JACOB HORNBERGER ON 'THE DRUG WAR'...FFF.ORG

Thursday, March 26, 2009 Hillary Clinton’s Drug-War Inanities by Jacob G. Hornberger Hillary Clinton’s comments on the violence along the U.S.-Mexico border are so inane that I feel compelled to write about two government programs: the war on drugs and public (i.e., government) schooling. On her way to Mexico to discuss the ever-increasing drug-war violence along the U.S. Mexico-border, guess whom Clinton blamed the violence on: America’s drug users and gun sellers! How inane is that? Pardon me, Ms. Clinton, but isn’t there also an insatiable demand for booze here in the United States? Yet, I don’t see much booze-related violence along the border. But here’s my prediction: If you people made booze illegal again, I predict that there would be all kinds of booze-war related violence, not only along the border but also all across the United States. In fact, you’ll recall that that is precisely what Prohibition did — it produced lots of Al Capone-like violence, until booze was re-legalized, at which point the violence disappeared. Why can’t Clinton simply acknowledge that the drug war is at the root of the violence along the border? Why can’t she simply be honest and say, “Look, we understand that the drug war is causing the violence, but that’s a cost we’re willing to pay to keep our 35-year-old war on drugs going”? The reason is very simple: If people were to see the truth, Clinton and her statist cohorts would stand to lose what matters most to them in life — power and money. The reason that statists, both liberal and conservative, love the drug war is because it helps to satisfy their insatiable demand for more power over the lives of more human beings. After all, with the possible exception of U.S. foreign policy, it would be difficult to find a government program better at producing ever-increasing government power and budgets than the war on drugs. Here’s how this power surge works. They first make it illegal to possess or distribute certain drugs, knowing that people are inevitably going to break the law. Then they engage in ever-increasing measures to deal with the ever-increasing crises associated with people’s refusal to comply with the law: warrantless searches and seizures, Soviet-style checkpoints on highways, confiscation (i.e., stealing) of people’s money and other assets, and harsh punishments. Then they get Mexico go crack down on the drug cartels that the drug war itself has brought into existence, knowing that the result is going to be precisely the same as when the U.S. government cracked down on the booze organizations during Prohibition. Then, they cite all the resulting drug-war chaos and crises as the excuse for more intervention, including the militarization of the border and gun control. So, what does public schooling have to do with all this? What else can possibly explain why the American people fall for all this inanity? Public schooling teaches children to memorize, conform, and accept. Critical thinking and challenging the system at a fundamental level bring Ritalan injections. So, you end up with a nation of sheep-like adults with mindsets that cause them to nod approvingly when people like Clinton inanely claim that the drug-war violence along the borders is all because of drug users and gun sellers in America. No, Ms. Clinton, the solution to the drug-war violence along the border does not lie in trying to satisfy your insatiable demand for more power, money, gun control, and bigger government. It lies instead in the immediate end to your beloved war on drugs, a war that has brought nothing but death, destruction, suffering, and misery. Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.