WE'RE LOSING OUR FREEDOM AS IT IS

Bravo to the SJ-R editorial board and cartoonist Chris Britt for
questioning the priorities of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration
regarding the recent local bong raids. The $50 billion we spend annually
to subsidize the prejudices of culture warriors is indeed a colossal
misplacement of priorities.

Bongs are an expression of defiance and an icon of the counterculture. To
culture warriors marching us toward the dystopia of the falsely promised
"Drug-Free America", they are an intolerable rebuke by the infidel. If
you're going to smoke pot, the thinking goes, at least you're not going to
insult us with your garish pipes, God willing.

Even our own Senator Dick Durbin is part of this kulturkampf. He sponsored
legislation this year to outlaw raves, right down to the thumping music,
glowsticks and bottled water. Forget the drugs, it's the attendant
counterculture we won't tolerate.

Bongs and glowsticks aren't the only priorities of this taxpayer-funded
jihad. In addition to making life generally more miserable for the sick and
dying, the DEA also spends our money impounding Canadian bird seed,
removing hemp-seed granola bars from store shelves, banning garden poppies
from seed catalogues, curating a museum that is off limits to the general
public and lobbying against the infidels' various state ballot
initiatives. That last item happens to be against the law, by the way.

There's no point in worrying about foreign terrorists taking away our
freedom when we already have our own well-payed mullahs working so
diligently at it.

Larry A. Stevens

Springfield