hmm. I'm seeing a tacomic.

I had a really great comment on this, but neither the TNT's nor your spam filter will let it through. I think it's because it refers to farm - eh -suit - i - culls.

OK, if y'all are going to be writing about medicine you need to adjust your spam filters. There's no way to have 2 way conversation about this unless I write it like "me likey pot for sick people." Even taking all the big words and breaking them up phonetically doesn't work. I'm having the same problem with the TNT.

People keep asking:

"Why did this whole thread turn into a political discussion on capatalism?"

Answer: HE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING ILLEGAL. PERIOD.

If he had, he'd already be in jail. Clearly he doesn't mind sharing his thoughts. Trouble is most of you namby pamby anti gun liberals don't like him for the way he thinks.

Raw unrestrained capatalism doesn't work. Neither do socialism, communism or all of the other isms

Greed is in human nature, it IS human nature. We consume things, food, gasoline, electricity.

Capatism is simply greed for rich smart people. Socialism & Communism and the police-like nanny states they eventually become are just greed for people who aren't as smart, lucky or willing to work hard.

We can't help it. The problem is we're human, we all need to eat, to consume things, that always leads to greed. It just manifests in different ways. If any of you can figure out how to fix that please do let me know.

Again, wake up america, Like I said before, at least he didn't lure them in with a free toaster.

Who's more despicable? Kandi for openly being an asshole or the rest of your friendly white collar bankers and insurance guys with thier free checking, toasters and $35 dollar overdraft fees on $20 bounced checks.

Have any of you actually gone and looked at the Provost court documents? You can find them on King County's website. Has anyone noticed that Kandi NEVER foreclosed on Provost's house? He got sued by David Leen about a week BEFORE Ms. Provosts loan was even due. Kandi was sued before he'd done anything wrong in any sane persons estimation. Gotta love our legal system.

Did anyone ever mention that Kandi gave Provost two extensions on her loan?

Wake up people. David Leen and Martin Burns have powerful friends. You want to know how a 600 page, well written, 50 tab bar complaint against dirty lawyers goes away without even an honorable mention? Id like to. I've seen a copy of it and it is thorough and very damning.

The washington state bar association or somebody in it is covering for these guys. The two attorney's are dirtier than Kandi could ever be.

Did anyone print that Martin Burns was in "secret" ethics classes the other day? I'll tell you why, he was playing funky monkey with his trust accounts! don't believe me? Go ask the bar.

This whole seattle times article is nothing more than David Leen using more of his connections to get at Kandi in the court of public opinion bercause he couldn't get him in a civil trial.

Leen was kicking over rocks looking for cockroaches to step on and found a dragon. It will probably come back to bite him, dragons can be nasty creatures when you piss them off.

It's time for us all to stop being ignorant hypocrites and start being TRUE conservatives!

Pragmatic libertarians (minimal-statists) and "true" Conservatives agree that many, if not most, of society's problems are caused by government usurping choices that could better be made by individuals and that government is just about the worst way of doing almost anything. Where libertarianism normally parts company with "fake" conservatism is over moral issues. But a true conservative would have no problem with agreeing, that what people do with their own bodies, and especially in the privacy of their own home, should be supremely their business, and that anything else would entail ignoring the basic tenet of limited government.

Fake-Conservatism on the other hand has much in common with socialism; Both Leftists and Fake-Conservatives appear to harbor the belief that nature does not exist and that any human can be anything he wants to be, or can for the "greater good", be "re-educated" into being. Leftists therefore think little boys can be conditioned into preferring dolls over toy soldiers, and similarly Fake-conservatives believe that adults can be coerced into choosing alcohol over marijuana. A true conservative, just like a pragmatic libertarian, would immediately reject both ideas as nonsense.

If you support prohibition then you are NOT a conservative.
Conservative principles, quite clearly, ARE:

1) Limited, locally controlled government.
2) Individual liberty coupled with personal responsibility.
3) Free enterprise.
4) A strong national defense.
5) Fiscal responsibility.

Prohibition is actually an authoritarian War on the Constitution and all civic institutions of our great nation.

It's all about the market and cost/benefit analysis. Whether any particular drug is good, bad, or otherwise is irrelevant! As long as there is demand for any mind altering substance, there will be supply; the end! The only affect prohibiting it has is to drive the price up, increase the costs and profits, and where there is illegal profit to be made criminals and terrorists thrive.

The cost of criminalizing citizens who are using substances no more harmful than similar things that are perfectly legal like alcohol and tobacco, is not only hypocritical and futile, but also simply not worth the incredible damage it does.

Afghani farmers produce approx. 93% of the world's opium which is then, mostly, refined into street heroin then smuggled throughout Eastern and Western Europe.

Both the Taliban and the terrorists of al Qaeda derive their main income from the prohibition-inflated value of this very easily grown crop, which means that Prohibition is the "Goose that laid the golden egg" and the lifeblood of terrorists as well as drug cartels. Only those opposed, or willing to ignore this fact, want things the way they are.

Prohibition provides America's sworn enemies with financial "aid" and tactical "comforts". The Constitution of the United States of America defines treason as:
"Article III / Section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort."

Support for prohibition is therefor an act of treason against the Constitution, and a dire threat to the nation's civic institutions.

The Founding Fathers were not social conservatives who believed that citizens should be subordinate to any particular narrow religious moral order. That is what the whole concept of unalienable individual rights means, and sumptuary laws, especially in the form of prohibition, were something they continually warned about.

It’s time for us all to wise up and help curtail the dangerous expansions of federal police powers, the encroachments on individual liberties, and the increasing government expenditure devoted to enforcing the unworkable and dangerous policy of drug prohibition.

To support prohibition you have to be either a socialist, ignorant, stupid, brainwashed, insane or corrupt.

* The US national debt has increased at an average rate of $3,000,000000 per day
* The unemployment rate has increased by 7300 per day since 2008.
* The loss of manufacturing jobs has been 1400 per day since 2006.
* Without the legalized regulation of opium products Afghanistan will continue to be a bottomless pit in which to throw countless billions of tax dollars and wasted American lives.
* The hopeless situation in Afghanistan is helping to destabilize it's neighbor, Pakistan, which is a country with nuclear weapons.
* The mayhem in Mexico has deteriorated so badly that it’s bordering on farcical.

There is nothing conservative about prohibition, which enlists the most centralized state power in displacement of domestic and community roles. There is everything authoritarian and subversive about this policy which has incinerated American traditions such as Freedom and Federalism with its puritanical flames. Any person seeking to insure and not further compromise the safety of their family and of their neighbors must not only repudiate prohibition but help spearhead its abolition.

We will always have adults who are too immature to responsibly deal with tobacco alcohol, heroin amphetamines, cocaine, various prescription drugs and even food. Our answer to them should always be: "Get a Nanny, and stop turning the government into one for the rest of us!"

Malcolm Kyle: I love your commentary! Thanks for saying it so eloquently! i'd like to post it on my Facebook -- is that ok?

Malcolm - I absolutely love 98% of your commentary - thank you for such an insightful and accurate description of where "true conservatives" should be on this issue.

As one of those "commie, pink-o, socialist liberals", I disagree with your accusations, do you really know any liberals?

If you and I sat down over a few beers, we would likely agree on a majority of issues. In fact - I have almost come to the conclusion that the primary difference between liberals and libertarians is that libertarians don't trust government, while liberals don't trust corporations - other than that, many of our societal beliefs are nearly parallel.