Illegal Immigration, The War On Drugs And Other Pressing Problems

I've been around Baptist Board for some time now and have seen many threads on illegal immigration. Most of us here seem to agree that something needs to be done to curb the flow of illegal immigrants over our borders.

Most solutions center around better security which I tend to agree with for the most part. But as these discussions "evolve" they seem to leave out or over look some very important factors that come into play but are very seldom spoken of.

Such as our "war on drugs". So I propose that in this thread we ponder what effect if any the so called war on drugs has had on illegal immigration and what would happen if we ended it?

I myself believe the "war on drugs" is a miserable failure and has made matters much worse instead of better. Since we declared war on drugs what have we got? More drugs. Stronger more dangerous drugs. A black market in drugs. Drug cartels who make war on each other and with their ever growing wealth and power are able to corupt or frighten the very people charged with upholding the law and protecting us from them. Even up to and including the police, military and governments on both sides of the border. We've gotten violent gangs who's only sources of revenue seems to be from the production and distribution of drugs and all the gang violence as opposing forces fight for control of "turf".

And the gangster's favorites, extortion and terrorism.

These problems are getting worse not better. But we should have known all along this would happen. Why? We tried it before!

We have in our own history an example of what can be expected during a prohibition. Namely the prohibition of alcohol during the 1920's and 30's.

What happened when the USA decided to prohibit alcohol?

A black market came into existance which in turn spawned criminal gangs (cartels) with all the violence and other crimes that goes along with them. Wholesale coruption of the police, the government and even the military then followed.

We all know what happened. The gangs got bigger and more powerful, the government was given more and more power to control the situation, new laws written, civil liberties curtailed. Violence spilled over into the streets, innocent bystanders were gunned down along with members of rival gangs on and on it went until we woke up and realized prohibition was a terrible failure and it was finally repealed.

Alcohol has been with us for centuries and we all know the harm it can cause. It's ruined lives and marriages turned family and friends against each other and has taken the lives of not only those who consume it but those of innocent people who through no fault of their own found themselves in the path of someone under the influence.

These are things that prohibition was supposed to end. What happened? What went wrong? Didn't we enact enough laws? Didn't we give government enough power and funding? Should we have taken away the rights of some to protect others? Would it have helped if we had the military policing everyone? Or, is it that we just have to much freedom?

What could we have done differently to make the war on alcohol work?

The answer I suppose could have been a military/police dictatorship. Now that might have worked but I doubt very much anything short of that would have.


Is this where we're heading now with our ever expanding "war on drugs"? Looks like it.

I posted this in another thread.

So, what has the "war on drugs" to do with illegal immigration? Mexico for all intents and purposes is today a violent war zone because of drugs and in a war zone you have refugees fleeing the violence. Where else are they going to go but the USA?

Are all the illegals crossing the border refugees? Probably not. But how many are? I don't know. Illegal immigration and the war on drugs are seldom if ever linked together by the mass dream media or anyone for that matter.

Some come here to escape the violence. Some to escape poverty and the despotic rule of Mexican "officials", some come here just to rob, rape and pillage and some even come here because they can make a better life for themselves and their children. I don't know the numbers and I'm not reading any of this from a script.

All I know is prohibition didn't work in our past and the prospects of it working now are slim to none. So, I ask you the reader why continue it when all it has done is create more problems then it promised to solve?

I say let's say enough is enough and end the failed war on drugs before it does turn us into a big brother 1984 style police/military dictatorship. Let's not give the Mexican drug cartels any more power to displace their own people and cause anymore violence on this side of the border. Let's take away the one thing that hepled to give rise to and empower them the most.

Let's curb illegal immigration, cut down on gang related violence, restore civil liberties, protect our second amendment, shrink the size and scope of government and reduce racism with just one simple remedy.

Let's end the failed "war on drugs" before it's too late.

What do you say?

 

I really wondered when I wrote this if anyone here who claims to want to curb illegal immigration, cut down on gang related violence, restore civil liberties, protect our second amendment, shrink the size and scope of government and reduce racism are all that serious about their claims or if they're just sounding off to make themselves feel better.

Time will tell I reckon. So far only 1 person out of 24 has replied.

 

Neither do I. So how is the "war" going in your neighborhood so far? Has it kept any punk kids from playing with dangeroues chemicals? Around here they cook meth in grocery bags unattended in ditches so anyone finding them can be caused harm.

How is that good? The fact is billwald my very good friend drug users will always come up with ways to get drugs even if it puts others at risk. I'm just thankful that the police have been finding these portable "meth labs" before some innocent youngster does and gets injured or worse. Recently we've had flooding in Nashville and the surrounding area. I have to wonder how many of these "labs" floated downstream where some kid or person clearing flood debris can stumble on them and get hurt.

They cracked down hard on meth labs in houses so now they cook it in the woods and in ditches. Is this more or less dangerous to the general public?

Has it helped curb meth use any? Has it made the meth people do use safer? I believe the answer is no. So now what? Do we make meth even more illegal? Do we make the cooking and selling of meth a capital offense? Just what do we do to curb it's production and use?

What do you propose we do to keep punk kids from playing with dangerous chemicals?

 

Funny you should mention Mexico. I was just reading up on how Calderon's war on drugs was going down there. He got tough and sent in the military.

Calderon’s war inevitably moved to the cities and towns along the U.S.-Mexico border, which the drug gangs use as a staging ground to move their product north. In 2009, Calderon dispatched 10,000 troops to Juarez, which sits across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. Despite the occupation, the city, to borrow Charles Bowden’s useful term, is a “killing field”—more than 2,700 people were murdered in Juarez last year. Border cities were often violent. Under Calderon, they became war zones.

The battles between the army and the gangs were bad enough. But Calderon’s forces soon discovered another grim side effect of the drug war. When you start killing cartel leaders or ousting them from key territories, you upset a delicate hierarchy. To again borrow the New York analogy, if the police eradicated one mafia family from Queens, that family might try to move its operations onto the turf of a Brooklyn family. Or else the Brooklyn family might try to horn in on the newly vacated blocks in Queens. Or else some low-level hoods might use the power vacuum to set up their own kidnapping business. This would transform a bloody police war into a bloody mob war. This also happened in Mexico.

Since he took office, Obama has been one of Calderon’s biggest cheerleaders, sending an all-star delegation of Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, and others south in March to toast the Mexican Eliot Ness. But even Calderon has begun to hint that his all-military strategy isn’t working. In March, he visited Juarez and pledged to focus more on education and poverty eradication, which is what his strategy should have properly focused on from the beginning. But Calderon’s visit only came after 15 Juarez residents, who apparently had nothing to do with the drug trade, were murdered at a house party

SOURCE

The Obama administration went to Mexico "to toast the Mexican Elliot Ness."

But of course they did. Did they toast him for all the violence his "war on drugs" caused or did they toast him for saying he was going to work more on social issues? War is a social issue isn't it?