Karl Klockars

Mexico has gone and done it. After decades of being our idiot cousin of a country, they’ve gone and made themselves more progressive than our mudfooted, backwater country. Not only that, they’ve ensured that thousands-nay, millions-of college kids will continue to flock there for Spring Break. Not only for relaxed drinking laws and bribe-able police, and now for a veritable cornucopia of chemical pleasures.

I’m blithering, of course, about Mexico’s new plan to legalize just about damn near everything. Would you like to know more? Hooray for a new understanding of HTML code-embedded links are just peachy–and the little Libertarian in my heart did a slight jump for glee. A slight one.

This really isn’t such a big deal for me as it would have been if I were, say, 18 and stupid. This would be a flag-raising, shout from the rooftops banner week if I were about 9 years younger. Moreso for me it’s just a reminder that we’re not the coolest bunch of kids on the block, when it comes to international relations.

I don’t know how we got so lame, but I’m pretty sure it has a lot to do with politics. I hate writing about politics, because in the end everything is all of our faults–at least that’s what the Catholic Guilt tells me. Maybe it’s naive to think we get what we deserve, or at least what we ask for, but I didn’t want to live in the No-Fun Zone.

Didn’t we invent rock and roll? Didn’t we come up with the internet? Didn’t we kick out the jams with that wacky Democracy thing? Okay, give the Greeks some credit–it’s where the word comes from, for Zeus’s sake–but for real, we had some cool ideas. Now it’s like we’re on our third album after rehab and we’re just going through the motions. It’s still a platinum release, but the kids are looking for someone new.

Living in today’s America is like being in Jefferson Starship. We’ve put out some good stuff, but everyone else has their eyes on a different scene. And Mexico just got some street cred and Spin Magazine is totally on their jock.

Now, personal revelation time: The only time I’ve ever been outside the boundaries of the USA for more than a couple days, it was by canoe, and all the Canadian Trees looked the same. There’s probably a maple syrup and poutine joke in there somewhere, but it’s too hack for me to even try to find the punchline to it.

That being said, I have a very active imagination and I’m a Hatriot. Which means: Damn, I wish we weren’t too goddamn stubborn to pick up on some of the cool stuff other places do. The stick of history is up our collective asses and we’re tottering about the party drunk on cheap wine talking about how great our art collection is. We’re insufferable, and the only reason anyone still invites us to the party is because we drive the biggest car and we show up anyways–might as well pretend they want us there.

In case that metaphor is just too stupid for anyone besides me to deal with, long story short is that we just don’t bring the fire anymore. No woman president yet. No end in sight for capital punishment and war-torture. No freedom to do our bodies what we choose. No freedom to marry whoever we want. We can’t even see a tit without a collective freakout that we’re still rippling through. Damn this Puritan background.

Don’t get me wrong, we’re making progress, slow as it is. It just seems like the world is making fun of us on the playground by bringing all the cool toys while we want everyone to play four-square, with our rules and with our bouncy ball. Good God, there are more similes in this post than I can even deal with.

Maybe I’m just frustrated that we’re not as cool as Mexico any more. People can’t leave that country fast enough–just see how many people ruin my commute on Monday during the immigration march. And it’s not as if Mexico hit a huge home run on the freedom scale, they’re just tired of the paperwork. Chicago tried floating the decriminalization idea a few years or so, and it just kinda sank. I had so much hope that we could stop worrying about this whole deal.

I guess maybe I’m more frustrated with the idea that people are still so scared of everything. We talk and talk and talk and talk things to death and jack crap gets done. People jump all over President Bush for making the comment that things would be a lot easier in a dictatorship but guess what – it’s probably the most correct thing he’s ever said. And I’ll bet he did it on accident.

Everyone has that “If I Ruled The World” idea in their head, and I’m no different. I’d change so much crap that the central midwest would immediately secede and I’d have to figure out how to invade Nebraska to get them back on board. It’s the Teddy Roosevelt quote–only thing we’ve got to be afraid of is The Fear. And we’re being sold the Fear every damn second.

How would a woman run the country? What happens if two guys get hitched? What will happen when anyone can put anything they like into their bodies? What will occur when we allow people to broadcast freely? Won’t someone think of the children? Gasp shudder cry.

And that’s the problem. Everyone thinks of everyone else as a child, to be protected and whisked away from nasty things and let’s not look at the nasty naked body and let’s wag our shame-fingers at the drunks and dopeheads and behind closed doors everyone says “It’s really not that big a deal, but I don’t trust anyone else with that kind of freedom.”

I wish I could stop protecting everyone. I’d mandate people getting punched in the face, every now and again. We’re all big kids. Let’s start acting like it. Let’s pull up to the table and be up front about things. “Look, America, bad things are going to happen but treating each other like 4 year olds isn’t getting us anywhere. Shape the hell up.”

Damn, I’m preachy. I don’t even like drugs. My high is exhaustion and the food-coma. And if anyone ever tries to legislate that, my huddled teeming tired mass might just get up and do something.