Posted by Harcamone

Ax yourself what might be the response from the liberal community — near and far — if a Moslem-themed poster, operating on the same disrespectful/satirical wavelength, were to appear on walls in Los Angeles advertising an art show.

Check out the Letters section over in the right column. The quality of the letters is very impressive.

Posted by Jason

The war on drugs can be said to have begun all the way back in 1914 with the passage of the Harrison Act and escalating over the decades with the passage of the Marihuana Tax Act in 1937 and the Daniel Act in 1956. However, the creation of the DEA in 1973 really kicked it into high gear and exponentially increased the amount of money being made from the worldwide illegal drug trade.

Drug money funds terrorist activities all over the world. Now that the Taliban has been effectively crushed, the biggest dangers facing the people of Afghanistan and our troops over there are from renegade warlords being funded by the opium trade. There is some evidence that Al-Qaeda is involved in smuggling opium out of Afghanistan through Pakistan and Iran to the West. The ongoing war in Columbia between rebels and government mercenaries is funded on both sides by the cocaine trade.

Our homeland is less secure because of the number of illegal border crossings related to the drug trade. Mexico, in addition to being a major producer of heroin and marijuana, is the main conduit for drugs entering the U.S. from elsewhere. The massive amounts of money being made have rendered most Mexican officials hopelessly corrupt making it next to impossible for any meaningful cooperation between our governments regarding border control.

Illegal drug profits fuel much of the violent gang activity in our cities and increasingly our suburbs. Children are recruited as runners/dealers because when they are caught they do not face the same penalties as adults. The attempt to catch big time drug dealers by offering lesser sentences to those willing to provide information has hideously backfired because the bigger fish simply end up throwing the feds a few small fish.

I believe that the legalization of drugs under the same regulatory and tax practices that govern alcohol and tobacco would offer the following benefits:

1.) The bottom would drop out of the worldwide illegal drug trade drying up the major source of revenue for terrorist and criminal activities in Afghanistan, Columbia, Mexico, Nepal, Peru, etc.

2.) The pressure on America’s borders would be reduced because much of the illegal border traffic consists of drug runners and people recruited to cultivate and guard marijuana fields in the U.S.

3.) Domestic gang related crime and violence should drop substantially since much of it is fueled by the profits to be made dealing illegal drugs. Removing the profit removes the incentive to commit crimes.

4.) Children much less likely to become involved with drugs and gangs because the incentive for recruiting juveniles is gone once illegality and profit motive removed.

I left off the obvious financial boon from the diversion of funds currently being used for interception of some tiny fraction of the illegal drug trade and the imprisonment of nonviolent drug offenders here in the U.S. In addition, the tax revenues would be enormous, certainly comparable to those from nicotine and alcohol. Maybe some of these monies could go towards fighting terrorism and improving homeland security. Or tax cuts for the wealthy, whatever.

In the interests of balance, I have to admit there could be a negative side to full drug legalization. It is likely that there would be a rise in drug use because the law does stop many people from experimenting. However, just because something is legal does not make it acceptable. Someone who is constantly drunk or seldom bathes is unlikely to hold a job or have any friends for long. It is important to realize that laws are not the only answer to societal problems and in fact can erode and impede people’s natural social impulses to belong and gain the satisfaction of family, friends, and personal responsibility. The United States of America survived and thrived for well over a hundred years before we decided that the role of the federal government was to protect us from ourselves. Perhaps, in this time of crisis when the most urgent goal of the federal government is defeating international terrorism and this goal directly conflicts with the war on drugs, we could give the nanny state a rest for a while. What say you fellow citizens?

Arnold was my first Republican vote and I’m voting for Bush.

You think you have it bad:

I’m gay and I live in the Castro in San Francisco! I know no one, not a single soul, who will vote for Bush, and from the response I got in 2002, when I first began to say out loud things like, “You know, I’ve been wondering…maybe Bush isn’t Satan incarnate”, I am keeping my mouth shut.

Ironically, back in the closet, right on Castro street!

[name withheld by request]

Posted by Harcamone

Artifical intelligence is so cool.

Today, on amazon.com, I looked up The Cross and the Swichblade, a now-famous book about one man’s evangelical ministry to youth gangs in New York City circa 1958, and the conversion and redemption of a seriously bad and dangerous young gangster named Nicky Cruz. I am sort of interested in this because I have a niece who belongs to Victory Outreach, a hardcore street ministry that Nicky Cruz founded.

 I scrolled down the page and found …

Customers interested in Cross and the Switchblade may also be interested in:
 •     Discount Pro-Tech Knives
 Runt Auto w/ Spring Action in Stock Only $98.00 (You Save $42.00)

*the Turing Test

It feels a little weird to have joined the ranks of the “conservative” blogosphere. I’ve been a yellow dog democrat all my life, as was my father before me, and as my mother is, and at least one of my brothers, and virtually all of my friends and acquaintances. I never voted for a Republican in my life until Arnold Schwarzenegger. And now I’m fixing to vote for another one. Some of my friends don’t even yet know about my dark secret. I don’t bring it up that I’m a Bush supporter, because it upsets people and makes them have to re-evaluate their whole relationship with me.

So I don’t mention it unless asked directly, which rarely happens because everyone just assumes that all nice, intelligent people despise George Bush. I don’t really know any conservatives personally except for one friend in San Diego, so I don’t know if they have the same kind of insular, cocoon-like tendencies, but I suspect not. I know I don’t feel that way. It doesn’t upset me if someone likes John Kerry and hates George Bush. It doesn’t make me wonder if I can be their friend anymore. Of course, if it did, I wouldn’t have any friends anymore.

One of the reasons I think the polls are skewed towards Kerry is that I think there are a lot of closet Bush supporters out there who don’t want to reveal their preference for fear of how it will affect their relationships, not to mention fears of violence and vandalism.

I notice that I just got a link from infidelcowboy.com. I don’t know anything about his site, but I love the name. Wish I had it. When we moved to Nashville from San Francisco in March, I bought a cowboy hat in Texas on the way, thinking that I could wear it in Tennessee without being conspicuous. I was disappointed to discover that nobody wears them here except wannabe country singers. So I only wear it in the house. When I saw the link I immediately slapped it on my head. Whoopee ty yi yo!

A kind reader, John Van Laer, wants to know why he shouldn’t think that I’m an idiot. He says:

Fun to read, but you sell yourself short.
Evidently, no matter which issue concerns
the public, you don’t give a rat’s ass.
Your important concerns are purely personal.

Just asking.

Thanks for asking, John. I may be an idiot, but the “issues” that I don’t give a rat’s ass about, when they’re not totally bogus, are just not a threat to western civilization, whereas the assault by the jihadists is. I personally am in favor of western civilization (Thank you, Athenians!), so I’m a one issue guy.

The jihadists are not a military threat, even if they do get their hands on a nuke. If we want to win this war, we will. But they have shown a talent for preying on the psychological weakness of comfortable, content, free people. My concern is that we have become as soft and complacent and out of touch with reality as Osama Bin Laden has said we are (although he hasn’t said anything for a few years now). I see evidence of that in the corruption and anti-Americanism of old Europe, and in the hysterical Bush-hatred and blame America first sickness of much of the Democratic Party. I see evidence of it in the contention that because brave American soldiers and Iraqis have died and are dying, and innocent civilians are being beheaded on videotape, this necessarily means that we are in the wrong war, at the wrong time, in the wrong place, or that the war is being terribly “mismanaged”, that Iraq is a “mess”.

I don’t really know how competently the war is being managed. I don’t think Andrew Sullivan knows either. But the fact that there are elements in Iraq, and elements that have come into Iraq, who don’t want elections to happen, is not at all shocking to me. The proof is in the pudding. Will the “insurgents” in Fallujah be defeated as they were in Najaf and Samarra and other places? Will valid elections be held, as they have been in Afghanistan? Will a democratic government be elected? Will the Iraqi military and police forces gradually assume responsibility for security? It all remains to be seen, and I think we should remain to see it.

Thanks for the Instalanche! And thanks too to Citizen Smash. It’s very exciting to be suddenly thrust in front of thousands of people. Now what do I do? I need material!

I have predicted all along that this election will be a landslide for Bush, and I still believe that. I think the polls are way off about its being too close to call. I bet Kerry and Bush’s internal polls show something very different. Here’s an interesting analysis of the polls from Steven Den Beste Hat tip: Instapundit.