Wednesday, March 24, 2010

FOX News has a Little Surprise in Store

I used to think of FOX News as the press of Hell, but apparently, they are in favor of the liberalization of Prohibition, which sends me for a loop. I have difficulty reconciling their right-wing views with a solitary enlightened view regarding the wasteful Drug War. Perhaps this precious unicorn represents a minority viewpoint within FOX News, a clique of high-level executives who recognize Prohibition for what it is.

There has long existed a respectable conservative intellectual underpinning for the fight against Prohibition, to be found in Wm. Buckley and his successors, though they always seemed to me to be rather muted and ineffective in their criticism of the Drug War, while being much more vocal on other issues, where they were wrong. In particular, I remember an editorial penned by Buckley and published in my local newspaper, the only Buckley editorial I ever agreed with, in which he pleaded for reduced sentences for marijuana users. Instead of five years imprisonment, he wanted something like a hundred-dollar fine. Even George Will once wrote in defense of a marijuana grower who had been busted because a police helicopter inspected his property without a warrant. George Will made quite clear that he believed the grower deserved punishment. His only objection was to the warrantless search, which he felt was grounds for dismissal of the case. Conservatives sweat bullets at the thought that someone, somewhere, might imagine they have a thinking mind and a beating heart. They always want to appear in step with revered authority figures, even when they criticize certain policies that offend their conscience.

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