The War on Drugs is only one manifestation of Statolatry.

Also see “Thank you note from Mexican drug cartels”

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• “Thank you note from Mexican drug cartels”

Everybody needs a little love

Also see “Declaring War on Newborns: The disgrace of medical ethics,” by Andrew Ferguson, The Weekly Standard, March 19, 2012

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From FreeMarketAmerica.org

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• Not yet!

Marion Barry’s statement that Asians “ought to go” is an echo of what American political leaders were saying in the late-1800s. He echoes Denis Kearney, a sandlot orator in California who ended his speeches during the 1870s with the cry of “The Chinese must go!” Forbidden Citizens, § 2.11, Denis Kearney and the Sandlot Orators.

"The Chinese Must Go! But, Who Keeps Them?" Illustration in The Wasp, v. 2, August 1877 - July 1878. From The Bancroft Library The University of California Berkeley.

In 1882, Congressman John Kasson (R-IA) accurately described this attitude as “one of the most vulgar forms of barbarism.” Forbidden Citizens, § 4.60, House Debate, March 22, 1882: “Who would have them for voters?”. It is still a vulgar form of barbarism in 2012.

"The magic washer, manufactured by Geo. Dee, Dixon, Illinois. The Chinese must go" advertisement ca. 1886

Starting in 1879, Congress adopted a series of Chinese exclusion laws by majority votes, which did not assure that the laws were sound or just.

The Chinese Exclusion Act (H.R. 5804) passed the House of Representatives April 17, 1882, by an overwhelming majority vote of 201 in favor, 37 opposed, and 53 not voting. The Senate passed the bill, with amendments, on April 28, 1882, on another overwhelming majority vote of 32 in favor, 15 opposed, and 29 senators not voting. The House concurred in the Senate amendments on May 3, 1882 by voice vote and President Chester Alan Arthur approved the measure on May 6, 1882. Forbidden Citizens, Chapter 5. The Ten-Year Exclusion Legislation of 1882.

What’s old is new.

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“Joaquin Guzman Loera: Net Worth $1 Billion As of March 2012,” Forbes

“The World’s Billionaires: #701 Joaquin Guzman Loera,” Forbes, March 11, 2009

HT Kids Prefer Cheese

Why Legalize Drugs?

We believe that drug prohibition is the true cause of much of the social and personal damage that has historically been attributed to drug use. It is prohibition that makes these drugs so valuable – while giving criminals a monopoly over their supply. Driven by the huge profits from this monopoly, criminal gangs bribe and kill each other, law enforcers, and children. Their trade is unregulated and they are, therefore, beyond our control.

History has shown that drug prohibition reduces neither use nor abuse. After a rapist is arrested, there are fewer rapes. After a drug dealer is arrested, however, neither the supply nor the demand for drugs is seriously changed. The arrest merely creates a job opening for an endless stream of drug entrepreneurs who will take huge risks for the sake of the enormous profits created by prohibition. Prohibition costs taxpayers tens of billions of dollars every year, yet 40 years and some 40 million arrests later, drugs are cheaper, more potent and far more widely used than at the beginning of this futile crusade.

We believe that by eliminating prohibition of all drugs for adults and establishing appropriate regulation and standards for distribution and use, law enforcement could focus more on crimes of violence, such as rape, aggravated assault, child abuse and murder, making our communities much safer. We believe that sending parents to prison for non-violent personal drug use destroys families. We believe that in a regulated and controlled environment, drugs will be safer for adult use and less accessible to our children. And we believe that by placing drug abuse in the hands of medical professionals instead of the criminal justice system, we will reduce rates of addiction and overdose deaths.

“Why Legalize Drugs?” from Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP)

More. Much More.

• Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP)
• “Federal Domestic Illegal Drug Enforcement Efforts: Are They Working?” CRS Report R40732
• “International Drug Trade and Its Impact on the United States,” CRS Report 96-671
• “International Drug Control Policy,” CRS Report RL34543
• “Prescription Drug Importation and Internet Sales,” CRS Report RL32191
• “Student Aid Eligibility,” CRS Report RS21824
• “The Controlled Substances Act,” CRS Report RL34635
• “Drug Certification/Designation Procedures for Illicit Narcotics Producing and Transit Countries,” CRS Report RL32038
• “Drug Offenses,” CRS Report RL30721
• “Andean Counterdrug Initiative (ACI) and Related Funding Programs,” CRS Report RL33370
• “Federal Cocaine Sentencing Disparity: Sentencing Guidelines, Jurisprudence, and Legislation,” CRS Report RL33318
• “U.S. Sentencing Commission’s Decision on Retroactivity of the Crack Cocaine Amendment,” CRS Report RS22800
• “Federal Cocaine Sentencing,” CRS Report 97-743
• “U.S.-Mexican Security Cooperation: the Mérida Initiative and Beyond,” CRS Report R41349
• “Drug Crop Eradication and Alternative Development in the Andes,” CRS Report RL33163
• “Ecstasy: Legislative Proposals in the 107th Congress to Control MDMA,” CRS Report RS21108
• “Drug Crop Eradication and Alternative Development in the Andes,” CRS Report RL33163
• “Mexico’s Drug-Related Violence,” CRS Report R40582
• “Drug Trafficking and North Korea: Issues for U.S. Policy,” CRS Report RL32167
• “North Korean Drug Trafficking,” CRS Report RS20051
• “Latin America and the Caribbean: Illicit Drug Trafficking and U.S. Counterdrug Programs,” CRS Report R41215
• “Mexico’s Drug Trafficking Organizations: Source and Scope of the Rising Violence,” CRS Report R41576
• “Afghanistan: Narcotics and U.S. Policy,” CRS Report RL32686
• “Merida Initiative: Proposed U.S. Anticrime and Counterdrug Assistance for Mexico and Central America,” CRS Report RS22837
• “Narcotics Certification of Drug Producing Trafficking Nations: Questions and Answers,” CRS Report 98-159
• “Medical Marijuana: Review and Analysis of Federal and State Policies,” CRS Report RL33211
• “Marijuana for Medical Purposes,” CRS Report RS20998
• “Mexico’s Counter-Narcotics Efforts Under Zedillo and Fox, December 1994 to March 2001,” CRS Report RL30886
• “Hemp as an Agricultural Commodity,” CRS Report RL32725
• “Drug Control: International Policy and Approaches,” CRS Report IB88093
• “International Drug Trade and U.S. Foreign Policy,” CRS Report RL33582
• “Medical Marijuana: Review and Analysis of Federal and State Policies,” CRS Report RL33211
• “War On Drugs: Legislation in the 108th Congress and Related Developments,” CRS Report IB10113
• “War on Drugs,” CRS Report RL32352
• “Ratification of Amendments to the U.S. Constitution,” CRS Report 97-922
• “Mexico’s drug war” – One of the predictable results of prohibition

18th Amendment: Liquor Abolished

21st Amendment: Amendment 18 Repealed

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• Your friend, The War on Drugs!

A whole class of people, forbidden from ever becoming citizens. . .forbidden from even entering the country—their rights torn up and trampled on–left with nowhere to turn for political redress. This was the United States of America from 1882 through 1943–if you had the misfortune to be Chinese.

Now, for the first time, the complete legislative history of the 9 major pieces of Chinese exclusion legislation that dealt with this oppression has been compiled into a single comprehensive volume. Forbidden Citizens: Chinese Exclusion and the U.S. Congress: A Legislative History tells the story of this shameful history, using the very words spoken on the floor of the U.S. House and Senate chambers during these debates.

Compiled by Martin Gold, the book, to be published July 4, 2012, documents the legislative debates and actual texts of the 9 exclusion measures—giving modern readers a chance to watch this disturbing history come alive in the words of those who created it–quoting both supporters and opponents of the bills in full detail.

Forbidden Citizens should be of great interest to historians, Chinese-Americans, and those who believe in the struggle to achieve a just society.

“Will appeal not only to legal scholars and civil rights activists, but to any American curious about this grim chapter of our history.”
–Christopher Corbett, author, The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the Wild West

“Thorough, thoughtful and highly relevant today. This work presents the best scholarship in a most accessible manner.”
–Frank H. Wu, Chancellor & Dean, University of California Hastings College of the Law

Martin B. Gold, partner at Covington & Burling and former Floor Advisor and Counsel to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, is a prominent Washington attorney who was active in the successful effort to get an official expression of regret from the U.S. Senate for the anti-Chinese legislation enacted by prior Congresses. As a member of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, Gold spearheaded official recognition of Feng Shan Ho, a Chinese diplomat who saved thousands of Austrian Jews from the Holocaust.

For more about Forbidden Citizens, see http://ForbiddenCitizens.com

Journalists: to request interviews and/or review copies, contact Stuart Johnson: 202-618-1648, PR@thecapitol.net

ABOUT THE COMPANY:
TheCapitol.Net is a privately held, non-partisan publishing and training company based in Alexandria, VA. For over 30 years, TheCapitol.Net and its predecessor, Congressional Quarterly Executive Conferences, have been training professionals from government, military, business, and NGOs on the dynamics and operations of the legislative and executive branches and how to work with them.

BusinessWire

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• Do economists lie more? – “Yes. And it seems the effect is causal: studying business and economics makes you more likely to lie”
• Who Needs a Warrant? Florida Cop Dresses As Power Company Repairman to Gain Access to Home
• Election hacked, drunken robot elected to DC school board

• Change of Habit – “Humility. Lent. The Red Carpet. Hollywood just cannot get nuns right.” (See Dolores Hart.)
• Sandra Fluke Does Not Speak for Me – “[Sandra Fluke's] one claim to fame in the reproductive health care debate is…drumroll, please…being a student club leader! You go, Sandra! Hang those posters girl. Wear out those Sharpies. Me? I love me some extracurricular involvement. The difference between Sandra and me is that I don’t think it qualifies me to speak in front of Congress. ‘The Chair calls to the stand the captains of the intramural ultimate frisbee team!’ … Sandra Fluke doesn’t speak for me. Or for Georgetown.”
• Candidate Putin on The State of The World – “Victory in this week’s Presidential election is almost certain, but the Prime Minister is no longer the absolute master of Russian politics. Not only does he face a protest movement that includes some of the most thoughtful and creative people in his country; the old techniques don’t seem to be working anymore. As a recent German documentary shows, Putin’s old routine of judo, swimming, and hunting polar bears ‘no longer comes across as virile but, rather, as exhausting and joyless.’” Hmmm, “exhausting and joyless” describes a lot of political behavior….
• Geithner’s Latest Alibi – “In Ron Suskind’s [Confidence Men], on how Geithner, Larry Summers, and company protected Wall Street, Suskind quotes an appalled Senator Byron Dorgan telling President-elect Obama in December 2008, ‘You’ve picked the wrong people!’ Did he ever. Geithner keeps proving that over and over again.”

• The Gray Divorcés – “The divorce rate for people 50 and over has doubled in the past two decades. Baby boomers are breaking up late in life like no generation before.”
• What body language signals motivation, social skills and conscientiousness in a job applicant? – “talking, gesturing, and dress were indeed valid cues for social skills, but only the formality of dress predicted the applicant’s work motivation”
• People Aren’t Smart Enough for Democracy – “It is interesting that progressives think citizens are much too stupid to make their own choices in the grocery store.”
• It’s time to fix the Bill of Rights – “I propose that we have a meeting of all the great minds (college professors, A-list Hollywood actors, people who watch ‘Downton Abbey’) to list everything people need — basics like food, transportation, and smart phones.”
• Bill of Rights Card, from Two Seas Media

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• Lessons of a very sexy pirate costume – “I was in love with my own incongruity – being a poetry-spouting college graduate in a pleather miniskirt. And I loved this notion of doing something at which I was entirely unsuited, and which seemed to go so much against my personality. I would never have said it at the time, but I very much believed I was above being a fun-loving pirate wench selling shots. I had read Meno and lived in cardigans and went to museums for fun. I was a terrific little snob who thought she knew everything, and subsequently, I was about to learn a great deal. … As ridiculous as it sounds, that was the first time I became aware that clever people are buried in every nook and cranny of life. It is astonishing that no one pointed this out to me sooner.“
• Libertarians: A matter of perspective
• The nexus of elite formation and higher education for American New Class – “The system of high school college placement and higher education itself induces fantastic risk aversion, and that is accelerating, in large part on account of grade inflation that leave students in high school (applying to college) and in the university compressed against a top grade – in which there is mostly room to fall and fail. When the median grade in the liberal arts is an A-, you mostly have only to go down and given the cost of the credential and its consequences – well in excess of any educational value in the liberal arts – you will act in the most risk averse, strategic way and take only classes in which you already know you will do at least that well. The analogue of risk aversion in higher education in real life is downward mobility.”
• Think Tanks Are Nonpartisan? Think Again – “One of the strangest institutions in Washington – and perhaps the hardest to comprehend from the outside – is the think tank, that quasi-academic, sort-of-political organization that offers, as its primary output, ideas. Universally, think tanks claim to be nonpartisan, and as tax-exempt nonprofits, this is a basic requirement in the tax code. But most people in Washington know the ideological leanings of think tanks that may obscure this fact in their titles: There’s the Cato Institute (libertarian), the Heritage Foundation (conservative), the Brookings Institution (moderate liberal) and the Center for American Progress (progressive).”

• CBO: Longest Period of High Unemployment Since Great Depression – “After three years with unemployment topping 8 percent, the U.S. has seen the longest period of high unemployment since the Great Depression, the Congressional Budget Office noted in a report issued today. And, despite some recent good news on the economic front, the CBO is still predicting that unemployment will remain above 8 percent until 2014. The report also notes that, including those who haven’t sought work in the past four weeks and those who are working part-time but seeking full-time employment, the unemployment rate would be 15 percent.”
• Over-regulated America – “The home of laissez-faire is being suffocated by excessive and badly written regulation. … Two forces make American laws too complex. One is hubris. Many lawmakers seem to believe that they can lay down rules to govern every eventuality. The other force that makes American laws complex is lobbying. The government’s drive to micromanage so many activities creates a huge incentive for interest groups to push for special favours.“
• The Case For Dying Broke – “In your 60s live off taxable accounts and your corporate pension. Leave your Social Security and IRA untouched until you’re 70. Deferring Social Security benefits buys you, in effect, an incremental inflation-protected annuity. Deferring the IRA cash-out makes tax sense. When you turn 70 put a third to a half of your money into fixed annuities, using the IRA. Most of the outlay should be for immediate annuities. A sliver should be used to buy an annuity that kicks in only if and when you reach age 80. That’s to keep up with inflation. For every dollar invested at age 70, a male can get 7.4 cents of immediate annual income or 20 cents of annual income starting a decade later. With your basic needs covered you can take big risks with the rest of your money. Put it in stocks and junk bonds.”

• Mandatory Drugs Tests by Record Companies, Media Scoldings, and Other Helpful Suggestions for Preventing Further Whitney Houstons – “One of Dr. Drew’s recent show guests suggested that record companies start mandatory drug testing. Drew [Pinsky] said ‘I love that.’”
• How much would (did) it cost to build the Death Star? – A LOT!
• Liberals, Don’t Homeschool Your Kids – “This overheated hostility toward public schools runs throughout the new literature on liberal homeschooling, and reveals what is so fundamentally illiberal about the trend: It is rooted in distrust of the public sphere, in class privilege, and in the dated presumption that children hail from two-parent families, in which at least one parent can afford (and wants) to take significant time away from paid work in order to manage a process—education—that most parents entrust to the community at-large. … Of course, no one wants to sacrifice his own child’s education in order to better serve someone else’s kid. … If progressives want to improve schools, we shouldn’t empty them out. We ought to flood them with our kids, and then debate vociferously what they ought to be doing.” Charles Murray, author of Coming Apart, agrees with the author, except he says that what school your kids attend doesn’t really matter. He sent his children to public schools.
• Home-schooling demographics change, expand – “There was a time when Heather Kirchner thought mothers who home-schooled their children were only the types ‘who wore long skirts and praised Jesus and all that.’ … Secular organizations across the country report their numbers are growing. Though government records indicate religion is still the driving force in home schooling, members of these organizations say the face of home schooling is changing, not because of faith, but because of what parents see as shortcomings in public and private schools.”

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• The German-Style Board Game Revolution – “A Euro-style game fan I spoke to referred to Monopoly, Life, and the like as ‘Amero-trash games.’ Settlers of Catan originated in Germany, as did most of the rest of its ilk; Germans are famously crazy about board games, and mainstream German magazines often review games along with new movies and music releases.”
• Dictator Valentines – “Leon Trotsky thinks you’re hotsky“
• LAUSD Principal Focuses On Real Miramonte Criminals: The Children – “One of the many privileges of having kids in the Los Angeles Unified School District is the accelerated education they get in official corruption, the stupidity of grownups, union strong-arming and many other topics – any topics other than reading, writing and arithmetic, that is.”
• Why Italian Moms Are the Best – “Canadians make great moms. So do Ukrainians. Jewish moms can get in a ring with anyone, as can the Norwegians, the Tasmanians and the Kenyans. It all depends on your perspective. … Speaking from my own experience, I would argue that the best mothers are Italian-Americans, in part because they are warm and affectionate, but mostly because of the manicotti.”

• Obama’s Budget Proves He Should Not Be Reelected – “The [proposed FY2013] budget is as cynical an affair as last year’s offering, which was defeated 97-0 in the Senate – an act of rare bipartisan cooperation. Before we celebrate that moment of sanity, however, we recollect that the Senate has not passed a budget in more than 1,000 days, though they are required by law to do so. The White House blames this dereliction of duty on intransigent Republicans (a charge most recently leveled by Budget Director Lew over the weekend) but in reality all that is needed is a simple Senate majority to pass a budget, which the Democrats have. All this skirmishing is but B-rated play-acting. Informed citizens should be furious that the real issues clouding our future are not even addressed by our president. The crisis in our country is two-fold: a rising number of people receive ever-increasing assistance from the government. At the same time, fewer Americans are paying taxes. The inevitable outcome is a widening gap between revenues and outlays: the deficit. The recession has accelerated the problem.”
• iPhone dominates phone depreciation rankings
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• What You Need to Succeed–and How to Find Out If You Have It – “Whether you succeed at work may depend on many factors—intelligence, empathy, self-control, talent and persistence, to name a few. But one determinant may outweigh many of these: how you perceive those around you. New research suggests that your own ability to get things done-not to mention your success in non-work relationships-is highly correlated with how you see others. Are your coworkers capable and kind, or are they, dare I say, incompetent jerks? It turns out that such opinions are tied to a key component of achievement called psychological capital, a mixture of efficacy (self-confidence), resilience (you believe you can bounce back from setbacks), hope (you believe you can achieve your goals) and optimism (you expect good things to happen in the future). As a concept, psychological capital reflects our capacity to overcome obstacles and push ourselves to pursue our ambitions. Not surprisingly, scoring high on this measure is linked to markers of success: being promoted, winning awards, popularity with peers, stability of marriage and even longevity.”
• Success in 7 Short Steps – “[C]ultivate a positive mindset through rituals and goals, say University of Nebraska management scholars Fred Luthans and Peter Harms. Here’s how: 1. Write a gratitude letter. 2. Seek out the good things in life. … 4. Put problems in perspective. … 6. Do nice things for others. … 7. Spend money on experiences, not objects.”

• The Boy Who Played With Fusion – “Shortly after his 14th birthday, Taylor [Wilson] and [Bill] Brinsmead loaded deuterium fuel into the machine, brought up the power, and confirmed the presence of neutrons. With that, Taylor became the 32nd individual on the planet to achieve a nuclear-fusion reaction.”
• The Admiring Ignorant – “It’s 12 years later now; if things go according to plan, I will soon earn tenure. And I’m wondering now if the 23-year-old master’s-degree student was perhaps uncharitable toward someone who might have known some things he didn’t. In terms of an academic lifetime, I’m still a relative newborn, yet I feel like I know a bit more about the frustration and exhaustion that might cause a college professor to wonder if he had wasted his life. I once received a paper wherein the student claimed that ‘John Lenin’ had used his career in the Beatles as a stepping stone to seize control of Russia; last year, I read a paper that advanced the idea that ‘back in the day’ – by which the writer meant the 1990s – people didn’t commit adultery, and homosexuality didn’t exist.”
• A failure of imagination put Metro on wrong track – “Believers in central planning should take a look at Washington’s Metro rail transit system. While they will find many things to like, they will also see examples of how central planners-and especially rail transit planners-can get things disastrously and expensively wrong. … The assumption of Metro planners was that jobs would continue to be heavily concentrated in downtown D.C. So there is no station serving Tysons Corner in Northern Virginia, which has become the largest office center between downtown Washington and Atlanta. Joel Garreau, in researching his book ‘Edge City‘ on Tysons and similar clusters, asked Metro planners why they didn’t put a station there. The reply: We never thought there would be any development there. Suburbs are for houses. But Northern Virginia lawyer named Til Hazel, who handled land acquisition cases on the Capital Beltway, figured it out. He bought big parcels in the triangle between the Beltway, Leesburg Pike and Chain Bridge Road, and made millions developing Tysons.” For more on Metro, see Unsuck DC Metro.
• The Forgotten Man of the Tax Debate – “The skills that make successful businessmen and investors are not spread equally among the population, and they certainly don’t coincide with the ability to win elections. Better to encourage investment by leaving cash in the hands of those who know how to use it. Even if tax rates have no incentive effects (although I’m sure they do), cash in the form of retained earnings is important, and too often overlooked. My family businesses don’t add much to the overall economic prosperity of our nation. They’re small, not terribly profitable, and are hardly giant engines for job creation or on the cutting edge of innovation. They do, however, employ nine family members throughout the year, with another dozen or so employees during the busy season. Without sensible tax rates on both labor and capital, we can’t build the equity we need to expand in good times and survive the bad times. That’s why tax rates matter. Since our situation is multiplied tens of thousands of times across our economy, from family restaurants to small trucking firms to the corner bodega, discussions of fairness, questions of incentives, and the proper rate of taxation should never neglect cash left in the hands of businesspeople. You can be sure that cash money is foremost in the minds of the people who are actually making the economic decisions that drive our economy.”
• Doll ‘protesters’ present small problem for Russian police – “Russian police don’t take kindly to opposition protesters – even if they’re 5cm high and made of plastic. Police in the Siberian city of Barnaul have asked prosecutors to investigate the legality of a recent protest that saw dozens of small dolls – teddy bears, Lego men, South Park figurines – arranged to mimic a protest, complete with signs reading: ‘I’m for clean elections’ and ‘A thief should sit in jail, not in the Kremlin’.”

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THIS is what police departments need: the DecoLiner!

• Tiny Crimes by the Thousands – “While the big crimes tend to cause the greatest outrage, and hence get the most attention, it’s the little ones, the ones we consider inconsequential, that have the big numbers. Thousand, tens of thousands, of petty offenses are prosecuted yearly, although it’s not quite fair to call them prosecuted as they usually result in a quick guilty and check changing hands. Big numbers and lots of money, but mostly in the aggregate. For the individual, it’s hardly inexpensive, but still far less expensive than fighting and winning. And provided it’s not something that will send a guy to jail or ruin his life, most people are happy to get it over with and be gone. Tiny crime. Thousands of them. Like loitering.“
• Bill of Rights Card, from Two Seas Media
• Is there a shortcut to bonding with a romantic partner on a deeper level? – Arthur Aron has “an ingenious way of taking men and women who have never met before and making them feel close to one another. Given that he has just an hour or so to create the intimacy levels that typically take week, months, or years to form, he accelerated the getting-to-know-you process through a set of thirty-six questions”
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• Cronyism 101 – “One fundamental point that I only had time to hint at in this presentation is that cronyism is the inevitable result of big government. If we give the federal government power over virtually every single thing that every private business does, what can we expect? Obviously, politicians will use that power to reward their allies and punish their enemies so as to enhance their own power. Corruption, in other words, is not a byproduct of big government; it is its essence.“
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