We took The Tortoise out to dinner for his birthday. Hilarious evening. Even though he was glued to the TV watching some college ball game. Talked about America’s war on drugs. He works in that field. We forgive him. sort of. Not really, but we still associate with him. put it that way. its hard to empathize with guys who by day arrest other guys for doing or selling pot or cocaine, but on the weekends go out both nights and get totally shit faced, drinking booze till they pass out in the club or in the car, mumbling incoherently, and have about a fifty percent memory of the life they live because they drink so much. We tried to explain this to him. and other things, like the amount of money the government makes from the war on drugs. In order to fund all their other more secret nefarious projects that they can’t just come out and ask the people for money for. He looks at us like we’re out of some conspiracy movie. What are you guys talking about? You believe that? o.k. so like I said The Tortoise drinks a lot. What can you say? 

He's still a good guy. just doesn’t have a clue. We’re like “Tortoise check it out bro: Go anywhere in America and you can buy these supposed illegal drugs that you guys are supposedly trying to stop from coming into the country, right? right now we could buy pot right here in this restaurant. Or coke or anything else. drugs are everywhere. especially in the big cities of America. Its not like they're hard to get. so let me ask you this. are these guys that much smarter than you all are? I mean, you work for the one of the biggest most well funded departments in the United States of America, the richest largest most bad ass country in the world right? and you guys have been fighting this war on drugs for over twenty years now. you have as much money as you could possibly spend, weapons, technology, and yet any time of day or night, in anywhere usa, anyone can just go out and buy illegal drugs. So are these guys really that much smarter than you guys are? Or do you think that maybe some of your guys, or a lot of your guys, are just making money from letting all these drugs in our country? I mean, think about it. something is going on. And its not a war on drugs as much as an attempt to control the importing and distribution of the drugs so you guys can profit from the trade itself in order to use the money for other covert operations that the government doesn’t want to tell the people about.... how many times has this already been proven?

Well of course he had to concede. Because everyone pretty much knows this. this is America, and its true, if we wanted to stop the trade we would. At least a lot more than we are now. but he did make a lot of good points. One being that the fact that a lot of these drugs are illegal makes them one, harder to get, two, it makes them expensive, and three, it makes it scary for someone to try to get them because they don't want to get busted and go to jail. So for these reasons it deters many people from doing drugs who might if they were legal try them or even use them regularly. I conceded. and agreed. He made a damn good point. And thought that was a good reason to keep them illegal. [we’re not talking about pot here which everyone agreed should be legal.] But Bas pointed out that in his opinion it wasn't the government’s job to try to deter people from doing drugs. And why should we spend all this money of our own to stop people from doing drugs. If someone is going to go out and become a heroin junkie because heroin is legal, that's not only their right as a citizen, but its also none of the governments business. this is some hard core get the government out of the people’s lives kind of conservatism.

Hard one to call that one. everyone kind of went silent for a moment. But then I thought about well what if our fucking waiter was all high on cocaine and did something to our food or something or killed someone driving in to work. No fuck that I decided, you know what, keep those drugs illegal. Not for the users, but for the safety of the other people around those people who may be prone to becoming users. 

At one moment the Tortoise truly showed why our government is in the position its in and so far disconnected from the ever-growing socially conscious people that it at one time tried to represent. He was explaining to us that “there were no conspiracies by the American government because people who work in government don't care about anything. They just get their fifty to seventy thousand dollars a year, and they don't care man. You think we care? He asked. We don't. he pranced around the parking lot like a peacock. You know who is carrying out all those conspiracies man? It’s the fucking corporations like GE and all those guys.” He said. We just all stared at him, like “duuuuuhhhh...” The Tortoise somehow didn't see the connection between the corporations and their conspiracies and the fact they control our government and that was exactly what everyone was talking about all night. He didn't get Enron. And didn't get the war on Iraq and Halliburton or Bechtel. Last night he seriously said with a straight face that the reason why people are against the rapid globalization of the entire free world is because they are hippies and they want to keep little villages down in South America pristine and simple like they’ve always been and not turn into big metropolises. He didn't bother to mention human rights, the exploitation of indigenous peoples, slave labor, damage to the environment, or the loss of millions of jobs to Americans. 

Me and Bas talked about it the whole way home. You don't stop being friends with your friends even when they are like The Tortoise. Even when they are so cynical about life and government and so disassociated from what’s really going on and brainwashed that you wonder if they ever read or study the same things you do. Because friends are friends. Its not worth the pain and the loneliness and the constant battles and arguments. But I think you do try your best in a cool and casual and maybe sometimes passionate way to shed a little light on their consciousness now and then. And you still love your friends. And you still stand by them.