The Morning Roar: Supreme Court Rules On Prayer, Citizens Post Their Own Traffic Signs, And Ibogaine: Natural Hallucinogen And Antidote For Addiction Illegal In U.S.
Welcome to your Tuesday edition of The Morning Roar!Supreme Court Rules On PrayerThe Supreme Court ruled on Monday that town officials in Greece, NY did not violate the Constitution by allowing a prayer at the start of their public town meetings. Officials in the small town, near Rochester said that all faiths and atheists were welcome to give the prayer or message at the beginning of the meeting. In practice the volunteers were mostly Christian.Two town residents sued, claiming that the prayers ran afoul of the First Amendment's prohibition of government establishment of religion. The citizens claimed the prayers offended them, but it is not known if the two individuals took the town officials up on their offer to give a prayer or message at the beginning of a public town meeting. The 5-4 decision was split among the highest court's conservative and liberal members.The NY Times reported on the ruling opinion penned by Justice Kennedy:
Justice Kennedy said traditions starting with the first Congress supported the constitutionality of ceremonial prayers at the start of legislative sessions. He added that it would be perilous for courts to decide when those prayers crossed a constitutional line and became impermissibly sectarian.
“To hold that invocations must be nonsectarian,” he wrote, “would force the legislatures that sponsor prayers and the courts that are asked to decide these cases to act as supervisors and censors of religious speech, a rule that would involve government in religious matters to a far greater degree than is the case under the town’s current practice of neither editing or approving prayers in advance nor criticizing their content after the fact.”
Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Alitio, Justice Scalia, and Justice Thomas all join Kennedy by agreeing on the major aspects of the opinion.
Many people today are misinformed of the true intention of the metaphorical "wall of separation" erected between church and state in the First Amendment, which begins "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
Today people believe that the founders outlined separation of church and state in the Bill of Rights in order to protect government from being influenced by the church. In contrast, the opposite is true. They wanted to protect the church from being co-opted by the State and exploited to advance the agenda of its agenda.
People may be upset about this ruling and feel that the church is influencing local politics, but in reality a far worse scenario would be (and has been) the State influencing places of worship and using them as a mouthpiece to manipulate the masses.
Citizens Post Their Own Traffic SignsIf you're anything like me, the shortcomings of the State's road signage never fails to annoy and enrage. It could be an exit sign posted so close to the exit, that by the time you see it, the exit ramp has already passed. Or my personal favorite, parking meters that have different hours and/or days of operation inscribed than the sign posted above the vacant spots. Sometimes it feels like the government agencies in charge of "keeping our roads safe" are just trying to have some fun at our expense.That's why this story out of New York gives me hope that I'm not a lunatic and others share in my frustration, but instead of simply complaining on the pages of a website (like yours truly) they are actually getting off their butts and doing something about it!Report by Fox NY:
"With my signs what I tried to do is cover 24 hours of the day to clearly state when you can and can't park," she says. "Green would be for you can park, red would be for when you can't park."She posted her sign right under the DOT's parking sign in her Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, neighborhood and left a spot for people to leave comments."The first person wrote like, 'The mayor should hire you. This is great,'" she says. "Things like that."Projects like Nkki's are part of a growing trend called "tactical urbanism" in which regular citizens using tactics to try to improve the urban environment without the government's help.Fed up by cars going over New York City's 30 mph hour speed limit, Keegan Stephan and his organization right of way started posting these "20 is plenty" signs to get drivers to slow down.
A common grievance spouted by libertarian detractors is the old adage "who would build the roads without the State?" In this instance the question might be worded a bit differently, "who would post the signs without government?" Nikki Sylianteng and Keegan Stephan have provided the answer: people would. Just like today, people build roads and post signs. The key difference being, in the world today, funds used to build roads and erect signs are extracted by force from the populace. In a "free" society, where roads are owned by individuals, businesses, or voluntarily-organized institutions, competition and common sense would have a say in determining which methods keep people safe while moving people as quickly as possible on to their destination.Ibogaine: Natural Hallucinogen and Antidote For Addiction Illegal In U.S.Heroin and similar drugs in the opioid family are terribly life-ruining, and in far too many cases life-ending drugs. It has been thought for a long time that there is no cure for heroin addiction. Going cold turkey off the drug can be fatal and if not, frequently results in a relapse soon after. The closest thing to a cure is an acyclic analog of morphine called methadone, which can prevent withdrawal symptoms. The problem with methadone is that users become addicted to that drug as well. Another treatment option is the prescription painkiller Suboxone. It is expensive, not readily available, and also highly addictive.Suboxone and methadone are basically the equivalent of trading an addiction to heroin for an addiction to another, sometimes more expensive drug.But there is another option. The Daily Beast (that's right, I read the Beast at least one time) has a fascinating story following a young woman on her journey to hopefully end her addiction to heroin by way of the hallucinogenic drug ibogaine. Ibogaine is derived from the root bark of a Central West-African bush called iboga. It is a naturally occurring psychoactive drug. I recommend heading over to The Daily Beast and reading the article in its entirety (after you finish and share The Morning Roar of course). The following is an excerpt from the above link.
In 1962, the drug landed in the hands of a 19-year-old heroin addict and NYU student named Howard Lotsof. He knew only that the drug came from Africa and induced a 36-hour trip. After trying it with his friends—whom he marketed it to simply as a fun, long-lasting opiate—Lotsof awoke in shock, completely free from the desire to use drugs. He spent the rest of his life (he died in 2010 of liver cancer) convincing any drug researcher he could find to test the anti-addiction properties of ibogaine. He wrote letters, made phone calls, and beseeched every major pharmaceutical company—not a single one was interested. Lotsof eventually took the drug to the Netherlands, where some of the first ibogaine clinics were born.Many of the research results he was able to get, including those of one Dr. Stanley Glick, were promising. Some, such as the work of Dr. Deborah Mash, still are. But regulatory approval for the drug, made difficult by its dangerous and unpredictable effects, was never won. In 1967 ibogaine was placed under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 (DACA), making it illegal to possess, sell, or manufacture it, except for personal use. Less than one year later, ibogaine was officially banned as a Schedule I substance—a classification that rests on the concept that the drug in question has no accepted medical use.That, combined with big pharma’s reluctance to campaign for the regulatory approval of a drug that users only need once, has made ibogaine all but obsolete in the U.S.
Are you surprised that a drug that could potentially cure heroin addiction and save countless lives is banned by the U.S. government? You shouldn't be. The State could care less about the junkies on the street. The State does the bidding of the pharmaceutical companies that require the prohibition of naturally occurring treatments in order to ensure their drugs have a monopoly on the market.Read The Morning Roar every weekday Monday-Friday!The Lions of Liberty are on Twitter, Facebook & Google+Receive access to ALL of our EXCLUSIVE bonus audio content – including “Conspiracy Corner”, “Degenerate Gamblers” and the “League of Liberty Podcast” by joining the Lions of Liberty Pride and supporting us on Patreon!
