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.
When I say that we do not see eye-to-eye on the constitution, I am not kidding - I see it as a three-way contract, between the People, the States, and the Fed.
And I really take it seriously. The founding fathers argued that the fed had no power to outlaw murder - how then, drugs?
Because they want to, that's why. The Right wants to outlaw drugs and abortion, the left wants to outlaw the right. Neither is legal, in my humble viewpoint.
Both consist of folks willing to sell us down the river, as long as their nonesuch is in power.
Bah. Mark Twain was a genious, and the libs don't even know why. Neither does the right.
Nope. I don't know where you got that.
"The founding fathers argued that the fed had no power to outlaw murder - how then, drugs?"
Drugs are interstate commerce -- murder is not.
Same truck, same driver, same murder, load is now pot. Ooooooh, feds have jurisdiction.
As I said, we disagree.
I suspect we always will.
By that standard, so does sleeping with your wife, as opposed to paying a whore.
Parhaps the feds wish us all to pay for it?
Robert, not everything needs to be a federal case. In fact, most Americans should never have any contact with the federal government.
Maybe you heard that before?
"The blame lies on this idiotic drug war we're waging"---this is no different than the war on smokers (next the fatties) that Little Neal is waging. Check out his thoughts on that...calls himself a libertarian. Agree with his FairTax plan but would not want hime to have anymore power than he has.
But you have to put it into context. According to Yappy's Big of History all Indian tribes were hostile and we were secretly at war with every nation in Europe.
The Act wasn't limited to hostile tribes or alcohol.
The Act wasn't limited to hostile tribes or alcohol.
Really?
Thomas Bird was executed for murder by the federal government in 1790, one year after the Constitution was ratified.
Agree.
I said NOTHING about regulating commerce with the Indian Tribes. If you wish to misquote me, please be accurate, then tell your lies.
They are found in the Ninth and Tenth amendments. Remember, the Constitution is NOT about limits on we, the people; it is about LIMITS ON GOVERNMENT. That you would prefer it otherwise makes you the enemy of everything the Founders stood for.
Three different circumstances, three different usages. All of them based on the meaning of the word "regulate," which is to make regular. Pretty much how they meant it in the Second Amendment. To make the trade between the States regular, all congress had to do was enforce a level playing field: no special tariffs between the States, no protectionism for an industry in one state over the same industry in the next state. To make trade regular between the United States and foreign nations or the Indian Tribes the Congress had a bit more leeway, as the Federal Government was given the authority elsewhere in the Constitution to set foreign policy and conduct the nation's affairs with other governments (which included the Indian Tribes).
Of course you know this but like to be obtuse because it suits your evil purposes to misstate and misquote and misinterpret. We know that, but it would be nice if you'd grow up and get a life minding your own business instead of all your neighbors' business.
All begged.
Roscoe, your addiction is showing.
The BIG LIE
The first time that some friend tells you to try government as a solution to a problem, it sounds like a good idea. Maybe it will get your neighbor to act the way you want him to. Maybe it will get you an education or some health care.
It sneaks up on you, a little at a time, at first. You think one little government program won't hurt. Government helps you and you don't have to pay for the help. A pretty good deal.
But one day it dawns on you: you're HOOKED. Whatever problem you face, from your not earning as much money as you'd like to the unaesthetic design of your neighbor's house to your city's inability to attract an NFL franchise, you turn to government for "help."
You're SWAMPED in government programs and you've lost control of your life. You've become a government addict.
It's hard to kick the habit. Being responsible for your OWN actions is not always convenient. You'll have to make decisions for yourself. Sometimes they are going to be WRONG.
Yet being free to choose - rightly or wrongly - and to learn from your mistakes - is what being human is all about.
Once you've come clean, once you've broken the habit of turning to government for an answer, you realize that government is the PROBLEM, NOT the solution.
Government is a LIE. It promises prosperity and a better standard of living. But it ends up taking from you, controlling you, dragging you down into a seedy underworld of bureaucracy, red tape and corruption.
Think for yourself. Break free of government. It's just a BIG LIE.
How long have you been a drug pusher?
Bologna.
The federal government also went after the KKK...
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