Posted on 12/31/2008 10:10:44 AM PST by reaganaut1
Hispanics aren’t caucasian?
“You mean foxes like Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean?”
More like the agent brothers Raul and Fidel Villarreal ... or convicted agents like Reynaldo Zuniga ... or Ramiro Flores ... or Oscar Ortiz .... or Fernando Arango ... or Lizandro Martinez ... or Richard Elizalda.
And the list goes on unfortunately.
Do Hispanics consider themselves caucasian?
Doesn’t matter.
Back home from work. I’ve heard your argument also. And you addressed a postscript to my argument, not the main argument that people take legalization to mean the same thing as morally okay. A huge number of those who abstain from using drugs do so now only because it is illegal. Drug use and abuse would expand exponentially, as abortions did. Special interest groups will demand rights and more rights and push the limits as far as possible, as abortion rights activists are doing. Drug addiction would become a “handicap” as alcoholism is now. The current illegal drug people will just increase the potency of their products to keep the market going. While I don’t advocate the nanny state and am not arguing it expand by any means, it is a fact right now that will impact how the druggies are treated and at whose expense. You can’t seriously think that our current crop of jurists and legislators will simply make druggies pay the cost of their folly where they have a long history of excusing others. It is legalizing it that will expand the nanny state, not keeping it illegal.
My Cuban BIL was from Armenian parents. My favorite luncheon place in Miami is run by Cubans from China, where only Spanish is spoken. (Talk about a big case of cognitive dissonance).
Around a third of Cuba's population originated in Africa, but all speak Spanish.
None are of pure native-American origin, as all were exterminated with the last massacre at Matanzas, Cuba.
(Matanzas, which means "massacre").
you seem to be harnessed up to the immorality of addiction rather than seeing how our system is being eroded by the corruptive influence of drug profits. Humans being what they are, why not try fighting fire with fire by legalizing the poisons and devaluing their worth to the criminals who make their fortunes on our insistence that these substances be forbidden?
Umm, that would immediately force a lot of talentless people scurry for jobs outside law enforcement and imprisonment, which upsets the economy, which threatens a lot of backwoods communities depending on those Private Prisons, which agitates representatives of those areas having that campaign money limited...
If you can't see that we're indulging in a vampyric cycle on our less disciplined (and their families) for the sake of perpetuating a bass ackwards profit engine of law enforcement corruption I don't know what else to tell you.
I understand your point. It is persuasive and I respect you for it. However, I sense neither of us can change the other’s opinions. I think what this really boils down to is how we regard human nature and government’s role in encouraging or restraining human nature. Maybe because I am middle-aged, a parent and invested in my community, safely boring and respectful of law enforcement, I am less likely to go for solutions that appear to me to encourage survival of the fittest. I hate the way things are being done right now in the war on drug but I just don’t believe the solution is to legalize drugs and let the chips fall where they may, especially when those chips are likely to crush me and mine in their falling. But I don’t want to hijack this thread. Have a great year and good luck to you in all your endeavors.
See my post 16 as to why I think legalizing drugs won’t do much to stem the drug abuse problem. I do agree that it has caused at least two major categories of problems: first is the devastation to the druggies themselves and their loved ones, second is the corruption through all levels of government. Mexico’s problems with the drug cartels is not much further along the corruption stream as are we. Those south of the border, though, are just less advanced in how they wield their power. With that I think we can agree.
You are concerned about a “vampyric cycle on our less disciplined (and their families)” and I can see you have little regard for law enforcement. Both of those proeblems really stem from our societal values which have devolved to the point that honor means nothing and escapism and money mean everything. That is where we need to tackle the problem, not at the end of the cycle where we let the less-disciplined kill themselves but at the beginning where we stop the endless vampyric cycle of money, youth, power, coolness, toys, disdain for others, fatalism, and one-upsmanship rule our society. People with real focus in their lives, with values that transcend the materialism and greed of today don’t need the type of escapism that breeds drug addiction. Nor would the public elect vapid, corrupt politicians or permit evil law enforcement people to stay in power if they were grounded themselves in notions of honor and dignity.
I certainly would not deny we are caught in a vicious cycle right now. The question is where to jump off. I know legalizing drugs would have some immediate effects but I also believe its long-term effects would not be to our liking. I doubt we will change each others’ opinions and I do respect you for yours. Yes, I am harnessed to the immorality of addiction but I see the corrosion. Good luck in your efforts to change the world. I think we both have the ultimate goal of making it better for everyone. We just differ in tactics. Have a great new year.
For every convicted agent with a Hispanic name, I could easily throw up a name belonging to a white European agent that was convicted.
Over 200 public “guardians” have been charged with helping to move narcotics or illegal immigrants across the U.S.-Mexican border since 2004 ...
An update ... December 5, 2008 as a grand jury in Houston returned sealed indictments Dec. 1 against Leonel Morales, 30, of the Border Patrol’s Laredo sector and Salomon Ruiz, 34, of the Rio Grande Valley sector.
I respect your opinion, also, but know that those with families are far more susceptible to the government’s psyops on this subject because they push all the right buttons.
Long years ago there were no drug laws. Addicts went their merry way to ruin or were kept in a basement by their families to dry out (what we call “intervention” these days).
Governmental involvement was the sheriff loaning restraints to the stricken family or convicting the addicted for crimes without the revolving door system that puts them back on the streets today. Time served back then usually meant kicking the monkey to see a productive citizen emerge.
I’m just saying that we’re too concentrated on the incarceration side of this problem (for the sheer profit of the system) while the abusers would be far better served by a dedicated effort to recognize their problem, force rehabilitation and teach marketable skills.
Or we can continue letting the junkies get worse in the existing system (where the canny get what they want via corrupted officials) and reemerge as practically irredeemable.
Harming more lives before going back into the prison-for-profit system. There is no reforming going on - merely sustaining criminals for profitable recycling. On our dime.
That’s why I mentioned my family. I know it affects my own reasoning. We both agree that the drug situation is part of a vicious circle, whipping around everyone inside, along the rim, and beyond.
The drug problem is a symptom of a much deeper societal rot which has almost won out in our time. I think that what causes people to resort to drugs in the first place, and to get addicted sooner or later, is the loss of the transcendent and noble in their lives. When kids grow up not believing in God, and come to realize there are no superhuman heroes, and see society constantly tearing apart our human heroes. Good is devalued and evil is now hailed as good. We see people getting ahead by cheating, lying, sleeping around, and—what is worse—being open about and proud of it. Such a situation leads to escapism or the desire to somehow enhance our natural weaknesses.
(BTW, I live in the central valley of California, which is methamphetamine Route 66 and I have seen what it does to people and their victims.)
Between the moral poverty of our society and the increasing demand for government to fill the part of God but without the mean demands for righteousness and repentance, the system can’t cope with what drugs are doing. It refuses to recognize evil (and I’m not talking about individual druggies here but those who profit from creating addicts), it refuses to let people face the natural consequences of their actions such as The Netherlands do in their needle park(s). Having convinced ourselves that evil does not really exist, we believe all druggies, even the pushers, are victims of society and demand that society do something to rescue them. The officials realize they can’t reform someone—that takes divine intervention—so they simply try to warehouse the problem out of sight for awhile.
If our nation would get back to its roots of nobility such as the Founding Fathers had, with or without a definable religious base, we might have a chance to do as you advocate, to let families and friends cope with problems with minimal help from government. Today, people demand the government solve this unsolvable problem I just do not see that happening without a thorough revamping of our value system here in this country and there are far too many people invested in dragging us down to the moral sewers if they can but make a little more money.
The incarceration for profit is a significant problem but it is also at the end of the line. Change needs to happen way before incarceration before it will no longer be necessary.
Got to run. Early morning meeting. Take care and I enjoy chatting with you.
“Do Hispanics consider themselves caucasian?”
I think Caucasian is a scientific classification, so it doesn’t matter what any of us consider ourselves. Years ago there were only three races recognized: Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid. But since it was very hard for many minorities to call whites racist if they were all the same race, a proliferation of subcategories emerged so that anyone not of European descent can scream “racist” anytime they chose.
We all know how corrupt the police and the government are down there. Some of these guys could be assisting gangs and drug dealers.
I hope that they are assigned out oif their natural turf and well screened
Jay B. Gillilland, Ronald H. Merker, Tony Henderson, Jason A. O’Neal.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.