Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!columbia!caip!princeton!allegra!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!whuxl!orb From: orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,net.med Subject: Re: Re: Drug Abuse - True Problem or Media Hype? (Worse Still) Message-ID: <1251@whuxl.UUCP> Date: Mon, 15-Sep-86 17:26:01 EDT Article-I.D.: whuxl.1251 Posted: Mon Sep 15 17:26:01 1986 Date-Received: Thu, 18-Sep-86 01:39:03 EDT References: <720@scc.UUCP> <981@whuts.UUCP> <723@scc.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Whippany Lines: 43 Xref: linus talk.politics.misc:176 net.med:4602 > > "The Drug Crackdown is the McCarthyism of the 80's"!! > > > > I suggest people do all in their power, write letters to the editor, > > write their Congresspeople, and whatever possible to stop this new > > facism before it gets started. > > It is getting worse!! There is a bill before congress > that attempts to limit the exclusionary rule, give the military > police powers, and institute the death penalty in certain drug > dealing cases! Note that the states, who formerly had the > power to legislate drug use (pot is decriminalized in Alaska) > will have that power weakened, the death penalty, likewise, > is a state issue. It strikes me that the centralization of > police athority is an extremely bad idea. Who will police > the police? Especially if the police are tautological with > the most powerful military organization in the world? > > I am writing my congressperson and I am using the arguments > sketched in the article referenced on the top and my other > article "The War On Drugs is Mind Control and Colonialism." > I wonder if that article made it everywhere because I have been > getting much response to the article refered to in the title, > but none on the other. > > Don Steiny @ Don Steiny Software Using the military as a *police* force is particularly scary when you see its results in both past history and other countries. Are people so stupid as to forget that it was precisely engaging the military in these sorts of police activities in Latin American countries which led to death squads in El Salvador, Brazil, Argentina, Guatemala, and other Latin American countries?? (Oh, I forgot. Somehow the Death Squads in all these countries were never front-page news like true-blue enemy "terrorists". Death Squads, we all know, are not "terrorists", just maintaining order via the firm hand of random execution!) Moreover, giving this sort of power to the military can be a grave threat to civilian control and our democracy. By being restricted to the primary function of simply defending us against outside invasion, the military has not acquired domestic power of its own. To break down that barrier is *VERY DANGEROUS*. tim sevener whuxn!orb