From: hagerp@moose.cs.indiana.edu (Paul Hager)
Newsgroups: alt.drugs,alt.society.civil-liberty,talk.politics.drugs
Subject: Re: Clinton in _Rolling Stone_ on civil liberties and the WOD
Date: 3 Sep 92 04:48:23 GMT
Organization: Computer Science, Indiana University

kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes:

>Clinton is gang interviewed in this month's _Rolling Stone_. Here is
>an excerpt from that interview.

>=============
>Hunter Thompson: I hate to seem to be antihealth, but I'm concerned
>about a nation obsessed with law enforcement and rules. I'm worried
>about the Constitution, especially the Fourth Amendment.

>Clinton: I don't have the same view of the crime issues as you have. I
>came here from across the river in North Little Rock, talking to a
>couple hundred kids -- and their parents -- who participated in a
>midnight basketball league the mayor started and we helped him with.
>It's one of the reasons we've had a significant decline in crime on
>that side of the river this summer as compared with last.

What???  Two hundred kids are the source of the crime problem?  This
is the looniest thing I've ever heard in my life.  Isn't that the
only conclusion one can draw from this statement, that the decline
in crime came about because 200 kids started playing night little
league?

>Almost all of them I was talking are black almost all of them are
>middle- or low-income people. Crime's a real big deal to them. They
>feel very threatened, and they were very pleased about this 'cause
>they thought it gave their kids a chance to do something good and to
>be part of something good.

So 200 kids and their parents felt good and crime miraculously fell.
Even if there was some kind of a decline, there can't be any correlation
at all.

>My problem with Bush is that he's been more show than go on crime. He
>goes for symbolic things that are popular ideologically but don't do
>much to reduce crime. I don't agree that he's trying to put too many
>police on the street. He's cut back on aid to cities.

>If you want less police brutality, you should have more police on the
>street, walking the streets, doing community policing.  New York City
>went to community policing and has just reported its first crime drop
>in thirty-six years.

Uh-oh.  There goes my fascism detector.  I'm starting to hear a full
brass band playing the Horst Wessel song.  I can't remember the song
at all -- I seem to have a mental block -- unless something happens
to trigger the memory.  Something external like watching a PDFA
commercial, seeing a promo for COPS, or watching the State Police's
MJ search copter take off from its helipad (as I did today).  Just
what we need, more police.  "Die Fahne hoch ..."

>P.J. O'Rourke: We also engaged in what seems to be a losing war with
>drugs. Is the continued criminalizaiton of drugs a wise move? Or
>should we legalize them?

>Clinton: The war on drugs has enormous costs, but legalized drugs
>would have enormous costs, too. Particularly if you legalize drugs
>that carry a high probability of death of generational addiction. It's
>a very tough call. My own view is that you should not legalize them,
>because the cost on the backside -- increased usage -- would swamp
>you.

He should know better.  Quisling!

>Wenner: But then what are you going to do about the war on drugs?

>Clinton: The Bush administration has put a lot of money into federal
>agencies, and I think a lot of it ought to be street -- into drug
>treatment, into proven preventive programs and into community-based
>boot camps. In the long run [... can't read my photocopy ...]  and
>with the winding down of the Cold War, we actually have some
>opportunities to do more. But the fact is that five percent of the
>world's people are using fifty percent of the world's drugs. Those are
>the states in America. So you have a demand culture in America which
>is overwhelming. That's what we need to focus on.

More of the same.  Gak.

>Most of the people in the drug culture are profoundly disconnected
>from the rest of our country. They live in places where it is harder
>to answer the question "Why not?" The issue is, how do you reconnect
>them? How do you give them some reason to live the life you're calling
>them to live?

Why am I supporting this idiot?  I need a mantra.

	Remember abortion rights, remember abortion rights, ...

That doesn't seem to be a very good one because I it doesn't make
me feel better about supporting him.

A tangent:
While I'm thinking about it, I should mention that P.J. O'Rourke is
a Republican, although he calls himself a "libertarian" Republican.
That's a bit like being a libertarian Nazi, isn't it?

There, I feel better already.  If O'Rourke can support Bush without
chundering, I can hold my gorge while supporting Clinton.  I think.
Yes, my proper role is to cancel P.J. O'Rourke's vote.
-- 
paul hager		hagerp@moose.cs.indiana.edu

"I would give the Devil benefit of the law for my own safety's sake."
                       --from _A_Man_for_All_Seasons_ by Robert Bolt