Pubdate: Tue, 28 Jun 2016
Source: Toronto Sun (CN ON)
Copyright: 2016 Canoe Limited Partnership
Contact: http://www.torontosun.com/letter-to-editor
Website: http://torontosun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/457
Author: Jerry Agar
Page: 17

SOMETIMES, YOUNG PEOPLE DON'T GET IT

Militant pot activists in Toronto and angry young people in the UK
seem not to understand how to bring about the results they so
furiously demand.

I think I should be able to open a store selling hard liquor and hand
guns if that's what I want to do, but under current law guns are
highly restricted and liquor sales are monopolized by the government.

I could open the store anyway and perhaps even make a few sales but I
would soon be arrested and the store would be closed. As it should
be.

In fact, I would never open that store, because even though I dislike
the laws preventing me from doing so, I respect them.

I respect those laws because in a representative democracy there is a
process by which we can try to effect change.

The people do have a voice, and anarchy is less appealing than a few
onerous laws.

That is what the marijuana activists seem not to understand as they
try to sell an illegal product in an illegal store.

What apparently doesn't occur to them is that if they demand the right
to flout whatever law they wish, what right do they have to expect the
law to protect them when they have been wronged?

Should the operator of a dispensary feel wronged by a landlord,
customer, vendor or a competitor, how would they feel if those tasked
with upholding the law said to them, "Sorry, we don't feel it is worth
our time to help illegal pot shops. You went it alone, so work it out
alone."

In Britain, young people are angrily complaining that old people who
voted to take Britain out of the European Union created a future that
young people will have to live with.

It's a fair point, but at least old people voted.

America's The National Memo, in a piece entitled, "Brexit Is A Warning
To Young American Voters," noted that the youth vote in the UK
referendum was predictably low.

"According to a Times poll taken at Glastonbury music festival, 22% of
the young attendees did not vote, with 65% of those saying they wanted
to vote to remain, but did not register in time. They would have added
about 15,000 votes to the Remain side."

That is just one small sample.

They had the time to organize a trip to a music festival, but not to
vote? They have no one to blame but themselves.

Some of the young people suggested that when it comes to important
decisions on a nation's future, old people should not be allowed to
vote, as it is not their own future the seniors are deciding.

That would be fine if young people agreed to take the vote away from
those who have yet to contribute a certain amount to the tax base.

After all, it isn't their own money they are spending if they don't
pay taxes.

Of course, neither of those scenarios is acceptable. The old and young
alike have the right to vote and are encouraged to do so.

Justin Trudeau campaigned on legalizing marijuana and he won.
Elections matter. Legalization seems a certainty.

But acting like spoiled children who can't have what they want right
now, even when they will get it soon enough, is no way for an adult to
behave in a civil society.
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MAP posted-by: Matt