Author Topic: your government at work  (Read 1081 times)

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Universe Prince

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your government at work
« on: January 22, 2008, 05:28:50 PM »
From Cleavland's The Plain Dealer, http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2008/01/they_stole_the_truth_says_woma.html:

      Defense attorneys say a street-smart but dishonest informant and a federal agent working without oversight manipulated the system to convict France and dozens of others.

"They stole the truth," France said. "I don't think I'll ever trust people again. It's too hard. I don't know how a human being with a heart could stand up there and lie about another person. They stole part of my life."

She was convicted of being a drug courier -- a crime prosecutors now acknowledge was built on lies. A judge released her in May. Her case was part of a massive operation to stem the flow of drugs in Mansfield.

Today, federal prosecutors will meet with a judge to discuss throwing out the convictions of 15 men imprisoned in the same tainted investigation -- including the case against a man serving 30 years in prison.

Federal prosecutors in Cleveland charged France and 25 others from Mansfield in 2005, based on the work of informant Jerrell Bray and DEA agent Lee Lucas. Twenty-one people were convicted.
      

Sending non-violent marijuana users to jail isn't bad enough. Raiding legal medical marijuana dispensaries isn't bad enough. Innocent people get caught up this "war on drugs" too. Are we not long past having reached the point where we need to seriously reconsider what the "war on drugs" is accomplishing? Don't we need to refocus law enforcement on protecting people and people's rights rather than on merely trying to catch the bad guy? Anyone? Anyone?
Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever.
--Hieronymus Karl Frederick Baron von Munchausen ("The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" [1988])--

Universe Prince

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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever.
--Hieronymus Karl Frederick Baron von Munchausen ("The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" [1988])--

Michael Tee

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Re: your government at work
« Reply #2 on: January 22, 2008, 05:44:16 PM »
<<Sending non-violent marijuana users to jail isn't bad enough. Raiding legal medical marijuana dispensaries isn't bad enough. Innocent people get caught up this "war on drugs" too. Are we not long past having reached the point where we need to seriously reconsider what the "war on drugs" is accomplishing? Don't we need to refocus law enforcement on protecting people and people's rights rather than on merely trying to catch the bad guy? Anyone? Anyone?>>

You're preaching to the choir on this one, Prince.  I've been for legalization since before I smoked my first joint.  Instead of a war on drugs, there should be a war on social conservatives.

Universe Prince

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Re: your government at work
« Reply #3 on: January 22, 2008, 06:00:44 PM »

Instead of a war on drugs, there should be a war on social conservatives.


Good golly no. Any non-country thing the government makes "war" on gets stronger and more efficient. (Which is why I think, satirically of course, that we need a "war on education".) But I think you're wrong to pin the "war on drugs" wholly on social conservatives. It gets plenty of support from liberals too.
Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever.
--Hieronymus Karl Frederick Baron von Munchausen ("The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" [1988])--

Michael Tee

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Re: your government at work
« Reply #4 on: January 22, 2008, 06:34:18 PM »
<<Good golly no. Any non-country thing the government makes "war" on gets stronger and more efficient. (Which is why I think, satirically of course, that we need a "war on education".) >>


You're right about that, of course.  But I was only kidding about war on social conservatives.  Trying to satirize the whole "war on" concept being applied to essentially non-military wars.

<<But I think you're wrong to pin the "war on drugs" wholly on social conservatives. It gets plenty of support from liberals too.>>

Not this liberal.  But make it a war on clean and wholesome living, then.

yellow_crane

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Re: your government at work
« Reply #5 on: January 22, 2008, 07:10:42 PM »



Another suggestive episode in which the "War on Drugs" is really an internal one.

Agents within the DEA are at war with renegade growers, certainly, but they are also at war with other agencies (like in showing up dead), including local cops who deal (Florida, under Bob Marinez, was the great gate, and not because of sloppy governing, and there are connections to Bush ((I know, urban legend cause there is scant google)).  It is also agents against agents.  Drugs for evidence are routinely planted, and a lot of innocents get chewed up.  Some of the books written by former insiders describe an atmosphere where many agents are users, stealers, and sellers of drugs, as well as a part of the protective arm.  Alledgedly, agents kill other agents, because such actions are inevitable in an arena of horror where paranoia multiplies like mold.

The prisons are full of young men, mostly, who grow marijuana in a renegade manner, as in somebody else's turf.  They are fodder to the industry.  Routine maintainance and cleaning. 

It is a satan's game, but rarely mentioned by those commenting on Satan's games.

Were I elected pres, I would have the DEA locked up shut in a day.

No legitimate objection could be made, because it is not the concept of the agency that I object to, it is the corruption that makes the agency look like a Mexican police posse.





Plane

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Re: your government at work
« Reply #6 on: January 23, 2008, 01:25:20 AM »
I have never smoked any Marajuanna ,I lost a freind to a pot dealers pistol .


Still I consider the ban on Marajuanna to be bad law.
It is just not working.

Lifting this ban might have some bad effects , but I can't see that it has been demonstrated that these efects are worse than the effects of the present effort at restricting the behavior of the pople.