I was browsing Newsvine tonight and I came across this article: Intel Chief Says Personnel Number 100,000. The number at first didn’t sound so scary, since big numbers are easy to shrug off. Usually I deal with billions or trillions when deciphering the Federal budget and debt, so a measly 100,000 peoples sounded like nothing.

Then I realize the problem with that number. With 300 million people in this country, the amount of people working for intelligence agencies is 1 in 3000. I grew up in a middle-sized town of 30,000, where I knew a good number of people at the grocery store. I live in a small town of under 3,000, where I recognize almost everyone on the streets.

1 in 3000 American citizens work for an intelligence agency. Out of actual adults (217.8 million) that is 1 out of every 2178 adults. 0.05% of all adults work for an intelligence agency.

Of course this means not everyone is a spy — some are merely “support crew” for those spying on their own citizens in the name of defense against terrorists. How many of these people have direct family? If half of these people are married and half of those have kids (that is a very low estimate), you’re talking about 1 in 1714 either works for an intelligence agency or relies on the income of someone who works on an intelligence agency. If we reach a little farther and say every one of those people is married and has 2 kids (way overkill), we’re talking about 1 in 750. So somewhere between 1 in 750 and 1 in 1714 people are part of this group.

Extend it to close family and the number gets closer. As we edge towards 0.1% of the population working as spies or for spies, do we start to think that we’re doing more harm than good? Do you encounter 1000 people in a month at work, when shopping and eating out, at your church or synagogue or mosque, or just on the road that you recognize? Could 1 of those people be a spy?

There’s no cause for concern, I’m sure, I’m just playing math games. But these are math games that our parents wouldn’t have played, and our grandparents wouldn’t have even thought of — let alone worried about.

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I didn’t even realize today is April 20th. For some, it is just another day. For others, it is a day of celebrating a freedom that quickly has been taken away from us — the freedom to commit no harm to another individual by making a decision to ingest a substance in the safety of your home. That freedom, for some, is the smoking of cannabis. (420 explained here)

I’m no pot smoker. On the few occasions I’ve inhaled, I’ve found myself quickly robbed of any ability to think of a new thought. Imagine a 20-something guy who can only say the same phrase over and over again for 6 hours, and not realize he was doing this. I am a bad pothead. That being said, those few occasions did nothing but put me to sleep (and bore those around me). I didn’t go off and try harder illegal self-medications, I didn’t go off an force myself on another individual. I slept, I woke up, I moved on. For some of my friends, this self-medicating is a regular hobby. For others I know, it is truly medicine, the only way they can find themselves eating and living while going through cancer treatment, or dealing with terrible disabilities such as muscular sclerosis.

Cincinatti recently passed yet another law blocking the right to inhale a substance on your own property. 420 will get you 30 according to the News Record of Cinci. “What we had in Cincinnati before is that if you possess under 100 grams it was a minor misdemeanor and would receive a citation, now anything from one gram to 200 is a fourth degree misdemeanor,” Lanter said. A fourth degree misdemeanor in some states is equivalent to stalking, child abuse, and computer damage.

I don’t care what someone does in their own home, as long as they don’t come into my home or property to try to physically harm me, my family or my belongings. I don’t care if they smoke and drive, as long as they don’t crash their car into mine. The only act I think the police should be performing is watching over the public servants we pay — the rest of us can do just fine with tort laws.

It is no surprise to me that Cincinatti is passing new ridiculous laws. This is a city in a state that has overspent and overtaxed, causing villages to turn off streetlights to cover their own budget shortfalls. When a town or a state runs low on money, rather than cutting the budget, they find new ways to create new criminals.

A fourth degree misdemeanor can bring about jail time, but more likely it will just offer a fine and community service. This is a double whammy for the town — they pick up a few dollars, and they force you to do their work while they pay publicans to oversee you. Rather than watching for thieves and murderers, they’ll spend your tax money looking out for stoners. What a wondering city this should be to live in.

The positive is that it is only a city making the mistake. You can happily vote with your feet, move out of town, and never touch it again. That’s what I recommend — if you’re a smoker or even just someone who doesn’t care what others do, stop shopping there. Don’t use their services — private and public. Watch what you buy online, and make sure it doesn’t ship from Ohio. Teach these publican crooks a lesson, hit their pocketbook.

Smokers would be wise to pack up and leave, and maybe that is what the city wants. I doubt it. In reality, they’ll charge a few more people with the non-violent offense, pocket the cash, hire a few more officers to protect the children from this alleged gateway drug, and continue the financial harassment of their taxpayers. In the short run, it won’t reduce the amount of smokers. In the long run, this is a gateway to more tyranny at the local level.

Not that smokers would go and complain. Anyone should realize that publicly commenting on the right to smoke would quickly get them listed in the watch-list. Don’t be surprised if other towns decide to follow in Cincinnati’s unjust criminalization of innocents. More laws = more money = more public servants = more laws. The endless cycle continues.

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