Been a while

Took a break from posting as I needed to recenter. It's been a hot minute thanks to life and generally having my shelf finally shatter from all the falsity being piled on it. I walked away from the church the day I was told it was better to be homeless than to move in with my fiance and his mother.

That was the day I decided fuck this, I'm living my life. But that's not good for the church. It's very very bad as any member who leaves is not only cash lost, but someone who has insider info that can make the church look bad.

So now they are stalking me.... Lovely.

Beating a Dead Horse: The War on Drugs

The war on drugs has always been a hot button issue in the United States. The problem is, one cannot fight a war on inanimate objects. One can only fight a war on people. The war on drugs isn't about drugs, it's a war on the addicts rather than the real issue, the manufactures and the dealers. William F. Buckley wrote a paper declaring the war on drugs dead, this paper will discuss his logic and options that might be viable if the war on drugs is indeed dead.

            In the 1970s, President Nixon declared a war on drugs. This wasn't a violent war in the traditional sense of the word, but a criminal war. He made federal drug control agencies larger and have more power in order to squash the rising drug using population (drugpolicy.org, 2015).  A year later, the very commission Nixon put in place recommended weed was made legal for personal use (drugpolicy.org, 2015). Nixon of course ignored this recommendation and chose to push forward banning all of what is now considered illegal drugs (drugpolicy.org, 2015). The view on personal use weed went back and forth like a pendulum until the 1980s (drugpolicy.org, 2015). By the 1980s and 1990s incarceration for drug charges went from 50,000 to over 400 thousand by 1997 (drugpolicy.org, 2015). This number is the equivalent of a small city’s worth of people serving time for some kind of nonviolent drug charge ranging from possession for personal use to manufacturing of the drugs themselves.

            William F. Buckley wrote a paper in the 1990 declaring the war on drugs dead. This author whole-heartedly agrees with him. Per Buckley’s paper, the US has wasted over 100 billion dollars a year in tax payer money to punish those who have the mental illness that is addiction and those who seek to use that illness against them.  Buckley cites money as a reason to legalize drugs, that if the state were to control the drugs and charge for them, it would put the US into the black as opposed to wasting so much money (Buckley). Buckley goes on further to talk about how crime rates have gone up over 400 percent since the grand war on drugs has started. The article further speaks of legalizing the sale of drugs, which this author disagrees with, citing that the country could make far more money that what it costs to prosecute and lock up those who are caught with only enough drugs to get themselves high (Buckley).

            Instead of keeping the possession of personal use levels illegal, the US should take a page from other first world countries and legalize possession for personal use amounts legal and instead offer options to treat the addiction which is the root of the problem. This would of course require other safety nets to be in place for those fresh from recovery. They would need jobs, housing, food, medical care, and of course steady mental and social support. Those who receive this support would be expected to pay the government back by participating in drug prevention programs and by paying their share of taxes based upon their tax brackets. The Portugal made possession of personal amounts of drugs legal in 2001 and instead started to treat the root of the problem, the addiction itself (Kain, 2011). For such a small country that equated roughly 100 thousand people nationwide (Kain, 2011). If the US were to do that same thing and get the same results that would mean an estimated 200 thousand people would become clean and sober over the course of ten years.

            The US has been fighting a losing war since 1971 thanks to the knee jerk reaction of the political sphere to people experimenting with drugs of various types. This has cost taxpayers more than t it would to treat the problem as a mental illness instead of a criminal one. While drug manufactures, distributors, and sellers should still face the fullest extent of the law, it does no one anyone good, but those who own for profit prisons, to keep those who are addicted to drugs going through the revolving door that is the current penal system. We should instead legalize possession of personal use amounts and offer to treat each person for their addiction and offer to help them get back onto their feet so that they might become productive members of society and pay back into the very system that helped to save their lives.

References

A Brief History of the Drug War. (n.d.). Retrieved May 22, 2015, from http://www.drugpolicy.org/new-solutions-drug-policy/brief-history-drug-war

Buckley, W. (n.d.). The War on Drugs is Lost. Retrieved May 22, 2015, from http://web.archive.org/web/20121116132827id_/http://old.nationalreview.com/12feb96/drug.html

Kain, E. (2011, July 5). Ten Years After Decriminalization, Drug Abuse Down by Half in Portugal. Retrieved May 22, 2015, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/07/05/ten-years-after-decriminalization-drug-abuse-down-by-half-in-portugal/

The truth

I am a depressed person and I am sick of fucking always hearing that I just need therapy or to be fucking happy or reminded that I am in a mood. No one wants to help for real. The only help ever offered is to pass me onto a doctor or to ask a doctor to stuff me with meds. 

No one wants to help not really. Not even those who say they love me. It's about doing the bare minimum needed in order to alleviate guilt. 

I sit here struggling just to survive while I watch all my friends swim in success... I spend hours looking for a new job that will pay a livable salary and yet I have friends who have jobs and cushy living situations just fall into their laps. 

My health is spiraling downward while everyone else seems to be getting all they want with so very little effort. Someone I call a friend has a cushy job they do not appreciate.

The lack of appreciation for what they have is what bothers me the most. The constant complaining of how they are still lacking in some way while simultaneously posting about how they are out and about doing things like getting tattoos and going to concerts and such.

I always make an attempt to thankful for what I have, even though my anxiety tells me it's not enough to keep me going. I think that's where the anger comes from, the blatant disregard for what they already have. The same friend who got the windfall, had a nearly brand new car paid off free and clear and she still went out and bought a 20k truck because her new fuck toy wanted to have a truck for them to go have fun in. Now she complains that she wants to get a new stereo in both cars, a new alarm, AND Bluetooth for both cars.

Bottom line is I wish she would just step back and be happy with what she has. She has a house, a car, a dog, a life, and her bills are guaranteed to be paid for god knows how long. I just wish people who can't be thankful could live where things are actually shitty.

This won the internet for the day!

http://www.upworthy.com/she-grew-up-mormon-and-carried-a-big-secret-for-most-of-her-life?c=ufb1

Every Mormon needs to read this.

http://rationalfaiths.com/combatting-cultural-lies-ambitious-lds-women/

Sad day...

So today is a sad day for me. Not for a personal reason, but because I realized how sad many people I consider to be my friends really are. A friend of mine got married to a guy after dating him for 5 months. They were only married for a couple of years before she moved back home and started divorce proceedings. To cap it off, she is already dating another guy, her divorce isn't final I might add, saying this one is the love of her life and how happy they are and how he is the greatest thing to ever happen to her... This saddens me because it's a glaring example of how people my age rush into marriage, and when things get bumpy, rather than fix things or work on them, they just throw it away and run back home to mummy and daddy. They go from claiming to have the perfect marriage to trying to smear campaign each other into humiliation and it greatly depresses me because they chose to leap into a marriage and yet don't have the maturity to fight for it when real life proves to be difficult to make it as adults with out the parents to pay for everything or give them money when ever they ask.

This particular girl has already moved back home, into her old room, gotten mummy and daddy to buy all new stuff for her to decorate with and has begun to "Flaunt" her new life for all to see. She acts as though it all never happened and that her life is once again perfect and untouched. She has gotten her parents to do more now for her then before she had been married and it's just a sad realization that marriage is dying because people have an overly romanticized view of what marriage is going to be like.

Marriage is hard work, no matter how strong you think your relationship is, once living together, paying bills and no longer having much in the way of private time exists, things become hard work. You have to work a lot to make things smooth and always be willing to discuss things and work them out.

They have a saying to never go to bed angry, but in reality, going to bed upset can help things come morning. Once both people have slept and have had a chance to calm down, it's easier to talk things out with out having ruffled and puffed out feathers to pick at.

It's funny

I know I haven't written about my feelings in a while, but it seems things are coming to a head again... I find it funny that the friends I've made for games on Facebook are better friends then the ones I have in real life at times. My boy had to cancel on me twice in one day and it left me pretty depressed and that led me to notice that my "real life friends" aren't even friends anymore, the only time they seem to communicate with me is when they want something for their Facebook games... I mean really that's it. They never text or call, or even IM me when they see me on. A supposed "friend" only wants to hang out when he wants something I'm not willing to give and it's been steadily ticking me off to no end. I'm sorta projecting on the poor man and it made me vent to a friend the wrong words and feelings. I mean the insecure part of me does feel that maybe he's not as into me as I thought he was, but all he did was get real busy this week... He did promise that next Sat would be our day. Have I let my emotions get far too involved already? Could he just be using me to get a lot of attention? Am I reading too far into all this?

This is what goes round and round in my head when he doesn't respond to my texts or rushes off of our phone calls and says he'll text me later or call back but doesn't and I have to get his attention again... I did tell him I wanted to take this super slow, but it seems my subconscious is wanting to rush things and I'm not sure what to do about it. I fear talking to him to about these things because I don't want to drive him away.

But back to the friends. It really sucks that when I was at MJC, they always wanted to talk and do things, but then again most of them don't have cars and I tended to play chauffeur just to get their attention... I think that shows just what they thought of me if now that I'm not there to do those things, they don't talk to me anymore... I'm thinking I need to just delete them and get it over with. I mean it's not like they notice what I post anyway. It's the craziest thing that my getting dumped by my ex showed me just who my real friends are. And sadly that's not many. It seems the rumors a certain ex-friend are now spreading have set root and people are more apt to believe her then to look at the person they have been friends with for years. It also goes to show how intelligent they really are. People who will believe rumors over the person they know really don't have intelligence no matter what their grades, articulation, and conversational abilities are and that truly saddens me because it means the future of this nation (The US) and the world in general is pretty much screwed royally due to this being the people who are going to run it in a few years.

Interesting

So I ran a bit of an experiment after my blog post the other day and realized that maybe I have a couple more friends then I thought that I can add the they really care about me list. I posted a vague status about how I realized a painful truth after so long of pretending it couldn't be true and got a couple interesting responses. I have to say it does kinda bug the crap out of me that some people act like my status update doesn't exist and others just look and go away.

I may begin to "drop" people off my friends list and see what happens as most them are people who really only noticed me back at my community college and would whine about not having any money and yet they have mummy and daddy paying all their bills. I have a job, I work hard for my money and pay what bills I can when I can and these little "Children" who actually older then I am half the time aren't making anything and whining about not having the cash to buy soda, chips, and freaking junk food. Or because they can't afford their precious Magic cards or Yuugi Oh cards since mummy and daddy only gave them enough money to buy food and ride the bus. I've even seen them use said money for their wants and then call one of their parents saying they lost the money or they were never given it in the first place. I can honestly say I'm sick of it.

I'm tired of people who aren't going anywhere with their lives trying to drag me down and bring me to their level. I sit back and wonder why I'm friends with people who aren't even on my level of intelligence. They don't make me feel smarter, in fact most of the time they make me feel frustrated really.

Granted those people on the short list I mentioned before are so not like that thankfully. They are very intellectually stimulating and I can talk with them for hours about anything, but those who aren't our topics will usually stick to things I have read to death and they never have anything new to say or new for me to learn. I think I am just plain done with these people and may severely shrink my group of friends down over the summer.

A rather painful realization

So, I've been trying to deny the long held truth that most of the people I call friend really aren't my friend as I am to them. I've looked at the majority of the photos of myself on Facebook and I'm usually the one who takes them or I have to ask someone to take them using my camera and yet I am always snapping photos of them. I've got quite a few of me with friends and many of them have asked me not to tag them in said photos and yet they are tagged like crazy by their "Better looking" friends. It's painful to realize that I'm ok to hang with and take photos with so long as no one knows. Why is it I seem to always be the friend in the shadows or in secret? Why am I the one always behind the camera? What is it about me that is so unattractive that I can't be on other people's pages or tagged with the people who claim to be my friends? Is it because I'm not traditionally thin? Or because I clearly need braces? Or my glasses? What is so ugly about me that no one wants to be a photo with me?

I guess I'm the fat chick who is only good enough to be the secret friend or the one always behind the camera taking the photos. It's really hurtful to know as well.

This ties to another realization that I am only good enough to hang out with at school really. I see my friends doing all this fun stuff and yet I never get invited. And when I ask, they claim "I figured you'd be busy" or "We didn't think you'd have fun" In all reality, they forgot about me and do so until they need me for some reason or another. Then I get to see all these posts about how bored they are and yet never once do I see a text or phone call unless they want me to do the driving, buy them food, or anything else they can get out of me. And yet, when I see said friends, they ask me why I never got in contact with them or where have I been?

I may begin to take some drastic measures to make it clear how displeased I am with this crap and that I won't put up with it anymore. I am tired of being the part-time friend. I am tired of being the one that is put up and taken down off the shelf when it's convenient for everyone else. I am tired of being the one that only is a friend when I can provide something of some kind, no matter how much it may hurt me emotionally.

Don't get me wrong I have a couple of friends who genuinely want to hang out with me and I love them dearly for it and they know who they are. They talk to me often. I even have a few photos with one of my closest friends and that makes me feel very loved and cared for. I hope these friends know how much I love them and how much I cherish their friendship, even though it's hard for me to have time to hang out right now with my current situation.

I hope that one day I make a lot of friends that are like the ones who are my true friends and that my circle of real friends is strong.