Saturday, January 10, 2009

Can We Quit Now?

  A good guy.  A decent neighbor.  A family man.  A husband and dad.  A professional at his job.  Smart.  Passionate.  Hard-working.   Dead, and for what?  If the Drug war was going to be won, it would have been won by now.  Remember prohibition?  Chicago BECAME a the snakepit it remains today because of Prohibition making the criminals and unions rich and influential.  The Blago mess is going to topple Obama.  Mark it.  You don't think Blago and Obama can't be linked to criminal influence during prohibition in less degrees than Kevin Bacon?
  We have destroyed the Bill of Rights.  We have built a police state.  (Don't argue- I can't get on a plane with my shoes on, drive down the road without six different pieces of paper, or talk to a LEO without risk.)  We have destroyed every civil government to the south of us.  We have a nation worth of folks in prison.  We have enriched a world of criminals beyond belief.
  And every few weeks at least on guy like Senior Cpl Norman Smith is killed mucking around with idiots on the other side of a cheap door trying to get the undo-able done.  
  And I note: he's lost.  His wife lost him.  His kids lost him.  His job lost him.  The city lost him.  The guys that killed him have to be eaten by the system.  For what?  Drugs are cheaper, more potent and as popular as ever.
  Legalize this stuff, write prescriptions, open treatment centers for anyone who wants it and be done.  I'm personally disgusted by this.  I'm disgusted by politicians who won't stand up.  I'm disgusted by police and civil leaders who won't call it off.  This could be ended this year and the criminals bankrupted.
  No more good guys like Norman Smith killed for nothing.

  Update:  For anyone not convinced yet: a roving plainclothes narcotics unit kills a visitor in New Orleans.  Via Xavier, Tam and Uncle.

16 comments:

d smith kaich jones said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Just curious but are you for legalizing marihuana only or when you say "legalize this stuff" are you including crack cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, and LSD.

Are you advocating legal cooking of methamphetamine? If yes, are you for allowing it to be cooked and manufactured anywhere, like in homes and apartments where children are present?

Just curious.

Robert Langham said...

Don't be "just curious". I'm for ending the drug war in a pervasive and overall manner.
If you mean cooking meth like it's done NOW..around kids in the states or made in Mexico or being able to buy it at a pharmacy, pay tax, get treatment, et, let's go with the pharmacy.
The devil is in the details but legalization makes sense while destroying the US Constitution and Republic, plus all the countries that supply besides enriching an international criminal class is a ridiculous proposition to continue.

Anonymous said...

So Robert, you want cooked methamphetmine sold publicly? Do you propose licensing the cooks? Who is going to cook it? Do you know what ingredients are used to do a clandestine lab? Do you want it available to children or do you propose to make it illegal for minors to possess or consume? Let me hear more.

I would support marihuana, but no way on crack, metrh, heroin, LSD, etc.

Don't refer to this as a war. The police don't fight wars, the military does.

the pistolero said...

The police don't fight wars, the military does.
Yet you hear people talk about the MILITARIZATION of the police every damn day. Not a war? My aching ass it ain't a war.
Robert — A-frackin'-MEN, bubba.

Anonymous said...

No he wants it cooked by an FDA regulated lab where they don't use Drano and lithium batteries.

Anonymous said...

When you point out how naked this emperor is...The Drug war one, there is always a bovine by-product argument about meth labs, heroin, this detail, that detail, not supporting the police, schoolkids suffering, et, et, plop, plop, plop.

I don't care if they are cooking meth around cute blonde children who talk with a lisp and have a bunny rabbit and a fuzzy puppy for pets. It's less damage than we are doing every day, now.

The prohibition GETS poor idiots, (like the guy who shot Norman Smith through the door) to think he came make money with drugs. If they were available and cheap, (you don't hear much about bathtub gin these days) that connection wouldn't exist. Legal meth = less meth and nearly ZERO meth labs.

The drug war is past stupidity. It needs to be ended. THIS year. Hell, the PRESIDENTs, Bush and Obama, did coke and smoked pot. They know. So do we all.

Anonymous said...

We've not invaded with the military so it's not a war. If it was a war, we would be taking the fight to the source, and not with law enforcement. Hell man, the police do not have the sophisticated equipment or firearms possessed by the cartels.

Pistolero-Give us some examples of the militarization of local police.

the pistolero said...

Click here. I'm sure you'll say "consider the sources," but that's just going to have to be your problem.

Anonymous said...

Not a "war?" Who called it a war? The citizens...or the police and politicians? Didn't we invade Panama to get rid of Noriega based on his drug dealing? How about the taliban who hardly had a nickel outside their opium poppy business? Not a war? No invasions? Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, all full of US agents and mercenaries.
And modern US LEOs with their communications, courts, prosecutors, jails, computers, SWAT teams, automatic weapons, dogs, et, et et...no match for the cartels who have more and better of all of this?
Plop, plop, plop. More bovine by-product.
But it's all detail arguments- meth labs, kids, Invasions, sematics about "war" against the real question, which is:
How LONG will we insist on continuing a strategy which has failed every way a strategy CAN fail before we decide to do something else?
Norman Smith was shot in the head through a wood-fiber door with a .38 revolver. You don't need to invade Mexico to beat that. You need a different strategy.
Time to wise up.

Anonymous said...

"Norman Smith was shot in the head through a wood-fiber door with a .38 revolver. You don't need to invade Mexico to beat that. You need a different strategy.
Time to wise up."

Cpl. Smith was a member of a gang unit and had received a tip on the location on a wanted felon. Cpl. Smith and other DPD officer were attempting to serve a felony arrest arrest warrant, not a search warrant, for a suspect wanted on an aggravated assault warrant. The warrant had nothing to do with narcotics.

Anonymous said...

Pistolero- Do you not want the police carrying firearms eqivalent if not better than the thugs are?

Most of what I read seemed to decry SWAT teams and their equipment.

SWAT was not around in 1966 when Charles Whitman killed 14 and wounded 32 during a shooting spree at UT in Austin.

The killing spree had nothing to do with drugs. The public was outraged the police were ill equipped to counter Whitman, by way of response, weaponry and communications.

The following year in 1967, LAPD formed the first SWAT team.

Society wlecomed it then and did not see SWAT as militarizing the police.

Anonymous said...

Since addicts have to do illegal things to maintain their habit, what aisle in the grocery store do you think heroin, crack and meth will be stocked? Do you think it will be readily available for shoplifting or will a gun be necessary?

the pistolero said...

Dude, I give up. If you have your head buried that far up your fourth point of contact there's really nothing more I can say.

Anonymous said...

I thought the same about you too! Ain't Amrica great.

Anonymous said...

Are you saying if we legalize drugs, we will not have gangsters?

We won't have shot cops?

That cops serving warrants are the source of the problem?

That society will benefit from cheap leagal speed, heroin and crack? That legal addicts will be sweeter people than they are now?

Gangsters are crooks who will not live withen the rules of society. Mobsters did not go straight after Prohibition was repealed. They found new ways of taking advantage of people.

LEO enforce the laws written by elected officals. Do you think any one will get elected on a legalize it all platform? Sorry no chance in hell.

So is Mr. Obama or Bush suppose leagalize it by decree? That truly democratic.

My heart goes out to the family of the officer.

Gerry