Stupor Tuesday

Tuesday was the day set aside for the apotheosis of Mitt Romney – and, sure enough, the prophesied event seems to have occurred, although you wouldn't know it from the continued flailings of Santorum and Gingrich, who are starting to resemble those movie monsters that continue to growl and fight even after losing multiple limbs. Ron Paul, of course, is in it for the sake of ideas, and being the only man of principle in the race, he's not about to dry up and blow away out of consideration for politics. His strategy of hanging in there with the otherwise execrable Republicans has, in my opinion, been the correct one, since this way his ideas reach many times more people than they would have otherwise – more than if he'd started out running in the Libertarian Party or Constitution Party, for instance. Of course, many people are still expecting him to “cut and run” -- and the Democrats are praying (or whatever they do in place of prayer) that he does... but I don't think that's very likely. The “third parties” have their deals, their mini-empires, their rice bowls... and they are already well along in their own nomination process. Besides, Paul can continue to hang in there after the convention and after the election, and be a welcome thorn in the side of nearly all other Republicans... which, as Martha Stewart would say, is “a good thing”. If any consciences need pricking at this point in our history, it's those of the Republicans. (The Democrats, not having been blessed with consciences, simply need to be sent back to the pre-school cry room where they belong.)

But what made Super – or, as I call it, Stupor – Tuesday special to me was the remarkable conjunction of four front-page articles in the local paper... and if I were ever called upon to give a state-of-the-union address, I would not hesitate to use these as my text:

(1) “Voters back away from Santorum” -- the point being that Republicans have finally bowed to pragmatism over ideology, and have decided that Romney is the only candidate who has any chance of beating Obama in November. Well... I guess it's theoretically possible, I mean... it's theoretically possible that Hillary Clinton will some day become a nun... but what are the chances? As I've said before, the Republicans seem to be in perpetual denial about one key fact – namely that a good half of the voters pay no taxes. Zero, zip, nada. (Referring to income taxes now.) Their entire interaction with the federal government is in the nature of their receiving money that _other_ people have paid in taxes – and since Obama epitomizes this concept of redistributing wealth, and promises even more of the same, what possible reason could there be for tax receivers to vote for anyone else? And on top of that, Obama also has the unions in his pocket... academia... the press... the entertainment industry... trial lawyers... aggrieved minorities of all sorts... in short, pretty much everyone except for white, male, non-Hispanic, Christian, heterosexual taxpayers. Talk about a vanishing demographic! I mean... well, the irony is that this group still runs the country, as they always have, and constitutes the largest single component of the Regime... which is why votes, and elections, don't matter (assuming they ever did). The people with power will stay in power, no matter how tiny a minority they become, even unto invisibility. And that's why they can tolerate Obama – because no matter how much he manages to muck things up in the world of ordinary people, he can't touch them. And, he is easily bought, like almost all politicians. Bought – threatened – blackmailed... it's all the same in the end. Men become president with visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads, only to realize, in short order, that they are nothing but glorified servants. But by then it's too late... so they spend the next 4, or 8, years parading around looking “presidential”, all the time knowing that they are abject and pathetic frauds. But hey, the pay is good, and who doesn't love all that applause? Who doesn't like being able to lay siege to Congress once a year in the State of the Union address, with the poor Supreme Court justices forced to sit there in the front row, silent and stoic as cigar-store Indians? Yeah, it's great work, as long as one is realistic as to one's options (which are few, and trivial).

(2) “Israel asserts right to attack Iran” -- yeah, so what else is new? They've been asserting the right to attack anyone and everyone ever since their country was established. (For that matter, so have we. So I guess we're not all that different.) The subhead was “Jewish state must remain 'master of its fate', Netanyahu tells Obama”. OK, fine – nothing wrong with that. What I resent is that Israel is also the master of _our_ fate – diplomatically, militarily, and ultimately economically, because of the dire impact of the wars they have forced us to fight on their behalf. But the best part of this article was the accompanying photo – a classic! Obama is shown out of focus, and Netanyahu very much in focus, and staring at Obama the way a stern judge would stare at a juvenile delinquent. What one doesn't see is the tight rope attached to Obama's... um... certain delicate organs... with Netanyahu tugging on the other end, just to remind him who's boss. One false move, one stray word suggesting non-support, and Bibi would fall on Obama's throat like a starving timber wolf. Fortunately, our president is well-trained and, after 3+ years in office, knows exactly who is in charge and what his duties are towards them. So all is well. It's a beautiful thing, in a way – like being in prison, or Marine boot camp. No decisions to make, just obey orders. The lines of command are crystal clear; they do not waver with the winds of politics. And in an ironic way, it relieves the American people of all responsibility for our foreign policy – until we recall that we are the ones who voted all of these clowns into office. Then it becomes clear that it all began, as most things do, around the dining-room table. Our politicians are little more than super-sized versions of the demons that each of us holds within us. And they won't change until we do.

(3) “McCain calls for U.S. to strike Syria” -- as if we're underemployed with only Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and a few score other places on our hands. Again, there is a kind of austere beauty in the simplicity of such as Sen. McCain; the answer to any problem is to bomb it out of existence. ( I suppose the answer to childhood obesity would be to bomb McDonald's.) And I suppose it would be idle to ask if Assad's forces had killed more innocents than our drones in Afghanistan. And it all makes me wonder – what if McCain had been elected back in 2008? There's a good chance we would have gotten into World War III with Russia over Georgia, and all be dead now. But this guy is not only still at large, but is still in the Senate, and is allowed to express his opinions pretty much at will. I find this to be a worrisome reflection on the discernment (or lack thereof) of the American voter.

(3a) And not to be outdone, here's Mitch McConnell, who looks like a small-town grocer, urging military force against Iran. And this was done as part of a speech to – guess who! -- AIPAC. No one ever wants to just come out and admit that there is complete unanimity on any issue with implications for Israel – and yet that single fact drives not only our foreign policy, but is the primary factor impinging on our economy, our military, and our domestic security. But since there's universal agreement, I guess that means there's nothing worth talking about.

(4) “Holder defends targeting Americans in terror hunt”. Oh yeah, he's back – the clown prince of the Obama administration. Now, let's work through this idea for a moment. We can “target and kill American citizens overseas in the war on terror”. OK... but what's “terror”? We already know the answer to that question – it's whatever the government says it is. We know, for instance, that a fifth-grader who brings a BB gun to school is officially designated as a “terrorist” -- or at least found to be committing “terroristic acts”. So would it be OK for CIA mercenaries to move in and kill him? Oh, wait – Holder said “overseas”, didn't he? Right – but how long is it going to be before the same logic is applied on the domestic front? And how long before the “right to target...” trickles down to state police, county sheriffs, city police departments, the dogcatcher, etc.? When you define “terrorism” or “terrorist activity” in as broad and general a way as it's been defined by the government, then virtually any activity can be so described, and virtually any citizen can therefore be designated a “terrorist”. Which means that virtually anyone can be killed for terrorist-type activity, either already carried out, or in the process of being carried out, or in the planning stage, or no further along than the local bar when someone has had a few too many. We tend to forget that the government is like a very large dog – try giving it one small doggie treat when you're holding a 100-lb. bag of treats in your other hand. It can't be done. Before you know it, the bag is ripped open, the contents devoured, and you're lucky if you still have all 10 fingers. This has happened with every other government program and “initiative” in our history; what makes us think it won't happen in this case as well?

(5) Bonus article! From page 2: “Legalizing drugs not possible, Biden says” -- this was at a gathering in Mexico City. Here's the real gem: “Biden said that even if drug legalization might have benefits, such as reducing prison populations [not to mention adverse impact on blacks], it would engender health problems [more than the “War on Drugs” does?], expand drug usage [this is not the experience of Portugal, for example] and even create bureaucracies for drug distribution.” Don'tcha just love that last point – as if the “War on Drugs” did not already constitute a massive bureaucracy, not to mention a perennial threat to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Well... I don't know if the Latin American leaders have the cojones for this, but what if they all got together and simply legalized all the drugs we spend so much time obsessing about, and so much money (and lives) trying to fend off? That would, I think, apply pressure where pressure is due – on our #1 Puritanical obsession, which borders on psychosis at times.

So OK – is this not ample fodder for a speech of any length? Could it not be part of a “teaching moment”? Someone needs to get up in front of the American public and – with reference to things like empire-building, subservience to Israel, the War on Terror, and the War on Drugs – scream, “get over it!!” None of these things is necessary... they are all massively destructive, not only to our freedoms and to the economy, but also to our overall quality of life... they are making us no friends but countless enemies... and they make us look like fools on the world stage. Fools, yes – but dangerous ones, because we still carry plenty of big sticks, even as we flail around blindly. We are, perhaps, at the most dangerous stage, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, when it comes to a declining empire – we are, in many ways, trapped by our own delusions, deceived by our own power (or former power), and feeling cornered diplomatically, economically, and militarily. There is no sense in which we are better, or better off, than we were, say, at the end of World War II when we could enjoy victory on all fronts and on many levels. Flawed as we were, we could still claim to be an exemplar and a friend to man. But then the deterioration started – Vietnam, our own cultural revolution, our totally misguided reaction to whatever it was that happened on 9-11... and so on. And yes, it is painful, because we were (at least my generation was) brought up to expect more. We did not yet realize that there is an iron law of history, and of cycles of growth, consolidation, and decay... and that the United States was on the brink of entering a long decay phase. Each new revelation raises the same questions – how did things get to this point? Why wasn't the process stopped, or delayed, or redirected? Why us? Why now? There is no feeling quite so frustrating as that of being trapped in history – of being on a timeline that future generations will look back on and shake their heads, the way we shake our heads about Rome, or the Ottoman Empire, or the British Empire, etc. But it seems as unavoidable as any natural cycle – and this may be the key. Maybe it is just another natural cycle, even though it appears to be something above and beyond nature. Perhaps the United States is, more than anything else, just one very large, old, sick, lumbering organism that has finally staggered to the edge of the tar pits and is wondering whether or not to just wade in and make a blissful end to it all.

Crack in the Facade

Imagine, if you will, a law that blatantly discriminates against black people – that makes something they do fairly frequently subject to the most severe penalties. Impossible, you say? Such a law could clearly never be passed, of if it was passed, clearly never enforced. But you'd be wrong. The case in point is the draconian prohibition against possession of crack cocaine. Now, I'm not here to claim that crack cocaine, or any other highly-addictive substance, is a good thing – far from it! My theory is that addiction to one or another substance is a substitute for facing up to the realities of life – to one's own life as well as to life in general. It's no accident that healthy, well-adjusted people seldom become addicts. But at the same time, it's a bit harsh to consider what I call self-medication to be sufficient grounds for a long, harsh jail term. A truly compassionate, humanitarian society would instead seek out causes and cures – or at least treatments – instead of incarceration. But as we should all know by now, our society is neither compassionate nor humanitarian, because it is beset with the curse of Puritanism, according to which any deviation from normal, acceptable middle-class standards is grounds for shunning, exile, and incarceration. And yet, at the very same time, we have come up with a vast and rich menu of offerings for what are called “certified victim groups” -- none more certified than what are called African-Americans, formerly blacks, formerly Negroes, etc. We will do anything – bend over backwards a thousand times – to offer reparation for the agonies our black brothers suffered under slavery. Which, in the karmic sense, is not an entirely misdirected impulse. And yet, at the same time, we insist on committing thousands of those same black brothers to long jail terms for simply possessing – not manufacturing or selling – a certain substance with a certain chemical formula.

And this is, as much as anything, an indictment of the so-called “black leadership”. When it comes to trivial matters, they are all over the media... marching in the streets... issuing “statements” and press releases, etc. But when it comes to things that are the heart and soul of the Puritan power structure, they revert to the shuffling, mindless, grinning habits of their Uncle Tom forebears. And no example is more blatant than that of crack cocaine. Here is a law that, for whatever reasons, winds up blatantly discriminating against black people – but do we hear a word of protest from the likes of Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton? Not in the slightest. They will hop on the nearest plane if they hear about a “racist” incident in a public school anywhere in the country... but when it comes to a law that lands thousands of their people in jail? Not a peep. Which, I guess, tells you something about their ability or inclination to act on the basis of principle rather than politics. When black people in this country complain about being “sold out”, they need look no further than their own “leadership”. The biggest problem blacks have in the country today is that they are looking up to, and believing, all the wrong people. They are believing people who have agreed (with white liberals) to keep them on the plantation... keep them second-class citizens... keep them violent, amoral, and addicted... and keep them high up on the rolls of the prison system. Yes, that is the “deal” that has been made – for the simple reason that a race, or group, that is chronically afflicted is also a reliable political group, and a key component of the political power base. Their weakness, in other words, becomes the strength of, and a resource for, liberal politicians. It is, in fact, a form of slavery – not in the physical sense so much as economic and political.

But here is a ray of hope. There is something called the “U.S. Sentencing Committee” that is in a position to take a more moderate view of the situation. Congress has weighed in on the matter – inspired, no doubt, by the presence of a “black” president – and opted for a more equitable situation when it comes to “crack” vs. powdered cocaine. Not that either one should be illegal, mind – but we have to reinforce “baby steps” when we find ourselves in a judgmental, life-hating political culture. So now they're down in the weeds, thinking about whether this applies to people already arrested. And... how many people do you think we're talking about here? The figure provided in the article is 12,000, or 6% of the “nearly 200,000 people in federal prisons nationwide.” Now, 6% doesn't sound like much, does it? But whenever I hear someone complaining about “overcrowding” in U.S. prisons, the first thought that comes to me is, “Try letting all non-violent 'drug offenders' free, and see if that doesn't help.” Well, “but but”, comes the response, most non-violent drug offenders aren't in prison at all – to which I reply, “but what about this 12,000?”

And yes, I know, this is an uphill battle. Every government program is a jobs program, and the “drug enforcement” program is one of the biggest, with thousands of people depending on it for their employment. It's one of those things that will take generations to fix – many generations will have to die and be buried before attitudes can change enough to change the culture overall and the legal system. But these things are seldom, if ever, a matter of overnight, revolutionary change – they are a result of very small steps which accumulate over time, until at last the day dawns when things are really different. One always thinks back on Prohibition, in which sale of alcoholic beverages was legal one day, then illegal the next – and years later illegal one day and legal the next. Why couldn't the same thing happen with “drugs”? I think it's because it's the last stand of Puritanism. They ultimately failed when it came to alcohol... they suffered a stunning defeat when it came to the “sexual revolution”... they are suffering defeats in our time with regard to “GLBT” causes... I mean, gosh, what's left? Well, what's left is things like laws against crack cocaine, that serve to create a permanent incarcerated underclass – which is one of those things they seem to need. The Puritan mindset is not satisfied with simply engaging in individual spiritual growth (genuine or delusional); it is a zero-sum game where I cannot increase in merit unless someone else is decreasing in merit. So it requires a permanent underclass of the incarcerated – and the rationale for the incarceration is of little import. It can, in fact, be substance “abuse” of some sort... or sexual (mis)behavior... or any one of a thousand other things. And make no mistake, our courts, law-enforcement agencies, and “correctional” institutions are hotbeds of Puritanism. They may not necessarily look the part, but at base they are. They are all predicated on the notion that the body is evil, and that anything that serves the body (even if distorted, as in the case of drugs) is doubly evil. But who is responsible for abuses to the body? Clearly it is the individual, and he must therefore be “corrected” -- or at least confined to jail until he has a change of heart. The ideal world of the Puritan is a ruling elite with most other people locked up. I do not exaggerate! It is an absolutist, inhuman, non-compassionate frame of mind that continues to contaminate our life as a society and our legal system. We pretend that Puritanism is a long-gone phenomenon – confined to sober people in tall hats with buckles carrying blunderbusses and knocking off hapless wild turkeys. Not a bit of it! It is a heresy that is alive and well today, and which shows its true nature nowhere more than in our legal system. And I will venture to say that there are few things wrong with the United States today that cannot be traced, fairly directly, to either the Puritan mindset or the various juvenile modes of rebellion against it. You see, when you have a meme, or a complex of memes, that rules a society, and a large portion of people who rebel against those memes, you can still claim that the memes rule. The rebellion proves it, in a sense – the way people who spend their lives rebelling against their parents are proving that their parents are still in charge. True freedom would require us to, openly and plainly, disavow Puritanism and all of its delusions and works, but also disavow adolescent rebellion. But this is the very thing that people fear most – the loss of stern judgment, but also the loss of something to rebel against. Nothing terrifies people more than to be truly set free, and forced to make their own moral choices.

This is something one ought to keep in mind over the course of this weekend. We celebrate “freedom”, but in fact fear it more than any other thing.

There Oughtn't To Be a Law

It happened again, a couple of weeks ago, as it does with dreary regularity – and that it happened just before Christmas made it especially jarring. A policeman in a borough adjoining Pittsburgh was called to respond to a “disturbance” at a private residence which turned out to be a drug deal gone bad. By the time it was over, the man who had welshed on the drug deal was dead... as was the policeman. And my first reaction to stories like this is always, could this needless waste of life have been avoided if our national (and local, by default) “drug policy” was based on genuine public health considerations, rather than residual Puritanism, a kind of societal sado-masochism, and mostly just plain lunacy? Not to mention the zealous and unending quest for power and for “jobs” that characterizes such a large measure of our legal system? Now, I am not about to claim – as some seem to – that if only it weren't for our “insane war on drugs” -- as Harry Browne characterized it – all would be placid, peaceful, and well in the body politic. Just as the poor will always be with us, so will criminality – which can be broadly defined as the desire to reap more than one sows, with the added proviso that this desire be (1) acted upon, and (2) acted upon in an illegal way, i.e. in violation of the codified norms of the society at that time and in that place. For, as much as I believe in Natural Law, it can also be argued that there are few, if any, acts that are always, at all times and in all places, illegal... and likewise that that are few, if any, acts that are always, at all times and in all places, legal. This, I contend, is a symptom less of the conditionality of human societies and of existence in general than of the almost universal failure to correctly apply morality – as properly defined – to the construction and implementation of legal codes. So that, while the law appears arbitrary and cupidic – and those of the anarchist bent might contend that it is always so – there is, in fact, a grain of truth to the notion that the law, properly derived, serves to protect the many against the few, and the few against the many. The law is necessary not only because differences of opinion occasionally arise... or because ambiguities based on faulty judgment by otherwise good men arise... but because there really are men of ill will, driven by greed, lust, or just plain cussedness – all those tendencies that are summed up by the term “concupiscence”. Call this the "original sin model" of jurisprudence -- go ahead; I don't mind.

So because human fallibility as well as evil intent will always be with us, the law will likewise always be with us. However, it is the unique quality of laws of prohibition that they tend to criminalize people that would otherwise never come close to being criminals – as witness the madness of Prohibition in early 20th Century America... and much of what constitutes the War on Drugs of our time. And this is also not simply based on the stock theme of so many homilies, that most people believe in, and abide by, all of the Ten Commandments save one – that one (whichever it is, and it's not always the one about adultery) that requires them to relinquish their will in the interests of society. I'm talking about people who, by and large, are perfectly willing to, day in and day out, abide by all ten, and much more besides... except that even while doing so, they inevitably run into difficulties that are caused by ignorance, neurosis, and ill will in high places... by which I mean, laws that any sensible, truly humanitarian society would never dream of passing or enforcing. And curiously enough, these laws typically, when you get right down to it, are a form of persecution of some weak or despised minority – the strategy being (whether conscious or not), if you don't like a person or a group, you pass a law that will criminalize one or more of their favorite or preferred activities. What comes out of this process, then, is legalized persecution – but there is an associated tendency to forget, or ignore, this fact, and rather to attribute to the law in question noble and “necessary” qualities that it never had, and very possibly was never intended to have.

Another point is that there are, indeed, “criminal types” in any society – and if they aren't breaking one law on any given day they will likely be breaking another. So if you, for instance, struck all drug laws from the books it would not magically turn all of the drug dealers into law-abiding citizens; they would come up with another scam... another way to cut corners and pave the way to “easy money”. I'm under no illusion, for example, that most of the people in the drug trade are honest businessmen who just happen to be dealing in illegal goods; there may be some, in fact – but I would have to take a much closer look at each one before I decided whether their activities were benign or malevolent. Even the more ambitious types during the hippie era – the “righteous dealers” -- were not always nice people, long hair and beads and sitar music notwithstanding. Opportunities to make a fast buck bring a certain type out of the woodwork, and I don't mind applying the liberal label “antisocial” to many of them.

Drug users, on the other hand, are generally another matter – and of them it really can be argued that if it were not for the drug laws most of them would be perfectly good citizens; i.e., they “work and play well with others” (another liberal/educational establishment term)... they do no harm... and they mean no harm. And yet they too are hounded and persecuted and criminalized by the establishment for reasons which remain obscure until you start thinking about issues like political power and even – for those with a more esoteric bent – the “emotional plague” concept proposed by Wilhelm Reich. Another way of putting it is that a large portion of people are simply not content to leave everyone else alone; they have to exert themselves against them... mistreat, bully, and tyrannize... spoil everyone's fun (to put it mildly)... or, to put it less mildly, declare that everyone else is “wrong” (“except me and thee”, as the saying goes), and that they should, therefore, be punished. This attitude, of course, is in perfect “synch” with Puritanism in the broad sense, and with authoritarianism as well. And it also feeds into the perverse desire to raise oneself up by putting others down... assuming that the only way I can feel good about myself is by making everyone else – or a good proportion of them – miserable. It's a basic metaphysical attitude about the world and about life -- that it's a zero-sum game, therefore I can only gain by others' loss. Nothing, in other words, is "good", it is only "less bad". It's what Eric Berne referred to as the "I'm OK, you're not" attitude -- the most destructive and pathological of them all. In extreme cases, this premise produces the psychopath; in less extreme cases it produces politicians.

Now, the United States, with its historical heart of Puritanism, and with the authoritarianism that comes from deracination – i.e. when you give up racial, ethnic, and religious loyalties and substitute “loyalty” to a vague and chaotic structure of “ideas”, supported by a governmental infrastructure – has always been the ideal breeding ground for various kinds of collective madness and hysteria, and the War on Drugs is simply one of the more recent manifestations. What I'm saying is that it's not just “political”, and certainly not just economic or social or anything else; it's profoundly psychological. And one sign of this is that certain portions of our legal code have been declared out of bounds when it comes to any discussion of change – especially of lightening the load on our ever more heavily-burdened populace. (Even soldiers in Vietnam were told to “smoke 'em if you've got 'em”, reflecting at least a glimmer of residual humanity in the small unit leaders who were about to take them into battles that many might not survive. But catch any of the generals saying that!) In other words, you can talk about changing any other part of the legal code, but this part is off limits -- because it has nothing to do with objective right and wrong, and everything to do with collective psychopathology.

The result of all this is that, on top of what is already a huge, thick, intractable layer of laws that might have some small measure of validity, we have an additional, especially suffocating layer of laws having to do with individual conduct – conduct which would be, much more often than not, of no harm to others or to society in general... and yet, we are told, we “need” those laws, and the massive infrastructure that goes along with them, in order to... what? To maintain “law and order”, of course! To keep things under control, and so on. But that could be said about any law, no matter how absurd or arbitrary. A law prohibiting people from clipping their toenails on odd-numbered Tuesdays would certainly enhance “law and order”... and it would take a big bite out of uncontrolled toenail clipping. But would it be just? Would it even be sane? And – thinking about the “world stage” now – would it enhance our image overseas, or make us look like a bunch of hysterical neurotics, the way our War on Drugs now does? And yet these considerations never seem to occur to our legislators in their hallowed halls; they are “lawmakers”, after all, and if they do not spend day and night making laws, they are somehow remiss in their duties. The result is that we have a legal code that makes Hammurabi's stone tablets – and Moses' as well – look like bubble gum cards.

It could be said that a measure of the trust any government has in its citizens is the number of laws on the books designed to regulate the activities of those citizens. By that criterion, American citizens are the most distrusted – by their own government – people on the face of the earth, and possibly the most distrusted people in history. And the argument that the laws of an enlightened society are there for the collective good of the populace falls a bit flat when one reflects that, if the entire legal code were thrown into a dumpster (it would take quite a few just to hold one copy), not one law in a hundred would really be missed – except by whoever had the “special interest” and the influence to get it passed in the first place. And this is why we are, daily, faced with the paradox of people attempting to gain “freedoms” and “rights” through the passing of more laws. Every law that is passed will add to the sum total of restriction... every new “right” has to have a “wrong” that is now prohibited... and every alleged “freedom” entails a – usually unacknowledged – long list of things that are no longer allowed. The answer – as any good libertarian knows – is that, if you want more liberty, you need fewer laws. And again, this is not to entertain the anarchist's illusion of a law-less society, because that would indeed be “lawless”, with only raw power and violence having any chance to prevail. If we could – again in good libertarian fashion – reduce the legal code to only those laws that served to implement the Golden Rule, for example... that might reduce paperwork by, say, 99%. (The same could be said of any government programs that are unconstitutional – again, you'd have a reduction on that order.)

The main advantage would be that we would, finally, start treating American citizens as adults, and not as either criminals or retarded children. And, by the way, many fewer policemen would be killed in the line of duty because they wouldn't be charged with enforcing laws that should not exist.

A Silver Lining to the South

Today's entry in the "Why Can't the U.S. Be More Like...?" sweepstakes is Argentina. It seems that judges in the land of beef and tango (not necessarily in that order) have simply stopped punishing people for violating the nation's drug laws -- at least those dealing with "personal use of drugs" as opposed to dealing. An announcement by the judges included the statement, "Criminalization will only apply in cases where the possession of narcotics for personal consumption represents a danger for the public health of others." Now, my question is (in case you haven't already guessed), why can this level of plain common sense not be found here -- in any court in the land, at any level? Why is it still, after decades of evidence to the contrary, contended that personal drug use which does not constitute a clear and imminent danger to others nonetheless represents a threat sufficient to rock the very foundations of society and rend the fabric of the Republic? (And if it's that fragile, is it really worth saving anyway?) Well, one guess is that we have one thing the Argentinians definitely do not have, and that is the Puritan tradition of harboring a morbid fear that someone, somewhere, might be having fun. We also have a drug abuse-based legal system which depends for its life support on the indiscriminate use of Draconian punishment for a wide assortment of, basically, personal habits. It explains why our prison population is so exceptionally high (1% of all Americans are in the pokey, according to latest figures -- more on this in a future post); but that, in turn, adds to the self-perpetuation of the system and the power of the "law enforcement" (read "punishment") lobby. I have spoken at length about our apparent need, as a society, to have a large "loser class", so that no matter how low one sinks, as long as one is walking the streets one can be sure that there are millions who are worse off. This, of course, is a social pathology in itself, but it shows no signs of abating, especially as life in general becomes more fragmented, alienating, and impersonal. Which "failed utopia" novel was it where there was a TV channel devoted entirely to footage of people getting beaten up? We are fast approaching this state of affairs. In the meantime, the Puritans of today stalk the land, looking for reasons to arrest and incarcerate, and the "war on drugs" provides the single best rationale.

Ah yes, the Argentinians. They are volatile -- irrational at times -- politically chaotic -- economically edgy -- but they know a scam when they see one, and the "war" on personal drug use is most assuredly a scam, no matter where it is being pursued.