…as presented by Keith Humphreys at The Reality-Based Community (where “reality” is apparently protean) in The Mexican Crime Cartels
Keith is concerned by the violence in Mexico, but completely fails to understand it.
1. The violence has become to some extent self-sustaining because several of the cartels are fighting each other. Whether the government ramps up or rolls back its heroic efforts, there will be violence as the cartels battle for territory as well as perpetuate the we-commit-atrocities-as-vengeance-for-past-atrocities cycle.
“Heroic”? You’ve got to be kidding. Of course, much of the fighting will be as a result of cartels fighting each other, but that fighting intensifies exponentially when the government steps in and adds violence to the equation, as well as when the government (through “success”) causes instability in the cartels’ power structure. Note the intellectually dishonest argument structure: “Whether the government ramps up or rolls back its heroic efforts, there will be violence.” The implication is that there is no difference in violence regardless of military action, but that is blatantly false. Yes there will be violence in either situation, but with the government using military action, the violence is much greater.
2. Had Proposition 19 passed, the cartels would still be there and Mexico would still be enduring horrific violence. I personally expected a modest drop in violence if the initiative passed, although people who study the cartels tell me I am wrong about that. They forecast that the effect of a small loss of business would be akin to taking away a few street corners from a drug market, which tends to increase violence as the remaining players fight it out over the reduced territory.
Straw man. No serious reformer believed that Prop 19 would completely eliminate the cartels, nor did they claim it. And as to how much the marijuana business overall fuels cartels’ income and how much comes from California’s business in particular, that’s clearly an open question. The RAND “study” did not disprove the government’s original notion that a significant portion of their income is from marijuana. And post-Prop 19, the government at times has seemed to want to return (when it’s politically useful) to extremely large percentage claims (not to mention the embarrassment of those huge border seizures of marijuana after the vote).
Regardless, Prop 19 was the first step in a larger effort which clearly would dramatically reduce cartel income.
No matter who is correct about that issue, California’s marijuana business is just one of many lines of activity for the cartels. To wound them seriously the U.S. as a whole would have to legalize marijuana, heroin and cocaine (which isn’t going to happen and shouldn’t), and even then the cartels would have income from human trafficking, black market movies and cigarettes, kidnapping for hire, drug trafficking within Central and South America etc.
First, I believe that we could wound them seriously by merely legalizing marijuana. But he’s right that we could do it even better by legalizing all of them (except that it should happen).
But then he goes into one of the stupidest arguments that keeps showing up in this bizarro land of prohibition accommodation. Apparently we might as well let them keep their huge black market drug income because otherwise they’ll do other crime(!) Or maybe the point is that we should make sure that they have illicit drug profits to prevent them from going into other crime. I don’t know — it’s a bafflingly stupid argument.
If we cut off their drug profits, yes, the cartels will go into other crime. The real bad apples aren’t going to go to work at McDonald’s (although many of their employees way down the line will).
But really? Black market movies and cigarettes? Ah, yes, Los Zetas are going to keep the empire going by selling bootleg copies of Yogi Bear on the street corners.
Sure, they’ll do more kidnappings in a vain attempt to replace their accustomed riches, and an enraged populace will get behind law enforcement to take them out of business, and without the obscenely massive income from drug trafficking, they won’t be able to buy the police and the army any more.
The illicit drug trafficking operations take in as much as the national income of the country of Mexico. Nothing else will give them that much power, because there isn’t that much money anywhere else to get.
3. But even presuming national legalization in the U.S. of all drugs, the idea that the removal of the drug business would wipe out the cartels is an example of the “reversability fallacy†(which probably has a proper name in logic but I don’t know what it is). Reversability was also invoked during alcohol Prohibition in the U.S. Repeal advocates promised that re-legalizing alcohol production would eliminate the Mafia. But once a process has been put in place, removing an original cause does not logically imply that the process will stop. The Mafia was enriched by Prohibition, but by the time of repeal it had a life of its own and survived for decades afterwards as a force in American society. (Note, same fallacy applies to human activity and climate change…whether we caused it is irrelevant, all that matters is whether changes in our behavior now will make a difference…it’s entirely possible that we caused it to start but no longer have the power to stop it).
The fallacy here is not “reversibility.” It’s straw man. Whether it was with alcohol in the earlier prohibition or other drugs in this prohibition, the real reform argument has been that legalization would seriously weaken the criminal traffickers and take away a major source of their income. But Humphreys uses the straw man, claiming that our argument is that legalization will eliminate the criminals, and since he can show that they won’t be entirely eliminated, therefore our argument is wrong.
That’s complete nonsense.
What sane public policy would say that something is not worth doing unless the problem it is targeting would be completely eliminated? If that was the case, then every public policy that we have should be abolished.
The truth is that legalization will be a major blow to the large traffickers that will weaken them significantly, and dramatically reduce their ability to control governments, communities, and armies. And that’s just one of the reasons for legalization.
4. The basic problem in Mexico is not drugs but endemic corruption and weak governance in the states.
And until we take away the bulk of that black market payroll, it’ll be impossible to realistically address corruption and weak governance.
4. The basic problem in Mexico is not drugs but endemic corruption and weak governance in the states.
Not drugs? Then why are we fighting a war on(lol)drugs? Why does prohibition even exist if thats not why this is happening. They are not fighting over oil!
Keith is either blindly stupid or blatantly ignoring the facts.
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Didn’t Felipe Calderon have his “bring em on” moment baiting the cartels well how is that working out.
great piece pete – and you did that on your iphone? bless you and your work.
Thanks, jhelion. But no, I couldn’t do this on my iPhone. Anything more than a couple of lines would be tough. When I’m at my Dad’s place with no WiFi, then I have a real hard time posting, since my laptop is useless. Now I’m on the road and staying at hotels, I can use the laptop when the hotel has WiFi, and when I’m not at the hotel, I can check comments with my iPhone.
Thanks again.
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Pete, you need to buy your poor parents an Internet connection.
There are also several pay as you go wi-fi offers, Virgin Mobile being one example.
The mafia survived the end of prohibition, but note they are no longer running Chicago. (On second thought maybe they still are–but not openly 🙂 )
The mafia is of course involved in drugs now, and that source of income strengthens them. I think we are in better shape than Mexico because the drug profits as a percentage of GDP in America are far smaller than in Mexico.
Drug profits in Mexico give the drug cartels so much money they have become a shadow government capable of fielding small armies, maintaining intelligence networks, and waging war. The cartel war almost counts as a civil war, except the cartels themselves fight with each other and don’t constitute a single, determined opponent to the Mexican state.
I think it is important to keep pounding home the point that drug legalization will knock the financial props from under the violent cartels. Actually, it will bring an end to or greatly weaken all kinds of destructive organizations, both foreign and domestic, like the South American cocaine cartels and militias, the Afghan drug lords, the Taliban, the DEA, the prison-industrial complex, CAMP… etc.
The rogue’s gallery of evil and destructive organizations is too long to recite from memory, and I’m sure I would miss many without doing some research.
Bear in mind that the author, Keith Humphreys, is a former employee of the ONDCP, i.e. the propaganda arm of the WOD.
The kind of thinking Mr. Humphreys engages in is what I call ‘prohib math’. They are forever adding 2 + 2 and coming up with 3.78. Or 3.82. Or sometimes they get as close as 3.91. But they never get the proper answer, for to do so is to deflate their own private bubble universe, which they’ve been allowed to live in for so long they believe it’s reflective of reality at large.
So long as they are permitted to stay in that bubble courtesy of our tax dollars continuing to be wasted on its’ maintenance, they will continue to spout that nonsense.
Well, a very sharp pin is gently but inexorably pressing against the surface of that bubble. That pin is the economic reality of a de facto economic DEPRESSION. This is not a ‘recession’, it is a DEPRESSION. And despite the glowing reports of corp-rat profits, as usual, that’s not being reflected in the economic situations of the average citizen. And in such a case, it becomes clear that a restructuring of economic (and therefore, social) priorities is due.
It’s that, or face eventual social unrest leading to the unthinkable. Like, what’s happening in Europe right now…with guns. As two of my favorite sci-fi authors wrote long ago, “No place is more than three missed meals away from a revolution.” If such comes to America, it will have drug prohibition and its’ wastrel enablers (significant glance in Mr. Humphreys’ direction) partly to blame…
Mr. Humphries is wrong about the Mafia too. La Cosa Nostra, or the Sicilian Mafia began in Italy in the nineteenth century. It has always been a racketeering syndicate. Bootlegging was a sideline (just like drugs), and a nice little extra for their customers, but their game is protection, prostitution, gambling and extortion. Always was. Anybody who argued that abolishing alcohol prohibition would cause them to disappear was completely unaware of what it is they did and still do.
I have no idea whether anybody was arguing that the ending of prohibition would eliminate the Mob, but it’s a prima-facie stupid idea, their problems were with violent BOOTLEGGERS. Not Pimps and card house owners.
As for the bootleggers? Was crime fungible? I always like to ask that..No. They did not go into other crime. By and large, where they weren’t killed and locked up, they joined legal society. Can you say “Joe Kennedy”?
Mr. Humphries, you are not allowed to make your history up.
Keith Humphreys is typical of those who cannot distinguish cause from effect. Prohibition is the primary evil and therefore the primary target for elimination, not the cartels. It’s not necessary to destroy the cartels in order to end the drug wars. Mexico’s cartels are merely flamboyant examples of organized crime, which shrinks or grows according to the criminal opportunities that a society chooses to provide to its potential criminals.
And what an opportunity illegal drugs are! Since the alleged crime typically involves consenting adults, it’s not like a real crime at all, one where there is a complaining victim who creates problems for everyone involved. In fact, it’s so easy, so un-crime-like and yet so profitable, it often attracts people who wouldn’t otherwise be criminals at all, along with those who are criminals.
Keith Humphreys doesn’t believe in taking the first step in crime reduction, that of eliminating the blatant opportunity for crime. Humphreys and his ilk are complainers, not problem solvers, as he himself admits in his last sentence. For him and others, there are no solutions beyond the brute force leading to the drug chaos that exists throughout the world.
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I think arguing point by point with these stupid assholes is self defeating. I really get tired of liars like Mr. Humphrey’s spinning fiction from whole cloth and presenting it as if it’s meaningful. Anyway, I let him have it, and felt that it was a pretty darn good diatribe. Seeing as how I don’t believe that my post will survive the day on that “reality” site I’m cross posting it below.
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Congratulations! A classic straw man fallacy argument Mr. Humphreys! When the book describing the various logical fallacies is published this piece of absolute nonsense that you’ve written should definitely be included as a working example of utterly false twaddle twisted to sound as if it’s meaningful.
No one on our side of the table has argued that the world would become crime free if the idiocy of the war on (some) drugs is ended. The only place that nonsense germinates is in arguments of the mindless fans of prohibition, to be presented as a straw man to make the gullible believe your argument has merit.
It is simply brain dead stupidity to argue that if it can’t be wiped out completely we may as well continue to add $10 billion a year in profits to enrich and further empower the organized criminal syndicates. Yes, there are still people getting arrested for bootlegging. Here’s an example from just the other day:
http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/section/6/article/43767/
“Though the squads focus on drugs and gangs, they address a few bootlegging cases each year.
“They pop up every now and then. People want to make a little extra money,” Ware said. “They’ll buy beers and then sell it for two or three times more.”
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Now here’s an example of bootlegging in a place where drinking alcohol sales are prohibited, again, from just the other day:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/indians-abroad/10-Indians-and-a-Pakistani-jailed-for-murder-in-Dubai/articleshow/7221882.cms
“10 Indians and a Pakistani jailed for murder in Dubai”
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Need more? How about this one? Yes sir, from just the other day as well.
http://www.emirates247.com/news/emirates/sharjah-police-to-target-bootleggers-2011-01-02-1.336788
Sharjah Police to target bootleggers
Dedicated police force battling back as booze wars turn deadly
Sharjah will soon introduce strict measures to combat liquor sales, said a top police official.
Major-General Humaid Mohammed Al Hudaidi, Director-General of Sharjah Police, was quoted by 7Days as saying: “We are determined to end this. We want to get rid of the sources where people are getting alcohol. We will deploy CIDs.”
Al Sajaa, an area notorious for bootlegging turf wars, will soon have a police station. “We want to maintain high security in the area. Illegal alcohol is leading to fights between different gangs,†Al Hudaidi said at a press briefing.
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It takes a very special kind of stupid to not be able to tell the difference between the two environments, and to equate some undocumented workers selling beer on Sunday to organized criminal gangs that commit all sorts of class 1 felonies. Since I really can’t see Mr. Humphreys as being that stupid, he must think that the people who are reading his garbage are stupid enough to swallow the gak he’s regurgitating.
So my fellow readers of Mr. Humphreys claptrap, do you agree with Mr. Humphreys that you are a special kind of stupid, and that you’ll buy into Mr. Humphreys sorry little confidence game? Are you really going to fall for the con game that murder, kidnapping, and billions of dollars of profit for organized criminal syndicates is exactly the same as someone who sells beer on Sunday or who buys cases of cigarettes from the Native Americans to resell outside the 7-11? Is there really anyone stupid enough to fall for this nonsense? I’d think anyone with the native intelligence to learn to tie his own shoelaces could see through the idiocy of Mr. Humphrey’s tired arguments. Perhaps I’m going to have to invest in companies that manufacture loafers and flip flops, I don’t know. H. L. Mencken said that nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public, and we can plainly see that Mr. Humphreys subscribes to that philosophy.
Anyway, I see Mr. Humphreys has a pick up truck loaded with straw men, so I expect he’ll abandon this one and bring out another to beat up to try to make his baseless arguments seem like they have some kind of merit. OK Mr. Humphreys, which will be the next straw man you use to demonstrate your great pugilism skills? Jack Johnson got nothin’ on you.
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What a shock! “Comment deleted per RBC civility standards”
http://www.samefacts.com/2011/01/drug-policy/the-mexican-crime-cartels/#comment-58011
So Pete, does the Prohibition isn’t Free Foundation find my comment too uncivil to publish? I really went out of my way to only be uncivil to the arguments. But that’s the prohibitionists for you, if you disagree with their ideas it’s a personal attack.
May I present a real life case study that supports that assertion?
Then there’s me. By 1979 I knew that my life was going to be dedicated to cannabis, but gosh, at $35 an ounce that’s pretty pricey. Then my go to guy tells me if I buy a quarter pound it’ll be $100. Sell 3, get one “free” and the gas money needed to make deliveries. It’s so easy even a pothead can do it. No one ever offered me the opportunity to participate in the beer distribution chain.
Read this; feel better. Watch the attendant video; and feel even better, after laughing your ass off. This almost beats ‘wake and bake’ as my favorite morning pick-me-up:
http://stopthedrugwar.org/speakeasy/2011/jan/04/remember_dea_agent_who_shot_hims
I can watch that over and over and over and over….FOTFLMFAO, climb back into my chair and do it again. It’s like a carnival ride, without having to wait in line.
Oh that video clip is the best. The best I tell you. Any time people want to argue that these numbnutz are competent and know what they’re doing that video helps salve the pain.
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Montel got busted in Milwaukee for possession of paraphernalia. Paid a fine of just under $500 and moved on with his life. The police kept his pipe. I’m rather disappointed in him for not taking a stand.
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Oh for the love of god, Montel is shilling for a payday loan company. Are you really that hard up for cash Montel? We knew someone was going to take Gary Coleman’s job but I’d never have predicted it would be Montel.
https://moneymutualcashadvance.com/?promo_id=36387&pwadvid=-zEwB0JqT1D6EDaL2mIVoVikL30XT1Ob&promo_sub_code=16117&agentId=16117&track_key=KD%2Cv0A1quKDAsxUWUHiYoAgx6fH&sub=GNOWPM
I wonder if they’ll fire him because they don’t find potheads to be moral enough to shill for payday loans.
Ah! Duncan I’m surprised that you don’t see Montel, Oprah and their ilk as they really are: People (if they may be extended that courtesy) who prey on the suffering and vulnerability of unfortunate people, and modern day hucksters. In every case, these self appointed celebrities exploit the pain, injustice, physical suffering of others in exchange for ratings, wealth and power. The fact that they might occasionally help these poor folk should not be confused with, and is entirely secondary to their primary purpose.
They are the vampires who get rich exploiting the victims of society and fate. In a decent society these people wouldn’t have to be crawling to M&O for “help” (and rest of their guests are hopeless exhibitionists who wouldn’t have that outlet to embarrass themselves). With Oprah on one end of the scale and Jerry Springer at the other (Not to be confused with the “News Whores” like Geraldo), they all are disgusting. No surprise to me he’s shilling for another group of exploiters.
Also, no surprise whatsoever that he advocates for MMJ, sure his condition is awful, but he wouldn’t be out here for anybody else.
Duncan, your comment survived less than five hours.
Montel williams is not an enemy, nor should you be talking about him like that.
No, he’s a vulture (who happens to be on our side). Never said he was an “enemy”. I don’t have to like or respect someone just because he makes common cause.
Humphries deleted one of Malcolm Kyle’s posts for CIVILITY violations! I totally understand deleting Duncan’s post (sorry, Dun), but MALCOLM’S? I called bullshit, but that’s just crap.
Why does prohibition even exist if thats not why this is happening. They are not fighting over oil!
Oh but they are… The profits of prohibition, Oil, Pharmaceuticals. Cotton with pesticides, Booze, Paper, Steel and Plastic all backing prohibition to help stave off competition homegrown in local gardens and processed in local mills.
Al Capone and Watergate were red herrings to divert the countries attention from the Fascist acts of eliminating competition. Booze/Ethanol or Ganja//Hemp
Keith is either blindly stupid or blatantly ignoring the facts.
Keith is both ignorant and ignoring the facts.
DarkCircle you’re as sick as dunkem donuts. Who needs enemies with such bozo comments. Montel has done more in his sleep than you have in your entire family lineage. Bringing causes to the masses on TV is rare. Then to get fired from the media fascist for commenting on the lie in Iraq? Work is work, selling blenders pays the grocery bills. Making fun of it is a simpleton act of ignorance. Issues that only a few so called celebrities have the guts to mention. Montel is one of them. Put down the schwag and save up for some kynd bud. Not that that will fix stupid.
The simple solution is to Eat the Rich!
Reaganesque tax cuts for the wealthy that didn’t work in the 80’s, but that was before the Klintoon Busheney Inc NAFTA/GATT letting the rich pricks off on their tax responsibility to trickle down jobs… for China and India. SOS… cheap labor. Gut the unions, outsource. The American Dream of Fascists everywhere. Natzifucks are always whining about shit after they rape and pillage and cheat, lie and steal behind closed doors. Cheney energy policy? If the GOPerverts actually filibustered instead of little snips to stall and divert. No fix would be needed. Bitchin’ about the Band-Aids and nothing about the mad GOP slashers cutting up people. As it stands the krats could do the same asshole maneuvers and nothing would get done. That isn’t representing my tax buck. Although ConPromises aren’t dealing with the needs either. Or reality.
The solution is simple. Eat the rich. Divide the spoils among those working. Take care of the cripples, kids and elderly. Stop gestapo cops with tanks and swat twits busting down junkie doors shooting 92 year old black women. Let the junkies be, give them cheap heroin with sterile needles and they purr like pussycats. But copsuckers need snitches making up 75% of the cases tax paid DA rock stars can get 6 figure salaries convicting. Preying on the very kids these GOPervert and slimy sneaky Demonkrats like Biden’s RAVE and Rolm claim they’re saveding. LAPDoGates DARE & Nan Rayguns praising child snitches turning in their brothers and neighbors and parents. Forfeit the house and sell the kids to the Foster care system. Not a peep out of old grizzly ma adams. Turn Inoton? Not a backbone in the entire Dick Armey. Draft dodging chickenhawks.
Fix the potholes and reduce the garbage by not over packaging it duh! Stop shitting poisons in the rivers and lakes that eventually reaches the aquifer some dumb white trash operation rescue preggo drinks. Aborting more babies than RvW. Stop sucking yo non human corporate mama’s tit till your 35. Stop picking on those out of a job. The job that you sent to china with the tax bail out trickle me elmo bullshit for the rich. Stop protesting the oppressed, dumbshit. Getting people off the streets cost less in the long run… since there isn’t a moral carbuncle in the lot to do it out of mercy. American spoiled yuppie idiots following their spoiled yuppie idiot elders greed and profit on misery.
Grow up, chop wood carry water and smile. If you get through the day without hurting someone or being hurt count your blessings and move the fuck on. Stopping the various Drug wars and utilizing the value of Ganja and Hemp in local markets instantly producing jobs is tangible reality. Fuck the DC killers of Justice and just about anything left in the decent things category. Can’t even watch a ball game without moneysluts hawking some cheap plastic or booze. Its logo’s spewed on uniforms. Let alone the redneck left turn billboards. Have you no shame or self respect? You gossip and point fingers falsely at those trying to gain back some semblance of honor and dignity for all Americans.
The GOPervert Congress did nothing for the American people except cut off 911 victims, unemployed workers and their great triumph toppling a charity helping the poor buy cheap housing. Offending the moneysluts profit on real estate. Demand affordable housing. Take back the excess. Tax the rich until there are no poor for the workers to deal with. Those that haven’t been et yet. Plug the tax shelters the traitors horde in their bank accounts while we pay their share fighting wars and fixing infrastructures. They’re all Bernie’s bilking the majority while a few lead the idiots to do their bidding. In spite of their own children’s lives, exactly the same drug worrier mentality. Uncaring sons of a bitches. Kill the kids for profit and glory, send them to die for lies in some foreign desert. Protest health care and clean air. What kind of Idiots are we raising here? What else are you if not a moron proud of destroying the middle class and the very planet you live on?
You think minimum wages are wrong and laugh at an actual real life living wage. You buy Wallmart crap because its cheaper in spite of knowing kids in sweatshops are undercutting American workers. Shit with crude oil packaging that won’t biodegrade so it ends up on ocean barges or taking real estate. Same as the welfare for cows with scenic views costing pennies on the dollar. Opposed to transparency and Senators actually filibustering with words and stuff, and how dare they the people expect a GOPervert to stand for something without blocking the debate anonymously. Chumps.
Government taxing disease is wrong ethically, morally and in that it drives the sick into corporate warehouses at greater expense to the tax payer, But you hypocrites never bitch about disease costs or especially war machine costs. Another 700 billion to Haliburton, Exxon and Lockheed and not a whimpering teabog ditzo to be found. Or the 6 countries we’re paying for police actions (wars) going on, and no GOPerverts filibustering that government spending. Or the GOPerverts Liberal increase in the size of government. Besides the DEAth in over 80 countries. The Homeylend Insurance scam starting with the Patriot Ax, and the sequel. Then cry about Wallstreet checks and balances causing the economic recession. The corporatist NAFTA/GATT causing unemployment of Americans while you try to gut the Unions. I’m not sure what side you’re on, but I know it’s definitely not America’s. “You” people are sick.
2.2 million Americans in for profit and federally paid by tax cages, most for some drug related non violent offense… and yet the “mavericks”, “outlaws” and “rebels” say didly squat. Pussies. Stop your divisive crap and participate in constructive ideas instead of this cowardly follow the yellow prick’s road of status weirdness. Kill your TV and pay your taxes. Be lucky your working and tell Obombo to shove that entire refund package up his Hawaiian ass. Especially the moneysluts cut hiding from their chores, while being first at the trough for handouts. Sick bastards! Cutting Neurological patient home services 3.6%? Making them decide what assistance they don’t need. Yet the new GOPriority is to return to Insurance run health care and faith based soup lines. Why waste our tax dollars on foreign suicidal nutjobs terrorizm when we have home grown genocidal neocon USA!QaeDEA! Peace… DdC
DdC, your head is all backwards. In a decent society these people wouldn’t have to go crawling to Montel. “Done more than my entire family lineage”?!!! HA! My Great Great Great Great Grandfather was John Dee. Smoke that. I have a PhD, and spent almost twenty years working for nearly poverty wages with children with mental health issues and disabilities. Montel is showbiz folk, joker, not the savior of the downtrodden. You’s messed up, man.
P.S., Personal attacks make you look like an asshole in a civil thread, DdC.
None taken DC but I could use some constructive criticism where you think I crossed the line. I’ve really been doing very well in keeping my posts from getting deleted yet still sharing my true feelings with thew group. While the group moderator tells me I shouldn’t censor myself writing posts that get pulled isn’t going to help us achieve our goals. This is the first post I’m aware of being pulled since I made the small adjustment from saying “you’re an idiot for believing (_____)” to “Only an idiot could believe (_____)” and that’s been quite a few months and quite a few real zingers that survived on sites I am certain would have pulled the same post without that minor adjustment.
I’m one of those crackpots that would rather be correct than to be told I’m wrong. Considering all the mistakes I’ve made in my life, only an idiot would think it was no longer possible to be mistaken standing in my shoes. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve pulled out one factoid or the other out of my head and it’s just totally wrong. For example just the other day I commented on la Familia and its alleged demise, posted up an opinion based on knowledge from flawed sources that I should have realized were flawed which I failed discount. That was here, a couple, 3,4 days ago. Anyway it made me feel like a total Clavin and I hate that feeling. I just need to remember my dear friend Google and to consult it first. Often wrong, never in doubt. That’s my motto. It’s almost as bad as going through life drunk, fat, and stupid.
Do you actually read DdC’s posts? It only happens here when I forget to check the poster’s name before I read. Sometimes I wonder how he must configure his hard drive though not very often nowadays.
Duncan, Though I don’t think you said anything directly offensive, the prolific use of words like “stupid” and “idiotic” do tend to draw one’s attention away from the content of a post. Also, where an author might dislike your ideas, their presence provides a ready excuse to censor. I wouldn’t sweat it, he dropped Malcolm’s standard boiler-plate for ad homonym attacks that aren’t even there. My guess is he doesn’t like to feel stupid on his own site.
Ahem,… as for DdC, I read and value every body’s input here, I get valuable stuff from lots of sources. DdC clearly has an opinion and so do I. My opinion is that he’s fucked up and needs medication for that “word salad” problem of his, but that’s just my opinion. And my opinion, like his, doesn’t mean shit. So I’ll keep reading, and refrain from discussing his ancestors. And I’ll likely keep sharing my opinion, and he’ll likely be offended again sometime soon. Who cares?
Yes DC, he deleted my second post, which did not contain any ‘ad homonyms’. I suspected he might, and part of the reason I posted that particular one was to get confirmation of that suspicion. You’re dead right he doesn’t like to feel stupid on his own site.
I’ve just posted this:
Keith, why are you ignoring my above post concerning the Calderón government’s connections with the Sinaloa Cartel? This was also reported in part 3 of Der Spiegel’s article, which you conveniently chose to completely ignore.
Based on the unalterable proviso that drug use, among all echelons of society, is essentially an unstoppable and ongoing human behavior which has been with us since the dawn of time, any serious reading on the subject of past attempts at any form of drug prohibition would point most normal thinking people in the direction of sensible regulation.
Have you ever watched the Drug War Clock as it ticks away all our hard earned tax dollars? http://www.drugsense.org/wodclock.htm
Or the US Debt Clock http://www.usdebtclock.org/
Alcohol prohibition in the US run from 1919 to 1933 – Now google ‘The Great Wall Street Crash’ and see when that happened!
During alcohol prohibition, all profits went to enrich thugs and criminals. Young men died every day on inner-city streets while battling over turf. A fortune was wasted on enforcement that could have gone on treatment. On top of the budget-busting prosecution and incarceration costs, billions in taxes were lost. Finally the economy collapsed. Sound familiar?
http://1929crash.com/
If you have liberty then expect prosperity, but there’s most definitely no chance of prosperity without liberty.
By its very nature, prohibition cannot fail but create a vast increase in criminal activity, and rather than preventing society from descending into anarchy, it actually fosters an anarchic business model – the international Drug Trade. Any decisions concerning quality, quantity, distribution and availability are then left in the hands of unregulated, anonymous and ruthless drug dealers, who are interested only in the huge profits involved. Thus the allure of this reliable and lucrative industry, with it’s enormous income potential that consistently outweighs the risks associated with the illegal operations that such a trade entails, will remain with us until we are collectively forced to admit the obvious.
In defense of DdC: “tell Obombo to shove that entire refund package up his Hawaiian ass” –a growing field of scholarship is rigorously reaching that same conclusion!
God help the state of American academia if Keith Humphreys can pass as a public intellectual.
This is the third time I’ve called Humphreys out on this:
Why are you continuing to ignore my above posts concerning the Calderón government’s connections with the Sinaloa Cartel? This was also reported in part 3 of Der Spiegel’s article, which you also conveniently chose to completely ignore in your above article.
Edgardo Buscaglia, a leading law professor in Mexico and an international organized crime expert, has analyzed 50,000 drug-related arrest documents dating back to 2003, and said that only a tiny fraction of the them were against Sinaloa members, and low-key ones at that.
“Law enforcement [statistics] shows you objectively that the federal government has been hitting the weakest organized crime groups in Mexico.â€
“But they have not been hitting the main organized crime group, the Sinaloa Federation, that is responsible for 45 per cent of the drug trade in this country.â€
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT0HD_6hfq4
Please address this honestly now Keith!
Anybody wish to add anything?
http://www.samefacts.com/2011/01/drug-policy/the-mexican-crime-cartels/#comment-58154
Pete…oh, you gave this bugwit too much credit entirely.
Our solution, legalization, takes the legs entirely out of the drug trade; that tool’s “solutions” do…well…SWEET FUCK ALL.
1. What cartels? What shall they fight about? Their trade is DONE.
2. “Small loss of business”? No, stupid…it’s their ENTIRE BUSINESS. It’s OVER. What the hell are they going to shoot about? Really?
I won’t even bother to address #s 3 and 4; you said it all. “Reversibility fallacy” my fanny. Who do you think you’re fooling with that load of bollocks?
No profit margin – NO CARTELS.
It’s a direct relationship. I can only surmise that you’re being willfully obtuse; otherwise, you are just another two-bit whore in a constant parade of media sluts, ready to please your masters.
You know and I know that this whole big load has nothing to do with keeping Americans “safe” from drugs; I mean, as a previous poster so excellently put it – THE CURE IS WORSE THAN THE DISEASE! I mean, if the intent is to save lives, why is it that so many of these “raids” lead to DEATH?!?
I just burned your straw men and all the rest of your hay…you’ve got NOTHING.
No reason for the crime – NO CRIME. Now, of course, what does that lead those poor DEA agents to do all day?
Well, I say…got get a REAL JOB.
DC your “opinion” has no value, anymore than dunkem,
Bring refs…
Greetings from the UK to my fellow drug-legalisation proponents!!
I cant really add much to your statements as you have clearly won the argument again – although, almost invariably, the prohibitionists usually lose the argument on their own by virtue of their logically fallacious rhetoric – however I would like to state that Keith’s “reversability logic” theory is (again) utter nonsense. I believe what he is referring to is the common logical fallacy of ‘affirming the consequent’; what he is essentially saying is that just because drug-smuggling/dealing contributed to the power and strength of the Mexican drug cartels, it is illogical to say that, if they were deprived of that particular income, they would be then become consequently weaker. Although it is possible this might not be the case, most free-thinking people – as well as people in authority who know what they are talking about – know full well that, in reality, to euphemistically pull the carpet out from beneath them by legalising drugs would be to seriously diminish their income and power. In the last period of alcohol prohibition in the US (1920-33 if I remember correctly) Al Capone et al were defeated by the re-legalisation of alcohol which undercut the illicit black market booze trade thus forcing the gansters out of that specific market. Any economist, whether left/right/liberal/authoritarian, would agree wholeheartedly with this rationale.
Keep up the good work on your side of the pond, folks!!