Posted on 05/08/2010 4:31:30 PM PDT by The Magical Mischief Tour
Andrew has already posted this, and I'm late to the game because I couldn't bring myself to watch it, but nonetheless, I feel compelled to remark. Yes, folks, this is your war on drugs:
VIDEO:
After he watched it, my more temperate better half was literally shaking with anger. My anger is mixed with a sort of bleak despair that this sort of thing could happen in America, and worse, that so few people care. You shoot two dogs in front of a seven year old--who could have been killed by a stray round, and at the very least will carry this hideous recollection to the grave. And why? For misdemeanor pot possession?
This response is nonsensical. It's like hearing that they came too late to catch the family bootlegging cable. Sure it's illegal, and maybe it's even wrong. But "dealer-sized" pot possession isn't necessarily related to actual drug dealings--I have several friends right now who probably qualify, and I'm pretty sure they aren't going to do anything that merits a SWAT intervention, because those sorts of things can get you drummed right out of your Tuesday-night book club, not to mention how they'd take it at the Rotary.
SNIP
This is our nation's drug enforcement in a nutshell. We started out by banning the things. And people kept taking them. So we made the punishments more draconian. But people kept selling them. So we pushed the markets deep into black market territory, and got the predictable violence . . . and then we upped our game, turning drug squads into quasi-paramilitary raiders. Somewhere along the way, we got so focused on enforcing the law that we lost sight of the purpose of the law, which is to make life in America better.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
The war on drugs is big business, Too big to fail.
Cops take a huge risk every day but this is inexcusable....shows poor planning with deplorable information leading up to this disgrace.
The actions of the police were entirely appropriate. The parents were found with a “small amount” of pot and charged with child endangerment.
Smoking pot is child endangerment. Storming a home with guns and combat helmets, firing seven rounds to neutralize the family pets as the wife and kids look on is necessary police procedure to ensure everybody’s safety.
It’s a war on drugs. There’s going to be collateral damage. To make an omelette, you have to break a few eggs.
This is your government on a war on drugs. Any questions?
I don’t think that legalizing crime is the answer to making a police department improve the quality of it’s methods and training.
Number of deaths per 100,000 employed Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics- Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries - 2008
Fishermen: 128.9
Logging workers: 116.7
Aircraft pilots: 72.4
Iron and steelworkers: 46.4
Farmers and ranchers: 39.5
Garbage collectors: 36.8
Roofers: 34.4
Electrical power line installation/repair: 29.8
Truck drivers: 22.8
Oil and gas extraction: 21.9
Taxi drivers: 19.3
Drinking establishment employees: 17.0
Construction workers: 16.0
Police officers and deputies: 15.6*
Grounds maintenance: 11.9
Welders: 10.5
Electricians: 8.3
Gas station attendant: 7.5
Firefighters: 6.9
Auto mechanics: 5.0
Newspaper publishers: 4.8
Carpenters: 4.7
Janitors: 3.1
Retail sales: 1.5
* A lot of the danger from being a police officer comes from spending so much time on the roadways. A high percentage of police officers deaths involve traffic accidents.
Personally I miss the days when the defense of legalization was that there was no violence associated with marijuana.
Apparently somebody did a study and decided it would be better to claim great violence and legalize it for women, children, and minorities.
I think you have it bass-ackwards....
In this case, it’s the WOD that has led to the crime.
Prohibition, just as it did with alcohol, has produced the black market and associated crime that accompanies it.
Some truisms are just like laws of physics—they don’t change, ever:
Those that refuse to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it.
The WOD is a complete and total failure. Those of you who refuse to acknowledge this qualify for insanity as Einstein defined it.
Yes, I have one.
Did you forget the sarcasm tag?
If you legalize “crime” how is it then crime?
When the sarcasm drips off the bottom of your screen and forms a pool on your desk a /sarc tag seems unnecessary ... ;-)
We have a lot of black markets, child porn is one.
Look alike women’s purses is another.
If you think your sarcasm is obvious, there are a lot of serious WOD-loving social conservatives here on FR who would write just what you did and mean it.
Right now the topic is a crime, if we legalize that crime, then of course it would no longer be a crime.
My point was that how did that get confused with “making a police department improve the quality of it’s methods and training”?
If the drug underworld is legalized, the police will never have to go into residences to make arrests again?
Which of the previous instances you stated also result in shooting dogs in front of children under the guise of ‘Law Enforcement’?
The government isn’t exactly fighting the war on illegal immigration and look at the money and violence there.
You think that when screw ups happen in a police raid somewhere in the nation, that it is based on what the crime listed on the warrant is?
I’m saying there’s a pretty clear correlation between the types of crimes listed in the warrants that result in these jack-booted paramilitary type raids.
It’s time America granted amnesty to unlicensed pharmacists.
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