(From the They Said It section in Volume 20, No. 11 of the Liberator Online. Subscribe here!)
FORMER DEA AGENT SAYS DRUG WAR IS AIMED AT POOR BLACKS: “What I began to see is that the Drug War is totally about race. If we were locking up everybody, white and black, for doing the same drugs, they would have done the same thing they did with Prohibition. They would have outlawed it. They would have said, ‘Let’s stop this craziness. You’re not putting my son in jail. My daughter isn’t going to jail.'” — Matthew Fogg, retired Chief Deputy U.S. Marshall and former DEA special agent, in an interview with Brave New Films. Fogg says he and other agents were ordered by superiors not to enforce drug laws in prosperous white neighborhoods.
THE FOURTH AMENDMENT VS. THE NSA: “The Fourth Amendment… is the law of the land. And the NSA is violating its letter and spirit, no matter how many times its defenders use dubious legal reasoning to argue otherwise. The right of the people to be secure in their ‘persons, houses, papers, and effects’ is meaningless if the NSA can seize and later search details about everyone’s communications. The requirements for probable cause and particularity cannot be squared with surveillance that implicates practically everyone. The Fourth Amendment’s historic attempt to end general warrants cannot be viewed as a success so long as the government is prying into the private affairs of tens of millions of people who are not even suspected of any wrongdoing.” — journalist Conor Friedersdorf, “The Surveillance State’s Greatest Enemy? The U.S. Constitution,” The Atlantic, March 3, 2015.
ACTUALLY, IT’S A POLITICAL PROBLEM, TOO: “It’s not a political problem; it’s a math problem. … Everyone is looking at the model right now, asking how do we do math? Every [restaurant] operator I’m talking to is in panic mode, trying to figure out what the new world will look like.” — Anthony Anton, president and CEO of the Washington Restaurant Association, on the new difficulties restaurant owners face because of Seattle’s new $15 per hour minimum wage (i.e., tax on employers who hire workers). The law is expected to send labor costs skyrocketing, and is being blamed for a rash of restaurant closings. Quoted in “Why Are So Many Seattle Restaurants Closing Lately?” in Seattle magazine, March 4, 2015.
ZERO WAGES FOR SEATTLE’S NEW JOBLESS: “As the implementation date for Seattle’s strict $15 per hour minimum wage law approaches, the city is experiencing a rising trend in restaurant closures. The tough new law goes into effect April 1st. The closings have occurred across the city, from Grub in the upscale Queen Anne Hill neighborhood, to Little Uncle in gritty Pioneer Square, to the Boat Street Cafe on Western Avenue near the waterfront. The shut-downs have idled dozens of low-wage workers, the very people advocates say the wage law is supposed to help. Instead of delivering the promised ‘living wage’ of $15 an hour, economic realities created by the new law have dropped the hourly wage for these workers to zero.” — Paul Guppy, Washington Policy Center blog, “Seattle’s $15 wage law a factor in restaurant closings”
BEST RE-LEGALIZATION BILL EVER:
“I am proposing that this plant [marijuana] be regulated like tomatoes, jalapenos or coffee. Current marijuana policies are not based on science or sound evidence, but rather misinformation and fear. All that God created is good, including marijuana. God did not make a mistake when he made marijuana that the government needs to fix. Let’s allow the plant to be utilized for good — helping people with seizures, treating warriors with PTSD, producing fiber and other products — or simply for beauty and enjoyment. Government prohibition should be for violent actions that harm your neighbor — not of the possession, cultivation, and responsible use of plants.” — Texas Republican state representative David Simpson, who describes himself as a “constitutional conservative,” explaining his marijuana re-legalization bill, KETK NBC TV, Tyler, Texas.
Sign in with Email