Posted on 11/22/2006 7:35:17 AM PST by Dick Bachert
Atlanta police went to a home on Neal Street in Atlanta last evening to execute a search warrant. When they kicked the door in the only occupant of the home, a 92-year-old woman, started shooting. She hit all three police officers. One in the thigh, one in the arm and another in the shoulder. All police officers will be OK. The woman will not. She was shot and killed by the police.
I'm not blaming the cops here. Not at all. They had a valid search warrant, and they say they were at the right address. Shots were fired, three cops hit, and they returned fire. A 92-year-old woman who was so afraid of crime in her neighborhood that she had burglar bars on every door and window, is now dead.
The blame lies on this idiotic drug war we're waging. We have all the studies we need, all of the comprehensive data is in. We can do a much more effective job of reducing drug use in this country if we'll just take a portion of this money we spend for law enforcement and spend it on treatment programs. A Rand study showed that we can reduce illicit drug usage in this country a specified amount through treatment programs at about 10% of the cost of reducing drug usage by that same amount through criminalization and law enforcement.
There's just something in the American psyche that demands that drug users be punished instead of treated and rehabilitated. We think they're stupid and ignorant for getting mixed up with those drugs in the first place. And you know what? We're right? But look at the messages we send to our children every single day with cigarettes, alcohol, and an endless stream of drug ads on television and in magazines. Drug culture? You bet we have.
"Hey wombat, since you believe in government sooo much. When the next big disaster comes I'll see you at the dome. NOT!"
Hardy, har, har.
The issue isn't government, moron, it's human nature!
Thos people in New Orleans drowned because it was their nature to take te easy way out: i.e. depend on someone else to do the heavy lifteing of saving them. It's just the result of extraordinary coincidence, and 40 years of democratic party propaganda, that they depended upon government to do it for them. Right aftere they indulged in the "it'll never happen to me" dilectic of human nature.
Quite frankly, government, at all levels, is a reflection of the citizens. If the citizens are reasonably inoformed and serious, they get government that works. If not, they get Ray Nagin and manage to give Phantom a job.
By the way, the fact that you work for government tells me that productive and lucrative private sector employment is probably beyond your capacity, and if I had to guess, you;re probably a union employee as well. Please don't insult anyone's intelligence with this fallacy that you somehow "live the belly of the beast" as some sort of defense against it's eeventual excesses. You probably do so because you are most likely lazy, unmotivated, and with the shield of the union, unfireable.
getting back to the original point, DRUGS themsleves are not the problem. What people do in order to get them, use them, sell them and make a living off of them, are. That's what society wishes to protect itself from. Your interest in this regard seems to be whether or not such action interferes with your next joint.
You are not standing up fo rsome prinicple; you are being selfish and justfying it by trying to frame the question as a matter of rights and privacy. Got news for ya, pal; the individual's and privacy stop at the tip of his/her nose. Beyond that, there's a common area that we all have to somehow manage to live in. If you want to fire up a joint or speedball, then. Pleasethat's your problem, don't make it mine by supporting the criminal enterprises that supply you while making life for the rest of us a potential hell.
Our right to safety from criminals and random violence far outweigh your right to put whatever you want in your body under the guise of enjoying a freedom. Freedom, in case you forgot, comes with responsbilities, and just like a good democrat you want the right but not the corresponding responsibility.
That mnakes you just as dangerous, in my eyes, as any turban-headed idiot with a death-wiish and a ginned up historical grievance.
Pardon me, where did that right exist? I must have missed it.
Is it like, "the right not to be offended?"
Cause I missed that one, too.
I have often read some on this board exclaim, "Do YOU KNOW how offensive that is?"
So? If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.
Not if we keep sitting on our thumbs letting the 5%-ers bully us. It may well be time to stop playing nice.
We're not sitting on our thumbs. With 2,300 years of living in an upside-down world of external authorities controlling and social engineering the masses to suit their wants it's time to increasingly act according to ones own natural conscious authority. Play, act according to your rules. Certainly the anti-civilization doesn't have nor portray or reflect the nature of human consciousness in a rational honest mode. That mode is the mode that out-competes and renders obsolete mysticism-plagued minds.. Business is key to human nature, conscious nature. Conscious man increasingly understands nature to increasingly control nature. Technology advances exponentially, A fundamental underpinning that is information advancing exponentially. (If you want some links, ask).
I assume you've read the explanation of 3,000 new laws each year yet there's massive lawlessness and despite that individuals and society increasingly prosper. That's a system. Not the one the founders wanted ort perhaps even anticipated would go so far astray. But it is what it is and here we are.
A small yet glaring example of the failed premise the anti-civilization system is predicated on:
Take the drug prohibition laws and the system used to implement and enforce them. There's twenty million regular illicit drug users and forty million casual users. If the system is based on valid premise it should be effective in achieving its objective. So we'll proceed as though it is valid.
Suppose next week they drug prohibition system apprehended every person that possessed, used or sold illicit drugs in the last twelve months. That's forty million people being processed though police stations, the courts and fined or imprisoned. I almost forgot, asset forfeiture laws applied.
Figure fifteen million of those "criminals" own a house. Thirty-five million own at least one car and at least one bank account and/or savings account. The asset forfeitures would take in about three trillion dollars. Horary! the taxpayers' government is worth a windfall profit. Sadly, the cost to process and incarcerate half of them costs the taxpayers about six trillion dollars. A net loss of three trillion dollars.
That's just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. It yanks at least ten percent of the work force out of the economy. Pushing unemployment up to 15%. That's a huge chunk of the productivity to wipe out of the market economy. Today's market economy is wound much tighter than in the 1930' The effects would be a spiraling depression far worse than the Great Depression.
That's the drug prohibition system underpinned by it's destined to fail invalid premise.
Okay, so along comes some yahoo proclaiming that "the system doesn't work that way and only a tiny fraction would actually be imprisoned. Plea barging alone would greatly reduce the number doing time in prison."
But I don't play by their upside down rules so I say this: "sadly, upon your invalid premise the problem is compounded by charging a person with a lesser crime than they committed. That's a dishonest evasion of reality. If harm was done the person must be charged with the actual crime they committed. Does the murder get charged with assault. The assaulter charged with theft? I'm sure the victims are fuming mad about that. What's that you say? That doesn't happen -- no one gets mad because there are no victims to get mad.
The circle complete, they go on about how society will run headlong into destruction if drug prohibition laws are repealed. To which you say: Oh yeah, just like it self-destructed after alcohol prohibition was repealed. Frankly, what I've witnessed since then is the exponential advancement of technology benefiting people and society. And that's despite massive consensual crime and victim-less crime lawlessness.
In short. It isn't about a collective group effort that will collapse the house of cards. Collective group think is theirs to keep. This is an individual awakening. Awakening to the giant within as one by one people render the old system obsolete and then forget about it.
One-by-one may seem slow. But it's not. It's an exponential like pyramiding. It starts slow but by the time half the pyramid is in place the rest happens almost overnight -- so to speak.
Key: Man increasingly understands nature to increasingly control nature. The conscious mind is controlled by the owner and thus each person is the highest authority.
Almost every person, at first contact, resists themselves being the highest authority. The time-span from first contact/resistance and acceptance has been shrinking. Likewise, the number of individuals waking up is increasing per fixed time. Similar to Moore's Law: doubling of transistors per centimeter every two years and cost of transistors per penny doubling.
I don't share your optimis, but I hope you are right.
I don't share your optimism (damn fingers), but I hope you are right.
"Pardon me, where did that right exist? I must have missed it."
Then you missed the part about "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". It's government's job (as defined by the people) to set the conditions under which these are possible.
"Is it like, "the right not to be offended?"
False argument. I'm offended by the fact that I can't smoke a cigarette in a bar, but more than willing to admit that it does offend others and maybe presents a health risk to non-smokers. In the grand scheme of things, while it's inconvenient to interrupt my merry-making to go outside and light up, no one has taken my cigarettes away. It's a trade-off I'm willing to make because I wasn't raised to be a selfish slob, nor educated to believe that being one was simply a matter of exercising a "right". It's called compromise and it's a fact of life. I'm willing to make that compromise, are you?
"So? If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out."
No, but if thine eye results in unbearable and unreasonable costs to society and human suffering, in contravention to the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", then pluck it out. At what point did prgamatism die a silent death? When did having consideration for others and recognizing the potential consequences of your actions cease being a requirement for civil society?
The argument is that society allows this or that evil but not this particular evil is irrelevant: society, by consensus, has decided which forms of evil it's willing to put up with and which ones it is not, and it empowers government to regulate both. That's one of the byproducts (and engines) of civilization...and compromise.
All the laws about concerning this issue (WOD) are not the dictates of a rampant government, but the result of an elected legislature, acting upon the concerns of it's citizens, creating and enforcing laws on behalf of those same citizens. You may not like it, but it is legal, it is constitutional and until the general public says otherwise, necessary.
I doubt that libertarians would ever accept paying for drugs for addicts no more than they accept the current socialistic welfare system.
I think you're right. What you witnessed is a drive-by non sequitur. Often used when one's argument is too weak to stand on it's own merits. They resort to irrationality as their argument.
I never did understand how that would survive in the long run. I don't think it can. See tag line.
Do you mean infer? I believe people get imply and infer mixed up a lot.
If you think you are, you are kidding yourself.
Hence, no such "right" exists.
It is like saying, "If we toss a virgin in the volcano, it will not erupt."
Sorry, my friend - entropy exists.
Come to think of it, "infer" is the right term. My bad.
LOL!
Make my day.
That makes sense...all of it.
"Be that as it may, you will never be safe from criminals and random violence."
True, human nature being what it is, this is not an easily accomplished, or perhaps practical, goal. However, does this mean we should just give up and let it happen? No problem: we can't prevent crime and suffering, better to let nature take it's course and have it happen, right? Just because something might ultimately be perceived as a useless gesture (for example, finding a cure for a disease -- there's no guarentees of success in that regard, either) doesn't mean that it shouldn't be undertaken. If your premise were to be universally accepted and extended to it's logical ends, mankind would still be living in caves and gathering low-hanging fruit.
The "useless gesture" very often has consequences far beyond it's own failure, and justifications beyond the narrow scope for which it was originally made.
Protect yourself, man, and quit whining. No one is safe. A huge rock could fall out of the sky today, and squish you like a bug.
Stuff happens.
Unless I simply CANNOT AVOID it, I stay the hell out of Atlanta.
The entire government there is run and staffed by about as incompetent -- and RACIST -- a bunch as you will find anywhere thanks to -- with exceptions conspicuous by their rarity -- a population of A) minority and white welfare bums and loafers or B) wealthy white limousine liberals who -- while living in Peachtree Street high-rise condos behind 24/7 security -- delight in bragging to their friends that they believe that Atlanta is as safe as any city and C) members of the black economic aristocracy who fear group A and dislike group B but live in those high-rise condos with them for the security.
And ever since Maynard Jackson, group A has voted for officials there not on the basis of competence but on the amount of plunder they promise them, group B out of guilt for being white and C strictly because of race.
The result is a city that has sent many of its former "leaders" to the slammer (Bill Campbell being the most recent example -- thanks to the feds because local judges are in group B or C) and "leaders" like Shirley Franklin (current mayor), Andrew Young (former mayor and UN dufus) and John Lewis (congress critter for life because he is the right color) who cut the incredibly racist radio spot during the last election -- then refused to apologize when called out on it, essentially admitting their racism.
My advice to friends and family is to stay the hell OUT of the city lest you become another victim of that racism, incompetence and corruption.
As I suspect all the participants in that botched raid -- including the dead woman -- were black, in a perverse way, at least some of these folks are equal opportunity killers.
And save any comments about ME being a racist: I've supported Alan Keyes and would do so again and believe Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams are two of the brightest guys on the scene today with Bill Cosby -- who has been saying many of the same things and being called an "Uncle Tom" or "Oreo Cookie" for his trouble -- running a close third.
No, MY problem with fellow human beings is BEHAVIORAL or CULTURAL. It has little to do with skin hue.
That is what really disturbs me about these Drug Warrior Nazis. They heard that an LP plank calls for an end to the ineffective and hypocritical WOD and immediately assume that the LP is only pot smokers and junkies.
I supported the LP and regularly attended meetings until the War Against Islamic Fascism caused an LP Schism. There is still a disagreement over what constitutes an "initial initiation of force" in relation to a foreign power. In my opinion, the WTC was the initiation of force that warrants any and every response against Islamic Terror or those that embrace and hide behind it.
I never saw one person at any local meetings that appeared to have even used drugs at all. Even at the State LP Convention, I only saw a few persons out of hundreds that appeared to be one trick ponies for drug use. I suspect all of the actual Druggies attend N.O.R.M.L. meetings instead of wasting their time with Libertarians that never achieve their goals anyway.
The libertarian issue with the WOD is concerned with Federal programs that are not allowed by "The Constitution" and "Bill of Rights." I feel compelled to remind everyone how far we have strayed from the Goldwater Republican ideal.
I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is "needed" before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents' "interests", I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.
-Barry Goldwater
I feel that I stand on the shoulders of Giants when I say that the WOD has not stopped drug use and must be abandoned for something that will certainly be better that what we currently have.
Uhh pardon me but the term "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" is not in the U.S. Constitution. It can be found in the Declaration of Independence, but it is not in the U.S. Constitution nor it's amendments, which is the document that enumerates our rights.
They had to get in before she flushed her stash.
***It looks like the adrenaline cowboys are taking over policy on raids like this. There is no glory in sending in someone half a day earlier to stop up the sewer line (now they can't flush drugs down the toilet, can they?) and then conduct daylight operations in full uniform right afterwards. Kinda like the branch Davidians -- ATF could have picked up Koresh when he was on his weekly run to get groceries, but there's no glory in it. If police work started to become as mundane as stopping toilets & picking up folks at the grocery store, adrenaline cowboys would lose interest and enroll in the war in Iraq, where we have real work for them to do.
Most of the recreational drug users I have known of are not libertarians!
Funny how that works.
Did you turn them in to the tip line in hopes that their Grandmothers would be shot DRT?
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