Monday, July 13, 2009

It's poppycock to grow crops here but destroy them in Afghanistan

A great article by Bonson Jorris on the absurdity of the British government destroying opium production in Afghanistan (and failing miserably to do so, as usual), while at the same time subsidising opium production in South Oxfordshire.

The Great Blond One also provides us with some great tips on how to locate and procure your own supplies of morphine, just by wandering around the countryside near Swincombe and Nettlebed, which fortunately is only about five miles away from Maturin Towers.

I did feel it necessary, however, to add a comment to Bonson's rhetoric on the absurd war in Afghanistan being "heroic" and "far from futile". There's nothing heroic about shooting up the towns and villages of invaded lands, and everyone from here to Timbuktu knows the whole operation is entirely futile, which is why the British government will pull out its troops once the bond markets stop buying its paper:

Jack Maturin on July 13, 2009 at 09:45 AM

Boris, wouldn't it just be easier all round if we got the state out of the equation completely, and removed all of their stupid crime-creating bans on drugs and removed all of their self-given powers to intrude into people's lives based upon these drug bans?

As Ludwig von Mises says on page 54 of "Liberalism":

"As soon as we surrender the principle that the state should not interfere in any questions touching on the individual's mode of life, we end by regulating and restricting the latter down to the smallest details."

Your article quite correctly points out the hypocrisy and stupidity of the state, in destroying with one hand what it subsidises with the other, stealing from the taxpayer to pay for both operations.

However, the real problem is the interference in man's natural right to ingest whatever substance he sees fit, into his body.

The abrogation of this right is what lies at the heart of all of this death and misery currently being caused in Afghanistan by the British government. The rest is merely detail.
A splendid person writes:

Capitalist on July 13, 2009 at 11:35 AM

Well said Jack Maturin. 100% right. Nothing else needs to be said.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

A fairly high-brow response that may perhaps go over the heads of politicians. You are however spot on; no more and no less than currently take drugs would do so were they legalised.

It is so easy to locate drugs suppliers these days that legalisation will not make them easier to buy; just remove a lot of the nonsense that surrounds the criminalisation of the trade.

But, hey ho just like prostitution, the government knows best

Jack Maturin said...

I think Boris will get the point, if few other politicians do. Though it appears he still feels the need to toe the Tory party "Fields of Eton" line on the goodness and necessity of war against the natives in Bongo-Bongo land; it's a shame he's about two centuries out on that one.

However, as an alleged regular Lew Rockwell reader, I'm sure Boris's heart is in the right place, even if he daren't speak the truth that the most basic human right of all is that we be free to ingest whatever we think will improve our lives (and that it is for us as free human beings to determine these substances, whether they be ginseng, corn, poppy juice, willow bark aspirin, steak, tobacco smoke, gin, or whatever else we prefer our poisons to be.)

But whatever the case, it's great that Boris has highlighted the absolute creeping-scope stupidity of the "Drugs Excuse" reason, as to "why we are in Afghanistan".

I'm actually surprised my comment made it past the moderator in less than two hours, so perhaps the moderator got it too? :-)