Annual deaths caused in US by tobacco use: 443,000
Annual deaths caused by alcohol abuse: 75,000
Annual deaths due to illegal drug use: 17,000
Annual deaths due to FDA-approved drugs: 64,000
Annual deaths due to marijuana use: 0
Annual deaths due to execution for drug-related offenses: 1,000
Number of tobacco executives executed: 0
Number of pharmaceutical executives executed: Far too few.
All right then, armed with the facts, DEA, go get ’em!
Piece of Mindful 
“What is the drug war really about?”
The Mexican/Border Drug wars were an opportunity for our government to began the process of crippling the second amendment.
You’ll need to add another 3000 deaths to your list.
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Crippling the 2nd Amendment? Come on man…that is really stupid.
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Holder admits to “gunwalking”.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7387581n&tag=cbsnewsVideoArea;cbsnewsVideoArea.0
If you have a better theory on why the justice was doing this I’d like to know.
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Well the better theory..as in the one most likely to be true… is the one put forth by whistle blowers and other actual DOJ officials. They thought they could do this to track and try and bust some cartel members and were oblivious to the blowback and subsequent political cost they would pay. Seems pretty obvious.
If you are asking for a better conspiracy theory (which is what your theory is) I would say there are DOJ officials that are probably bought off by and complicit with the cartels. It may not be official US policy but there is no doubt in my mind that elements within the US gov support certain cartels at the expense of others and profit from the importation of drugs.
Your conspiracy theory is not nearly as good or credible.
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No that’s incorrect. The “whistleblowers” were specific on the intentions.
Two points.
1. That they instructed U.S. gun dealers to proceed with questionable and illegal sales of firearms to suspected gunrunners.
2. That they allowed or even assisted in those guns crossing the U.S. border into Mexico to “boost the numbers” of American civilian market firearms seized in Mexico and thereby provide the justification for more firearm restrictions on American citizens and more power and money for ATF.
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Boost the numbers seized and provide justification for more power and money for the ATF for sure. It isnt news that the ATF and feds do this kind of foolish thing…it was the whole reason the WACO fiasco happened.
I havent personally read any whistle blower account that said this was done for the specific purpose to provide justification for firearm restrictions (which I take to be the reason you think this is a giant conspiracy to cripple the 2nd Amendment). I would assume you can provide a link to a credible source to support your assertion that ‘gutting the 2nd Amendment’ was the actual purpose behind the program and not just the opinion of a disgruntled individual interviewed by Fox News.
If you are correct and that is in fact the case I would certainly not support such a move by those in law enforcement and would hope to see them jailed for it. Holder included if he was complicit. I doubt thats the case though. What happened at WACO was far more egregious and I dont recall anyone (other than some branch davidians) getting jail time for that.
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Here’s how it started.
http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-national/a-journalist-s-guide-to-project-gunwalker
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Maybe you could be a bit more specific as to where the allegations can be found that this whole operation was being conducted to “cripple the 2nd Amendment”. There are several hundred links on that page…none of the 1st several dozen appeared to have anything to do with crippling the 2nd Amendment so I stopped looking. I also saw a mention of a Vince Foster murdered in the whitehouse conspiracy theory. Not helping the credibility of your links but if you can point to something specific id be interested to see it.
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First of all there are several whistleblowers who now are under the protection of Sen. Grassley. These agents, one of which has been fired, have yet to testify in the investigation.
That aside, combine the following events with Obama’s meeting with Sara Brady.
“”I just want you to know that we are working on it,” Barack Obama reportedly told Sarah Brady regarding gun control. “We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar.”
Read more: Obama: We’re working on gun control ‘under the radar’ http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=292025#ixzz1f7poXtpR
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So you dont have anything (at least right now) other then rumors or speculation as to your point about crippling the 2nd Amendment. Well, like I said, if that does indeed turn out to be the case I would join you in condemning it but I still think my conspiracy theory is way better.
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Where’s there smoke there’s fire.
“The Obama Administration has abruptly sealed court records containing alarming details of how Mexican drug smugglers murdered a U.S. Border patrol agent with a gun connected to a failed federal experiment that allowed firearms to be smuggled into Mexico.
This means information will now be kept from the public as well as the media. Could this be a cover-up on the part of the “most transparent” administration in history? After all, the rifle used to kill the federal agent (Brian Terry) last December in Arizona’s Peck Canyon was part of the now infamous Operation Fast and Furious. Conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the disastrous scheme allowed guns to be smuggled into Mexico so they could eventually be traced to drug cartels.”
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Fucking impenetrable!
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Funny you mention Waco, especially right after I read this.
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2011/11/reprise-hiding-mass-murder-behind.html
I’m thinking we’re looking at a damn beginning to fail.
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The first thing you need to do is provide solid evidence that there is an agenda anywhere in DC to remove handguns or rifles from anyone. If there is, why has nothing been done?
What do you have beyond paranoid NRA-fostered suspicion?
While you are looking for evidence, please look up “wedge politics” on wiki. And since you are not going to do that, I’ll define it for you: A “wedge” issue is one that has enough emotional firepower that it will cause a person to change the way he votes. At the same time, few in either party actually give a shit about the issue itself, and are not threatened by it.
Abortion is wedge, the mosque is wedge, immigration is wedge, guns are wedge, gay marriage is wedge, Jesus statues … getting it?
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I’m a “clinger” Mark.
God and Guns.
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Reminds me of the old Jew who was praying at that wall, and finally a reporter went up to him and asked him how he felt as he prayed and he said “I feel like I’m talking to a fucking wall.”
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As long as your thoughts are controlled, and believe me, you are robotic, they don’t give a damn about if you have a gun.
The drug war is something else entirely – a cover for counterinsurgency In other countries, and a way of controlling and imprisoning minorities at home.
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Say you want a revolution?
“There will never be a revolutionary movement in this country that doesn’t fully unleash and give expression to the sometimes openly expressed, sometimes expressed in partial ways, sometimes expressed in wrong ways, but deeply, deeply felt desire to be rid of these long centuries of oppression [of Black people]. There’s never gonna be a revolution in this country, and there never should be, that doesn’t make that one key foundation of what it’s all about.”
Bob Avakian, Chairman of the
Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
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WTF? The Communist Party USA had about 2,000 members, half of whom were FBI plants.
And who the hell is talking about violent revolution? We are supposed to be a country that allows expression of public desires for change through the ballot box. Our political system is horribly corrupt, our police militarized, our commutation monitored, and propaganda everywhere.
But somehow this country has always managed to do enough change to fix things well enough to get by. FDR was at the forefront as labor unions gave us the New Deal. It can happen again. We need organization, and it is beginning, Fingers crossed.
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The Communist Party USA had about 2,000 members, half of whom were FBI plants
That was the Klan.
…a way of controlling and imprisoning minorities at home
For someone who claims to be above the fray, you don’t have a problem spouting the usual propaganda.
Number of pharmaceutical executives executed: same as the number of bloggers executed for being total dipshits: Far too few.
The statistics you cite are misleading. For starters we need to distinguish between deaths of older people who are sick and deaths of younger people with years ahead of them.
Drug crimes are relatively easy to prosecute, thus the big reason we keep them on the books is to get someone off the street who has committed other, harder to prosecute crimes.
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There are facts, there are lies, and there is propaganda, which can use either to achieve its ends. However, in the case drug policy as a means of control of minorities, the facts are there if you ever want to avail yourself.
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What about AIDS?
Were they introduced to control the minorities too?
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This answer is meant to go below Fred’s remark below.
Mostly blacks, but Hispanics too. Marijuana is basically harmless but is a club to beat them with. The percentage of drug use among blacks is the same as whites, but most prisoners in jail for drug offenses are black – by a huge margin. Go look it up. I don’t do you research for you, as you don’t listen.
Same with cocaine, a Wall Street drug, and crack, a ghetto drug. Penalties for the latter are far more severe.
They used to be called the “Rockefeller Drug Laws” and we’re born out of the civil rights era, as a means of controlling uppity blacks was needed. Throwing them in jail was that means. And it is well known that treatment works, that incarceration does not.
Swede, focus, honey. Focus.
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I don’t do you research for you, as you don’t listen.
My, my.
Mostly blacks, but Hispanics too.
Two groups that are ascendant today by many social measures. It is almost the opposite of your assertion: the two groups are on a subsidized rise.
That these two groups populate our prisons speaks to their higher criminality. Drug usage rules are often a proxy for other crimes. Whites tend to use their “pipes” quietly indoors, whereas a rowdy Black rousted after a scuffle on the street is found with some rock and put away for that.
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You just make stuff up as you go along. At least Swede provides links, weak as they are.
I repeat, the percentage of drug use in the white and black population is identical. The percentage of incarceration for drug offenses is far higher among blacks than whites.
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the percentage of drug use in the white and black population is identical.
I don’t dispute this, but the pattern of use is different and the pathology from use is different. The guy committing a crime while high is different from the guy contemplating his navel at home.
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That is patently racist.
Gotcha.
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Is racist really wrong?
White people get a disproportionate number of DUIs, despite your lovely statistic that Blacks and Whites partake at equal rates. Is it racist to point that out?
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It was racist because you are claiming that it is right to put a disproportionate number of blacks in jail on minor drug charges, and then you dragged out some dead-cat reason why it is the right thing to do to justify your attitude.
I suspect, seeing how these laws are enforced, that they were put in place as a way of routinely removing potential leaders from the black community, thereby keeping unrest down.
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I’m not advocating putting more Black people away for drug crimes. I’m just pointing out that drug crime prosecution serves as a proxy for other crimes. That is not the best of all possible worlds, but it is how things have come down today; convenient prosecution.
Do you really believe that any portion of our Black and Latino prison population is otherwise law abiding and productive sans drug laws?
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Yes, I really believe that. I also believe that we could segregate any sub-class in this society, including Irish in Boston, Italian in New York City, gays in San Francisco, and target them for selective enforcement of drug laws, and achieve the same effect. Because, you see, drug use is cross-cultural. Criminalization is race-based.
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Well, we just flat out disagree here, and I say the facts are on my side.
There are underlying trends of criminality and anti-social behavior based on biology and socialization. It is not because the powers-that-be have deemed it time to persecute some group.
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Focus yourself.
I replied to the right comment.
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Which minorities are being controlled here? The Ashkenazim? We have a drug policy to control the Ashkenazim?
You are too anxious to romanticize the drug trade, including the notion that it is a legitimate business model that only fails when it is criminalized by the Man.
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Romantic is a alley full of discarded needles.
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Underlying trends of criminality based on BIOLOGY fred? So what we need is some kind of final solution to this problem dont we?
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Jumping to a final solution is your bugaboo.
I don’t think it is too much to ask to have public policy informed by the truth, including the truth that indulging in hatred is a bad thing.
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So then where IS your actual proof that blacks and latinos engage in more criminality then whites and that the basis of this is biology? Have you personally isolated the criminality gene and found that it corresponds to the pigmentation in skin? Where is your specific proof that race is the causal factor?
Sounds to me like you are just a honky looking for official sounding reasons to engage in discrimination (no offense). I hope you are just trolling tokarski because what you are actually suggesting is seriously fucked up. Trying to put a pseudo-intellectual window dressing on overt racism is exactly what the final solution was about.
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Have you personally isolated the criminality gene and found that it corresponds to the pigmentation in skin?
That’s not the causal route, and these things don’t lend themselves to that kind of clear linearity. If that is what you demand, I can’t supply it.
On the other hand, your side has no success in explaining differing crime statistics in any way that has shown successful remedial action. All we get are endless transfer payment programs to close various stubborn gaps in various socio-economic performance.
what you are actually suggesting is intercourse challenged.
So your stance is that there is no biology involved? In the nature/nurture debate, it is all nurture? Do you really think the evidence is mounting in your favor?
I think part of the problem here is that many people are so ideologically intense and solipsistic that they think what they know is the sum total of knowledge, and it must be acted upon now. Couple that with binary thinking of inferior/superior and we get the jump to gulags and the killing fields.
I think some people carry a genocidal tendency so close to the surface (Jack cough) that they won’t even consider some evidence lest they have to face that chasm in their lives.
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Just like I told your partner in crime johanson up above, whenever you come up with some evidence I’d be happy to consider it. All Ive seen from either of you are your own unsupported opinions..which you are entitled to and I am entitled to tell you they are ridiculous. One based on conspiracy theory about the 2nd amendment the other based on your own prejudices against other races.
Taking your master race theories to their logical conclusion..what kind of ‘remedial action’ do you foresee as working to curb crime once we can establish with some certainty that the lesser races are biologically prone to anti-social behavior?
One problem I see is that people of Latino descent are sometimes hard to spot and can blend in well with caucasians..we might need to come up with some way to mark them so caucasians can spot them in public. Maybe a brown star pinned to their shirts. Did I mention that I’m latino?
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The evidence is statistical, and is there for anyone willing to look and understand statistics. If you refuse to believe the results, and say the data is bad, or that there is confounding variables, etc., so be it. I can’t make you accept, but I suspect you are a realist when it comes to what part of town you walk at night, where you choose (or aspire) to live, and where you send your kids to school.
Note that “lesser races” is your take, not mine. I don’t subscribe to that.
I’m not sure we can do more to reduce crime beyond what we are doing today. My interest is in better policy, for example, in school discipline. Schools are under pressure to show equal statistics across race in discipline. Thus in mixed race schools they prosecute Whites and Asians for smaller infractions while looking the other way for higher offences by other groups.
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So you want me to do some research to support your claims? Eh, sorry Fred. How about just one source for your claims…how about something discussing the way whites and asians are targeted for smaller infractions in mixed race schools? I would genuinely be interested to see this.
I’ll take your word for it that crime statistics will show such things as minorities commit more crime or more crime happens in minority neighborhoods. I would assume that more crime occurs in poor white trash meth neighborhoods than happens in white occupied gated communities. Maybe you could do a study that accounted for the variable of economics if blacks and mexicans had their own similar gated communities? But then I suppose they are also poorer than whites because of race as well….hmmm what to do. Your assumptions that I am secretly prejudiced against other races (where I will go late at night, etc.) are based on your own guilty feelings obout yourself.
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