Posted on 05/15/2003 10:07:28 PM PDT by Havoc
The sound of a grenade is not something one is exposed to on a daily basis. I heard my first one earlier this evening as I browsed the web. I opened my front door to investigate and found my block covered in red and blue lights and well armed policemen.
Mostly hovering a few doors down, a major drug bust was happening. I put on a pot of coffee and went outside to peruse the goings on. Swat had been called in and enough squad cars to effectively shut down the entire block. The words "Search warrant for 1010" rang out over the police P.A. for about 5 minutes while the home was surrounded and subsequently invaded.
I stood on my lawn for a while just watching. In the night air, I found it necessary to go after my jacket, smokes and some of the fresh brewed coffee that I was sure was ready by this time. Neighbors gathered in my yard and we chatted with the officer standing perimeter nearby. You've never seen people so happy to see police doing their job, nor officers happy enough to be doing it.
This neighborhood and my street in particular has had a great deal of traffic for a 'quiet' part of town. It appears quiet to the unknowing. But when the traffic begins, people stay inside. A neighbor's boy had been shot in his own yard then dragged in his house and robbed some time ago. "They come to your door, knock, put a gun in your face and rob you" one neighbor stated. "Everyone's afraid. It's good they're doing this.."
The effects were immediately noteable. Others on the block stood complaining and perhaps wondering when the explosion at their door would come - followed by the serving of a warrant. One can hope it will be sooner than they can prepare for. The police were professional and handled the situation well. A force to be proud of.
It was a drug bust. I was a spectator rather than a journalist; so, I didn't get the numbers, merely the reaction and the general view. And I made a friend. I talked for a while with an officer on the street and found we knew some of the same people. We graduated two years apart and from the same school. This is a guy not even working narcotics - just there to lend a hand. And did a good job IMO.
As swat prepared to leave, vehicles that regularly visited our street only for a few minutes at a time rolled up on the scene, did abrupt u-turns and sped off. Time to go finish dinner.
As I sat at my computer once again trying to enjoy my steak, "Booom". Another concussion grenaide. Hooaah. I put my contacts back in, got my gear back on and found my new friend standing perimeter again. A few more houses down, the floor was littered with bodies in cuffs face down on the floor while swat secured the location and detectives moved in. Nice time to chat and get to know the officer better. Great guy - hope I see him again when I can buy him a cup of joe. He turned down fresh brewed at about 10:30 - "I gotta sleep sometime tonight," he grinned. understandable.
The scene has cleared now and no shots fired - no injuries other than prides of those who have dealt drugs and terror to the neighborhood seemingly without challenge up to now. They aren't the only ones and I doubt they'll be the last. I know little of the goings on other than instincts and what I've heard from the neighbors. Tonight I learned more about my surroundings than I thought I could in 4 hours. And I reinforced my understanding of just how screwed in the head libertarians are on this subject. They see a "harmless drug" and discount the damage done by those who push them. But then, one defends what one generally likes despite the protestations that they don't use.
Because of the actions of a lot of cops just doing their duty, a lot of good people are breathing and sleeping easier tonight. Hats off to KPD! The war on drugs came to my street tonight. And I'm glad it was here - though I'm sure some will attempt to disposess me of the notion that these druggies are bad. The real bad guys are the boys in blue, they'd proffer. Patent nonsense, the real bad guys are the druggies and those who enable them and rally to their cause. I wonder how many libertarians and democrats went to jail tonight.. I too will rest easy.
To the contrary, you are so blinded by your love of drugs that you can't see the obvious. The drug trade and it's minions represent a threat to the security of this country and its citezenry. If you can't see that defense of the populace is defined in the Constitution, I'd submit that you either can't read, have no brains or are abusing that which you're trying to legalize. Defense and security issues most definitely are defined in our constitution. Pull the other one.
Yeah, I made up two raids, quoted the newspaper of record in the area, noted the name of the town, the date and rough time frame - enough information that any moron with 2 iq points and a phone could call information for the numbers for the paper and police dept and confirm if not go to the ONLINE version of the paper and check. Oh, yeah, I made it up... sheesh.
The levels to which you people sink in desperation is just incredible.
Yeah, heard it all before. Same old tired overhyped crap that comes up in all these threads. Buy some new talking points.
Doesn't matter to the point. Drug use and abuse is not a victimless crime. And this is about the claim that if the laws were done away with that the crime would go away along with it's problems. I therefore ask again. If we legalize Rape, will it go away. Please answer.
What has that to do with "assuming all the good in man"?
Removing institutions-- even arbitrary ones-- creates a vacuum that will make society vulnerable to a "strong-man." The mistake of the libertarians , I fear, is in overlooking this societal fact. Society and individual liberty are always antithetical, but what we have in this country is as close to equilibrium as we have managed, and is the result of some 2,000 + year's development. Some call it the "Anglosphere" because that's the agency that has carried it and continued to refine it over the last 600 years. Countries or societies that rejected this incremental refinement in favor of revolution-- France,and Russia for example-- inherited chaos.
Declaring all drugs legal is a revolutinary step, in my view. This would dump thousands of prisoners back into society. It would increase the availability of substances that even the most permissive admit are not for everyone. It would create the problem of controling and confining the sell and consumption of substances that profoundly alter conciousness. There would be health problems. There would be a new class of tycoons rich from the open sale of drugs on a new, greatly expanded market. Over the 10 thousand year history of the association of the drug alcohol with society,we have been unable neutralize its pernicious effects on society.How easily will society accomodate these new drugs?
Points - they're called points. And Yes, they are rather effective. You throw out the phrase "open minded" as though we're all supposed to melt to mush and cower for being too sure of ourselves. I merely displayed the falacy of your approach and that the phrase "open minded" is largely abused and mostly worthless in application. Being open minded is good when picking socks or what color tie to wear. When it comes to whether or not to decriminalize murder, rape, drug use, etc, it's largely inapplicable because its a moral issue - not a minor decision.
Sorry; but, where that has been done, the outcome has not been the rosey picture you intend to paint. People can seek assistance for drug abuse now. They just don't. And where drugs have been legalized, they are being criminalized again because of what I predicted to be the case - the widespread use and abuse of the substances grew with a greater impact on society - not lesser.
Seems to me this is pretty much a bunch of snake oil salesmen protesting that they've been found out.
On the other hand, alcohol has proliferated to the point where the varieties are nearly uncountable. Regulating it is near impossible as minors still get their hands on it and get in wrecks, get busted for duis and PI, etc. Legalization has not stopped it being a problem in society and it's affects are mild in comparison to drugs and the impact drug users have on their families and society in general. On the one hand you guys mark how destructive a "legal drug" is, then you tell us you want to do the same thing with a drug that is already far more destructive when the existing examples of what happens next shows that the impact only worsens. Your propaganda serves to try and paint a picture absent the facts. The facts are that pretty much everywhere drugs have been legalized, they're being re-criminalized because of their exploding destructive impact on society. Something that is utterly predictable as a matter of morality. But the heavens will fall if people "legislate morality". At least they'll fall in the eyes of those people that have no moral grounding.. Whooptee freakin do. What does that tell us about where the problem is?
What institutions do libertarians seek to remove?
Declaring all drugs legal [...] would dump thousands of prisoners back into society.
Wrong; changing a law has never meant automatically revoking the punishment of those who broke the old law.
It would increase the availability of substances that even the most permissive admit are not for everyone. It would create the problem of controling and confining the sell and consumption of substances that profoundly alter conciousness. There would be health problems.
We face---and successfully cope with---all these issues now with the deadly addictive drugs alcohol and tobacco.
There would be a new class of tycoons rich from the open sale of drugs on a new, greatly expanded market.
Why are more tycoons a problem?
Over the 10 thousand year history of the association of the drug alcohol with society,we have been unable neutralize its pernicious effects on society.
We have been able to cope with them---society has advanced despite alcohol.
People can seek assistance for drug abuse now. They just don't.
Some do, some don't; let's relegalize so that those who don't can destroy themselves with less effect on us.
Sorry; but, where that has been done, the outcome has not been the rosey picture you intend to paint. [...] And where drugs have been legalized, they are being criminalized again because of what I predicted to be the case - the widespread use and abuse of the substances grew with a greater impact on society - not lesser.
Provide evidence for your claims.
Actually, use of drugs has caused higher potency drugs to become prevalant. Your cause/effect mechanism is a little screwed up there. As people reach a point with one substance where the substance ceases to be as effective as it has been save for in increasing volume incompatible with reality, they move to the nastier stuff. This is medically, and psychologically predictable and expected. Have you never read a serious article on drug addiction?
As far as your quibbling over "why bother with beer". Doesn't hold up. The Marijuana busts keep getting bigger and more frequent. The only thing established is that those who are breaking the law are doing it with frequency enough to need to move up the scale to more potent substances. That creates a demand. Legal or illegal has nothing do with anything other than price. And price is not the central issue nor is it causal. If price is a central issue to anyone it - is the user. But I'm sure with lawbreakers, price would be more important than the law - till they get caught..
Provide evidence for your claims.
See Friday's edition of the O'Reily Factor.
Glad to---provide a link.
Nothing like illustrating the absurd by being absurd.
No, you were simply being being absurd.
Ask a politician, they're the ones looting the funds.
You would legalize drugs for teens?
Drugs would be handled the same way alcohol is today.
The glamour of doing something illegal would be gone for the teenagers, and there would be no reason left for the drug gangs to hire them to push the stuff in school yards and keep the list of customers multiplying. No more knife fights and gun battles for market territory. No more no-knock raids on innocent people. No more dealers standing on neighborhood street corners. No more confiscated property.
"Congress critters who support the War On Drugs are doing so for one reason only,"
Because if they didn't, they'd be voted out of office at the very next election. Do you think these whores would vote to keep drugs illegal if the majority of their constituents wanted legal drugs?
The majority of their constituents believe whatever the latest con-artist politicians and their Drug Baron sponsors tells them to believe.
Legalizing and licensing knocks out the profits. Politicians who support the War On Drugs are doing so for one reason only, they have a lobbiest funded by a drug baron slipping large quantities of cash into their pockets to keep the drug profits flowing. Their interest is in keeping the War On Drugs alive, well funded, and managed with the same bungling incompetence that has filled the prison system with bottom-level dealers and users, and left the big operators untroubled and the price of cocaine and heroin profitably high.
If we didn't have this huge and costly "safety net", I'd be more inclined to let people do what they wanted with themselves. As long as I'm paying for it, I do not want to add "drug users" to the list of people that I'm already supporting.
You are already supporting them. Who do you think is paying for the War On Drugs? It certainly isn't the drug users, all of the money they currently pay goes directly to the Drug Barons. I want them to support themselves and get off the taxpayers back.
Part of the tax money raised from the sale of the drugs can go into the general tax fund. That combined with the hundreds of billions of dollars of savings from eliminating the War On Drugs and the hundreds of billions of dollars of savings from reducing the number of people currently incarcerated in our prison system for drug use combined with the income taxes paid by the drug users who would be working and paying taxes instead living off our tax dollars in jail would make a tremendous differnce in reducing our overall tax burden.
You and the rest of the Libertarians live in a dream world. You'd be better off fighting to return to the country we once were, rather than trying to legalize drugs into our current socialist "Nanny State" that allows people to avoid personal responsibility.
I am fighting to return to the country we once were. When Drugs were legal they didn't cause anyhwere near the problems that we have today. Legalizing Drugs is just one more step in eliminating the Nanny State and returning personal responsibility to the shoulders of the users.
If you can think of a sensible answer, how many more billions will it take to solve this "problem" so you and your neighbors will feel safe. We are spending billions now and you folks are afraid to go outside at night. Get a clue!
Right. And they'll loot your rehabilitation funds, also.
"The glamour of doing something illegal would be gone for the teenagers"
But if drugs are handled like alcohol, the teens (under 21 by definition) will still be doing something illegal. The glamour remains as it does with smoking cigarettes. The gangs will continue to sell to the teens.
The gangs don't sell alcohol to the teens now because there is no profit in it. Legalizing and licensing drugs knocks out the profits. If a teen wants alcohol they either get a fake I.D. or get an adult to buy it for them.
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