Posted on 09/11/2002 1:09:32 PM PDT by Action-America
A black woman in California had been arrested in an airport for smuggling drugs. They were working on information (gleaned from tips) as to the color of her luggage (green if I recall), a description of her, and the fact that another woman was also traveling as a decoy, similarly outfitted.
There was outrage that she had been "racially profiled"
Of course, blame has been placed everywhere else, EXCEPT on the inability to focus on the FACTS if they potentially involve an issue of race.
Unless and until political correctness is out of the public dialog, we are doomed.
In recent months, the United States government spent $10 million of our tax dollars for its latest antidrug campaign. Its new pitch: if you buy illegal drugs, you're supporting terrorists because terrorists are intimately involved in the production, sale, and distribution of drugs. Guess what? I agree. People who buy illegal drugs do support terrorists. But here's what the government leaves out: by making drugs illegal, the government is supporting terrorists even more.
Have you ever wondered why terrorist groups get involved in the illegal drug market and not, for example, in the legal market for Coca-Cola, soap, or envelopes? The inaccurate answer that many people give is that the profits in dealing drugs are incredibly high, which attracts criminals. But profits are not incredibly high, once you adjust for risk: people in that trade have a nasty tendency to die or go to prison, and they insist on being compensated for that risk. Besides, if high profits were what attracted criminals, why don't those same high profits attract normal investors?
No. The reason terrorists get involved in illegal drugs is that they are criminals; once a market is made illegal, the high risk-adjusted prices of the illegal good reward those with "criminal skills." One such skill is the ability and willingness to murder people. That's why organized crime took over the liquor industry during prohibition—and quickly exited when prohibition ended.
Moreover, the United States government is effectively supporting left-wing terrorists in Colombia. How so? Say you're a Colombian coca producer trying to make a peso. Working against you are Colombia's military and police, pressured by U.S. government subsidies and threats and aided by U.S. military personnel and equipment. The first thing you want is protection, and the place to go for protection is to antigovernment people with guns who know how to fight. Two such groups are the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN), both revolutionary leftists. You don't have to be a left-wing ideologue yourself to decide to pay them protection money, which is just what many coca farmers and cocaine producers do.
By one estimate, the revenue to FARC from drug-related sources is more than $600 million a year, which would make it the best-funded terrorist group in the world. Thus, the war against drugs actually strengthens the position of the leftist insurgents.
These insurgents have terrorized Colombian society. Between 1981 and 1986, for example, drug traffickers murdered more than fifty Colombian judges, including twelve supreme court justices. Colombian citizens are also terrorized: more than one million of them emigrated in the past five years. If a similar percent of Americans did the same, we would lose fourteen million citizens—almost half California's population.
A more informative ad line from the U.S. government would be: "When you support the drug war, you're supporting terrorists."
A nursery owner, for years would take cash down to Florida and pay cash for his purchases at the nursery wholesalers, he had done nothing wrong, the woman at the airport check in line didn't like his looks and had security take him in for questioning, they took his 30 grand and turned him loose after harassing, questioning, and threatening him for hours. He never got his money back accept for 5 grand even though the judge ruled in his favor and ordered the full amount returned to him.
If you are driving through any state in the union with over $750.00 in your pocket and get pulled over, they can take it if you agree to a search, if you don't agree to a search, they take you in for suspecion of drug dealing and take your money then, and your car.
The D.E.A. began a "Know Your Customer" program and demanded banks report any unusual activity in a persons account, if you wanted to draw out a couple of thousand for a trip, or a new sofa, you had to explain to the bank why you needed that much money. It was stopped by the courts, now the IRS is attempting to enforce it.
In other words all Americans are considered guilty until they can prove their innocence or defend themselves against a government that is in full attack against the Constitution.
Now let's talk the Patriot Act, if you do 10 thousand dollars worth of business with any one company over the course of a twelve month period, that business must report you. If you have a decorator and are purchasing furniture over a period of time from one store, you get reported. If you own a parts business and buy from one wholesaler they have to give the government your name.
Your home can be entered and searched without a warrant or your knowledge, your emails can be read, your phone conversations taped, all that is needed is suspecion of terrorism.
No one has yet been able to name me one government program or agency that has not eventually been abused and used to harm the average American. From the I.N.S. to the B.A.T.F., to Welfare, etc. Just as the government statement about terrorism, it's not a question of if, but when. The Patriot Act, a bill that was never read by Congress, how convenient, will be abused and it is not a question of if, but when.
We silly sheep assume that the man we are electing is smart enough to hold office, yet we give them credit for all the stupidity in the world when they pass legislation they claim they have never read by a voice vote no less. They are not stupid, they know exactly what they are doing, and that means they are not on our side, the side of the Constitution, the side of freedom. They are fully aware and fully determined to strip us of them.
All that is needed to stop drug traffic into the country is border control. There is no telling how much damage has been done to the shipment of drugs due to the firing of illegals alien airport workers. The clincher to the problem would be tight border controls, but as reported by those that bring it up in D.C. the attitude there is, drop dead.
The WOD, and the Patriot Act are both rackets, rackets to strip civil liberties if not today then tomorrow. Not many are as astute as this author is to see it. Although I think his answer to the problem is lame and attempts to serve his personal agenda.
Check your target before you open fire. Read the rest of the article at the link.
Why not?
In a perfect world, the individual would weigh his total freedom against his responsibility to deal with that total freedom in such a way as to insure no injury to another person. But that is not the world we live in.
In a perfect world, the citizen demanding to be armed as well as the military would have the perfect right to own or make his own nuclear device. But quite frankly it would make me very nervous to know that the drunk next door has one in his closet, even though he is a sweet drunk.
Because it isn't a perfect world, and people are more selfish than responsible, we have civil laws to insure a healthy society. Do we have far too many civil laws? Of course because imperfect people think they know far better than the individual how to run everyone else's lives on every single imaginable issue. There has to be a balance here and we have by no means reached it.
Attempting to coerce adults to not put drugs into their own bodies is even more detrimental to a healthy society.
How many drunks and addicts do you want in cars, driving the streets putting your family at risk? How many drunks and addicts do you want at the bank losing your deposit?
That's an argument for either banning both alcohol and other drugs, or for banning neither. Which do you advocate?
In a perfect world, the citizen demanding to be armed as well as the military would have the perfect right to own or make his own nuclear device.
False analogy. Putting alcohol or other drugs into one's own body does not have the potential to cause mega-death.
Are you prepared to endure a society that because of drug use fails at most, if not all, of their endeavors, that becomes a burden on the productive to the point of needing welfare to offset their incompetence. A society where a person addicted to drugs finds that breaking into homes and/or robbing business's to pay for their habit is much easier than attempting to hold a job that they can't do competently?
Are you prepared for the effect of drugs on the family unit? On the productivity of the nation? On the moral decay and the threat of it's blurry ignorance of our Constitution and lack luster dedication to upholding our foundations? If so you are far braver than I am.
All harm to others should be penalized---and already is.
Would liberal politicians block legislation that demands accountability for such harm?
They can't---laws against harming others are already on the books.
Would liberal judges return to the street those that have committed such crimes?
Those same liberal judges are returning drug users to the streets right now---so they're just as much a weakness for the anti-drug-freedom side as the pro-drug-freedom side.
Are you prepared to endure a society that because of drug use fails at most, if not all, of their endeavors,
Never happen. There are only 13 million illegal drug users in the USA; even under legalization, there is no reason to think their number would reach as high as the 100 million alcohol users we have now, and with whom we do not "fail at most, if not all, of our endeavors."
And even if your scenario was plausible, it's not government's job to restrict our freedoms to keep us "successful."
that becomes a burden on the productive to the point of needing welfare to offset their incompetence.
As a true conservative, I oppose welfare and do not use one Big Government program as an excuse for more Big Government.
A society where a person addicted to drugs finds that breaking into homes and/or robbing business's to pay for their habit is much easier than attempting to hold a job that they can't do competently?
Those crimes are a result of the War On Some Drugs. Alcoholics don't rob to get their fix because their drug is legal and therefore affordable through collecting cans, panhandling, and other non-criminal means.
Are you prepared for the effect of drugs on the family unit? On the productivity of the nation? On the moral decay and the threat of it's blurry ignorance of our Constitution and lack luster dedication to upholding our foundations?
The drug alcohol is used by far more people than other drugs ever will be, and we're handling its effects.
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