"It surely hasn’t made our streets safer. Instead, we have locked up literally millions of people…disproportionately people of color…who have caused little or no harm to others - wasting resources that could be used for counter-terrorism, reducing violent crime, or catching white-collar criminals."Now, by making sure to reference "people of color" (it's apparently worse to lock them up wrongly than it is people of little or no color) and "white-collar criminals", Walt's just flashing his Progressive gang signs; letting you know who he rolls with, so to speak. It doesn't change the underlying truth of his statement, though. You know what the difference is between the referenced "white-collar criminal" and the guy busted for selling a bag of weed? One of them was causing real, provable harm to other human beings without their consent, and it wasn't the one that reeks of patchouli, either.
Books. Bikes. Boomsticks.
“I only regret that I have but one face to palm for my country.”
Monday, March 13, 2006
The Phony War.
Via Atomictumor, I picked up this wonderfully-freighted Walter Cronkite quote on the Wo(S)D. (That's "War on (Some) Drugs", for those not hip with the argot.)
Hear! Hear!
ReplyDeleteThere is too much money in it. Police departments, despite the fact that they are not supposed to do so, routinely budget the money that they will collect in a comming year from seizing property of drug criminals.
ReplyDeleteThey are not going to be happy about giving that up.
And the producers of "some other drugs" - the legal ones - are also going to put fight for fear of losing out.
Prohibition didn't work in the 1920s and it doesn't work today. But the people who think they know what it is best for us have to legislate ever aspect of life.
I don't know about the predominately "people of color" part, but he has a point...
ReplyDeleteWe've been at this for how long?? At least thirty years. They're still out there in as huge quanity as always and some of the unintended consequences are as bad as the original problem...