Posted on 02/28/2011 12:38:35 PM PST by OddLane
The ringleaders behind the premeditated murder of special agent Zapata continue to be rounded up south of the border, including two very important handlers of the criminals who shot Zapata and his fellow ICE agent, Victor Avila.
However, I’d like take a step back from the gritty details of this investigation and examine the some of the misguided media coverage of the purported “root causes” of the attack on these two courageous ICE agents. Specifically, the ongoing libertarian narrative that decriminalizing drugs and opening our borders will somehow cause narco-criminal/paramilitary groups like the Zetas and Beltran-Levy cartels to magically disappear.
For the record, I do support some form of marijuana decriminalization, not because I think it will be a panacea for solving the problems currently afflicting Mexico, but because I believe the costs of enforcing pot prohibition have come to outweigh the perceived benefits to the American public. Plus, it is the sort of drug that can be regulated in a relatively routine manner, a la alcohol or tobacco, without incurring great social or economic costs as a society. It would probably decrease the profit margin of most Mexican drug cartels as well, since over sixty percent of the drugs that are imported to the U.S. through Mexico are controlled by gangs that subsist on the profits of marijuana cultivation and/or distribution.
That being said, one of the things that irritates me to no end is the assumption by the left-and for the purposes of this discussion, I’ll include libertarians in that group since they agree with the left wholeheartedly on both Mexico and emigration from Mexico-is the notion that it is the proliferation of drugs in this country-and violence directly related to those drugs in Mexico-is somehow uniquely America’s responsibility.
(Excerpt) Read more at american-rattlesnake.org ...
Faulty premise here. Libertarians don't believe they'll disappear. They believe that these organizations will morph into legitimate business entities once their business is made legitimate. That by having their business illegal, they have no legal recourse when 'contracts' are violated. So they have to use the only option left; naked force.
Presumably, it'll simply move on to exploit another form of contraband if/when smuggling drugs becomes less profitable.
I'm simply saying that to lay the blame at the doorstep of America, rather than the endemically corrupt, incompetent rulers of Mexico, is a misguided strategy.
Mexico would still be Mexico, regardless of whether we legalize drugs, or even allow more Mexicans to immigrate to the U.S.
Saying that prohibition is responsible for Mexico's problems is like saying Mexico would have the same standard of living as the United States, if only we hadn't invaded it in 1846.
"Some people can't help themselves": the main premise of the War on Drugs.
I’m sorry. There was something wrong with my computer.
That’s right, blame the computer. You know it’s thing like that that lead to the Rise of the (Angry) Machines, don’t you?
/snark
Heh.
Libertarians believe a nation can be built upon abstractions. That is quite possibly the dumbest idea floating around the political spectrum.
Letting a billion foreigners settle en masse in this country would be more devastating than dropping the atomic bomb on Japan.
There's quite a few who post here who believe in the concept of a "propositional nation", even though it's an oxymoron.
I bet she didn't even recognize the supreme irony of the person wearing a t-shirt with the word "reason" emblazoned across it being the most irrational interlocutor.
Open borders will insure a decline in our standard of living as we slip into third world status.
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