Oiled Kay...

Did you know that ancient Greek athletes used olive oil as a lotion? They would slather on quite a lot of it, then squee-jee the excess oil and sweat off, gather it in bottles, and sell it to rich people who believed that using it as a lotion would endow them with the health and vigor of an athlete. It turns out that what provides a person with the health and vigor of an athlete is actually training, exercise, and a healthy diet. Magical oils and smokes don't really do anything but produce income for those who are exercising their freedom to sell them.

So... can an analogy be drawn between the health-enforcing-activities of the individual actors in our lifeworld and the health of the social-economic system that emerges out of their collective activity?

Alcohol and tobacco are weapons.

Does the fact that the United States of America has a bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms (and Explosives) imply that guns are a drug, or that alcohol and tobacco are weapons? I believe that it's the latter: alcohol and tobacco (and narcotics) are weapons. Have you ever read anything about the Opium War? Think about “deliberately induced discontinuity of traditional knowledge transfer.” Think about “sedentarization.”

Alcohol sort of “slows down” the brain; it interferes with normal neural function; anesthetizes the cerebrum. Habitual use makes the brain lazy; drinkers are perceived as less intelligent because people have experienced the effects of alcohol and know that it truly impairs their ability to think formally, carefully and deliberately. It makes people more likely to accept “canned solutions” to problems; or thereby to let other people do their thinking for them. Perhaps that's what it's for. Maybe that's alcohol's purpose.

Tobacco is a neural toxin and a growth inhibitor. It is also an irritant that provokes an immune response that leads to atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries). Especially in a developing youth, it slows the growth and development process, causing the resulting adult to have a skull and brain that is not as full grown and facile as the individuals genetics would otherwise allow. It creates a pseudo-hunger for smoke, and blunts hunger, thereby affecting nutritional intake as well. I was told that studies have shown that smokers with broken bones take twice as long to heal as non-smokers. I was told that the doctors who conducted the studies hypothesized that it may directly interfere with collagen formation. Collagen is a primary structural protein.

Repression of natural sexual function may very well prevent normal hormone release during formative years. The removal of sexual nerve endings in males could potentially lead to lower testosterone and growth factor levels, producing less robust, less large, less intelligent adults. That's what Ronald S. Immerman thinks; he referrs to circumcision as a “low-grade neurological castration.” (Google that and perhaps you'll be likely to find what he really said! Perhaps you'll be moved enough by it that you'll want to go box a straw man.)

It has been conjectured by some that these factors — reduced hormone levels, alcohol, tobacco, (and narcotics) and limited nutrition — produce adults who are not truly full-grown; and that maybe that's partly why blacks and white crackers in the old south were called “boy.” Perhaps they were for real not physically / physiologically full grown men, even as adults. Aldous Huxley hints at this kind of thing in his famous book, “Brave New World.”

Of course, much of the above is hypothesis, hearsay and conjecture. Despite that, don't you think you should err on the side of caution, just in case that's true? Maybe sometimes we really should let others do our thinking for us...

Domestic Violations of International Treaties

“Circumcision” is a deprecated euphemism for the atrocity that is more accurately referred to as “Male Genital Mutilation.” It is the wanton amputation of a normal, healthy, functioning body part, which is certainly a second degree felony under Utah Statute 76-5-105, “Mayhem.” Infant Genital Mutilation also certainly falls under 76-5-109, “Child Abuse”. In particular, the following definitions given under 76-5-109(1) can be easily shown to be applicable:

• 76-5-109(1)(f)(i)(B), “involves physical torture”;
• 76-5-109(1)(f)(i)(G), “any conduct toward a child that results in severe emotional harm, [...] or severe impairment of the child's ability to function”; and
• 76-5-109(1)(f)(i)(H), “any injury that creates a permanent disfigurement or protracted loss or impairment of the function of a bodily member, limb, or organ”;

Given the true and factual information about the anatomy and physiological function of the male prepuce explained by the D.O.C. Policy Statement, along with the above definitions from the Utah Statutes, Child Abuse 76-5-109(2)(a) makes Infant Male Genital Mutilation a second degree felony. Other Utah laws that may apply include 76-5-107, “Threat of Violence,” 76-5-103, “Aggravated assault,” 76-5-106, “Harassment,”, Solicitation for Conspiracy to commit, Fraud by Deception, and Omission or failure to act. Genital Mutilation is not a “rite.” It is a crime.
Further, because this brutally harmful atrocity has seen such widespread and systematic practice in the United States of America, it truly fits the definition of a “Crime Against Humanity” as defined by the Rome Statute Explanatory Memorandum, which defines the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. The Rome Statute recognizes rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced sterilization, "or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity" as crime against humanity if the action is part of a widespread or systematic practice.

Crimes against humanity, as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum, “are particularly odious offenses in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings. They are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy (although the perpetrators need not identify themselves with this policy) or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority. Murder; extermination; torture; rape; political, racial, or religious persecution and other inhumane acts reach the threshold of crimes against humanity only if they are part of a widespread or systematic practice. Isolated inhumane acts of this nature may constitute grave infringements of human rights, or depending on the circumstances, war crimes, but may fall short of falling into the category of crimes under discussion.”

The United States of America justified the invasion of Iraq, in part, by citing the crimes committed by Saddam Hussein's regime---e.g. the use of poison gas against the Kurdish people. If that war was justifiable, then perhaps it is reasonable to consider Male Genital Mutilation to be a threat to U.S. National Security. It does not require very many steps of reasoning to cross the border between U.S. actions in Iraq and forseeing a large posse entering within this country to do battle against these domestic violations of human rights. Fortunately, this is not a battle likely to be won with the use of destructive weaponry. Violence is the problem, not the solution.
Furthermore, if our own citizens, law enforcement, and courts will not acknowledge Genital Mutilation as an atrocious crime, then certainly our “government”, guilty of selective enforcement of it's own laws, faces a very serious legitimation crisis. We can no longer live in denial of this obvious threat to our health and welfare. We need to look the serpent in the eye, see it for what it is, and help it to become entire and whole again. We must end the cycle of violence by refusing to continue to inflict pain and deprivation upon each new generation, and by protecting infants from those who would continue this atrocity.
You know what they say: “If you want Democracy, then start with your own family.”