CDC: More People Die in the US from Prescription Painkillers than from Cocaine & Heroin Combined

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How much are we spending on the Drug War? How about the FDA? According to the Drug War Clock at drugsense.org, the Drug War cost the US $15 billion so far this year. In addition, President Obama’s budget request for the FDA topped $4 billion. Unfortunately, these programs not only cost an insane amount of money and keep the government all up in our shorts, they apparently do more harm than good. I have long noticed that government-controlled drugs seem to be killing people. Heroin felled quite a few stars back in the day: Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Sid Vicious and John Belushi to name a few. Celebrities of today, however, die from drugs that are highly regulated and controlled: Anna Nicole Smith, Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger and Brittany Murphy all died from prescription drugs.
It seems that the more we spend to have the government protect us from ourselves, the more we suffer at its hands. It could be gross incompetence, or it could be that government and its controllers are self-protecting entities who are not going to make us safe if our fear is the source of their power. The current mentality of citizens who fear an end to the Drug War or who cannot envision free market regulation of drugs reminds me of what I have heard about the behavior of the abused child. The abused child clings to his parent thinking, “If this is how someone who loves me treats me, how would someone who doesn’t love me treat me?!” It’s time to realize things will NOT be worse without government control of everything from the food we eat to the thoughts we think. Unfortunately, this study will probably be used to justify more government control, not less.
Here are a few highlights of the CDC study from the Sydney Morning Herald (sometimes you have to go out of the country just to get away from the spin!)

Income inequality is increasing. So what’s the big deal?

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In a truly free society there would be no way for anyone to amass great wealth or earn high levels of income without offering a product or service commensurately valuable to the individuals in society—the nature of voluntary exchange guarantees that. But do we have a truly free society? People are upset about a CBO report showing an increase in income inequality between the highest earning 1% and lesser paid earners (see chart below).  But why exactly?  I don’t think people are upset because they think it’s unfair for someone like Steve Jobs to get rich selling us what we want, but because they don’t think most of the rich are really adding the value their earnings imply. They know instinctively that the system is rigged and I’m beginning to think their instincts are right.

When I first got out of college I had a friend Steve from South America who said to me, “Don’t you think that anyone who’s really rich has done unethical things to get his money?” I was horrified. I felt it was a poor reflection on Steve’s character that he couldn’t see any possible connection between being good and doing well. Only a few years ago I recalled the statement to my husband who replied, “What is he talking about?  Happens all the time. There are plenty of good, rich guys in this country.” That was the key: “In this country.”
But now I am beginning to see signs in America of what Steve saw in his country. I now believe that if you want to make it BIG, you have to be connected, make a campaign contribution, drop a stock tip—whatever it takes—even if you would rather reach the top on the up and up. This is what has been aptly coined “crapitalism”—crony capitalism—and it’s the rat that everyone is beginning to smell.
The Occupy Wall Streeters smell it but don’t know where it’s hiding, so they believe the people they trust, who happen to be the Unions and the Big Government—nay, World Government—guys who tell them it’s the bankers, although the rich in general are the target. (See my blogpost of October 4 with hidden audio of SEIU’s Steve Lerner planning OWS back in March).
But amassing riches is not de facto immoral—voluntary exchange is a moral exercise that benefits both parties. It’s only when riches are amassed unfairly that it’s a problem. But how can you get rich unfairly? Only by using force or fraud. And who is using force or fraud? Are the Citibank guys taking their security guards to GM and forcing or tricking them into taking loans? Are GM goons coming to your house and forcing or tricking you into buying a car? No, they aren’t doing it that way, which is why they are not in jail. What they ARE doing is using the government to do those things through laws, regulations, bailouts, and of course through the ubiquitous and secretive Federal Reserve. And why do those in government voluntarily engage in these practices and often initiate them? Because they can. Government has the power to force some economic actors, particularly tax payers and small businessmen, to do things for the benefit of themselves and their cronies, so that’s what they do.
Both Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party know something’s rotten, and probably know it’s crony capitalism—even Michael Moore’s movie “Capitalism” was about government bailouts not truly free markets. But which of the two protest groups really gets it? To me, Occupy Wall Street is further from the truth. They are on Wall Street when they should be on Liberty Street outside the Fed. The Tea Party is getting warmer—they go to Washington—but they don’t totally get it either. From what I could tell when I marched alongside the Tea Party against Obamacare, they continue to support the Drug War and the War on Terror, probably because of fears of social instability and personal insecurity, which in turn keeps them beholden to the government they know is destroying the very society they are clinging to.
Unfortunately, fostering base fears has been a tactic of the state for centuries if not millennia. If the masses on the left continue to let their leaders prey on their fear of financial insecurity, and the masses on the right continue to let their leaders prey on their fear of personal insecurity, we will continue to have tyranny and instability—along with crony capitalism and invidious income inequality.

Mommy, do you love America?

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When my seven-year-old daughter asked me this question last night, I was gutted. Do I, the daughter of a Harley-riding, ultra-conservative, flag-flying World War II veteran, love America? I, who lives the American Dream? Granddaughter of orphan and immigrants; waitress and community college student-turned-Harvard and Stanford grad, do I love America? I have always been a patriot! I welled up with tears when I first heard that the most highly decorated regiment in the history of the United States armed forces was the 442nd Infantry Regiment in World War II–an all Japanese regiment, many of whose soldiers had family in internment camps. (I’m getting goose bumps right now!) I could weep with gratitude and respect for the many, many fine soldiers who died for America and what she stands for.
Or perhaps I should say, what she stood for. I’m afraid my patriotism has crossed the Rubicon.

Until a few years ago, I was of the mindset that no matter how far America had fallen, she was still the best country that ever existed. I never gave up hope that her foundations would withstand the vicissitudes of special interest politics and the pendulum would swing back to her birthright: defense of liberty and respect for private property. Unfortunately, I have come to believe that America will not swing back. It seems inevitable that rather than returning to a free and prosperous America within the system that made her great, America will fall and have to be rebuilt on a new foundation.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want the system to collapse! As the youngest of nine growing up in a small house, I dreamt of having a big enough share of the bed and a dry towel to use. I have these things now and they are better than I imagined! I’m as happy as a clam to be living at the pinnacle of 10,000 years of civilization’s progress, better off than almost every single one of the 125 billion people who have come before me (as is everyone reading this). But the fact is, I think Ron Paul is right about the future of America. During a recent interview on LewRockwell.com, Dr. Paul said he didn’t think our politicians would do the things that needed to be done to save the system, and particularly that the currency would have an irremediable crisis. He said that his goal is to make sure people are ready with the right ideas to try to rebuild this once-great country instead of being swept along in the wrong direction. (Recall Rahm Emanuel: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” The globalists are lying in wait.)

The question remains, however: Do I love America? For the first time ever, I have to think seriously about this question. I think blind patriotism is dangerous, and that good feeling you get when you salute the flag and feel proud to be an American is exactly what lets our government get away with murder. But what about the American Experiment? It does make us different from any other nation, doesn’t it? I think so. The idea that a government was dedicated to liberty and justice for all instead of privilege for some was unique and it spawned many of the greatest achievements of mankind. Unfortunately, the experiment was destined to fail and it has. (See my review of Democracy: The God That Failed.)

In puzzling over the answer to my daughter´s question, I realize that I have come to recognize a more sophisticated understanding of nationhood. The idea that America as a nation ís the same as America as a country is the essence of the American Experiment. ´We the People´ were the government for once, in contrast with the traditional tension between citizenry and government personified in the hated tax-collector. America´s democratic republic was supposed to bring government under the control of the people and by so doing allow us to identify with government as protector of liberty and of individual rights. The reality is, however, to quote the great Ludwig von Mises, ¨Government is the negation of liberty,¨ and the failure of the American Experiment proves this once and for all. Through the evolution of my political philosophy and in recognizing the error that is government, Í acknowledge that a society´s identity is independent from the identity of its over-arching coercive state. I now see that America and its people are not only separate from the government, but that we are in conflict with that government.

So, yes, in short, I do love America. I love the libertarians and the drop-outs and the billionaires, I love the Ron Pauls and the Steve Jobs, I love the truckers and the waitresses and the day-traders and the bloggers, I love the pot-head comedians and the crazy New York City cabdrivers, and I love the seven-year-old girls who actually want to know the difference between a libertarian and an anarcho-capitalist (well she is my daughter!) Yes I do love America, but no longer for its flag or its rhetoric, but for the fact that if society is ever to triumph over government it will be here, where Americans still know that America is ¨We the People¨ and not ¨It the State.¨

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