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I'm happy to be here with you today for Hempfest.
Glancing about the audience, I find it interesting to speculate on the reasons some of you have for attending.
Some of you may be here as a form of protest against the prohibition of hemp and marijuana. Some of you may be curious, either about the issue of hemp and marijuana legalization...or perhaps about the strange people who would support such an odd thing. Some of you may even be here keeping tabs on those who would support these kinds of outlandish ideas.
Hopefully, most of you are here to have fun!
Likewise, some of you may be wondering why I am here.
The short answer is that I am here...to put Hempfest out of business.
Before you bring out the hooked cane to yank me off the stage, perhaps I should explain.
First of all, I think it's important to consider why it is even necessary to have a Hempfest. After all, I'm not familiar with any "Carrotfest" or "Bananafest" or even a "Tobaccofest." Why don't we have such rallies for other agricultural products? Unlike these and other products, of course, you cannot walk into a grocery store and stock up on hemp or marijuana. But not due to any lack of consumer demand, that's for sure!
The Drug Warriors tell us that we adults are not competent enough to make such purchases and responsibly use what they say are dangerous products. For our own good, they will prevent us from harming ourselves. For the good of the children, they will demonize consumers of marijuana and other drugs as dastardly corrupters of our youth. For the good of all, they will prohibit us from threatening the fabric of our society with our recreational and medicinal use of the "evil weed" and other mind-altering substances.
For their own good, they will do all they can to prevent us from weakening and diminishing their power, their control, their infringements upon our freedom.
Perhaps we should sympathize with these tender-hearted agents of our dear Uncle Sam. After all, who among you would really want to see any agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration lose their precious jobs or their honorable careers...?
I mentioned earlier that I am interested in why you might have ventured down to Hempfest. On one level, that's very true. Personally, I would find it intriguing to learn your stories. On another level, however, I really don't care what brings you here.
Perhaps that pronouncement sounds at first blush to be a bit harsh. Maybe it comes across as uncaring, insensitive, or lacking in compassion.
I can understand that initial interpretation. Our culture celebrates and honors those who "care," those who "feel your pain," those who want to "do something" regardless of what that something is.
If you really want to find those who are aggressively concerned with every intimate detail of your personal and professional life, you won't have to search very far. They're all around you. Your business becomes their business, and they are only too delighted to tell you what you're doing wrong and what you're doing...
Wait. I was going to add, "what you're doing right." But, of course, for these proponents of a nationwide "Caringfest," what you do is never right. After all, by definition, you are at best incompetent and at worst inherently evil.
I suppose some of these self-styled do-gooders actually do have good intentions. Maybe they think you and the rest of the world will truly be better off doing their kind-hearted bidding. Maybe they think they're saving your immortal soul (if you believe in such things) by forbidding you to engage in certain nasty behaviors.
Maybe if we follow them, however, we'll simply end up on that road to hell they've paved for us with their so-called "good intentions."
Unfortunately, above and beyond those few misguided individuals who are merely deluded in understanding the linkages between moral means and moral ends lurk those endeavoring to cloak their true motivations with a patina of respectability. These cynical creatures encourage us to wallow in a sea of false compassion. Masquerading as the defenders of the good and the decent, they add a link here, a link there to the chain they have forged for our throats.
When I say that I do not care what your reasons are for being here, I am expressing the most compassionate, the most benevolent, the most caring of principles. I am acknowledging the fact that your life belongs to you. I am admitting that you are the expert on your existence and can get along just fine, thank you, without my unsolicited advice...and certainly without my unrequested demands.
When I say that I do not care to know what your reasons are, I am granting you the dignity of your moral autonomy. I am celebrating the power and the right you have to decide what to say, how to act, what to inhale, insert, or ingest into your body. Regardless of whether I approve of your choices or not is irrelevant. It is none of my business what you do in the privacy of your own existence.
This applies even more so to those in government who currently have the power and the ability -- and, sadly, the ravenous desire -- to dictate every minute aspect, every trivial detail of your daily routine, your daily interactions with other people, your daily quest for meaning, happiness, and personal fulfillment.
That is why I am seeking the nomination to be the Libertarian candidate for president of these United States. It is not the proper purpose of a government to legislate morality. The agents of the State are supposed to protect my rights, not violate them. Their job is to establish the conditions necessary for me to decide how I will behave, not to bend and twist me to fit their preconceived notion of what constitutes an ethical existence. Any behavior of adults that is peaceful, consensual, and that does not rely upon coercive force is no concern of the government, whether those in office like it or not. Leave the moral persuasion, the protests, the disapproval to my friends, family, and acquaintances.
Otherwise, keep your hands off my life, my body, and most assuredly, keep them off my mind.
In one of his songs, the late Jimi Hendrix said something quite profound and, ironically, quite prophetic:
"I've got my own life to live. I'm the one who's going to have to die when it's time for me to die. So let me live my life the way I want to."
I envision a day when you won't have to stage a Hempfest to call attention to what is a violation of your rights as a human being. I envision a day when those small-minded and shrivel-souled sadists who find pleasure in binding us to their will shall have no power to chain our dreams, to steal our wealth, to destroy the good in the name of "compassion" or "safety" or any other contrived cause or crisis they can shamelessly exploit to advance their control.
For those of you who are here primarily for the cause of legalizing marijuana and who resent being treated like unruly and undisciplined children, I offer you a challenge:
Apply the ideas I bring here today not only to the area of hemp and marijuana and other drugs. Think about what it means -- at its most fundamental level -- to recognize and respect each individual's rights and responsibilities. Think how you feel when others who disapprove of your lifestyle or your choices prevent you from freely following the judgments you have made for your life. Then expand that perspective to each and every other context in our culture. Demand consistency not only from yourself but from those who clamor for liberty in this area then seek to impose on others their own ideas when other issues arise.
Whether the topic is taxes or regulation, gun control or licensing, the Drug War or health care, welfare or education, don't buy into the rhetoric of false caring. Don't support and defend in the public realm what you would condemn and oppose in the privacy of your own life.
What we need is a renewed commitment to and understanding of what "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" really means.
Perhaps we Americans have endured all the "compassion" we can stand. If our governmental leaders truly want to demonstrate their caring for the citizens of this country, they can break the shackles holding us down, recognize our full and complete freedom as autonomous adults, and leave generosity and concern for our personal well-being where it belongs: with our friends, family, and neighbors.
Perhaps it is about time that the politicians practice true compassion and...leave...us...the hell... alone.
Vote Libertarian.
Thank you.
