Posted on 06/23/2011 11:45:47 PM PDT by neverhome
Not the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq, but wars being fought right here at home. Want to know what President Nixon's War on Drugs is costing us? Or President Johnson's War on Poverty?
"The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this." - - Albert Einstein, 1921
In June of 1971, President Richard Nixon declared that, "America's public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse."
Two years later he declared that "...this Administration has declared all-out, global war on the drug menace..." and shortly thereafter created the Drug Enforcement Agency.
I dare say that more lives are destroyed every year by the War on Drugs than could ever be destroyed by the drugs themselves. And we're spending billions of dollars on a war that cannot be won. Billions that we do not have and cannot afford to borrow.
(Excerpt) Read more at alanburkhart.com ...
I lived over thirty years in and around NYC and I never once witnessed a “War on Drugs”.
If there was a war, I think I would have seen a glimpse of it at least once.
Let the states decide.
Berlin_Freeper said, ‘I lived over thirty years in and around NYC and I never once witnessed a “War on Drugs”.’
Spend 30 minutes around the Rio Grande in s/w Texas and you’ll witness plenty. Been there, done that. :-)
And I’m off to bed. See y’all tomorrow (or later this morning).
truthfreedom said, “Let the states decide.”
100% agree.
Seems like a close call, to me. Not to disparage the idea. I think drug use and drug addiction present a real paradox to liberal society. What are you going to do with these people? Help them? Kill them? Of course the former. But that's no answer.
dr_lew said, “Help them? Kill them?”
Common sense law enforcement. Don’t lock people up for years over simple possession. Lock up the dealers, and keep going after the meth labs. Most (not all) users don’t want to be users. We have to destroy the supply lines, not the victims.
And stop blowing $millions on pot laws. Pot should never have been criminalized in the first place. Legalize it and move on. Anyway, it’d be a start. B. Frank and R. Paul are (shockingly) on the right track with the bill they’re pushing. I, too, was shocked when Frank had a good idea. Maybe his first one.
The “War on Poverty” has been a colossal failure, but we do have the fattest ‘poor’ people on the planet. All we have done is subsidize the lifestyle.
Employers have been declared as the enemy.
Investment is under seige.
Entrepreneurship institutionally maligned.
Real estate market meddled into oblivion.
The word "rich" has been turned into an epithet.
Inefficient union labor incentivized.
Energy production stymied at every turn.
Government resources squandered in the name of "targeted" and "focussed" measures when the economy is screaming for broad-based, systemic relief from burdensome taxes and regulations.
Isn't this a war in every sense of the word?
Correct on every point.
Smokin’ Joe said, “The “War on Poverty” has been a colossal failure, but we do have the fattest ‘poor’ people on the planet. All we have done is subsidize the lifestyle.”
I remember reading somewhere that obesity is the #1 health to America’s poor.
I have always been in favor of the War on (some) Drugs, but, since the 1990’s or so, more and more, I am thinking that the WoD more of a threat to Life, Liberty, and Property than the druggies are.
Of course, the Mexican Cartels are a pretty good counter argument to that...
So I keep sliding back and forth...
Little Ray said, “Of course, the Mexican Cartels are a pretty good counter argument to that...”
The cartels are making a lot of money smuggling pot. If pot were legalized, that cash cow would no longer be available to them. They’d lose $billions. Ending the prohibition on all drugs, while not without some negative consequences, would bankrupt the cartels and send these thugs back to picking okra for some American farmer.
As I said in my rant, those who wish to use drugs are going to do so regardless of the dangers involved. If they wish to destroy their lives with meth and cocaine, let them. There’s no reason to compound the problem by creating a lethal black market to put even more lives in danger.
One obvious argument against my admittedly hypothetical reasoning here is that taxpayer costs related to the care of addicts would increase. That might be true in the short term, but we’d have more money via the savings generated by ending the drug war to use for rehabilitation.
Damn! I’m rambling again. Sorry! :-)
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