Beginning this blog I wanted to discuss the war on drugs and the digressive viewpoint concerning their legalization. However, as I began writing, it seemed prudent to broaden the discussion out and discuss the "presidential wars" first. I will save the "War on Drugs" for another time.
Can you count how many times you've heard "The War on..." throughout your lifetime? Regardless of what generation you come from, you've likely heard those words often. The War on poverty, drugs, tyranny, and terrorism. One fact is certain, our leadership is not shy about declaring war.
You see, declaring a war on something initiates multiple things. First and foremost, the word "war" immediately elevates the circumstance to a crisis level. Presidents will declare a war on something because the term "war" suggests a situation is pressing or urgent. It is a situation that demands every one's immediate attention. Often these wars become a distraction for the media, for you, and for me.
Second, because the situation is a "Crisis" requiring immediate action, all funds necessary for carrying out the "war" must be allocated. "Emergency" circumstances alleviate the pressure for balanced spending. Therefore, presidents have been able to spend on these wars without concern for the sources of these funds. Presidents declaring war on something applies a high level of political pressure on congress to fund the war as being "essential."
Third, declaring war quickly erodes liberties and enhances executive power. As someone who has worked closely with law enforcement, I know that red tape is frustrating. Imagine being as powerful as the President of the United States is, and you are bound by the Constitution. As the president, Article II of the constitution has some formidable restrictions for you.
Declaring war on something seems to make a great many of those restrictions go away. Also, people are willing to give up numerous freedoms during war time. Many of you have probably noticed that war has been perpetual since World War II. When the United States has not been engaged in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Libya or the multitudes of other countries U.S. forces are now in, we've always had domestic wars raging.
Of course the War on Terror is the most recent and one of the most obvious forms of unending expansion in executive power. Prohibition and the war on drugs began decades earlier and has cost countless lives, dollars, and of course time. Important issues like border control, fiscal balance, and preservation of liberty for future generations have all been brushed aside.
We are allowing ourselves to be distracted by the next "War on...(fill in the blank)", while our country is in deep need of major reforms/repairs. The presidents I respect the most are the ones reluctant to use the words crisis or war.
Is Libya really a crisis for the U.S.? Alcohol was once a "crisis" in the states., is marijuana? Can the government adequately fight a war on poverty? Is Afghanistan more a national defense interest than the violence erupting along the Mexican border?
My thoughts are, be cautious when you hear a politician declare war on something. Because of constituents, there are many pertinent issues that politicians are unwilling to face. Don't become too distracted by "their" wars. For the politician, fighting wars are much easier and have far fewer political repercussions than attempting to manage things like entitlement reform. However, the costs of these wars to us are staggering. Costing more than dollars, these wars also cost us liberty.
As always, I would love to hear from you. Feel free to comment and thanks for reading!
6 comments:
A defensive war is almost always a war against - a war against the British Empire, a war against Nazi Germany, and so forth. It implies that we are pushing against a force that is encroaching upon us.
A "War on" is almost always a war that is made; we are making war upon on drugs, poverty, crime, terror, etc... Almost universally, these efforts have not curbed their targets, but rather made them worse. Despite LBJ's Great Society, Americans continue to be mired in poverty because we refuse to let the market work. That Mexico is engaged in a de facto narco-civil war illustrates the failure of a struggle against drugs. The futility of the war on terror is obvious: it is simply more gasoline on a raging fire.
Thank you for following Found in Liberty, you have a good blog going here.
I like all of your points. I wish there were light at the end of this tunnel, but I don't see it. It seems we are on a collision course with reality, and we will be meeting up soon. Learning from past failures like prohibition would be a fine start, but I don't see those corrections happening. Hold on for the ride! Thank you as well for following the blog.
Josh you are a great writer! This is very Interesting! I agree, but maybe in different light. War and Violence kills the image of God in us. War and violence doesn't fit in any of jesus' teachings. Jesus stoped Peter from using the sword..... which leads to judas with a violent kiss led to his own suicide. Emporer Nero ended his story when he stabbed himself. Hitler killed his own heads of staff. Virginia tech massacre ended in suicide, as well as Columbine shootings. Violence and war are suicidal. people in the military and those working on death row being around such un-forgiveness and government / worldy justice have large numbers of suicide. They kill themselves as the Image of God is dying in them. War, Violence, power, never fit with who we follow!
I'm not sure how you felt you grasped the concept of the blog, but the blog was one giant critique on war. As I told you in my status comment, I am for the most part a non-interventionist. That is to say that I don't believe in intervening militarily unless the immediate preservation of life is the core motive. My blog was a critique to say that all of the wars declared since World War II have been flawed attempts to expand executive authority and take away valuable liberties. Also, I was attempting to focus on the failures of the domestic wars we've been fighting for decades. The drug war was a failure before we were born.
Primarily, I am in agreement of your statements concerning what war/violence do to the individual. All of your examples are good. I do believe there are rare circumstances worth fighting for, but as I said, they should always involve the immediate preservation of life. If a psychotic dictator like Gaddafi outright tells you he's going to murder hundreds of thousands of his own people, and it is easily in your power to stop that at minimal risk, that may be worth fighting for. That may be a moral decision we have to make.
Again, I hope you don't hear me condoning the wars on terror. If this blog was anything, it was meant to condemn ridiculous perpetual wars like the war on terror. Everyone knows our motives are not pure in this, and it hurts our credibility globally. Again, my purpose was to caution everyone when our leaders use the term war or crisis. We should scrutinize the things we are fighting for and over. Clearly, we should be involved in combat, far less frequently than we currently are.
While I agree with anonymous you are a great writer, I don't think they were following your line of thinking.
Jim and I really enjoyed your writing and your thoughts. Interesting blog!
If you decide to blog about the War on Drugs, I'd recommend checking out William Buckley's arguments for legalization. My own views have evolved almost 180 degrees, due largely to his work and my own experience in a prosecutor's office. Buckley identifies numerous ways that the War on Drugs impedes the liberty of all of us, not just would-be-drug-users.
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