Arizona

Someone forgot to tell President Obama that he won the election. He is still after Senator McCain. Well, we all know there are higher purposes at stake in Arizona. It is still about the election but not the last one, it's the next one. Obama has alienated most American voters so he is going to have to give citizenship to some lawbreakers so that he has enough votes for 2012.

I know that is harsh but it might as well be said.

When a state cannot make laws to protect itself without getting sued by the federal government it makes for dangerous times in our nation. The president is sworn to protect and defend our borders but failed to act. Arizona is trying to do what the feds ought to do.

It is not just about one state. It is about every state that wants to set its own course for the good of the people who live there. Obama is somewhat of a lawyer so naturally he goes to the courts. I think he knows the case will go to the Supreme Court where he has stacked the deck.

If our federal government is willing to let drug runners have free access to our borders just to get the millions of votes of illegals, then I must say that we are living under tyranny and not in a republic.

It is a shame that some people can't stop fighting a war that is long past.

Gangs,Guns and Drugs

We could conclude that if the world would stop using illegal drugs there would be no market for drugs. By the same token, if the drug traffickers would stop sending out drugs, the use would stop too.

Those are only dreams though. There is too much money to be made for the pushers to stop and people are too bent on escaping their troubles to stop using drugs. At least, as a whole. The amount of illegal drugs used is proof enough of that conclusion.

It should be no mystery, by now, that there is a lot of money in illegal drugs. People are easily willing to kill to protect their drug selling territory. That is the heart of the gang problem in this country. With Afghanistan being the largest producer of opium, it is no wonder that the Taliban protects their territory so violently.

Basically, what we have are little gangs on street corners and the big gang in Afghanistan all doing the same thing which is protecting their drug turf.

That is not a solution, but I think it states the problem. I think, we would like to think that there was some noble cause behind the unhesitating killing of innocent people but there is not. It is just greed.

Guns

I'm not promoting it either way, guns or no guns. Let me say that a person that has no respect for a weapon should not own one. They are not toys. They should be studied to learn their use. Buying a gun and sticking it in a hiding place to be picked up in an emergency is a good way to become the victim. If someone owns a gun they should learn how to use it safely. I certainly can see though that people are arming themselves. Just a brief visit to a street where pawn shops stand told me that people were checking them out. I went in a couple looking for a Winchester 30-30 because my daddy use to have one and I wanted one to keep. I saw someone looking at one of those mean looking shotguns that showed no signs of being made for squirrels. Down the street 4 young fellows went into another shop with their shirttails out and pants barely hanging on. Wonder what they were looking for?

The gangs are armed and regular folks are getting armed. I hope that means absolutely nothing. It is apparent that the police are unable to stop the gangs or the drug trafficking. Oh they catch a few users but the network is alive and well. The cold hard fact is there is money in drugs and people will kill to keep that money flowing.

I don't know what it will come to. The police have the sworn duty to protect citizens. So what happens when they do not. When gangs wonder around intimidating people in stores, parking lots and on neighborhood streets it sort of puts people in a bind as to what to do. I know as a husband and dad myself, I have a higher responsibility to protect my family. Another fact is you can't fist fight people with guns.

In reality it is not a world of sweetness where you can just be nice to everyone and they will be nice to you. There are times when force must be meet by force. Governments know that. That is why they got armies and such. I hope there is no shooting. Bullets leave a mess and take lives. It is not glamorous like in the movies where the actors get up to make another movie. Death is final. Maybe, the reaction will be that when the good guys are armed and the bad guys know it, maybe, there will be respect for each other and peace for us all. We can pray that it be so.

Drug lords Winning in Two Ways

We live in troubling times. What used to be a nuisance (drugs) has now engulfed our nation and changed our society and legal system. Drug lords are winning in two ways:

First they still get drugs into the country or make them here and manage to recruit users from elementary school level (not just in schools) and by the time they are teenagers they are proficient in the language and process of procurement of drugs, should they desire them. If a pusher can get them to take that first free hit, they are usually hooked by the drug and the false pleasure it brings. The habit continues and escalates as they go into adulthood without maturing into adults. We end up with a society of grown bodies but immature minds. They are like people with split personalities. The user will function as an adult in some ways, i.e. working and living on their own (for a time) but when it comes to proper judgment calls, they are still stuck in their adolescence. So, the pushers have a ready market. As the older users become wrecked physically and cannot hold down a job to support their habit, they become a burden of the legal system where they will either go into the prison system or support the legal system in fines.

Second, the drug lords have succeeded by changing the legal system and the attitudes of law enforcement. It seems everything is centered around drugs. Those other crimes are simply incidental to the job of law enforcement. Every stop by law enforcement becomes a combat situation while the officer expects every stop to be a confrontation with strung-out drug users. Gone is the courteous officer, who speaks politely to a citizen of a democratic society. They have stopped the enemy and the enemy must be jerked around and slammed onto car hoods. Anyone associated with the 'criminal' must be treated as a co-conspirator. So, the legal system is clogged up with user-victims of the pusher, while the pusher goes about his business of getting new recruits. Every resource is used to catch the drug addict. The pusher has already paid his way and in many cases the legal system has been corrupted. It appears that the problem is being addressed with all the arrest but the real problem is seldom addressed: the big time pushers.

I am not one who believes that all cops are crooked. I do believe that people live in fear of retaliation in this country. Obviously, the user will not report their supplier for two reasons. One is fear. The other is turning in their source for future drugs. A good cop would be putting his job and life in jeopardy if he reported corruption, especially if it was dominate in the force. We will never know because allegations will never be investigated. It should be obvious that someone is on the take when government officials live so much above citizens financially.

My solution, if there is one, would be to treat all drug addicts like victims and provide them with treatment instead of tossing them in jail and collecting money from them which parents must often come up with to try to help their children. Drug addicts are causalities of a war that law enforcement is loosing in a big way. If the drug addict were taken out of the arrest tally, results against this plague would be shameful.

I am convinced that even good elected law enforcement people should be replaced periodically to discourage the infiltration of drug money and the corruption of officials. Entrenched, appointed officials should also be replaced but that would be difficult because they are in-fact entrenched with the people who are the movers and shakers in a given county.

Conclusion. The old argument of supply and demand is just that an old argument. They say stop using and drug lords will stop making the stuff. My answer is: When they train our children to use drugs how exactly are we going to convince their drug stained mind to stop using when their judgment is already ruined. If their teeth are rotten, we take away their sweets, so why tell them to stop using drugs and we will stop the bad people from making them. No. We should be taking away the 'sweets' and treating the damage it has done. Not punishing the victim. From a legal standpoint (if I was qualified to argue the point), a person who has once used could be said to be mentally incapable of knowing what they were doing at the time of the second offense. Their mind has been altered, has it not?

Drugs

Drugs seem to be the sub root of many of the world's problems. I say sub root because there is a reason why so many people turn to something that clouds reality. It could be fear, depression, a good time. I really do not know. The reason people sell drugs is obvious: money. The sellers want to live above their means and are willing to destroy who ever it takes to reach their desired lifestyle. They will destroy an individual, a family or a nation. We are all witnesses to this truth in our lifetime.

Many factors have made the world field a playground for illegal drug sellers. It is not just one generation either. The sellers of the 60's have either died out or gone into politics. Yet, there seems to be a never ending supply of people who are willing to take up arms against others including individuals, neighborhoods and nations. I am not bragging on them. They will get theirs.

One thing that has happened to our country is an individuals right and a parent's right to adequately defend themselves and others. While drug sellers shoot and run and the police find them illusive and seemingly uncatchable, the regular citizen who defends his children and property goes home and the police know exactly where to find him. He is not a coward, running and hiding. He is at home. Supposedly, we still have the right to defend. All you got to do is prove that that was what you were doing in court. 'Course, who can afford a lawyer. So, I think, many good people are taking up space in prison that should be filled by drug sellers.

Drug sellers know the system is all backwards. I'm not knocking the police. They try, most of them. Some are bought and paid for by the drug sellers. No. I don't know which ones. But drug sellers are counting on citizens just staying out of the way and letting them do their thing.

I am not pushing any kind of uprising, or street warfare. I do think the system is lopsided toward the drug sellers. An army of police cannot clean up the streets. It takes average citizens who will not let the drug sellers have their way on the streets and in the neighborhoods. It takes reporting crimes. It takes people sucking-it-up and quitting drugs so there will be no market. Using drugs is being party to all the killing. Yep! It is a conspiracy. Drug sellers shoot and kill and intimidate their way to the drug user so they can escape reality for a few minutes or days.

Mexico got me on this bandwagon. There is a war going on just south of our border. A country that was pulling itself into the 21st century is being pulled back into the dark ages by people who are killing to get drugs to the United States. We ought to be ashamed. The people who are dying are often men who have families that they wish to protect. We ought to be ashamed for being the number one market for drugs.

'Daddy can I have a new pair of shoes?' 'No. I got to buy dope.'