It was suggested that legalizing drugs would have no beneficial effect on crime. Two points: First, go and look at the graphs on national trends in violent crime. Note how the escalation of the War on Drugs coincides nicely with a ballistic takeoff in violent crime rates. Then answer this question: Has the "get tough on drugs" policy had ANY beneficial effect? What other nation on the face of this globe spends as many dollars and man-hours chasing a chimera like this? And why do facts like that have NO effect on the religious who believe anti-drug campaigns are somehow handed down from God? I believe there are people who would DIE for that belief (in fact, they do have a chance of doing exactly that if a stray bullet comes into their house, and there's nothing preventing it from being a POLICE bullet, either). I'm not saying drug use is a great thing. I think the use of prescription drugs in this country is SCANDALOUS. And the pharmaceutical industry has society by the throat because, much as we hate PROHIBITED drugs, we are equally in love with LEGAL drugs. And we think somehow there's a big difference between the two. Whereas the only REAL difference is that illegal drug sales happen on our street corners whereas the legal ones happen inside the drugstores that dot our landscape. In a way, it is one of our biggest self-deceptions. And our tendency to indulge such deceptions is why we can seldom have what I would call a rational discussion. It is really about religion and denial.
Adult Involvement
To say the problem with young toughs is lack of adult involvement is to cloud the discussion with mythology. There is plenty of adult involvement. It is just the wrong kind. Our adults, most of them, mislead our young with rotten modeling. We can start with the entertainment industry that pushes the tough image (take Schwarzenegger whose bloody movies are supposed to be his ticket to political office). And even the people who fault tough-image entertainers come out in droves to cheer when our government projects a tough image with pre-emptive wars. Someone here PLEASE tell me how you'll produce rational and peaceful youth when the country says that rationality and peacefulness are for suckers? Please. And then we have adult Minnesotans who are now packing heat, pretty much saying to the youth "You were right and all these peaceniks are wrong. Pack heat. No one will mess with you." Clarence Page, a syndicated columnist recently published a column where he talked about an anthopologist who found that even the children of successful African Americans, doctors, lawyers, and other professionals took the RAPPERS as their admired role model, not their successful parents. I tell ya, people, this society, with its financial madness, is building the bonfire on which it is due eventually to roast. And the brainwashing in present right here in our discussions. I can watch it go by like some marquee. I'm sure the police, when they are honest, will tell you the same. We pay them a lot of money, and then for LOVE of money, we go out and insure that they CAN'T solve the problem. It is as if we were deliberately setting fires so our firemen had something to do. Too bad we can't love rationality enough to USE a little!
By the way, here's a riddle. What's the difference between belonging to the Crips and belonging to Skull and Bones? Answer: Both are gangs, but Bones members break INTERNATIONAL law!
________________________________________ Jim Mork Cooper Neighborhood Longfellow Community Minneapolis, MN We think. You'll like it here. And we're more fun than a barrel of Norwegians
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