officials in action

Dennis comments ♦ February 14, 2021 ♦ 1 Comment

THEY JUST DON’T GET IT!!!
OR DO THEY THINK WE ARE JUST THAT STUPID???
Dennis L. Blewitt, commentator
I am often amused by articles in the newspaper and the politician’s prattle that is printed. I am particularly amused by the reporting on privatizing a US highway between Boulder and Broomfield, and the propaganda campaign launched by law enforcement. The politicos and Government employees are absolutely shameless. In the same sentence they claim that there is not enough money for needed projects, but that the police need more money to police the problem of marijuana legalization.
First there were articles about the State of Colorado selling a road to a consortium because we couldn’t afford to improve or maintain it. Aside from the question of how it was built in the first place, there is a whole issue of breach of trust, bad faith and misreading the public. The public would like our infrastructure renewed, renovated, and improved. We don’t want to pay taxes to feather the nests of contractors and bankers because the politicians are too stupid, corrupt, or incompetent to think we matter. Thousands of motorists put up with delays, construction hazards, obstacles, and inconvenience just so some corporations can get fat. Not only that, but they have also insisted on guaranteed revenue and other concessions which the taxpayers were not made privy to and can block any new road construction which could compete with them. We gave them a monopoly. However, the governments along the route need not worry. The same newspaper that reported on the highway had an editorial complaining how the police are having a ticket writing heyday to extort money out of drivers, already pissed off enough. But that’s not all.
The next article was concerning the police and other law enforcement need money out of the tax revenues of marijuana to cover the costs of more enforcement. Say what? Increased enforcement for marijuana? What are these people smoking? Marijuana was just decriminalized. Why do we need more police enforcement of non-existent marijuana enforcement? Their cynicism and outrageous assertions are beyond words. Well, it seems that the drug war, invented by the Nixonites and now one of the costliest areas of government has started to believe its own propaganda or police stupidity has increased. For years, the drug war has increased to the point that it is the main concern of the courts and law enforcement. We lock up more people than any other country. We have a police state. We have rampant spread of disease. We have bridges collapsing on traffic. We have needles industrial accidents. We have pollution that affects our health. Schools are in disrepair. We have needy people in our citizenry. I could go on, but you can see my point. Money isn’t going where it is needed. What money comes into government is often misspent and used to aggrandize politicians, not applied to the common good. The US has the largest prison population in the world, with about 2.3 million behind bars. More than half a million of those people are incarcerated for a drug law violation. Over the last 3 decades, incarcerations for drug offenders have gone from about 40,000 to 400,000. A Pew study says it costs the U.S. an average of $30,000 a year to incarcerate an inmate, but the nation spends only an average $11,665 per public school student. The future of our nations and our children should be our priority. But it is not. Neither are roads, bridges, healthcare, housing, feeding, and clothing the citizenry. The drug war costs 15 billion dollars a year and over one trillion dollars over four decades. The pentagon costs 400 billion dollars, but much of that is spent on the drug war. Additionally, the militarization of police, the diversion of mission of both the Coast Guard to capture drug tax revenues.
and Military to expand police power has not been calculated. In this figure. This has led to more diversion of public money to profitable drug war privatized companies.
Most of the public are sick and tired of the drug war. They could care less about marijuana, etc. They do care about their schools and infrastructure. The police actually acted like the medicinal marijuana movement was about medical marijuana. However, their real attitudes showed when they disregarded departmental regulations on patient privacy to gain access to medical marijuana registrations. Now, when the public has said “enough,” they are busily manufacturing new crimes to keep their budgets, letting the really needy projects suck hind tit, all in the name of protecting the public.
For those of you who were not around or won’t learn history, the interstate highway system was funded without privatized funds in the fifties during the Eisenhower years. The wealthy paid a fair share of taxes without whining and people were employed, fed, housed, and clothed by and large. Health care was affordable. Middle class working families could buy a house and send their children to college with only one family member having to work. Most students were given aid by the government because it was deemed to be in the national interest. People like me were paid to go to school so we could keep up with the Russians. Student debt was unheard of. These were not “entitlements,” but necessities for a thriving nation.
Marijuana wasn’t illegal as such. It was illegal to not pay the $100 per ounce tax on weed. Technically, I started out as a tax attorney. Until the reign of Richard Nixon, Federal crimes had to be based on an enumerated power in the Constitution. That changed with Nixon’s drug war. Circumventing the pesky Constitution, he passed a series of drug bills. He believed that the public wanted law and order and he gave it to them, applying the same to all but Nixon, Mitchell, and their close friends. There has been a relentless attack on the Constitution since then.
So, I ask, how long are we going to stand for this bullshit. When are we going to say enough to corporate greed? When are we going to tell the police that we don’t want a police state and their job is to serve us and I don’t mean with traffic tickets? Write you politicians and tell them we are tired of being considered stupid. We do not government that serves only the rich and powerful. We want better schools, food, housing bridges, and other things necessary to the benefit of the citizens.