Really? Again, please detail the terrorists that are making money off of fine, single malt scotch!
Econ 101: Whatever is prohibited will be sought. Markets will be created.
If drugs were legalized, among many other things, it would be one less way of attack terrorism _and_ terrorists would still be able to use it to make money.
Really? How much of the mafia still is making money off of running molasses and rum? How much of the mafia is making money off of Napa Valley?
I was attempting to tie together different aspects of Blue Nation America and its consequences at home and abroad.
And in your rosey-colored perspective, it is only the blue nation that is doing and running drugs. It is precisely this idiocy that is being counted on.
Just the opposite -- in speaking about the balkanization of America, I was referring to _how bad it is_ that racists exploit racial hatred. But the word "balkanization" means much more that racial divides -- it refers to _all_ the ways a Machiavellian Establishment (or any enemy) can destabalize a population and get people fighting among themselves.
Oh, you mean like the War on Drugs. And getting people all segregated into their little blue nation and red nation, with the red nation claiming that all evil comes from the blue nation.
(1) & (2) (a) Yes, really. The terrorists are making money of legitimate businesses many different ways. First of all, by playing the stock market. Second of all, by running charitable non-profit organizations as fronts, they can accept donations from businesses which are ostensibly legitimate, but actually just cut-outs. (b) Many of the exact same families who made millions with liquor as an illegal business are still making money with liquor as a legal business. Making the business legal didn't stop the practice from proliferating and it didn't stop the bad guys from profiting from it. Quite the opposite. (c) I never took econ 101, but it sounds like a reasonable point. However, it's kind of beside the point. Markets come into being for many different reasons. But the market for drugs didn't "come into existence" when drugs were made illegal. All aspects of the drug market (and drug culture) have been in the world for hundreds or even thousands of years. But then, evil has existed all those years, too. Nobody believes evil is going to be eliminated by anything we do. But we all do everything we can to fight it. We don't embrace evil and lay down with the devil because we recognize that we're not going to make him go away. It's the same with drug culture. Nobody thinks drug culture will be eliminated from the planet. But decent people want to do everything we can to fight it.
(3) This is an interesting point. First of all, I never said that Red Nation America was without sin. But there are differences. The simplistic answer is that when a person embraces Blue Nation values, then he or she becomes part of Blue Nation. So, yes, it's fair to say that nobody in Red Nation is running drugs. (A more complete answer is that it goes to a point that philosophers make, saying that some things are bad because they're evil in and of themselves, and some things are bad just because, for whatever reason, they're prohibited. People in Red Nation America hold values individually and are cognizant, individually, of Man's obligations to God and to his fellows. They wouldn't engage in activity that was evil in and of itself whether it's prohibited or not. It's one of the basic differences between Red Nation and Blue Nation.
Mark W.