Drug war tragedy

[Pat K]

To long to post here click the link
if you have a strong stomach for
the vile.


http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A10762

[Tom Sawyer]

My hope is, one day, that people will be ashamed to admit their granddad was a drug warrior...
Kind of like no one would want to admit that their granddad sent people to a concentration camp.

For the folks that think that decrim. is the best that can be done... remember that they will still be doing this to people.
The injustice of this terrible war on peaceful people is one of the worst black marks in American history. The drug warriors know that it is pretty much a lost cause, they are just holding on to reach retirement. A jobs program.

[srqrebel]

That is disgusting beyond description.  These US federal agents specialize in destroying the lives of innocent, productive people and have the nerve to gloat about it and claim the moral high ground.

They are the worst kind of slithering scum on the face of the earth.  Adolf Hitler would be proud of them.

[Caleb]

I am hoping to track down the article I was reading today. I clipped it, but seem to have temporarily lost it. Anyway, it was a news article saying that how Haiti (a strong US ally) fights the drug war is they impound food at the ports and then it rots and people starve to death.

The US Drug War -- Starving Haitians to Death Since 1967

[J’raxis 270145]

For the folks that think that decrim. is the best that can be done... remember that they will still be doing this to people.

In all fairness to the decrim efforts, this is an example of incrementalism, not an end-goal. If we can get that far, and the general public, the police, and the Legislature all see that the world didn't end as a result, pushing for further legalization and eventually repeal of the Controlled Drug Act(s) becomes a lot more achievable, realistically, down the road.

And if you've been following the HB1623 efforts, even decrim of a bloody quarter ounce is a tough sell.

[Caleb]

That's why a lot of us aren't thinking that our freedom will come from tired old control freaks in pompous legislative halls.

[J’raxis 270145]

That's why a lot of us aren't thinking that our freedom will come from tired old control freaks in pompous legislative halls.

And if it does pass, do you think we'd be better off if we hadn't tried, and the laws remained?

[Tom Sawyer]

First I'm glad that Matt and others are championing this issue.

My position is that the shortest path is often not the best. The real problem with prohibition is commerce...

Instead of asking nicely for the government to please stop persecuting peaceful behavior, the villians should be made to defend their evil. Then after the "compromise" can settle for decrim.

The government's position was that marijuana was harmful to health. When that was refuted they just continued the witch hunt.

The seventies decrim didn't lead to the change we want... in fact I watched as "Bush the First" glared out of the TV set and said "We must end this culture!" and proceeded to run a campaign of terror.

Today, California has medical marijuana dispensaries across the street from police stations.
The time has come to put the prohibtionists and their thugs on the "ash heap of history".

If you are going to lose the vote, you might as well shake things up and put them on notice that the change is coming on our terms not theirs.

[srqrebel]

...If we can get that far, and the general public, the police, and the Legislature all see that the world didn't end as a result, pushing for further legalization and eventually repeal of the Controlled Drug Act(s) becomes a lot more achievable, realistically, down the road.

With all due respect, I perceive this assumption as dead wrong.

In fact, I consider this the core fallacy of inside-the-system activism.  I separated myself from this type of activism as soon as I realized this:

The assumption that if we can get the government off the backs of the general public, they will see that nothing bad happened, and it will make further rollbacks easier, is based on the false assumption that they are just like us: They think rationally about the issues.  The fact is, they do not -- they are mostly reactionary.  Once the government has been sufficiently declawed to lessen their own discomfort, they could care less if a small number of their fellow citizens still get targeted. 

In the case of marijuana prohibition, for example, you have the support of a large segment of the general public, precisely because the individuals in that specific segment feel the heat of marijuana prohibition at a personal level.  Once you succeed at decriminalizing marijuana possession, hence the majority in that segment get the personal relief they want, they are satisfied.  If they occasionally read stories of the government busting drug dealers, or even hydroponics merchants, they could care less, because they don't personally feel threatened.  The vast majority are neither dealers nor growers.  You decisively lose their support precisely at that point, not because your continued efforts to roll back tyranny are without merit, but because the average human being cares mainly about his own comfort, and when he achieves his own comfort level he is no longer motivated to keep fighting.  Not to mention the fact that, as a side effect, for those individuals you have now succeeded at reinforcing the faulty paradigm that "the AMOG actually works if you let it".

At that point, you have reduced your support base to a very small segment of the population, namely marijuana dealers and growers, and a handful of hardcore freedom activists like yourself.  Good luck getting your voice heard at that point.

That is why I seek to focus my resources on the two things that I know are effective in the long run: 1) Targeting the general public with the message that the Authoritarian Model of Government is THE source of their problems, and cannot ever serve as the solution, and 2) starving the beast by withdrawing all support from it -- financial, moral, etc.

[J’raxis 270145]

...If we can get that far, and the general public, the police, and the Legislature all see that the world didn't end as a result, pushing for further legalization and eventually repeal of the Controlled Drug Act(s) becomes a lot more achievable, realistically, down the road.

With all due respect, I perceive this assumption as dead wrong.

In fact, I consider this the core fallacy of inside-the-system activism.  I separated myself from this type of activism as soon as I realized this:

The assumption that if we can get the government off the backs of the general public, they will see that nothing bad happened, and it will make further rollbacks easier, is based on the false assumption that they are just like us: They think rationally about the issues.  The fact is, they do not -- they are mostly reactionary.  Once the government has been sufficiently declawed to lessen their own discomfort, they could care less if a small number of their fellow citizens still get targeted. 

In the case of marijuana prohibition, for example, you have the support of a large segment of the general public, precisely because the individuals in that specific segment feel the heat of marijuana prohibition at a personal level.  Once you succeed at decriminalizing marijuana possession, hence the majority in that segment get the personal relief they want, they are satisfied.  If they occasionally read stories of the government busting drug dealers, or even hydroponics merchants, they could care less, because they don't personally feel threatened.  The vast majority are neither dealers nor growers.  You decisively lose their support precisely at that point, not because your continued efforts to roll back tyranny are without merit, but because the average human being cares mainly about his own comfort, and when he achieves his own comfort level he is no longer motivated to keep fighting.  Not to mention the fact that, as a side effect, for those individuals you have now succeeded at reinforcing the faulty paradigm that "the AMOG actually works if you let it".

At that point, you have reduced your support base to a very small segment of the population, namely marijuana dealers and growers, and a handful of hardcore freedom activists like yourself.  Good luck getting your voice heard at that point.

What you say I largely agree with—the public will stop caring once we fix the system "enough" to their own liking. But I disagree with your prediction that we'd fail, at that point, to push through further reforms: By that point, I'm counting on there being a lot more of us freedom activists that we don't need to rely on public opinion to help us along.

By the way, I don't think you ever answered my post about what I hope to accomplish by system activism: It's not about getting the system to respond to our desires, or contingent upon public opinion—it's about getting inside the system and dismantling it from within. What did you think of that specifically? The only criticism of system activism I've seen that could apply to such a strategy is the idea that power will corrupt us. ?'d seriously like to know if there's something I'm missing.

That is why I seek to focus my resources on the two things that I know are effective in the long run: 1) Targeting the general public with the message that the Authoritarian Model of Government is THE source of their problems, and cannot ever serve as the solution, and 2) starving the beast by withdrawing all support from it -- financial, moral, etc.

I think this is a fine strategy, and mostly compatible with my notion of system activism. I already do #1 regularly. #2 is of course a bit more difficult, especially the financial part, but I'm working on that.

[Caleb]

By the way, I don't think you ever answered my post about what I hope to accomplish by system activism: It's not about getting the system to respond to our desires, or contingent upon public opinion—it's about getting inside the system and dismantling it from within. What did you think of that specifically? The only criticism of system activism I've seen that could apply to such a strategy is the idea that power will corrupt us. ?'d seriously like to know if there's something I'm missing.

I responded to it, at least in a different thread, because I feel that the problem here is one of honesty. You can't trick your way to freedom. You say you aren't trying to do that. Well, here's the problem. Maybe YOU aren't. But then again, to my knowledge YOU aren't running. You want to get people in the system who will dismantle it. But they can't say they will do that, or they won't win, because if people believed that then we would already have anarchy. So the only way to get your guy in is to trick people, and once they find out what his real intention is, then they will be angry because they will feel (rightfully so) that you deceived them, so in the end you only make matters worse. Of course, you could sacrifice deceit by running an open campaign and telling people exactly what you intend to do, but if you go that route then you sacrifice effectiveness. Look at Mike Gravel and Ron Paul, who ran honest campaigns, but lost big time. In the system politics will always either be deceitful or else ineffective. Now, there is a sort of in the system activism that I think can work, but it's always single issue oriented. Let me give you an example: Let's say I am for marijuana legalization (which I am.) Now, I can work in the system to promote my agenda, in an honest way, with some success. But that will only be to the extent that Society is already prepared to accept my arguments anyway, and hence is in a way sort of inevitable. I'm merely placing myself firmly in the stream of society's evolving consciousness. It would be like riding the abolition waves at the time of the civil war. Can it be effective? Sure. Cause society is already heading that way anyway. But in terms of influencing a larger spectrum of issues, I think it's pretty meaningless.

[Caleb]

ok, here's the link to the haiti story. It's a shame that it came out of the AP, because the article sort of wanders away from the drug issue, even though the opening paragraph asserts that the drug enforcement issue is the main cause of the problem; and a really good article would explore the US/Haiti military alliance that has brought several US sponsored coups to the tiny island, as well as the fact that Haiti is the poorest country in the hemisphere largely due to US involvement in its affairs, but I digress. what do you expect from the AP?

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080307/NEWS07/803070346

[J’raxis 270145]

Maybe YOU aren't. But then again, to my knowledge YOU aren't running.

I moved here on 2007-06-30 and am not eligible until 2010.

You want to get people in the system who will dismantle it. But they can't say they will do that, or they won't win, because if people believed that then we would already have anarchy. So the only way to get your guy in is to trick people, and once they find out what his real intention is, then they will be angry because they will feel (rightfully so) that you deceived them, so in the end you only make matters worse.

I don't expect to be anywhere close to dismantling the system in 2008, 2010, or for a few elections after that—assuming we do get a handful of freestaters in office in 2008 or 2010. (Menno's plan for a stateless society targets 2025; I think that's a reasonable lowerbound estimate here, too.) In 2008 and 2010 I expect people to make specific reforms or repeals parts of their campaign. Dismantlement isn't even remotely feasible, yet, so there's no need to mention it.

Of course, you could sacrifice deceit by running an open campaign and telling people exactly what you intend to do, but if you go that route then you sacrifice effectiveness. Look at Mike Gravel and Ron Paul, who ran honest campaigns, but lost big time. In the system politics will always either be deceitful or else ineffective.

In order to win an election, you need to campaign on things people want, and in order to maintain your integrity, you need keep your word. I would suggest to people running—and plan to do this myself if I run in 2010—that they find out what issues people care about, determine which are pro-liberty or at least compatible with freedom, and campaign on those. What else they do once in office doesn't affect their integrity, in my opinion.



To sum this all up, my philosophy is that one is only being dishonest if one is engaging in "lies of commission" or "lies of omission" in the case where someone is being directly asked something and obfuscates their answer. Maintaining silence about one's true intentions—provided that one hasn't begun to make statements that conflict with such true intentions—is not dishonest, in my opinion.

[srqrebel]

srqrebel:—

I agree with most of what you say, and certainly your end goal. And I don't dispute that completely withdrawing one's support from the authoritarian model of government is one way to obtain freedom. However,—

Let them fill their jails with innocent.  It can only serve to expose their evil core -- and hasten the spread of the new paradigm.

this is where you lose me. I believe in following a path to freedom that doesn't allow for the government to commit increasing amounts of harm against people as we move along. Protesting and working to repeal bad laws moves us toward freedom and minimizes the harm that the government causes in the process. Yes, it also makes people think the system "works," but I'm not worried about this.

Why?

Because it also has the effect of getting our people closer to, and eventually into, the system. And with enough people inside the system, we simply begin dismantling it. We start repealing all the laws, winding the government down, until the final Act the Legislature passes is to dissolve itself.

Power corrupts? Sure, it corrupts some: people who secretly sought power to begin with, or people who are insecure and believe that power over others is a legitimate form of self-defense. I doubt this will be a problem with us liberty activists who have already pledged our lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor to the goal of achieving liberty in our lifetime.

I trust that while we system activists are doing this, people like you will be busy working outside the system to ease the transition to statelessness and to build the private institutions necessary to replace the functions of the State.

All we need for such a strategy to work is 283 activists in the Legislature.

Activities such as supporting Ron Paul, supporting "mainstream" Republicans against the Democrats, &c., &c., are utterly strategic in nature. One, politicians such as these will move us in the right direction until such time that we ourselves are actually inside the system. Our more extreme messages (e.g., "privatize everything!") will become a lot more palatable to people. And two, using their campaigns to get the message out is important: We bring people into the liberty fold via Constitutionalism or conservatism, and only after they've woken up do we try to bring such newcomers all the way to anarchism. One has to get up, and step out the door, before one can cross the street.



So—

Can you tell me how such a strategy is incompatible with your methods or goals?

Do you believe it simply won't work for some reason I'm not seeing?

Sorry, J'raxis, I meant to respond to this post in the other thread, then got sidetracked and forgot about.  Thanks for bringing it back to my attention.

I do think that power has the effect of corrupting many of even the most well-meaning activists, and I think this will have a distinct negative effect on your strategy.  But I also (perhaps naively) believe that at least a small contingent of highly principled activists who have their eyes wide open, could take hold of the reins of power and keep their eyes firmly fixed on the goal.  That does not mean that they can succeed, though.

The part of your above expressed vision that appears dubious to me, is the idea that you can completely dismantle the institution that currently passes for "government" by more or less taking over the reins, and here's why:

1) You will need 283 highly principled, anarchist activists in the legislature to accomplish that ultimate goal.  Even highly touted libertarian types such as Ron Paul would never, ever vote to dissolve the legislature.  They are far too enamored with the "original intent of the founding fathers" and the "sacred" US Constitution.  Succeed at the monumental task of getting the government back to its roots, and those very activists will become your most vocal arch-enemies.

You say, "We bring people into the liberty fold via Constitutionalism or conservatism, and only after they've woken up do we try to bring such newcomers all the way to anarchism."  To that I say: Obviously they have not woken up if they still see salvation in a 230-year old obsolete criminal enterprise.  I would much rather truly wake them up once, than to persuade them to change their political views first, only to follow up with, "Oh, by the way, the whole political structure itself is bad.  I need you to change your mind again."  Which brings me to my next objection:

2) One is sending a mixed message by saying the entire Authoritarian Model of Government itself is the problem, then encouraging them to participate in its activities.  Mixed messages only serve to befuddle and confuse.  I want my message to get through loud and clear: The AMOG itself is categorically criminal in nature, and is THE source of 99% of the world's problems. Therefore, withdraw!

3) I do not think it is remotely possible to come up with that many highly principled, anarchist activists in the state's highest offices.  Even if you succeed at lining up the necessary 283 highly principled, anarchist inside-the-system activists willing to run for office, you will still run headlong into the problem of getting them elected.  Either you will be right back to convincing the voting masses that they don't need their 230-year old "government" structure anymore, or you will be resorting to monumental deceit to get all these folks elected.  Besides that, you will certainly not sweep the legislature with all of those new electees at once; it would have to happen gradually, over perhaps the span of a decade.  That would cancel out the possibility of deceiving the voting public, unless the earliest elected anarchists voted moderately until they had a sufficient number to make the "attack".

I'm guessing that's not your plan, anyway.  It sounds like you would expect those earliest elected activists to start the process by successively repealing bad laws.  Now we're right back to convincing the voting masses that repealing such laws is a good thing.  Good luck with that: Remember, most of those laws are pet laws of the voters.  They will not be looking to see if bad things come out of repealing them; they "just know" that allowing people to be "immoral" is a bad thing, and these libertarian folks who are allowing society's morals to go down the tubes must not be allowed to continue.

True power has always resided in the masses, and especially in the segment of the masses that constitute the 'movers and shakers', or creators.  The only way to succeed at this game is to tap that power.  If I understand him correctly, Andrew J. Galambos focused entirely on building a competing "structure", comprised of camouflaged private enterprises, that outcompete the current government in the open marketplace -- in other words, harness the reactionary nature and collective power of the masses by doing a better job of giving them what they want than the current "government" structure does.

I believe that is a crucial component, but there are many, many individuals who are asleep to the upside down nature of the world we live in, yet are vaguely aware that something is dreadfully wrong.  Many of those are highly productive creators/ entrepreneurs who feel the smothering effect of the AMOG, yet cannot "put their finger on" the problem, because they are misled by the faulty paradigm of "we need government" combined with a failure to think outside the box about a system they have been taught from day one to take for granted.

I absolutely do not want to be guilty of further befuddling those individuals with a mixed message.  They are the ones who hold ultimate power, not the criminal syndicate.  They hold the key.  It is to them that I wish to send a crystal clear message as to what is THE source of their problems.  It is a tenacious paradigm; it takes nothing short of a clear, "cut through the bs" message to shift their paradigm, and that decisively excludes encouraging them to participate in the machinations of the AMOG.

In summary, I do not believe the inside-the-system strategy can succeed in the long run, both because of the logistical hurdles that get successively bigger with each short-term victory, and most importantly because it further entrenches the faulty paradigm that supports the AMOG rather than switching the crucial actors to the accurate paradigm that supports Free Market Civilization.

[srqrebel]

By the way, here is a post I came across, that was made in response to the Digg article about the Montana governor standing up to DHS on the issue of Real ID:

It felt so very good and right when I voted for this man to be our governor. I have written to him about this issue and he always promptly writes back. Thus far, my name and address is handwritten on the envelope when I hear from him. When he ran as our governor and won, he ran as a Democrat with a Republican Lt Gov. It was the first time in my life I voted for a Democrat and a Republican with just one check. It felt like a privilege. It will also feel like a privilege when I vote for Ron Paul for President. Please contact Gov Schweitzer and thank him for representing we the people.
Governor Brian D. Schweitzer
Office of the Governor
Montana State Capitol Bldg.
P.O. Box 200801
Helena MT 59620-0801
(406) 444-3111, FAX (406) 444-5529

J'raxis, do you really think you will be able to show individuals such as this one, that the entire Authoritarian Model of Government is THE problem, at least anytime soon?  Perhaps once he becomes disillusioned with his beloved governor, or once the system replaces his idol with a typical evil politician; but he is definitely not going to be receptive to this message anytime soon, because he just caught a tasty nibble of the carrot of the AMOG, and now he is firmly fixated on getting hold of that carrot again, and the AMOG just won a supporter that should have been eligible for the paradigm shift.  Not anymore.  The life of the AMOG has just been prolonged by one more increment.

If he had not got this nibble, it might be possible to get the message through to him that the AMOG itself is the source of the things that make him uncomfortable.  As it is, he is now firmly convinced that his salvation rests in the very thing that causes his problems in the first place.

Bummer, huh?

I do not want to be guilty of assisting people in getting more of these addictive nibbles that prolong their blindness.  I want to help them wake up all the way by shifting their entire paradigm, so they will see the AMOG for what it really is, and start building and supporting the only solution to this mess: The Free Market.