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To: brian h who wrote (64381)	5/28/2005 2:51:22 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Respond to of 74559

BrianH, I note that neither the British, nor the Indians [where opium was legal] seem to have had a particular problem with opium. China, being as it still is, Mr Bossy Man who tells all citizens what they can and can't do, decided their state serfs weren't allowed opium. If they'd just left people to smoke opium or not, there wouldn't have been a problem. Look at the absurd drug war in the USA right now. And elsewhere. If people were left alone to decide for themselves whether to poison themselves or not, there would be a lot fewer people poisoned. Self-poisoning becomes a way of defying the bossy people - the old attraction of forbidden fruit. The article comparing the British then, with the Nazis, is absurd. Lin was obviously a bossy fool and the Emperor unwise in dictating to people what they could or couldn't do. The Emperor fired Lin the Liar: <On August 21, 1840, the Emperor dismissed Lin Tse-hsü from his post as Imperial Commissioner. “You have caused this war by your excessive zeal.” the Emperor wrote. “You have lied to us, disguising in your dispatches the true color of affairs. Instead of helping us, you have only caused confusion to arise. Now, one thousand unending problems are sprouting. You have behaved as if your arms are tied. You are no better than a wooden dummy. As we think about your grievous failings, we become furious, and then melancholy.”> It wasn't really an opium war, it was a trade war and a bossy-britches war. Mqurice