Hell-Bent for the Cliff?

Eric Raymond of Armed and Dangerous posts about the apparent direction of the Democrat party - oblivion. Like most all of his posts, it's well thought-out. Excerpts:

The Democrats certainly seem to be trying pretty hard to self-destruct. But this is not a new story; it's been going on ever since the New Left captured the party apparat in the early 1970s. My first experience of political activism was standing athwart that particular tide of history, yelling "stop!", as a campaign worker for centrist Democrat Scoop Jackson in 1975. I think I already half-understood that he was doomed. What I didn't foresee was the completeness with which the Democrats would abandon their southern and rural wings to become a party run exclusively by Brie-nibbling urban elites. Call it the NPRization of the party.

--

Ever since the early 1990s, there's been a tug-of-war going on within the urban elites that now run the party; the Democratic Leadership Council versus the inheritors of the New Left. What's happening now with the Dean campaign demonstrates that the DLC has lost its grip. The left is winning. The trend that has taken the Democrats from solid majority status in my childhood to the point where it needs a Bill Clinton to win elections, if it continues, might very well result in it disappearing into history.

The DLC's most recent effort to reverse this tend — to stop talking about gun control — only highlights the depth of the problem. They know, because their own analysts and Bill Clinton have told them, that gun owners are the swing vote that cost them the 1994 and 2000 elections. And yet, the left, for whom hatred of civilian firearms is a religious absolute, has such a lock on the party machine that the DLC can only talk about spin, not about a substantive change in platform.

All very true. But I don't think The Anointed are going go over the cliff without dragging as many with them as they can.

Read the whole thing.

More Crushing of Dissent

Apparently CBS stands for "Caught Being Shitty." Drudge is reporting a CBS statement that they will not be showing the controversial mini-series "The Reagans" starring James "Mr. Streisand" Brolin. The reason?

This decision is based solely on our reaction to seeing the final film, not the controversy that erupted around a draft of the script.

Although the mini-series features impressive production values and acting performances, and although the producers have sources to verify each scene in the script, we believe it does not present a balanced portrayal of the Reagans for CBS and its audience. Subsequent edits that we considered did not address those concerns.

So now they claim to be "balanced?"

Or were they just afraid of a libel lawsuit?

I can hear the howls of "CENSORSHIP!!" now. Tim Robbins might never work again.

Oh, wait....

Perhaps Remington Should Look into Manufacturing "Assault Weapons"

In a bit of bad economic news (and in direct opposition to the good economic news in the post abut Knight's Armaments) Remington Arms will be shutting its Ilion Illinois plant for the entire month of December, according to this story:

Arms shutdown reaction: concern, cautious optimism

ILION - Employees, local retailers and community leaders remain "cautiously optimistic" in the face of Thursday's announcement from the Remington Arms Company that its Ilion plant will be shut down for the month of December.

Few official details have been made available, with the exception of a letter distributed this week to approximately 940 plant employees. Repeated attempts to contact Plant Manager Paul Cahan were unsuccessful and messages left at the plant Thursday and Friday were not answered.

"It's a shocker. Nobody knows what is going on," plant employee Dan Bass said. "It's going to make it really rough on everybody during the holidays."

According to the letter, workers will have the opportunity to file for unemployment benefits with the state and employees with unused vacation time will be paid in a December check.

And many fear this will adversely affect the local economy:

There are some concerns that the shut-down could have an adverse effect on local retail sales, particularly because it comes during the important holiday shopping season. Like other municipalities in the area, Ilion relies heavily on sales tax revenue distributed through the county.

"It's just a difficult time," Gilmartin said. "Whenever you don't get that sales tax revenue the effect passes on to the taxpayers."

Located near the plant in Central Plaza, Smoker Friendly draws a good share of its customer base from Remington Arms employees. Manager Debbie Sterling said most are from the area and would likely still shop locally.

"I really don't think it's going to effect us that much here," she said. "There's nothing we can do about it anyway; it's a done deal."

The Farm House Restaurant is located just across from the plant gate on Otsego Street and attracts a number of employees before and after their shifts. Co-owner Angela Blovat said the shut-down will definitely impact business, but she feels it will not be too severe.

And look at some of the other beneficiaries of the Remington plant aside from local government and local businesses:

Currently in the middle of its fall fundraising campaign, the Valley United Way has always received a great deal of support from Remington Arms employees. Director Steve Canipe said he believes that even though this is a difficult time for workers, they will recognize the good work done by the organization and continue that support.

Kelly Brown, director of emergency services for the Mohawk Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross, also noted that Remington Arms is the largest benefactor for many of the area's non-profit organizations. In particular, he noted the employees' support of the Herkimer County Hunger Coalition through their Hands Across the Valley program.

But I thought gun manufacturers were multi-billion corporations that could hire people to fix juries?

Word of Advice: Don't Rob This Woman's Bar!

She's an ex-cop, so that might get her special consideration, but this is Wayne County (Detroit) Michigan, so maybe not. Anyway:

Police: Bar Owner Kills Two Robbers With Single Shot

Wayne County Prosecutor To Review Alleged Robbery, Shooting

Helluva shot, but the "prosecutor to review" bit isn't encouraging.

Two suspected robbers are dead after a former police officer and owner of a Detroit bar fired a single shot, Local 4 reported.

The robbery and shooting happened early Sunday or late Saturday at Adela's place on the city's southwest side.

Police say the 49-year-old woman who owned the restaurant -- a retired Detroit cop who was a former member of Mayor Coleman Young's security team -- tried to hold the suspects in the parking lot until police arrived. But when the two men attempted to speed away, and nearly ran over one of her employees, she fired a single shot that apparently struck both men, according to police.

Well, that would be defense of another, and justification for use of lethal force. Being that she's an ex-cop, the presumption would be that she knew the law (though given the example of ex-chief Jerry Oliver in the post below, maybe not) and was aware when lethal force was justified.

"We've had some robberies in that area. We have some evidence now that may indicate that someone was robbed there and assaulted there. There attempted to be another assault against one of the employees, before the owner of this establishment fired one shot in an attempt to stop a fleeing felon," said Detroit police Inspector Marilyn Hall-Beard.

The two men -- Dorian Gordillo, 22, and Rosalio Becera, 33 -- were later found dead from a bullet wound in a car parked on the Interstate 75 service drive, according to police.

One of the men was reportedly still holding a beer in his hand.

Open container. Isn't that illegal?

Oh well, I suppose if you're going to go, do it with some sense of style. Lawbreaker all the way.

Regular Butch & Sundance.

Family members of Gordillo and Becera were initially confused over their deaths, Local 4 reported.

"He was a very good guy. He would never look for trouble. I don't understand what happened. I hope we can find some answers," said Barbara Gordillo, the sister-in-law of one of the victims.

"No! Our (brother, son, cousin, nephew, uncle, fill-in-the-blank) would never do something like that!" (Even though he probably has a rap sheet several pages long.)

Officers who had responded to the incident at the bar wrote down the description of the car that left the scene and later made a match with the vehicle in which Gordillo and Becera were found dead, Local 4 reported.

While the shooting appeared to be justified, the Wayne County prosecutor was expected to review the case to determine if the bar owner would face charges.

And that is, of course, his job. However, I find it fascinating that so few people are charged in the rural South and so many in the urban North.

Question: Was the gun the proprietoress of Adela's used registered?

Or Was It Because He Thought Cops Didn't Have to Obey the Law?

Ex Detroit police Chief Jerry Oliver recently attempted to take a flight from Detroit to Philadelphia - with a pistol in his checked luggage. Problem was, he didn't follow the required procedures to do so. According to this story:

You can check a weapon, but paperwork needs to be filled out and the ammunition separated from the pistol. Oliver claimed to be unaware of the procedures for checking a gun in luggage he says, “it was just an oversight.”

--

Oliver says he takes full responsibility for the incident and says he "always" checks his gun when he boards. But, he claimed to be unaware of the procedures for checking a gun in luggage.

And since he's a member of the special, priviledged class...

It makes me wonder, however, how many times Chief Oliver had done this in the past, and gotten away with it?

Back on October 20 when the story broke, Chief Oliver faced:

Suspension is unlikely at this point. But, according to TSA officials in Detroit, he could be fined up to a $1,000.

Not to be. (I cannot help but wonder what the penalty for a Joe Average would have been, though?) Instead, Chief Oliver was fined and has resigned his position as Chief. Further, he has been charged with possession of an unregistered handgun - a major oopsie for a police officer. According to this report:

Wayne County Prosecutor Michael Duggan at a Monday morning news conference announced his decision to charge Oliver with the 90-day misdemeanor.

Oliver said he didn't think he had to register the personal weapon in Michigan, where he was in the process of becoming a licensed, sworn police officer. He has been a sworn officer in other departments and said he has had the gun for years.

He's a police chief and doesn't know the gun laws.

But we citizens are supposed to.

UPDATE: According to this story:

Former Detroit Police Chief Jerry Oliver entered a no contest plea to a misdemeanor charge of possessing an unlicensed handgun on Thursday in a Romulus courtroom.


According to an agreement worked out with prosecutors, the charge could be dismissed in 90 days if Oliver stays out of trouble.

--

Doug Baker, the Wayne County chief for special prosecutions, said Oliver’s sentence was “typical” for such cases.


Oliver paid a $250 fine before leaving.

Typical, eh? Perhaps for law-enforcement officers.

Excellent Response

I missed this until just now, but if you don't regularly read Clayton Cramer's blog, so did you.

Clayton responds to a gun control supporter's e-mail with calm, reason, and fact. Excellent read. Excerpt:

My experience is that most gun control advocates (as I used to be, 20+ years ago) don't fully understand the issues involved, for the same reason that I didn't: they haven't researched the subject, but have relied on the impressions gathered from reading newspapers and popular magazines. At first glance, a lot of the measures that you talk about seem to make perfect sense--but that's because you are applying very middle class values to a problem that is largely not middle class.

Violent criminals in America are very atypical; they are disproportionately minors coming from severely dysfunctional homes; disproportionately mentally ill people who have been deinstitutionalized; people who are intoxicated, and for whom intoxication is a way of life; and adults with long felony conviction histories behind them. The values that you and I share are completely irrelevant to the vast majority of murderers.

And there's a lot more.

It's a Small World

I came across this story that details the relocation and expansion of Knight's Armaments manufacturing facilities from Vero Beach, FL to my old hometown of Titusville.

Weapons maker to stir up lackluster economy in N. Brevard

Company to use former Tomahawk missile plant in Titusville, creating up to 450 jobs

Interesting. An "assault weapon" manufacturer bringing jobs to a community. Imagine that.

C. Reed Knight Jr. realizes there's a dark side to his business.

Beginning in January, his factory, the former McDonnell-Douglas Tomahawk missile plant south of Titusville, will make powerful guns and firearms accessories for the nation's military, including some top-of-the-line weaponry for U.S. and allied special forces.

Knight reasons his lethal products are used for a good purpose -- to defend the nation's interests against terrorists and other foes.

"What we do for a living is very serious," he said. "We do build equipment that takes people's lives, but a lot less than the Tomahawk missiles that were built here. We selectively take out people, and they do it through mass destruction."

Oh, please. Spare me the PC apologies.

Currently, Knight has about 110 employees at the plant, but plans to increase that up to as many as 250 in January and to 450 "as soon as possible" after production begins. The reopening of the plant is expected to provide a boost to the Titusville area's lackluster economy.

Knight's company -- Knight Enterprises LLC, and its contracting arm, Knight's Armament Co. -- is the final stages of preparing the building for operation.

Because of the nature of his work, Knight, a former fourth-generation citrus farmer-turned-federal contractor, is guarded when discussing details about his business.

Knight has been gradually relocating his company from Vero Beach, where it has operated for years out of a 60,000-square-foot facility. Last year, Knight announced he would move his firm to the 625,000-square-foot former missile plant after reaching an agreement to buy it from The Boeing Co., which acquired McDonnell-Douglas after the plant closed in 1995.

I assume this means that Knight's believes the AW ban will sunset?

Knight indicated federal officials took an interest in his company's move and expansion to support the U.S. "war on terror" in the Persian Gulf region triggered by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

State and Brevard County officials also sweetened the deal by providing Knight with more than $1.7 million in tax breaks and incentives to move into the former missile plant.

Horrors! Tax breaks to manufacturers of "bullet hoses!"

Within the gun-manufacturing industry, Knight's company is known for its superior firearms, said Gary Mehalik, spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association for gun manufacturers.

"They make some specialized products," Mehalik said. "Their business is in the same class as the M-16 (assault rifle), but they specialize in more-accurate, long-range applications that are sought-after by people who compete in target-shooting matches. They're also very valuable for special forces in the Afghan/Iraq campaign."

Knight's firearms' long-range capabilities are in demand in a desert war, where the fighting usually is more spread out than "in the confines of a jungle war," Mehalik said.

One thing Titusville-area community leaders like about Knight's business is the roughly 450 manufacturing jobs he plans to bring to this north Brevard County city. Knight estimates the jobs will pay an average of more than $34,000 a year.

The Titusville area hasn't had much to cheer about in terms of economic development since the recession of 2001. The area also has lacked the robust population growth of south Brevard County.

Before the refurbished plant has produced its first gun, Knight has become somewhat of the toast of the local business community. That's mainly because he's breathing new life into the former Tomahawk plant, which was vacant for about seven years.

Not only did the Titusville area lose more than 1,200 jobs when McDonnell-Douglas closed the facility, the empty building came to symbolize the area's past glory days and present doldrums.

Tidyville was pretty much wiped out in 1974 after the Apollo/Saturn V program came to an end, too. That's when I was living there. Once they launched Skylab, that was pretty much it, and the major aerospace contractors pulled out. But it was a nice place to grow up.

"We consider them a big part of the community," Titusville City Manager Tom Harmer said about Knight's company.

"They've brought a lot of adrenaline to this community," Harmer said. "A lot of people were waiting for the plant to be filled. It's good to see them getting their operation up and running."

The plant is in an unincorporated area of Brevard County, just south of Titusville. But the city may annex the 450-acre site into Titusville, Harmer said.

Walt Johnson, executive director of Titusville's Space Coast Economic Development Commission, said he sees "a psychological" benefit for North Brevard by having the plant occupied again.

I cannot help but wonder if the plant will draw a protest rally from gun control groups. Nah, probably not.

Also, the more than 400 jobs at the plant will have economic "ripple effects" -- from local spending by those who work at the plant to related businesses that may see opportunity, he said.

"Other businesses may move here because they have some synergy" with Knight's company, Johnson said.

In all, Knight planned to spend a total of $20 million to buy the plant, renovate it and put in the gun-manufacturing equipment.

"We should see steady growth," Knight said, "if homeland security and the military continue to grow."

And the AW ban sunsets...

Meanwhile, Knight has about 125 people working for him in Vero Beach. That number will drop to 20 to 25 when the Titusville plant opens.

Knight said many of his Vero Beach workers will be working in Titusville, along with people he has been hiring from Brevard County. Machinists and other manufacturing jobs will pay between $7.50 and $20 an hour, he said.

The new plant will start production about a year behind Knight's original schedule. That's because he had to focus his resources in Vero Beach when his company received a $12 million contract last year to produce weapons for the Marine Corps. Knight said the contract was tied to the U.S. military campaign in the Persian Gulf region.

He said the Marines needed a lot of weapons fast, and the Vero Beach facility was the only way to meet the demand because the Titusville plant was far from ready. So Knight has kept his Vero Beach facility running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, this year to fulfill the contract.

He's also been busing workers between Vero Beach and Titusville for training and other job assignments while the company is in transition.

Some of the first business the new plant will handle will be producing Mark 11 sniper rifles for the Navy and "modular weapons systems" for the Army, Knight said.

His company will occupy about half of the plant. Knight is considering whether to lease the remaining space to other companies, which would bring even more jobs to the site.

So far, Knight said he only has had "discussions" with other companies about leasing the empty space. He said potential tenants preferably would be "compatible" with his company, although not necessarily into weapons manufacturing.

"I was very impressed by what they're doing there," said Bill Ellis, chairman of the Rockledge-based Economic Development Commission of Florida's Space Coast. "I think it's an industry with a great future in North Brevard, with all the terrorism we have in the world." Knight Enterprises LLC

Remember when "gun manufacturer" didn't have overtones of "evil baby-killer?"

Here's Knight's homepage: http://www.knightsarmament.com/

Knight's makes .223, .308, and .50 BMG gas-operated semi-auto rifles. According to the VPC's compilation of manufacturing data, Knight's hasn't made many rifles: a high of 2,500 in 1993 and a low of 150 in 1996. Only 996 in 1999. I must assume that those numbers don't reflect military-contract weapons, as those kinds of sales won't support 100+ employees unless they were all the SR-25 Mark 11 Mod 0 Navy contract sniper rifle at $8,000 a pop.

Who Says the Economy is Bad?

Sorry about the lack of posting, but I've been putting in long hours and a lot of windshield time (note that I'm posting this about 5:20AM). Today I'll be on the road again, and probably won't get home until after 6:00 (again), and tomorrow is the AR15.com shoot in Casa Grande (which I haven't finished loading ammo for, either.) So, no more posts today, and probably not until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest. Sorry about that, but sometimes life intrudes.

Anyway, if you're new to the site, please peruse the archives or just click on the "Best of" links on the lefthand column. Thank you for your patronage.

More Guns in Church! (Concluded)

I commented on the incident of Rev. Phillip Mielke of Big Lake Alaska here, when he was charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide for the killing of two men who were burglarizing his church. Well, his trial is over, and he's been acquitted of all charges.

Of course, there's the obligatory reference to "taking the law into their own hands" in the story, and the obligatory call to depend on the State for the protection of yourself and your property.

Nice to see that an Alaskan jury still can reason. Sometimes the justice system does get it right.

UPDATE: Ravenwood comments, and does a better job than I did.

You Missed: "Everything Sold There is Made in China"

Mike Smith, Las Vegas Sun

THAT'S IT!!!

Chip Bok, Akron Beacon Journal.

That's precisely the reaction that appears to be occurring.

That Was MY Take On It.

Mike Thompson, Detroit Free Press

22 Days Until:

National Ammo Day/Week

Not In My Back Yard - or Anybody Else's Either!

Arizona recently suffered through a gas shortage because a pipeline that runs gasoline from Texas to Phoenix through Tucson ruptured. Aside from the problem of tens of thousands of gallons of spilled gasoline, the pipeline was down for a considerable period of time. This affected prices not only in Arizona, but in California as well as gasoline was shipped by truck from there to Arizona to help cover the loss.

So, why am I not surprised to find that a proposed refinery in Arizona is being fought by environmentalists?

John Moore of Useful Fools has done a bang-up job of investigative journalism on the subject. Seems that the site of this proposed refinery violates the doctrine of "environmental racism." Yes, the 33 people living within four miles of the site include five blacks and five Indians.

As John points out, this would be the first refinery built in the U.S. for 25 years, and would cost $2.5 billion to construct. You can bet your ass that Mobile, AZ wouldn't be just a wide spot in the road anymore.

If you're an "environmentalist" you can't have that.

Go read the whole thing. You won't be seeing it in the major media.

"Democrats give up gun control issue" - For Now...

MSNBC.com carries a Washington Post article on the Democrat abandonment of gun control as a policy topic. Money quotes:

Democratic presidential candidates are distancing themselves from tough gun control, reversing a decade of rhetoric and advocacy by the Democratic Party in favor of federal regulation of firearms.

--

MOST DEMOCRATIC White House hopefuls rarely highlight gun control in their campaigns, and none of the candidates who routinely poll near the top is calling for the licensing of new handgun owners, a central theme of then-Vice President Al Gore’s winning primary campaign in 2000.

--

“It’s very important for us as Democrats to understand that where I come from guns are about a lot more than guns themselves,” said Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), one of nine Democrats seeking the presidency. “They are about independence. For a lot of people who work hard for a living, one of the few things they feel they have any control over is whether they can buy a gun and hunt. They don’t want people messing with that, which I understand.”

--

In the presidential race, several candidates said the gun issue contributed to Gore’s defeat in 2000 and could backfire on the party again next year if Democrats do not quickly lose their anti-gun image.

--

Indeed, the Democrats’ shift away from gun control is rooted more in politics than in a belief that gun laws do not help prevent crime and death, several Democrats said privately.

--

“The gun issue is the silent killer” of Democrats, said Deborah Barron of Americans for Gun Safety, which is tutoring candidates on the gun issue. “Democrats will be extinct in red states unless” they change how gun owners view their party.

--

In some ways, the shift is more rhetorical than substantive.

No, REALLY? Color me shocked.

Remember, kiddies: Gun Safety = Gun Elimination, just like Gun CONTROL used to.

I Have Only One

There's been a running thread of posts over at the Volokh Conspiracy and other sites concerning bumper stickers recently.

I have only one (aside from my NRA, GOA, Tucson Rifle Club and IHMSA membership stickers):

This Bumper Isn't BIG ENOUGH
For What I've Got to Say!

Which is, of course, why I've got a blog.

It is Not the Business of Government

It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve.
Henry George*

Prohibition was introduced as a fraud; it has been nursed as a fraud.
It is wrapped in the livery of Heaven, but it comes to serve the devil.
It comes to regulate by law our appetites and our daily lives.
It comes to tear down liberty and build up fanaticism, hypocrisy, and intolerance. It comes to confiscate by legislative decree the property of many of our fellow citizens. It comes to send spies, detectives, and informers into our homes; to have us arrested and carried before courts and condemned to fines and imprisonments. It comes to dissipate the sunlight of happiness, peace, and prosperity in which we are now living and to fill our land with alienations, estrangements, and bitterness.
It comes to bring us evil-- only evil-- and that continually. Let us rise in our might as one and overwhelm it with such indignation that we shall never hear of it again as long as grass grows and water runs."
Roger Q. Mills**, 1887

Sorry Roger, sorry Henry. Nobody listened.

This post was inspired by a piece written by Clayton Cramer on his blog a few days ago. I've read a lot that Clayton's written (I highly recommend his book For Defense of Themselves and the State if you're interested in the judicial history of the right to arms) and I find his work on the right to arms exemplary, but he and I differ on some other topics. In this piece he discussed Rush Limbaugh's addiction and talks about his support of the criminalization of drugs. The quote that got my attention was this one:

I still don't think that prohibition of drugs is the most effective way to deal with the problem. It does have one positive effect, however: it encourages parents whose lives are built entirely around intoxication to move to places where those values predominate, like Sonoma County, leaving other parts of America relatively civilized.

That's not the problem, though, in my opinion. Roger Mills foresaw the real problems, and he was right.

The Harrison Narcotic Act was passed in December of 1914:

To provide for the registration of, with collectors of internal revenue, and to impose a special tax on all persons who produce, import, manufacture, compound, deal in, dispense, sell, distribute, or give away opium or coca leaves, their salts, derivatives, or preparations, and for other purposes.

It was passed in response to an international treaty on the opium trade, and in response to the fact that the United States had just taken possession of the Phillipines where there was an established trade in opiates. On its face, the Act is not a prohibition, but part of the wording having to do with who can legally provide opiates was interpreted to mean that physicians could not legally prescribe drugs to addicts to support their habits. A drug addiction wasn't a disease, so giving an addict a prescription for his fix was a perversion of a doctor's practice. Shortly after passage, Roger Mills's predictions began to become realities. Doctors were arrested and jailed for giving out prescriptions. Addicts, unable to get their drugs through legal channels, found illegal ones. A market to feed their needs (and build a market of new users) was established. The cost of drugs went up - and crime increased to supply money to fill the need. Users were arrested for possession of illegal narcotics. People who, while addicted, were able to provide an income for their families through honest work, instead went to jail and left their families destitute. Addicts relocated to major cities where access to (now illicit) drugs was easier, and crime came with them.

New drugs hit the market, and were in short order added to the Act. Heroin was banned in 1924. Boy, that was effective, wasn't it? According to this site, in 1926 the Illinois Medical Journal carried an op-ed that said:

The Harrison Narcotic law should never have been placed upon the Statute books of the United States. It is to be granted that the well-meaning blunderers who put it there had in mind only the idea of making it impossible for addicts to secure their supply of "dope" and to prevent unprincipled people from making fortunes, and fattening upon the infirmities of their fellow men.

As is the case with most prohibitive laws, however, this one fell far short of the mark. So far, in fact, that instead of stopping the traffic, those who deal in dope now make double their money from the poor unfortunates upon whom they prey. . . .

The doctor who needs narcotics used in reason to cure and allay human misery finds himself in a pit of trouble. The lawbreaker is in clover. . . . It is costing the United States more to support bootleggers of both narcotics and alcoholics than there is good coming from the farcical laws now on the statute books.

As to the Harrison Narcotic law, it is as with prohibition [of alcohol] legislation. People are beginning to ask, "Who did that, anyway?"

Not enough people, and not the people who had just cracked a Pandora's box of enormous powers - powers "...to confiscate by legislative decree the property of many of our fellow citizens. ...to send spies, detectives, and informers into our homes; to have us arrested and carried before courts and condemned to fines and imprisonments." Not those people.

In between passage of the Narcotic Act and subsequent "tightening of the loopholes," America in another fit of Puritanism ratified the Eighteenth Amendment - Prohibition - and then went home and had a stiff martini in celebration. What followed paralleled the results of the other attempt "to regulate by law our appetites and our daily lives," - abject failure. Increased crime. Increased misery. Increased prison populations. Increased poverty. Death. Mayhem.

And ever-increasing, ever more intrusive government power at the expense of the rights of the individual.

I am not an advocate of "If it feels good, do it." I'll tell you right up front that I have never been intoxicated in my life. I don't drink, I don't smoke, the only drugs I take are over-the-counter medications when I'm ill, or prescriptions as prescribed. I've never wanted to take a mind-altering substance. But I know a lot of people who have and some who still do. I understand that, for some people, drugs lead to addiction and death. They fuck up families. They destroy lives. They're best left alone, in my opinion.

But it shouldn't be the job of government to protect us from ourselves.

Because it can't. All it can do is oppress us. And in its effort to protect us, it doesn't just oppress the people who abuse drugs, it oppresses us all. The "cure" is worse than the disease - except there is no cure - just a new (and in many ways worse) problem on top of the one it's supposed to cure.

The Illinois Medical Journal saw it in 1926. The American public saw it well enough to repeal Prohibition in 1933. But drug users (other than of alcohol and nicotine) represent an unpopular and unsympathetic minority in this country, and our elected officials were unable or unwilling to tell the electorate "We don't have that power." The Founders understood the dangers of creeping expansion of government power and tried their best to ensure that our system inhibited that expansion, but in this they failed. Regardless of the best idiot-proof designs, human nature constantly provides unprotectable idiots. In volume. Congress didn't have that power. Aside from the fact that protecting us from ouselves is impossible, Congress wasn't given the power to try. But they went ahead and tried anyway.

Here are some of the results of the War on (some) Drugs© as we know them:

The prison population in America as of December 2002 was 2,033,331.

20% - 400,000 - of those incarcerated are there primarily on drug charges. (They may be there for other reasons as well, but drugs are the primary conviction.

35% of college students surveyed in 2001 admit that they had used marijuana daily within the previous year.

4.7% admitted daily cocaine use within the previous year

47.8% of high-school seniors admitted to having used marijuana or hash.

Of high-school seniors reporting drug availability, 25% said they could easily get PCP. Twenty-eight percent said they could get crystal meth. Twenty-nine percent could get heroin. Thirty-eight percent could get crack. Eighty-seven percent could get marijuana. Easily.

42% percent of the population of this nation admits to having used an illicit substance at least once. Thirteen percent within the last year. Seven percent, some fifteen million, within the previous month.

70% of illicit drug users, age 18-49, were employed full-time.

6.3 million of full-time workers were illicit drug users.

1.6 million of these full-time workers were both illicit drug and heavy alcohol users in the past.

The DEA's budget is in excess of $300 million annually, and that's just one government agency. And that budget never goes down. How can it? It's a government agency.

So what does that tell us? For one thing, all the drug laws on the books haven't affected availability. For another, it's possible to be a drug user and still hold down a job, be a productive citizen, and pay taxes. For a third, all that money we're shelling out to interdict drugs is wasted. Fourth, we're incarcerating only a tiny fraction of drug users. The laws aren't preventing drug use.

Here's some more:

There's a Treasury office dedicated now to Asset Forfeiture. There's another belonging to the Department of Justice. Remember the words of Roger Mills from 1887: "It comes to confiscate by legislative decree the property of many of our fellow citizens." Civil asset forfeiture is an affront to the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure and Fifth Amendment protection against deprival of property without due process. Under current law your property can be seized and the government can keep it even if you're never convicted of anything.

You are now subject to random, suspicionless drug testing at most workplaces. Officers may search your vehicle and the posessions of your passengers without a warrant. What happened to the Fourth Amendment protection against warrantless search?

Fundamental rights of individuals that were supposed to be protected against infringement by the Bill of Rights have been chipped at under the guise of "Drug Control." A little bit here, a little bit there. Just in this special circumstance. Until they decide they need to widen that window. Just a bit, you understand. To make us all safer.

Alcohol prohibition created many problems not foreseen: Organized crime, gang wars, bathtub gin, just to name a few. But when Prohibition ended, beer truck drivers no longer shot at each other for infringing on their territories. The incidents of people being blinded by drinking poisonous homebrew dropped dramatically. And tax revenues went up. Yes, alcohol remains one of the most devastating drugs out there - responsible for violence, broken homes, ruined lives, and horrendous numbers of dead on the nations highways - but it was better than the alternative - which was all those things and government in everybody's lives.

Legalizing drugs wouldn't be a panacea. It wouldn't make everything peachy-keen. Much damage is already done that cannot be undone, but you cannot honestly argue that it will make drugs easier to get. It might reduce the number of overdoses and unintentional poisonings due to inconsistent quality and cutting with who knows what. It would put a major dent in the illicit trade, and hopefully the violence associated with it. It should reduce the crime associated with supporting addiction. It might make drug abusers more employable - though that should remain a choice that businesses make for themselves. But it would end an ever-increasing intrusion on our lives and our rights by government. And hey! It might be a new source of revenue, so long as they don't try to regulate useage (as they are now with tobacco) via onerous "sin taxes" that just lead back to a black market.

And it should save a considerable amount of tax dollars. But of course it wouldn't. After just a few years of Prohibition the Federal agents tasked with that job weren't let go when it was repealed, they were just given a different job - enforcing the new Federal firearms law. You can bet all those DEA agents would be put on something.

How about anti-terrorism?

*Henry George was, for want of a better term, a "social philosopher," and a contemporary of Mark Twain and Thomas Edison. He wrote Progress and Poverty in his spare time and self-published it in 1879. It was picked up by a publishing house in 1880 and became an international best seller. It's a book on economics. I've not read the book, and I have no other knowledge of the author, but the quotation that begins this piece is as concise an expression of the purpose of government as any I've ever seen.

**Roger Mills was a Democrat and (after fighting on the side of the South during the Civil War) served as a representative for Texas in the House from 1873 to 1892, and the Senate from 1892 to 1899. He died in 1911, so he never saw the 1914 Harrison Narcotic Act pass, and he missed the passage of Prohibition, but his warning was prescient, and I've often wondered why more people do not understand what he put so eloquently 116 years ago.

Update: Francis Porretto takes the basic premise and runs with it.

Update, 10/27: In a related issue, Ravenwood reports that we obviously haven't learned anything yet.

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UPDATE:  As of August 6, 2013, due to the herculean efforts of reader John Hardin, the original JS-Kit/Echo comment thread for this post (read-only) is available here.

Fisked by Phelps, So I Don't Have To.

I read about this letter by idiotarian (but still fair musician) John "Cougar" Melonhead Mellencamp, and I wanted to tear him a new one, but The Everlasting Phelps has done a capital job of it, so I don't have to.

I'll just go back to work on my upcoming opus on the War on (some) Drugs™.

For the Children

With no sarcastic little ™ either.

Science fiction author L. Neil Smith has written an open letter and posted it on Usenet - and it's a doozy. I hereby submit for your consumption said letter without comment (which I leave up to you, gentle readers):

The October, 2003 issue of Discover contains one of the saddest letters I've ever read. Gil Bell, of Duluth, Georgia, writes

" ... one would have to conclude that travel out of our solar system is impossible. The fusion, fission, and antimatter engines require too much fuel ... The laser sail is doomed by the fact that building a 6,600-mile-wide collecting mirror is simply not feasible, and ... a 600-mile-wide sail would be torn apart by cosmic debris on a daily basis. And why build a fusion ramjet when there's no fuel in space to run it, and its design would not allow it to attain the speed it needs?

"The fusion or fission engine concepts would be useful in getting around out own solar system, but what's the use in traveling to other planets in our neighborhood? Venus will never be inhabitable and neither will Mars or any of the Jovian planets or their moons, and changing the environment on another planet will never be within our capabilities. It is fun to speculate on way that humans might accomplish interstellar travel, but in the end it is just more science fiction."

There are lot of unsupported assertions in Mr. Bell's letter, and a great many factual errors (most of them, I'm afraid, based on an incredible ignorance of history), but the saddest thing about it is its spirit of defeat. As I said in a recent essay, Americans seem to have given up on the future. This letter from Discover is typical and symptomatic.

But it doesn't speak for everyone.

I've been reading the works of Robert A. Heinlein (as the Brits say, "man and boy") for forty-six years, having found his books when I was sent to the school library to spend several afternoons there as a punishment. After all these years, I don't recall what for, more's the pity.

In all that time (and earlier, in fact) I always expected that, sooner or later, I'd end up space myself, maybe even die there (after living a couple hundred years, like Lazarus Long). And although I didn't necessarily want to move there, the one sight I always wanted most to see in person was Saturn and its rings, from one of its inner moons.

As I grew up, I became disappointed and disillusioned. The Mercury program came and went, the Gemini program came and went, the Apollo program came and went, followed by SkyLab, the Shuttle program, and the International so-called Space Station. What they all taught us (unless you actually care about fruitfly reproduction in microgravity) was that the only individuals who would ever be allowed to get into space were precisely the kind of government-approved jockstraps who were on the varsity football team when you were in high school -- oh yes, and an occasional cheerleader -- oops, make that public school teacher.

To all the rest of us, meaning those who are "encouraged" (at the point of a gun) to pay for these programs, the message was clear: "Get lost. Outer space, 99.99999999999999999999999999999999 percent of all there is, is government property, like the Lincoln Monument and Area 51."

Nothing has happened in all that time to change that. Just look at the bewildering maze of impossible regulations the government relies on to keep anyone else from trying out a new vehicle design, or from launching anything without their permission and supervision. Or the way they squirmed and struggled, trying to keep that zillionaire space "tourist" on the ground. Or the way they're employing the handy (if illegal) Homeland Security concept in an attempt to shut down model rocketry.

Novelist Victor Koman was dead right, when he said (in his great work, Kings of the High Frontier) that the actual mission of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration -- its not-so-hidden agenda, having nothing to do with the development of space travel and exploration -- is to keep scum like you and me from ever getting into space.

At the same time (as Victor also points out), NASA mouthpieces have been telling the public since the 1960s that our being able to visit space, perhaps even vacationing on the Moon, or in zero gravity at a space station, was "only about thirty years away". That's what they said in the 60s, that's what they said in the 70s, that's what they said in the 80s, that's what they said in the 90s, and that's what they're still saying today. It's always just about thirty years away.

In a way, you can't blame the government. Being what they are, politicians and bureaucrats, they have a very unhealthy tendency to project their own ethical and psychological shortcomings onto others, especially members of the unwashed public. Even before September 11, 2001 -- and before Luis and Walter Alvarez discovered what it really was that killed the dinosaurs -- someone in government read Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (individuals are paid to do that; see James Grady's Six Days of the Condor), in which penal colonists on the Moon ultimately achieve their independence by threatening major cities on Earth with boxcar-sized rocks, launched from an electric catapult.

Like politicians who push victim disarmament (erroneously known as gun control), they're afraid they're going to get what they deserve. So if you ever want to see Saturn's rings (or any other astronomical wonder) up close, you must absorb the following truth and never forget it: given their way, governments will never let ordinary people into space.

Never.

Quite aside from the question of boxcar-sized rocks, think of the historically unprecedented savagery with which the Union prosecuted the War between the States. Think of similar savagery at Waco. Think about the War on Drugs -- and recall why many folks use drugs to begin with.

You're not allowed to escape.

Governments will do anything -- absolutely anything, no matter how violent or morally repulsive it happens to be -- to prevent anybody from getting out from under their authoritarian thumb. If you don't shut your mouth, sit up straight, fold your hands, look at them when they're lecturing you, and spit that gum out this minute, they'll kill you.

However if there's on thing I've learned about politics over the last half century, it's that, when there's something you need to do, and government (or anybody else) stands in your way, you simply say you're doing it "for the children" -- and it helps if you really mean it.

I really mean it.

I have a little daughter I sometimes regret having brought into this world because it's become such a dark and horrifying place. If I believed that she could live her life in some of the places I've described in my novels -- that I'm describing again in the novels I'm writing now -- I would do virtually anything I could just to make that happen.

And if I could go there myself ... Well, there just might be a way.

Roughly a hundred years ago, Lord Robert Baden-Powell was having a tough time, don't you know, in one of Britain's last fun wars, because the soldiers she shipped to South Africa by the, er, shipload, didn't have a clue how to survive in the open country. Their foes were Dutch-African settlers -- "Boer" means "farmer" -- who lived and worked there very day. They knew what plants to eat and where to find decent water.

When Baden-Powell got home to Old Blighty, he created the group that was to become known as the Boy Scouts, to fix the shortcomings he'd seen in Africa. The idea was imitated in many other countries, including the United States to impressive effect. I was in the program myself, from 1954 as a Bear Cub, to about 1963, by which time I was an Explorer Scout, an Eagle, and a Brotherhood member of the Order of the Arrow. I also held 23 merit badges, a God & Country Award (believe it or not), a translator bar (German), and a whole ladderful of BSA/NRA sharpshooter bars. Although the roots of the Boy Scouts are sordidly statist, scouting was practically my whole childhood, and a very good one.

About the same time I first got into scouting -- and well before the Soviets' Sputnik scared the Eisenhower Administration shitless, spitless, and witless -- I began to collect newspaper clippings and magazine articles about space and space exploration. I also bought a book about going to the Moon on a visit to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry -- the author opined that no single government would ever be able to afford such a trip, so the idea must be turned over to the United Nations; and wouldn't that have been interesting? -- and I'd vowed that very evening to stand, someday, on the Moon, myself.

So what have I found in all my experiences that might be useful in solving our little space problem? The basic idea is simple, it's just a lot of hard work. At the moment, I'm writing Ceres (a sequel to my 1993 novel Pallas) which concerns itself with terraforming asteroids and preventing "extinction level events" like the one 65 million years ago that killed the dinosaurs. Ceres is not meant to be anybody's fantasy (although one of my former editors informed me that I'm not qualified to write on this subject); it's meant as a blueprint for the future.

I'm also doing research now for another novel, Ares, which will stand, chronologically, right between Pallas and Ceres. It's about the men and women who terraform Mars, despite violent opposition from Earth.

At the same time, I've begun collecting ideas and material for a third book, the working title of which will be (for lack of anything better) The Space Scout Manual. That book will try to do three things.

First, it will help young people (I'm aiming the book at a certain mindset, rather than a given age group; it should appeal at some level to everyone of both sexes between the ages of 5 and 20) to prepare themselves for working, living, and eventually settling in space, in more or less the same way that my old Boy Scouts of America manual, A Handbook For Boys (1955 edition), helped to prepare me to survive -- and even prosper -- in several different kinds of wilderness on this planet.

The book will also contain detailed instructions and suggestions for establishing your own local chapter of what I'm presently calling (again, for lack of anything better) the "Space Scouts" and everything necessary to affiliate it with a national organization of the same name. Unlike a great many other organizations I've been involved with, I want this one always to grow from the ground up, not from the top down.

The The Space Scout Manual's third mission will be to establish a political constituency for abolishing NASA and getting government out of the way of space exploration. If the book, and the organization it creates, are useful and interesting enough, then within a few years, there should be hundreds of thousands of young Space Scouts and maybe, a few years after that, millions. Politicians and bureaucrats will eventually be up against an enormous group of voters who are educated, tough, who won't take "No" (or even "Give us another 30 years") for an answer.

I want this book to get into conventional distribution channels and to show up on paperback racks everywhere. I want this book in airports and grocery stores where the words SPACE SCOUT MANUAL will leap out at all those who had almost -- but not quite -- given up the dream.

Please note that the manual will not be about the current hardware of government space exploration (which is constantly changing anyway) but about personal physical, mental, and moral preparation. It will draw on history, and on both factual and fictional sources. Also, it will give its readers the beginnings of a decent science education (another thing public schools were never up to), and encourage in them a proper skepticism with regard to public education and the democratic process.

Another reason not to get bogged down in such details is that there's no telling what methods of spaceflight will evolve if this idea works.

The book's moral outlook will be rooted in the Bill of Rights and the libertarian Zero Aggression Principle, but it will not preach. It will assume from the outset that individuals own their own lives and the products of their lives, and that no one has a right to initiate force against another human -- no, make that sapient -- being for any reason.

The book will advocate "Reconstitutive Unanimous Consent" as the preferred means of making group decisions and settling disputes. It will also advise politicians and bureaucrats that, from the moment that the first off-planet settlement is created, on Mars, on the Moon, in the Asteroid Belt, or wherever, it should reasonably be expected to become politically independent of Earth whenever its people want it to be.

Don't let any of the above mislead you, however. This will not be a book about libertarian or constitutionalist philosphy. It will be a book about getting into space and staying there. It will be guided as much by the scientific method as it will be by the Zero Aggression Principle. Its largest section, by far, will be a detailed survey and commentary (despite that editor's view that I'm not qualified to write it) on everything that's known, at the moment, about the Solar System, including its constituent star, its planets, moons, planetoids, and comets.

It will also talk -- again in detail -- about all of the many reasons we might want to see these things close up, and even go to live on, in, or among them. Those reasons will range from what might be called the "spiritual" -- because it's the destiny of humankind and a good first step to the stars -- to the exceedingly practical: our species won't survive another rock like the one that put an end the Cretacious; we're 15 million years overdue, so we have to go out and stop it, the topic of a lecture I delivered to the Eris Society in 2000.

Your thirty years are up, NASA.

They've been up a couple of times over.

There will be no more waiting politely. Even if it has to be done like the moldy old joke -- the hotel clerk admits that a room is available, but you'll have to make your own bed; upstairs you find you've been supplied with a hammer, saw, and lumber -- it will be done.

So this is what I've given up electoral politics for -- at least this decade, when the goodguys are powerless. But I think I've traded up. I'm ready to make my own bed. And to plant the seedlings for the lumber.

How about you?

OK, NOW I Understand the Attraction of Ebay

Via Acidman comes this Ebay auction which is one hilarious read.

Looks like the guy is going to have a good time at Home Depot and the liquor store. Hope he doesn't operate a power tool under the influence.