RoR: Forum

Post 0

Friday, July 6, 2007 - 11:41am

Link

Edit

My parents were never hippies, and never consumed an illegal substance in their lives. I was conceived in the year of the "Summer of Love." You sound like Cartman here. Let's hear from some of the old timers what was the worst issue of the day. I think the Cold War, Viet Nam and the Israeli wars were a bit more pressing issues than Haight-Ashbury.

Ted
(Edited by Ted Keer
on 7/06, 4:53pm)

Post 1

Friday, July 6, 2007 - 2:00pm

Link

Edit

Ted I don't think Mr. Nugent was implying that was the worst issue of the day? Could you please cite where Nugent said that explicitly or implied it? The hippy movement was in my opinion a very low point in American history and was very damaging to America. The hippy philosophy of doing drugs and tuning out and advocating pacifism has done a lot of damage to America that we are still attempting to recover from it decades later. Indeed, it was the hippy movement that was the primary force for abandoning Indochina, cozying up with communists, and the liberalism we have seen in the past four decades.

Post 2

Friday, July 6, 2007 - 2:01pm

Link

Edit

John- This was an excellent article- thanks for posting it. I live in San Francisco, (too) close to Haight-Ashbury, and it's very clear where the road of left-wing ideology leads. The Haight is filled with crime, drugs, bums, filth and shady characters of dubious backgrounds. Not only are these people tolerated, but encouraged by well-meaning tourists and some locals who give their money to these perpetual bums to spend on life-destroying vices. I wish more San Franciscans read this article instead of blindly praising the romanticized years of ideolgical bankrutpcy and physical destruction.

Post 3

Friday, July 6, 2007 - 2:32pm

Link

Edit

John--

Not only did "The Summer of Love" saddle us with liberalism (particularly strong today in academia) but the breakdown of law and order as the sixties progressed (for example, the '68 Democratic convention in Chicago, the Charles Manson murders in '69) aided in the rise of the conservative right, beginning with Nixon's election in '68.

I was 4 years old during the Summer of Love. I don't have too many memories of it, but I do remember seeing on TV the riots outside the Chicago convention, the coverage of the Manson murders and so on. I remember overhearing my older relatives saying that they thought the world was coming to an end with the riots, protests and so forth.

Kevin

Post 4

Friday, July 6, 2007 - 4:51pm

Link

Edit

My understanding is that the New Left which burdened us with such people as John Kerry and Bill Clinton was not necessarily identical to the drug using counter culture. Of course, the two supported each other, and, when they could be roused to vote, I'm sure the burnouts didn't normally vote for Nixon. But the drug users were not the ones who stayed the course and rose to power - like Gerry Garcia, the drug users had their own (non)-agenda and have left their own (non)-legacy. Former leftists like Camille Paglia bewail the fact that the druggies who were the cultural future burnt themselves out, leaving the mirthless Maoists to become today's bureaucratic left.

As for the hippies of Haight-Ashbury, it is not they who have invaded and repelled the legitimate government of San Francisco, it is the "legitimate" government of San Francisco that has brought this upon itself. Either vote in someone better or leave if you don't like it, but don't blame the hippies for taking full advantage - they're just like weeds in an untended lot - a natural consequence of neglect.

Ted Keer

Post 5

Friday, July 6, 2007 - 5:29pm

Link

Edit

Ted, I'm not sure I understand your contention here. Drug abuse in the hippy movement was only a corollary to the hippy philosophy of intentional disconnect. The hippy movement gave us anti-war pacifists, with thousands marching in Washington chanting "Give Peace a Chance" during the Vietnam War. You can't ignore the influence this had on the country. In fact the phrase is so ingrained in the national psyche, today's anti-war protesters have continued in the spirit of mindlessness of if it "feels good" it must "be good" philosophy. Rampant drug abuse, anonymous sex, self-loathing and hatred for America was a poison inflicted on this country by the hippy movement. It influenced the eventual abandonment of Indochina, it killed many talented people, it left a legacy of high divorce rates, high drug abuse, and a sense of welfare entitlement and government hand-outs unprecedented in American history. It is the very hippies Ted that influenced those in power during the 60's and 70's and the subsequent rise to power (your singling out of Clinton and Kerry as light to non-drug abusers is a bit lacking) that has left us with the biggest welfare state since FDR.

As far as who to blame for the current woes of San Fransisco? It goes so much more beyond the city limits of that town. But it is precisely the hippy mentality of disconnect, and emboldening those who want to disconnect by giving hand-outs, that is San Fransisco's problem. How you try to divorce that movement, the cause of San Fransisco's social woes, to the symptoms that has manifested itself from that philosophy is a bit baffling to me. To urge that people just vote in "someone better or leave if you don't like it" I find to be a flippant response. Perhaps one can flee the most liberal city in America, but one can still not flee the "liberalism of America" and still reside in this country, nor is it fair to ask people who have made San Fransisco their home and who do not agree with the liberal-hippy mentality of that town to just sit their and grin it while getting screwed out of their money and dignity. I guess Ted I could also say anytime you have complained about the legitimate mayor of NYC Michael Bloomberg giving rise to the visible increase of panhandlers and bums in that city, I could just quip back "vote in someone better or leave if you don't like it".

Post 6

Friday, July 6, 2007 - 5:49pm

Link

Edit

If you want to define hippy as primarily a political term, rather than a term for people who advocated "turning on and dropping out" then I have no problem with that. (I always thought of hippies as dead-heads, not disciplined Maoists.) But there was always a friction between the two - just as there is a friction between the libertarian and the religious right. I am not aware of many burned out drug users other than perhaps Jerry Brown and GWB who have achieved national office.

Rand argued that the two syndromes go together, drug use and leftism, just as she argued that religion and force tend to reinforce each other. This is insightful but not a law of nature. Some drug users are apolitical, others libertarian, and some religionists are pacifists or libertarians. Men are complicated creatures who often hold surprising mixtures of premises. It's not metaphysical - it's manmade.

I really have no further "argument" here, so if what I have said is clear, I really have no desire to discuss the niceties of hemp-smoking greens versus cigar-smoking industrialists and the presumably menthol-smoking Weather Underground. And of course, Hitler began as a tea-totalling vegetarian, even if he died as a speed freak.

Ted

Post 7

Friday, July 6, 2007 - 5:51pm

Link

Edit

Hey hey hey!! Watch it with the "soulless music" stuff! As if "Cat Scratch Fever" was so terribly cerebral!

I was only 10 and half, and my parents worked very hard to keep us away from all of that stuff. About all I remember are the head shops that popped up, colorful Peter Max posters, The Smothers Brothers, and The Fifth Dimension.

My mother was a Goldwater republican, and my dad was, um, I'm not sure, but he usually votes Democrap. They both hated the "hippy movement."

My mom just thought all those hippy kids weren't getting enough attention from their own parents.

She was most likely right about that.

Post 8

Saturday, July 7, 2007 - 11:00pm

Link

Edit

San Francisco is a mess, and part of it has to do with the hippie legacy, which has infected the soul of that city, and given rise to tolerance for abnoxious homeless bums who think they are entitled to be supported by those who actually work for a living. I was a resident of San Francisco from 1963 to 1997, and was happy to leave it for precisely that reason.

Scott Monroe is right about the habitues of the Haight. The place used to give me the creeps, especially at night. Once the hippy movement lost its luster, the Hells Angels motorcycle gangs moved in with their drug business in tow and after them, runaway teens and other assorted zombies. The downtown area is littered with trash and populated at night by dysfunctional youth who apparently have nothing better to do than hang out on the street.

In many cases, the homeless of today are casualties of the hippie movement decades earlier. These are people who threw away their lives by "turning on and dropping out," and in doing so, burned every bridge they crossed, making it virtually impossible for them to resume a normal, productive lifestyle. How it is that a dysfunctional movement of that kind acquired the positive reputation it did is beyond my comprehension. But we are now witnessing its disgraceful legacy. I am convinced that in the absence of the Summer of Drugs and its aftermath, the number of homeless today would be far smaller than it is. If you worship mindlessness, irresponsibility and non-productiveness, don't be surprised if you get it in spaces!

- Bill

[Grammar edit]
(Edited by William Dwyer
on 7/08, 4:41pm)

Post 9

Saturday, July 7, 2007 - 11:45pm

Link

Edit

Even if we grant that burned-out homeless drug users and drug dealers on the street are unsavory, are we to blame this situation on people doing what is their right - using or selling drugs - rather than on the policies of the govenment and wider society there - which to an extent tolerates but doesn't fully legalize drug sales - and thus allows the criminal element to use force outside the law to protect its illicit business and to overcharge its clients for potent and often adulterated products? We cannot allow personal distaste for bums to distract us from the fact that it is the drug laws which have led to this situation.

With all due respect, your last post, Bill, sounds like what I would expect from a Buchananite Republican, not a Goldwater Republican. I assume that you would, in fact, support full legalization. If this were to happen, and the government were to crack down on truly criminal activities, I think you would agree that the symptoms you bemoan would soon disappear. Indeed, since Bloomberg's and NY State's recent high taxation of cigarettes and crackdown on indoor smoking, several deaths and much criminal activity has become linked to cigarette sales. Loud noisy crowds now hang out on the streets instead of inside the bars where they cannot now smoke. Three murders have been directly linked to disputes between smokers and bouncers. Information about mafia bootlegging is less easy to obtain - but I have actually been offered cigarettes on the street by people in the same way that people used to offer heroin.

If drug use were legal, just as is alcohol, the number of junkies might not drop, but the civil disruptions of the drug trade would disappear. Bemoaning the fact that 40 years ago some people chose to exercise their rights, however self-destructive, (while when I said that suicide was not a right their were howls of protest) is not Objectivism, it is puritanical conventionalism.

Ted Keer

Post 10

Sunday, July 8, 2007 - 4:28pm

Link

Edit

This is complete hypocrisy. All one has to do is watch Ted Nugent's Behind the Music on VH-1.

They interviewed Pele Massa on that show. She was Ted's live-in girl friend for a while. She was 17, and he was 30.

Courtney Love even claimed that she gave Ted oral sex when she was TWELVE. Maybe this was just Courtney begging for attention, but such an act is certainly consistent with her personality. I naturally wonder if such an act could be the explanation for her long history of mental instability.

Ted fathered a child in 1995 during an affair even though he was married at the time.

We know you are clean and sober, Ted. That is commendable when you are working in a profession where drug abuse is so rampant. You prove to all of them that you can be a great rocker and be clean and sober.

Ted Nugent's irresponsible sexcapades are well-known in the rock world. He has no business criticizing the hippies.

Post 11

Sunday, July 8, 2007 - 5:11pm

Link

Edit

Ted,

For Pete's sake, I'm criticizing the drug culture, not the drug laws. OF COURSE, there would be less violent crime, if drugs were legal. I'm not suggesting that we outlaw drugs. Where on earth did you get that idea?? I'm condemning the USE of drugs, not their legalization. Nor am I "bemoaning the fact that 40 years ago people chose to exercise their rights." The fact that I support the exercise of a person's rights does not mean that I must therefore support every choice the person makes, no matter how irrational it is. Can't you grasp the essential point in an argument?! I've seen you do this on a number of occasions: read someone's post and draw a completely irrelevant conclusion from it.

- Bill
(Edited by William Dwyer
on 7/08, 5:22pm)

Post 12

Sunday, July 8, 2007 - 5:34pm

Link

Edit

They interviewed Pele Massa on that show. She was Ted's live-in girl friend for a while. She was 17, and he was 30.

Okay. So technically, she was a minor, but I don't consider this a serious moral breach. I had a live-in girlfriend who was 18 when I was 34! Would you make a similar criticism of me?

- Bill

Post 13

Sunday, July 8, 2007 - 5:45pm

Link

Edit

I did say, Bill, that I presumed you were in favor of legalization. My response to you was not hysterical, and it was quite civil and responsibly qualified. Again, my points are that the culture you so disdain could not have come about, and would not continue, if the laws were different. You had not addressed this. My second issue on this thread is that conflating potheads and radical political leftists is typical of paleocons and Rand herself, but it is a package deal, and an ad-hoc alliance, but not an essential connection.

On a further note, nicotine is actually more powerful and more addictive than cocaine, and with the way the feds are treating nicotine, I will not be surprised if someday people start free-basing pure nicotine.

Finally, it was interesting to see on the news that Seattle has opened up free housing for alcoholics where they can drink to their heart's content. Nine residents have so far drunk themselves to death, but the cost of vandalism, vagrancy, and emergency treatment has gone down. I can't exactly say that I approve of this "solution" but it was interesting to see.

Ted

Oh, and Chris, Nugent sure looks like a dirty stinkin' hippy, doesn't he?

Post 14

Sunday, July 8, 2007 - 7:46pm

Link

Edit

Ted (Keer, not Nugent!) wrote:

I did say, Bill, that I presumed you were in favor of legalization. My response to you was not hysterical, and it was quite civil and responsibly qualified.

You are correct, and I owe you an apology. It was MY response that was knee-jerk, hasty and irrelevant. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! :-P (Well, at least I wasn't the pothead calling the kettle black!) ;-/

Again, my points are that the culture you so disdain could not have come about, and would not continue, if the laws were different. You had not addressed this.

If this was one of your points, it was not entirely clear to me, for you stated, "If drug use were legal, just as is alcohol, the number of junkies might not drop, but the civil disruptions of the drug trade would disappear." By "civil disruptions," I assumed you were referring to violent crime resulting from the illegality of drugs. But that was not my main focus. I was objecting to the culture of non-violent drug use. I don't agree that that would not have come about but for the laws against drugs. We have nicotine addiction even though cigarettes are legal. Why wouldn't we have drug addiction and a culture of drug use if drugs were legalized? You yourself said that if drugs were legal, the number of junkies might not drop. Was the hippie movement a response to the laws against recreational drugs? I don't think so.

My second issue on this thread is that conflating potheads and radical political leftists is typical of paleocons and Rand herself, but it is a package deal, and an ad-hoc alliance, but not an essential connection.

It is true that there are libertarian potheads et al, but the hippie movement was largely leftist in political orientation.

- Bill

Post 15

Sunday, July 8, 2007 - 7:50pm

Link

Edit

There's an obvious difference between showing disdain for a drug culture, and support for the legalization of recreational drugs. They are mutually exclusive. I partake in alcohol myself, but I have incredible disdain for those that drink alcohol to excess just as I have the same disdain for drugged up hippies who get stoned while wasting away their lives.

Also nicotine just isn't a drug that can be compared to the likes of heroine or cocaine. Nicotine is certainly addictive, but it doesn't have the same mind altering effects that much harsher drugs like cocaine and heroine have. But again, if someone wants to be a fool and take heroine, then by all means I firmly believe people have the right to be fools.

Post 16

Sunday, July 8, 2007 - 7:52pm

Link

Edit

Much of the 1970's traffic in hard drugs came about due to the fact that it is much cheaper to ship concentrated hard drugs than it is bulky marijuana and it gives a much higher return. Most coke and heroin addicts are recruited by other addicts as a source of money for their addiction. Had the drug not been so expensive in the first place, most users would not have become pushers. There are sources for this, but none I'd personally care to research. This is not a discussion I really care to continue, so if that's sufficient, let's leave it there.

Post 17

Sunday, July 8, 2007 - 7:57pm

Link

Edit

Actually, John, nicotine is just like speed if administered quickly to the blood at a high enough dose. (Coke is just a mild stimulant if you chew the leaves as do South Americans.) But because nicotine is legal, no one has had to go to the extra step of refining it down to a pure powder and smuggling it across the border. I will lay a hefty bet that if smoking is ever outlawed, you will see people start to snort and then smoke free-base pure white nicotine powder. Since it is still legal, there is no market for the harder stuff - yet.

Ted

Post 18

Friday, July 13, 2007 - 6:38am

Link

Edit

Actually the only reason the whole war on drugs started was as a reaction to the hippies from Nixon and his ilk. If they had not been there making drug use appear so terrible, and on top of it been a political force against the government, there would not have been such a backlash and we might never have had such absurd laws.

Post 19

Friday, July 13, 2007 - 6:54am

Link

Edit

My views:

A) Ayn Rand herself was opposed to the Korean War, the Viet Nam war and, extrapolating her thoughts, would be opposed to our adventures in Iraq

AND

B) I don't see anything particularly wrong with responsible drug use or anonymous sex for fun.

I don't see where the "hippie" bashing comes into play. I am not a fan of that particular lifestyle, but I don't see anything wrong with a smarter, more elite hedonism.

Oh well. I don't have to adhere to M. Aramos' moral conservatism to consider myself an Objectivist, any more than I have to listen to Rachmanioff and be disdainful of say, Journey to be one.