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When Will They Ever Learn
by A.X. Perez
perez180ehs -+at+- hotmail.com

Attribute to The Libertarian Enterprise

Currently the rage among drug banners is to go after Salvia divinorum, a hallucinogenic herb from Oaxaca in Mexico. Because banning marijuana, opium derived drugs, cocaine, LSD, meth and other drugs worked so well. Undoubtedly it is part of a plan to help control the current recession by inflating the price of Salvia and creating a black market industry that requires more smugglers, illegal growers, police, lawyers and others.

Meanwhile ICE is moving on the deportation of John Demjanjuk, an alleged concentration camp guard from the Holocaust. Actually it's more a case of extraditing him to Germany to face charges for his acts as a camp guard. If memory serves me correctly, this is the same guy the KGB framed back for being "Ivan the Terrible" about a decade and a half, two decades ago for the express purpose of allowing the American and Israeli governments embarrass them selves. The USSR collapsed and the FSB admitted the whole thing just on time to save Demjanjuk from being sentenced.

It could be this is a different guy. It could be that since back in the Early 90's evidence has come up indicating that Demjanjuk was more than a draftee rail station guard whose choices were guard the trains on the way to the camps or be hauled to the camps on them. Then again going after a an 89 year old Slavic rail guard is maybe Germany's way of proving sincerity in attempting to atone for the un-atonable. I guess double jeopardy only applies in American Courts and not to extradition cases in them. We will not get into the problems with cases based on falsified evidence. Again, I my be mixing up cases, but if I'm not there is a lot of Constitutional problems involved.

It could be that salvia is such a dangerous drug that it must be banned, at least for youngsters. However to me it seems that all a ban will accomplish is to create a lucrative underground trade in the stuff, not a worthwhile reduction in the use of this drug. It could also be that Damjanjuk is guilty of such heinous acts that even as a wheelchair bound octogenarian he must be tried and punished. Or it could be that in both cases the state is being allowed, in fact encouraged, to overreach itself. In both cases, unless there are overriding issues which I'm just not grokking, the state is acting capriciously (note, I acknowledge that participating in the Holocaust at all but the lowest level of doing what you had to do to not become a victim of the Holocaust is morally unforgivable and should be relentlessly punished. I am just unaware of evidence that Demjanjuk did more or worse than what he had to do to survive. Please put me wise if this is not the case). More important it is acting in an ultimately ineffectual manner . This will lead to greater power grabs and misuse of power in the future as the state and its masters attempt to establish and assert their efficacy. All on could be's, something that is not acceptable.

Again if anyone knows more about these cases and can enlighten me as to why the state and its masters are making a fuss over them pass me the skinny. Otherwise they strike me as futile gestures that will lead to future governmental abuses of power.

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