It is not difficult to predict the future.

Well, that's not true, of course: Many things unfold without anybody guessing.  But sometimes the course of events is so clear that the future is easy to predict.

Take the medical marijuana clubs in San Francisco and the East Bay, for example.  The federal government has been absolutely ruthless in its determination to block the effects of Proposition 219, by which the legality of medical marijuana was recognized by California voters.

(Not that I think that a vote is required for any adult to smoke pot.  Prop 219 simply partially recognizes what is already the case: The government has no business trying to dictate or prohibit consumption, medical or otherwise).

Again and again, the feds have gone around smashing up medical marijuana distribution facilities, and have locked up one sick person after another.  Did something important happen last September 11?  You'd never know it watching these idiots, who evidently have concluded that it's much more fun to persecute peaceful United States citizens than address anything as scary as terrorism.

Oh, but "It's the law."  Actually it is not, from several standpoints.  California state law says medical pot is legal.  It is, in any case, an intimately personal choice, well outside the realm of legitimate intrusion by any institution.  The official government line is that U.S. statutes trump state ones, and they say it's illegal.  But federal laws against drug consumption are completely extra-Constitutional, and therefore doubly illegitimate.  Anyone involved in their enforcement is guilty of violating his sacred oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, and no amount of blathering and double-talk can change this.

Nevertheless, the federal thugs, pumped up on caffeine, tobacco, and God knows what other "legal" drugs, go around beating people up and wrecking their lives, all the while proudly trumpeting that they're upholding the "law." 

The clubs have tried everything short of violence, to no avail.  Their backs are up against the wall.  What will happen next is very easy to predict.

There's going to be a raid, which the government enforcers think at first will be like any other.  Only this time there will be people waiting inside, prepared to defend themselves by whatever means are necessary.  The results will not be pretty.

Am I calling for violence?  No, I wouldn't do that: It's a quick way to get uniformed officers at your door with an arrest warrant!  In any case, violence is justified only as a last resort in self-defense, when all other means have failed.

Which brings us to the present moment, or one in the very near future.

So listen up, government goons: If you treat adult citizens as if they were herd animals, to be directed in arbitrary and brutal ways, they will eventually conclude that violence is the only option left to enforce their natural right to self-determination.  And they will act on that conclusion.

When that day comes, there will be much screaming about the "lawlessness" of those who resisted.  And of course, many other words of condemnation will ring out from the mouths of the hysterics, who can see nothing but their own fear.

In the aftermath, everyone will be horrified, but those of us who are not asleep will be doubly horrified, both by the tragedy itself and by the knee-jerk reaction.  Our nation will move farther away from the vision of its founding, and closer to Nazi Germany in the 1930's.  Yes, even closer than we are today.  Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that we will move closer to a new Civil War, brother against brother.

I don't want any cops to die.  I don't want anyone to die unnecessarily, and every act of this drug war is by definition unnecessary. 

But my wish carries little weight in the United States of today.  This drama is going to unfold before our eyes very soon, I believe.  I hope very much that I'm wrong.