The Drug War and Black America

How can we solve some of the biggest race issues in America? According to John McWhorter, a former Berkeley linguistics professor and now senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, we must end the war on drugs.

"Legalize Methamphetamine!"

This is one of the first articles I read about legalizing all drugs. This article is also one of the first articles which seemed to actually begin to convince me about the idea of legalizing all drugs. I think the author does a really good job of laying out both the economic and moral arguments for legalizing not just marijuana, but all drugs. The article is also written fairly simply. The author does not get caught up in semantics or trying to sound so smart that everyone should just agree with him, but these are the kind of simple, basic arguments which one could use with anyone or everyone because of the two arguments the author makes.

"5 Years After: Portugal's Drug Decriminalization Policy Shows Positive Results"

This is a brief article about how in Portugal decriminalization has worked really well. The article discusses how Lisbon - the capital of Portugal - has not become a "drug mecca" and how all of Portugal hasn't turned into a bunch of raving drug addicts. Glenn Greenwald also wrote a good article at Cato about this same topic, but this one is a bit briefer if you don't have the time to read Greenwald's article.

"The Drug War's Collateral Damage"

Here's another article by Radley Balko. I think this article does a particularly good job of covering all the collateral damages of the U.S.'s War on Drugs, so even if someone won't accept the moral argument, surely the massive list of all the collateral damages should convince people. Here are the things discussed in the article: Police militarization, foreign policy, rule of law, crime, violence and prison, and medical treatments. The only thing I wish this article did is to go more in depth about each subject, but as an overview of all the collateral damage, I think this article does a fantastic job.

What you can and can't buy

I hadn't heard about this issue in a while, so when it came up again, I thought it would be interesting to discuss. In 2007, Bush signed a bill which pretty much mandates beginning next January you can't buy incandescent light bulbs anymore, so people will be pushed to either CFLs (which may not be as efficient as people believe?) or LEDs. I always find it interesting, albeit a little disturbing, when the government mandates you can not buy or do something for the, supposed, greater good. Is this something the government should be involved in? Is it even right for the government to be involved in this? Who decides the greater good? What if one just doesn't want to care? And these sorts of "greater good" issues spawn a whole slew of other questions and issues.

Internet Piracy and Copyright Law

I saw two articles on Arstechnica.com this week that caught my eye. One said that Obama administration wants to make unauthorized internet streaming of copyrighted material a felony, and the other was about a report saying that internet piracy is really just a pricing problem. So, who's right? Is more regulation or lower prices the answer to internet piracy?

Declaring War

When does the president have the right to declare war without Congressional approval? Glenn Greenwald explores this issue in the context of the escalating situation in Libya.