Re: Ted Nugent = ***

Ted wrote:

Please quote something from the paragraph (or the rest of the article,
for that matter) where he "trashes" them. Calling people selfish for
choosing drugs over life isn't trashing them; it's a simple truth.


He talks of his friends and then trashes them for being selfish by
"choking to death on their own puke." That kind of casually cruel
language belies any legitimate concern or affinity for those he
describes, IMO.


If, by saying he has an agenda, you mean he has a point of view, then I
agree 100%.


Right, and he has no problem tossing his so-called friends under the
bus to make his point. That bugs me, and makes me question the
sincerity of his concern for said "friends." Apparently you're OK
with it.


When an adult dies from drug abuse, you can't blame others for it. It
*is* their fault. They *are* to blame. They chose to lead their lives
a certain way and they paid the consequences for it.


People take risks of various types in life. Sometimes mistakes get
made while taking said risks that result in tragic consequences. It's
a gross oversimplification to blame everyone who dies before their
time of being selfish.


Unfortunately, their families and friends also had to pay for those choices.


Any accusations against the deceased would have far more weight if
they actually came from said bereaved family members. From Nugent, it
rings of hollow opportunistic manipulation.


He wondered what might have been if they hadn't died. I've wondered > the same thing about a number of dead musicians. How about you?

No, I don't often speculate on things like that. Who knows, if Janis
cleaned up, she might have found Allah and become another Cat
Stevens. Anything could have happened.


Would you have preferred Eric (and whatever other musicians you were
thinking about as you typed) to have continued getting high so that you
would have more music to enjoy?


No, I wouldn't prefer that, and I didn't say that. I said that
speculation about what would have happened, musically, if someone
cleaned up and didn't die, is a feckless enterprise, and cited one
example of someone who cleaned up and did squat of interest
thereafter, musically speaking. So such speculation about future
music seems pretty worthless to me.

As for any relationships that musicians may or may not have with their
families, it's really none of our business, and it certainly should
not be our presumption to judge. So many folks seem to think that
celebrities' personal lives are theirs to back-seat drive.


If I ever find myself in a position where drugs become more important to
me than family and friends again, I pray that someone has the common
sense to pass judgment on what I'm doing and the spine to confront me
about it before my selfish behavior lands me in a crematorium.


And that someone would have to be someone who actually intimately
knows you , and knows that the above prose is true.

You don't actually know that to be the case for any of the musicians
who died in the 60s. Accidents can happen in many contexts, including
the consumption of psychoactive substances. You have come to a snap
judgment that everyone who died in the 60s cared more about
psychoactives than personal relationships. That's a remarkably
judgmental conclusion, based only on the evidence of their death. As
a scientist, I choose not to make such sweeping hypotheses based on
such meager evidence.


Got your talking points right from the FBI, doncha?

What talking points?


If you can write off the entire 60s phenomenon as an instance of "drug
abuse," it's clear you've swallowed the DEA Drug Warrior kool-aid, and
there's no hope of resuscitation.


Spewing of slogans? What hat or orifice are you pulling this stuff from?


"Those who use drugs are selfish." "The 60s are an incident of "drug
abuse.'" These are brain-dead slogans with no greater degree of
accuracy than "All Republicans are evil and want you dead."


As for my beliefs, the only one I've stated in this thread is that I
agree with Ted's opinion that putting drugs ahead of family and friends
is a selfish thing to do. However, unlike The Nuge, I came by that
belief through more than just watching what happened to others I might
have loved and/or admired. Personal experiences that nearly killed me
20 years ago played a far bigger role in my belief about the selfishness
of putting drugs before life, family, and friends -- though watching
friends fall back into that lifestyle and throw loving families away for
the pursuit of drugs has certainly reinforced that belief.


Psychoactives are certainly not for everyone. They harm some, greatly
benefit some, and have a fairly neutral effect on others who try
them. Your experience is only one possible outcome of human
interaction with them. I, too, has seen friends die who used them,
but it never occurred to me to start calling the deceased names until
I started reading screeds from right-wingers like Nugent.

I have a sibling who is 21 years older than me, and getting to know
her and her friends have given me a perspective distinctly different
from yours. She has a rich panoply of friends who liberally
interacted with psychoactive substances for decade after decade, and
continue to do so, into their mid and late 60s. These people have not
died, lost the love of their friends and families, or been harmed in
any material may that I can perceive by their decades of consumption.
On the contrary, their interactions with consciousness altering
substances have turned them into the most fascinating group of 60-
somethings that I have encountered in my life. And there are
literally dozens of such individuals in her vast circle of friends in
Provincetown.

So I reject the Politically Correct drug warrior propaganda on this
one. It's not an either/or situation, drugs or love of family. It
simply isn't.


I rag on Joe because whatever beliefs he claims to have are the very
ones he ignores when they aren't convenient for him to follow. He
complains about Americans' fuel consumption, but doesn't think twice
about hopping on an airplane when he wants a vacation. He commands
people to buy organic food, yet eats in restaurants that probably get
their food from the same distributors as Safeway (not to mention his
recent admission about getting stoned and eating Tootsie Pops). He
claims to believe that all republicans are hate-mongering murderers, yet
has no problem saying that the only good republican is a dead one.


As far as I can see, Joe does more to walk the walk than anyone else I
know, when it comes to organics and eschewing conspicuous
consumption. You expect a degree of ideological purity that no one
short of a monk could live up to.


Since you suggested looking into a mirror, I'll wrap it up by saying
that you might want to consider doing the same. You got all righteous a
few months ago when Ann Coulter made a joke insinuating that Edwards was
"a ***," yet you haven't objected a single time since that time when
one of the regulars here, someone you've hung out with, has directly
called others a ***, a ***, or a half a ***. Just sayin...


It seems to me I spend half my time here calling people out for doing
stuff I don't approve of. It gets a little old, ya know? My goal is
to do less of it, not more. No one wants to read posts that
constantly scold people all the time about everything. Ya gotta pick
your battles. I tend to focus on folks who, in my opinion, might
actually be open to listening to what I have to say on a given matter.

Peace,
Neil X.

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