Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Emails from a Canadian in Singapore

You'll all remember last week when it came to light that Georgia Rep. Tommy Benton (R-Jefferson) told a constituent that he would like to see marijuana users caned (like they do in Singapore) and marijuana businesspeople executed. Rep. Benton then forwarded his email conversation with his constituent to the local sheriff's office in an attempt to intimidate and frighten his constituent.

Yesterday I received two emails from a Canadain living in Singapore and teaching at an International School. I thought I'd share them with you. I have removed the name for privacy reasons.

Hi,

I currently teach at an international school in Singapore, the place your wacko politico Tommy Benton wants to emulate, and I can say that in the international high schools weed is certainly available, albeit not cheap (US$40/gram).

Singapore is hardly a model to borrow from, a society of docile, brainwashed drones who live in constant fear of speaking out against their government.

Tommy Benton is a war criminal, or at the very least he aspires to be
one, so on that note perhaps we should cane him first to set an example
to others who would chain the herb and hurt the people.


And here is the email our friend in Singapore sent to Rep. Tommy Benton.


As an international school teacher currently living in Singapore I can
say with certainty that at the high school level cannabis IS freely
available to students here, and while there is no significant "drug problem" per se,
that is a function of local culture, not of gov't policy, since cannabis
would not be in widespread use even were it legal here (the problems
here are general, widespread fear of speaking out on political
issues, and a living in a society of docile, brainwashed drones who are
amongst the most selfish, inconsiderate, unhappy people I have ever encountered in
my 11 years of overseas living)

Furthermore, their use of caning is a punishment that requires no justification from the gov't here since it is a fairly intolerant and cruel dictatorship, giving uncritical military and political support to the Burmese generals who educate their children here as well as deposit their billions in stolen $$$ into Singapore banks.

That said, criminal prohibition is a clear risk factor for youth, and leads to increased harm, as you will realize if you are intellectually capable of following the argument made in the attached document.

As a committed member of his local church it is clear that he has not actually read the bible much, as Genesis 1:23 unambiguously asserts that all plants
are given to us from our maker.

Death penalty and caning? Perhaps the rep. would consider being amongst
the first test cases...

As for passing along the names to police of any who oppose him, I would
suggest he refer to the final pages of the attached paper, which clearly
indicate that he is associated with and highly supportive of some very
deep and systemic professional teaching ethics violations, but reason
and ethics don't appear to matter much to a man who has already ignored
the very first book of the bible he claims to worship, do they...?

Tommy Benton is perhaps best at illustrating the bigotry and
intellectual sloppiness inherent in American society today, and if he
were to get a passport and see Singapore for himself he would see that
it ranks about 140th of 160 countries in terms of press freedom, a place
where, similar to his own values, the wet cane and the truncheon take
the place of reason and wisdom...

What a frightening farce you people are.



I am still working to get an action going in Georgia. Will post here when things are confirmed.


3 comments:

Nick said...

I've heard Singapore is quite free economically...but yeah, only about as economically free as it can be for a police state. Why can't we have a society that's free both economically and civilly? Seriously, it seems like a distant dream.

Brandon said...

It really makes you wonder how people like Tommy Benton develop their terribly negative views on marijuana. It would be astonishing to see a diagram of how their opinions developed.

I'm sure a lot of them would have a pretty linear diagram seeing as how so many opposed to issues with drugs in general (outside of ultra-religious folks and those whose children have brought shame on them by getting busted) have not really attempted to educate themselves about marijuana - or hemp for that matter.

Unknown said...

We need to get these political dinosaurs out as soon as possible. The harm thay have done to our rights is quite extensive. While we're losing some of them due to old age, we really need to just vote them out of office. It is also no good to have one of these guys leave office just to be replaced by a younger intolerant clone.