Comments
by Scoper...
He Stirred the Pot
Peter McWilliams died last month,
of cancer and AIDS-related complications. How he died is as significant
as how he lived, and the two are inseparable. His death at age 50 was the
ironic capstone to an abbreviated life dedicated to promoting individual
freedom and the lessening of government intrusion in our lives. Indeed,
as one writer put it, Peter McWilliams died of "an overdose of government."
McWilliams was a best-selling author,
lecturer and sometimes talk-show guest. His 1996 book "Ain't Nobody's Business
If You Do" (Prelude Press), is a virtual reference work on the topic of
so-called "consensual crimes," and makes a compelling case for not wasting
your time trying to "save people from themselves."
This is not my usual style, but I
want to turn over the bulk of today's column to Harry Browne, Libertarian
candidate for President, whose words on the life and death of Peter McWilliams
are no doubt more eloquent than mine would be. (These excerpts were originally
published on www.worldnetdaily.com
and are re-posted here with permission from www.harrybrowne2000.org.)
"In March 1996, Peter was diagnosed
with both AIDS and cancer. He was required to take so many pills that he
vomited constantly, rendering the pills useless. Like
many other people, he found that
smoking marijuana relieved the nausea, kept the pills in his stomach, and
allowed him to stay alive. (That allowed him to) set to work writing a
book about medical marijuana.
"In December 1997, the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Agency conducted a pre-dawn raid on his home and stole his
computer -- containing the only copy of the book manuscript. In July 1998,
he was arrested and charged with violating the federal drug laws by smoking
marijuana. The trial judge prohibited him from pointing out that (due to
the passage of Proposition 215, also known as the Compassionate Use Act
of 1996,) medical marijuana was legal in California. Stripped of his only
defense, he plea-bargained a sentence of five years -- which he hoped to
serve under house arrest, not prison.
"He complied with the prohibition
(against smoking marijuana) because his family's homes were mortgaged to
provide his bail. No longer able to use marijuana to keep his medicines
down, he finally died…apparently choking on his own vomit.
"Someone once asked him why, since
he was living on borrowed time anyway, he didn't get a gun and take some
of the Drug Warriors to the Hereafter with him. Peter replied:
My enemy is ignorance, not individuals.
What we are facing today in America is not an evil dictator like Hitler,
who is the head of a snake and whose removal will kill the snake -- but
overgrown bureaucracies like the Drug War, which is more like an anthill.
No matter how many individual ants you kill one at a time, the colony goes
on.
Any idiot with a gun can kill.
It takes clever perseverance to make lasting change. I support the high
road of truth, facts, debate and education even if I'm not able to walk
that road much longer and even if lies, deception, repression and ignorance
are the direct cause of my death.
Harry Browne concludes: "We gain
nothing by asserting our superiority and browbeating the people we need
to bring to our side. We gain everything by following Peter's example and
treating everyone -- friend or foe -- as a sovereign, but perhaps misinformed,
human being."
Scoper concludes: I do not assert
that the government murdered Peter McWilliams, though there are some who
do. I DO believe that there are factions within the government who are
glad McWilliams the man is now silent, regardless of how that came about.
And there's no doubt in my mind that he was singled out for draconian prosecution
because of his influence in the marketplace of ideas.
But those ideas live on in his writings,
and if you read some of them, and if they cause you to think about some
things, however briefly, then Peter McWilliams' death will have been a
little less of a tragedy. Just a little.
(Note: typing "Peter McWilliams"
into any search engine will produce a more than satisfying amount of material
on his life and philosophy.)
(Another note: Scoper does not
endorse political candidates. That would be silly.)
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