Richardson Urges US on Aid Package for Mexico
| More news stories on Mexico and Latin America |
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Alexandra Olson, AP, May 29, 2008
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson urged U.S. lawmakers Thursday to resolve their differences over an aid package to help Mexico fight drugs, saying it would be “disastrous” for security on both sides of the border if the Merida Initiative fell through.
U.S. President George W. Bush has used a wave of violence in Mexico to push for Congressional approval of the first US$500 million installment of the multiyear aid proposal.
But the U.S. Senate approved only US$450 million for the plan, and the House US$461.5 million. The two chambers must agree on a final version before sending it back to Bush for approval.
Richardson said Mexican President Felipe Calderon deserved support in his aggressive fight against drug cartels, including deploying 25,000 troops to hotspots across the country. He said Mexico was in critical need of more resources for that fight, noting a string of attacks against police that have left several top commanders dead.
{snip}
The Merida Initiative would provide helicopters, planes, computer systems and police dogs. But the Congressional versions would impose several conditions on the aid, including guarantees of civilian investigations into human rights abuses by the Mexican military.
Calderon has called the conditions an intrusion on Mexican sovereignty, and Attorney General Eduardo Medina said last week Mexico would wait until the plan is approved before deciding whether to accept the aid.
{snip}
Despite Calderon’s crackdown, violence has made an unprecedented surge in Mexico. Cartels have responded with increasingly bold attacks against police and other security officials. Homicides related to organized crime have jumped 47 percent so far this year: 1,378 deaths compared with 940 in the same period last year.
Calderon said the root of the problem was demand for drugs in the U.S. and called for more to be done about it.
Despite Mexico’s relentless violence, the U.S. governors offered staunch support for Calderon.
“Calderon is a great leader,” said California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. “We would like to congratulate him for the courage that he has to stand up against the drug lords and to fight them.”
(Posted on May 30, 2008)
Comments
Calderon has called the conditions an intrusion on Mexican sovereignty, and Attorney General Eduardo Medina said last week Mexico would wait until the plan is approved before deciding whether to accept the aid.
And demanding that the U.S. has open borders and that it and Canada integrate itself into Mexico (North American Union) isn’t a violation of ours and Canada’s sovereignty?
Posted by Question Diversity at 5:18 PM on May 30
This is the same Gov, Richardson who says his Mexican race trumps everything.
Mexico should get NO support from the US for any reason.
The drug dealers are Mexicans and often Indians who see the drugs as a tribal fief and method of making money by destroying their enemies.
Mexico has as a government tried to violate the rights of US citizens by helping Mexicans sneak into the US and take jobs, welfare and government and charity assistance from US citizens and institutions. Mexico is a hostile country and should learn to fight its own drug wars.
Boycott Mexico.
Posted by Oldman at 5:54 PM on May 30
I understand the border governors were quick to go along with the Merida plan. Don’t these Benedict Arnolds know that the billion plus is going right into the pockets of the government/drug dealers? They are one and the same. Mexico is the most corrupt, vile and violent country that exists today. If our President speaks out against human rights violations, he conveniently omits Mexico. Rape is commnon place as well as child molestation. All sorts of crime abounds. Mr. Bush and Congress are intent on forcing these criminals on us. They have completely betrayed our trust and disregard their oaths to defend and protect us. There is not one in Washington who has the courage to step forward and say “Enough! We will no longer be the dumping ground of the world. Everyone who doesn’t belong here will be sent home.” Does anyone believe we have somebody with that much courage? That billion would build the fence from San Deigo to Brownsville, double-layered with armed military between. For kickers, let’s cut off all foreign aid to countries who let their citizens disregard our laws. It will be a long time though. The three candidates are all open-borders fanatics, no matter what they say. How did this once proud country produce so many traitors?
Posted by June at 6:12 PM on May 30
Calderon said the root of the problem was demand for drugs in the U.S. and called for more to be done about it.
Well, thought I’d never see the day! Something I can agree with from Mr. Calderon! I think the gov’t should be setting up drug treatment centers, out & in patient, reduced for some, free for others (apply income limits) and mandantory for those collecting disability because of drug addiction, and make drug-testing mandantory for those on welfare, SSI ect All Congress needs to do is redirect that $450M that they want to spend. No drug demand, Mexico’s problem solved, fewer violent ‘loose cannons’ running around the US, safer kids,… What a great idea Mr. Calderon!
Posted by brew at 6:33 PM on May 30
Hoe does this fiscally ailing debter-nation continue to fling millions of dollars toward the collective third-world like a drunken sailor with impugnity? With debt in the trillions what right does Washington have lavishing “aid” upon anyone?
Posted by HH at 6:37 PM on May 30
To me, fighting the war on drugs is as senseless and stupid as embracing diversity. That is, spending oodles and oodles of money and getting what you DON`T want and what isn`t good for you. Legalize it. Cut the gangs off at the knees, the very next day. Ever hear of parsley terrorism? Or how about canned chili kidnappings? Gangs fighting over the corridor routes for Scott tissue? I didn`t think so. Just legalize it. The stoners will be doped up, happy and malleble. And the narco-thugs will be bidding on your lawncare contract or packing their bags for lack of anything more lucrative to do.
Posted by Tim Mc Hugh at 6:54 PM on May 30
Calderon said the root of the problem was demand for drugs in the U.S. and called for more to be done about it.
Calderon has called the conditions an intrusion on Mexican sovereignty, and Attorney General Eduardo Medina said last week Mexico would wait until the plan is approved before deciding whether to accept the aid.
Where to begin? Just what would Calderon’s proposals include to abate US demand for recreational drugs? Send us more illiterate Mexican peasants? We’re all on pins and needles anxiously awaiting Señor Calderon’s input on policy proposals directed at OUR country to abate demand for illicit drugs. We’re open minded people and we don’t have such quaint constitutional encumbrances like Mexico that proscribe “meddling in internal political affairs on the part of foreign nationals”. We’ll actually let you meddle in ours with impunity Señor Calderon! Please! Come forward with your proposals!
“an intrusion on Mexican sovereignity”?? Oh really?? How is it that a failed narco-kleptocracy banana republic nation-state has sovereignty??
Posted by underdog at 7:15 PM on May 30
People in the US need to pay CLOSE attention to this situation in mexico. Because what you are witnessing is the collapse of the mexican government and the disintegration of mexican society.
Mexico will quickly degenerate into a situation very much like what is happening in columbia. A small area will be under control of what is left of the mexican government. The rest, particularly the areas that abut our border will be controlled by violent paramilitary drug gangs.
These people are going to attempt to seize control of US territory along our border. Previous immigrants, both illegal AND LEGAL will attempt to help them.
You are seeing the first signs of a coming war between the US and the mexican people….as their government finally loses all control of them.
The only solution to this, for us, will be to seal that border and station military along it. And to expel most, if not all recent mexican immigrants.
Posted by at 7:31 PM on May 30
Mexico better take all the help they can get from anybody on this drug issue, because drug gangs are very close to taking over the entire country, just as Pablo Escobar almost accomplished in Columbia.
Fighting criminal gangs is one thing, but fighting drug gangs who have the ability to produce billions of dollars in revenue, competitive to what a nation earns from various sources, are quite another.
In my humble opinion, Mexico is at a serious pivotal point right now. They could break the backs of the cartels, never eliminating them entirely, but keeping them in the shadows at least for the time being, (But whatever Mexico accomplishes, however, amounts only to a delaying action.) or the country could succumb to more covert control as they have been doing all along by the cartels on every level of government, and almost as important, the drug bosses could increase the cooperation and clout they enjoy from private enterprise and the people on the street, which amounts to eyes and ears as important as that of national central intelligence agencies.
It behooves the US to do what it can to reduce drug influence and crime in Mexico, because the influence and violence is slowly making its way into the United States, year after year. And I have no doubt Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is doing what he can to help things along. He is funding and supplying many renegade groups in Central and South America that are potential armies for the cartels, in addition to the thousands they can recruit, heavily arm, and pay for themselves.
Having insurgent groups on call, so to speak, is a tremendous power. With the right leadership, the present situation could well develop over time to the point where a successful coup of the Mexican government might well be possible, especially if the Sandinistas, a heavily armed rebel group in Chiapas under the control of Sub-Comandante Marcos, link up with Chavez and the other insurgent groups in Central America and the northern section of South America.
Personally, I believe drug influence and power in the Western Hemisphere is going to grow in the long run, no matter what is attempted. I further believe that the only way possible to reduce the drug gangs to a minimum is to legalize drugs, just as the US was forced to do with alcohol after 13 years of out-of-control crime that threatened to infiltrate and influence the federal government, as well as many smaller municipalities.
Posted by Ranger at 9:07 PM on May 30
Calderon: Conditions for aid violate Mexican sovereignty.
Typical Mexican. A combination of Cortez’s slick deceit with Aztecs’ aggressive imperialism. Thanks God Mexico is a banana republic that doesn’t have military power to exercise her “sovereignty” over the U.S. (Note. War is often defined as the ultimate exercise of state’s sovereignty.)
Posted by A Reader at 10:08 PM on May 30
Investigation of human rights abuses is a standard condition of US military aid to nearly any country, so Mexican complaints on that score are specious.
The problem is that the effort is doomed to failure. There is so much money involved in the drug trade that the cartels have the ability to renew their numbers as fast as the individual members can be prosecuted. The situation is similar to the one shown in the movie “The Battle of Algiers” in which the French commander has a list of guerillas, and crosses them off as they are killed, all the while not really appreciating the fact that guerillas were a renewable resource.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 10:25 PM on May 30
And demanding that the U.S. has open borders and that it and Canada integrate itself into Mexico (North American Union) isn’t a violation of ours and Canada’s sovereignty?
——————————————
An open border with Canada possibly??? Up here we Work in -40. Play in colder. Don’t think I’ll see many blacks or mexicans in touques any time soon. Takes a pretty hardy WHITE, to live, where it’s white. But then again, I would tend to miss being chased as food like in Africa, or eaten by fish if I was not White. That is My concern for my country and the ever declining 75%(95%in my town) majority of my people here. I say, Do, Buy, and think nothing outside your race. I consider corporations to be another race also. We can prove a point by being as intellegent as I know we are. Easily. I do.
Posted by johnny from Alberta at 10:39 PM on May 30
Use the $500M to build the border fence and bring the US troops back from Iraq to guard the southern border!!!
Posted by Skipper at 11:20 PM on May 30
“Calderon said the root of the problem was demand for drugs in the U.S. and called for more to be done about it.”
———————
I agree with what several posters have already indicated, i.e. legalize the drugs. Take the profit motive away and Mexico will have to peddle the goods at a reduced price to the idiots willing to contribute to their own ruin. Their annual remittances would drop dramatically, and Calderon’s little problem with drug crime would all but disappear.
Calderon knows full well, however, Mexico would suffer even more economically.
Calderon’s request is basically a bunch of hot air. Telling the US to control the demand while at the same time holding out his hands to enjoy all the remittances from their illegal drug trade is the problem. Now Calderon whines to “send $$$$” so they can curtail the problem.
Until he gets his house in order economically, he will continue to extort money from the US government in one form or another. Mexico’s dependence on the US is tantamount to the adult child who always returns home to the parents when things are tough. Mexico is not our friend. It is time for the US to kick Mexico to the curb- don’t send them another dime, and demand Mexico recognize the sovereignty of the US by controlling the flow of illegals from their country.
Posted by Aunt Bea at 12:01 AM on May 31
As several posters here have said, legalizing all the illicit drugs produced in or smuggled through mexico might seem the thing to do. “Canned chilli kidnappings” indeed! Hillarious. Also true.
What would all those thugs do, if their wares were to be had easily by ANYBODY, anytime. All of a sudden, they’d have no useful purpose in our economy.
Still, I have to wonder, what will become of America, awash in even MORE drugs? Don’t kid yourself, it will certainly lead to more wholesale dysfunction here.
There are so many people who are ready to medicate themselves into oblivion…this will give them all they need. And despite what I used to insist, I firmly believe that people-especially young people, who are by their nature, experimental- imbibe that which is AVAILABLE to them. Translation; if more drugs are available, more kids will use them. Undeniable. Mom was right, you know. What and who you hang around, what you see and hear-these things have a great influence on who and what you will become. And pot IS a gateway drug, parochial as that phrase may sound. When kids have meth to use, they will use it. And coke, crack, heroin, Ecstacy, etc.
Afterall, kids don’t have years of experience under their belts! Some have instinctive fear, some are wise beyond their years, and some have religious or inherently moral inhibitions, but even a good many smart ones will in fact use more drugs if they’re floating about cheap and easy, legal and all.
And even if they’re illegal for people under the age of 21, they will be illicitly used by kids in far greater proportions than today. Then there’s the obvious fact that more adult burn-outs will result from legalization. Think those cranked-out construction workers are a problem today? Imagine if their meth was LEGAL! Oh, man.
Ask even liberal Americans who have seen the profligate mysery of the Dutch, and their heroin hand-outs. It’s pathetic, and every American I know who’s seen Amsterdam-that is, except for the stoners who went there to smoke pot- says the scene creeped them out. America could become a lot sicker overnight.
Of course you can’t save someone determined to waste themselves, but consider that as we give them more poison with which to do themselves in, WE will pay all their bills, and bear the brunt of their crash and burn, literally. Scary!
Oh God, I’d LOVE to see all the narco-terrorists, smugglers, dealers and petty gang thugs of Latin America (and Meximerika) deflated and useless tomorrow. What a joyous laugh I’d have! But to achieve it through wholesale legalization of poison for the millions who would ruin themselves, and to saddle the rest of us with all their bills and wreckage? That’s like poisioning a patient with Chemo to kill the cancer.
Posted by at 3:15 AM on May 31
What legalizing drugs really means. If you havent noticed
95% of humanity is severely challenged by moral questions.
That is to say, they have no inner convictions and do exactly what their culture allows them to get away with. Repeal the laws against drug use and you will take away the last barriers
keeping millons from destroying themselves, their families, their workplace. Health costs will skyrocket, broken families
will get even worse (if thats possible), the vast majority of
people who marginally function at best will lose all contact with reality. And the few survivors will pay all the costs.
Posted by at 7:21 AM on May 31
I’m sure if the US had not existed to cause all of Mexico’s problems, that the shining nation to our south would be a model for all the world to emulate. It would have a thriving, self-supporting economy and its people would all possess college degrees. There would be no poverty, no crime and no one leaving because of economic downturns. Everyone would have a home, children would go to advanced schools that actually taught about the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and babies would be born in their own country. Ah, yes, things would be very different if we were not around. Just ask any Mexican.
Posted by June at 9:26 AM on May 31
“Despite Calderon’s crackdown, violence has made an unprecedented surge in Mexico. Cartels have responded with increasingly bold attacks against police and other security officials. Homicides related to organized crime have jumped 47 percent so far this year: 1,378 deaths compared with 940 in the same period last year. Calderon said the root of the problem was demand for drugs in the U.S. and called for more to be done about it.”
The druglords run Mexico along the border because the Mexican government is honeycombed with corrupt officials on the take from the druglords. Sending another half-billion to that government simply rewards the corruption.
What the United States should do, but apparently never will, is enforce our border with armed troops with orders to shoot to kill. Once these drug gangs are penned up on the Mexican side of the border, they’ll exterminate each other over the declining profits.
Unfortunately, this step requires honesty, courage, and resolve, three qualities our federal government does not have.
Posted by Gary at 11:28 AM on May 31
How else is sickened with Shrub’s spending cash like a drunken sailor on shore leave?
$500 million dollars will sure provide a heck of a lot of border fence though!
Posted by ODDL at 12:46 PM on May 31
While I respect people’s opinion here regarding the dangers of legalizing drugs, I must point out the not legalizing them will create a far greater danger. The war on drugs cannot be won. With literally trillions to be made over time, drug money will eventually control large segments of the US just as it has Mexico, and Mexico will be further down the road to complete drug control, in the coming years, than they are right now.
Too, it has to be pointed out that as drug cartels gain more influence and control, the people the prohibitionists are worried about imbibing will be greater in number, because availability will be greater right along with drug influence.
Drugs are here to stay. Our ONLY chance of winning against the powerful drug cartels is to take the profit out of selling narcotics.
Drug use is no more dangerous than alcohol use, and some experts contend that drugs are far less dangerous than alcohol to the general public.
Looking at the situation realistically, I don’t think the will is there today to legalize drugs and it appears as if we’re going to be headed down the road to drug cartel influence throughout the Western Hemisphere. When enough people are ready to legalize, it will be too late to do so, because the drug lord’s influence will be too great to overcome.
It looks like we’re going to be in for a narco-future no matter what.
Posted by wr at 4:12 PM on May 31
“And demanding that the U.S. has open borders and that it and Canada integrate itself into Mexico (North American Union) isn’t a violation of ours and Canada’s sovereignty?”
THIS is what Mexico really wants, a North American Union, which would give Mexico and Mexicans, the freedom to cross the US or Canadian border and live and work. This would be of great benefit to Mexico while it would sink the US and Canada.
Posted by kc at 6:28 PM on May 31
This governor is a ” racist skunk “; he wants all American Anglos,aka Euro-Americans, to be a more extreme ” host ” to his half genotype, Mexican Indians. His ” neopotism and blood ” bias would be attacked by the ” leftist ’ he were 100 percent white politician ” going to bat ” for poor Euros to come to America.
Posted by Michigan Patriot at 10:53 PM on May 31
For the pro- and anti-legalization advocates, I have to say that I think marijuana is a “gateway” drug only because it is illegal. There was plenty of violence associated with alcohol during Prohibition, which went away after booze was relegalized. When was the last time you heard of two liquor store owners shooting it out over market share? When I was in high school, minors actually had an easier time getting reefer than beer, because the folks who sold reefer didn’t ask for an ID.
There will always be people who abuse the milder substances, like alcohol or marijuana, for a combination of reasons probably including genetic predisposition and other things going on in their lives. These are not debilitating for most users, however. There will always also be people who get hooked on the hard stuff, too: crack, meth, heroin, LSD and PCP. They start out thinking the inevitable personal meltdown can’t happen to them.
One of my best friends was a TSA agent, a passenger screener at the airport here. He got into meth wen some of his other friends used it, and tuned into a thief and a pathological liar. Once, while he was high, he committed a sexual assault on a child. He lucked out, and got a deferred sentence. He also lied to his supervisor and continued to work as a TSA passenger screener for an entire year after pleading guilty to this felony. After being fired, he continued using drugs. He lasted about ten more months. A vice squad raid caught him at a house where drug sales were suspected. He was alone there, and was caught with $9,000 worth of extsasy, $500 in cash, a Tech-9 pistol, and a .45” pistol.
The state of Colorado revoked his deferral and gave him three years-to-life with life on parole. He’s only lucky the feds didn’t pick up the gun charges, because “felon with a firearm” gets 5 years. It would have been doubled, since he was already on supervision, and doubled again because the Tech-9 would carry an “assaul weapon” enhancement, for a nice, round 20 years, of which a minimum of 210 months would have been served.
I wrote to the state parole board last month, telling them that I still have not received one dime of my 2004 small claims judgement against him, the return of aything he stole from me, or even an apology. The result is that the hearing he was supposed to get in May, for possible parole in November has been postponed until November, for possible parole next May. If I don’t get paid by then, I will simply send them another letter; it’s not like I’m the one who . In the meantime, he has a roof over his head, three meals a day, and he isn’t using the stuff that sent him down that path. I don’t think there is any chance he will make it on parole longer than about six months. He’ll either recidivate or be found frozen to death in a culvert.
If a former law-enforcement officer, who knew that stuff was illegal for a good reason began using, I see no chance at all that the drug war - and the secondary problems it creates - will ever end.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 11:17 PM on May 31
Isn’t it maddening when Mexican officials always babble on about their sovereignty, while utterly disrespecting ours? Then, to add fuel to the fire, there’s the clueless liberals in this nation, who fight against Americans trying to stop the invasion by supporting illegal aliens. It’s pathetic.
Posted by Bobby at 12:43 AM on June 1
Legalize drugs? {insane} Sounds like a great liberal game plan. Perhaps recreational drug use has scrambled more brain cells than one realizes. What an altered society this would create. Sounds like a time warp out of star trek, illogical as mr. Spock would say. Maybe we should legalize murder, sodomy, child molestation, and any other kind of debauchery imagineable. Oh wait, if we just legalize drugs then surely every pervert will be emboldened to commit all sorts of evil deeds. Thus solving the need to pass such laws to begin with.
Posted by Beam me up at 1:52 AM on June 1
The problem with legalizing drugs is that they have always been one of the most potent tools used to destroy whites. Do you really want drugs to be cheap and easily available?
Without drugs, it’s a relatively simple task to educate your children to avoid minority evil. But with drugs, they have little trouble turning your once innocent daughter into a race-mixing sex slave.
That is the bottom line.
I have a better idea. Execution of all people involved in the drug trade on the spot. Identify areas in mexico where the cartels are dominant and cluster bomb those areas until nothing is left alive. Shoot on sight, any mexican attempting to cross the border and use missiles fired from predator drones to destroy drug convoys.
What the hell is the matter with whites that even white nationalists are willing to roll over and expose their bellies to accept the evil that drugs bring to their race and their families, simply because dealing with the problem is tough and problematical.
Yeah, there are problems, but those problems come from being soft on these jokers. We spend billions trying to handle this with due process. And we tolerate those in our communities who choose to be degenerates.
How about no. How about instead we stop goofing around and pull the problem out by the roots. We wipe out the drug trade….kill everyone associated with it.
Posted by at 2:59 AM on June 1
If we legalize drugs as some posters suggest, what would Mexico have to complain about? We are the cause of everything wrong there, to hear their leaders say. They have controlled our immigration policy for a long time. If we also got rid of the illegals, as I someday pray we do, that would cause the total collapse of that disgusting country. Then, with any of the three bleeding hearts, one of which will be our leader, will come the complete demolishing of the border. We’ll wind up taking care of the whole country. Like the illegal who has had several liver transplants courtesy of the American taxpayer, they’ll say we “owe it to them.” As a child, I was convinced that Tara was really my home instead of the modest little bungalow I lived in. Me and Mexico…what a fantasy world. Trouble is, I outgrew it. They never did.
Posted by June at 9:26 AM on June 1
To Tim Mc Hugh
You are right on the money. We attempted to criminalize alcohol, a drug which is surely as potent and destructive as many currently illegal drugs, and what did it produce? The answer is the story of prohibition and anyone who thinks that it is the general government’s responsibility to prohibit drugs could learn a great deal from a study of the period. All that it accomplished was: the creation of a massive criminal underground, many deaths from adulterated products, a general disrespect for law at all levels, and the erection of an executive police force which is still expanding.
Legalize drugs and you do away with all of these things as well as emptying the prisons of more than half their population. The constitution and bill of rights insure us the pursuit of happiness as long as such does not directly harm others. The prohibition of drugs is not only a violation of that constitution but has led to more misery than any legalization possibly could. Legalization would also do away with a major portion of the police enforcement empire which is central to the establishment of a police state.
A so-called War on Drugs which continues to fail totally but at an tremendous cost, is merely an unjust means of expanding the powers of the police state. We should bring the troops home, empty the jails and declare that we have lost.
Posted by at 9:42 AM on June 1
“aid package for Mexico” Is that some kind of sick joke or something? Mexico encourages illegal aliens to break our immigration laws by coming here illegally. The illegal aliens in this country cost the American taxpayers a whopping 338.3 billion dollars a year. IT’S TIME FOR THE MEXICAN GOVERNMENT TO START PAYING US BACK!!!!! Richardson is a traitor and should go back to Mexico where he belongs. If Richardson feels Mexico should get more hand outs then he should donate his pay check every week for the cause. Let him put “HIS OWN MONEY” where his big mouth is.
Posted by Gerry at 3:25 PM on June 1
It frustrates me to see how the discussion diviated from Calderon’s deceitful duplicity and from his open support of his compatriots’ stealing our country from us to whether or not drugs should be legal in the U.S.
It is unlikely that we will ever agree on the issue of drug legalization. Instead of distracting ourselves from the main danger here, let’s re-focus on Calderon and the multi-million invading army that makes his treats against us credible. He acts like a stereotypical Cortez-like Mexican politician for whom everything that helps the conquest and expansion is good.
Let’s help to make that stereotype noticed by the American public.
Posted by A Reader at 8:35 PM on June 1
The use of hard drugs is a good indicator of a criminal mentality. Not perfect, but good. Drug addicts are more or less a self-selected demographic group that any society can do without. It’s a lot better for the citizenry if the cops bust someone for drug possession than waiting for them to steal something or hurt someone. Argue the right and wrong of it if you like, but that’s the real benefit. When Black activists complain about all the Blacks in jail on drug charges, ask yourself if you want all those dopers on the street.
A similar logic applies to the laws banning “Saturday Night Specials.” The point is to disarm poor dumb people, disproportionately non-White, who cannot so easily acquire a nice $600 Glock.
Posted by Schoolteacher at 2:25 AM on June 2
We shouldn’t be wasting money on a corrupt inefficient foriegn government. We should be using the money to close the border permenately.
Posted by at 1:21 PM on June 2
“The constitution and bill of rights insure us the pursuit of happiness as long as such does not directly harm others.”
Things like drug use have the potential of harming the user. Oneself. Protecting citizens is the number one job of anyone in a position of authority? The number one job of voters. This can easily be forgotten in our evil and backward times.
I agree that in our current times changing the laws are something to consider.
I suspect our current anti-drug laws are designed to protect the nation (GNP) however. We live in an almost complete moral less time. Thanks ‘liberals’.
Posted by at 2:28 PM on June 2
The reason the US government felt obliged to get into the drug-regulation business was twofold. Firstly, Chinese immigrants in the 1800s brought opium use with them, and smoking it spread to the white population. Secondly, opiate-laden liquors, like laudenum were widely available and very addictive.
What minimized the problem 125 years ago was that Americans were more solidly-grounded in their communities and with their extended families. The US population was not as mobile, and young people usually lived with their parents right up until they married - often enough for a while after that. “Three generations living under one roof” was fairly common. Under these circumstances, family and societal pressures to behave responsibly would naturally be much greater than what prevails today. Furhermore, disposable incomes were much smaller, except for the very rich, who had their own family and social pressures demanding they behave like ladies and gentlemen.
Young people were kept too busy to use drugs, and chaperoned at mixed-sex events, while adults typically had to work too hard to need any more relief than a hot meal and a good night’s sleep.
Part of the problem may also be traced to integration. I suspect, for reasons I can not this moment put into clear writing, that our integration experiment immediately caused society to start readjusting itself, which has resulted in a 45 year search for the lowest common denominator. One of these symptoms is rampant drug use. Another is teen pregnancy.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 10:24 PM on June 2
“The constitution and bill of rights insure us the pursuit of happiness as long as such does not directly harm others.” >>
“Things like drug use have the potential of harming the user.”
The above quote “not directly harm others” is in gross error.
It should read “does not violate the rights of others.”
All rights violations involve harm, but not all harm involves rights violations. Drug laws do indeed involve victimless crimes- with the term victim being understood in its legal sense- no victim, as no rights are violated. There can be other harm(s)- that does not mean the government should act.
Posted by Q. P. Dahl at 11:37 AM on June 3
Posted by 7:21:
“What legalizing drugs really means. If you havent noticed
95% of humanity is severely challenged by moral questions.
That is to say, they have no inner convictions and do exactly what their culture allows them to get away with. Repeal the laws against drug use and you will take away the last barriers
keeping millons from destroying themselves, their families, their workplace. Health costs will skyrocket, broken families
will get even worse (if thats possible), the vast majority of
people who marginally function at best will lose all contact with reality. And the few survivors will pay all the costs.”
That may be so, but what business does the fedgov have in instituting morality, especially when politicians are largely morally corrupt themselves?
“
Posted by Superman at 1:05 PM on June 3
Aren’t we already serving as the health, education, pension, welfare, housing and full employment agencies of Mexico?
What more do they want? Answer, everything. The more we give, the more they demand.
How about legalizing all drugs AND subzidizing them at cheap prices, maybe with vouchers like food stamps. That would end the Mexican drug industry in a few months.
Posted by at 9:04 PM on June 3
What right does one adult have to dictate to another adult what he can and can not eat, drink, smoke or snort so long as he doesn’t endanger others in the process? Americans would not tolerate Muslims telling us we couldn’t eat pork, so why do we tolerate politicians beholding to the liquor and pharmaceutical lobbies to tell us we can’t eat psilocybin mushrooms? This is the politics of contraband and as such is an attack upon people’s rights by corrupt politicians in bed with criminals in the pursuit of blackmarket profits. Stop behaving like sheep and tell our politicians to stick their drug laws where the sun don’t shine…
Posted by at 1:20 PM on June 5