Brandon on goofballs and a new nominee?

Tim Pool discusses a proposed Let's Go Brandon's pre-debate drug test, and the possibility that he gets replaced before the November presidential election.

Explosive new Hunter Biden charges revealed

 Via Fox News:

This Hunter Biden thing is getting worse and worse for Let's Go Brandon.

Canadians taking 2 divergent paths on drugs

More from Canada today - two different provinces are taking two different approaches to dealing with drug addiction.

Over at the libertarian Reason magazine (and others) advocating for legalizing all drugs is positioned as freedom.  But really drug addiction is slavery. No society works where there is unfettered access to the tools for self-destructive behavior.  I've flirted with the idea that legalization makes sense on some level but I cannot get behind it.  In the end it's not only enabling addiction, it's societal Darwinism in the extreme.  The notion that if someone can't handle it, that's their problem.  That's cold.  If society is judged on how it treats its most vulnerable, the idea of drug legalization is very telling about those who espouse it.  It's also a recipe for societal decay along the way.  Addiction will grow. Guaranteed.

The one Canadian example of handing out free drugs is really the government as a death merchant.  Thank God, Alberta is taking a more real and humane approach.  Alberta is not likely to solve the problem but it is trying to help people beat their addiction rather than just servicing the problem. That's definitely more noble.

U.S., Mexico, drugs, trade and the future

This morning on Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM, I was listening to senator Joni Earnst talk about the border with Mexico and the issues in Mexico in broader.   She was making the point about the flow of drugs such as fentanyl into the United States, but also equally important is the flow of guns from the United States into Mexico particularly the fact that most of those were flowing to the drug cartels.

The United States and Mexico have mutual problems, but equally important is that the two countries have a mutual opportunity. It's readily apparent that Mexico wants to stop the inbound flow of weapons as much as the U.S. wants to stop the inbound flow of drugs.  The Mexican government cannot fight an increasingly armed and impervious ring of cartels without a co-operative effort within the United States, and the same is true for America with respect to the drug flow.  The inertia that prevents doing something about both of these issues (spawned by Democrats' desire for more illegal voters to pad their vote totals) really mostly benefits the drug cartels at the expense of the people of both countries. 

Aside from the obvious notion that a wall would benefit both countries (thank you president Trump for pushing for that), it's less obvious but still true that there is a potential for mutual economic benefit.  

The Background

As Peter Zeihan points out, there is a massive onshoring of manufacturing coming to North America in this decade. The below video provides a good summary of his reasoning as to why it's happening. 

Specifically here, he expounds on the Texas-Mexico manufacturing landscape:

Because of demographics, this cannot be an entirely American effort.  Mexico has the demographics to assist.  Canada doesn't really.  Mexico is also changing it's tune on dealing with the drug cartels. It has to do so and despite the current relations blip, it will inevitably require increased cooperation between the two countries.

Assuming Peter Zeihan is even only partly right (and I believe he's more than just a little bit right), the economic integration of the United States and Mexico is inevitable.  Mutual interest means that co-operation in the short term will aid economic synergy in the medium to longer term.

The Future

With both countries needing to industrialize or re-industrialize rapidly, the need to begin several things in earnest is strong.  Economic and security cooperation must not only start right away, they need to start hand in hand.  They are interlinked and inseparable;  Mexico not be considered a secure place for lower end industrialization if it is overrun with cartels. For its part, the United States, with an emphasis on higher end industrialization and not the best demographic situation, cannot do lower end manufacturing internally, at least not all of it.  It's in both nations' best interest to make Mexico safer and the border more secure so that rapid industrialization and mutual beneficial trade can occur.  For the United States this also helps significantly (though not completely) neuter China economically. Its a win win win.

How this happens depends on a lot of things.  To me the obvious way forward is to not parcel the pieces together and deal with each issue independently. 

(1) Work with Mexico to build the wall as a mutually beneficial exercise as part of a broader effort.

Focus on it as part of holistic plan for controlling the flow of drugs, guns and illegal immigrants; it needs to be more than just a wall.  It requires proper documentation of all travelers (yes sneaking drugs and people and guns is going to be more than just at proper ports of entry), hence the wall. But it will also require enhanced enforcement and surveillance of delivery systems (e.g. FedEx, postal systems, shipping).  This will require additional people (maybe those 86,000 newly hired and armed IRS agents could be appropriated to more serviceable roles). It will require a new and innovative way to allow express trade but still monitor for the illegal transfers.

The slowing of the illegal guns to Mexico as Earnest pointed out this morning will weaken the cartels and help Mexico combat them.  The benefit to the United States from that is that weakened cartels will decrease their ability to smuggle drugs into America AND weaken their ability to impinge on future manufacturing zones thus helping trade.

(2) Work with Mexico to develop a high speed trade corridor.

A high speed trade corridor, dedicated to shipments and not human traffic will expedite not only trade but the mutually beneficial trade.  I would not expect the exports to flow entirely one way.  Firstly as a subcomponent of this, it would b good to establish spheres of specialization among the two countries to enhance trade relations.  Peter Zeihan touched on this. Left out however was the idea that American trade goods need to flow into Mexico as well.  The balance of payments cannot be one-sided.  Replacing a massive trade deficit with China to that of one with Mexico only weakens China; it does not strengthen America except in relative terms with China.  Therefore American goods need to flow into Mexico as well.

With manufacturing jobs developing in Mexico and increased Mexican security against the cartels (hopefully in a snowball effect), Mexicans should have more disposable income and thus be able to purchase more American goods.  A growing and more stable GDP in Mexico should allow Mexico more tax revenue to purchase military equipment and police force equipment as well, to help fight the cartels while at the same time mitigating the potential trade imbalance.

In conjunction with this, both countries could improve trade (particularly exports) with the soon to be struggling European countries.  This would be a further boon to both nations' economies.

Improved domestic economic conditions could also significantly reduce illegal immigration to the United States with more jobs and security becoming available within Mexico. There is a language and cultural advantage for Hispanics to remain in a Hispanic and Spanish-speaking country. Ironically, this may eventually shift the illegal immigration problem to Mexico's southern border. 

(3) Plan for the next stage.

It's possible that as this shift occurs, Mexican birth rates inevitably decline as the nation becomes wealthier.   This has been the inevitable fate of industrialized nations.  To sustain it's economic growth Mexico may be forced to allow increased immigration into its southern border to fill the need.  Alternately it could lead to a further southward migration of low tech manufacturing as Mexico itself upgrades to higher tech industrial manufacturing and outsources the lower end of the scale to Central America, while the United States does the same into ultra-high tech.  This in effect would expand prosperity ever southward.  That of course is only one possible outcome but possible nonetheless.

All of this is hypothetical of course, but the current paradigm offers a massive opportunity for both nations, far greater than allowing the status quo to continue.  For its part the United States should push these ideas where it can but not in such a way as to demand specific actions by Mexico.  Pointing out the mutual benefit (using the carrot) will yield far more than threats (the stick) ever will.

Legalizing marijuana, a reaction.

A throwback to 2012, Steven Crowder provides some context to marijuana as a result of Colorado's legalization of the drug.

I've seen the impact on people I know, the drug is not harmless. Telling yourself that it is, is just fooling yourself.

Why the libertarian view on drugs has issues (for me)

A while back I proposed an alternate way to stop the flow of drugs into America. It's not a solution to the scourge of drugs in the country, it's part of the solution.  The drug problem is complex and includes prescription opioids, domestically produced drugs, and the underlying problem is actually demand, not production.  I promised at that time I would get back to my non-libertarian rationale for opposing illicit drug consumption.  First, let me outline the logic of the libertarian view of drugs as I understand it.

Is this the future you want for your country?

Government allows the consumption of alcohol and cigarettes.  In a truly free and liberated society government should not prevent people from making choices, even if those choices are self-destructive.  Cigarettes and alcohol can be self destructive, and in the case of cigarettes it's pretty much inarguable that they are.  So why should illicit drugs be any different?  The caveat that libertarians allow for, is that as long as those choices do not harm anyone else then and only then should it permissible.  For example, murdering someone is not allowable because even though it is a free choice, it harms someone else.  Parking in such a way that it blocks someone else in is an individual freedom too, but it interferes with someone else's freedom to leave their parking spot.  In other words the government should only protect it's citizens from external threats or from each other, but not from themselves. That is up to and including the option for suicide I suppose.

There are problems with this logic as it applies to drugs, not the least of which is that switching to an unfettered allowance is to let the genie out of the bottle in such a way that it cannot be put back in.  Should there be dire societal consequences, they cannot be undone, or at least without a herculean effort.  When prohibition was implemented it was not long before it was reversed (13 years, which sounds like a long time but to reverse a Constitutional Amendment with another Amendment that is startlingly quick).  The point is the attempt to undo a freedom, once available, is a futile effort.  Yes alcohol was always available, but it provides a suitable analog.  Cigarettes, as damaging as they are will not be made illegal in our lifetime.  Similarly drugs, once legalized will not simply be made illegal again if they prove to be too detrimental to society as a whole.

More likely is the slippery slope argument - once a milder illegal drug is legalized there will be pressure to expand it to more, and harder drugs.  While there is plenty of evidence in our slide towards liberalism or even more aptly, political correctness, that there is indeed a slippery slope, I won't resort to that argument.  I have others.

The one argument that people make is that because drugs are illegal it contributes to crimes - murder and theft, for example.  The argument is that legalizing drugs will remove these problems.  The reverse is actually true.   Alcohol is legal and we still have alcohol-related deaths that are not just those who were drinking.  Cigarettes are legal and while second-hand smoke may or may not have killed anyone, it certainly, until recently, affected non-smokers.  I can attest to that personally.  Guns are legal and innocent people get shot and killed all the time.  And people still use illegal guns.  Why would some people not continue to use illegal drugs?  They might be cheaper.  Some people might not be able to get the legal drugs because they cannot afford their addiction and will still resort to crime to get what they need.

Simply legalizing drugs does not make these things go away.  And indeed, they may increase the instances of addiction and that could easily in turn increase these secondary effects of crime as more people become addicted, escalate and soon cannot afford their addictions.

The other effect that legalizing drugs has on society is the medical need to cope with the addicted. There are costs in ameliorating an addicted subset of the population. Not just the direct costs of rehabilitation, but also the opportunity costs.  If we have to divert medical expertise from cancer research to address the problem of burgeoning addiction, we could delay or miss the chance to cure cancer (for example). Doctors are not an unlimited resource - that was part of my argument on Obamacare.  Medical advances and treatment of the non-addicted are just another way that legalized drugs harm those who are not directly affected by the change in the law.

All of those issues are enough without even discussing the societal and familial impacts of decaying moral standards and families imploding because one drug user has upended the fabric of the family.

All for what?  So some people who want to do so can get high?  It's wasted potential, and morally its something we should guard against, not embrace. To embrace legalization of drugs, any drug, is nothing more than deluded Utopian thinking.

How to stop the flow of drugs into America

Allow me to be non-libertarian for a moment (it happens frequently) and I'll try to remember to  justify my position on drugs in another post. 

I was watching the new Netflix documentary Dirty Money.  In one of the episodes dealing with money laundering they pointed out an interesting wrinkle in the flow of drugs from Mexico into America and it gave me an idea of how to stop the flow of drugs into America.

Early on in the episode they point out that there is a vast effort to check vehicles coming into the United States; drug sniffing dogs, vehicle checks, big line ups of traffic. Going into Mexico it's so different you could almost classify the border as a rolling stop - slow down, wave and drive through.  There's little traffic, little spot checking and certainly no dogs.  But but that's how the people who smuggled drugs into America bring back the money from the sale of those drugs.

It occurred to me, why bother trying to stop the flow of drugs in, when it would be just as easy to stop the flow of money out of the country.  If the drug suppliers in Mexico and other countries don't get their payments back, they certainly are not going to continue to sell drugs into America.  If you let the drugs in but not the money back out you have created a disruption in the suppliers' profit and their operations.  

Granted the cartels would develop workarounds for that approach, but 3 kilos of marijuana apparently correlates to hundreds of pounds of bills in what was termed "street money" (i.e. $10s, $20s, $5s).  Even if the money is in $100 bills, and they can solve for the new approach quickly, the point is the disruption itself causes a change.

In addition, figuring out an effective way to detect money instead of drugs may not be so simple.  And proving that the money is dirty presents other challenges.  But these issues can be solved. Simply doing things the way they are being done now, is clearly not working well enough.  It's as though drug cartels have evolved to work around the current counter-measures and despite losses they are clearly making enough money to continue sending product into America.  So you have to change the approach.  And when they adapt to that, you change it again to something else.  It's like a football team only running one play the entire game and not expecting their opponents to figure it out and adjust to stop it.  By constantly changing what you are doing, you keep them off balance and dramatically improve your chances of winning.  

Stopping the money seems like a no-brainer. The money is what matters: no money, no selling.  No selling, no drugs.  The DEA should have more than one play in their playbook and every time they start to slow down on arrests and switch to a focus on one of the other approaches.  

Just saying.

Gun control vs. welfare state failures

Why is it that every time there's a major gun crime it reignites the debate on gun control but 70 years of liberal social welfare policy which have created an endemic poverty and a cycle of dependency that has doubtless led to homicide, suicide, theft and rampant drug use in certain communities doesn't get a revisit by the mainstream media more than once every seven decades?

It makes no sense.  But I guess progressive liberalism isn't supposed to make sense. Rather than gun control we should be talking about liberal policy control because the resulting early deaths are likely in the hundreds of thousands and the negative impact on quality of life for millions of people is not even measurable. 

Bizarro World America

Blame...Canada???

I've always said I wanted to become an American citizen.  The country is truly great.  Other than the Democratic party and it's destructive progressivist influence, what's not to love about the country? I've said that someday I will try to become an American citizen, and even joked that given the left's push for amnesty I might go illegally and end up voting against them once they grant me a path to citizenship.  I'd never do that.  But it seems like Canada is receiving the brunt of the U.S. government's border protection policy.  Mexican gangs are killing people along the U.S. border (apparently with weapons provided to them by the Department of Justice - no kidding), millions of Mexicans have streamed across the border to take jobs provided for illegal aliens, to draw welfare or to commit felonious crimes. Don't try to say they are streaming across the border illegally to engage in legal activities.  They by definition, can't.  Drugs pour across the southern U.S. border with a volume akin to Niagara Falls.  Iran is supposedly sending ships to patrol the Gulf of Mexico.  Clearly the Canadian border needs protection.

Calls for chaos

Well, it hasn't been 100 days of the Obama administration yet, but already the left is becoming unhinged from reality.  The things they are demanding are simply calls for chaos.  

Time Magazine has an article arguing for Marijuana legalization. So too Carlos Santana,

"Legalize marijuana and take all that money and invest it in teachers and in education," Santana said in an interview this week. "You will see a transformation in America."

You most certainly would see a transformation, but that doesn't mean it would be a good one. That's change we can trip in. In more ways than one.

But there's far more.  Iowa has ruled the ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional. Unanimously. They left it in the hands of each church.  Of course it's so easy to register your own religion, that the legality of only one man one woman is effectively ended.  Next up polygamy, followed by one man one farm animal.

There are calls for legalized prostitution as a way to solve the economic crisis.  I can't imagine the assembly line of production required to replace GM, Chrysler, AIG, and the multitude of banks.

Elsewhere, the Daily KOS has decided to set a deadline for health care reform - 2010 or bust.

Sex and drugs and...health care?  This is why liberals can't be trusted on health care.  Or economic recovery.  The rest of their ideas are so outlandish, that their health care ideas are inclined to be equally half-baked (pun intended).

Just Shut Up, Will You?

President Obama speaks on The Tonight Show and he insults the developmentally challenged, Tim Geithner speaks and the dollar plummets, Hillary Clinton speaks and she blames America for Mexico's drug deaths, Chase Freeman speaks and he blasts Israel, Joe Biden speaks and entertains everyone with, well, his intellectual challenges. Robert Gibbs speaks and sinks even deeper over his head.

People - the best thing you can do for the country is to keep your mouths shut.

That is all.