Tuesday, June 22, 2010
McChrystal's Judgment
So let me get this straight--McChrystal's command dis-embeds Michael Yon and replaces him with a reporter from Rolling Stone Magazine? What could possibly go wrong?
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Labels: McChrystal, Michael Yon, military
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Competence--Yeah, That's The Ticket
(0) commentsWednesday, June 16, 2010
Shameful!
That's the only word I have in reaction to this story.
The President took an oath:
By effectively ceding territory to the Mexican drug lords, I submit that Mr. Obama has violated both clauses of that oath.
Whether Obama affirmatively ordered this or merely allowed it, he is hereby awarded the FI award with white feather.
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The President took an oath:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
By effectively ceding territory to the Mexican drug lords, I submit that Mr. Obama has violated both clauses of that oath.
Whether Obama affirmatively ordered this or merely allowed it, he is hereby awarded the FI award with white feather.
Labels: Arizona, Border Enforcement, Drug Problem, Illegal Aliens, Obama
A Modest Proposal To Deal With Our Drug Problem
I have heard countless times over the years that the violence in Mexico committed by drug gangs and the unceasing flow of drugs across the US/Mexico border is due entirely to the US's inability (Or is it unwillingness?. Ed) to control its domestic demand for illegal drugs such as cocaine in its various forms, heroin and of course, marijuana. Now I see a suggestion by Sen. Hatch (R-UT) that welfare recipients be subjected to drug tests as a condition for receiving benefits. That's not a bad idea, but I don't' think it'll work. I would propose something a bit more drastic, which would be costly in the short run but probably save lots of money in the long run.
First, decriminalize marijuana. It is so prevalent and so easy to grow domestically that I believe it's a fool's errand to try to eradicate its use. Maybe even legalize it, with heavy regulation requiring commercial growers to register with the government, imposing heavy penalties for delivering the weed to minors, and taxing the crap out of it, with equally heavy penalties for failure to register as a grower and for evading the tax.
As to harder drugs, anyone (any adult, that is) who tests positive for heroin, cocaine or any other illegal drug would be institutionalized at once, be given a clean and safe place to sleep, wholesome food in appropriate quantities, and as much of his/her drug of choice (except marijuana) as desired, but with no medical care provided unless, until and so long as the user is enrolled in and actively participating in a detox/rehab program. If the user OD's, well, too bad, but it would be his choice. It makes no sense to me to provide medical care to someone who is killing himself anyway, because it would be a waste of (increasingly) scarce resources, which would be better applied to saving people who are trying to achieve some level of success in bettering themselves and society in general. I figure what the heck, druggies are committing slow suicide anyway and at some point they either have to bring themselves back from the precipice or go over it. All this program would do is to make the choice more immediate and much starker.
The detox/rehab program (which I don't believe would be 100% effective) would be carefully designed using methods that have been empirically proven to give the best results. Upon completion of the rehab program the user would be free to go, but would be monitored periodically for some length of time to ensure against backsliding. Backsliders would go through the whole program again, until either they remained clean or died of an overdose. This whole process would be administered outside of the criminal justice system, and as such would presumably not carry the same stigma as a criminal conviction.
The idea, of course, is to provide the user the choice (rhetorically speaking) between heaven and hell, but it is entirely the user's choice which way to go. The drugs provided to the inmates would come from quantities confiscated by law enforcement and other agencies, and would be purified to ensure they contained no toxic substances other than the drug itself, and diluted to typical street concentration to prevent unintended OD.
I believe this plan would over time drastically reduce the demand for illegal drugs in the US, by either weaning users off their drugs or by letting them die off. Of course, current efforts to interdict drug importation would continue, as would prosecutions of dealers.
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First, decriminalize marijuana. It is so prevalent and so easy to grow domestically that I believe it's a fool's errand to try to eradicate its use. Maybe even legalize it, with heavy regulation requiring commercial growers to register with the government, imposing heavy penalties for delivering the weed to minors, and taxing the crap out of it, with equally heavy penalties for failure to register as a grower and for evading the tax.
As to harder drugs, anyone (any adult, that is) who tests positive for heroin, cocaine or any other illegal drug would be institutionalized at once, be given a clean and safe place to sleep, wholesome food in appropriate quantities, and as much of his/her drug of choice (except marijuana) as desired, but with no medical care provided unless, until and so long as the user is enrolled in and actively participating in a detox/rehab program. If the user OD's, well, too bad, but it would be his choice. It makes no sense to me to provide medical care to someone who is killing himself anyway, because it would be a waste of (increasingly) scarce resources, which would be better applied to saving people who are trying to achieve some level of success in bettering themselves and society in general. I figure what the heck, druggies are committing slow suicide anyway and at some point they either have to bring themselves back from the precipice or go over it. All this program would do is to make the choice more immediate and much starker.
The detox/rehab program (which I don't believe would be 100% effective) would be carefully designed using methods that have been empirically proven to give the best results. Upon completion of the rehab program the user would be free to go, but would be monitored periodically for some length of time to ensure against backsliding. Backsliders would go through the whole program again, until either they remained clean or died of an overdose. This whole process would be administered outside of the criminal justice system, and as such would presumably not carry the same stigma as a criminal conviction.
The idea, of course, is to provide the user the choice (rhetorically speaking) between heaven and hell, but it is entirely the user's choice which way to go. The drugs provided to the inmates would come from quantities confiscated by law enforcement and other agencies, and would be purified to ensure they contained no toxic substances other than the drug itself, and diluted to typical street concentration to prevent unintended OD.
I believe this plan would over time drastically reduce the demand for illegal drugs in the US, by either weaning users off their drugs or by letting them die off. Of course, current efforts to interdict drug importation would continue, as would prosecutions of dealers.
Labels: Drug Problem, Health Care, Mexico, violence
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Quo Vadis, Obama? Revisited Again
Last January I wrote:
Six months further along in the Obama administration, I have taken note of Mr. Obama's handling (or perhaps more accurately, mishandling) of the BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as recent news that Gen. McChrystal is concerned that Afghans are not willing to side with the Karzai government or NATO against the Taliban (scroll to the bottom), yet more insults and indignities directed against long-time allies of the United States, the apparent resignation to the fact that Iran will soon have nuclear weapons and only a little later the capacity to deliver them against Israel, the utter ineffectiveness of the various stimulus programs to improve the employment figures, the unprecedented runup of the national debt, along with requests for even more and the Administration's continuing tendency to use every crisis (some of which, like the BP situation, are allowed to grow to major proportions if not actively created) to push its political agenda notwithstanding unanimity in the opinion polls that a clear majority of Americans want none of it, to name a few things. After considering all this, I am once more driven to reconsider where I think Mr. Obama is going.
At this point I am convinced that Mr. Obama's goal is to ruin the economy of the United States, strip the Nation of an effective military and create a state of economic and social chaos resembling that of the Weimar Republic circa 1930. Mr. Obama has been labeled "brilliant" by friend and foe alike. Why would such a brilliant person do the things that he has been doing unless by design? To what end only he knows, but I don't think the United States will be the better for it.
I pretty much agree with Dorothy Rabinowitz' conclusions in her recent opinion piece, "The Alien In The White House." To put it bluntly, I care not a whit whether Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii, Kenya or on the moon, as a matter of fact he has been elected President and nobody saw fit to challenge his Constitutional qualifications before his election. At this point the issue is moot. Nonetheless, as Ms. Rabinowitz points out and as I have believed for some time, Obama is not an American in the cultural sense. He has no bond with this country and doesn't really care what happens to it so long as he flourishes. As a result I have come to agree with those who say that, for the first time in the Nation's history, our children and grandchildren will not live as well, or as safely, as we. I would go so far as to suggest that Mr. Obama might well be the first (and I hope last) anti-American president.
The upcoming midterm elections will be seminally important because they represent the first opportunity to delay if not derail the harmful programs Obama and his allies in Congress have foisted upon the American people. Unfortunately we will have to wait until 2012 to oust Mr. Obama from the White House, and I hope with all my heart we will not have reached the precipice by then.
I love my country and I fear for its future. I am in my mid-60s. I am a "military brat" and was living in Germany during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Our gallows humor at the time went something along the lines of, "We'll be fine, and it'll be a great sky show to watch the ICBMs cross paths over our heads." I have witnessed the civil rights battles of the 1960s, the Vietnam era, Watergate, the Carter years (ah, the good ol' days) and everything since then. I'll tell you true:
this is the first time in my life that I have ever felt like the wheels are in danger of falling off.
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I now believe that it is more likely than not that President Obama's economic policies are the manifestation of a conscious plan to cause economic chaos in the United States to the end that the people will accede to, if not clamor for, a huge increase in the size and power of the federal government in order to restore order and relative prosperity.
Six months further along in the Obama administration, I have taken note of Mr. Obama's handling (or perhaps more accurately, mishandling) of the BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as recent news that Gen. McChrystal is concerned that Afghans are not willing to side with the Karzai government or NATO against the Taliban (scroll to the bottom), yet more insults and indignities directed against long-time allies of the United States, the apparent resignation to the fact that Iran will soon have nuclear weapons and only a little later the capacity to deliver them against Israel, the utter ineffectiveness of the various stimulus programs to improve the employment figures, the unprecedented runup of the national debt, along with requests for even more and the Administration's continuing tendency to use every crisis (some of which, like the BP situation, are allowed to grow to major proportions if not actively created) to push its political agenda notwithstanding unanimity in the opinion polls that a clear majority of Americans want none of it, to name a few things. After considering all this, I am once more driven to reconsider where I think Mr. Obama is going.
At this point I am convinced that Mr. Obama's goal is to ruin the economy of the United States, strip the Nation of an effective military and create a state of economic and social chaos resembling that of the Weimar Republic circa 1930. Mr. Obama has been labeled "brilliant" by friend and foe alike. Why would such a brilliant person do the things that he has been doing unless by design? To what end only he knows, but I don't think the United States will be the better for it.
I pretty much agree with Dorothy Rabinowitz' conclusions in her recent opinion piece, "The Alien In The White House." To put it bluntly, I care not a whit whether Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii, Kenya or on the moon, as a matter of fact he has been elected President and nobody saw fit to challenge his Constitutional qualifications before his election. At this point the issue is moot. Nonetheless, as Ms. Rabinowitz points out and as I have believed for some time, Obama is not an American in the cultural sense. He has no bond with this country and doesn't really care what happens to it so long as he flourishes. As a result I have come to agree with those who say that, for the first time in the Nation's history, our children and grandchildren will not live as well, or as safely, as we. I would go so far as to suggest that Mr. Obama might well be the first (and I hope last) anti-American president.
The upcoming midterm elections will be seminally important because they represent the first opportunity to delay if not derail the harmful programs Obama and his allies in Congress have foisted upon the American people. Unfortunately we will have to wait until 2012 to oust Mr. Obama from the White House, and I hope with all my heart we will not have reached the precipice by then.
I love my country and I fear for its future. I am in my mid-60s. I am a "military brat" and was living in Germany during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Our gallows humor at the time went something along the lines of, "We'll be fine, and it'll be a great sky show to watch the ICBMs cross paths over our heads." I have witnessed the civil rights battles of the 1960s, the Vietnam era, Watergate, the Carter years (ah, the good ol' days) and everything since then. I'll tell you true:
this is the first time in my life that I have ever felt like the wheels are in danger of falling off.
Labels: Congress, diplomacy, Economy, Gulf oil spill, Obama, politics, Stimulus
