Can We End the War on Drugs?

20 Comments

1. 

   Arthur Gilroy on December 4, 2011 at 11:41 pm

   Ron Paul: War on Drugs a `total failure’
   10:06 PM 11/22/2011

   Congressman Ron Paul, the outspoken libertarian and Republican presidential candidate from Texas, called the War on Drugs a “total failure” at Tuesday’s CNN debate.

   “I think that’s another war we ought to cancel,” said Paul, a fierce critic of America’s military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Because it’s to nobody’s benefit. And that’s where the violence is coming from.”

   Paul then said the government has a responsibility to ensure border security, not just the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. He also said the best way to combat illegal immigration is to abolish government benefits that potential immigrants might find attractive.

   “I just wanted you to clarify: When you said cancel the War on Drugs, does that mean legalize all these drugs?” moderator Wolf Blitzer asked Paul.

   “I think the federal War on Drugs is a total failure,” Paul replied. “You can at least let sick people have marijuana because it’s helpful.”

   According to Paul, Americans would be better served by regulating illegal drugs like alcohol, rather than outright prohibition.

   “Alcohol’s a deadly drug,” he said. “The really deadly drugs are the prescription drugs. They kill a lot more people than the illegal drugs. The drug war is out of control. I fear the drug war because it undermines our civil liberties, it magnifies our problems on the borders, and we’ve spent like over the last 40 years a trillion dollars on this war.”

   “And believe me, the kids can still get the drugs,” he continued. “It just hasn’t worked.”

   Keep on calling him a fool, Booman. With fools like this, maybe you should make some friends.

   AG

   • 

     BooMan on December 5, 2011 at 8:09 am

     Yep.  I can elect Paul and then he’ll discover that he can’t do a damn thing.  

     • 

       Arthur Gilroy on December 5, 2011 at 9:54 am

       What about all of this “bully pulpit” stuff you are always on about, Booman? I personally think that a great number of the weak-willed congress members…a working majority, actually… put their own electoral survival above all else. All else. If Ron Paul’s message continues to penetrate the media’s attempt to create a cone of silence around him at the same geometric rate as it has been progressing over the last month or so, by the time Super Tuesday comes around he may actually be the numerical frontrunner in the Ratpub race. I mean…look at his surviving serious opponents, few chrissake! Flip-floppers each and every one of them, while he calmly and consistently goes on about his business of telling the truth as he sees it.

       Talk about acting “presidential!!!”

       Hmmmmm…

       If he does win the nomination he is is quite liable to give Obama a thorough ass-whipping. (I know, I know…that’s impossible, right? He can’t win the nomination. It used to be “impossible” to have a non-Aryan President, too. Things change, especially in hard times. Watch.)

       What then?

       What if he was given a mandate from the American people? Unlike Barack Obama, would he dare to use it for radical change? Would he fight instead of fold, go straight ahead and “Damn the torpedoes!” instead of compromising to the interests and orders of the PermaGov? I’m betting that he would. It’s obviously his nature to do so, just as it is equally obviously Barack Obama’s nature to be a compromiser, to resemble the following description of him…the most accurate and prescient description of him that was ever uttered.

       Dr. Adolph Reed Jr., 1996- “…a smooth Harvard lawyer with impeccable credentials and vacuous-to-repressive neoliberal politics.”

       Note well the words “vacuous-to-repressive,” Booman. Nature abhors a vacuum, and in politics it is most often “repressive” concepts that rush in to fill the untenanted spaces.

       Now…say what you will about Ron Paul, but he is certainly not “vacuous.”

       Watch. I have been saying this for months now. Ron Paul is the only candidate in either party who is actually saying something that the American people can gut-level understand. He is saying that the whole system is fucked up, top to bottom, and it that needs a thorough shaking out. Any fool walking down the ever more rapidly decaying streets or trying to buy $60 worth of groceries and finding that they cost $107.50 can see the truth of that message, and the ongoing idiocy that passes for a federal government has been in plain sight one way or another since Watergate.

       He’s going to make some waves, Booman.

       Watch.

       Will they be big enough for him to be able to to surf right on into the White House?

       I dunno, but it’s going to be one helluva storm if he gets his wind up.

       Watch.

       You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

       Or maybe you do.

       Dylan didn’t, way back in 1965.

       Bet on it.

       AG

       • 

         BooMan on December 5, 2011 at 10:08 am

         Did you seriously just accuse me of using the Bully Pulpit argument?

         I have been mocking that argument for three years now.  

         Do you really understand nothing of what I write?  

         Only a few days ago I wrote a piece about Mic Checking the Bully Pulpit to drive home the point that the Bully Pulpit is insufficient by itself.  And you thought I was talking up the wonders of it?  

         Sad.  

         • 

           Arthur Gilroy on December 5, 2011 at 10:45 am

           In that post you talked out of both sides of your mouth, Booman. You mocked “the bully pulpit” and then you included a statement from Obama that was a perfect example of attempting to use it.

           You can’t have it both ways.

           Here is the text of my comment on your post.

           Yeah but…what if the stuff that is said from that bully pulpit is total bullshit?

           Read this again:

           Statement by the President

           –snip—

           Now is not the time to put the economy and the security of the middle class at risk. Now is the time to rebuild an economy where hard work and responsibility pay off, and everybody has a chance to succeed. Now is the time to put country before party and work together on behalf of the American people. And I will continue to urge Congress to stop playing politics with the security of millions of American families and small business owners and get this done.

           Now read this:

           Suskind’s Confidence Men Raises Questions About Obama’s Credibility

           Barack Obama is heading back onto the campaign trail, running as a champion of the middle class and even hoping to harness the Occupy movement’s public anger at Wall Street.

           But the higher he soars with his populist rhetoric, the more he calls attention to the enormous gap between the promise of hope and change that he campaigned on in 2008 and the actions he has taken as president — especially regarding the economy, which is still stagnating, and Wall Street, which remains unpunished and unbowed even after causing the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression.

           As a result, voters will inevitably be asking themselves: Who is this guy, really? Does he mean what he says? Will he do what he says? And would a second-term Obama be different?

           One answer to why Obama underperformed is laid out in searing detail in Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Ron Suskind’s latest book, Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President.

           One answer to why Obama underperformed is laid out in searing detail in Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Ron Suskind’s latest book, Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President.

           In the book, Suskind describes how Obama made the conscious choice to staff his economic team with former Clinton appointees whose sympathies were with Wall Street — and that those men were unable to see how drastically out of whack the country’s financial system had gotten both because they helped create it and because it had served them so well.

           Then, rather than forcefully impose his campaign’s populist vision on these men, Obama again consciously chose to defer to them repeatedly — and tolerated it even when they slow-walked, pushed back against, or simply ignored his instructions.

           The White House launched an aggressive counterattack when the book came out in September, initially centered around nitpicking over a few minor factual errors.

           —snip—

           But the attacks on the book only glanced off Suskind’s central theme — which is more subtle than his critics have made it out to be — because that theme was derived directly from on-the-record interviews with key players, internal documents that Suskind brought to light, and the outcomes we’ve all seen with our own eyes.

           And though the book focuses on the first two years of Obama’s presidency, and a group of “confidence men” that is mostly gone now, the leadership style Suskind describes, and the strikingly similar makeup of Obama’s new economic team, suggest that Obama is still incapable of — or, alas, uninterested in — acting on his own words.

           “You do have to start asking yourself a pretty tough set of questions about what his fundamental views actually are on so many of these issues,” says Suskind. “Did he ever believe that he was going to be doing many of those things that he inspired people with in the campaign?”

           —snip—

           Read the rest of the article. Buy the book. Verrrry interesting.

           

           Very interesting indeed.

           Bet on it.

           I repeat:

           “You do have to start asking yourself a pretty tough set of questions about what his fundamental views actually are on so many of these issues,” says Suskind. “Did he ever believe that he was going to be doing many of those things that he inspired people with in the campaign?

           Yes, you do have to start asking those kinds of questions…or at least you should be asking those questions given “the outcomes we’ve all seen with our own eyes.”

           But NOOOOOOooooo…he gets up there and makes yet another speech about how “Now is not the time to put the economy and the security of the middle class at risk. Now is the time to rebuild an economy where hard work and responsibility pay off, and everybody has a chance to succeed.”

           Talk is cheap.

           But then…leftinesses are cheap dates.

           So it goes.

           AG

           Leftiness support for Barack Obama was from the get-go largely based on a “bully pulpit” idea. All Obama really had going for him was a way with words. That and a good look plus some Ivy League credentials and the novelty of possessing a slightly darker skin than all of the presidential candidates who came before him. If Barack Obama is a failed president…and I believe that he is, if not simply a PermaGov mole in the White House…his failure has been in not using his position and eloquence to get things done, in not going directly to the American people and effectively pointing out the obvious, that the Republican Party has acted in lockstep to assure the continuing reign of the 1% over the 99% since Dwight Eisenhower left the White House and continues to act in this manner now. He didn’t do that and now the U.S. is teetering on the brink of total failure.

           I read you quite well, Booman.

           Bet on it.

           “Do as I say, not as I do?”

           Nope.

           That won’t cut it.

           Not with me it won’t.

           AG

         • 

           BooMan on December 5, 2011 at 12:03 pm

           I can be deviously subtle, Arthur.  

           If you follow along, it’s not really that hard to read me correctly.

           What pissed me off about the #Occupy Movement when it first erupted?  Do you remember?  

           Do you even know?  

           And why would I point out something the president said and ask people to mic check it?  

           Hint: these two things are related.  

         • 

           Arthur Gilroy on December 5, 2011 at 7:38 pm

           And I can be plainly simple. your President Obama has nothing but “the bully pulpit” with which to fight and never did. He used it well during the campaigns, but once he got elected he retired to the vestry back of the church to confer with the DC elders. They counseled him to back off (as he almost certainly had promised that he would in order win the nomination and the election in the first place), and he did. Two years later? There went his majority.

           If he wins this next election it will be because of the media’s corporate-ordered bias…media being the only bully pulpit extant in this system…at least as much as the inferiority of his opposition.

           He is your candidate and he only really has one effective weapon, so you are in favor of bully pulpiting.

           Simple, ain’t it?

           As simple as figuring out that a politician who says one thing and then does another…or doesn’t do the things that would be necessary to ensure effective support of  his public stance(s)…is either:

           1-A liar.

           2-An ineffective leader.

           or

           3-Both.

           And yet you continue to support him.

           Well, you have your own little bully pulpit from which to make your pronouncements, but there are more people in the crowd than just me who are beginning to wonder about Obama.

           Bet on it.

           AG

         • 

           BooMan on December 5, 2011 at 9:25 pm

           There are many things that you don’t want to understand.

           And that’s okay.  We’re all guilty of that, to one extent or another.  

           But, I do insist that you not misread what I write without rebuttal.  

           Our problems come in small, medium, large, and super-sized varieties.  The president, any president, can do a decent job on the small and the medium problems.  I’d give Obama an A-minus on dealing with the small and medium problems.  The large problems are intractable.  They can only be solved through the brute force of massive (and temporary) congressional majorities.  And, then, only imperfectly and in starts and stops (see health care reform).  

           The super-size problems are the problems you focus on (the military-industrial complex, the hypnomedia/Wurlizter/corporate control of the group-mind and culture, the war on drugs, and the consumerist/environmental destruction of the planet).  

           Those problems go so far beyond one president’s ability to change that it is pure fantasy to think that Ron Paul would be successful, even if he were consistently on the correct side of the issues.  

           Would President Kucinich have gotten a stronger health care bill?  Of course not.  He would have been shot down quicker than Clinton.  Would President Krugman have gotten a stronger stimulus bill?  It’s highly unlikely.  Would President Stiglitz have gotten stronger Wall Street reforms?  I don’t see how.  

           It’s not about the Bully Pulpit; it’s about squeezing juice from a lime.  Maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ll get two tablespoons.  Talking to the lime won’t help.  

           But if you want to see what can be done with rhetoric alone, you should amplify the rhetoric.  Mic check the rhetoric.  And see if you can prove me wrong.  

         • 

           Arthur Gilroy on December 6, 2011 at 12:41 am

           Except to say this.

           When you give up, that’s the end of the road. You’re through.

           I am not through, and I have a sneaking suspicion that a working majority of the people in this country…not the ones who are repeatedly polled, not necessarily the ones who vote very often, many not even trustful enough of this massively criminal government to give straight answers to the census cops…are also not through.

           You say:

           Our problems come in small, medium, large, and super-sized varieties.  The president, any president, can do a decent job on the small and the medium problems.  I’d give Obama an A-minus on dealing with the small and medium problems.  The large problems are intractable.  They can only be solved through the brute force of massive (and temporary) congressional majorities.  And, then, only imperfectly and in starts and stops (see health care reform).  

           The super-size problems are the problems you focus on (the military-industrial complex, the hypnomedia/Wurlizter/corporate control of the group-mind and culture, the war on drugs, and the consumerist/environmental destruction of the planet).  

           Those problems go so far beyond one president’s ability to change that it is pure fantasy to think that Ron Paul would be successful, even if he were consistently on the correct side of the issues.

           I would like to compact this statement a hair or two for you

           You are saying that our major problems…the ones that are at the root of most of our smaller ones…are essentially unsolvable.

           You are through with it all then, Booman. You have given up hope. You are beaten. I am sorry to see this. When you started this blog you were all for frogmarching the political criminals who were at the top of this ongoing criminal conspiracy that we laughingly call “The United States of America” right straight into court and from there directly to prison. Or worse.

           Now you’re talking about squeezing a little more juice out of a lime.

           Ron Paul hasn’t given up. Neither have the real workers of this country or much of its youth. You think that Ron Paul is some sort of quixotic old fool, it seems to me. Let me ask you something. Do you really believe that after months and months of successful work in building both a working national political macine and a rapidly growing national constituency, the media and the shakers and bakers of this country are still not even saying his name because they think that he’s just a cranky old asshole?

           No. They are not giving him any attention because it is obvious to them that not only is he not a crank candidate, he is dead serious and he scares the living shit out of them. They can moo and moan over fools like Palin, Bachman, Santorum, Trump and Cain because they are easy targets. Easy diversions during a long run. But Paul? They won’t touch him with a ten foot long rigged poll.

           I just watched a little vid where Obama’s political point man David Axelrod “analyzes the GOP candidates.” That’s what the title said, anyway. He rattles on about the obvious weaknesses of Romney and Grinchwich for about two minutes, but he doesn’t even mention Ron Paul’s name. Not once.

           Why?

           Because Paul is not polling serious numbers?

           I think not. I’ll betcha they have numbers on him that they do not dare let see the light of day. They do if they’ve asking the right people, I will guarantee that point because I have been talking to a lot of people on all levels of this society and except for the seriously media-afflicted, Paul is rapidly becoming a sort of folk hero. Unless NBC is ordered to veto it by the inheritors of the CISA’s Project Mockingbird media control mechanism I can easily see him hosting Saturday Night Live and gong viral overnight.

           They are ignoring him because he has serious weaknesses of his own? Then why not take him down along with Romney Gingrich and the rest of this weak GOP field? Why not? Because he is too strong, too intelligent and too damned honest to be an easy target.

           I am smelling a Thomas Dewey-style “little man on the wedding cake” moment for Romney, and Paul is going to be his Truman. Watch. Gingrich will flame out before January even gets really started and Paul will expose Romney for the clomp-clomp-clomping dullard that he truly is.

           Watch.

           Meanwhile you and Obama will be busy counting limes.

           Good luck with the guacamole. Ron Paul’s gonna eat your lunch.

           Watch.

           AG

         • 

           BooMan on December 6, 2011 at 7:19 am

           Just like Hillary before him, right?  Your predictive powers are no match for mine.  

         • 

           Arthur Gilroy on December 6, 2011 at 7:57 am

           I firmly believe that Hillary Clinton would have been a better president…in the lime squeezing category, for sure, and in the right wing testicle squeezing area as well…than has been Barack Obama. The organized opposition to her campaign came mostly from people who feared that they had something to lose if she came to power, and it was well run by and through the media. She lost, Obama won, and here we are today. Fucked. Would things have turned out differently in an HRC presidency? No doubt. Better? I dunno.

           A I have said here, my “prediction” is that Ron Paul’s recent 5% or 10% likelihood of actually getting elected is rising by the day. Up around 20% now, in my estimation.

           Your prediction is a mainstream one. It is founded upon an almost divinatory attention to the media, something that is quite similar to examining the entrails of sacrificed animals. Only these entrails possess a sort of hypno-power over the masses. Your “prediction” is largely based on the hype. Mine is based on hope. Your view is most likely to win an election and mine is most likely to save a nation. I’ll take mine, thank you.

           AG

         • 

           BooMan on December 6, 2011 at 9:50 am

           We both have track records.  Mine is being mostly right.  Yours is being mostly wrong.  Deal with it.

           Let me clear a few things up.

           I haven’t given up hope.  I have just had to face the painful truth that we aren’t going to have a chance to do anything big again until at the very earliest 2015.  That’s pretty demoralizing, but it is because we won’t have a chance to build a large majority in the Senate again until the 2014 midterms.  And it will buck historical trends if we do well in Obama’s sixth year.  So, even 2015 is looking pretty grim.  

           On the other hand, just take a look at the riders that Republicans are pushing in the appropriations process.  Look at what their presidential candidates are pushing on foreign and domestic policy.  We’re not at risk of going back to the Bush years.  That would be a cakewalk compared to what we’re facing.  So, please, stop acting like we don’t need to reelect the president.  

           As for your Ron Paul fetish, it’s tiresome and kind of depressing.  

           For starters, take a look at his son and how he has performed in the Senate.  He’s made a fool of himself in committee hearings.  He’s introduced a bunch of amendments that haven’t even had the support of a small number of his own caucus.  He’s done two or three decent things, but overall he’s failed to lead or accomplish anything.  He hasn’t won over Republicans to his point of view.  He hasn’t convinced Democrats to work with him except on things they are already support.  He’s worthless.  And he’s cast his vote on the wrong side of the issues about 95% of the time.  

           I don’t see how he is any different from his father.  They are peas in a pod.  

           You look at Paul and you like what he’s saying about our foreign policy, the surveillance state, and the war on drugs.  Well, most progressives agree with him on those things, at least to a certain degree.  The reason progressives don’t support Paul is because he’s against pretty much every progressive accomplishment since FDR was elected.  I don’t know how the hell you ignore that.  

           I also don’t know how you can predict that Ron Paul will suddenly become acceptable to the Republican Establishment or overcome their resistance to his candidacy.  If they thought he could actually win, they’d do an RFK on him in a New York minute.  The country’s foreign policy isn’t up for debate.  Not like that, its not.  The media ignores Paul because they don’t want to even debate his ideas.  Ignoring him is easy.  If they have to respond to his ideas in any serious way, then you can bet that people with a higher pay grade than the media will start getting itchy.  I really believe that.  But, before anything so dramatic became necessary, the full force of the Republcian wurlitzer would be turned on Paul.  Things that he’s said and published.  People who fund and associate with him.  His extreme old age.  His voting record.  His nuttier conspiracy theories.  The real consequences of the policies he advocates.  All of that will be turned on him with fury, and the Democrats will echo it.  

           No, the best Paul can do is win some states and earn a bunch of delegates and then create a giant rift in the Republican Party at their convention.  And I hope he does it for two reasons.  One, I want the GOP to splinter and be break up into component parts.  Two, I want some of Paul’s ideas to get a public airing.  

           But he isn’t the answer.  And he’ll never be allowed to get too far, for good reasons and bad.  

         • 

           Arthur Gilroy on December 6, 2011 at 2:29 pm

           We both have track records.  Mine is being mostly right.  Yours is being mostly wrong.  Deal with it.

           Yes. I am dealing with it. You have been “right,” but in the wrong way. You have won by losing, Booman (Or is it lost by winning? Somewhere in there.) and as evidence of this I give you the current state of the economy and political situation in this country. Yes, Obama won the nomination over a far more experienced and very competent DC politician, someone who knew all the back alleys in that high-class favela and could get things done. And here we jolly well are, aren’t we.

           And yes, I give Obama a more than 50% chance of winning re-election.

           FOUR MORE YEARS!!!

           FOUR MORE YEARS!!!

           Four more years like the last four and we will be dealing with a supra-national surveillance state the likes of which no one had ever even dreamed during the Bush years. So I support Ron Paul, who is unalterably opposed to such a thing on both the macro and micro sides of the scale and on every level in between as well.

           You deal with it. There comes a time in every drastically dangerous situation where one must make a choice. Surrender, flight or resistance. You have made your choice…the majority choice it appears, no matter whether that majority calls itself Republican or Democrat…and you are surrendering to the good cop persona of the Permanent Government. He’ll probably win too, because in politics (superficially) nice guys usually have a good chance of finishing first.

           I am caught between the other two choices. As long as I think that it is possible for me to survive here I will continue to resist. The most plausibly effective resistance figure of national stature at present seems to me to be Ron Paul. So here I am.

           You speak quite calmly…if in veiled terms…about Ron Paul’s fate if he gets too popular.

           You write:

           If they thought he could actually win, they’d do an RFK on him in a New York minute.  The country’s foreign policy isn’t up for debate.  Not like that, its not.

           and

           If they have to respond to his ideas in any serious way, then you can bet that people with a higher pay grade than the media will start getting itchy.

           “…do an RFK on him…”

           “Itchy” as in trigger finger.

           You’re cool with that?

           And you say that you have not surrendered?

           Yeah. Right.

           You say:

           The reason progressives don’t support Paul is because he’s against pretty much every progressive accomplishment since FDR was elected.  I don’t know how the hell you ignore that.

           I am not “ignoring” it, Booman. It’s not just that the times they are ‘achangin’, the fact of the matter is that the times they have already changed. What worked 30 or 50 or 70 years ago simply does not…is not…working very well anymore, and the state of the nation is ample evidence of that fact. You are living in the past, as are many if not all other so-called progressives.

           The great poker player Doyle Brunson once said that to win at poker you often have to do the wrong thing at the right time. To extend that idea, doing the right thing at the wrong time usually leads to defeat.

           This is not a “fetish” I am speaking about here Booman, it’s a Paul Revere-type warning cry. Ignore it at your own…and everyone else’s…risk.

           Your “right” is gonna come back and bite you right smack in the ass.

           Watch.

           One way or another, the U.S. is going to pay for its nearly 70 years of post-WW II economic imperialism and permanent war. It can pay for it by backing offa the international food trough and taking care of its own business at home or it can pay for it by continuing on the same course that got it into trouble in the first place. Malcolm X was right. The chickens always do come home to roost.

           Real austerity or eventual total collapse as we continue to try to push our artificially, gluttonously inflated bubble just one wafer-thin mint further.

           You cool with that, too?

           So it goes.

           AG

         • 

           Brendan Skwire on December 5, 2011 at 10:46 am

           booman beat me to the punch. Arguing that Booman supports the bully pulpit is like saying I’m an Obamabot.

2. 

   pillsy on December 5, 2011 at 8:04 am

   It would be nice if Paul could couple his shocking degree of sanity about the War on Drugs with, at least, less shocking amounts of insanity about everything else.

   • 

     Arthur Gilroy on December 5, 2011 at 10:20 am

     “Shocking amounts of insanity about everything else,” eh?

     Like these “everything elses?”

     We should all be so insane.

     The federal government has no right to treat all Americans as criminals by spying on their relationship with their doctors, employers, or bankers.
     Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology, May 18, 2000 [2]

     Values in a free society are accepted voluntarily, not through coercion, and certainly not by law… every time we write a law to control private behavior, we imply that somebody has to arrive with a gun, because if you desecrate the flag, you have to punish that person. So how do you do that? You send an agent of the government, perhaps an employee of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Flags, to arrest him. This is in many ways patriotism with a gun – if your actions do not fit the official definition of a “patriot,” we will send somebody to arrest you.
     The Flag Burning Amendment, 2003-06-03

     Aaron Russo: Do you think America is going deeper and deeper into becoming a police state?
     Ron Paul: Yeah, I think we’re moving in that direction, because there’s not much we can do without permission. The absence of a police state is that people are free, and if you don’t commit crimes you can do what you want. But today, you can’t open up a business, you can’t develop land, you can’t go to the bank, you can’t go to the doctor without the government knowing what you’re doing. They talk about medical privacy, that’s gone. Financial privacy, that’s gone. The right to own property, that’s essentially gone. So you have to get permission from the government for almost everything. And if that is the definition of a police state, that you can’t do anything unless the government gives you permission, we’re well on our way. This is something that people eventually, I hope, will get sick and tired of, and say enough is enough.
     America: Freedom to Fascism, 2006 [5]

     Liberty once again must become more important to us than the desire for security and material comfort. Personal safety and economic prosperity can only come as the consequence of liberty. They cannot be provided by an authoritarian government… The foundation for a police state has been put in place, and it’s urgent we mobilize resistance before it’s too late… Central planning is intellectually bankrupt – and it has bankrupted our country and undermined our moral principles. Respect for individual liberty and dignity is the only answer to government force, force that serves the politically and economically powerful. Our planners and rulers are not geniuses, but rather demagogues and would-be dictators — always performing their tasks with a cover of humanitarian rhetoric… The collapse of the Soviet system came swiftly and dramatically, without a bloody conflict… It came as no surprise, however, to the devotees of freedom who have understood for decades that socialism was doomed to fail… And so too will the welfare/warfare state fail… A free society is based on the key principle that the government, the president, the Congress, the courts, and the bureaucrats are incapable of knowing what is best for each and every one of us… A government as a referee is proper, but a government that uses arbitrary force to direct every aspect of society threatens freedom… The time has come for a modern approach to achieving those values that all civilized societies seek. Only in a free society do individuals have the best chance to seek virtue, strive for excellence, improve their economic well-being, and achieve personal happiness… The worthy goals of civilization can only be achieved by freedom loving individuals. When government uses force, liberty is sacrificed and the goals are lost. It is freedom that is the source of all creative energy. If I am to be your president, these are the goals I would seek. I reject the notion that we need a president to run our lives, plan the economy, or police the world… It is much more important to protect individual liberty and privacy than to make government even more secretive and powerful.
     Video Address Announcing 2008 Presidential Exploratory Committee, February 19, 2007 [6] [7]

     How can I run for office and say I want to be a weak president? We need a strong president, strong enough to resist the temptation of taking power the President shouldn’t have.
     New Hampshire Liberty Forum, February 25, 2007 [8]

     Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans strictly as members of groups rather than individuals. Racists believe that all individuals who share superficial physical characteristics are alike: as collectivists, racists think only in terms of groups. By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality, the advocates of so-called “diversity” actually perpetuate racism. Their obsession with racial group identity is inherently racist. The true antidote to racism is liberty. Liberty means having a limited, constitutional government devoted to the protection of individual rights rather than group claims. Liberty means free-market capitalism, which rewards individual achievement and competence, not skin color, gender, or ethnicity.
     Government and Racism, April 16, 2007 [9]

     The original American patriots were those individuals brave enough to resist with force the oppressive power of King George. I accept the definition of patriotism as that effort to resist oppressive state power. The true patriot is motivated by a sense of responsibility, and out of self interest — for himself, his family, and the future of his country — to resist government abuse of power. He rejects the notion that patriotism means obedience to the state. […] Resistance to illegal and unconstitutional usurpation of our rights is required. Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing. Let not those who love the power of the welfare/warfare state label the dissenters of authoritarianism as unpatriotic or uncaring. Patriotism is more closely linked to dissent than it is to conformity and a blind desire for safety and security. Understanding the magnificent rewards of a free society makes us unbashful in its promotion, fully realizing that maximum wealth is created and the greatest chance for peace comes from a society respectful of individual liberty.
     In the Name of Patriotism (Who are the Patriots?), May 22, 2007 [12] [13]

     I am convinced that there are more threats to American liberty within the 10 mile radius of my office on Capitol Hill than there are on the rest of the globe.
     Texas Straight Talk: On Reinstating the Draft, February 16, 2009 [18]

     A government out of control, unstrained by the constitution, the rule of law or morality. Bickering over petty politics as we descend into chaos. The philosophy that destroys us is not even defined. We have broken from reality a psychotic nation. Ignorance with a pretence of knowledge replacing wisdom… We are now in the midst of unlimited spending of the people’s money. Exorbitant taxation, deficits of trillions of dollars spent on a failed welfare-warfare system. An epidemic of cronyism. Unlimited supplies of paper money equated with wealth. A central bank that deliberately destroys the value of the currency in secrecy, without restraint, without nary a whimper, yet cheered on by the pseudo-capitalists of Wall Street, the military-industrial complex, and Detroit. We police our world empire with troops on 700 bases and in 130 countries around the world. A dangerous war now spreads throughout the Middle East and Central Asia. Thousands of innocent people being killed as we become known as the torturers of the 21st century. We assume that by keeping the already known torture pictures from the public’s eye, we will be remembered only as a generous and good people. If our enemies want to attack us only because we are free and rich, proof of torture would be irrelevant… We need to quickly refresh our memories and once again reinvigorate our love, understanding and confidence in liberty… We must escape from the madness of crowds now gathering.
     Is this reality or just a bad dream?, May 19, 2009 [19]

     The moral and constitutional obligations of our representatives in Washington are to protect our liberty, not coddle the world, precipitating no-win wars, while bringing bankruptcy and economic turmoil to our people.
     Freedom Under Siege, 1987 [21]

     The most important element of a free society, where individual rights are held in the highest esteem, is the rejection of the initiation of violence. All initiation of force is a violation of someone else’s rights, whether initiated by an individual or the state, for the benefit of an individual or group of individuals, even if it’s supposed to be for the benefit of another individual or group of individuals. Legitimate use of violence can only be that which is required in self-defense.
     Freedom Under Siege, 1987 [22]

     Ron Paul: [The draft] should be called slavery, involuntary servitude.
     Howard Phillips: It violates the 13th amendment, which prohibits involuntary servitude.
     Ron Paul: Yeah, and the argument that I’ve always resented the most was, if you’re 18 year old you owe it to your country. I’ve always wondered why the guy who’s 58 and had a million bucks and hadn’t served, why doesn’t he owe more to this country, maybe he should be on the frontline. 18 year old didn’t get anything yet, and he has to go and risk his life.
     Conservative Roundtable, May 1997 [23]

     Ron Paul: …a few years back, in the 1980s, in our efforts to bring peace and democracy to the world we assisted the freedom fighters of Afghanistan, and in our infinite wisdom we gave money, technology and training to Bin Laden, and now, this very year, we have declared that Bin Laden was responsible for the bombing in Africa. So what is our response, because we allow our President to pursue war too easily? What was the President’s response? Some even say that it might have been for other reasons than for national security reasons. So he goes off and bombs Afghanistan, and he goes off and bombs Sudan, and now the record shows that very likely the pharmaceutical plant in Sudan was precisely that, a pharmaceutical plant… As my colleagues know, at the end of this bill I think we get a hint as to why we do not go to Rwanda for humanitarian reasons… I think it has something to do with money, and I think it has something to do with oil… they are asking to set up and check into the funds that Saddam Hussein owes to the west. Who is owed? They do not owe me any money. But I will bet my colleagues there [are] a lot of banks in New York who are owed a lot of money, and this is one of the goals…

     Rarely do we hear that Iraq has never committed any aggression against the United States. No one in the media questions our aggression against Iraq for the past 12 years by continuous bombing and imposed sanctions responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children. […] Only tyrants can take a nation to war without the consent of the people. The planned war against Iraq without a Declaration of War is illegal. It is unwise because of many unforeseen consequences that are likely to result. It is immoral and unjust, because it has nothing to do with US security and because Iraq has not initiated aggression against us. We must understand that the American people become less secure when we risk a major conflict driven by commercial interests and not constitutionally authorized by Congress. Victory under these circumstances is always elusive, and unintended consequences are inevitable
     Before We Bomb Iraq, February 26, 2002 [29]

     Legal issues aside, the American people and government should never abide the use of torture by our military or intelligence agencies. A decent society never accepts or justifies torture. It dehumanizes both torturer and victim, yet seldom produces reliable intelligence. Torture by rogue American troops or agents puts all Americans at risk, especially our rank-and-file soldiers stationed in dozens of dangerous places around the globe. God forbid terrorists take American soldiers or travelers hostage and torture them as some kind of sick retaliation for Abu Gharib.
     Torture, War, and Presidential Powers, June 15, 2004 [33]

     You want a good,m contemporary American working definition of “insanity?”

     Here it is.

     Insanity is swallowing whole the crap that the disinformation services of the Permanent Government throw out through the media regarding people who oppose them.

     You been had, pillsy. Look into what he is saying. What he is saying, not what others say about him. They are among the only sane statements that I have heard from anyone of national stature in this government for decades. Go to the source, not the networks.

     Please.

     AG

3. 

   Brendan Skwire on December 5, 2011 at 8:19 am

   somewhere, Al Capone is laughing and laughing and laughing.

4. 

   clearskies on December 5, 2011 at 10:45 am

   This is a start, but only a start:

   http://www.gallup.com/poll/150149/Record-High-Americans-Favor-Legalizing-Marijuana.aspx

   The problem is that 50%b of the american public still want marijuana to stay illegal. Cocaine? Crack? Heroin? Forget about it. Come back in a decade maybe. Its ridiculous I know, but there you are.

5. 

   genconc on December 5, 2011 at 1:26 pm

   One of the side benefits of ending the WOD might be that we could finally be allowed to grow industrial hemp — a crop that could be highly relevant to a 21st century economy.

6. 

   DaveW on December 5, 2011 at 2:50 pm

   Yes, the country is run by cowards and imbeciles, including the ones who vote for them. But let’s not forget the corruption aspect that underlies all things American politics. The illegal drug industry, thanks to the price supports enforced by the drugwar, is one of the biggest, most profitable industries in the world. Legalization would cut if off at the knees. Does anyone really think there’s no stream of that huge money pile going directly to our “leaders”? Ending the subsidies would wreak havoc on the very heart of the crime/politics ecosystem.

   Or did we think the pols were just expressing their deep moral principles that we see displayed to regularly?