Dr. Paul’s Writings › War on Terror? It’s as Bad as War on Drugs (More lunatic fringe)

Ron Paul 2008 ^ | August 22, 2007 | Dr. Ron Paul

[april15Bendovr]

Dr. Paul’s Writings › War on Terror? It’s as Bad as War on Drugs

Summary:

For the first 140 years of our history, we had essentially no Federal war on drugs, and far fewer problems with drug addiction and related crimes was a consequence. In the past 30 years, even with the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on the drug war, little good has come of it. We have vacillated from efforts to stop the drugs at the source to severely punishing the users, yet nothing has improved. This war has been behind most big government policy powers of the last 30 years, with continual undermining of our civil liberties and personal privacy.

by Ron Paul, Dr. August 22, 2007

October 30, 2001

I would like to draw an analogy between the drug war and the war against terrorism. In the last 30 years, we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on a failed war on drugs. This war has been used as an excuse to attack our liberties and privacy. It has been an excuse to undermine our financial privacy while promoting illegal searches and seizures with many innocent people losing their lives and property. Seizure and forfeiture have harmed a great number of innocent American citizens.

Another result of this unwise war has been the corruption of many law enforcement officials. It is well known that with the profit incentives so high, we are not even able to keep drugs out of our armed prisons. Making our whole society a prison would not bring success to this floundering war on drugs. Sinister motives of the profiteers and gangsters, along with prevailing public ignorance, keep this futile war going. Illegal and artificially high priced drugs drive the underworld to produce, sell and profit from this social depravity. Failure to recognize that drug addiction, like alcoholism, is a disease rather than a crime, encourage the drug warriors in efforts that have not and will not ever work. We learned the hard way about alcohol prohibition and crime, but we have not yet seriously considered it in the ongoing drug war.

Corruption associated with the drug dealers is endless. It has involved our police, the military, border guards and the judicial system. It has affected government policy and our own CIA. The artificially high profits from illegal drugs provide easy access to funds for rogue groups involved in fighting civil wars throughout the world. Ironically, opium sales by the Taliban and artificially high prices helped to finance their war against us. In spite of the incongruity, we rewarded the Taliban this spring with a huge cash payment for promises to eradicate some poppy fields. Sure.

For the first 140 years of our history, we had essentially no Federal war on drugs, and far fewer problems with drug addiction and related crimes was a consequence. In the past 30 years, even with the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on the drug war, little good has come of it. We have vacillated from efforts to stop the drugs at the source to severely punishing the users, yet nothing has improved. This war has been behind most big government policy powers of the last 30 years, with continual undermining of our civil liberties and personal privacy. Those who support the IRS's efforts to collect maximum revenues and root out the underground economy, have welcomed this intrusion, even if the drug underworld grows in size and influence.

The drug war encourages violence. Government violence against nonviolent users is notorious and has led to the unnecessary prison overpopulation. Innocent taxpayers are forced to pay for all this so-called justice. Our eradication project through spraying around the world, from Colombia to Afghanistan, breeds resentment because normal crops and good land can be severely damaged. Local populations perceive that the efforts and the profiteering remain somehow beneficial to our own agenda in these various countries.

Drug dealers and drug gangs are a consequence of our unwise approach to drug usage. Many innocent people are killed in the crossfire by the mob justice that this war generates. But just because the laws are unwise and have had unintended consequences, no excuses can ever be made for the monster who would kill and maim innocent people for illegal profits. But as the violent killers are removed from society, reconsideration of our drug laws ought to occur.

A similar approach should be applied to our war on those who would terrorize and kill our people for political reasons. If the drug laws and the policies that incite hatred against the United States are not clearly understood and, therefore, never changed, the number of drug criminals and terrorists will only multiply. Although this unwise war on drugs generates criminal violence, the violence can never be tolerated. Even if repeal of drug laws would decrease the motivation for drug dealer violence, this can never be an excuse to condone the violence. On the short term, those who kill must be punished, imprisoned, or killed. Long term though, a better understanding of how drug laws have unintended consequences is required if we want to significantly improve the situation and actually reduce the great harms drugs are doing to our society.

The same is true in dealing with those who so passionately hate us that suicide becomes a just and noble cause in their effort to kill and terrorize us. Without some understanding of what has brought us to the brink of a worldwide conflict in reconsidering our policies around the globe, we will be no more successful in making our land secure and free than the drug war has been in removing drug violence from our cities and towns.

Without some understanding why terrorism is directed towards the United States, we may well build a prison for ourselves with something called homeland security while doing nothing to combat the root causes of terrorism. Let us hope we figure this out soon. We have promoted a foolish and very expensive domestic war on drugs for more than 30 years. It has done no good whatsoever. I doubt our Republic can survive a 30-year period of trying to figure out how to win this guerilla war against terrorism. Hopefully, we will all seek the answers in these trying times with an open mind and understanding.

[Eric Blair 2084]

ping

[april15Bendovr]

Where was the Ron Paul crowd when Mayor Daley needed them?

[Eric Blair 2084]

Let’s hear it. Please ‘splain Lucy. What does Daley have to do with it.

[Arthur McGowan]

I am inclined to agree with Ron Paul on this.

[pillut48]

Were the voters smoking the straw? That could account for his win...

[Eric Blair 2084]

He’s right about the drug war. He’s so very wrong that there is a strong parallel between it and the war between Islamofacism and the rest of the world. In the first case, the root causes are the human desire for intoxication that in some cases turns terribly destructive, plus the government’s willingness to make war on its own citizens to try to stomp it out. In the second case, there’s a violent, expansionist religious sect that has been able to use oil money to export itself around the world and wage war on modern civilization. I don’t see the comparison.

ellery, please stop making sense and saying something intelligent. It makes my head hurt. Just stick to the carefully crafted talking points and call Paul "Assface".

[april15Bendovr]

I don't have to explain anything. You provided this quote.

“Ron Paul supporters are experts at deleting cookies, voting multiple times and manipulating IP addresses.

Go ask George Soros

[Eric Blair 2084]

Been seeing a lot of these on FR today, guess JimRob needs more hamster treats for the server! :-)

What is going on? I am seeing that I was post 75 of 26.

[billbears]

Without some understanding why terrorism is directed towards the United States, we may well build a prison for ourselves with something called homeland security while doing nothing to combat the root causes of terrorism. Let us hope we figure this out soon. We have promoted a foolish and very expensive domestic war on drugs for more than 30 years. It has done no good whatsoever. I doubt our Republic can survive a 30-year period of trying to figure out how to win this guerilla war against terrorism. Hopefully, we will all seek the answers in these trying times with an open mind and understanding.

Bump!!

[Eric Blair 2084]

I call it like I see it. It’s the truth. No candidate wins polls by landslide margins like that if there is a quorum. I like Paul and his philosophy a lot, but I don’t support him for POTUS.

In politics and democratic activism, a quorum is not necesary. Most sheeple are disinterested. The squeekiest wheel gets the oil.

[dgallo51]

Any government that supports, protects or harbours terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent and equally guilty of terrorist crimes.
-—George W. Bush

Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence(ISI)

http://www.saag.org/papers3/paper287.html

isi, saudi arabia, cia, mi6 - Google Search

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=isi,+saudi+arabia,+cia,+mi6&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

PINR - Iran’s Territorial Disputes with its Caspian Sea Neighbors

http://www.pinr.com/report.php?ac=view_printable&report_id=499&language_id=1

Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.
-—George W. Bush

[Milton Friedman]

Milton Friedman is a tree hugging pot head. I hate liberals like Milton Friedman.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45/337.html

What a liberal puke!

http://www.druglibrary.org/SCHAFFER/Misc/friedm1.htm

William Buckley is a hippie freak that wants to sell dope to your kids. I hate liberals like William Buckley.

http://www.nationalreview.com/12feb96/drug.html

What a bunch of losers Buckley and Friedman are. They are just a bunch of dope addicts hiding behind principles like “small government” and “individual liberty”. Nobody here believes in those concepts anymore anyway.

I think we should bring back alcohol prohibition. It worked so well the first time.

[april15Bendovr]

You can go ahead and call out for all the cult. I’m too tired to examine all the Pro Ron Paul poppycock tonight.

Goodnight my drug seeking friends

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Ahh...don’t you just feel the love on this thread?

[Eric Blair 2084]

Hi Milton. I met you 20 years ago, and told you about my college Econometrics computer model. My model back in 1986 showed that the US GDP would be 0 by 1998. We laughed and you explained that my computer was not plugged in.

You may be gone, but you are not forgotten by people like me who you influenced.

"What most people really object to when they object to a free market is that it is so hard for them to shape it to their own will. The market gives people what the people want instead of what other people think they ought to want. At the bottom of many criticisms of the market economy is really lack of belief in freedom itself. The essence of political freedom is the absence of coercion of one man by his fellow men. The fundamental danger to political freedom is the concentration of power. The existence of a large measure of power in the hands of a relatively few individuals enables them to use it to coerce their fellow men. Preservation of freedom requires either the elimination of power where that is possible, or its dispersal where it cannot be eliminated. It essentially requires a system of checks and balances, like that explicitly incorporated in our Constitution..."

-- Milton Friedman, The New Liberal's Creed: Individual Freedom, Preserving Dissent Are Ultimate Goals," May 18, 1961

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Here, bend over for this:

RICE: ISRAEL MUST DIVIDE JERUSALEM

[mimaw]

Dr. Demento.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Your opinion of Paul is of no concern to the thousands of folks who are out there supporting him. He’s raised $5.3 million dollars in the 3Q and is already over $1 million for this month alone. You’re not changing anyone’s minds, but have fun marginalizing yourself & engaging in the same lame-old pot references and Soros jokes to the point of shrill desperation, as evident of your multiple posts on your own thread.

[Eric Blair 2084]

Let me help you edit and write your post.

You can go ahead and call out for all the cult. I’m too tired to examine all the Pro Ron Paul poppycock tonight.

What you meant to say is:

Despite the fact that Mr. Paul has the highest rating of all Congressman by the National Taxpayers Union (84%) and supports the nominally established GOP position in favor of limited government, I can not support him for POTUS because I don't agree with his foreign policy. In addition, I believe that what my fellow citizens ingest should be the Government business. I promise to stand by this precedent when the Gubmint tells me that Cheeseburgers are illegal since they displease the state by contributing to type 2 diabetes and increasing taxpayer costs for Universal Healthcare.

American Taxpayers Union Congressional Rankings for 2006

[Eric Blair 2084]

Congratulations EEE, you just made someone run from their own post.

BTW, I liked your old tagline better. (tagline deleted by moderator)