China is waging a war on dogs taller than 13.7 inches. The basis is a long-dormant law prohibiting Beijing residents from owning dogs “too big” for — well, for the law prohibiting dogs that big.
In addition to losing their furry friends, flouters are subject to fines but not jail time. In other respects, though, the war resembles many silly but dangerous wars on wrongly banned things.
- The rationale is contradictory on its own terms. Critics note that small breeds which are not banned (Jack Russell Terriers) can be more aggressive than large breeds which are banned (English Sheep Dogs).
- Owning the illegal thing is illegal even if no one’s rights are violated thereby, and regardless of the owner’s actual rights.
- Enforcers of the bad law have quotas to fulfill.
- Enforcers receive tips from persons eager to cause trouble, even when they have no real complaint to make.
- Enforcers conduct scary raids, sometimes mid-night raids, to hunt for the non-dangerous banned thing.
Such features also characterize America’s War on Drugs, hardly limited to cracking down on crack houses full of shady characters. On the basis of real or imaginary information, police violently invade homes to search for drugs. People (and their dogs) are killed during such assaults.
What Radley Balko calls The Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces (officially published in July) has made America’s War on Drugs, a war on people, and dogs, all the more deadly.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
12 replies on “The Wars on Dogs, Drugs, Etc.”
I am afraid of most police, they like to use deadly force too often and when a dog is killed because of them I fear them even more.
We may disagree on a few things. But at least have a little compassion on those of us raised by hippies who wouldn’t let the inorganic tomato pass their lips, and then smoked a pipe of brain damaging pot every day.
And now, intoxicated with their new favorite drug, authority, boomers make drugs legal with the right hand, and are seeking to reverse and destroy the agricultural advancements made possible through pest and pathogen control. So I just want to eat inorganic food, but the drug activists smoking pot are passing laws all day long about my inorganic rice. Boomers are such dorks.
Hippies. Always there when they need you.
correction “Boomers make drugs legal with the right hand, and are seeking to reverse agricultural advancements made possible by pest and pathogen control, with the left hand.”
Thank you.
How easily is plastic or stone rice digested?
in·or·gan·ic ( n ôr‑g n k). adj. 1. a. Involving neither organic life nor the products of organic life. b. Not composed of organic matter.
After running many of the factories out of the country by making this an expesive, over-regulated and uncompetitive place to do business, the government has effectively removed access to almost every mainstream alternative path to a decent life from many of the impoverished families of America. The one dependable and readily accessible industry available to the bright and motivated in the ghettos, projects, and impoverished areas is the drug trade. Low overhead to start. Regular rules to stay in and succeed. Readily available clients since a substantial percentage of the country now uses. Big rewards to those willing to follow the rules.
Which is why we have such a high number and high percentage of minority youth and young adults stewing in the prisons. They took the readily available path, not to success , but to getting by and for helping their families in an environment that seemed to offer few other alternatives.
It also helps out the progressive agenda by making the police the enemy who steals the person getting the rent and food money instead of the person that protects your neighborhood.
Drrik, Good points all.
Paulina:
In what universe is marijuana a “brain-damaging drug?” What possible scientific basis is there for thinking this?
Pot increases the risk of psychosis in adults and runs the risk of schizaphrenia in regularly smoking teens from 1% to 6%. That is some definite damage
Non organic. Thank you. I do that every single time.
Where did you get that idea, Dirk?
If you’re going to assert something as being fact, either back it up with a source, or expect to have your credibility questioned.
I think a simple inductive approach to the neurological effects of drugs would be helpful first.
Recreational drugs are used in general for the alterations in mood. The alterations in mood are also accompanied by impairments of other functions. These can include impaired judgment, impaired reason, impaired reading comprehension, and impaired speech and reaction time.
If the drug is taken in order to achieve these effects, what do you think the cumulative effects of the drug will be over time? What demographic is the most vulnerable to use, regular use, and addiction to recreational drugs? During the years until the age of 24, the brain is still undergoing important stages of maturation. Even an improper diet and excessive stress (cortisol production) is known to have detrimental effects on brain function for the rest of your life. So what I think the take home point is, if you take a drug in order to disrupt brain function, don’t be too terribly surprised if it is disruptive to brain function with repeated use.
Next, there are terrible physical side effects from the use of speed, cocaine, meth, narcotics, and so on. The fact that the “experts,” doctors, and academics have chosen to regularly prescribe these drugs, esp. meth, to children for ADHD does not mean that they do not permanently disrupt brain function.
There are dissident scientists and neurologists who note that when they are asked to treat people who are already on a psychotropic cocktail, it is very difficult to achieve any real therapeutic progress.
And don’t be too surprised that scientists outside of the mainstream know that the effects of these unholy cocktails are more similar to the symptoms of TBI and psychological disturbance than to optimum brain function we see in say, a musician who practices for a couple hours a day.