Response to Texas Politics blog...

In response to my classmates’ blog, Mike makes a semi-valid argument regarding the legalization of drugs. In his post the “upside sides” of legalization would include a greater tax revenue and essentially removing the power the drug cartels have over this nation. I have to play a little devil’s advocate here however. The liberal side of me says “this is absolutely the way to go”. Legalizing drugs puts an end to the violence and the money spent to try and “secure our borders”. And Mike is right it the end of prohibition helped a great deal during the great depression and our lovely sin tax makes sure that smokers keep our public schools funded. That said the mom side of me has to sit and really think this through. Would I be OK when my son or daughter turned the legal age to purchase these legal drugs and decided that since heroin is legal they should give it a try? I can’t even fathom them smoking a cigarette because I understand the addictive nature of the nicotine drug. But, to know that something as horrific as heroin and cocaine could be accessible and legal for anyone over the age of 21 to try I don’t know. The youth of this country already trails so far behind the rest of the world academically do we really want to give them the opportunity to have something as debilitating as a drug addiction hold them back even further. Maybe Mike was just thinking of the drug addicts and junkies that roam around now and how they could be purposeful in providing for tax revenue. But, unfortunately once that gate is opened it now allows for a whole other group of people to walk through and perhaps engage in something they would otherwise have stayed away from because it was illegal.

What does a U.S. citizen look like?

In an effort to “secure our border” many American citizens are being illegally deported from the country in which they were born and raised. An article from the Austin American Statesman recounts a nightmare of a story for one mentally ill man in California. Pedro Guzman was arrested on a misdemeanor charge and signed a waiver in which he agreed to leave the country without a hearing. Mr. Guzman cannot read or write. He spent 3 months in Mexico homeless while his mother wandered through Tijuana carrying his picture and looking for him.

The sad and scary part of this story is that this is not on isolated incident. As the U.S. expects to see more and more illegal alien crackdowns the numbers of people wrongly accused and deported is expected to rise along with it. With all the propaganda that was spoon fed to the masses by the Bush administration these situations will become more common place and the citizens of this country will become more desensitized to the violations of the human rights of their fellow citizens. According to the article many more cases have been reported and one can only imagine the amount of cases that have gone undiscovered.

Between the cases of American citizens being wrongfully deported and the building of a ridiculous wall on the border, racial intolerance has only begun to scratch the surface. What was more appalling than the article itself were the comments left by some of the people in the Central Texas area. It is easier for someone to take aim at a culture and race that does not resemble their own. If American citizens are being targeted for deportation for no other reason than their appearance what’s next? Concentration camps? Although the road to this scenario seems improbable it’s not by any means impossible, and the longer the law enforcement of this country continue to bow down to the radical and overzealous right wing scare tactics then perhaps we as a nation are closer to this atrocity than we think.

Fair should be Fair...

In Scott Henson’s blog, Grits for Breakfast, he discusses the unspoken hypocrisy that Gov. Perry has shown regarding the stimulus money President Obama is offering. According to Henson Gov. Perry has refused the $600 million set aside from the federal stimulus package to help pay people on unemployment. The main argument is that this will place a huge burden on the private companies down the road who will have to pay these funds back. However, he has not batted an eye regarding stimulus money aimed at increasing law enforcement. Per Henson the outcome is the same, paying back long term for a short term fix.

Henson, who has worked for the ACLU and who has helped to police the police grass roots organizations, states that hiring all these officers on “a layaway plan-hire now, pay later” will not place the state’s economic future in any better standing than borrowing the money to help pay for unemployment wages. It appears that his concerns, and those of the people who commented on his blog, is that these agencies will begin to make more frivolous arrests and traffic violations to pay for what they’ve borrowed. His main question is if Perry rejects the first part of the stimulus should he not reject this part as well?

Henson’s blog is poignant and should be scrutinized a little further. Given his background in investigating law enforcement, I would recommend readers to take stock in his arguments. I am not a political analyst or a political anything really, but what I read into this issue is that it’s ok to have to pay back excessive stimulus funds on the backs of the taxpayers as long as the private companies (who maybe line Perry’s pockets?) go unburdened.