Welcome to the first Crackpot Podcast of the New Year! Our old friend John Paul Barber joined us. Mister Barber is responsible for some of our most popular episodes, including one inspired by a question of his, and his first guest appearance with us. Mister Barber has garnered more fame from the Crackpot Podcast than I have, as he was recognized on the street after his guest episode.
In this episode, Mister Barber talks about his work as a barber, his experiences in prison, and of course, boxing!
The Crackpot Podcast features James LaFond, an expert on boxing from ancient times to the present, and Lynn Lockhart, still almost entirely clueless on boxing, but hanging in there.
Before you get to the podcast, you will be required to look at these book covers and consider purchasing a fine LaFond volume on boxing and other forms of violence. This podcast is free so show your gratitude by buying a book or two.
Audio:
BitChute:
YouTube:
0:03:45 The last bastions of manliness
0:16:00 Parents on site
0:23:43 Fight video
0:27:45 Trans boxer
0:42:50 Trannies in prison
0:49:15 Other prison memories
0:54:10 Conan quote, alcohol
1:18:35 Significant events in boxing
1:39:30 Body types in fighting
1:44:40 Boxing quotes
For episode 35 of the Crackpot Podcast, we bring you a discussion on boxing, shanking with pencils, prison fights, and the barbershop with special guest John Paul Barber, who also provides some thought provoking quotes from noted intellectual Floyd Mayweather and cultural observations by Tyson Fury, you'll want to listen to the end. This episode also includes a bit more profanity than usual, in case you are into that.
The Crackpot Podcast features battle scribe James LaFond (see the comments) and sleep deprived motherslave Lynn Lockhart, who has a noticed an alarming commonality among her online friends (stabbing others with pencils).
0:07:30 Boxing overseas and in the US
0:11:40 Mayweather and Mexican boxing fans
0:12:15 Nicknames in boxing
0:14:25 Any boxing in prison?
0:16:40 What is this game, smear the queer?
0:19:40 Historical boxing rules, unlimited rounds, bare knuckle, LPR
0:23:55 American Indians in prison (link on Lumbees)
0:32:00 How did James and John Paul get interested in boxing?
0:39:47 JPB remembers fights he was in
0:49:50 The time JPB was robbed at knife point
0:53:05 The mudshark is the entry point for black on white crime, including pizza delivery
0:56:40 JPB is a good boy now, he don't do nuffin, unless you panhandle at the barbershop
0:58:42 James vs a panhandler, with an assist from a Frazetta babe
1:02:08 What is it like to be a barber?
1:10:55 How is prison like college?
1:13:15 Notable quotes from boxers, read by JPB in his inimitable Appalachian inflection
Growing up poor certainly has its share of disadvantages, but it does toughen you up and enhances your ability to improvise.
I was the third of six children and my daddy was a chicken farmer. There can be a lot of ups and downs in that business so there was never a consistent cash flow into our home. The necessities were all we got. Treats and extras were a rarity. Partly due to our circumstances but mainly because my old man was such a skinflint. He was so tightfisted with his money, if it cost a nickel to shit, he'd throw up instead.
Unfortunately for me, my next door neighbor was a boy named Billy Suddreth who was the same age as me. Billy was an only child and his daddy worked for the railroad which was a good paying job in my part of the country. Billy never wanted for anything. I was constantly reminded of all the things I could be enjoying in life because Billy had everything I desired and I had to witness what a great life he had every time I passed his house and saw him playing with all his toys in his front yard.
But it wasn't Billy's toys that I coveted the most. As a boy, my favorite thing to eat was peanut butter. My daddy would never allow mama to buy any because "it cost too much money" and "Do you know how much pinto beans you can buy for what a jar of that peanut shit costs?"
Much to my disappointment, Billy loved peanut butter too and got to eat it whenever he wanted. Billy's mama went to the store every Saturday to get their weekly haul of groceries. She always bought Billy his very own jar of peanut butter every time she went. Because he loved it so much, Billy would devour the whole jar as soon as she handed it to him. It didn't take me long to learn this pattern.
I would patiently wait on Saturday for Billy's mama to get back from the grocery store. I knew about how long it would take for Billy to eat that jar of peanut butter. When I knew my window of opportunity was open, I'd go down to Billy's house, knock on the door, and ask if he could come outside and play.
Once Billy came out, we'd play around for a few minutes and I'd always find a way to pick a fight with him and make sure it turned into a wrestling match. Now, you might be thinking I did this because I was a mean and jealous child and I somehow wanted to punish Billy for having a better life than me. You'd be wrong in thinking that. I just wanted to get close enough to him to smell that sweet scent of peanut butter on his breath.
Even before I was of legal age to drink, alcohol has always been my drug of choice. I learned a valuable lesson early on not to mix it with prescription medication.
By the time I was 17 or 18 years old I was well on my way to turning my liver so black it could've impregnated half the neighborhood and denied all responsibility. Me and my friends would start drinking beer not long after we woke up, ride four wheelers in the woods all day, and keep drinking on up into the night.
One of my friends, David was the only one in our group who didn't drink. He was a pothead and also my chauffeur. David would drive me around to various locations throughout the day and night, taking me wherever I needed to meet up with my customers who purchased my wares. David's father was a former pot dealer who'd fallen from prominence and was also certifiably crazy. He always kept a full bottle of Xanax in his pocket to help him get through his anxiety attacks.
For those who don't know, Xanax is an anti-anxiety medication that calms you down and keeps you from worrying so much. But it doesn't really work like that if you don't have anxiety issues and you mix it with a 12-pack of Miller High Life. This combination basically makes you not have a care in the world and you fear absolutely nothing.
One afternoon, I was with David and his cousin Willie. David was driving a new car I'd just bought and of course, I was already drinking. We rode out to David's house to see his old man. While we were there, I got the bright idea to talk David's daddy into giving me a couple of his Xanax pills. Big mistake.
About an hour later we went back toward town and stopped at this old country store to get gas. David was pumping gas (yeah, that was part of my chauffeur's job) and I got out and walked toward the store to take a leak. As I was walking in the store I looked out through the parking lot toward the pay phone and there was a guy sitting in a silver Chevette in front of the phone. I thought my eyes were deceiving me at first, but once I focused a little harder I realized this guy was smoking crack out of an aluminum can. In the middle of the day, in a public parking lot!
Due to the Xanax impairing my judgment, I thought to myself "Hey, I'm gonna go over there and see if he wants to buy some more!" So, like a total dumbass, I did. I walked up beside his window and knocked. He was right in the middle of taking a hit off that can and I scared the shit out of him.
After assuring him through the window that I wasn't a cop, he finally rolled it down so I could talk to him. I said "Hey buddy, I see what you're doing over here. I was wondering if you needed any more. I got it if you do." I pulled out a pill bottle full of crack rocks and shook it in front of his face. His eyes got real big and through his crack-induced locked jaw he replied "Yeah, man."
He ended up buying $50 worth, if I recall correctly. Then he tells me he's got this friend in town who'd be interested in buying some more. Once again, my impaired judgment and disregard for consequences got the better of me so I said "Yeah, we'll follow you to town."
We followed him to a part of town which is right on the line of where the White trash live and brown town begins. I had a rule that I never sold to blacks so that should've been a warning sign to me. But I couldn't have cared less that day due to the state of mind I was in. We pulled into a parking lot in front of this old house. The crackhead in the Chevette gets out and comes over to my window, and says "My friend in that house wants $100 worth. Give it to me and I'll take it in and bring your money back." As pickled as my brain was at the time, I still had enough sense not to fall for that old crackhead scam. So I tell this guy "Hell no, I'll give you a $20 rock, let your buddy sample it, then you come back out with the $100 and I'll give you the rest of it." He agreed, I gave him the rock, and he walked across the street and went in the house.
David and Willie were in the front seat and I was in the back. We sat there in that parking lot for a pretty long time until finally this crackhead comes out with an enormous buck of a negro who was about the size of Kamala The Ugandan Giant. This silverback comes right up to my car and just starts cursing and threatening us out of the blue. What he was actually doing was creating a diversion so the other crackhead could jump in his Chevette and take off without paying me.
I quickly realized what was going on so I said "David, let's get the hell out of here. This motherfucker's trying to take off and shit me!" I mentioned earlier that this was a new car we were in. This was actually the first time David had driven that car and he had trouble putting it in reverse. It had a manual transmission and you had to pull this ring up on the gearshift to get it to go in reverse. That delayed our exit and allowed the crackhead in the Chevette to get a head start on us.
If I hadn't taken those Xanax I probably would've just laughed about it and let it go. I was only out $20, which was worth the price of the shitshow we'd already witnessed. But since I wasn't my normal self that day, I was ready to annihilate this bastard over a few measly bucks. We finally got out of that parking lot while almost running over Kamala in the process. We headed in the direction of the Chevette but he was already out of sight.
This is a small town. There weren't too many places he could've went, so we headed toward the major highway that goes through town. The whole time we're looking for this guy I'm stroking a miniature baseball bat that my granddaddy made for me on his wood lathe when I was a kid. He'd engraved "John Paul Slugger" on it with a woodburning tool. It was probably 2 1/2 ft long and a couple inches in diameter at the top of the bat. I always kept it in my car as a quick weapon to grab in case I ran into some trouble.
So we get out on to the main highway and that's when I see the silver Chevette in the distance. And what do you know, the traffic light is turning red and it's stopping. As an added bonus, it was about 4:30 pm when all this was going on and the silver Chevette was stopping at the light in front of the office where my mama worked.
As David stopped several cars behind the Chevette, I jumped out of the backseat with John Paul Slugger and headed toward the car. I'm not exactly sure what my plan was, but the first thing I was going to do was bust his windshield out. I ran up beside the Chevette, raised the bat in the air as if I were wielding Conan's sword, and stopped myself at the last second as I looked down through the windshield. Sitting in the front seat wasn't a disheveled crackhead with a stringy mullet, it was two old ladies!
I'd found the wrong silver Chevette.
The look of fear in those two old women's eyes is something that will live in my mind until the day I depart from this Earth. I was mortified that I'd almost committed this act of violence against a couple of old hens who probably would've croaked from a heart attack if I'd followed through with my swing. I quickly outstretched my palm toward them and said "I'm so sorry, I thought you were someone else!"
Then I ran back to my car and told David to hook a u-ey and head farther up the mountain. We ended up getting a room at a ski resort and stayed gone for a couple days just in case Johnny Law was looking for us.
Making the Most of Your Years and Your Descendants
As men of action transition into the third stage of their lives, they may struggle with loss of physical strength and earning power. John Paul Barber reminds us that the elder season of a man's life has a great value, far beyond the strength of his back or the memory of his largest tax return.
James' relationship with his old man [from Episode 15] is a lot like mine. Daddy grew up extremely poor and was raised by his grandparents. He's only 64 and most of his childhood was spent without electricity or running water. He never learned how to swim. I actually taught him how to ride a bicycle when he was about 40. His grandparents couldn't ever afford to buy him one. So once he was old enough, his life revolved around earning money, just like James' daddy. He was always working so he never spent a lot of time with me. That's why I was so close to my Granddaddy (Mama's Daddy). He was the one who took me fishing and did stuff with me when I was a kid.
Now that I'm older, me and my old man have gotten closer. He literally knows how to fix just about anything. Since I'm a homeowner, all that knowledge he has comes in handy and we've worked on quite a few projects together. I've learned more from him in the last ten years than I did the first 30 years of my life. I just wish he didn't fart so much while we're working on these projects.
A Letter from an Appalachian Jail: The Culture Clash
It was an excruciatingly hot day in July of 1997 so tensions were already high in an overcrowded county jail with no air conditioning. This jail was built in the early 20th century before federal and state guidelines mandated certain living standards for inmates. In a seven-bed bullpen, there'd usually be sixteen men crammed into this 15x30 foot space. Not exactly a conducive environment for minding your own business.
Somehow I wound up with a fairly recent copy of Rolling Stone magazine. When I finished with it I handed it to one of my cellmates and said "Here you go Satan, they've got a pretty long interview in here with your hero, Marilyn Manson."
I never knew what Satan's real name was. I gave him that name because he truly looked demonic. Satan was a pale, six foot tall, skinny-fat middleweight with long, stringy, platinum blonde hair that hung halfway down his back. He had close-set, beady eyes, a pointed nose, was missing a front tooth, and had pentagrams and snakes tattooed up and down his arms. He was all into that shock rock garbage that was popular with the youth in the late 90s, so I figured he'd want to read the Marilyn Manson article.
Sitting beside Satan at the stainless steel eating table we all shared was a guy named Ricky Barnwell. I'd known Ricky about all my life. He was a half-raised, mouthy piece of shit in Kindergarten and by the time I was reunited with him in jail as a young adult, he'd fully lived up to the expectations I'd had for him. Ricky was about a 5'10" welterweight with the typical wiry body of a crackhead who'd sculpted a fairly decent physique from foraging for whatever scraps he could pillage from honest, hard working people. Although it was the late 90s, Ricky was still sporting a pretty impressive mullet and despite being in jail for several months, he still had a tan. This was undoubtedly caused by the fact that he'd been smoking cigarettes since he was seven years old and his alcoholic mother threw him out of the house to live outdoors every chance she got.
Satan got about halfway through the Marilyn Manson article and said "Huh-huh, cool, Marilyn says he's gonna have one boob surgically implanted in the middle of his chest. That'd be awesome!"
I looked over at Ricky and he suddenly got this disgusted look on his face and said to Satan "How bout I surgically implant my nuts to your chin you sick, freak faggot motherfucker!"
Trouble had already been brewing for a few weeks with Satan and Ricky because there was such a culture clash between them. Ricky was your standard redneck crackhead and Satan was part of this new mutated breed of outcasts.
Ricky's insult was the last straw for Satan. He'd had enough. Satan immediately jumped up and went after Ricky. They locked in a clinch with Satan grabbing Ricky's throat with one hand and his mullet with the other hand. In response, Ricky also grabbed ahold of Satan's throat and his long blond mane. They wrestled around for what seemed like an eternity without a single clean punch being thrown. Both men finally gassed out from exhaustion. The worst battle wound was a scratch on Satan's neck. It was the most pathetic fight I've ever seen in my life as far as action goes, but the buildup was one of the funniest things I've ever witnessed.
So if you ever see a long haired freak and a mulleted crackhead start to fight, just save yourself some agony and go home and listen to a David Allan Coe record or something...
Delving deeper into the War on Drugs with John Paul Barber
Mr. Barber, please give the readers a little background of your personal experience of Uncle Sam's War on Drugs, your arrest for selling cocaine, trial, and so on.
There wasn't anything out of the ordinary about my arrest. I was set up by one of my customers who was trying to get out of some trouble he was in. I didn't go to trial, I took a plea bargain for 75 months. If I'd went to trial and lost I'd have probably gotten 15-20 years. The sentences are so stiff on the federal level, only an idiot would opt for a jury trial.
Other than a few mouthy black female prison guards, I never had any trouble or was treated unfairly by law enforcement or the federal prison system. The worst part about my incarceration was being a White minority in a majority black prison. I had to constantly be on my toes. Most blacks assume Whites won't fight back. They assumed wrong with me. I spent a significant amount of time in solitary confinement for fighting. Eventually I learned to prefer solitary over general population because I could actually relax in there. As glamorous as it looks on the big screen, playing Tarzan is no fun in real life.
I understand a close relative of yours has struggled with drug addiction. Can you tell us how this has affected your family?
Yes, I have a close relative who had a terrible problem with methamphetamine and opiates. It was an awful thing to watch and I'm 100% confident she's suffered permanent brain damage from all the abuse she put her body through. Even though she's been clean for five or six years now, she's still not the same upstairs. I actually have quite a few relatives with drug and alcohol problems. I do believe there's a genetic component to addiction but I don't think addiction is a "disease" as the medical and psychiatric community would have you believe. Some people are just born with stronger levels of will power than others. You either have a strong mind or a weak mind. Although I've experimented with drugs in my younger days I never had an addiction problem like some of my relatives who I share genetic traits with. Whenever I felt like something was getting in the way of me taking care of my responsibilities, I stopped doing it. My guilt overpowered my hedonism. If only my guilt had overpowered my greediness, I wouldn't have sold poison to my people and went to prison.
Years ago a group of researchers did a study where they put a child in a room with their favorite candy bar. They told the child they were going to leave the room and come back later. They gave the child two options: 1) The child could eat the candy bar right then or 2) The child could choose not to eat the candy bar right then and wait until the adult came back. If they hadn't eaten the candy bar, then the child would get a second candy bar. This was a test to see how well these children could delay gratification for a greater long term payoff. Then these researchers followed the children into adulthood to see what choices they made in life. Almost exclusively, the children who had the ability to delay gratification did well in school, didn't get on drugs, didn't go to jail, got good jobs, and had a higher overall quality of life. The opposite was true for almost all of the children who ate the candy bar immediately.
This study gives us a window inside the human mind and how it works. In my opinion, most people who grew up to be drug addicts would have gobbled up that candy bar before the adult had even gotten the door shut. So, are some people more genetically prone to addiction? I think yes, but there's not an "addiction" gene. Just mental weaklings.
What is your approach to child rearing with respect to drugs. Have you been open with your children about your experience and other family members' experiences?
My children are still too young to understand what drugs are. They know what taking medicine means but I don't think they could comprehend the concept of "getting high." I have told my oldest daughter that I've been to jail before but I just told her it was because I broke the law and was acting bad. I do plan on explaining to my children about my past when they get older. I wouldn't be much of a father if I didn't. Maybe hearing some of my stories will help prevent them from straying down the same path I did.
The quantity and power of drugs available, opiates in particular, cannot be compared with alcohol, to which humans have thousands of years of exposure, or other naturally occurring drugs which historically have been rather hard to come by and less potent. You touched on this in your earlier letter, is there some balance to be achieved between prohibition and drugs free-for-all?
As I stated in my original letter you previously posted, law enforcement should take a hands off approach to drug dealing and using within the US. Still keep it illegal on the books and leave it as an underground activity but just don't enforce the drug laws. It hasn't done a bit of good with regard to deterrence. We have worse drug abuse problems now than ever before and have spent trillions of dollars after 40 years of the drug war. Law enforcement would have better results going after these drug addicts for committing thefts and other crimes to support their habits. We need harsh penalties for this kind of behavior.
It's more effective and efficient to use our resources to cut off the supply coming into the United States. I mentioned The Wall on the Mexican border as being a good example of something that would have a big impact on cutting off supply lines.
Another huge problem we have is Fentanyl coming into the country from China. A lot of it is coming in through the mail. There has to be some way for the federal government to crack down on this. Having drug dogs sniffing every package coming in from China could be done for a fraction of the money we spend going after junkies and dope peddlers.
We also need more drug interdiction at our ports. Cargo containers from all over the world are coming in by the multitudes every day with God knows what inside. Not only is this a good argument against free trade and globalization, but it's also something that needs to come under extreme scrutiny by the DEA and Customs agents. Another example of how resources could be allocated toward something that would produce results instead of filling up our prisons with junkies and dealers.
Do you think cannabis should get special consideration, as is now becoming widespread politically?
Marijuana legalization isn't something I dwell on a lot. That ship has already sailed. More and more states are legalizing it and I see that trend continuing. The Bible Belt will be the last region of the country to go along with it, but they'll eventually succumb since their state legislators won't be able to resist the sales tax revenue that can be generated from pot sales.
Personally, I think weed is for degenerates and I don't care what the latest study at Pothead U says, it is harmful to you long term. It makes people have a "don't give a fuck" attitude that leads to less productivity over time. That said, I think we do need to stress to our youth that there's a big difference between marijuana and hard drugs and how they affect your life. We tell kids don't do drugs, and that all drugs are bad. Well, most of them will smoke pot at some point as teenagers and they think "Hey, this isn't such a big deal. They must've been lying to me about all those other drugs too. I think I'll try this heroin. I bet it's no big deal either."
Do you think there are larger economic incentives at play? Junkies are revenue units for all sorts of medical and social services. Pharmaceutical companies benefit from replacement drugs and all sorts of auxiliary drugs.
Yes, I do think there are larger economic interests at play. The obvious ones are, as you mentioned pharmaceutical, medical, and social services. Also the prison and law enforcement sectors base most of their business model on our drug laws. Since most politicians are attorneys, they don't have any incentive to get their tentacles out of this system either. All their buddies still practicing law are making a killing negotiating plea bargains for drug crimes.
We also have our US military protecting the poppy fields in Afghanistan. When the Taliban were in charge, poppy farming was outlawed and punishable by death. Why are we not only allowing poppy farming but encouraging and promoting it? Always remember that the #1 national security issue for the US government is maintaining the US dollar as the world's reserve currency. It's our greatest strength. I'm assuming we've brokered the same deal with Afghan cartels that we brokered with Saudi oil sheiks: We'll provide you with military protection but you can only accept US dollars for your product. This keeps our currency in use and in demand and prolongs dollar hegemony.
But the largest economic interest is one most people probably don't realize. The liquidity provided by organized crime/drug cartels to the financial sector is huge. Without black market economic activity (most of which is drug related) the global economy would probably collapse. In fact, during the 2008 financial crisis, drug money was the only liquid cash available. It's probably what kept us from falling into total ruin.
Thank you so much for your valuable perspective, John Paul Barber.
John Paul Barber is a reader and a listener who was arrested 20 years ago for selling cocaine and served time in federal prison. He lives in Appalachia and has seen the casualties of the opiates crisis first hand.
Hey Lynn,
You mentioned in your email you were surprised that I'd been in federal prison. I'm not exactly sure what you meant but I assume you meant you were surprised my crime was serious enough to warrant federal attention [yes, this is what I meant]. Well, most people wouldn't think it warranted federal attention. I was only 19 years old when I got busted so I hadn't been alive long enough to be a kingpin or anything. At first my charges were only state charges, but after about six months the local authorities turned my case over to the Feds by putting me on a conspiracy indictment with six other guys. I only knew one of them. The reason they do this is because federal sentencing guidelines are way more harsh than state guidelines. It looks better in the local newspaper and on the cops' resumes if the crooks they bust get lengthy prison sentences. If my charges had stayed at the state level, I would've most likely gotten probation as a first-time offender. Instead I received 75 months in prison plus 5 years of probation upon release. I also had a $40,000 drug tax that I owed. I never paid it. I just had bad credit for ten years until it came off my credit report. The group they put me on the conspiracy case with was the first time my local officials turned a drug case over to the Feds. Apparently it worked well for them because they did it to about a hundred more drug dealers after that.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to make any kind of excuses or portray that I was treated unfairly by the authorities. I knew I was breaking the law and there were consequences for that. At the time though, I didn't realize the consequences could be so severe. I played with fire and got burnt and I take full responsibility for it. I also learned a very valuable lesson... easy money is rarely ever worth it. The best throw of the dice is to throw them away.
Like I said before, the drug war issue was what first got me interested in politics. With all that time on my hands I had plenty of opportunity to think about things. I became curious as to how a 19 year old kid who'd never been in trouble before could get six years in prison for selling somebody something they wanted. A friend of mine in prison loaned me a book called Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do (The Absurdity Of Consensual Crimes In Our Free Country) by Peter McWilliams. Peter was a fag who died of AIDS and lymphoma. He got in trouble for growing over 4,000 pot plants that he distributed to co-ops for medical marijuana patients.
Anyway, I read that book and quickly became an advocate for drug legalization and also took several other libertarian political positions. As I've gotten older my views have changed quite a bit. With regard to drug legalization I had an a-ha moment about eight or ten years ago when it dawned on me what the results would be. Most all of the violence associated with illegal drugs in America is perpetrated by blacks and Hispanics. So what would these people do if dope started being sold in stores like cigarettes and alcohol? Do you think they'd all go get jobs and become fine upstanding citizens? Hell no, they'd start robbing, extorting, and kidnapping for a living if they couldn't make money selling dope. At least in the drug business most of the violence is limited to other participants in the drug game. Them killing each other is a eugenics program as far as I'm concerned. Regular folks would be the main ones targeted for robbery, extortion, and kidnapping in a world of legalized drugs.
Advocates for drug legalization usually bring up the fact that drugs used to be legal in America many years ago and we didn't have anywhere near the problems with it that we do today. This is true. You could go to a pharmacy and buy cocaine and morphine if you wanted it. But it was also when we were a 90% White, Christian country. I live in majority White Appalachia where we have some of the highest drug addiction rates per capita in the country. Yet we have hardly any violent crime. Sure we have plenty of breaking and enterings and petty theft, but people here aren't killing each other in the streets over dope. There's not a trailer park full of junkies in my whole county that I wouldn't feel safe walking through by myself or with you or anyone else. That said, I'm not even going to entertain the thought of drug legalization in a White ethnostate. Anybody who thinks a White ethnostate is ever going to happen in America needs to be drug tested themselves.
Yes, it's true that Big Pharma, Politicians, and Law Enforcement have big-time interests in keeping the system the way it is. But at the end of the day, nobody's forcing drug addicts to put that poison in their bodies. They do it by their own hand. It's a two-way street and where there's a demand, a supply will always be met. I blame a decay in overall moral character as the biggest cause of America's drug problem. I'm not all that religious but I'll be the first to admit most drug addicts need Jesus more than they need rehab.
So what kind of solutions do I propose? Well, as you can guess, definitely not legalization. However, the drug war itself is a total joke and a waste of time. I think drugs should remain technically illegal and kept as an underground activity because at least the dangerous element of it will deter some people from getting involved in drugs. At the same time, I also think law enforcement should take a hands off approach toward drug dealing and drug buying. Kinda like how we treat sodomy laws today. It's technically illegal in a lot of states to be a faggot but nobody gets arrested for it. Selling drugs is a great jobs program for the black and Hispanic community and keeps them from committing more real crimes against regular folks who aren't involved in the drug trade. And let's face it, what race of people are more genetically suited to deal with pathetic junkies than black drug dealers? A junkie needs to deal with some swarthy, aggressive thug who'd just as soon shoot you in the face as tell you the time of day. Maybe it'll discourage some of these addicts from further pursuing such a degenerate lifestyle.
Cops should focus their time and resources toward going after criminals (including drug addicts) who are committing real crimes against people and property. And these criminals should be severely punished for it. I'm totally ok with public floggings and bringing back chain gangs. Regular prison is just another massive welfare program and it isn't a deterrent for a lot of folks, especially blacks. It's like a big family reunion for most of them because half of their cousins are in there too. The only thing they're missing out on in prison is women and that's not a big deal for a lot of blacks. They'll turn "prison gay" like it's nothing. A hole and a heartbeat is the only requirement that's needed, a heartbeat being optional in some cases.
The vast majority of our illegal drugs (pot, meth, cocaine, and heroin) come in through the Mexican border so the greatest deterrent for drug trafficking would be THE FUCKING WALL!!! Put gun turrets on The Wall, bring some of our soldiers home from protecting the borders of other countries, and give them orders to shoot to kill anyone trying to cross or smuggle anything across that border. That would put a huge dent in the supply of drugs into this country.
Our other big problem is prescription painkillers. That's going to have to be a political solution that will take a strong hand and a lot of will power that most likely doesn't exist. Big Pharma is one hell of a powerful lobby. I don't believe in some grand conspiracy to drug the population to make us all mindless automatons. Greed is what drives these people. More profits, higher stock prices, more funding for law enforcement, etc. Add that to the centuries-old desire of humans to alter their consciousness and you have this giant feedback loop that fuels our appetite for drugs. I really don't know what a solution would be for that or if there even is a solution. We live in a culture of instant gratification where there's a pill for anything that ails you. A major cultural shift in moral values is probably the only thing that can cure our addiction to prescription pills.
Lynn, I hope this helps you understand my thoughts on America's drug problem.
PS: Tell James thanks for passing along Narco-Night Train. I'm about 50 pages into it and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. Great stories. James has mastered the art of description. Other than smelling bodily fluids I feel like I'm riding Baltimore public transportation when I'm reading these tales.
Thank you, Mr. Barber, I agree with much that you have stated here. I appreciate your perspective as someone who has been there, in more ways than one.
Skulker Jones was inspired by Sympathy For The Devil. Sympathy For The Devil was inspired by Mikhail Bulgakov's Master And Margarita. Jagger was a fan.
Thanks for the tip, Mr. Barber, I had never heard of Master and Margarita, have you read the book or seen the series?
