The Case for De jure Legalization

Just in case anyone still doubts Pakistan is BANKRUPT COMPLETELY, and hence the need to IMEDIATELY IMPLEMENT MY PROPOSAL.

Noman, who works at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) says `there is no point in trying to deny that Pakistan is bankrupt. Instead of denial, this should be used as a creative opportunity.

This debt write off process has accelerated last month because of the G-7 recognition that previous efforts were ineffectual. Pakistan is in a worse condition than many of the countries covered under HIPC.

In an article following dismissal of Nawaz Sharif`s government and the admission by the Chief Executive, General Pervez Musharraf, that Pakistan`s economy was in worst shape than first imagined, Noman has given a ten point agenda, mapping an arduous road to reform and recovery.

Noman, who sits in the office of UNDP`s Human Development Report created by Dr Mahbubul Haq says that `there should be three core objectives for creating a more harmonious society namely reducing poverty, reducing inequality and expanding the middle class. The first two are emphasized frequently as an objective, while the third is neglected.

These objectives require a private sector led human development strategy, with a strong role for the State in providing those goods and services that are undersupplied by the market. These are typically referred to as public goods.`

`Pakistan needs human development for its survival. Poverty has increased substantially in the 1990s, as sluggish growth and the end of the Middle East boom have crippled employment opportunities. Pakistan has the worst literacy rate in the world and the highest population growth rate. Inequality is now worse than it was in the Ayub era of the 22 families,`` he says.

Q. Is money falling from the sky for Pakistan to be able to do all this? Should Pakistan really

continue to go aound with a begging bowl asking for table scraps from Industrialized nations forever? Or isin`t mobilizing our oun domestic drinking resources-capability for consimpution of alcohol present already, a better idea to eradicate poverty, and fund educational programs?

Just asking.

love from N.Y,

Omar

Re: Chowk Staff

There is something wrong with your Chashma posting. There were originally 4-5 replies which disappeared on it. I`m really interested in seeing what people have to say on that topic.

Regards.

Fozia

Dear Mr. Saleh,

It was never my intention to give you any personal offense. I admit i am passionate about my ideas. But you have perhaps never had your beliefs subject to either the socratic method of questioning, or reasoning by analogy, or had them put up on the stand for ruthless cross-examination.

I honestly hope i have not crossed the bounds of civility and decorum here.

When people are starving because of hypocricy, and remain illiterate, i tend to get a little heated. For that you must forgive me, because these are the real issues. You must learn to distinguish more carefully between when your ideas are attacked and you personally. But here, you suggested i come back to Pakistan ... you got a piercing analytical reply, more than you ever bargained for i`ll warrant.:)

Finally, i advise you to develop a bit more of a sense of humor.

regards,

Omar

Prohibition has not worked anywhere in the world. Wherever it has been introduced it has resulted in corrupting the police and spawned the rise of criminal gangs. The Government also loses lots of revenue. This has been seen in USA and in India.

It would be more honest to permit drinking. Unfortunately, some super-disciplined people want to impose their ideas on others. What one needs is more practical leaders.

A 10% Increase across the board in Petroleum product prices. A Recipe for widespread inflation across the entire economy, likely to result in increased prices for everything else.

Any questions?

Omar

From DAWN

ISLAMABAD, Dec 11: The government on Saturday increased the prices of petroleum products by an average of over 10%. The increase will push up the price of one litre petrol (premier) by Rs2.96 from Rs26.04 to Rs29.

Omar,

I don`t think you have any thing to contribute other than getting personal. You have been presumptious in your letters and have no qalms in becoming personal.

I don`t have any interest in you other than to understand what you have to say and to see if I can benefit from your ideas.

I have no problems with what you think I am or am not doing. Whether I have added to unemployment problems or have hired a Mali.

But this is where my interaction with you end. For I was hoping for a more stimulated discussion on ideas.

Have fun with your writings.

The Bankrupt government: Dawn December 11, National News; Status of the people of Pakistan

PROTEST: Municipal corporation employees, including sanitary workers, have protested against the administration for not disbursing their salaries despite the beginning of Ramazan.

On Friday, they locked up their offices and gathered in the municipal complex where they chanted slogans against the administration. They alleged that officials of the section concerned were delaying their salaries deliberately.

Sanitary workers said the corporation had not paid their salaries for the last four months on the pretext that their recruitments were fake. They said their children had also been expelled from schools and colleges and electricity and gas connections of their houses severed by the departments concerned due to non-payment of dues.

They demanded that their salaries should be paid to them at the earliest to save them from starvation.

Question : U think they care whether the rich imbibe alcohol or not? As long as their salaries are paid? Anyone care to answer? Can Amin Saleh help these people? Does he really give a hoot?

Only I have a realistic, logical proposal to help them immediately by increasing govt tax revenues to help them right away. Amin Saleh would give these starving people lectures on non-payment of salary being the cost of prohibition that ALL Society MUST bear. Even they will likely think him mad.

Love from N.Y,

Omar

Regressive taxation has begun, this will lead to inflation across the entire economy, and cur Gen. Mushy`s popularity over time.

From Dawn

Petroleum Prices raised

ISLAMABAD, Dec 11: The government has announced an across the board increase in petroleum products, citing the increase in the international price of oil. The increases ranged from 7% for Kerosene to 20% for Furnace Oil. (Bureau Report) (Posted @ 23:10 PST)

A good analogy to Amin Saleh`s idealistic Approach to life (and alcohol legalization in Pakistan, the focus of this debate)is to the problem of the spread of AIDS, a topic earlier introduced into this debate in amusing fashion.:)

Amin Saleh would earnestly counsel virile young men, in the prime of their sexual peak, to abstain from xtra marital sex completely. Perhaps some would listen to him, reflect on religious obligations etc, and be restrained.

I personally, having a better understanding of both human nature and failings, would hand out condoms, as a more effective PRACTICAL WAY

of controlling the spread of AIDS, rather than lectures on morality better given by the Tableghi Jamaat, even with the knowledge that condoms occasionally fail (of which risk I would advise the users of). Because, some protection, is better than mere sanctimonious words alone.

Who would save more lives ? You decide. (And could Amin Saleh really convince anyone who was not already convinced of the importance of monogamy?)

Love from N.Y

Omar

Re :Amin Saleh

`I think we would be ahead of the game if we were not to rush into solving our fiscal problems by condoning the consumption of health risk goods primarily for the reason to collect `Sin Tax`.`

Amin Saleh, is a well meaning fellow. I like him. But his misguided approach continously misses the forest for the trees. Idealism is no substitute for the real world, where upto 120,000 bottles of UNTAXED alcohol are bring consxumed daily in Pakistan TODAY, regardless of legal status. Amin Saleh can not stop this consumption, any more than he can tell some 18-25 year old bachelor to, `save it for marriage,` and keep it in his pants.

My approach conceptually accepts the realities of an imperfect world. It seeks to make the best of the situation, without aspiring to such bookish idealistic heights as Amin Saleh, of curing all the problems of the world, that afflict `the human civilization`. Religion aspires to present such solutions, not ordinary mortals like myself, with their obviously personal limitations, failings and imperfections.

Also i am working on a macro level, he on a micro level. I want my ideas to reach 10s of thousands of people. He would reach only a few at best with one on one contact.



love from N.Y

Omar

Re : Mr. Saleh #59

`I am sure when Omar talks about Ignorance is bliss he must be talking about himself sitting in New York. I have forsaken Canada for the last 5 months and have taken up the challenge to do something more than just write letters to the editor and on the Chowk. I would rather change Pakistan on the grass root level.`

I think its a trifle unfair of Mr. Saleh to expect that :

A) I keep track of his wanderings around the world continously. He must pardon me, for I am not employed by the CIA.

B) Given the fact he knows I`m STUDYING IN LAW SCHOOL to suggest I come back immediately, to further contribute to the unemployment problem in a sense of misguided patriotism.

Here I am in N.Y, serving as the critic of unmitigated hypocricy (4 letters to the ed, published Dawn Nov9 thru Dec9, 1 TFT Nov 18th) and stupidity, offering Constructive suggestions for the solution of the immediate problems facing the country, that can be implemented right away, rather than hazy, generalized notions of `whats good for the human civilization` (Saleh, #49), which is akin to the platonic significance of `contemplating your navel`, and all Mr. Saleh can think of, after i addressed ALL the SUBSTANTIVE POINTS in his post #49, is to suggest that i come back immediately to pull up grass roots, root by root, as he commends himself for doing. More bookish intellectualism. Instead of feverishly trying to salvage a failed system, which is like trying to bail water from the Titanic as she goes down, he should instead be thinking about Pakistan working out a new system entirely. I have already completed the plan for a paradigm shift. Gen.Mushy is the key. And am now in the process of obtaining converts on a large scale by spreading my ideas, for i do not hoard them like miser`s gold.

I can`t say what Mr. Saleh is doing precisely, pulling up blades of grass, root by root, like some overpaid Mali with a degree (he didn`t specifically tell us, so how can we judge ?), but i honestly think if he were repatriating foreign exchange from Toronto, Canada monthly to Pakistan, he would be doing something more useful to help Pakistan, on an individual level.

Why is he contributing to the already 30% rate of unemployment by taking away a valuable job from people who have no other options ?

love from N.Y,

OMAR

Godot

quote:

What about cigarettes smoking? Where is the outrage against these non-alcoholic poisons? Why single out alcohol?

unquote:

I have never condoned other non-alcoholic poisions. We were talking about alcohol in the article which is why the focus was on that. I completely agree with you that we should campaign against all forms of poisons.

State Governments in USA have realized that while ``Sin Tax`` had helped them sort out their fiscal problems, the addiction has now come to haunt them in the form of higher medical costs. This is why they are now filing suits to recover higher medical costs from the Tobacco Manufacturing Companies.

I think we would be ahead of the game if we were not to rush into solving our fiscal problems by condoning the consumption of health risk goods primarily for the reason to collect ``Sin Tax``.

OMAR1974

I love when people make erroneous assumption.

quote:

Amin Saleh, sitting Comfortably in Toronto, Canada, comments on the `morality` of legalization

and

Ignorance is bliss ! And you my dear Mr. Saleh, are practically rolling in the sty, mouthing moral platitudes sitting in Canada, and making absurd suggestions

Unquote

I am sure when Omar talks about Ignorance is bliss he must be talking about himself sitting in New York. I have forsaken Canada for the last 5 months and have taken up the challenge to do something more than just write letters to the editor and on the Chowk. I would rather change Pakistan on the grass root level.

quote:

Mulk hamara hay! Dil jiyala hai!

Hum too pagal hain, hum to ashiq hain

unquote:

I would suggest that you try coming back to Pakistan to improve our lot also.

Agle waqton ke hain yeh log inhain kuchh na kaho

Jo mae-o-naghma ko andoh ruba kehte hain

Ghalib

OMAR1974: your poem is very good.

...... it was a mysterious little window set in a mysteriously huge door. It was only a ten minute motorcycle ride, or a two rupee rickshaw ride, away - a big little shop in Regal Chowk that never closed for business. You could knock on the little window at any time of the day, or night, or early morning.... mostly between the time the midnight show ``broke`` and the time the muezzin woke up. Someone always answered - someone who knew what you wanted; someone you could rely on; someone who cared and had what you wanted.

There was never enough for all the people who popped in uninvited, yet thirsty; there was the franctic ritual of fund-raising at one in the morning; there was a last swig of the nasty VAT-1 and a puff at the communal Goldleaf..... but there was really no need to hurry as long as there were a few pints of petrol in the Honda - because the brave little shop in Regal Chowk was always open for business.....

RE: TAhmed321

Thank you for clarifying matters for me. I was using orthopraxy in too narrow a fashion. Perhaps we should just stick with the older term, hypocrisy.

Being a dog lover from way back, I am saddened to see that the obscurantists have declared a jihad against dogs as well. Makes perfect sense, dogs are faithful, brave and loyal till the end. All qualities not to be found in the local beardos.