PHOENIX - A veteran sheriff's deputy was shot and wounded Friday after encountering a group of suspected illegal immigrants who apparently had been hauling bales of marijuana along a major smuggling corridor in the Arizona desert- a violent episode that comes amid a heated national debate over immigration.
State and federal law enforcement agencies deployed helicopters and scores of officers in pursuit of the suspects after the deputy was shot with an AK-47 on Friday afternoon, and the search continued into the night. Deputy Louie Puroll, 53, had a chunk of skin torn from just above his left kidney, but the wound was not serious. He was released Friday night from Casa Grande Regional Medical Center.
I wonder if Wes thinks these are just hippie farmers? While Eric and Bruce Olsen want to legalize marijuana, it's not the harmless trade they say it is, or purely attributed to "hippie farmers" that Wes attributes it to. I would also submit that an AK-47 is not a zip gun either.
This underscores the seriousness of the illegal alien problems in Arizona and elsewhere in this country. Not all of them are coming here carrying posies and daffodils, just wanting to cut your lawn or wet nurse your kids.
While I think that the drug war has criminalized a lot of people, too many, that were just users, will legalization really bring peace? Will these drug traffickers become legitimate businessmen overnight? Who regulates the industry? If the government does, then they get to pick winners and losers just like car companies and banks. How does that work from a libertarian perspective?
Obviously the drug problem and illegal alien problem are not one in the same. Solving each one requires different measures, but the two become intertwined due to the mechanism of trafficking both humans and drugs.
As I have said before, with illegals, make the penalty for hiring them so extraordinary that no one will want to take the chance and enforce it. Can you imagine the penalties on Tyson Foods alone? We could pay off the deficit.
As far as the drug trade goes, that is another issue. It is my opinion that there will always be addicts. You can get them to switch or trade their addictions, but they always will be addicts. Where should the effort go? Would the money spent to put users in prison be better spent on rehabbing them? Studies show that only 3-4% are successful in the first go around. May be 10-12% on the second. It can take at least 3-4 go arounds through rehab before people get it. And even then, what is the substitute? Hopefully something a little safer.
The drug war has been a failure. Part of it is because we are dealing with supporting countries that are poor and drugs are money. Part of it is the culture they come from accepts a much higher level of criminal activity and immoral behavior. JMO. They accept criminals as legitimate authority, so coming here illegally is not even a traffic ticket to them.
If we wanted to win the war on drugs, we could. We have the military and technological know how to remove it off the map, may be permanently. The consequences of doing so are equally as troubling. Nature abhors a vacuum. What will take the place economically and politically of the drug lords and that culture? Coffee doesn't make as much money as cocaine, pot and heroin, and the history of Central and South America is such that most legitimate business are controlled by local oligarchs and international companies. They do not have the opportunities we have here for the little guy to start a business and to be successful. Part of it is their culture and the US bears some responsibility for supporting these multinational corps an oligarchs who have in many cases feigned being democratic, and we have seen the results. As much as I eschew socialism, I can see why a lot of these people run towards it.
What's the solution? Very simplistically, the regular folk in those countries need to be able to create opportunities for themselves, there. It requires a cultural and political shift in the countries they live in, and how they get there is beyond the scope of this post. I will say running to people like Chavez, Morales, or even Fernandez de Kirchner is in the wrong direction. May be the solution is mass immigration into these countries by people whose ideals are more aligned with free market thinking. How do they get there(The locals to a democratic and free market society)? What do you think?
Thank you for reading this blog.
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