Continuing saga of the museum

Mary Brook is another pro museum author of letters to the BOP Times. She recently called a Mr Ogle a phillistine for not wanting a museum. I in turn called HER a philistine for calling for the most uncivilised action known to man to be used upon Mr ogle - the use of force and threats in the form of fines and imprisonment. She has since replied saying she did not call for the use of fines and imprisonment in her letter.

Here is my reply to her.

The friction generated by two (or preferably more) braincells moving and rubbing together is what makes the energy that creates what is known as THOUGHT! Mary Brooks braincells definitely need to jump and move around a bit more if she is unable to work out the consequences of what she proposes! Should that particular act not be possible for her I guess I shall have to explain those consequences to her, and all the other touters of compulsion out there who would use force to get their way. Mary Brook wants the council to use force on Ross Ogle (and all those not in favour of a ratepayer funded museum) to pay for her museum. Should Mr Ogle refuse to submit to the demands made upon him by the council at her behest, he would be fined. Should he refuse to pay the fine, he could be imprisoned. So Yes Mary - you DID say those things that you deny! Furthermore, if Mary Brooks is the gentile English lady that a gentleman insists she is, then it is unbecoming of her to advocate the use force and threats (via the council or anybody) - like a schoolyard bully - to get her way?

Now I personally would LOVE a museum - what I have a problem with is the MORONIC, mindless council minions and thoughtless, principle-less public DEMANDING that ratepayers be forced to pay for it.

Apparently of all the artifacts the council have stored, and pay $50,000 a year to store away, only 3% would be actually DISPLAYED in this new $21 million dollar museum anyway, so the ratepayers will STILL be paying for the storage on TOP of for the COST of the museum, and ON TOP of how much it LOSES every year.

FANTASTIC

More prohibition, worse drugs:

Milton Friedman’s “Iron Law of Prohibition”

Johann Hari from London’s Independent newspaper is surprised that ten days after Milton Friedman’s death he’s been eulogised for his monetarism, praised for his proselytising on small government and buried with his errors, but few have raised the “one issue [on which] Friedman applied the forensic brilliance of his brain to a deserving purpose. Over forty years,” notes Hari, “he offered the most devastating slap-downs of the “war on drugs” ever written.”

He once told Bill Bennett, Bush Snr’s drugs tsar, “You are not mistaken in believing that drugs are a scourge that is devastating our society. Your mistake is failing to recognize that the very measures you favour are a major source of the evils you deplore.”

Friedman proved, for example, that prohibition changes the way people use drugs, making many people use stronger, more dangerous variants than they would in a legal market. During alcohol prohibition, moonshine eclipsed beer; during drug prohibition, crack is eclipsing coke. He called his rule explaining this curious historical fact “the Iron Law of Prohibition”: the harder the police crack down on a substance, the more concentrated the substance will become.

Why? If you run a bootleg bar in Prohibition-era Chicago and you are going to make a gallon of alcoholic drink, you could make a gallon of beer, which one person can drink and constitutes one sale – or you can make a gallon of pucheen, which is so strong it takes thirty people to drink it and constitutes thirty sales. Prohibition encourages you produce and provide the stronger, more harmful drink. If you are a drug dealer in Hackney, you can use the kilo of cocaine you own to sell to casual coke users who will snort it and come back a month later – or you can microwave it into crack, which is far more addictive, and you will have your customer coming back for more in a few hours. Prohibition encourages you to produce and provide the more harmful drug.

For Friedman, the solution was stark: take drugs back from criminals and hand them to doctors, pharmacists, and off-licenses. Legalize. Chronic drug use will be a problem whatever we do, but adding a vast layer of criminality, making the drugs more toxic, and squandering £20bn on enforcing prohibition that could be spent on prescription and rehab, only exacerbates the problem. “Drugs are a tragedy for addicts,” he said. “But criminalizing their use converts that tragedy into a disaster for society, for users and non-users alike.”

Somebody slap that woman!

I have just finished reading the arrogant and condescending letter by the equally arrogant Mary Brooks. (BOP Times Nov 9). Two sayings spring to mind after reading her diatribe. One is "The pot calling the kettle black!" Brooks calling Mr Ogle a philistine is a bit rich seeing as it is she who wishes to use the most uncivilised action known to man - the use of "force" - upon those who do not share her view. The second is "those in glass houses should not throw stones!" Brooks is the philistine, as Mr Ogle simply wishes to mind his own business without the likes of Brook threatening him with fines and imprisonment should he refuse to meet her demands (ie that he be forced to pay towards the museum she would force upon him.) Once again the community is split - those who covet the property of others and those who would mind their own business. Once again it is our mindless councillors who can think [sic] of no alternative to the use of force, that put the community into this position. Hire out the artifacts to a private mueum, and get a return for them instead of “paying” storage fees and forcing ratepayers into paying another $25 million off for the rest of their lives.
Once again the touters of compulsion have it wrong! The question that SHOULD be asked is NOT "Do we want a museum, but should it be a RATEPAYER FUNDED, COUNCIL RUN museum. The answer to do we want a museum is YES! It is the COUNCIL RUN, RATEPAYER FUNDED bit that is WRONG and IMMORAL, along with the heathens and phillistines that would FORCE us to be CIVILISED and have a museum! Now there is an example of an oxymoron for you!