Posted on 07/18/2012 10:17:07 AM PDT by Kaslin
I’ve already confessed to man-crushes on Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Ron Johnson, and (or course) the Gipper, but it’s time for me to cross partisan and racial boundaries and announce my man-crush on Cory Booker.
From the Huffington Post, here’s what the Newark Mayor had to say about the failed War on Drugs.
Newark, N.J. Mayor Cory Booker took to Reddit Sunday to criticize the war on drugs, saying it was ineffective and “represents big overgrown government at its worst.” “The so-called War on Drugs has not succeeded in making significant reductions in drug use, drug arrests or violence,” the Democrat wrote during the Reddit “ask me anything” chat. “We are pouring huge amounts of our public resources into this current effort that are bleeding our public treasury and unnecessarily undermining human potential.” Booker then called drug arrests a “game.” “My police in Newark are involved in an almost ridiculous game of arresting the same people over and over again and when you talk to these men they have little belief that there is help or hope for them to break out of this cycle,” he wrote.
At the risk of stating the obvious, this doesn’t mean that anyone should use drugs. I’ve led a very boring life, for instance, and have never tried any illegal drugs.
But Mayor Booker is right. Like Ron Paul, Pat Robertson, Richard Branson, and Gary Johnson, he’s figured out that the Drug War is mostly a vehicle to expand the size and power of government. It’s why we have fascist asset forfeiture laws and costly money laundering laws.
Oh, and by the way, the Drug War has totally failed in stopping illegal drug use. Though it has enriched organized crime, so big government isn’t the only beneficiary.
To learn more about the failed War on Drugs, I’d recommend this video and this video. But mostly, I suggest you read these two horrific stories.
P.S. As you can see from this post, there actually are political jokes about money laundering laws. I haven’t run across any about the Drug War, but I’ll be sure to post them if they show up in my inbox.
P.P.S. Here’s a very funny video featuring Cory Booker and Chris Christie. Kudos to both of them for having senses of humor.
I’ve run across very few good cartoons about Keynesian economics. If my aging memory is correct, I’ve only posted two of them.
But at least they’re both very good. We have one involving Obama, sharks, and a lifeboat, and another one involving an overburdened jockey.
Now we have a third cartoon to add to the collection.
To provide a bit of additional background, the cartoon is channeling Bastiat’s broken-window insight that make-work projects don’t create prosperity, as explained in this short video narrated by Tom Palmer.
I make similar points in this post mocking Krugman’s wish for an alien invasion and this post explaining why Obama’s green energy programs lead to net job destruction.
P.S. This Wizard of Id parody is the best cartoon about economics, but it teaches about labor markets rather than Keynesianism.
You rely on “facts” and “science”? Whose???????????
I never do-—I don’t trust them—and statistics with all the “agendas” of the pharmaceutical companies and elites who control the trillions that do the proper “research”? Are you stupid????? Do you truly believe this system in place wants healthy, independent brilliant people???????? (Hint: they want sick dependent drones to make a profit off of and control).
Yes, I am a cynic-—but I rely on actual experience and true knowledge by the intense study of history to determine patterns. And you know what——it is the Truth of the world most of the time which is OBVIOUS and is more reliable than Marxists who control the information that the universities pump out. Look at all the “facts” on Global Warming. The EVILS of second hand smoke——the EVILS of DDT-—the evils of —put in anything in-—it is all to erase God-Given Rights and Truth.
Your problem—you believe the “proper” “allowed” paradigm of normal science. I am much more like a Karl Popper and I do NOT—do NOT—believe the “facts’ that come out of Marxist universities.
Another thing for you to know-—I am well versed in Thomas Kuhn’s theory of paradigm shifts. ALL SCIENCE is never the Truth. They use as much or more faith than any religion.
You are trying to convince me that YOU have the TRUTH—because of some Marxist study that “ASSUMES” what he sees is the Truth-—it is not, Trust me and your deep instincts. I always do—so did my parents who lived a long and prosperous life. My sister who was dead at 19 believed in the Pop Culture and did what they glorified. God and Common Sense RULE (as it did for the Founders) rather than “experts” who pretend to have the Truth and are godless and want total control over the masses.
Science today is all controlled by Marxists—just ask Ben Stein-—They want to make the masses into illogical useful idiots.
Read those studies again that “prove” your “facts”. It is all assumption and conjecture and guess work (by Marxists BTW). These people have been formed through Marxist educational system devoid of God (Truth) and the “research” is set up to determine the “truth”-—the OUTCOMES are always predetermined in Marxist societies and are just Lies for an agenda (power).
We are living in The Brave New World (since Fabian socialists control of schools and media)-—you just don’t know it. You think you get the Truth from elites (Marxists) and their studies. HA HA. God is Truth and Marxists will NEVER have it. Watch who you believe in....it could be deadly.
Another thing-—the more I study and learn—the more humble I become.
You are an arrogant believer who are deluded into thinking you have the Truth. An ideologue. I believe in God and His Truth-—not some Marxist “truth” and “statistics” meant to destroy freedom and life and a belief in God.
Yes. Facts, as in reality, not some emotional response based on limited personal experience.
Your long replies are short in this department and make many unfounded assumptions.
Marxist study? I have not mentioned any study including the the one that is the subject of this thread.
Don’t pretend that you know what I believe, or do, or do not know based on my limited posts here, or that you know what my “problem” is.
My only “problem” at the moment is your ignorance.
Choose your own source, the number of people harmed or killed by alcohol is quite large, tens of thousands in the US alone WITHOUT including auto accidents, homicide and suicide where alcohol was a factor. Include those and the annual number worldwide is in the millions.
Do you dispute this?
Do you dispute the median lethal dose rating for alcohol?
“....the number of people harmed or killed by alcohol is quite large, tens of thousands in the US alone WITHOUT including auto accidents, homicide and suicide.....” Yada yada yada-—can’t you see your whole premise is so DUMB—so MARXIST-—so devoid of LOGIC?????? ALCOHOL can’t DO ANYTHING—without HUMANS. It is Human behavior which kills—harms, etc. You ARE brainwashed by the Marxist worldview of victimhood.
All the “facts” you are brainwashed with are produced by Marxist universities which are funded and financed by Marxists to produce certain “outcomes” which will make it possible to curb freedom and give the State Power. If you don’t understand that FACT and the Leviathan, (provable, documented), then consider yourself a brainwashed useful idiot.
Postmodernists took charge of schools and worldview in the early 1900’s, if you haven’t noticed-—except for a few marginalized, religious pockets in society which are currently attacked viciously to shut them down, too—so no Truth gets out. (Chick fil A and Kirk Cameron and Catholic Charities and the Catholic Church and Tea Party—to name a few).
Buckley warned us in 1951 about the Marxist takeover of even Religion classes at Yale (and all elite universities). So all “funded” studies—as man-made global warming—gun-control studies—are suspect. (except for John Lott-type people who are God-Fearing, but marginalized by MSM or fired or not funded because of their “wrong” belief system (Christianity).
Truth comes only from God. There is no Truth in irrational Postmodernism—only nihilism and death and lies.
I don’t trust liars...I read John Locke, St. Thomas Aquinas and study personal histories, so I get information from hundreds of the most knowledgeable, successful, brilliant people who ever lived. That is where Wisdom comes from-—history-—according to Confucius and Socrates and Machiavelli and all brilliant philosophers and CS Lewis.
If you think some brainwashed scientist is “WISE”, who adopts Bentham/Marxist Ethics then you are wrong. Truth comes from God. He is Truth. All scientific “Truth” points to the Designer of Nature as Creator. That is the source of Logic and Reason—Natural Law Theory-—which is denied by Bentham, Austin, Nietzsche and Marx—the ideas forced in elementary schools and universities today (BK Eakman). They deny Truth—therefore, they only promote twisted ideas and The Big Lie. Ayn Rand referred to this a “irrational thinking”.
So, like the person who crawled out of Plato’s Cave, I see you as chained inside the cave, believing in the ideas MSM and their government university and research system tell you just what to think—what is true. Alcohol is evil. Well, water can be “evil” in that sense too—and kill. (Did you ever think that the Nature of Man is what is evil and that teaching Virtue is the only way to have a free society—not curtailing guns or alcohol???? That is what the Founders believed-—it is the First Principle of the Constitution.
I repeat-—alcohol can be and is and history proves it—used in positive productive ways. My parents are proof. Responsible behavior is the key. Moral populace is the key-—and government has no right to deny me my choices-—just punishing ones which intrude on other people’s rights, like drunk driving, etc.
On LIberty—by John Stuart Mill goes to more of an extreme than me-—and warned of the Slaves which would be produced by allowing government to have their fingers in education. Ya....good ole Commie Carter put the nail in the coffin and removed all Reason and Logic from the classrooms in the USA.
Your thinking is just the irrational thinking built on assumptions which aren’t founded on Truth and experience.
You claim my belief is “irrational” -—but Faith in God is less “irrational” than belief in man and that everything arose out of nothing—the root of Marxism. How stupid is that for the basic belief of “knowledgeable” scientists. Ha. When their foundation is so twisted and stupid-—all ideas—their whole worldview— will be warped.
The belief in the Christian God has led to the most successful and humane and free societies in the history of evil man. Belief in Christianity—produced the science you venerate. Without Christianity, there would have been no science as you know it. Western Civilization would have died with the pederasts and degenerates that proliferated under pantheism/occultism of Ancient Rome where homosexuality was considered “good”.
Sorry, wrong on all counts. Not a victim, not brainwashed.
I never suggested that alcohol DID anything, but you know this.
I see you could not answer the simple direct questions and instead choose to assume and insult.
I mentioned or referenced no studies. What agenda is served by an accounting of how people die? Do Marxist universities do the tallying and classification of the deceased?
What a waste of your time and perfectly good electrons your posts are. (I don’t bother serious reading past the nonsense or insults.)
At the end of the day you have made my points for me and a fool of yourself at the same time. To wit: Responsible behavior is the key and government has no right to deny me my choices-—just punishing ones which intrude on other people’s rights, like drunk driving, etc.
Someone smoking grass in their own home does not violate others rights.
15% of people who have used alcohol have at some point in their lives been dependent on it - so should we re-ban that drug?
My sister did drugs (from marijuana to everything) along with her boyfriend/husband-—they were both dead by 21. I am not real fond of drugs—alcohol was never a problem for my family and I had a very large family.
My uncle drank himself into a diaper and a wheelchair. Now, where does the combination of your personal experiences and mine leave us? In need of the broader observational base provided by scientific research, perhaps?
As I am fond of saying, I am perfectly fine with legalizing the drugs, so long as we’re allowed to ban their use right in public places, hold people liable to prosecution for drug use and poor job performance by their employers, keep the dealers accountable as slander and libel about their products, and also, finally, discipline addicts for neglecting their families and work.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.