Posted on 04/22/2009 9:36:27 PM PDT by neverdem
Napolitano: Illustrating Absurdity
Card Check Is Dead - Some Democrats only care about labor's money. (Barf alert!)
Daily Presidential Tracking Poll Obama's Presidential Approval Index of +2 is within the margin of error already!
Some noteworthy articles about politics, foreign or military affairs, IMHO, FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.
Thanks for the ping!
George Santayana summed up the situation very well when he talked about the lessons of history. I don’t use or approve of drug use, but it seems to me that our “cure” has proven worse than the disease. As long as that crap brings huge profits, the people who smuggle and peddle it, with all the attendant violence and corruption will be there.
Mexico needs to adopt the 2nd Amendment into their constitution and declare open season on the drug cartels.
That problem would cease in a heartbeat.
Legalizing such drugs will have the effect of opening season on dealers and addicts, who commit other crimes whether the drugs are legal or not. They are no better than animal pests.
Sure. Go ahead. Just don’t cry, when they are providing light for your streets.
There were drug problems during the earlier part of the last Century, and those were dealt with by our better recent ancestors with tougher measures and less tolerance. ...two or three decades essentially clean.
Sullum sounds like an old hippie who wants cheap fixes.
Perhaps he is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
He writes for “Reason”? In what world?
What are you talking about? Drugs were legal in the US from colonial times until the early 1900s. According to the usdoj's website, we have worse addiction now than in 1900:
"By 1900, about one American in 200 was either a cocaine or opium addict." [1 in 200 = 0.5%]
http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/demand/speakout/06so.htm
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"There were an estimated 980,000 hardcore heroin addicts in the United States in 1999, 50 percent more than the estimated 630,000 hardcore addicts in 1992."
http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs07/794/heroin.htm
"Among those using cocaine in the United States during 2000, 3.6 million were hardcore users who spent more than $36 billion on the drug in that year."
http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs07/794/cocaine.htm
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The US population in 2000 was about 280,000,000. So the combined addiction rate was about 1.6% in 2000 vs 0.5% in 1900.
At the beginning of the Great Depression, there was a lot of public resentment against the importation of cheap Mexican labor, BTW. But as of 1931, 29 states had outlawed marijuana.
I thought drug killings began with drug prohibition.
...RRRReal good idea. Anyone that “looks” like a dealer or user, kill em’ and then ask questions???
So why continue to pursue it? Why ban some drugs, some guns, some anything... ? Because the conflict it causes gives the government an excuse to build its bureaucracy, its centralized control, and its ever-growing militarization of police. To what good end? There is none. Ungood ends, on the other hand...
I'll let Patrick Henry answer that...from his 'give me liberty' rant...
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"...for my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth -- to know the worst and to provide for it. I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years, to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House?
Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with these warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation -- the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motives for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies?
No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us; they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer on the subject? Nothing..."
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local podunk leos are now loaded out with all the latest paramilitary gadgets for use against the civilian population, and do so regularly across the country...
the WOsD really is a simple war on freedom, one that has been declared and actively fought for a long long time...
We could take 10,000-20,000% profit out of drugs by ending the unConstitutional Drug War on top of it.
Be Ever Vigilant!
It's no different than the Prohibition era, when the sale of illegal booze fueled the rise of organized crime in America.
De-criminalize drugs and poof! There go all the illegal profits and the organized crime industry that exists solely for those profits.
You dubbed that in. I never said that.
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