Don't Just Legalize Drugs, Completely Deregulate Them
From Quotes of the Day:
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled. -- Richard Feynmanand:
A cult is a religion with no political power. -- Tom Wolfe
I Wish You Enough - a sappy, but very nice, story I received via office email.
John P. Walters at The Wall Street Journal via MAPInc - Don't Legalize Drugs - The Drug Czar reitereates the same tired old drug war rhetoric. I sent the following letter to the editor of the Journal:
On July 19, the Journal printed an article by John P. Walters. I could give a point-by-point refutation. His article is loaded with misunderstandings, or lies. But none of his arguments matter. It doesn't matter how harmful drug abuse is to individuals or society. And it doesn't matter how many people want the government to do something about it. No drug law is allowed.
Mr. Walters is operating from a mistaken view of our constitutional republic. The U.S. government exists to preserve individual liberty. Period. To do this, the Constitution grants the government a small set of enumerated powers. It may do nothing else. In particular, the government has no business deciding what people may or may not consume.
I'm sick of drug war exceptions to the Bill of Rights: warrantless searches, compelled self-incrimination (breath, urine, blood, and hair tests), theft of property without due process (asset forfeiture), murder by SWAT team, and the massive imprisonment of peaceful people whose only "crime" is modifying their consciousness.
It's time to end the war on some vegetables. Don't just legalize drugs. Completely deregulate them. Eliminate the DEA, BATF, ONDCP, and FDA. Raze their buildings to the ground so that not one stone is left standing on another, and sow salt on the ruins. Arrest, try, and imprison, under 18 USC 242, any legislator, bureaucrat, cop, judge, or soldier who violates, under color of law, the civil rights of any U.S. resident, citizen or non-citizen. These civil rights include, but are not limited to, every one of the first ten amendments to the Constitution of the United States.
The war on drugs has nothing to do with drugs. It is a war on freedom. End it.
Bill St. Clair
bill@billstclair.com
Richard Cowan at Marijuana News - More Fraud On Wall Street; The Drug Czar Lies to Business Leaders Courtesy WSJ. Reporting from Beautiful Haarlem, in The Netherlands - Mr. Cowan's response to Mr. Walters' WSJ article.
bob lonsberry - Of Presidents Named George - Mr. Lonberry doesn't think that the government has gone too far in the liberty vs. security trade-off, until now. Posse Commitatus is his line in the sand. The military must never be allowed to perform law enforcement. I think they've already gone way too far, but I agree with Mr. Lonsberry that throwing away Posse Commitatus would make it time for open rebellion, though he didn't say that in so many words. [trt-ny]
The Army doesn't police us, it serves us.
And arguments that current circumstances call for a change after more than two centuries are shortsighted, wrongheaded and fundamentally anti-American. And they break the spirit of the oaths of office or commission for a United States president, senator, department secretary or military officer.
This must not even be discussed.
It is treasonous to do so.
At least that's what George Washington thought.
Andrew Orlowski at The Register - No more JPEGs - ISO to withdraw image standard - thanks to a small Texas company, the JPEG standard will disappear. Forgent Networks filed for the patent back in 1977. It was finally awarded in 1997. It expires in 2004. The Register thinks they're coming forward now due to the dot-com crash. Slashdot discussion here. [register]
Gore Vidal at AlterNet - The New War on Freedom - Perpetual war for perpetual peace. WWII, Waco, Oklahoma City, 9/11. [cowlix]
Thus began the latest chapter in the death struggle between the American republic, whose plainly ineffective defender I am, and the American Global Empire, our old republic's enemy. Since V-J Day 1945 ("Victory over Japan" and the end of World War II), we have been engaged in what the historian Charles A. Beard called "perpetual war for perpetual peace." I have occasionally referred to our "enemy of the month club": each month we are confronted by a new horrendous enemy at whom we must strike before he destroys us. The Federation of American Scientists has catalogued nearly two hundred such military incursions since 1945 initiated by the U.S.
...
The awesome physical damage Osama and company did to us on Dark Tuesday is as nothing compared to the knockout blow to our vanishing liberties: the Anti-Terrorist Act of 1996 and the recent USA PATRIOT Act (still being written after it was passed, and thus unread by the Congress which passed it), which among other things grants additional special powers to wiretap without judicial order; and to deport lawful permanent residents, visitors, and undocumented immigrants without due process. Even before signing the Anti- Terrorist Act, Clinton revealed his disregard for the Bill of Rights in 1993: "We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans." A year later on MTV: "A lot of people say there's too much personal freedom. When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it."
...
Bush himself, in an address to a joint session of Congress, offered up his interpretation of Osama bin Laden and disciples' motives: "They hate what they see right here in this Chamber." I suspect a million Americans nodded sadly in front of their TV sets. "Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms, our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other." If this is indeed the terrorists' motivation, they are succeeding beyond even their dreams, as each day, with each extension of "emergency powers," our Bill of Rights is shredded more and more.
Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk - Monitor Thy Neighbor - Dr. No on TIPS.
Ultimately, we have to ask ourselves what kind of society we hope to leave our children and grandchildren. A civilized and free society would not be discussing, much less seriously debating, any proposal to enlist private citizens to act as federal neighborhood snitches.
Jim Lesczynski at Petition Online - Equal Application of the RAVE Act - creative way of pointing out the absurdity of S.2633, the "Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy Act of 2002". Make it apply to prisons and military bases. Brilliant. Mine is signature number 18. [smith2004]
