by robertdreed » Mon Oct 03, 2005 4:15 pm
You really know how to critique it right back, I'll give you that. I like the way you draw distinctions between "Left", "Marxist", "structural class analysis", etc. That's just what I left out of my earlier message, for reasons of space. I was primarily talking about those on the Left who rely on conspiracism the most- the hard-Left Leninist types. The types who spend so much of their energy suspecting people, accusing people, taking names and assuming monolithic opposition. <br><br>Many libertarian analyses of the Drug War would say that it's primarily prosecuted as a religious crusade, or as the result of cultural xenophobia, rather than on behalf of the wealthy. <br><br>Of course, there's a feedback loop that includes the interests of the wealthy in there somewhere. But the response of wealthy elites isn't unanimous. Some feel entitled to use their wealth to keep the conservative social-cultural strictures they support in place. Others passively sign off on the status quo, because as users they're at minimal risk of being hassled as long as they keep their heads down. Others revel in their covert privilege. Others actively seek to extend their power by profiting from the businesses associated with it, like money laundering, blackmail, and influence buying. And still others fund attempts to reform the drug laws to be in line with their more libertarian view of what constitutes an open society. <br><br>But I'd say that most of the wealthy have little interest in the Drug Laws one way or the other, because they're like most American citizens- their social conscience only extends as far as what's fashionable, what gets media attention. They have a few assumptions about illegal drugs users, the drug markets, and the drug laws, which they spend about 5 minutes a year examining. <br><br>The status quo holds the field, given those conditions. <br><br>Ironically, one of the problems with the media in regard to the drug issue is that a disproportionate number of media people- the rank and file, not the owners- have illegal drug experience. But such people avoid pointed reportage on such stories, because they feel that it's asking for heat- not merely "discrimination", but job loss, arrest, and jail. Or they leave "drug stories" to their non-illicit colleagues, who are the ones least likely to know what thy're looking at. Particularly if they're members of the Prestige News Media. <br><br>Drug use is considered not merely statistically deviant, but Shameful, and that oppobrium extends to the point of it being illegal conduct. Mandatory rehab, simply for first-offense possession...no one gets that for simple possession of a fifth of whiskey in their back seat. And that's what passes for "reform", that medicalization of "behavior" that is irrationally defined as "deviant." <br><br>So there's obviously something more going on there than simply economic justification for carrying on the Zero Tolerance War on Drugs. There's a deep streak of emotionally defended irrationalism in the support for the crusade. In fact, tell most Drug Warriors that the net effect of their efforts is an empowerment of organized crime and corruption, and they simply stop their ears. <br><br>I've found that one of the ways to tell when someone has a weak or indefensible argument is that when confronted with a challenge to their position, they refuse to defend. Instead, they counter-attack, turning on all the rhetorical heat they can muster.<br> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 10/3/05 2:21 pm<br></i>
