I’m naturally inclined to the Republican Party. They have reasonably good economic sense (compared to Democrats) and their “smaller government” slogan (hardly ever honored) is appealing. But their appetite for moral crusades against the wrong kind of people (gays, dopers, what have you) is a real turn off. I’m going to repost a piece I wrote in 1999 and probably posted here way back (in Internet years) to explain why their moral crusades are so disturbing to me.
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1. Identification –
pick a relatively small segment of the population
with mainly minorities involved in some type of behavior that
can be demonized. Drug users are ideal. Drug use is a
behavior not considered an innate characteristic. Certain
subgroups of the population have cultural affinities for
certain drugs. This makes it possible to target the subgroup
without seeming to identify innate characteristics.
2. Ostracism –
Good people don’t associate with drug users. Drug users
are the cause of our problems. If we could just make drug
users quit or leave the country most of our problems would go
away. Of course drug prohibition like alcohol prohibition is
just wonderful in this regard. The black market causes a LOT
of violence which at least initially can be blamed on the
alcohol or the drugs depending on the era.
3. Confiscation –
Since the drug users are no good and the cause of
our problems we will relieve them of their property to pay for
the damage done. While we are at it we will make it difficult
for them to get jobs. With drug testing we can be certain to
identify those who have used most drugs in the last 24 to 48
hours. Or if they have used pot in the last 2 – 4 weeks. Since
pot smokers represent the largest number of drug users this is
good. It generates business for testing companies. As prisons
generate demands for prisoners and confiscations generate
demand (and the ability to pay) for more police. Boy are we
getting them good now. We have stolen their homes. So their
wives and children are on the streets. We have put them in
prisons so that husbands can no longer be fathers. And those
that haven’t met with this fate are prevented from getting
jobs. And still they won’t give up their vile habits.
4. Concentration –
There are half a million people in jail for
non-violent drug crimes. About another half million in for
violent drug crimes or property crimes related to drugs. We
have arrested over 11 million pot smokers in the last twenty
years. We can’t build prisons fast enough. And besides they
are way too expensive. Too much up keep. Too many guards
(whose unions in Calif are asking for stiffer drug sentences –
they know a good thing when they see one). Well we have these
boot camps for drug users – perhaps they could be expanded.
Out in the desert to make escape improbable. We have at least
1/2 million and perhaps 1 million druggies in jail. And we
have identified another 11 million. Yep – just what we need
camps in the desert.
5. Annihilation –
but as all too often happens in enterprises like
these costs mount and profits from confiscations declines. And
besides there is no new income because the druggies aren’t
working. Its getting way too expensive and unsustainable.
Well former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich had the right idea.
Death for sales of 2 oz of marijuana. Well not this year maybe
but try again next year Newt. Them druggies got it coming for
ruining the country.
And to keep this all nice and tidy we will do all this nice and legal like. With the consent of the governed. Dopers are certainly not a big enough or cohesive enough segment of the population to identifiably swing any elections. Easy to generate consent if only a small minority is involved.
And why am I so confident of my plan? Because it has worked before in Germany against the Jews.
Read Drug Warriors and Their Prey
(c) 1999 M. Simon
This is a column I first wrote some time ago. Published widely at the time. The process outlined above is always the same. Gays, Jews, drug users. Targets change. The process remains the same.
We are starting to come to our senses on the drug laws. I’d like to see the process move faster.
Comments
8 responses to “Why Moral Crusades Bother Me So Much”
Hi Simon,
I don’t know if “Drug Warriors and Their Prey” made this point, but there is remarkable congruency between the 5 point program you just outlined and the Spanish Inquisition’s treatment of the “New Christians” or the “Conversos,” who were descendants of the Jews forced to convert by Dominican-led mobs that converged on the Jewish communities with the message of love, “Convert or Die!”
I argue that the modern drug warrior has the same mind-set as Torquemada – assured of their own righteousness and capable of any atrocity, including the deliberate denial of medication and the subsequent death of the sub-human. See the Feds treatment of Peter McWilliams.
My contention is that good men (not bad men) consistently acting upon that position would act as cruelly and unjustly as the greatest tyrants. They might in some respects act even worse. Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level with those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.
CS Lewis, “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment”
I would quibble with Lewis on allowing such creatures to be described as “good men.” They are in fact, “evil men” as demonstrated by their works. As a Mere Christian, one would think that Lewis would have been acquainted with the aphorism that “By their works, Ye shall know them.”
Isabel Patterson makes the same error in her essay, “The Humanitarian with the Guillotine.” I think it is long past the time where we can legitimately excuse this kind of evil on the basis of “Good IntentionsTM.”
@ Simon and c andrew-
Well said.
As I’ve posted before, someone once said the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The prohibitionists can stop paving any day now as hell has been achieved under their policies.
republicanism bad for business both arizona and kansas are run by republican capitalists that has cost both states economically. what you wish for the rest of the country low taxes on business ;but not on the poor less regulation less government funding arizona already has. Front page article in arizona republic : arizona lagging as U.S. regains job! Because half the children in public schools are mexican republicans cut spending and give the money to charter schools where the anglo children go. jobs are not coming here from liberal california they are going their instead thanks to arizonas harassment of mexicans. and in the next few years it will become politically explosive and hopefully then I will be commissar for justice!
c andrew, as if medieval Spain wasn’t enough we now find the chamber of horrors that is the Catholic Church at work in modern day Ireland. Neglected bastard children taken from young women for their own good, and dumped in a septic tank.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/06/03/bodies-of-800-babies-long-dead-found-in-septic-tank-at-former-irish-home-for-unwed-mothers/?tid=hp_mm&hpid=z3
[…] demand is rather freely available. But there is worse. This link was suggested to me by commenter Frank. Brought to you by those paragons of morality the Catholic […]
Not endorsing criminalization of drug use, but drug users choose to use drugs and the damage done by drug use far out weighs the benefits. This is not to say that damage done by prohibition does not far out weigh the damage done by drugs. OTOH:
1) Jews are Jews regardless of any choice they may have made and,
2) not that it is specifically relevant per item 1, but Jews as a whole have contributed far more to society than the damage done by the more questionable characters that send anti-Semites into fits.
WTP,
And one of those Jewish contributions was made by Raphael Mechoulam. Look him up.
Thanks, Frank.
When I read the original story in an Irish news site, the thing that ‘humanized’ the story for me was the account of the local historian about how the community ostracized the Home children and how the children (including the local historian) followed along.
Corless has a vivid recollection of the Home Babies. “If you acted up in class, some nuns would threaten to seat you next to the Home Babies,” she said. She said she recalled one instance in which an older schoolgirl wrapped a tiny stone in a bright candy wrapper and gave it to a Home Baby as a gift.
“When the child opened it, she saw she’d been fooled,” Corless told Irish Central. “Of course, I copied her later and I tried to play the joke on another little Home girl. I thought it was funny at the time…. Years after, I asked myself what did I do to that poor little girl that never saw a sweet? That has stuck with me all my life. A part of me wants to make up to them.”
For an institution dedicated to the value of the individual (HAH!) their subsidiary institutions sure do a really shitty job.