Two years

It's the two-year anniversary of this blog. Oh, yeah, and Saddam Hussein was hanged. I know many libertarians who will be celebrating, but I'm not one of them. Don't get me wrong. I'm not shedding any tears and I'm even kind of pleased, but I think that left-wing uber-blogger Idiot Savant is right - not even Saddam deserved the death penalty.

Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch, says "The test of a government's commitment to human rights is measured by the way it treats its worst offenders..." (hmm, unfortunate name, that one).

H. L. Mencken, early 20th century American writer, said, "The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."

No dissent from liberty-minded folk to the words of Mencken. For example, we're always ready to defend the rights of scumbags like holocaust-denier David Irving. But if Irving has a right to free speech, did Saddam really deserve death? If we sanction the execution of genocidal sadists, who's next?
 

Meth madness

Last week, New Zealand Police announced that they had located 1000 clandestine drug laboratories since official recording began ten years ago. In 1996 they located just one lab. Lucky lab 1000 was the 184th for 2006.

"Quality intelligence and increased understanding of the dynamics of illicit drug markets mean we are continually improving our work in zeroing in on the supply chains and networks of manufacturers and dealers," said Assistant Commissioner Peter Marshall. But is it quality intelligence and increased understanding? Or a decade of insanity ("doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results")? I guess that depends on what results you're trying to achieve.

Since 1996 the police have

• Wasted an estimated $500,000,000 "fighting P".
• Filled our jails to overflowing with clandestine laboratory technicians, at a cost of $50,000 per inmate per year.
• Ruined hundreds of lives (it's generally accepted that a sentence to life imprisonment - the penalty for manufacturing Class A drugs - is ruinous).

Since 1996 the police have NOT

• Reduced the availability of methamphetamine.
• Reduced the number of clan labs.
• Stopped a recorded increase in violent crime.
• Stopped children using P "just to feel normal".
• Stopped children's milk for Weetbix being kept in the fridge next to P lab chemicals.

Commenting yesterday on the conclusion of a year long operation, which resulted in 9 arrests and the seizure of large amounts of cash and methamphetamine worth $1.5 million, Detective Senior Sergeant Scott Beard said that for a while there would be a gap in the methamphetamine market. "But like all things that hole will be filled." This is a very clear admission from the police that they have little to show for their expensive P fighting efforts. A decade is 10 years too long. Stop the meth madness.

Anyone seen Elvis?
 

Lest we forget

Not content with just sitting at the bar drinking and reminiscing, the RSA joins the War on Drugs™.

They've given 1,000 copies of the book The Great Brain Robbery - What Everyone Should Know About Teenagers and Drugs to courts around New Zealand, with the intention of helping young people going through the court system to say no to drugs.

Don't they know that alcohol is number one on the Danger List?! International statistics indicate that eight percent of those who drink alcohol will develop problems with it, and that each one of those victims will affect at least six other people. Alcohol travels directly to the liver where much of it is broken down into acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde is a poison! Chronic effects include addiction, cirrhosis of the liver, memory impairment, reasoning impairment, Korsakoff's syndrome and foetal alcohol syndrome.

So Tom Scott & Trevor Grice tell us in The Great Brain Robbery. It looks very much like it's a case of do as we say, not as we do. I always thought the RSA was synonymous with drinking.

RSA National President John Campbell hopes the content of the book will help young New Zealanders reach their full potential - "something they fought for in the war" - and here's me, thinking it was all about upholding freedom, democracy and Western values.

And to think that I fought for these people's right to continue to enjoy a cigarette with their beer. Where's the gratitude?