Posted on 10/19/2007 8:51:31 PM PDT by 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.
He may be misguided in the WOT, but it is not for the same reasons that the liberals are. He is opposed on Constitutional grounds much like William F. Buckley. Libs want to see us fail now that we are there because it advances their desire for power and votes.
Go thou and sin no more.
AND NOW, FRIENDS AND COUNTRYMEN, if the wise and learned philosophers of the elder world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and Shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to enquire what has America done for the benefit of mankind?
Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity.
She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights.
She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own.
She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart.
She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right.
Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.
But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.
She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.
She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.
She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.
She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.
The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force....
She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit....
[America’s] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.
John Quincy Adams on U.S. Foreign Policy
Right, the war on drugs has been highlighted by one success after another. Hardly anyone smokes hemp products anymore and anyone with half a brain can see that cocaine use is almost non existent especially crack cocaine use in the ethnic community. Thankfully, the drug turf wars are finally over and ‘drive by’ hasn’t become a part of the everyday lexicon. We should all be thankful that ‘the gubbiment’ was able to accomplish all of that without resorting to infringing upon the liberties of the average law abiding citizens. I’m sure glad that Bendovr and all the other concerned Freepers agree that RP had his tinfoil hat on backwards when he said that the war on drugs wasn’t working. Why, even a blind man can see that the WOD has worked perfectly just as advertised. Yeah, ol’ RP is just another moonbat that refuses to acknowledge reality.
I may like Ron Pauls view on getting rid of the IRS but his negatives outweigh the positives. I could never support a lunatic that cant understand 18 resolutions that were passed and ignored by the useless U.N. as Saddam made fools of the world. Now the President of Iran is following suit with his nuclear ambitions and providing IED's to our enemy in Iraq blowing up our troops. We are seeing our citizens killed around the world by terrorists. Would Dr. Paul protect them or tell them all to come home?
We had the Democrats who silenced members of the military that belonged to Operation Able Danger. Looks like Dr.Paul wants to ignore them as well. Furthermore, has he ignored evidence confirming that Saddam's intelligence team was working together with Al Qaeda at The Salman Pak terrorist training camp before we invaded Iraq? That evidence was brought forth by Laurie Mylroie in her testimony to the 911 Commission; Lt. Col. Buzz Patterson; Brig.-Gen. Vincent Brooks; Richard O. Spertzel, member of the Iraq Survey Group; John Negroponte in the Docex Project documents; and Commander Mark Divine, a U.S. Navy Seal.
Add all this in with the dangerous idea that we should just eliminate justice for people that want to destroy America, themselves and their families while minimizing substance abuse. Dr. Paul seems to thinks that fighting a drug war is a problem but neglecting to add that drug problems in our country are already responsible for the dumbing down of America. The people that love his stand on the WOD are not interested in living drug free. They seem to be interested in being able to use drugs with full immunity.
What is President Bush doing about this? Iran (and Syria) has been providing IEDs and smuggling troops into Iraq for months now, and all Bush/Rice has done is more saber-rattling. Plus our borders remain wide open. Funny how you criticize Paul but nobody never says anything about Bush for not fighting this war as he should.
Dr. Paul seems to thinks that fighting a drug war is a problem but neglecting to add that drug problems in our country are already responsible for the dumbing down of America.
He's not in favor of legalizing all drugs en masse. He would decriminalize marijuana and industrial hemp and let the states regulate it. Cocaine, heroin, etc. would still be illegal and with the borders secured shipments of them would drop dramatically. If someone wants to use marijuana it's simply none of your business the drug is no more harmful than most prescription medications.
I’m pretty much a Libertarian. I don’t think the WOD is getting at the real problems at all, which are, I think: boredom, meaninglessness, and emotional agony. Government can’t do anything about any of these things, because they are caused by the prevalence of government schooling, absence of knowledge of the Creed, the degradation of culture, and the sexual revolution.
Government, of course, is promoting many of the social ills that are inducing people to self-medicate on a massive scale. We need to get rid of the income tax (which is killing families), Soshecurity, government schools (which infantilize parents), most other schools (ditto), pornography, abortion, easy divorce, “hooking up” (i.e., assembly-line fornication), shacking up, etc.
It is the human misery brought about by all these assaults on the human person that is driving people to various forms of chemical anesthesia. The WOD is a finger in the dike. Nobody (i.e., no political figure) is even thinking about doing something about the ocean on the other side of the dike.
I think far too many “conservatives” have shallow, knee-jerk reactions: People who use drugs are part of the “left,” so the WOD must be a good thing. Public schools are part of “the American Way,” so the “conservative” project must be “school prayer,” “keep-God-in-the-Pledge,” “higher standards” and “reform.”
Huge amounts of energy, time, and money have been wasted on school prayer, flag-burning, sex-education, and such sideshows, and on piddly “pro-family” tax provisions (like “education accounts, “medical savings accounts,” education vouchers, etc.) because “conservatives” have been unready to go deeper. Get rid of the government schools, and you do away with at least a dozen “issues” that are eating up time, energy, and money—as well as people.
No pothead here, but yes, I support legalizing drugs. As a matter of who owns their own body - the individual or ...?
I disagree with Paul in seeing drug use as a disease. Individuals choose to use drugs, or quit using drugs. The disease metaphor helps them deflect responsibility for for their choice.
The 'war on terror' is clearly a notion derived from the idea of a war on drugs. Declaring war on terror means nothing. It could mean anything. It doesn't identify the particular faction of terror. It doesn't identify the nationality. While we talk about the war on terror, our borders remain open. Islamic extremists build mosques in America with State Department blessings. Saudi money influences American politics at every level. Whole regions of the planet are off limits to our troops in fighting this war on a word.
We've truly lost our way, and the mistaken thinking does actually appear to have emerged from the feckless yet incredibly destructive 'war on drugs.'
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.
Paul thinks that we don't understand the problems in both cases, and therefore apply the wrong remedies.
The time spent on those dubious political pursuits appears to be a ruse by the Rockefeller wing of the party to distract the people from the collectivism it so desperately seeks.
A true prophet.
Socialized risk is the main justification for public policy controls over risky behavior. AIDS and medical havoc wreaked by drug addiction should not be federal liabilities. That they are is part of the plan.
The worst of it is when we go to Africa and other third-world nations to socialize their risky behavior. The whole thing has gotten out of hand, and it's inevitable that it would have.
We have overextended our reach.
We also go to other nations, like Columbia, to fight the “disease” of drugs.
Expensive for the taxpayer, but profitable for many.
It wasn't the Democrats that wouldn't let them testify. The Pentagon ordered them not to testify.
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