Schwarzenegger to Close 220 State Parks

[innerSpaceman]

I wouldn't mind a hefty marijuana tax to make it legal once and for all. I love that so many states are considering legalizing it now that it can rescue them from financial ruin, but that was not good enough when it was a harmless drug compared to alcohol and tobacco, and it grows from the frelling earth itself.


I hate to see the shuttering of parks, but I've a feeling we might look back a few years from now to find it quaint when all social and government services have stopped.


Get a grip, people. Aside from raising YOUR taxes to amounts you couldn't possibly afford to pay, please make some suggestions for where you'd like billions of dollars cut from the state budget before you go crying about such relatively minor issues as closed parks.


Believe me, I think this is horrible. Closing off nature from the public is abhorent to me. It's also boneheaded in that the parks turn a profit for the California economy.


But compared with what's to come here in California, and with what is going on elsewhere in the world as I type these words ... state park closures are really a ... a ... ok, no better analogy available ... a walk in the park.

[SzczerbiakManiac]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

I wouldn't mind a hefty marijuana tax to make it legal once and for all. I love that so many states are considering legalizing it now that it can rescue them from financial ruin, but that was not good enough when it was a harmless drug compared to alcohol and tobacco, and it grows from the frelling earth itself.

I fully support the legalization of marijuana, but to say it's harmless because it's natural is ridiculous. Oleander and hemlock are also 100% natural but I don't think anyone in their right mind would want to ingest those.

[innerSpaceman]

Originally Posted by SzczerbiakManiac

I fully support the legalization of marijuana, but to say it's harmless because it's natural is ridiculous. Oleander and hemlock are also 100% natural but I don't think anyone in their right mind would want to ingest those.

Whoa! I didn't say it was harmless BECAUSE it's natural. My implication is that it's absurd for man to declare illegal that which grows from the earth. If that puts hemlock in the same bag, so be it. Let's allow that to be legal, and see just how big the market is for hemlock.


Nor did I say it was harmless at all. I said it was LESS harmful than alcohol or tobacco, both drugs that are legal.


I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. We now return to your State Park Potential Crisis thread, already in progress.