April 10, 2004
Is This Random?
Colby Cosh has posted what amounts to an obituary for a reporter he had worked with, a Marxist with sufficient intelligence and understanding of classical economics as to have written for a conservative publication. The man had a disdain for deadlines and for the constraints of functionality I have encountered myself among such people, and recently died of a heroin overdose.
This piqued my interest because fully half of the heroin addicts I have known have been Marxists of one sort or another (one was a Trotskyite; I don't want to factor that into this analysis) and despite the limited sample I have to wonder if there is some common causuality or a cause and effect relationship.
Posted by triticale at April 10, 2004 08:12 PMI would submit that there are personality types who will try anything, once or twicet. Heroin is dangerous. Trotskyism is dangerous. Same goes for aberrant sexual habits. Type C personalities. The gay dog in the wolfpack.
Posted by: Velociman at April 10, 2004 11:02 PMOkay. I'll bite. Just how many heroin addicts have you known, if you don't mind my asking?
(I'll answer first. Three.)
Posted by: Attila Girl at April 12, 2004 02:10 AMI've known 4 (I think), but none of them currently use as far as I know. 1 is dead (not from heroin). 1 is a successful computer guy, but I don't know his politics. 1 is a family man with a middle-rung job. 1 is a fugitive felon - probably a liberal of some sort, but I haven't spoken to him in years.
I'm from Texas, though. Perhaps our addicts are generally more conservative.
Posted by: Owen at April 12, 2004 08:26 PM