Posted on 02/15/2006 2:22:52 PM PST by MRMEAN
Conservatives never cease to fascinate me, given their professed devotion to “freedom, free enterprise, and limited government” and their ardent support of policies that violate that principle.
One of the most prominent examples is the drug war. In fact, if you’re ever wondering whether a person is a conservative or a libertarian, a good litmus-test question is, How do you feel about the war on drugs? The conservative will respond, “Even though I believe in freedom, free enterprise, and limited government, we’ve got to continue waging the war on drugs.” The libertarian will respond, “End it. It is an immoral and destructive violation of the principles of freedom, free enterprise, and limited government.”
The most recent example of conservative drug-war nonsense is an article entitled “Winning the Drug War,” by Jonathan V. Last in the current issue of The Weekly Standard, one of the premier conservative publications in the country.
In his article, Last cites statistics showing that drug usage among certain groups of Americans has diminished and that supplies of certain drugs have decreased. He says that all this is evidence that the war on drugs is finally succeeding and that we just need to keep waging it for some indeterminate time into the future, when presumably U.S. officials will finally be able to declare “victory.”
Of course, we’ve heard this type of “positive” drug-war nonsense for the past several decades, at least since Richard Nixon declared war on drugs back in the 1970s. What conservatives never tell us is how final “victory” will ultimately be measured. Like all other drug warriors for the past several decades, Last doesn’t say, “The statistics are so good that the drug war has now been won and therefore we can now end it,” but rather, “Victory is right around the corner. The statistics are getting better. Let’s keep going.”
Last failed to mention what is happening to the people of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, where drug lords compete violently to export illegal drugs into the United States to reap the financial benefits of exorbitant black-market prices and profits that the drug war has produced.
Recently, drug gangs fired high-powered weapons and a grenade into the newsroom of La Manana, killing Jaime Orozco Tey, a 40-year-old father of three.
Several other journalists have been killed in retaliation for their stories on the drug war, and newspapers are now self-censoring in fear of the drug lords. There are also political killings in Nuevo Laredo arising out of the drug war, including the city's mayor after he had served the grand total of nine hours in office.
According to the New York Times, “In Nuevo Laredo, the federal police say average citizens live in terror of drug dealers. Drug-related killings have become commonplace.” The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says that the U.S.-Mexico border region is now one of the world’s most dangerous places for reporters.
Not surprisingly, Last did not mention these statistics in his “We’re winning the drug war” article.
During Prohibition, there were undoubtedly people such as Last claiming, “Booze consumption is down. We’re winning the war on booze. Al Capone is in jail. We’ve got to keep on waging the war on booze until we can declare final victory.”
Fortunately, Americans living at that time finally saw through such nonsense, especially given the massive Prohibition-related violent crime that the war on booze had spawned. They were right to finally legalize the manufacture and sale of alcohol and treat alcohol consumption as a social issue, not a criminal-justice problem.
Both conservatives and liberals have waged their war on drugs for decades, and they have reaped nothing but drug gangs, drug lords, robberies, thefts, muggings, murders, dirty needles, overcrowded prisons, decimated families, record drug busts, government corruption, infringements on civil liberties, violations of financial privacy, massive federal spending, and, of course, ever-glowing statistics reflecting drug-war “progress.”
Americans would be wise to reject, once and for all, the war on drugs, and cast drug prohibition, like booze prohibition, into the ashcan of history.
Sad, isn't it? Before I came to Free republic, I thought all reasonable conservatives opposed stupid wasteful crap like the WOD. But then I had only been exposed to upper-middle class, professional conservatives.
I'm kind of embarrassed at my naivete.
The only portion I didn't personally like was the zero tolerance rule for the Coast Guard. The problem with it was some fisherman could have his boat tied up for months because one of his crew had smuggled some dope on board.
The fisherman would get his boat back but by then he could be hurting. Fortunately we were able to get that policy changed...in the mean time I knew some skippers who didn't take lightly to folks bringing dope on board. Fisherman tend to be a...physical group.
I wouldn't doubt it. The fabricated drug hysteria of the 80's sure fooled many of the more credulous.
I guess you consider President Reagan to be one of those credulous. I have a higher opinion of him.
I have great admiration for him, but as I said, I would have to disagree with him on this issue. I'm not sure I'll ever find anyone with whom I agree about everything, and if I did, I probably die from fright.
Do you think his pull out from Beirut was the right decision, given the intervening years' events?
That's one of his decision I didn't like.
Great, let's have total anarchy, then. Everyone just do whatever they feel like.
Sorry, but there are victims in the drug use. Users are victimized if something as small as pot is laced. Ecstacy has killed people, even some who took it by having it slipped into their drink. Heroin and Cocaine don't need to be mentioned, the ill effects of them are too well known.
http://www.capet.com/marijuana.htm
Granted, hte war on drugs isn't doing well, but that means a change in strategy, not giving up. Education is a very good place to start.
As for drug dealers, personally, I feel any caught selling hard drugs should be charged with first degree murder and given the death penalty. Also, it should be carried out in short order, not 25 years down the road.
Just because it isn't labeled as "war," do you think large cities have just given up and legalized gangs?
,,,,,,Sorry, but there are victims in the drug use. Users are victimized if something as small as pot is laced. Ecstacy has killed people, even some who took it by having it slipped into their drink. Heroin and Cocaine don't need to be mentioned, the ill effects of them are too well known.,,,,
Uh having someone put something into your drink is illegal whether it be drugs or poison, again a shotgun tactic for a small problem. Victims of those types crimes are not victims of illegal drugs, but illegal acts, the drug just being one of many possible poisons. So heroin and cocaine have ill effects, so does smoking, alcohol, obesity, etc, should we outlaw those too?
Splitting hairs as to how they got into someone else's body does not change the fact of the drug killing some people.
So heroin and cocaine have ill effects, so does smoking, alcohol, obesity, etc, should we outlaw those too?
Death from those drugs isn't necessarly a long term death, most of the time. Nor is it merely an "ill effect." Again, users aren't always sure what the drug has been cut with and legalizing those would just end up adding to already growing problem. Make it available cheaply and there is no incentive to try to get off of it nor is their any longer a barrier to some who might not have tried to before to try it now.
Haven't you heard of the smoking bans? That is just one step towatds illegalizing that too.
I agree in part.
I do think we should legalize soft drugs like pot, and I also think that posession should not include jail time, and that some aspects of the drug war are worth ending.
But that doesn't mean I'm against it completely. I realize what he's saying about libertarian principles, and I generally agree, but there are some things that go too far, and certain hard drugs that completely wack people out are too far.
Most drugs do not come from Mexico. A bigger share of them come from Mexico then any other individual country, but not most. It's around 30% from what I read. (of things like Cocane and Heroin).
As is giving somebody gin if they asked for ginger ale.
My biggest objection to Prohibition II is that it is used as a justification to erode people's rights, including people's right to protect their homes against unknown assailants (see Cory Maye). To the extent that the "War" cannot be fought without subverting the Constitution, it should not be fought at all.
Whenever this is a demand, there is a supply to meet the demand. At all times, under any conditions, not matter what, no exceptions whatsoever.
To even moderately reduce the supply in the face of a demand would require a system more restrictive and lacking in liberty than an Islamic police state.
Sorry, it's not worth the price to keep those who would medicate themselves to death from doing so. 
Robbery, rape, murder, terrorism, fraud, arson, kidnapping, sexual abuse of minors...these things HAVE to be illegal in order to preserve the Social Order, in order to preserve civilization. If outright murder is legal (and I'm going to avoid the abortion sidetrack right now), if it was legal for you to get up, break into your neighbor's house, and slit his throat...well, things such as neighbors and houses wouldn't exist, because the anarchy would prevent people from living civilly. If your neighbor could kill you without recompense, and he knew he could, then you wouldn't leave your house for suspicion that your neighbor might harm you or your family. We need the belief that those who would harm us and our property are either A) already weaned out of the population or B) at least deterred by the threat of imprisonment if they tried such a thing. Heck, you wouldn't have a house, because without an arbitrary force out there separating murderers and arsonists from society, each individual has to be his own law enforcement officer, protecting his family and property and life 24/7--there would be no specialization of labor, thus no economy worth preserving, thus no civilization of any value. No lumber yards, no electricians, no oven manufacturers, no architects, no carpenters, no highway builders, no internets, no economy, just chaos and a hellhole, not unlike most of Africa, Latin America, and Arabia, with corrupt or nonexistent Rule of Law.
And there's the keyword, Rule of Law, a set of boundaries that all are accountable to, and that all citizens know all other citizens are held accountable to. A set of regulations defined by restraining those behaviors that disrupt the civil process, and thus allows people to live confidentally that most of the defrauders aren't in the business world (thus the need for contract law), that child molesters are in prison, that arsonists are deterred from burning down your house. These things aren't illegal because they are wrong or evil or sinful--they have those qualities and its a convenient overlap, but those qualities aren't what make those behaviors illegal or we'd have alot more laws and alot more criminals cause there are lots of evil and sinful things that are legal right now--those specific behaviors are illegal because civilization is contingent upon their illegality. So it isn't a matter of "winning the war" on robbery, or rape, or murder, or terror. These things HAVE to be illegal, in every society or there is no society. It's comparing apples to hippopotamuses.
If the War on Robbery is necessary, than the War on Drugs is voluntary--drug use is a different behavior that rape, at least in the context of having certain drugs (like booze) legal and others illegal. If someone shoots heroin, it has no more bearing on anyone else than if someone gets drunk or reads 'Catcher in the Rye'. That drunk person might sulk in his house, or he might drive and kill someone. That person might read Catcher in the Rye and go to bed, or he might get a gun and shoot a singer or a President. Its when the behavior carries over to someone else that it becomes a problem. If we can have a civil society where booze is legal, and only have certain boundaries for the behavior--don't drive drunk, for example--than those same boundaries can be put in place for pot smoking or snorting cocaine--don't drive while high.
Drug use, in and of itself, does not disturb the Rule of Law anymore than any number of other self destructive and stupid behaviors. If anything, it hampers the effectiveness of the Law by diverting needed tax payer money from chasing down terrorists to chasing down drug dealers. It makes the notion of Law look ineffective, and thus the Law is flauntable. Bad laws don't save society, they hasten the destruction of it, by turning the governing authority into a Paper Tiger, one that can't win its self declared "War on Poverty" or "War on Drugs". Its why it is so important that whatever law is on the books, either MUST be on the books so that we have civilization, or it must be enforcable. Drug use is wrong, but there are plenty of things that are wrong--stupidity, bad parenting, laziness, insufferable ignorance about economics, George Clooney. Illegality does not equal wrong, and Wrong doesn't equal illegality.
I honestly don't know what to do about drugs. Drugs and the death penalty, I can't give a strong answer either way. I don't pretend to have all the answers, nor do I think one needs to take a definite side on every idea and every position and every concept in the history of man. But when comparing the War on Murder, the War on Rape, and the War on Drugs, one doesn't fit, one isn't the same as the others.
Plenty of weed comes from Mexico, but none of the good stuff comes from there.
Or at least, that's what my friends tell me.
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