Glenn linked and embedded a hilarious Reason video inspired by a very unwise statement that Hillary Clinton should not have made:
Recently, during an interview with Mexico’s Televisa, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared that the United States can’t legalize drugs “because there is just too much money in it.”
The video is titled “The Dumbest Thing Ever Said!…by Hillary Clinton, about the Drug War,” and I agree that it was an incredibly dumb for her to say, but not quite for the same reasons. I mean sure, we all know that the reason there’s so much money in illegal drugs is because they are illegal. If wine were made illegal, there would be a lot of money to be made in illegal wine, and the same economic reality applies to the prohibition of any product that people want.
However, on another level, it is absolutely true that the United States can’t legalize drugs because there is just too much money in it. There is! Drug enforcement is a huge industry, and so is illegal drug trafficking. These people — the federal, state and local governments, the DEA, the police,the SWAT Team industry, the courts, the prison industry, probation and social workers, the drug testing industry, the coerced-drug-treatment industry, the corrupt narcotraficantes and assorted millionaire drug dealers and their corrupt allies all over the world — all of them need it to be illegal, and it is in their own interests to keep it illegal.
They can’t legalize it because there is too much money in it.
So yes, it was dumb — damningly dumb — for the Secretary of State of the country which takes the commanding role in the unending and unwinnable Worldwide War on Drugs to make such an admission.
Comments
12 responses to “The dumbest — and the most honest!”
I thought the very same thing.
WOD = Jobs Program on both sides of the law
With the pollitical benefit of pandering to the moralist voter. After all, it does the Christian heart good to see sinners punished. It’s Win-Win-Win!
Sheesh….
Ever occur to anyone that the statement wasn’t so much dumb as unusually honest?
By which I’m saying… perhaps she’s not actually personally in favor of the “war” on drugs.
This one just keeps bugging me… sorry. I know you said “and the most honest!” But why is honesty considered dumb nowadays?
I put up the video and linked at:
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2011/02/too-much-money.html
KK – Mrs. Clinton’s honesty is not in question. It’s that her honesty here confirms her inability to connect the dots between the vast sums of money made by the cartels and the fact that it’s drug prohibition that makes it all possible.
Her stance is that legalization is futile because there would still be big money in drugs with legalization and thus drug violence would continue. Pretty standard WOD boiler plate.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Mrs. Clinton did personally support drug law reform. But she, like many pols, sees drug liberalization (with justification) as a political “third rail”. Besides, she ain’t going down that path as long as President Obama ain’t willing to go too.
I’m with Kathy. I believe Hill blurted out the truth. Everybody involved in illegal drugs is making money. It’s a real growth industry.
KK – Mrs. Clinton’s honesty is not in question. It’s that her honesty here confirms her inability to connect the dots between the vast sums of money made by the cartels and the fact that it’s drug prohibition that makes it all possible.
Her stance is that legalization is futile because there would still be big money in drugs with legalization and thus drug violence would continue. Pretty standard WOD boiler plate.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Mrs. Clinton did personally support drug law reform. But she, like many pols, sees drug liberalization (with justification) as a political “third rail”. Besides, she ain’t going down that path as long as President Obama ain’t willing to go too.
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