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- The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
- Your question was:
-
- > O mighty Oracle, endowed with the wisdom of the Universe and one
- > _really_ nasty babe for a main squeeze,
- >
- > Why do people think legalizing drugs is The Answer? I thought The
- > Answer was 42.
-
- And in response, thus spake the Oracle:
-
- } The great and mighty Oracle has deigned to give you an answer to this
- } question. You should offer thanks.
- }
- } Throughout time immemorial, it has been asked: What is the purpose of
- } human existence?
- }
- } At first this was easy. The answer was food
- }
- } You see, back in the Paleozoooliphic, the answer to everything was
- } either food or rock.
- }
- } What do you want? "Food" Where do you live? "Rock" Look, that guy is
- } making off with your stuff, what will you do? "Rock make him food!"
- }
- } As you can see, conversation wasn't too stimulating, and philosophers
- } were stuck with saying things like "rock is rock" and "food is not
- } rock" Luckily rock candy had not been invented yet.
- }
- } Many years passed, vocab increased, and finally the ancient greeks got
- } back around to the question. Socrates explained how the question had no
- } meaning. He of course was wrong, but he was such a great pain in the
- } ass that people agreed with him to shut him up. Finally, they slipped
- } some hemlock in his tea, and that was that.
- }
- } Later, once the vocabulary had gotten all settled, the
- } Romans came up with another answer, one which many of us would agree
- } with today. This, of course was sex. It was later found, however, that
- } sex could not be the answer. Sex was the question. Yes was the answer.
- }
- } This whole issue got more confused around the time of Jesus. You see,
- } Jesus was convinced that Love was the answer. By this, he did not mean
- } what most people think of as love, because then he could have just
- } said that sex is the answer. That would lead to the problem above,
- } Now, Love might be a possible alternative to sex, but the Romans
- } were so upset by the idea that sex wasn't it, that they nailed Jesus
- } to a couple of planks.
- }
- } The Roman empire fell to the barbarians, and it was back to food for
- } most of the dark ages.
- }
- } When the Renaissance finally hit, the answer was Painting. Later on
- } they decided that that was just too silly, and changed it to
- } Enlightenment.
- } This worked fine for the aristocracy, but, at least in France, the
- } peasants revolted, and settled firmly on food again.
- }
- } Not too much after this, drugs spread out through western culture.
- } Some people at this time suggested that drugs were the answer, but
- } Opium isn't really powerful enough to blot out all other questions, so
- } it was quietly shelved for a later date.
- }
- } At one point this century, the proposal "Coke is it" was widely
- } spread, but if Coke was it, what was New Coke? It flat and too sweet?
- } No, that idea was also disregarded.
- }
- } In the '60s, everything disregarded came back with a vengeance (except
- } painting, it was still too silly) "Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll."
- } The Republicans hated this (They thought the answer was Money), and
- } they conspired to break the idea at its weak point; Drugs. So went the
- } revisionists (who ignored the fact that George Washington grew
- } Marijuana), and they outlawed drugs. Outlawing sex would have been
- } nice for them, but even they realized that Republicans, at least, had
- } to reproduce.
- }
- } In 197something, Douglas Adams decided that the answer to Life, the
- } Universe and Everything was 42. Being irrational, it made it difficult
- } to refute, and so was popular among young Democrats (Who had lost so
- } many brain cells due to drugs that they were equally irrational), and
- } science fiction fans (who were so weird that they could just accept
- } it).
- }
- } You now see where your question fits in. Some people think that the
- } solution is to legalize Drugs, and some think that the answer is 42.
- } Others think it is sex, a few still believe in Coke, and food is a
- } perennial favorite. Of course the true answer is there, and has been
- } for a while...
- }
- } The answer is....
- }
- } Painting. Of course.
- }
- } You owe the Oracle a Velvet Elvis.
-