Erosion Of Liberty

Many people have asked why I harp on the War On Drugs so much. Aside from the fact that it is blatantly unconstitutional, it is also a Trojan horse to slip the erosion of our liberty past us, disguised as something that will never apply to us.

Drug war tactics were recently used on a home-based organic coop, aka the most harmless people in the world. Their account in their own words is here. As if the fact that they were harmless organic types wasn't enough, the only military aged male was not there, because he was serving in Iraq! That's right, a man who was serving in Iraq had his organic food selling family detained at gunpoint for 6+ hours and had personal property, including their food for the year, worth over $10,000 seized. The agents allegedly did not identify themselves as well as committing several other breaches of procedure. This was done by a SWAT team who ransacked the entire house.

Now, you're thinking, surely this was a dangerous group of radicals, maybe like the weathermen, or perhaps plotting some sort of civil disobedience, like chaining themselves to something. Nope. As far as anyone can tell, the charge is likely to be... running a retail establishment without a license. Not only that, the family claimed to have sent letters asking for the correct paperwork for over a year, and were ignored.

Now there is a lot of conjecture that this is a part of the government's plan to control food and to support Big Ag and Big Retail. I'm not going to get into that, though I think those claims may have some merit. The real issue is that everyone who takes the War On Drugs(/Liberty) lying down is guilty of contributing to this. It's just like the old quote about the Holocaust by Martin Niemoller:

When the Nazis came for the communists.
I remained silent;
I was not a

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a .

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

Thankfully, what we are facing is no where near the Holocaust. It doesn't compare as far as the atrocities, and honestly, I questioned whether to use this comparison. The crimes aren't comparable. But the progression is.

As far as civil liberties, they came for the druggies, they came for the Arabs, they came for the gun owners, now they're coming after the most harmless people in society. If you don't speak up for the civil liberties of people who aren't like you, who will speak up for you?

Speak up for liberty. Write the Governor of Ohio.