Let those dopers be

Former Seattle police chief comes out against the Drug War.

Excerpt:

As a cop, I bore witness to the multiple lunacies of the "war on drugs." Lasting far longer than any other of our national conflicts, the drug war has been prosecuted with equal vigor by Republican and Democratic administrations,with one president after another — Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush — delivering sanctimonious sermons, squandering vast sums of taxpayer money and cheerleading law enforcers from the safety of the sidelines.

It's not a stretch to conclude that our draconian approach to drug use is the most injurious domestic policy since slavery. Want to cut back on prison overcrowding and save a bundle on the construction of new facilities? Open the doors, let the nonviolent drug offenders go. The huge increases in federal and state prison populations during the 1980s and '90s (from 139 per 100,000 residents in 1980 to 482 per 100,000 in 2003) were mainly for drug convictions. In 1980, 580,900 Americans were arrested on drug charges. By 2003, that figure had ballooned to 1,678,200. We're making more arrests for drug offenses than for murder, manslaughter, forcible rape and aggravated assault combined. Feel safer?

Read the whole article here.
[Hat tip - The Agitator]

Quotes of the day - Dave Barry

First problem libertarians face: "I guess nobody assumes anybody is a libertarian. It's a more complex political discussion than most people are used to, to explain why you think the way you do about public education or drug laws, and why it's not as simple as being for or against something. - Dave Barry

Hmmm, maybe that's why the presidential debates should include more than 2 parties, especially when both of them believe more government is the answer to EVERYTHING. Democracy my ass, open up the debates and let the real competition of ideas flow.

On purview of government: "For [politicians], the question is always, 'What kind of government intervention should we impose on the world?' They never think that maybe we shouldn't." -- Dave Barry, Reason, December 1994

On tax cuts: "Most of the presidential candidates' economic packages involve 'tax breaks,' which is when the government, amid great fanfare, generously decides not to take quite so much of your income. In other words, these candidates are trying to buy your votes with your own money." -- Column, February 9, 1992

On the growth of government: "Whatever the needs of the public are, the government responds to those needs by getting larger." -- Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway (Random House, 2001)

On the tax code: "Why can't Americans do their own taxes? Because the federal Tax Code is out of control, that's why. It's gigantic and insanely complex, and it gets worse all the time. Nobody has ever read the whole thing. IRS workers are afraid to go into the same ROOM with it." -- Column, April 6, 2003

On the War on Drugs: "The way this country deals with drugs is just not funny. What a waste of everyone's time and effort. What a waste of a lot of people's lives." -- Reason, December 1994

NASA wasted millions on routine travel

NASA wasted millions of dollars over a two-year period by shunning commercial airline flights and instead using its own planes for routine travel, according to a government report provided to The Associated Press on Thursday.

The Government Accountability Office found that NASA spent at least five times more by flying employees on its own planes in fiscal 2003 and 2004, compared with the cost of commercial coach tickets. The extra spending totaled about $20 million.

[...]

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who requested the GAO investigation, said she is troubled that "this abuse of the aircraft has been going on for years." Her office provided a copy of the GAO report to the AP on Thursday, a day before its public release.

"It's frustrating that it's taken two (inspector general) audits, a GAO investigation and the threat of a congressional oversight hearing to get an agency to comply with its obligations to the taxpayers," Collins said in a phone interview.

Related links:
Washington Post
AVWeb

Ultimate Brutality, Or Sport?

I came across this article via someone's post on The Ultimate Fighter forums. It seems the cycle of government is to:

1) Identify potential issues that will score political points threats to people's own safety
2) Pass legislation among other elitist politicians that think they know whats best for us that believe safety trumps personal choice and freedoms.
3) Use the hand of government via force law enforcement to crack the proverbial whip
4) Create more government jobs to enforce said behavior as it approaches epidemic status.
5) Opine that more has to be done to protect people when their perfect plan fails to do what its intended.
6) Cry like little bitches with the mantra "but what about the children?" when defenders of freedom point out the counter-productiveness of their actions and the loss of more personal freedoms for some perceived benefit or safety.

The article goes on to say...

A few years ago, Sen. John McCain called it "human cockfighting," waged a personal campaign and nearly wiped it out. But the Ultimate Fighting Championship not only survived, it's more popular than ever. The UFC - a sort of major league for what's known as "mixed martial arts," an amalgam of punching, kicking and grappling - boasts its own stars and even has a popular Spike TV reality series, "The Ultimate Fighter."

[...]

But ultimate fighting still meets resistance.

Peter Carmel, a neurosurgeon and a trustee of the AMA's board of directors, says the fights are "about stopping as close to murder as you can get." Sen. Eileen Daily, chairwoman of the state legislature's public safety committee, wants to ban it.

None of which hampers Dana White's enthusiasm. The UFC president calls mixed martial arts "the most exciting combat sport in the world" and believes it will eclipse boxing.

Good for Dana White for not letting the first calls of opposition rain on his parade. I just hope that he knows what to say to Senator John McCain when that busybody comes back around with his second effort to ban the UFC, for good.

The day that people rise up and say "I will defend your right to say or do whatever the hell you want SO LONG AS you respect the equal rights of others" (don't harm someone else's person or property)...is the day people will take back their country from politicians who profit by playing political chess with our fortune and our lives.