What he said.
Amen Brother! You said it a lot better than I did. I had forgotten a lot of the things you mentioned.
Ronald Reagan, the Greatest President Of My Lifetime
There was a lot of violence in America in the 1920s. It did not seem to work well as a sales tool for prohibition.Prohibition as a concept is sound. It sometimes requires a LOT of violence to get the message through to some people though. Prohibition works if you only apply enough violence.
In America the sentiment is becoming: if it will reduce violence from the distribution network let the dopers have their dope.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
I look with interest at the situation in Mexico. The Drug gangs are becoming so bold as to challenge the government. As George Will observes, the First mandate of government is to create and maintain a monopoly on the use of Violence. At some point the Mexican government will have to wipe these people out, or the Mexican government will cease to exist.MSimon wrote:There was a lot of violence in America in the 1920s. It did not seem to work well as a sales tool for prohibition.Prohibition as a concept is sound. It sometimes requires a LOT of violence to get the message through to some people though. Prohibition works if you only apply enough violence.
In America the sentiment is becoming: if it will reduce violence from the distribution network let the dopers have their dope.
I say that a nation which is to survive, will at some point do whatever it takes to survive, and they won't pay much attention to their laws when it gets that bad. In Columbia, the police started using covert hit squads to assassinate troublesome drug lords. That strategy worked, and taught the drug lords a healthy respect for the police. I should not be surprised if the Mexican Federalies do something similar in the future.
I don't think the idea is to totally toss people to the wolves.
Ending prohibition did not mean no regulation of liquor sales. There are still laws. Booze must comply with some health requirements (no lead, for example). No sales to minors, no sales to the intoxicated. Public drunkenness gets you a night in jail. Drunk driving is a crime. We have programs to get people with alcohol problems some help. And it is taxed heavily.
Moonshining is still a tradition in certain parts of the country, but it is no longer the booming business it was, and it does not attract major crime like drugs do. That has more to do with a long-standing tax rebellion with roots going back to the taxation of whiskey by the English in Scotland.
I would expect whatever drugs were decriminalized to be treated the same way. Possession might be decriminalized, but I expect we would still encourage people to get off them or at least use in moderation. I expect people who let them ruin their bodies and minds would lose their jobs just as alcoholics do. I'm not suggesting this is a good thing, but it happens anyway and with violent crime as a byproduct.
Diogenes, yeah, you have two options as I see it. Three if you count letting the drug lords win. Either take away the profit by legalizing it (essentially the government establishes the monopoly on the substance in question) or re-establish that monopoly on violence. To do the second route you really need to be committed to doing it without reservation, something Saddam might have done but we've never really had the stomach for.
That third option, letting the drug lords have their way, gives you southern Afghanistan. We'll see how things go with another thirty thousand or so heavily armed troops, unfettered by posse comitatis. My guess is they can beat the Taliban well enough for the Afghan government to take over (in about two years, not one), and mop up what is left of Al Qaeda well enough to take the search elsewhere, but the opium business will still be there.
Ending prohibition did not mean no regulation of liquor sales. There are still laws. Booze must comply with some health requirements (no lead, for example). No sales to minors, no sales to the intoxicated. Public drunkenness gets you a night in jail. Drunk driving is a crime. We have programs to get people with alcohol problems some help. And it is taxed heavily.
Moonshining is still a tradition in certain parts of the country, but it is no longer the booming business it was, and it does not attract major crime like drugs do. That has more to do with a long-standing tax rebellion with roots going back to the taxation of whiskey by the English in Scotland.
I would expect whatever drugs were decriminalized to be treated the same way. Possession might be decriminalized, but I expect we would still encourage people to get off them or at least use in moderation. I expect people who let them ruin their bodies and minds would lose their jobs just as alcoholics do. I'm not suggesting this is a good thing, but it happens anyway and with violent crime as a byproduct.
Diogenes, yeah, you have two options as I see it. Three if you count letting the drug lords win. Either take away the profit by legalizing it (essentially the government establishes the monopoly on the substance in question) or re-establish that monopoly on violence. To do the second route you really need to be committed to doing it without reservation, something Saddam might have done but we've never really had the stomach for.
That third option, letting the drug lords have their way, gives you southern Afghanistan. We'll see how things go with another thirty thousand or so heavily armed troops, unfettered by posse comitatis. My guess is they can beat the Taliban well enough for the Afghan government to take over (in about two years, not one), and mop up what is left of Al Qaeda well enough to take the search elsewhere, but the opium business will still be there.
The war in Mexico is due to one primary thing: The Zeta Gang are really an entire military brigade that was Mexico's version of the Delta Force. They mutinied and turned on the government, hiring out to drug cartels, when they found they were being told to fight drug cartels that were paying their own bosses in the mexican government to betray their operational information. So the Zeta's are fighting to take down a corrupt mexican government, but everybody and everything is corrupt down there. It's not about drugs.Diogenes wrote:I look with interest at the situation in Mexico. The Drug gangs are becoming so bold as to challenge the government. As George Will observes, the First mandate of government is to create and maintain a monopoly on the use of Violence. At some point the Mexican government will have to wipe these people out, or the Mexican government will cease to exist.MSimon wrote:There was a lot of violence in America in the 1920s. It did not seem to work well as a sales tool for prohibition.Prohibition as a concept is sound. It sometimes requires a LOT of violence to get the message through to some people though. Prohibition works if you only apply enough violence.
In America the sentiment is becoming: if it will reduce violence from the distribution network let the dopers have their dope.
I say that a nation which is to survive, will at some point do whatever it takes to survive, and they won't pay much attention to their laws when it gets that bad. In Columbia, the police started using covert hit squads to assassinate troublesome drug lords. That strategy worked, and taught the drug lords a healthy respect for the police. I should not be surprised if the Mexican Federalies do something similar in the future.
Did you know that Afghanistan was well developed and westernized in the 1950's and 60's? Afghanistan of today is due to two things: a) the soviet invasion destroyed everything built there in the previous two centuries and killed or drove into exile all the people and families with the capability of maintaining civilization there, and b) Saudi funded islamization with wahhabist run madrassas created the taliban, pushing misogynistic racist primitive bullcrap as if it is part of the quran on a bunch of illiterates who aren't educated enough to know any better, because the soviets had destroyed all their schools decades previously.Tom Ligon wrote:I don't think the idea is to totally toss people to the wolves.
Ending prohibition did not mean no regulation of liquor sales. There are still laws. Booze must comply with some health requirements (no lead, for example). No sales to minors, no sales to the intoxicated. Public drunkenness gets you a night in jail. Drunk driving is a crime. We have programs to get people with alcohol problems some help. And it is taxed heavily.
Moonshining is still a tradition in certain parts of the country, but it is no longer the booming business it was, and it does not attract major crime like drugs do. That has more to do with a long-standing tax rebellion with roots going back to the taxation of whiskey by the English in Scotland.
I would expect whatever drugs were decriminalized to be treated the same way. Possession might be decriminalized, but I expect we would still encourage people to get off them or at least use in moderation. I expect people who let them ruin their bodies and minds would lose their jobs just as alcoholics do. I'm not suggesting this is a good thing, but it happens anyway and with violent crime as a byproduct.
Diogenes, yeah, you have two options as I see it. Three if you count letting the drug lords win. Either take away the profit by legalizing it (essentially the government establishes the monopoly on the substance in question) or re-establish that monopoly on violence. To do the second route you really need to be committed to doing it without reservation, something Saddam might have done but we've never really had the stomach for.
That third option, letting the drug lords have their way, gives you southern Afghanistan. We'll see how things go with another thirty thousand or so heavily armed troops, unfettered by posse comitatis. My guess is they can beat the Taliban well enough for the Afghan government to take over (in about two years, not one), and mop up what is left of Al Qaeda well enough to take the search elsewhere, but the opium business will still be there.
A fourth option would be to creat genetically modified diseases that can destroy marijuana, coca and poppy crops while leaving all food crops unharmed. Just for fun create a modified disease that wipes out tobacco as well. Apparently the poppy crop is getting hit in Afghanistan, possibly to the detriment of the Taliban, hum, I wonder?
CHoff
Afghanistan has never, in its whole history, been a unified and westernized nation.
Yes, small pockets of it have been relatively civilized in the past. It has had periods in which large portions of it were more or less under a unified, typically royal, leadership. But the influence typically spread only in thin threads, following trade routes that provided most of the country's wealth. Anything off those routes was largely autonomous, with very little interaction with the outside world.
Modern Afghanistan, like most other troublesome areas of the world, is largely a product of British mapmakers drawing lines and applying names to regions the British held or influenced. If you go into the villages, you find populations who feel anyone from more than a day's walk distance is a foriegner, not to be trusted. This is unchanged for thousands of years.
Village elders typically want to keep it that way. There is, however, a growing feeling in much of the population that they do now have an opportunity to build a real nation.
Yes, small pockets of it have been relatively civilized in the past. It has had periods in which large portions of it were more or less under a unified, typically royal, leadership. But the influence typically spread only in thin threads, following trade routes that provided most of the country's wealth. Anything off those routes was largely autonomous, with very little interaction with the outside world.
Modern Afghanistan, like most other troublesome areas of the world, is largely a product of British mapmakers drawing lines and applying names to regions the British held or influenced. If you go into the villages, you find populations who feel anyone from more than a day's walk distance is a foriegner, not to be trusted. This is unchanged for thousands of years.
Village elders typically want to keep it that way. There is, however, a growing feeling in much of the population that they do now have an opportunity to build a real nation.
The wipe them out strategy was tried in the 20s. It didn't work.The Drug gangs are becoming so bold as to challenge the government. As George Will observes, the First mandate of government is to create and maintain a monopoly on the use of Violence. At some point the Mexican government will have to wipe these people out, or the Mexican government will cease to exist.
Here I think a little economics lesson is in order:
1. Disrupt supply networks
2. Prices go up
3. Attracting new entrants to the field.
4. Who fight it out to establish market dominance
America is not prepared to off 1 million (current) dealers and their 30 million customers. Here is what happens in America where probable cause is still required for an arrest:
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/200 ... nkies.html
We ended the alcohol prohibition violence by making manufacture and sales legal. Putting Al Capone out of business didn't work. Some one took his place.
Conservatives are always on about the lessons of history. Except when the history lesson is inconvenient.
And note: I didn't even mention cop corruption. Or do you really think the smugglers are smarter than the border patrol?
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
OK. Fine. Suppose you get that to work and the gangs hire their own genetics experts and get some yeast to exude cocaine? Or opium? Sugar, water, flour, yeast. Instant opium.choff wrote:A fourth option would be to creat genetically modified diseases that can destroy marijuana, coca and poppy crops while leaving all food crops unharmed. Just for fun create a modified disease that wipes out tobacco as well. Apparently the poppy crop is getting hit in Afghanistan, possibly to the detriment of the Taliban, hum, I wonder?
Or suppose legal drugs with similar effects are diverted from legal channels:
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/200 ... s-war.html
BTW a coca virus was tried a while back in South America. It seems that it was not coca specific. Well who cares? It was just a bunch of peasants who went hungry.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
MSimon wrote:The wipe them out strategy was tried in the 20s. It didn't work.The Drug gangs are becoming so bold as to challenge the government. As George Will observes, the First mandate of government is to create and maintain a monopoly on the use of Violence. At some point the Mexican government will have to wipe these people out, or the Mexican government will cease to exist.
Here I think a little economics lesson is in order:
1. Disrupt supply networks
2. Prices go up
3. Attracting new entrants to the field.
4. Who fight it out to establish market dominance
America is not prepared to off 1 million (current) dealers and their 30 million customers. Here is what happens in America where probable cause is still required for an arrest:
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/200 ... nkies.html
We ended the alcohol prohibition violence by making manufacture and sales legal. Putting Al Capone out of business didn't work. Some one took his place.
Conservatives are always on about the lessons of history. Except when the history lesson is inconvenient.
And note: I didn't even mention cop corruption. Or do you really think the smugglers are smarter than the border patrol?
There you go again. You won't believe the worst damage wasn't ever in the supply chain, but it always was, and still is in the end use nodes...
http://www.marininstitute.org/alcohol_p ... olence.htm
Your focus on the supply chain puts your views in the same realm as those that favored supply chain restriction. Do you see?
Tom Ligon wrote:I don't think the idea is to totally toss people to the wolves.
Ending prohibition did not mean no regulation of liquor sales. There are still laws. Booze must comply with some health requirements (no lead, for example). No sales to minors, no sales to the intoxicated. Public drunkenness gets you a night in jail. Drunk driving is a crime. We have programs to get people with alcohol problems some help. And it is taxed heavily.
Moonshining is still a tradition in certain parts of the country, but it is no longer the booming business it was, and it does not attract major crime like drugs do. That has more to do with a long-standing tax rebellion with roots going back to the taxation of whiskey by the English in Scotland.
I would expect whatever drugs were decriminalized to be treated the same way. Possession might be decriminalized, but I expect we would still encourage people to get off them or at least use in moderation. I expect people who let them ruin their bodies and minds would lose their jobs just as alcoholics do. I'm not suggesting this is a good thing, but it happens anyway and with violent crime as a byproduct.
That is an interesting point. Are the deaths caused by fighting it, more or less than the deaths caused by tolerating it? Let us examine Alcohol for the most closely representative data.
According to this article, Alcohol is responsible for 75,000 deaths per year. Now at the peak of the violence during Alcohol Prohibition, how many people were being killed?
Well, the St. Valentines day massacre was considered one of the worst cases, and that was 7 men. The actual number doesn't seem to yield itself to a quick search, but let's say it was 1000.
The difference between 1000 and 75000 is enormous! Hard to justify going with the 75000, but this issue wasn't about what was sensible or best for the country anyway.
How about we look at some modern drug war stats? According to this article, the drug war has killed 5,376 people in Mexico for the year 2008.
According to THIS article, drug overdose deaths were 24,000 in 2006
The stuff is illegal, yet we have 5000 deaths in Mexico from their piss-ant way of fighting the drug war, but we have 24,000 deaths in the US from drug overdose. I know these numbers are not really the best of data to figure out the truth, but they are certainly indicative of what the truth is. It looks like we have far more deaths from people using drugs, then deaths from people fighting the drug war. (Those are just the numbers I found during a quicky search.)
There is a fourth option, and I see it as the most likely of possibilities. Wait for the social and economic collapse, then the new government can fix the problem by suddenly rediscovering it's stomach for violence.Tom Ligon wrote: Diogenes, yeah, you have two options as I see it. Three if you count letting the drug lords win. Either take away the profit by legalizing it (essentially the government establishes the monopoly on the substance in question) or re-establish that monopoly on violence. To do the second route you really need to be committed to doing it without reservation, something Saddam might have done but we've never really had the stomach for.
That third option, letting the drug lords have their way, gives you southern Afghanistan. We'll see how things go with another thirty thousand or so heavily armed troops, unfettered by posse comitatis. My guess is they can beat the Taliban well enough for the Afghan government to take over (in about two years, not one), and mop up what is left of Al Qaeda well enough to take the search elsewhere, but the opium business will still be there.
I have suggested this before. One large concern is the possibility that one of these diseases could evolve into something that kills off our food supply. It's a potentially dangerous gambit, but people more knowledgeable about the risks could probably determine if there is a real danger of this happening.choff wrote:A fourth option would be to creat genetically modified diseases that can destroy marijuana, coca and poppy crops while leaving all food crops unharmed. Just for fun create a modified disease that wipes out tobacco as well. Apparently the poppy crop is getting hit in Afghanistan, possibly to the detriment of the Taliban, hum, I wonder?
One possible method to insure just the bad plants get killed is to make the virus or bacteria or fungus, need the offending chemical to reproduce. Might be complicated to engineer, but it might be possible.