Thomas Sowell and Milton Friedman make their cases for ending the War on Drugs (YouTube videos)

YouTube | Thomas Sowell and Milton Friedman

[10thAmendmentGuy]

Thomas Sowell on the War on Drugs

Milton Friedman on the War on Drugs

[10thAmendmentGuy]

I checked to see if these videos had been posted on FR before, and the Milton Friedman video had been a couple of years ago, but it didn't generate much in the way of worthwhile discussion. I looked to see if the Thomas Sowell video had ever been posted, and I couldn't find a discussion thread about it. Both of these guys make very compelling cases for ending the war on drugs. They are not radical libertarians. Milton Friedman was a Republican pragmatist. Thomas Sowell has been a well-respected conservative for a long time.

[10thAmendmentGuy]

Feel free to ping the Thomas Sowell list on this if you’d like — up to you.

[TexasCajun]

Here comes the legalize maryjane crowd.

Pot Heads could solve the debt problem!

[Artemis Webb]

Only Nixon could go to China.

[Steel Wolf]

We could also solve the problem of government encroachment on civil liberties. The basic things that the Founding Fathers fought for, that we're now handing over to a growing police state.

Call me silly, but I'd rather deal with pot-heads than SWAT-gone-wild.

[10thAmendmentGuy]

Do you have anything worthwhile to add to the thread? If you’d like to offer an argument that pertains to the thread topic, then I’d love to hear it. :)

[Christian Engineer Mass]

“Republican pragmatist”

As opposed to what?

[10thAmendmentGuy]

As an aside, why don't you actually watch the videos? I've never met anyone who watched the videos that didn't at least stop to reconsider their position. If moral and economic arguments don't start to convince you that this is a failure, then maybe the empirical evidence will: we have more people using drugs like marijuana than we did when the War on Drugs started 40 years ago.

I made my tagline just for you!

[Venturer]

There has never been a war on drugs. Just a few skirmish’s

If I were President, I would show you a war on drugs.

I would bomb the Poppy fields and Marijuana fields with Napalm. I would bomb the processing plants, I would shoot the dealers and drug cartel leaders just as I would a traitor in wartime.

I would poison the drugs like alcohol was poisoned during prohibition, and make any dealer I caught eat whatever drugs they had on them. Would they die?? Who cares.?
These people are killing users and their kids. Destroying their lives. I would turn all drug dealers in prison now loose, with a stern warning that next time they get executed.

War is war, fight it like a war or STFU and get out of the way.

[10thAmendmentGuy]

As opposed to the big-government statists that think that acting like lite version of Democrats is going to endear them to the public. No Child Left Behind, Medicare Part D -- how do you feel about these programs? Thomas Sowell is not a fan of RINOs. He supports the ideas that Tea Party-type Republicans are pushing.

Either the Constitution means something to you or it does not. Let the states decide how best to deal with the drug problem and we will have much better outcomes.

[Minus_The_Bear]

Oh there is a war alright... the ATF is funding the wrong side.

[kiryandil]

Law Encroachment will NEVER give up its cash cow/paramilitary training vehicle - asset seizure/paramilitary SWAT raids.

[10thAmendmentGuy]

The ATF doesn’t just give guns to drug dealers, they also set up and kill innocent people like at Waco and Ruby Ridge, but that is neither here nor there.

[kiryandil]

As an aside, why don't you actually watch the videos? I've never met anyone who watched the videos that didn't at least stop to reconsider their position. If moral and economic arguments don't start to convince you that this is a failure, then maybe the empirical evidence will: we have more people using drugs like marijuana than we did when the War on Drugs started 40 years ago.

Law Encroachment lives for the War on Dogs Drugs. It's so refreshingly Fascistic. "I love the smell of burning Natural Rights in the morning."

[steveo]

Law Encroachment will NEVER give up its cash cow/paramilitary training vehicle - asset seizure/paramilitary SWAT raids.

And that folks is all you need to know about the war on drugs...

[Molon Labbie]

I am a police officer and I am against the war on drugs.

Billions of taxpayer dollars are being spent on a endeavor that will never be won nor is there a plan to win it. It has become an industry unto itself, perpetually employing millions in government, the legal field, and all the supportive industries that used to not exist.

There have been more Constitutional challenges in the history of the document since the inception of the war on drugs and tens of thousands die every year because of the violence associated with it.

We cannot legislate morality and frankly, I am tired of American citizens, their animals and my fellow police officers being killed in this unending struggle.

Americans hate to lose fights. I know I do but this is a fight that cannot be won with the current methods. It would be cheaper, both in pecuniary and human capital, just to set up distribution points and issue it to abusers. No gang wars over sales turf, police raids will go back to what they should be for, going after the most violent in society, free up jail space so the most violent can be where they belong, instead of walking free.

[nkycincinnatikid]

Yeah..
I mean,
like
What is he smokin?

[10thAmendmentGuy]

Please tell me you're kidding. You think that the War on Drugs has been a failure because we haven't fought it hard enough? We arrest almost a million people a year for either possessing or dealing marijuana (mostly for possession). How many do you want them to arrest? 3 million? 4 million?

No, I see that you want to purposefully POISON drug users. DRUG USERS. I can't say I morally object to the idea of making a heroin DEALER eat their heroin, but the idea of having the government purposefully poison drug users is about as anti-American an ideal as you get. You know why alcohol was poisoned during prohibition, don't you? Bootleggers wanted to increase their already sky-high profits, so they diluted the product. This caused people to die. We see the same thing today, with heroin dealers lacing their product to save money.

You don't seriously want our government acting more like drug dealers, do you? You want to shoot drug dealers. In other words, you think that drug dealing is more serious than rape, because even rapists don't get executed (because our stupid Supreme Court said that was too harsh). I gotta assume that your post is a joke.

[Olog-hai]

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As an aside, why don't you actually watch the videos? I've never met anyone who watched the videos that didn't at least stop to reconsider their position

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I know a lot of ethanol addicts that rob, steal, beg, prostitute themselves, et al. that do no other drug. And ethanol is legal.

This is one issue that Sowell falls down flat on. Imagine if cocaine were put back in Coca-Cola? There was a reason it was removed back in 1903.

[BfloGuy]

Here comes the legalize maryjane crowd.

Insisting on continuing the War on Drugs is as stupid as the liberals' defending the War on Poverty. Neither "war" has worked.