New York City mayor, Bill DeBlasio, declared today that penalties for publicly smoking marijuana will be reduced to getting a ticket as opposed to being arrested.  The mayor estimates that this will lower arrests by approximately 10,000 annually.  DeBlasio states that the primary reason for this change in procedure is the fact that 85% of those caught smoking marijuana are either black or hispanic.  Somehow, DeBlasio has surmised that this disparity in numbers is defacto discrimination.

If this is true, then the National Basketball Association, (NBA), which is 87% black, also has a discrimination problem.

Of course, the truth is that blacks have proven to be disproportionally better at basketball than whites. Apparently, they also like their marijuana disproportionally more.

Neither of these statements are racist, they are true. There are many things found disproportionate when comparing blacks to whites; incarceration rates, out-of-wedlock births, income, education, cannot all be explained by simply playing the same old race card over and over again.  The over-privileged, over-educated, spoiled rotten crowd produces their share of failures, just as the under-privileged, poverty stricken have encouraging success stories, so lets stop with the easy blanket statement of the blame game on race.

We don’t have a race problem in the USA, what we truly have is a clash of cultures that find within them people of all kinds and colors.  Black or white, you can embrace a culture that centers around, honors and protects family, demands respect, personal responsibility, values education and achievement.  Black or white, when attempting to interact with a counter-culture that trivializes familial importance, respects nothing while disrespecting others, fails to take responsibility, rejects education and distains achievement, not surprisingly, these groups will not blend.  These cultures are diametrically opposed.

The ultimate irony that produces the under-tone of anger, is that those embracing the values of perseverance, hard work, success and achievement, are, because of their success, forced to pay for the poor choices of a culture that has figured out how to game the system, fails to contribute, and drains social services.

Governments all over the country are caving to the pot crowd with an eye, not towards the public interest and the public’s health, but as another funding fountain to sustain and perpetuate the insatiable appetite government at all levels has for spending, expanding, and interfering with our lives.

Pot smoking saps initiative, something already in short supply if you haven’t noticed. By making money off the backs of pot smokers in the form of taxes, fees and penalties, government is giving tacit approval to a serious vice and in doing so is trading their honor, their supposed wisdom and their leadership for access to funds that further their purposes, pot smokers be damned.

No mayor DeBlasio and all other government officials that fein enlightenment regarding the legalization of pot, this will not help, you know it, and you are dishonorable and disingenuous scoundrels. Our real problem is the clash of very different color-blind cultures.