"100 Years Of Failure And Futility"

Reason reports:

The United Nations is currently celebrating the 100th anniversary of the “international war on drugs.” Yes, it was in 1909 that 13 countries joined together in the “International Opium Commission” to halt the Chinese opium trade. And how did that go? According to the Associated Press, although strongman Mao Zedong managed (or so his government claims) to make significant inroads in the 1950s, nowadays “Government statistics put the number of known addicts in China at 1.2 million, including 700,000 heroin users, more than two-thirds of them under the age of 35.”

Strangely, after a century's worth of attempts to forcefully stamp out two perfectly legitimate and useful human urges—to make a decent living, and to pleasurably alter our consciousness—drug warriors are no closer to victory. The chief of the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, even confesses to feeling “somewhat frustrated” that his impossible job is so darn impossible.

Continue reading.

Fighting The Lord’s Resistance Army

(http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17021)

Topics covered:

Rebel leader Joseph Kony escapes a multinational attack... Why Kony doesn’t want peace... Was Julia wrong to advocate military action against Kony?... The LRA’s horrifying strategic advantage... How the conflict started, and how it might end... The difficult transition from civil war to peace...

Religion Versus Free Speech

After I poked fun at Christianity in last week's column, a reader questioned whether I'd be willing to do the same to Islam. As the reprinted cartoons in this post show, I am.

Reason reports:

A "Defamation of Religion" resolution sponsored chiefly by Islamic nations passed yesterday in the United Nations General Assembly by a vote of of 86 in favor, 53 against and 42 abstentions. It declares that governments should:

"adequate protection against acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion resulting from defamation of religions and incitement to religious hatred in general."

A specific example of "acts of hatred" that should be outlawed was the publication by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten of some of these cartoons of Mohammed:

This resolution is complete and utter bullshit. People need to learn to take a few knocks in the free marketplace of ideas. If religious believers want to be taken seriously by nonbelievers, they shouldn't resort to this kind of pathetic censorship. This goes for Muslims, Christians, and anyone else with a history of bitching about people not being nice to them.

Thankfully, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects Americans from this nonsense. Let's do everything we can to make sure it stays that way. If a person thinks any type of free speech every justifies a violent response and is willing to act on that belief, that person should not be welcome in this country. Period. And, yes, that means I'm perfectly comfortable excluding certain radical sects of Muslims. People should be able to believe whatever they want, but they must not be allowed to impose those beliefs on the rest of us.