‹ Use a Palestinian Car Mechanic, Go To Prison •
Justin is completely right to criticize Bob Barr for failing to adhere to libertarian, non-interventionist foreign policy principles concerning Latin America. But for the sake of clarification for our readers, I must take issue with something Justin said regarding the war on drugs. Justin writes,
“I’m even mildly enthusiastic about his opposition to legalizing ‘hard’ drugs, such as methamphetamine (this will doubtless prove his undoing over at Reason magazine).”
He often has a valid criticism of some libertarians who seemingly care much more about the drug issue than the war issue. It is indeed true that foreign policy sometimes doesn’t get the attention it deserves, compared to many domestic questions. I think Justin’s comments were made as an “in your face” challenge to them, not really as a declaration of support for the war on drugs.
I must make it clear that libertarianism as a philosophy is opposed to the war on drugs, including laws against methamphetamine and other “hard drugs.” This is not a lifestyle question, but a question of government power, liberty, property rights and humanity. Libertarians believe it is wrong to put people in prison for using or selling drugs. People have a right to do what they wish to their own bodies, even if their decisions are sometimes immoral and self-destructive. The war on drugs, including “hard drugs,” has caused a massive expansion of domestic police state power. Just because it’s not as bad as what happens during foreign war doesn’t means it’s not important. Being less destructive than all-out war should be considered a rather low standard for libertarians.
Furthermore, Barr isn’t even as bad on this issue, at least on the federal level, as Justin somewhat implies. Barr believes the federal government should butt out of domestic drug policy. Barr’s critics on the drug war are more concerned about his apparent willingness to use military force and foreign aid to protect America from drugs. This is a drug policy deviation as well as a foreign policy deviation, and Justin should be especially sensitive to the latter. This is also a lesson for libertarians that compromising too much on one issue can lead to problems on others, which is one reason war is the health of the state.
The war on drugs can not be endorsed as a legal pursuit when the U.S. congresspersons and some of the higher-ups utilize their C.I.A.-Al Qaida terrorist network to transport drugs into this United States using the largest U.S. Air Force cargo jet planes to ferry these illicit street drugs in to distribute them into our American neighborhoods; then have the U.S. militaries sell drug making equipment unused still in their boxes as surplus pennies on the U.S. dollar to the drug makers to criminalize the rest of us!
To then break our doors down, to invade our U.S. privacy, to have SWAT Teams, DEA, law enforcement and other criminal goon squads terrorize Americans and our legal residents is to destroy Federal and State governments which ‘terrorist acts’ can not be shielded by Executive Privileges for the politicians who endorse these crimes with intent upon us implicitly meant to destroy this United States into a Third World Hovel!
And by the way, no war was declared against us and the U.S. Congress was in no position to declare war at the Mid East which again makes ‘terrorist invasions of aggression’ another terrorist act meant to demolish this United States as a civilized country! -Al Koppel.
Good points Eric. Additionally, amphetamines are not really a foreign policy issue, since most amphetamines are produced in the USA - especially in Riverside & San Bernardino Counties.
I certainly don’t want to be around speed freaks, but the War on Drugs has not made a dent in speed manufacturing, just made it more dangerous for those in the neighborhood of a lab, and made it harder for people who develop amphetamine habits to get help with their drug problem.
It is important to separate the case for legalizing marijuana, which is beneficial to many and harmless to most, from the case for stopping the government from making the hard drug problem worse.
raimondo has become damn-near worthless in my eyes. he can use all the words in the world to declare his opposition to war, but when he supports a pro-war candidate like obama, his credibility goes right down the drain. words are nice, but actions matter.
pro-foreign war and pro-drug war do not a libertarian make.
thanks, but no thanks, justin!
I must agree with Brian. For all the good work that Justin has done, he still does a lot of harm to the movement for peace and liberty by proclaiming Barack Obomber to be a “peace candidate”. This imperialist jerk wants to invade Pakistan!
Wishful thinking is not just unwise, it’s dangerous; remember that in 1964 Lyndon Baines Johnson was the “peace candidate”. Deja vu.
As for the other “war”, that on drugs, there is only one position a libertarian can take: prohibition in any form is totally wrong.
Peace and Liberty.
~ Kaptain Kanada
Actually, because of the U.S. ban on some of the over-the-counter medicines that could produce meth, the Mexican gang members rule the meth trade.
Here are some articles from the U.S. mainstream media about Mexican cartels ruling the meth trade.
MEXICAN METH FLOODS THE U.S. ( from CBS NEWS)
http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/eveningnews/main3420.shtml
Mexican ‘Ice’ Replaces Home-Cooked Meth in U.S.(From NPR)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9193186
The priceless part is that Mexico is now cracking down on illegal immigration from its southern border (Central Americans are ILLEGAL in Mexico — oh, the Irony…:
Article on Mexico’s crackdown on illegal immigration (to MEXICO) from the Associated Press:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/5696920.html
Illegal immigration is the best thing that ever happened to corporations. So-called Liberals, some of whom are too stupid to find their way out of an anti-Starbuck’s protest, can’t seem to understand that illegal immigration allows the U.S. corporations that they rail against to destroy the middle economic, lower economic, and poorer classes — not just in America, but in Mexico
This while the mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villa Whoreosa , who is Hitlery Clinton’s designated spokesperson targeting the Hispanic vote, tells the Feds to back off arresting illegals in L.A. There’s a tragicomedy somewhere in this whole absurdity.
Here’s the link to the mayor of L.A.’s statement about telling the Feds to back off and allow illegal immigration to go forward without any punishment in Los Angeles:
http://www.dailybreeze.com//ci_8875246?IADID=Search-www.dailybreazeze.com-www.dailybreeze.com&IADID=Search-www.dailybreeze.com-www.dailybreeze.com
The California jails are overflowing with illegal immigrants from Mexico.
Get that fence up already!
Tim R.,
I totally agree. And after it’s up, we should throw you over it.
absolutely! i would want any nasty brown people crossing an imaginary line into “our” country! brown folks are what they make bombs for.
here’s an article that shows how the fence will keep ‘em out:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5693569.html
It would seem to me that expecting a wholesale legalization of drugs in one fell swoop may be the result of taking too many of said drugs.
If it is to ever occur, it would almost certainly have to happen piecemeal. A message from the future like, “Marijuana has been a non-federal issue and legal in x out of 50 states for y years, and there has been no correspondent increase in deaths, etc. Perhaps the drug war is not worth the effort or expense…” is the best you can hope for, and would be a logical basis for further legalization. It is very anlagous to what those within the pro-life community would hope to achieve: remove it from the federal level and try to succeed on a state-by-state basis.
As an aside, I too was very disturbed by Barr’s piece vis-a-vis Columbian ‘intervention.’ Non-interventionism has to be a defining principle, not merely a campaign slogan to try to lap up Ron Paul supporters.
Peace be with you.
I understand that Libertarians want to remove legal restrictions on all substances, and, Biblically speaking, I think they have a good point. But a majority of Americans will not vote that way and are, in fact, afraid of those who would. So let us please concentrate on building a coalition of those who are willing to lift the ban on such substances as marijuana and cocaine that are so popular that attempts to control their distribution and use have failed and the attempt to do so has simply led to more crime, more people in prison and greater heart ache and costs to society than drug use itself. Put these products for sale in state package stores, like many states restrict the sale of hard liquor, taking the profit motive out the marketing and distribution of these drugs entirely.
Let us combine this policy with a policy of open borders to Mexicans and Canadians. Those borders are unenforceable, unlike those we have with the rest of the world (vast expanses of ocean). We can eliminate the problem of smuggling drugs and smuggling immigrants with one fell swoop and wipe out the engine that drives most of organized crime in America today!
But stop insisting on ideological purity that would lift the ban on all substances and restrictions on immigrants from all countries. Let us make the arguments that can be made on practical grounds, remembering that politics is the art of the possible.
Biblically? Which Bible is that?
An interesting dimension is that the protest of the War on Drugs, despite millions in prison bankrupting those who are not, is a lot more successful than the antiwar movement so far, just as Al Capone and the Outfit and the Flappers, and so forth, were much more successful than Prohibition in the end.
Perhaps the 60’s Protesters, many of whom were quite rational in opposing both the War in Vietnam and the War on Drugs, were on to something.
If Rothbard was a poor economist and a sloppy thinker he was an endearing anarchist and a true adherent of liberty when crunch time came.
One cannot reevaluate property rights and liberty without reconsidering law and justice.
With criminals like Bush and Cheney in office and not subject to any accountability, and with the likes of a John Yoo giving legal advice and a Supreme Court approving faith-based initiatives and election fraud, whether there is any law left becomes moot, and also a social and psychological question of the first order.
In that context, both the First and the Second Amendment are pertinent.
In effect the Neo-Cons, the Born Again Zionists, and the Corporate Fascists have extended the absolute lunacy and tyranny of Prohibition, enforced by a small minority on a large minority, across the whole spectrum of American political life, including Foreign Policy.
It was the ultimate good sense and courage of the Americans of the 20’s and early 30’s in large numbers not to obey, whatever governments, state and local, ruled and tried to enforce.
Eventually Prohibition proved unworkable and was removed from the books. The mistake at the time was allowing the supposed “morality” of the effort, which was criminal and lunatic in itself, to taint the status of alcohol afterwards and forever as a substance that, now “relegalized”, still merited close oversight and licensing, as well as high taxes.
At any rate, having slumbered for a few generations, the Prohibitionist Born Again Fascists are back at it, this time much more dangerously, as Zionists and Unitarian Federalists, and in control of much of the Federal Government, including the Executive and important parts of the Judiciary.
This second bout of lunacy may well prove fatal.
Whatever illegal drug one wishes to name, the consequences are nothing compared to nuclear war or even to the persistent effects of depleted uranium in the way of mutations, birth defects, miscarriage, and, by way of radioactive semen, cervical cancer.
corr: “on a large majority”. Pardon this and any other typos.
There are Utopians of all stripes in every society, who think they can build heaven on earth, and don’t mind abusing the rights of the people to do so …
(And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven
suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. Matthew 11:12) …
and the worst of the Utopians are the atheists, who, like Rousseau, fear neither God nor man (Luke 18:2).
But droning on about Zionists and Fascists, like any conspiracy theorist, will turn off most people to any argument you might seek to make. If you are going to make a convincing argument, that is, convincing to someone other than yourself, you have to argue on the basis of facts those others already believe. I suggest you consider the public mind, determine what objectives might be achieved, and frame your arguments accordingly.
My dear fellow:
(1)I am not aiming to convince you or anyone else.
(2)one has no idea what you are talking about in relation to “conspiracy theories”.
(3) You use the word “atheist”–you will have explain what you mean.
(4) The New Testament is written in Koine–you might trying reading it some time.
(5) You might also try actually reading Rousseau, Tacitus’ Germania, and Mircea Eliade’s Cosmos And History–those three make an interesting triple play.
(6) Arguments defined as facts “others already believe” is an intriguing contortion one would not have thought of using to define argumentum ad populum
(7) One have never met “the public mind”–care to give out the whole poop before returning to the Atelier des Solipsistes?
corr: “one has never”
Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.
Matthew 15:11
On the question of foreign intervention, I would be happy if we simply had a President that reverted to the Monroe Doctrine and would forswear any attempt to remake Europe, Asia and Africa. Americans will always feel the need to fulfill some manifest destiny, and I think the Western Hemisphere and the Pacific is the only one which is reasonable. The Eastern Hemisphere has too many people with too few resources that they are bound to be fighting over for generations. Let us keep to our own side of these oceans and protect our resources for all peoples of our hemisphere and allies along the Pacific Rim.
We might also understand that if we are going to lead the hemisphere we will need a nation universally fluent in Spanish and willing to give our southern neighbors an equal stake in the enterprise we wish to pursue.
Monroe Doctrine? Surely you josh.
Perhaps a revised Monroe Doctrine for the 21st Century
Revised Monroe Doctrine? For the 21st Century?
The Monroe Doctrine has been revised for the 21t century…it now includes the entire world, not just the Western Hemisphere. As for the original comment in this thread…I suppose less evil is better than more evil, but what’s wrong with no evil at all? Asking the U.S. to put an end to most of its imperialist tendencies is like asking a heroin addict to simply try to cut his habit by 75% a day. And since when is any sort of imperialism “reasonable”? How valuable does a region have to be to justify its oppression? And as for a fluently Spanish America which gives our southern neighbors an equal share in enterprise…get real. Economic and cultural integration was not the goal of the original Monroe Doctrine–it was exploitation.
I love when people argue about what horrors government should or should not commit, and expecially to precisely what degree. Government is evil, all of it, without exception. It is evil for humans to tax and rule one another. When I hear the sad morons debating about how much torture, how much confiscation, how many years in coercive government classrooms, how many ounces of marijuana, how many nuclear bombs, how much wire-tapping, I know I am living in the end times of civilization and reason. Very entertaining, but sad to behold.
Amen, John. But as long as there are humans - there will be tyranny. As for the “the end of civilization,” it has always been this way. Actually it’s been a lot worse. But the worst of times are returning, indeed they are on our doorstep. Personally, I’m very happy that Americans will finally get their just desserts. Finally it will be their doors that will be kicked in. It will be them living in fear. It will be them prostituting themsleves for toliet paper and a pint of milk. Grin.
Personally, I wonder about the values of anyone who says he is “very happy” that Americans (or any other mass population) “will finally get their just desserts.” Who decides what is just? What sort of mindset gleefully anticipates and pictures any mass population - which necessarily includes the poor, the innocent, the weak - getting their doors kicked in, living in fear, forced into prostitution, except one that holds himself as so superior that he is certain he would be excluded, or is so full of self hate he thinks he deserves it? This is the sign of a sick and suffering mind deserving to be pitied.
I must wonder about the values of someone who could “Grin” at the thought of the injustice of such collective punishment. That is how Iraq got to where it is today, as in Palestine and any number of other horror hot spots on the earth. Grinning at that is an attitude worthy of a George Bush, is certainly no better than him, is contrary to common decency and Libertarian values (at least as I understand them) and merely repeats the abuse, accomplishing nothing except to feed sick egos and continue the cycle of abuse. And how would Americans be singled out from the innocent foreigner in the wrong place at the wrong time? Does one innocent more or less not matter? By what standard do the Americans who work on this website, who read and believe in the values of this website, who work to further the ideas here deserve such punishment? And the “just desserts” - the punishment itself, or even this attitude, helps - what?
nicely put, mr. reading! a point rarely comprehended by the unprincipled masses!
We should legalize BS, it has become the commodity of the day…
While I agree that it is foolish to support imperialist war while opposing the war on drugs, as some libertarians do, it is also foolish not to be outspokenly critical the drug war. This domestic civil war is the worst policy the US has pursued since, well, the Civil War.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/preston9.html
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b1106274d1b.htm
Thank you for clarifying the libertarian position Eric, but I must confess that I find myself in the camp of serious Bob Barr doubters. As a congressman from an Atlanta district, he made regular appearances on local radio shows. I remember one morning in a discussion with the “Regular Guys” in which he said that marijuana could never be legalized and that nothing good medically or otherwise could come from it because it “altered your perception of reality” and was too dangerous therefore. He made similar comments in discussions with libertarian wannabee Neal Boortz. His recent comments regarding the war on drugs as being too expensive and intrusive to maintain leave one wondering whether his current stand would be different if we were still in the fiscal haydays of the 80’s, or if someone was able to come up with a cheaper way to wage the war.
All along I have been troubled by a supposedly educated man that cannot connect the inherent “privacy” of an illegal but consensual act and the absolute requirement on the part of government to violate privacy in order to stop such activities. He has long been the champion of privacy issues, but has never seem to connect the vast array of money reporting laws and the drug war. Nor has he been able to connect the war on guns that so easily came along for the ride while the DEA, FBI, etc. were kicking down doors and vandalizing houses in the name of the war on drugs. Even the ridiculousness of charging someone with the commision of a felony while using a gun because a gun was found in the home with the drugs never seemed to rise even an eyebrow on Mr, Barr’s head.
His ramblings about south america only furhter show his ignorance over US foreign policy in the region for the last 100 years combined with the tremendous economic distortion we impose on these countries by forcing the hemisphere to adopt our anti pot, cocaine, heroin, and other drug bans.
It is certainly disheartening to look at the steaming pile of humanity that we have to choose from in November without wanting to search for any possible hope. From what I have heard from Mr. Barr both recently and more importantly in the past, I am afraid that what is coming through is a libertarianism born of pragmatism, rather than the kind of divine transition on the road to Damascus that would have one understanding the issues of freedom and liberty from one’s heart.
I’m going to need to see and hear more to convice me that Mr. Barr actually “gets it” before he will ever get my support.
There are real evils to the use of drugs, evils that Bob Barr recognized, but he also recognizes that there are other evils, including the evils of too powerful government and of throwing away the lives of people caught up in using and selling drugs. A wise society seeks to determine which evils can be eliminated and which are better lived with. This is what Jesus taught. Consider the parable of the wheat and the tares - Matthew 13:24-30.
Barr does not impress me as “Libertarian” at all, nor a particularly knowledgeable politico either
Most of the drugs attracting attention now, including opiates, and marijuana, cocaine, and so forth, were not illegal at all for long periods of American history, and none of the dire consequences predicted followed.
So too with prescription drugs.
Nor was immigration regulated for most of the same period.
How did the “state”, and especially the Federal Government, get into this business in the first place, save out of a desire for revenue and starting with the Whiskey Rebellion?
If I had to choose between a nation of doddering drugheads or a despotic government that shatters our rights in order to monitor “controlled substances,” I’d almost surely choose the former. Already in my lightly populated, rural region, jails and prisons spring up like mushrooms to house drug convicts. The tax burden is enormous, let alone other malicious side-effects.
But you have to wonder. Granted that the stories of methamphetamine addiction stories are probably over the top, it does seem that a substance (your choice) that could incapacitate society would be one that that society might want to keep a short leash on. Self-survival is the first law of nature, as even America’s founders agreed.
This means that there’s the possibility that society might want to avert its own suicide, even if it’s voluntary. Of course there are serious problems with this view: it means government, with or without majority consent, could do what is necessary to stop use of whatever substance is in question, and that power is always and everywhere liable to abuse.
Still, the gonzo war on drugs we suffer under now has only been around 25 years or so, so we know that overbearing government interference in this area is not a given. It was otherwise for most of American history, so there is a third way. I think Raimondo draws a useful distinction between soft and hard drugs. Go to jail for marijuana? Ridiculous. But take steps against serious mind and body destroyers that enslave a significant portion of their users, as China did long ago against opium? That shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand.
Some years ago it was James Wilson, I think, who wrote that certain areas of the country should be completely open to any kind of drug use. If you wanted that freedom, you could move there. If you didn’t or didn’t want to share what he thought would be consequently wasted living zones, you didn’t move there. ‘Twould be an interesting experiment.
I’m all for taking “steps against serious mind and body destroyers that enslave a significant portion of their users.”
Yes, the consumption of statist propaganda could be significantly curtailed if federal monopoly laws were used to break up the big media companies.
The only things mind and body destroying about drugs are fear-the-substance disinformation and black-market-induced violence.
The war on drugs would be a joke if it wasn’t destroying lives. It makes about as much sense as the war on Terror. Terror doesn’t die or go to jail people do, same thing for drugs. I once read an article titled something like why I hate your politics. The guy hated Dems because they spend and Rep’s because they control. But what really got me was his arguement against the Libertarian ideas. He said all you Libertarians want is legal drugs and prostitution. but would you really want your daughter selling crack on the street for a blow job? My first thought was of course not, but would I want her further victimized by being arrested? That’s the problem with drug laws they further victimize the victims. I don’t advocate anyone taking drugs prescription illegal or otherwise (and of course it’s none of my business anyway). However, laws are not the answer freedom is. The laws we have further the problem and do nothing to help. As for the Bob Barrs of the world. All I can say is that we can’t keep drugs out of Maximum Security Prisons how the hell do you think we can keep them out of the US, Turn us into a Maximum Maximum Security Prison? Has this guy ever heard of market economics? I could go on and on and on and on but whats the point you either get it or you don’t.
Peace!
Perhaps I should be concerned that the LP has chosen Bob Barr, a man who has in the past demonstrated an enthusiasm for drug war aggression equal to that of his Demopublican/Republicrat peers. However, since the LP long ago ceased to be libertarian (small “l”) in fact and deed in order to obtain mainstream acceptance among the herds of voting sheeple (who already have the Demopublican/Republicrat party representing the mainstream and thus don’t need the corrupt LP alternative), it really doesn’t matter. The LP is going nowhere, fast, precisely because it panders to the mainstream by accepting as candidates pseudo-libertarians like Barr who, to my knowledge, has never publicly renounced his love for the tyrannical war on drugs and who, like his Demopublicans/Republicrats appears enamored of foreign intervention. Let the LP and Barr waste their time and money pretending to be a principled opposition party if that’s their goal. They won’t fool real libertarians, nor are they likely to get many of their votes.
One must, ever carefully, weigh the contrarian spirit against the importance of not being rash. For now, I’ll assume that’s what Raimondo did; wrote something rash.