The Drug of Free Love

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The Hippy generation of the 60s/early 70s has got a lot of mess to answar to.

I agree with you completly.

Its because of them that we have so many problems now. And there is never any cure in sight as it is that generation that can not see the problems that are around everwhere everyday. Ok so there are plenty of good people from that generation but the majority are somewhat ignorant of what people have to put up with in the name of "Liberalism."
If you feel unsafe from crime then you`ll never get any help from any generation that has taken drugs in the name of "peace" as it is they who have brought about the freedom for individuals to carry out there violent crimes that the innocent have to be on the recieving end of!

Pretty much everyone culture uses drugs, they always have and probably always will. Name me 3 civilizations that have not. What specific drugs are you talking about? LSD/cannabis and the vietnam protests?

I`m talking about ABUSE of drugs! Medical research/use whatever but not for personal use

How is free love a drug?
Unless your addicted It sounds like a good idea.

Interestingly there is a conection between ASD and LSD.

In recent studies a high proportion of people with ASD were found to have higher than average seratonin levels.

LSD mimics the effect of seratonin in the brain.

I took LSD in the 70's and the first time I took it triggered a memory of having the experience before (most likely when I was very young or first born).

The tern "free love" goes back decades before the 1960s. One of its earliest proponents was the British author H.G. Wells. Another science-fiction writer, Robert Heinlein, wrote two books (Stranger In A Strange Land and The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress) in which he proposed alternatives to one man-one woman marriage. Neither of these gentlemen were hippies--in fact, Heinlein was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy.

There were many excesses in the 1960s--too much drug use (especially heroin), too much marching before thinking--but this was a generation testing its boundaries, and whenever you do that, there are bound to be excesses and casualties. What we got that was positive includes more rights for black people, the beginnings of the women's liberation movement and the environmental movement, and a sense that government is not always the answer to a problem and, in fact, may be the worst solution.

Growth--personal or societal-- is always painful. I won't deny there have been casualties. But I won't slag off the Sixties as a wasted decade. Too much good came out of it. I don't think we'd feel as free to experiment with our own lives if that decade had been more like the one prior to it.

I should add that attending a military academy is no guarantor that an individual won't become a non-conformist. Timothy Leary nearly graduated from West Point until he was expelled for drinking with upperclassmen.

Bill Hicks had an excellent point on this subject: "If you really think drugs are bad, do me a favor: take all your albums and CDs and tapes and burn them, 'cause all the musicians who made that great music? Real f****n' high on drugs. s**t, the Beatles were so high, they let Ringo sing a couple of tunes...They were high, they made great music, drugs had a positive effect."

Granted that's not always true, but how many drug-free groups do you know that make great music? I guarantee you that 90 percent of the music in my collection was made by drug users (alcohol to Zoloft and everything in between). Some of that music was made forty years ago or more, and I still listen to it with great pleasure.

I choose what to put in my body. If I choose to smoke marijuana, I know what's in it and the beneficial as well as the deleterious effects. I also know that if I'm caught driving with it/on it, I will most likely go to jail and perhaps have all my possessions seized. So, given the risk-reward ratio, there must be one H*** of a reward in it for me. And there is.

Lots of people have done bad things on drugs. But the drugs didn't make them bad. They were irresponsible and used the drugs as excuses for their behavior.

I will always maintain that it would be better to have all drugs legal and deal with the health consequences than to have certain drugs illegal and force the police to assume the role of armed clergypersons. Otherwise, you criminalize 25 percent of the US population and god knows what percentage in other countries. Or as William S. Burroughs said it so well, "Drug laws are a pretext to expand police powers."

Mithrandir wrote:

The Hippies must be held to account for their crimes

Their evil spirit lives on in 90s pop music and liberalist sh*te.

Send us back to the 50s!

Well, let's see...Elvis, HUAC, Sen. McCarthy, sexual repression, duck and cover, rocket fins on cars, Sputnik, The Organization Man, motorcycle hoods, beginnings of the space program and the military-industrial complex...oh what the Heck! Sign me up too!

50s - the 'beat' generation. before that journo coined the derogatory term 'hippies' and screwed everything up.
Kerouac, Burroughs, Bikers. pseudo 'rebellion' had yet to become fashionable, the hardcore years.

ok - count me in too!