In my post Eric Cantor Loses To TEA Party Libertarian a commenter notes:
Your fixation on the drug issue is getting worse.
You don’t object to full up Gestapo style raids with battering rams at 3AM?
You don’t object to throwing thermite grenades into baby’s cribs?
You don’t object to racist enforcement?
You don’t object to no Constitutional Amendment for the Federal drug war?
You don’t object to denying people medicine?
You don’t object to asset forfeiture on mere suspicion?
You don’t object to confidential and sometimes notional informants?
You don’t object to secret police?
You don’t object to the militarization of police forces?
OK. You are a good German American.
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Eric did a recent post on the militarization of the police Bringing the war home. He notes: “Using military tactics and equipment for ordinary law enforcement used to be associated with totalitarian dictatorships.” So maybe I’m not the only one who notices. And the impetus for this militarization? The Drug War.
Comments
11 responses to “My Drug War Obsession”
Legalizing drugs (not done anywhere yet, despite yuppie delusions), will increase the number of drug abusers, but I don’t care. The police are totally out of control, mere gangs of armed, violent criminals wandering aimlessly over the land. The Wild West is back with a vengeance.
[…] the actions I described in My Drug War Obsession were done by Germans in war propaganda movies to make the Germans look bad. America was not like […]
As others have said, if you aren’t outraged by the social destruction that drug prohibition has bequeathed us, you aren’t paying attention.
Hi Randy,
If you are a decent person and you aren’t outraged . . .
I agree. But I think that there are plenty of indecent people out there who think that their version of morality is so important that they know full well the social destruction of prohibition and embrace it. And those are the folks who are very unlikely to experience that social destruction first hand. I think that a great political innovation – if it could be contrived – would be to visit upon the heads of the prohibitionists and their legislative cronies the full ‘unintended’ consequences of their evil acts and exempt the rest of us from the results of their idiocy.
I said in an earlier comment that I consider the prohibitionists, whatever their role might be, to have all the fine qualities of a Torquemada. Same morality, same sense of righteousness and objectively, the same moral standing.
I object to:
Using the IRS to intimidate and harass political adversaries.
Negotiating with terrorists.
Routinely spying on American’s communications.
The worst economy since the depression
Obamacare
and n others, along with Warren Drugs.
Thanks!
As I was the one who posted it, let me respond.
First, your response is aimed to marginalize my initial post by equating the lack of obsession over this single issue with everything you mentioned. That’s not only unfair, it’s a foolish approach to take, as anyone who’s not singing in your choir can see it for what it is.
Second, the only “You don’t believe” on your list where I’m likely to be less opposed to the posed issue than are you is the confidential informant item, because I’ve worked the issue enough, in person, to understand that, sometimes, that’s all you get and, sometimes, it can be enough.
Third, and to repeat:
Your fixation on the drug issue is getting worse.
My opining that doesn’t mean that I think the issue is fixed and the problems solved, that I think you’re wrong to worry about it, or that I’m standing in line at the police barracks waiting to collect pro-Hitler emblazoned military gear. It means that I think you should ease the throttle back a bit, because I think you’re obsessing with it.
JAG,
Of course you need confidential informants (real or notional).
Enforcing prohibition is nothing like enforcing the laws against theft.
But your comment in effect says – I care nothing about the IVth Amendment.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Where are these oaths and affirmations? Ah. Secret. So how do we know they exist? How do we know they are true? Where is the transparency?
You know the kind of secrets that now run under the guise of law is one of the reasons for our Bill of Rights. Secret law was used to oppress.
And you would ignore that so as to avoid being obsessive? Well OK.
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You are correct in one sense. You can’t run a Prohibition regime without secret law and secret police.
Welcome to the USSA comrade.
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There is no point in complaining about the current pResident’s violation of the rule of law if we ignore all the other usurpations going on.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism,…
So my objection to Drug Prohibition is the despotic effects. And that makes me an obsessive? OK. I intend to continue obsessing until this wrong is righted. Lest we fall further into despotism having come quite a ways already.
Simon,
Your concern with defending liberty is obsessive. Naughty, Naughty you!
Because we all know that liberty is best defended by the laid back “whatever” approach that has worked so well to date.
Shame Shame Shame!
/sarc
As if one gets to pick and choose what kind of abuses arise with the build up to and advent of the police state.
Enforcing prohibition is nothing like enforcing the laws against theft.
But your comment in effect says – I care nothing about the IVth Amendment.
Now you’re just flat-out lying. My comment says nothing of the kind.
JAG,
Well my obsession is in part about the IVth. And you don’t care for my obsession.
So is the IVth worth obsessing about or not?