Go Back   Professional Soldiers ® > UWOA > Insurgencies & Guerrilla Warfare

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 06-11-2005, 05:50   #31
Cincinnatus
Guerrilla
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Vermont
Posts: 342
Peregrino,

I agree on the issue of responsibility. I quite like the quote, I've seen it attributed to both Heinlein and Orwell, to the effect that "Pacifism is a shifty doctrine, where a man enjoys the benefits of the community while refusing to contribute to it's defense, yet claims a halo for his dishonesty." We're straying rather far afield here, but another thing that will happen when I become king (btw, shall I infer from the lack of dissent that the no bras on campus measure has unanimous support? Or should that be lack of support?) is mandatory national service, whereunder everyone, some time between their 17th and 21st birthdays will go through a boot camp or Outward Bound type program, that would include physical stress, team building, first responder training, marksmanship and firearms safety, guided discussions on civic responsibility, poli sci and government, etc., and thereafter be required to perform 100 hours community service annually for the next ten years. Military service (active and reserve), Peace Corps, AID, would count toward this total, as would service on a fire and rescue squad, AmeriCorps, teaching inner city kids to write, etc,, but everybody would have to do something.

Now one can argue that my advocating mandatory service contradicts my supporting people's freedom to do as they choose. I'll just have to plead guilty to certain inconsistencies, much as Jack can go, in more or less the same breath, from urging the strictest enforcement of the existing laws to advocating vigilante type behavior. But the above would be my way, or part of it, of addressing the responsibility issue.

I've also made pretty clear in the above posts that while I support the decriminalization of drug use, I don't condone behavior that endangers others or their property. In considering sentencing, or even the decision to prosecute, I think intoxication should be considered an aggravating circumstance. If some meth freak attacks someone I care about, or even someone I don't, in my presence, I'm going to do my best to shoot him to the ground. That an attacker might be high, or off their meds, suffering from PTSD, come from a broken home, or been abused as a child is irrelevant under the circumstances. It also doesn't change my basic premise and position.

Part of the issue may also be the mental image one has of drug users and one's ability or inclination to see them as other than oneself. I tend to think of someone sitting on the porch getting high and watching the sunset or smoking a joint at a Buffet concert, as that's really the only first hand (or actually I guess it would be second hand) exposure I've had in many years. Jack or AM may think of crackheads pulling stick ups and doing drive bys. Half a dozen QPs have responded since I posted about "SF guys who retire, grow their hair, buy a Harley, and start smoking dope" without commenting on this. Is that because they don't see this as a problem? Don't think it's realistic? Think different rules should apply?

One last point on the medical marijuana issue, I've both read, and have anecdotal evidence (a friend of mine is dying of leukemia) to support the reading, that the synthetic THC (forget the brand name) is not as effective at controlling pain, preventing nausea, or encouraging appetite, as the real thing. However, my self medication argument is by no means limited to medical marijauna, I think most drug use is an attempt to self medicate and even that which I find the most offensive and self destructive should not be criminalized.

At this point, I think I've made my arguments about as clearly as I'm able. Further repetition is likely to dilute my points and as I don't want to debate corner cases or see what has been pretty much a well reasoned discussion of a serious issue degenerate into something else, I'll try to withhold further comment.
Cincinnatus is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-11-2005, 06:09   #32
Doc
Quiet Professional
 
Doc's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Ohio
Posts: 982
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cincinnatus
Half a dozen QPs have responded since I posted about "SF guys who retire, grow their hair, buy a Harley, and start smoking dope" without commenting on this. Is that because they don't see this as a problem? Don't think it's realistic? Think different rules should apply?
I was SF.

I am retired.

My hair is a "little" longer and I have a goatee and mustache.

I have a Harley.

I don't do illegal drugs because I don't want to and I especially don't want to go to jail.

Those that do the crime can do the time.


Doc
Doc is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-11-2005, 06:24   #33
Doc
Quiet Professional
 
Doc's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Ohio
Posts: 982
I spend time around sick people. One of my fields is mental illness. A lot of patients with mental diseases self-medicate. Alcohol and illegal drugs are not the solutions to their problems and this has been documented by medical experts.

I do not work with cancer patients. The use of medicinal marijuana is not an area I feel able to respond to. I do think many illegal users of marijuana cling to the idea of medicinal marijuana to justify their own use of the drug.

I wonder what mother nature did to protect herself prior to humans arriving?

Doc
Doc is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-11-2005, 06:29   #34
NousDefionsDoc
Quiet Professional
 
NousDefionsDoc's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: LA
Posts: 1,653
The bottom line is there is no way to stop it. But you gotta love the work. There's just something satisfying about watching a lab burn in the jungle first thing in the morning or seeing them standing in front of a camera and behind a table with all their snow and guns piled on it and their shirts pulled over their heads trying to hide their faces. And I love extradition days. Just knowing what awaits them when they lock down with Bubba later that night. Of course shooting them in the face always brightens a day.
__________________
Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimal food or water, in austere conditions, training day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon and he made his web gear. He doesn't worry about what workout to do - his ruck weighs what it weighs, his runs end when the enemy stops chasing him. This True Believer is not concerned about 'how hard it is;' he knows either he wins or dies. He doesn't go home at 17:00, he is home.
He knows only The Cause.

Still want to quit?
NousDefionsDoc is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-11-2005, 08:06   #35
lksteve
Quiet Professional
 
lksteve's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Castle Rock, CO
Posts: 2,531
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cincinnatus
There are certainly SF guys who retire, grow their hair, buy a Harley, and start smoking dope.
hmmm...i have to go along with Doc on this one...i retired, my hair is a bit longer than when i was in, i have a Harley and i've damn near given up drinking....but the question was should one of those guys go to jail? is smoking dope against the law? is jail time a potential sentence for violating that law? whether the guy was SF or not, if he gets caught breaking the law (jay-walking, speeding, stealing (not to be confused with liberating), smoking dope), he should be subject to an appropriate punishment under the law....
__________________
""A man must know his destiny. if he does not recognize it, then he is lost. By this I mean, once, twice, or at the very most, three times, fate will reach out and tap a man on the shoulder. if he has the imagination, he will turn around and fate will point out to him what fork in the road he should take, if he has the guts, he will take it.""- GEN George S. Patton
lksteve is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-11-2005, 08:07   #36
lksteve
Quiet Professional
 
lksteve's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Castle Rock, CO
Posts: 2,531
Quote:
Originally Posted by NousDefionsDoc
There's just something satisfying about watching a lab burn in the jungle first thing in the morning...Of course shooting them in the face always brightens a day.
just when i thought we were going for that 'napalm in the morning, smells like victory' theme...
__________________
""A man must know his destiny. if he does not recognize it, then he is lost. By this I mean, once, twice, or at the very most, three times, fate will reach out and tap a man on the shoulder. if he has the imagination, he will turn around and fate will point out to him what fork in the road he should take, if he has the guts, he will take it.""- GEN George S. Patton
lksteve is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-11-2005, 08:18   #37
Jack Moroney (RIP)
Quiet Professional
 
Jack Moroney (RIP)'s Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Vermont
Posts: 3,093
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doc
I was SF.

I am retired.

My hair is a "little" longer and I have a goatee and mustache.

I have a Harley.

I don't do illegal drugs because I don't want to and I especially don't want to go to jail.

Those that do the crime can do the time.


Doc
Damn, guess I just don't fit the mold. Got no hair, don't do drugs, don't drink, and couldn't begin to figure out where to get training wheels for a Harley-but evidently I am a vigilante.

Jack Moroney
__________________
Wenn einer von uns fallen sollt, der Andere steht für zwei.
Jack Moroney (RIP) is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-11-2005, 08:47   #38
Jack Moroney (RIP)
Quiet Professional
 
Jack Moroney (RIP)'s Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Vermont
Posts: 3,093
Quote:
Originally Posted by NousDefionsDoc
just something satisfying about watching a lab burn in the jungle first thing in the morning or seeing them standing in front of a camera and behind a table with all their snow and guns piled on it and their shirts pulled over their heads trying to hide their faces. .
I quess that depends on whether or not you are standing up or down wind

Had an opportunity for unintended "self-medication" when a Nigerian Aircraft was siezed and all the luggage contained MJ. The locals took all the bags, placed them in a pile inside a courtyard behind the Ministry of Defense and commenced to burn it. Even the rats and fruitbats where happy about that adventure. I think everyone in the building was hung over for days and the acrid smell of burning hemp lingered in the air and coated the building for days. As most of the locals were hopped up on one drug or another in order to commune with the local "gods" of the day I sort of think that this might have been more of a planned event than a one time mistake.

Jack Moroney
__________________
Wenn einer von uns fallen sollt, der Andere steht für zwei.
Jack Moroney (RIP) is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-11-2005, 19:49   #39
Sacamuelas
JAWBREAKER
 
Sacamuelas's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Gulf coast
Posts: 1,905
I tried to ignore this thread, but I couldn't resist

Cinci-
What is the "outside of the box" thinking concerning current Rx drugs dispensed by licensed practitioners out of legal pharmacies? Should these be legalized to sell in 7-11's or should the current illegal drugs be controlled as Rx drugs?

If the current illegal drugs are legalized, then why should the government provide the court system personnel (civil or criminal) and bureaucracy to administer counseling/enforcement/institute fines/etc that you indicated the need for in your earlier posts ?

Should people on drugs be allowed to access our government social service programs such as welfare, food stamps, loans, subsidized housing, etc?

Can employers in your ideal world refuse to hire druggies?


Again I said earlier even before you posted the following,
Quote:
Originally Posted by cinci
"I tend to think of someone sitting on the porch getting high and watching the sunset or smoking a joint at a Buffet concert
... based on your idea of drug users, it is obvious to me that you need better SA on exactly who it is in the prisons creating all the overcrowding, and where they come from, how they got there, and what they were doing to actually land their butts in prison. Before I started working for the DoD, I worked in a state prison for three years and NEVER met an inmate that was incarcerated long term for being an occasional dope head at a jimmy Buffet concert ... All of the druggies that you conveniently describe as the average or standard druggie in your legalization argument, already receive the court mandated rehab treatment , pay fines, and get probation in the current system. They are not the ones who are being locked up for 20 yrs on a marijuana charge. To "think of someone on a porch or at a concert" as your basis for legalization is a dramatic oversimplification of the problems and consequences of drug use and abuse.

BTW-
I would be careful about calling out the QP's on this site concerning your little trolling attempt with your example of the retired SF soldier smoking dope.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CINCI
Jack or AM may think of crackheads pulling stick ups and doing drive bys. Half a dozen QPs have responded since I posted about "SF guys who retire, grow their hair, buy a Harley, and start smoking dope" without commenting on this. Is that because they don't see this as a problem? Don't think it's realistic? Think different rules should apply?
You are lucky nobody delivered the response that a little quip like yours usually initiates when someone tries to instigate personnel on this site.

Last edited by Sacamuelas; 06-11-2005 at 20:13.
Sacamuelas is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-11-2005, 20:08   #40
Roguish Lawyer
Consigliere
 
Roguish Lawyer's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Free Pineland (at last)
Posts: 8,765
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sacamuelas
BTW-
I would be careful about calling out the QP's on this site concerning your little trolling attempt with your example of the retired SF soldier smoking dope. You are lucky nobody delivered the response that a little quip like yours usually initiates when someone tries to instigate personnel on this site.
I would not assume the delay means that no such response is forthcoming.
Roguish Lawyer is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-11-2005, 21:26   #41
Sacamuelas
JAWBREAKER
 
Sacamuelas's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Gulf coast
Posts: 1,905
some more thoughts on the subject....

There has always seemed to be a trend: first the unthinkable becomes thinkable, and then it becomes a revelation whose truth seems so obvious that no one remembers that anyone ever thought differently. This is just what is happening with the idea of legalizing drugs. It has reached the stage when thinking men (Hey, I’m being generous- LOL) suggest that allowing people to take whatever they like is the obvious, indeed only, solution to the social problems that arise from the consumption of drugs.

From what I have read, there are two main sides to this argument. Philosophic and Pragmatic.

Cinci’s philosophic argument seems to be that, in a free society, adults should be permitted to do whatever they please, always provided that they are prepared to take the consequences of their own choices and that they cause no direct harm to others. This point of view is probably based on Mill’s famous essay On Liberty: “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of the community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. “His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.” This radical individualism allows society no part whatever in shaping, determining, or enforcing a moral code: in short, we have nothing in common but our contractual agreement not to interfere with one another as we go about seeking our private pleasures.

In the real world, of course, it is exceedingly difficult to make people take all the consequences of their own actions—as they must, if Cinci’s great principle is to serve as a philosophical guide to policy. Addiction to, or regular use of, most currently prohibited drugs cannot affect only the person who takes them—and not his spouse, children, neighbors, or employers. No man, except possibly a hermit, is an island; and so it is virtually impossible for Cinci’s principle to apply to any human action whatever, let alone shooting up heroin or smoking crack. Such a principle is virtually useless in determining what should or should not be permitted.

Perhaps we ought not be too harsh on Cinci and Mill’s principle: it’s not clear that anyone has ever thought of a better one. But that is precisely the point. Human affairs cannot be decided by an appeal to an infallible rule, expressible in a few words, whose simple application can decide all cases, including whether drugs should be freely available to the entire adult population. Pointing out instances of philosophical inconsistency in policy—such as permitting the consumption of alcohol while outlawing cocaine—is not a sufficient argument against that policy. We all value freedom, and we all value order; sometimes we sacrifice freedom for order, and sometimes order for freedom.

Unlike some, even Mill came to see the limitations of his own principle as a guide for policy and to deny that all pleasures were of equal significance for human existence. It was better, he said, to be Socrates discontented than a fool satisfied. Mill acknowledged that some goals were intrinsically worthier of pursuit than others.

It has been argued by Cinci that the freedom to choose among a variety of intoxicating substances is an important freedom and that millions of people have derived innocent fun from taking stimulants and narcotics. But the consumption of drugs has the effect of reducing men’s freedom by circumscribing the range of their interests. It impairs their ability to pursue more important human aims, such as raising a family and fulfilling civic obligations as suggested by Cinci. It impairs their ability to pursue gainful employment and promotes parasitism. Moreover, far from being expanders of consciousness, most drugs severely limit it. One of the most striking characteristics of drug takers is their intense and tedious self-absorption; and their journeys into inner space are generally forays into inner vacuums. Drug taking is a lazy man’s way of pursuing happiness and wisdom, and the shortcut turns out to potentially be the deadest of dead ends. FWIW, we lose remarkably little by not being permitted to take drugs.

The idea that freedom is merely the ability to act upon one’s whims is surely very thin and hardly begins to capture the complexities of human existence; "a man whose appetite is his law" strikes most “thinking men” not as liberated but enslaved. And when such a narrowly conceived freedom is made the touchstone of public policy, a dissolution of society is bound to follow. No culture that makes publicly sanctioned self-indulgence its highest good can long survive. A radical egotism is bound to ensue, in which any limitations upon personal behavior are experienced as infringements of basic rights. Distinctions between the important and the trivial, between the freedom to criticize received ideas and the freedom to take LSD, are precisely the standards that keep societies from barbarism.
So the legalization of drugs cannot be supported by philosophical principle. But if the pragmatic argument in favor of legalization were strong enough, it might overwhelm other objections. It is upon this argument that Cinci’s legalization argument seems to depend on for making his/her case.

(continued below)
Sacamuelas is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-11-2005, 21:38   #42
Sacamuelas
JAWBREAKER
 
Sacamuelas's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Gulf coast
Posts: 1,905
The pragmatic side of the argument of Cinci’s argument is that the overwhelming majority of the harm done to society by the consumption of currently illicit drugs is caused not by their pharmacological properties but by their prohibition and the resultant criminal activity that prohibition always creates. Simple reflection tells us that a supply invariably grows up to meet a demand; and when the demand is widespread, suppression is useless. The vast profits to be made from cocaine and heroin—which, were it not for their illegality, would be cheap and easily affordable even by the poorest citizens—exert a deeply corrupting effect on producers, distributors, consumers, and law enforcers alike. Besides, it is well known that illegality in itself has attractions for youth already inclined to disaffection.

Moreover, since society already permits the use of some mind-altering substances known to be both addictive and harmful, such as alcohol and nicotine, in prohibiting others it appears hypocritical, arbitrary, and dictatorial. Its hypocrisy, as well as its patent failure to enforce its prohibitions successfully, leads inevitably to a decline in respect for the law as a whole. Thus things fall apart, and the center cannot hold.

It stands to reason, therefore, that all these problems would be resolved at a stroke if everyone were permitted to smoke, swallow, or inject anything he chose. The corruption of the police, the luring of children of 11 and 12 into illegal activities, the making of such vast sums of money by drug dealing that legitimate work seems pointless and silly by comparison, and the turf wars that make poor neighborhoods so exceedingly violent and dangerous, would all cease at once were drug taking to be decriminalized and the supply regulated in the same way as alcohol.

I argue to Cinci and others that a certain modesty in the face of an inherently unknowable future is advisable. What stands to reason should happen does not necessarily happen in practice. It is of course true, but only trivially so, that the present illegality of drugs is the cause of the criminality surrounding their distribution. Likewise, it is the illegality of stealing cars that creates car thieves. It could be said that the ultimate cause of all criminality is law. As far as I am aware, Cinci and the other legal it crowd have never suggested that law should therefore be abandoned. Moreover, the impossibility of winning the “war” against theft, burglary, robbery, and fraud has never been used as an argument by these same people that these categories of crime should be abandoned and made legal. And so long as the demand for material goods outstrips supply, people will be tempted to commit criminal acts against the owners of property. This is not an argument, in my view, against private property or in favor of the common ownership of all goods. It does suggest, however, that we shall need a police force for a long time to come.

In any case, there are reasons to doubt whether the crime rate would fall quite as dramatically as Cinci has suggested. The idea behind crime—of getting rich, or at least richer, quickly and without much effort—is unlikely to disappear once drugs are freely available to all who want them. And it may be that officially sanctioned antisocial behavior—the official lifting of taboos—breeds yet more antisocial behavior, as the “broken windows” theory would suggest.

Having met large numbers of drug dealers in prison, I doubt that they would return to respectable life if the principal article of their commerce were to be legalized. Far from expressing a desire to be reincorporated into the world of regular work, they express a deep contempt for it and regard those who accept the bargain of a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay as cowards and fools. A life of crime has its attractions for many who would otherwise lead a mundane existence. So long as there is the possibility of a lucrative scheme or illegal traffic, such people will find it and exploit it. Therefore, since even most “legalize drugs” types (Cinci???) would not allow children to take drugs, legalizing drugs might actually result in dealers turning their attentions to younger and younger children, who—in the permissive atmosphere that even now prevails—have already been inducted into the drug subculture in alarmingly high numbers.

Those who do not deal in drugs but commit crimes to fund their consumption of them are, of course, more numerous than large-scale dealers. And it is an accepted finding that once opiate addicts, for example, enter a treatment program, which often includes maintenance doses of methadone, the rate at which they commit crimes falls markedly. This is impressive, but it is not certain that the results should be generalized. First, the patients are self-selected: they have some motivation to change, otherwise they would not have attended the clinic in the first place. Only a minority of addicts attend, and therefore it is not safe to conclude that, if other addicts were to receive methadone, their criminal activity would similarly diminish.

Second, a decline in convictions is not necessarily the same as a decline in criminal acts. If methadone stabilizes an addict’s life, he may become a more efficient, harder-to-catch criminal. Moreover, when the police do catch an addict, they are less likely to prosecute him if he can prove that he is undergoing anything remotely resembling treatment.

Third, the rate of criminal activity among those drug addicts who receive treatment from a clinic, though reduced, remains very high. Opiate addicts who receive their drugs legally and free of charge continue to commit large numbers of crimes. In prison, there were numerous prisoners who were on methadone when they committed the crime for which they are incarcerated.

...(continued below)
Sacamuelas is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-11-2005, 21:52   #43
Sacamuelas
JAWBREAKER
 
Sacamuelas's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Gulf coast
Posts: 1,905
Why do addicts given their drug free of charge continue to commit crimes? Some addicts, of course, continue to take drugs other than those prescribed and have to fund their consumption of them. So long as any restriction whatsoever regulates the consumption of drugs, many addicts will seek them illicitly, regardless of what they receive legally. In addition, the drugs themselves exert a long-term effect on a person’s ability to earn a living and severely limit rather than expand his horizons and mental repertoire. They sap the will or the ability of an addict to make long-term plans. While drugs are the focus of an addict’s life, they are not all he needs to live, and many addicts thus continue to procure the rest of what they need by criminal means.

For the proposed legalization of drugs to have its much vaunted beneficial effect on the rate of criminality, such drugs would have to be both cheap and readily available. Cinci must assume that there is a natural limit to the demand for these drugs, and that if their consumption were legalized, the demand would not increase substantially. Those psychologically unstable persons currently taking drugs would continue to do so, with the necessity to commit crimes removed, while psychologically stabler people (such as you and I and our children) would not be enticed to take drugs by their new legal status and cheapness. But price and availability, I need hardly say, exert a profound effect on consumption.

It is perfectly possible that the demand for drugs, including opiates, would rise dramatically were their price to fall and their availability to increase. And if it is true that the consumption of these drugs in itself predisposes to criminal behavior (as some data suggests), it is also possible that the effect on the rate of criminality of this rise in consumption would swamp the decrease that resulted from decriminalization. We would have just as much crime in aggregate as before, but many more addicts.

The problem of reducing the amount of crime committed by individual addicts is emphatically not the same as the problem of reducing the amount of crime committed by addicts as a whole. I can illustrate what I mean by an analogy: it is often claimed that prison does not work because many prisoners are recidivists who, by definition, failed to be deterred from further wrongdoing by their last prison sentence. But does any sensible person believe that the abolition of prisons in their entirety would not reduce the numbers of the law-abiding? The murder rate and the rate of drunken driving have not been reduced by a sudden upsurge in the love of humanity, but by the effective threat of punishment. An institution such as prison can work for society even if it does not work for an individual.

Of particular note is that the situation could be very much worse than I have suggested above , however, if we legalized the consumption of drugs other than opiates. So far, I focused only on opiates, which exert a generally tranquilizing effect. If opiate addicts commit crimes even when they receive their drugs free of charge, it is because they are unable to meet their other needs any other way; but there are, unfortunately, drugs whose consumption directly leads to violence because of their psychopharmacological properties and not merely because of the criminality associated with their distribution. Stimulant drugs such as crack cocaine, crystal meth, powder coke, etc provoke paranoia, increase aggression, and promote violence. Much of this violence takes place in the home, as the relatives of crack takers will testify. It is something we have all seen and accept from personal experiences of those involved.

And no one should underestimate the possibility that the use of stimulant drugs could spread very much wider, and become far more general, than it is now, if restraints on their use were relaxed.
>>>Example: The importation of the mildly stimulant khat is legal in Britain, and a large proportion of the community of Somali refugees there devotes its entire life to chewing the leaves that contain the stimulant, miring these refugees in far worse poverty than they would otherwise experience. The reason that the khat habit has not spread to the rest of the population is that it takes an entire day’s chewing of disgustingly bitter leaves to gain the comparatively mild pharmacological effect. The point is, however, that once the use of a stimulant becomes culturally acceptable and normal, it can easily become so general as to exert devastating social effects. And the kinds of stimulants on offer in Western cities—cocaine, crack, amphetamines—are vastly more attractive than khat.

In claiming that prohibition, not the drugs themselves, is the problem, Cinci and many others—even policemen—have said that “the war on drugs is lost.” But to demand a yes or no answer to the question “Is the war against drugs being won?” is like demanding a yes or no answer to the question “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?” Never can an unimaginative and fundamentally stupid metaphor have exerted a more negative effect upon proper thoughts of “thinking men”.

The argument made just doesn’t hold water. If it did, then where are those that ask whether medicine is winning the war against death. The answer is obviously no, it isn’t winning: the one fundamental rule of human existence remains. Unfortunately, one man = one death. This is despite the fact that around 15-20% of the gross domestic product of the United States (to say nothing of the efforts of other countries) goes into the fight against death. Was ever a war more expensively lost? Let us then abolish medical schools, hospitals, and departments of public health. If every man has to die, it doesn’t matter very much when he does so.

If the war against drugs is lost, then so are the wars against theft, speeding, incest, fraud, rape, murder, arson, and illegal parking. Few, if any, such wars are winnable. So should Cinci be arguing that we all should do any of those actions if we choose without punishment.

(continued below)
Sacamuelas is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-11-2005, 21:53   #44
Sacamuelas
JAWBREAKER
 
Sacamuelas's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Gulf coast
Posts: 1,905
Even Cinci and other's argument that permitting the purchase and use of drugs freely will necessarily result in less governmental and other official interference in our lives doesn’t stand up. To the contrary, if the use of narcotics and stimulants were to become virtually universal, as is by no means impossible, the number of situations in which compulsory checks upon people would have to be carried out, for reasons of public safety, would increase enormously. Pharmacies, banks, schools, hospitals—indeed, all organizations dealing with the public—might feel obliged to check regularly and randomly on the drug consumption of their employees. The general use of such drugs would increase the locus standi of innumerable agencies, public and private, to interfere in our lives; and freedom from interference, far from having increased, would have drastically shrunk.

The present situation is bad, undoubtedly; but few are the situations so bad that they cannot be made worse by a wrong policy decision.

The extreme intellectual elegance of the proposal to legalize the distribution and consumption of drugs, touted as the solution to so many problems at once (AIDS, crime, overcrowding in the prisons, and even the attractiveness of drugs to foolish young people) should give rise to skepticism. Social problems are not usually like that. Analogies with the Prohibition era, often drawn by those who would legalize drugs, are false and inexact: it is one thing to attempt to ban a substance that has been in customary use for centuries by at least nine-tenths of the adult population, and quite another to retain a ban on substances that are still not in customary use, in an attempt to ensure that they never do become customary. Surely we have already slid down enough slippery slopes in the last 30 years without looking for more such slopes to slide down.

Last edited by Sacamuelas; 06-11-2005 at 22:03. Reason: cut/paste used in fabricating above posts.
Sacamuelas is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-11-2005, 22:36   #45
Peregrino
Quiet Professional
 
Peregrino's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Occupied Pineland
Posts: 4,701
Quote:
Originally Posted by magician
but I can tell you that simple street trafficking has been significantly curtailed.
Reminds me of an anecdote I read. Seems some liberal was giving a Muslim a hard time about having a drug problem in his country despite the death penalty for trafficking. The Muslim replied "that is true - but we don't have repeat offenders!" One of the things I learned observing the "Narcotraficante Hard Knocks School of Economics" - Death tends to distort cost/risk - benefit analysis somewhat.

Saca - I am humbled! Talk about an intellectual broadside. As you can discern from my previous posts I adhere to elements of both arguments. My only quibble with your counter-argument is the portion of your "pragmatic" argument where you equate crimes with a clear victim to illicit drug use (the actual act - not the frequent criminal activities that often support the act) which by Mills' definition would be essentially a victimless crime (self destruction being a right of the individual). Sorry - the world is too full of individuals bent on self destructive behavior for me to waste concern on them. Law exists to deter criminals and (speaking personally) should be restricted to preventing crimes against other persons - infringements of their rights, so to speak, not on regulating self destructive behavior. Intelligent people are (usually) self-regulating. I wear a seatbelt when I drive - not because its the law but because I've rolled several vehicles. When I used to ride a motorcycle, I wore a helmet - because I've dumped a bike several times. I disagree with both laws. I do agree with child (vehicle) restraint laws - children are not consenting adults and society has a duty to them until they reach the age of consent/competency.

NDD - You sound like you're having way too much fun. It also doesn't sound like much has changed. I remember working in the Chaparre, we could chart our effectiveness by what it cost to bribe the UMOPAR (Unidad Movil de Patrullaje Rural - the local counternarcotics police) per planeload. $1500 was routine, if we had closed them down for a while and the Colombians were getting antsy for more Base or Paste, the price went way up - in excess of $10-15,000. The corruption was incredible. The police officers (military style rank structure) actually planned on bribes as part of their pay. Rotating in and out of the Chaparre on regular "tours of duty" was good for a new car, private school for the kids, a nest egg for retirement, baubles for the wife - you name it. Of course the soldados didn't share in the bounty at quite the same level. Very class conscious society. And the ultimate sign of failure in the "War on Drugs"? It's now reaching the American street cheaper and purer than ever. The economics of volume. A practical measure of the absolute failure of the current strategy and tactics.

Doc - I'm with you on the self-medicating issue. People consuming illicit substances need to have their heads examined. That means they're psych cases. Ergo - "Catch 22" - they are incapable of competently recognizing, diagnosing, or treating their own disorders. So why allow/encourage them to self-medicate? (Especially when it never solves the underlying problem.)

COL M - No sir (ref vigilante), but what you advocate doing to deserving dirtbags would fit some liberal DA's definition of vigilante quite nicely. Within limits I like the concept of vigilantes, they have a legitimate purpose in disfunctional societies. Nature abhors a vacuum, rampant lawlessness absent an effective counter creates a vacuum, vigilantes fill the vacuum and (ideally) serve at need. Governments and society in general fear vigilantes because their existence and actions challenge the prerogatives of government, they are difficult to guide, impossible to control, and they invariably stray from their intended purpose. As an example I submit the various paramilitaries in Colombia. NOTE: I am not lionizing/glorifying/etc. them or their actions, I merely use them to illustrate both side of my point. Think of the concept the way somebody once described fire - "a dangerous servant, a deadly master".

Just a few thoughts to add to an already overlong and somewhat meandering thread. Peregrino
Peregrino is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump



All times are GMT -6. The time now is 08:29.



Copyright 2004-2022 by Professional Soldiers ®
Site Designed, Maintained, & Hosted by Hilliker Technologies