Police Officers Find That Dissent on Drug Laws May Come With a Price

New York Times ^ | December 2, 2011 | Marc Lacey

[JerseyanExile]

Border Patrol agents pursue smugglers one moment and sit around in boredom the next. It was during one of the lulls that Bryan Gonzalez, a young agent, made some comments to a colleague that cost him his career.

Stationed in Deming, N.M., Mr. Gonzalez was in his green-and-white Border Patrol vehicle just a few feet from the international boundary when he pulled up next to a fellow agent to chat about the frustrations of the job. If marijuana were legalized, Mr. Gonzalez acknowledges saying, the drug-related violence across the border in Mexico would cease. He then brought up an organization called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition that favors ending the war on drugs.

Those remarks, along with others expressing sympathy for illegal immigrants from Mexico, were passed along to the Border Patrol headquarters in Washington. After an investigation, a termination letter arrived that said Mr. Gonzalez held “personal views that were contrary to core characteristics of Border Patrol Agents, which are patriotism, dedication and esprit de corps.”

After his dismissal, Mr. Gonzalez joined a group even more exclusive than the Border Patrol: law enforcement officials who have lost their jobs for questioning the war on drugs and are fighting back in the courts.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Good thing it's a free country or this article wouldn't be satire.

It is satire, right?

[GeronL]

If you have no intention of doing the job, you should be fired.

Like Obama.

[zeugma]

If you have no intention of doing the job, you should be fired.

I don't believe it said anywhere in the article that the guy wasn't willing to "do the job". I can see though how some folks might feel threatened by someone expressing an opinion that doesn't support the continuing rape of the Constitution in the name of the war on (some) drugs because it might threaten the law enforcement gravy train they are riding on.

[Dogbert41]

This is the New York Times. Who knows what really happened?

[GeronL]

lol.

We need to defend this country. That is the very basic job of the federal government. I think we on this side of the border are better -so far- off than Mexico is, but you probably disagree.

[zeugma]

The vast majority of some of the worst supreme court decisions our our history have been based on cases adjudicated during prohibition. Take a look at the precedents they rely upon, and the ones they rely upon and you will see this to be the case. The trouble is, many of these rulings had some basis in the constitution at the time because we passed an amendment to make it so. When that amendment was repealed, all of the caselaw built around it should have been consigned into the ashbin of history but the supporters of the all powerful state couldn't have that because it would take away too much of their newfound power. So now, decades later we are left with the constitution lying on the floor of the court in tatters as supporters of the police state continue to cheer it on.

A police state is a good deal for the police and the state, but not so much for the citizens whose rights are being constantly trampled.

Enjoy your support of the drug war, but know you are no friend of liberty in doing so.

[GeronL]

I also oppose kiddie porn and sex with kids, I guess liberaltarians will hate me forever.

[takenoprisoner]

Re-institute freedom. Some will get it. Others will dismiss it as folly. Those who dismiss freedom casually, are not friends of freedom.

Freedom does not come without a price. The price has been paid in blood. Now give us back our freedom, you bass turds.

[Ken H]

The vast majority of some of the worst supreme court decisions our our history have been based on cases adjudicated during prohibition.

Exactly right. Take a look at this. Two appeals court justices, both friends of Scalia, cited his opinion in the Raich case to uphold Obamacare:

Both Silberman and Sutton cited Scalia's opinion in 2005 upholding strict federal regulation of marijuana in the case of Angel Raich, a Californian who used home-grown marijuana to relieve her pain. "If Congress could regulate Angel Raich when she grew marijuana on her property for self-consumption," Sutton wrote, "it is difficult to say Congress may not regulate the 50 million Americans who self-finance their medical care."

http://mobile.latimes.com/p.p?a=rp&m=b&postId=1165037

______________________________________

Thomas's warning in the Raich case has proven to be very prescient:

Respondents Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana. If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything, and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.

J. Thomas, dissenting in Raich

[JustSayNoToNannies]

If you have no intention of doing the job

Where does it say he had no intention of doing the job?

[JustSayNoToNannies]

I also oppose kiddie porn and sex with kids

Those acts have actual victims - unlike drug making, selling, and (with the exception of abuse by parents of minors) using.

[JustSayNoToNannies]

This is the New York Times.

Here are some other sources (turns out this is an old story):

http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2011-02-04/the-war-on-talking-about-the-drug-war/

http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/border-patrol-agent-fired,-aclu-sues

[JustSayNoToNannies]

Here's another: http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_17162563