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Time to rethink some of society�s �rules�

September 04, 2003 ~ 5:08 p.m.

You see the two banners I have at the bottom of this page, the pro-Bush and legalize cannabis ones? It just occurred to me that I could refer to them collectively as �cannabush.� Geddit? CANNA-BUSH?

OK, so I�m not funny, but I�ve got a better haircut than you. Actually, I can�t even remember the last time I got a genuine haircut. Jesus, I look like such a hippy. How do I live with myself? Well, I ain�t got flowers in my hair at least. You�d have to pin me down and knock me out before I�d ever allow that to happen.

Seriously, however: I think my desire for long hair has a lot to do with why I support marijuana. It�s about freedom. It�s about smashing down, and flying in the face of, silly societal rules. We�re right as a society to impose law and order for security and to keep the peace, and to enforce them by all means.

But some �rules� about what certain people can do because it�s not �acceptable,� like smoking grass or men having long hair or, if you really want to take it to the limit, engaging in alternative sexual behavior, is nonsense. No government edict decides these things (although, admittedly, there are still sodomy laws in existence); it�s automatically ingrained in our heads as part of the social contract we live within.

Certainly, no amount of libertarianism is going to mellow people�s pre-conceived notions of what men and women can or can�t do. Hell, I saw a guy wearing a mini-skirt at Victoria Station once. I have no idea what that was about. He didn�t have make-up on or wasn�t wearing hooker boots or anything�just a guy in an athletic jersey, socks and sneakers ... and a mini-skirt. Well, good for him. Live and let live, that�s my motto, after all. But I could see the turned heads, the dropping jaws, the sniggers, the looks of amazement from the people all around him. He was daring to wear what society absolutely stipulates that he can never wear. Maybe he was performing a dare, and he was a big dude too, so perhaps his balls were as big as his size. Or maybe he just plain wanted to wear that skirt. I don�t know; I�ll never know.

What I am pretty confident about, however, is that this society spends too much time making fun of and belittling �different� people than in decrying and ostracizing those who really deserve ostracizing and punishment.

What I think I�m trying to say, in a nutshell, is that it often amazes me that we�ll poke fun at stoners and long-hairs and too short/too tall people, and anyone else who happens to be �different,� or have a disability, and we�ll brush off depression as something that can be cured by just �pulling up your bootstraps.� But we�ll admire criminals�we�re fascinated by the hell-raisers, the people who attack innocents, who rob and steal, who carjack and joyride, and who break the rules specifically designed to ensure our safety. We support and glorify this violence all the time in movies and video games and advertisements, but a guy in a skirt shocks and awes us. I find that amazing�and a sign of how seriously screwed up this society really is.

If that same skirt-wearing man could bring an end to this alcoholic, road-raging, impatient, bitchy and irrationally judgmental society, would you care that he was wearing a skirt?

And, at the end of the day, what concern is it of yours that I have long hair and occasionally smoke dope? Because I�m stepping on the toes of your pre-conceived notions of what should make me a clean-living guy and to look like one too?

Ask yourself if society really has its priorities straight. The insight such a question poses might provide for some powerful revelations.

� M.E.M.

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