[420 Girl]

So they actually went and did it.

Oakland Pot dispensaries and the people they serve begged their betters, the bureaucrats, to tax them.

Pot club proprietors who openly sell legalized medical marijuana in California proposed Measure F which would raise the business tax rate for pot clubs from $1.20 per one thousand dollars in gross sales to the rate of $18 per thousand.

It passed by 80% of the vote.

Now they can join the millions of other politically neutered and spayed categories of humans in the once free land of America.

As Oakland's KPIX-TV Channel 5 explained it, the pot club people proposed the tax hike against themselves "as a way to further legitimize their establishments."

But taxing pot doesn't legitimize pot; it just legitimizes government.

Yes, bribing the statists with a tax so you can puff without prosecution is better than puffing and going to prison.

But you're still giving in to The Man.

You, after all, own your own body. Not the state. You have the right to smoke anything you want, anywhere, any time, for any reason.

But that right will never be respected if you never demand it.

Libertarians who fight for marijuana rights should never compromise on rights. They should never meekly beg to be legalized and taxed and regulated. They should never give in to the state. It's the state, after all, who's in the wrong, so make the state give in to you.

That means demanding your rights as free and sovereign individuals, long and loud and persistently. And when the state finally comes around, offering to compromise its position by legalizing and taxing and regulating medical marijuana, take it.

But never take it as an end, only as a step. Then keep demanding your freedom, long and loud and persistently.

And when the state comes back again and offers to lower the punishment for possession of small amounts of pot for personal use to the level of a misdemeanor, take it.

But never take it as an end, only as a step. Then keep demanding your freedom, long and loud and persistently.

And when the state comes around again and offers to instruct its narc force that pot possession must henceforth receive the lowest enforcement priority, take it.

But never take it as an end, only as a step. Then keep demanding your freedom, long and loud and persistently.

Of course you may never get all that you want. Or anything that you want.

But you'll never get to date the pretty girl if you're afraid to ask her out. And you'll never get the dreamy dude if you're too shy to ask him to dance.

You may still never get what you ask for, but not asking at all virtually guarantees that you'll never get it.

Always remember, in issues between peaceful people and the coercive state, it's the state that's always wrong. So always make the state know it, make the state come to you, and accept their compromises as nothing more than a step toward the next step toward freedom.

In the end, smoking pot isn't about pot, just as owning guns isn't about guns or online gambling isn't about gambling or choosing your own medical care isn't about medicine.

It's always about freedom.

A libertarian who compromises on freedom, who asks to be legalized and taxed and regulated, has about as much credibility as a meat-eating vegetarian or a gun-wielding pacifist or a mink-wearing PETA member.

Legalization legitimizes the state; decriminalization legitimizes freedom.

Let others beg the state to legalize what is already rightfully theirs. Libertarians need to understand the difference and lead the charge.

http://www.420magazine.com/forums/in...ive-state.html