From: Octavio Rojas Diaz (orojas@data.net.mx)
Date: Tue Feb 01 2000 - 19:27:49 MST
Uh oh, too bad I'm not an american citizen.
But this whole issue concerns us all who defend
civil liberties, and not just of us who are interested
in altered states of consciousness.
I keep wondering why the US, keeps becoming
more and more restrictive and intolerant as the time
passes, I remember that as a child and as a teenager
I admired this country because it was a country where
you suposedly were free, and had the chance to improve
your life quality as well.
Then I started to notice as I started travelling to the us
that it wasn't as free as I thought and I began to feel
disappointed, specially when I noticed that the US
goverment (not the citizens) likes to manipulate things
to justify whatever they want to do.
Like this drug war, it is ridiculous that while the media
and goverment tells us drugs are evil, that they turn
normal people into criminals, and ruin your life,
and they keep talking and talking what are they going to
do to stop drug traffic and protect the children, drugs
become more readily available, the prices get lower
and the quality higher, not only that, but if you've read
excellent books like acid dreams you'll know that US
goverment did experiments with lsd and other mind
altering substances, without the consent of people
while searching for the perfect mind controling substance.
And not only that, if you talk with vietnam veterans
(what I've done) they'll tell you that airplanes with
tons and tons of drugs appeared on a regular basis
so soldiers could be happy, they also gave them
amphetamines to be more agressive and could
endure more.
So my theory is that this drug war, is just a tool
of control a silent weapon to rob people of their
liberties, a tool to justify racism (most of drug
related incarcerations, happen in poor black
districts) it is also used to justify US intervention
in foreign lands (like communisn was used before)
and I don't doubt it'll be also a tool to gradually
erode our civil rights (because unfortunately
most of what the US goverment decides
affects things worldwide)
I've always thought that the more restrictive a
goverment is with their citizens, the more
it hinders progress, civilization and economic
development, I suppose the founding fathers
thought this as well and that's why the
constitution defends so vehemently civil rights
of people, so it is very sad that, more restrictive
policies are being enacted.
However fortunately it is the goverment who wants
to do this, not the average citizen, and although the
majory is willing to trade their freedom for
"security" most people is becoming aware of this
with the passage of time, and fertile positive meme
petri dishes (like this list) keep informing people, so
it is very probable that this advance towards restriction
and intolerance can be stopped, and that parties like
the libertarian are getting more powerful (although
I still believe no single party should have all the power)
any comments?
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