have something more critical to talk about, like privatizing Social Security or enacting meaningful tort reform?

What, you thought that just because people’s lives are at stake here, we ought to treat it as something important?

White Wolf press flack: “Pimp is a fictional game about the humorous stereotypes created by television and film …”

The question for the day is: what sort of person do you have to be to find these stereotypes really “humorous” in the first place?