Tuesday, August 3, 2010

An Open Question

not to pick on Susan in comments below, at all, but when did getting high become a bad thing on the left?
Every time I read Balloon Juice or S,N! or any number of other places the commentariat, if not the bloggers themselves, are making cracks about wingnuts or glibertarians being high. Well, I'm often high when reading those things.
Y'know who else got high? George fucking Carlin. It's dirty fucking hippies who smoke pot. Most glibertarians got high once in high school and couldn't handle it, and now either do coke or, like Megan, some sort of prescription pill. Plus they mostly want legalization so they can create a new market and commodity to mentally masturbate with.
And, no, you're not "too mature" to get high now that you have a job/kids/a prison record, you chose to enter a situation which now, possibly, precludes it. Please stop pretending having done so makes you somehow more morally virtuous, thanks.

18 comments:

Susan of Texas said...

LOL. I have no problem with people getting high. I make fun of Althouse's drinking, I make fun of the Reason gang's fixation on pot. No offense inteneded to anyone who gets high and is not a shill for Koch.

brad said...

Well, Ann Althouse, a state of being in which I do not participate, made her drinking an issue on her own. The Reason folks really strike me as the kind of douchebags who smoked half a dozen times in high school, max, and use that as a false defense against being movement conservatives.
It does strike me as odd, tho, to see lefties using the same dismissal of people who smoke pot as mindless idiots that conservatives do.

I'm really not yelling at you, just getting it off my chest. Some folk are auto-dismissive to the point of being judgmental, and that's fucking stupid.

Susan of Texas said...

Truly, I believe they are mindless idiots that just happen to smoke pot. It's like the salt--I have nothing against exotic salts, just people who insist that they must have exotic salt because they're special that way.

atat said...

I never saw it as a left/right thing, but I'll admit that I am pretty dismissive of pot smokers in a lot of situations. I'm 41, and I've been around pot smokers my whole adult life. I keep trying not to be so judgmental, but the pot smokers in my life just keep on being extremely stupid. It's not a moral or political issue with me, though. It's an issue with not wanting to be surrounded by morons (or smart people who act like morons when they're high).

Plus I think George Carlin is annoying and the opposite of funny.

NutellaonToast said...

I got a 4.0 at Carnegie Mellon and above 90th percentile on just about all of the standardized tests I've taken, while smoking from one to four times a day.

Brad goes to a prestiguous University for grad school. That's definitely harder than spelling prestiguous.

So at least two pot heads, by one or two metrics of society, are not "stupid." I had a lot of friends who did similar, too, though. We're talking like - c'mon man, gotta be at least six I know. Seriously, how can you argue with six?

Anyway, my point, is that you're definitely wrong. You prolly just notice the smokers doing stupid shit more so you think it's disproportionate.

Also, i'm genius. Yes. I do like saying it. That doesn't make it false!

Chad said...

Not to speak for everyone as I'm sure there are biases against pot-smokers among the Left (because they're human, after all, and a lot of people have put a lot of effort into making mainstream culture anti-pot), but I think there is a difference between "These people are so stupid they must be potheads/drunks" and "These things are so bizarre or stupid that you'd have to be stoned/drunk to do it/believe it." I think many people mean the latter instead the former.

Jacquie said...

I'm going to chime in with a proud defense of the potheaded. It helps stave off the existential despair as I look at the world crumbling around us. And honestly? I'm much stupider before I've had my coffee than after I've had my bong. I think it's just one of those things you're Not Supposed To Admit.

atat said...

Um, yeah...a lot of very smart people smoke pot. I never said otherwise. What I said was that I don't like being around them, because generally speaking, they're fucking annoying. I'm sure you can smoke a bowl and then go ace your calculus exam, but that doesn't mean I want to be around when you come home and start giggling like a retard after ejecting your parachute at the cats.

NutellaonToast said...

Again, you're wrong. Most stoners don't act much differently when they're high. The people that act differently are the ones that don't smoke that often.

You prolly just don't notice the ones who aren't acting high because they're NOT ACTING HIGH. Everyone hates a sloppy drunk, but not all drunks are sloppy.

Jacquie said...

@Nutella: absolutely true. I had a friend once tell me she had never seen me high. I calmly explained, "You've never seen me NOT high."

brad said...

That's a fair distinction, Chad, but one I think is ultimately invalid. To me, it's not the pot, it's the people. Glibertarians believes the same stupid shit sober or high, although it's also true getting high can cause internal editors to relax and let some doozies slip through. But they still would like Ayn Rand, just like I think High Times style crusty stoners would still be heads. Maybe a lil less giggly and forgetful, a lil more coherent and linear, but still crusty.

atat, I'm guessing you mostly know Carlin's most famous stuff from the 70s, and not the genuinely important stuff from around '90 on. Or maybe you plain don't like him.

well said Jacquie.

Anonymous said...

Get a fucking job, hippies.

brad said...

Hehe, back when I worked in midtown I still smoked cigs, so I would often frontload a few and make smoke breaks extra relaxing. The funny, and relevant, part is that the friends I had at work who knew I did it would try to guess when I was high, and never once got it right.
With my proclivities the distinction between sober and high isn't as clear cut or profound, anyway.

brad said...

And to correct the record, right now grad school and I are trying a trial separation. I'll probably fall off the wagon back into the briar patch eventually, but I can't think of anymore metaphors to mix right now.

NutellaonToast said...

They go good with vodka, but gin will work, too

El Cid said...

Though I don't agree for most modern communities, it was quite frequent for late 19th century and early 20th century socialist and anarchist movements to oppose the taking of drugs and the consumption of alcohol, mainly because it was seen as a way of numbing the class sentiments of peasants and workers.

Downpuppy said...

I'd always avoided Reason, but foolishly clicked into

http://reason.com/blog/2010/08/06/paul-krugman-angrily-summarize

The density of stupidity could create a black hole.

Narya said...

The only people about whose state of mind/being/consciousness I care are the ones who are operating heavy machinery that could kill me. So, yes, if you're flying a plane or driving a train or truck or something like that? Don't be drunk/high. Otherwise, smoke 'em if you have 'em.

Jacquie, this cracked me up: "I calmly explained, "You've never seen me NOT high.""