Actor Brad Pitt has thrown his weight behind a documentary that blasts the American War on Drugs. According to Reuters:
(Reuters) – Brad Pitt has thrown his weight behind a documentary that blasts America’s 40-year war on drugs as a failure, calling policies that imprison huge numbers of drug-users a “charade” in urgent need of a rethink…
Ahead of a Los Angeles screening, Pitt and Jarecki spoke passionately about the “War on Drugs” which, according to the documentary, has cost more than $1 trillion and accounted for over 45 million arrests since 1971, and which preys largely on poor and minority communities…
“The House I Live In” was filmed in more than 20 states and tells stories from many sides of the issue, including Jarecki’s African-American nanny, a drug dealer, narcotics officer, inmate, judge, grieving mother, senator and others.
It also shows that although the United States accounts for only 5 percent of the world’s population, it has 25 percent of its prison population. Additionally, African Americans, who make up roughly 13 percent of the population and 14 percent of its drug users, account for 56 percent of those incarcerated for drug crimes.
I can think of lots of reasons to end the War on Drugs. It grants ownership of our bodies to the government. It breeds corruption, violence and waste. It ruins the lives of countless people for no good reason. It entraps innocent people and provides incentives to be criminally connected. It is grossly unjust.
On the other hand it does keep a lot of dangerous criminals, who could not be successfully prosecuted for other offenses, behind bars and away from the rest of us. As with any other class of dangerous criminal, drug offenders are disproportionally black – and this is what Pitt has a problem with. It may well be that the likes of Pitt object to the War on Drugs partly because of the reasons I listed above, but all those reasons pale in comparison to the mother of all reasons: It’s “racist”.
It appears that “racism” has become a necessary ingredient for every cause celebre activists can cook up. Animal cruelty, war, AIDS, poverty, crime and obesity all reportedly have “racist” components. If we were to believe the hype, we would have to conclude that eliminating racism would lead to utopia on Earth, where all of our problems would evaporate.
When people are trained to believe that racism is the root of all evil, and that whites are the root of all racism, then they will also be lead to believe that whites are the root of all evil. When such a world-view becomes prevalent, the consequences are dire. It becomes,ultimately, a license to eliminate whites by any means necessary – for the betterment of the world of course.
Aside from that, when charges of racism are, eventually, shown to be bogus, the cause itself (which may be a worthy one) loses credibility. If you build your case on a phantom argument, even when legitimate arguments are available, the simple-minded masses will abandon you when the phantom vanishes.
We would all be better off if we eliminated the notion of “racism” – for the betterment of the world of course.
I wonder what the black community would look like if drugs were legal. It seems to me that blacks look up to drug dealing criminals because they are the only people in their ghettos that are capable of having money and buying shinny things. It might have some positive effect on blacks if the most successful people in their neighborhoods were honest working people.
You might also have to legalize prostitution for that to work though.
That’s the beauty of “racism.” It’s always undefined and can therefore never be debunked. Despite the term’s lack of a precise meaning, it sure does pack a wollop.