Airplane shot down in Colombia

The rules are wrong, therefore the blame lies in the law. If there was no market there would be no 'value stream'...

So now it's the addict's fault that our inner cities are laced with
drugs and thugs? It's the user's fault that normal people dare not
set foot into the ghettos that exist in every major city in America?
All we have to do to fix this mess is "change the law"?

That may be the most naive thing I've ever seen written here -- and
*that* is not an easy cliff to scale!

If you had any experience in the inner cities of America, you would
know that drugs are the scrourge of EVERYTHING and EVERYONE there.
The "market" you speak of exists because of a drug cartel that
produces and provides cheap drugs for easy distribution to people who
apparently have nothing left to lose.

These people then think nothing of taking everything that anyone else
has to lose, in order to maintain their drug addiction -- and the
cycle of crime continues. Stretch this cycle out 40 years, and you
have what we have today in America -- large areas in every major city
that are essentially fenced off (by police, and common sense) from
regular citizens, so that the shooting war in the inner city can't
infect the rest of us.

A quiet, sad irony of America -- far more shooting deaths occur in our
inner cities every day than occur on the battlefields of Iraq and
Afghanistan. It's a shameful situation that BOTH political parties
and the mainstream media choose to ignore.

(Well, except after Hurricane Katrina, of course, when they were
shocked -- SHOCKED -- that there was poverty and violence going on in
New Orleans!)

Now, of course, you can say that eliminating drugs wouldn't fix the
ghettos, and you might be right. People who can look at a hypodermic
needle full of unknown **** and somehow make the leap to thinking
"Hey, it sounds like *FUN* to inject that into my arm!" are probably
beyond ANYONE'S help.

Stupid is incurable.

However, eliminating drugs (and the cartel behind them) would remove
a major fuel source for much of the violence that claims so many lives
there.

And, of course, you have to look at the reciprocal of what you are
proposing. If making drugs ILLEGAL is the problem, what would making
them LEGAL do?

When I contemplate legalized drugs, I get a vision from "The Matrix",
with entire segments of our society laying around hooked up to
intravenous tubes, oblivious to everything around them. Would
providing free drugs to the inhabitants solve the violence? Even if
it did, would it be the right thing to do?

I don't know the circumstances of the shoot-down in the video, but if
that plane was packed with cocaine or heroin that was destined for my
hometown -- a beautiful city on the shores of Lake Michigan that is
fighting for its life against a growing drug-and-crime-plagued ghetto
-- and the pilot had ignored every attempt to get him to land, he
deserved his fate.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:
The rules are wrong, therefore the blame lies in the law. If there was no market there would be no 'value stream'...

So now it's the addict's fault that our inner cities are laced with
drugs and thugs? It's the user's fault that normal people dare not
set foot into the ghettos that exist in every major city in America?
All we have to do to fix this mess is "change the law"?

Yes, Jay, it is really simple. If we simply eliminate all laws (no
reason to stop just with drug laws), we'll have no crime at all! You
can't have crime if you have no laws to break. And we'd need no judges
or lawyers or politicians! I'm warming up to this idea already. :-)

Matt

Yes, Jay, it is really simple. If we simply eliminate all laws (no
reason to stop just with drug laws), we'll have no crime at all! You
can't have crime if you have no laws to break. And we'd need no judges
or lawyers or politicians! I'm warming up to this idea already. :-)

It's funny, but true, that there is a large contingent of people
(enough of whom vote) here in Iowa City who have repeatedly killed
plans to build a desperately needed larger prison, using essentially
your (tongue-in-cheek) argument.

Their claim is that the prisons are over-crowded because of drug
offenders, and that all we need to do is simply release them all, and
voila! -- no need for a bigger prison!

So, Johnson County ends up leasing space (at outrageous prices) from
empty jails around the state. In the ten years we've lived here, we
could have built five new prisons, and been money ahead...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

On 2007-06-30 21:12:44 -0700, Jay Honeck said:

The United States is signatory to treaties prohibiting firing upon
civilian aircraft, but regularly violates these treaties. This is
behavior that we used to associate with the worst aspects of the Soviet
Union and other rogue states.

Just curious: When has the US ever fired on civilian aircraft?

Here we have a thread on the US helping to shoot down a civilian
aircraft, and you ask that question. Remember, too, that a few years
ago the Bush administration asked for funds in the Coast Guard
Reauthorization Act to shoot down suspected drug dealers within the
borders of the US itself.

The Navy has continually threatened to shoot down private aircraft that
violate its security zones or, in the words of our local Navy PR
officer, they may shoot down aircraft who get "too close" to the
security zone. No one knows what "too close" is. Since I live near such
a zone, I am concerned that if the Navy ever does open fire my house
could be showered with spent ordnance and aircraft debris, or even a
stray missile. When I expressed these concerns to the PR officer, he
said that protecting civilians was not the job of the Navy.


--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

On 2007-07-01 05:02:43 -0700, "Blueskies" said:


"C J Campbell" wrote in message
news:2007063020175575249-christophercampbell@hotmailcom...
The United States is signatory to treaties prohibiting firing upon
civilian aircraft, but regularly violates these
treaties. This is behavior that we used to associate with the worst
aspects of the Soviet Union and other rogue
states.


It looks like the USA was helping with the tracking, but did not
actually firing?

Ah. sarcastically And Uriah was not killed by King David. If you hire
some thug to kill your wife, I assure you that you will be charged with
murder. The United States is responsible for the actions of its agents.
In this case, the US provided the weapon, located the target, and aimed
the weapon. Calling over someone else to actually pull the trigger does
not keep your hands clean.


On the other hand, these drug dealers are conducting what is basically
a civil war against the government of Columbia,
attempting to set up a criminal government providing a safe haven for
all manner of gangsters and thugs.


The video was labeled from Brazil, yes? The 'border' was safe haven.
What country were they talking about?

I would suspect Peru or Venezuela.



So it is a hard question. Do you let the drug dealers take over a whole
country, or do you violate international
standards of behavior to prevent it? Personally, I have grave concerns
about becoming what we are trying to stop.


Again, if the product were 'legal' somehow, there would be no black market...

While I might agree with you, that does not excuse the United States
from responsibility for its current actions.

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

On 2007-07-01 04:55:18 -0700, "Blueskies" said:


"PPL-A (Canada)" wrote in message
ups.com...

By whose definition is this situation a WAR as you say ... some
arbitrary fiat by some politicians in the 1980s? I think calling this
kind of activity a war is insulting to the armed forces personnel that
have fought and died for real causes in the last century. The so-
called war on drugs is political posturing and always has been. To
expand on this point, the public in the last decade or two is being
increasingly deceived into a false sense of righteousness about any
disagreements that politicians might have with any group, be they
foreign or domestic, by the deceptive and devious use of the word
"war" in order to justify to the public political activity that really
bears no genuine resemblance to war whatsoever, but merely meddling in
another sovereign nation's politics, or, what is worse perhaps,
justifying ever greater intrusions into the privacy and freedoms that
we used to understand as being rights in an open and free society.


Well stated, thanks!

I would suggest you read "How to Stop A War" and "A Quick and Dirty
Guide to War" by James Dunnigan. This is a war by any reasonable
definition of the term.
--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

On Sun, 01 Jul 2007 05:56:28 -0700, Jay Honeck
wrote in om:

Now, of course, you can say that eliminating drugs wouldn't fix the
ghettos, and you might be right.

Eliminating the profit in producing illicit drugs would deny illegal
drug cartels an incentive to continue producing them, much the same
way repeal of the Volstead Act brought an end to the most violent
period in American history. Isn't it apparent, that the source of the
illicit drug problem is the profitable black market that sustains it.

However, eliminating drugs (and the cartel behind them) would remove
a major fuel source for much of the violence that claims so many lives
there.

The violence associated with illicit drugs is a result of the
financial battle for distribution territories and the black market's
artificial inflation of the street price, so that users are unable to
finance their habits.

And, of course, you have to look at the reciprocal of what you are
proposing. If making drugs ILLEGAL is the problem, what would making
them LEGAL do?

My guess is, that it would do about the same as repealing the Volstead
Act did: remove the inflated profit motive thus providing a
disincentive for mafia involvement, end the violence associated with
criminal production and distribution, and make room for violent
criminals in the nation's overcrowded prisons.

When I contemplate legalized drugs, I get a vision from "The Matrix",
with entire segments of our society laying around hooked up to
intravenous tubes, oblivious to everything around them.

Similar illusions were probably uttered at the thought of repealing
the prohibition against alcohol.

While the repeal of Prohibition did result in days of party binging at
certain air-themed motels and Air Venture campsites, would you
characterize that as Matrix-like?

Would providing free drugs to the inhabitants solve the violence?

Regulating "illicit" drugs, and pricing them at a free market level
would make dope peddlers income less than flipping burgers, and enable
users to purchase their drugs instead of having to commit crimes.

Even if it did, would it be the right thing to do?

Decriminalizing drug use, and seeing it for the medical concern it
truly is, seems like an enlightened step forward to me. But then, I'm
sure there are those who miss the days of hunting witches and burning
them at the stake.

In any event, restraining our government from seizing sovereignty over
the bodies of its citizens seems just.


Irrational beliefs ultimately lead to irrational acts.
-- Larry Dighera,

On Jul 1, 10:11 am, C J Campbell
wrote:
On 2007-07-01 04:55:18 -0700, "Blueskies" said:







"PPL-A (Canada)" wrote in message
oups.com...

By whose definition is this situation a WAR as you say ... some
arbitrary fiat by some politicians in the 1980s? I think calling this
kind of activity a war is insulting to the armed forces personnel that
have fought and died for real causes in the last century. The so-
called war on drugs is political posturing and always has been. To
expand on this point, the public in the last decade or two is being
increasingly deceived into a false sense of righteousness about any
disagreements that politicians might have with any group, be they
foreign or domestic, by the deceptive and devious use of the word
"war" in order to justify to the public political activity that really
bears no genuine resemblance to war whatsoever, but merely meddling in
another sovereign nation's politics, or, what is worse perhaps,
justifying ever greater intrusions into the privacy and freedoms that
we used to understand as being rights in an open and free society.

Well stated, thanks!

I would suggest you read "How to Stop A War" and "A Quick and Dirty
Guide to War" by James Dunnigan. This is a war by any reasonable
definition of the term.

So I am to understand that we are supposed to defer to the definitions
of, and ideas about war propogated by a person whose job and primary
claim to notoriety is design and authoring of war GAMES (that's
right ... board GAMES)? That's what James Dunnigan does right? You
know what they say about the man who has a hammer can see only nails?
I hope this makes my point.

I don't believe there's any reason to summarily drop the whole canon
of western philosophers', political scientists', military theorists'
thoughts about war (not to mention definitions set forth in
international law) in deference to some war GAMER ...

Sorry ... you gotta try better than that ... conflict (no matter how
angry you are at the other party) DOES NOT always equate
philosophically, legally, or ethically to a situation to which it is
appropriate to use the term "war".

I maintain my original position. "War", as it's coming to be used, is
a euphemism that is increasingly being deployed by devious politicians
to justify in the public conciousness any number of highly suspect
activities both domestic and international. This tactic, swallowed
whole and regurgitated to us by our increasingly uncrital media, is
gaining power as our populace loses touch with aging veterans who have
actual experience of genuine war.

No war game designer is going to change my mind on this. It's
absurd. Legal problem, social problem, international jurisdictional
problem, all true of the drug trade. War however it is not, except by
the flimsy definitions required to justify many of the inappropriate
responses to it by politicians, police, and military.

I also still maintain that any society that has handed over many of
its freedoms to the police (secret and otherwise) and military, and
perceives itself to be in a constant state of "war", has allowed
itself to become a police or military state.

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

On Jul 1, 8:56 am, Jay Honeck wrote:
The rules are wrong, therefore the blame lies in the law. If there was no market there would be no 'value stream'...

So now it's the addict's fault that our inner cities are laced with
drugs and thugs? It's the user's fault that normal people dare not
set foot into the ghettos that exist in every major city in America?
All we have to do to fix this mess is "change the law"?

That may be the most naive thing I've ever seen written here -- and
*that* is not an easy cliff to scale!

If you had any experience in the inner cities of America, you would
know that drugs are the scrourge of EVERYTHING and EVERYONE there.
The "market" you speak of exists because of a drug cartel that
produces and provides cheap drugs for easy distribution to people who
apparently have nothing left to lose.

These people then think nothing of taking everything that anyone else
has to lose, in order to maintain their drug addiction -- and the
cycle of crime continues. Stretch this cycle out 40 years, and you
have what we have today in America -- large areas in every major city
that are essentially fenced off (by police, and common sense) from
regular citizens, so that the shooting war in the inner city can't
infect the rest of us.

A quiet, sad irony of America -- far more shooting deaths occur in our
inner cities every day than occur on the battlefields of Iraq and
Afghanistan. It's a shameful situation that BOTH political parties
and the mainstream media choose to ignore.

(Well, except after Hurricane Katrina, of course, when they were
shocked -- SHOCKED -- that there was poverty and violence going on in
New Orleans!)

Now, of course, you can say that eliminating drugs wouldn't fix the
ghettos, and you might be right. People who can look at a hypodermic
needle full of unknown **** and somehow make the leap to thinking
"Hey, it sounds like *FUN* to inject that into my arm!" are probably
beyond ANYONE'S help.

Stupid is incurable.

However, eliminating drugs (and the cartel behind them) would remove
a major fuel source for much of the violence that claims so many lives
there.

And, of course, you have to look at the reciprocal of what you are
proposing. If making drugs ILLEGAL is the problem, what would making
them LEGAL do?

When I contemplate legalized drugs, I get a vision from "The Matrix",
with entire segments of our society laying around hooked up to
intravenous tubes, oblivious to everything around them. Would
providing free drugs to the inhabitants solve the violence? Even if
it did, would it be the right thing to do?

I don't know the circumstances of the shoot-down in the video, but if
that plane was packed with cocaine or heroin that was destined for my
hometown -- a beautiful city on the shores of Lake Michigan that is
fighting for its life against a growing drug-and-crime-plagued ghetto
-- and the pilot had ignored every attempt to get him to land, he
deserved his fate.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"I don't know the circumstances of the shoot-down in the video, but
if
that plane was packed with cocaine or heroin that was destined for my
hometown -- a beautiful city on the shores of Lake Michigan that is
fighting for its life against a growing drug-and-crime-plagued ghetto
-- and the pilot had ignored every attempt to get him to land, he
deserved his fate. "

Don't you think that simply following this plane until it ran out of
fuel and had to land might have resulted in the arrest of far more
important people in the chain of drug distribution ... if indeed that
was what was going on? And if it was heading for your home town,
would you rather not have simply let the plane get there and while it
was getting near prepare the proper authorities to investigate and
perhaps arrest the people that were waiting for it at the other end?
The mule isn't the real problem. If the recipients of the drugs are
still waiting, they will just call for another shipment and write off
the shot down plane as "cost of doing business". You need to get to
the leaders of the organization, not just shoot the low level
employees.

PPL-A (Canada) wrote:


Don't you think that simply following this plane until it ran out of
fuel and had to land might have resulted in the arrest of far more
important people in the chain of drug distribution ...

And if the plane was about to cross a soverign border, where you could
not legally go forward to track them.. and the other country was not
willing nor equipped to track them, nor was willing to arrest and
extradite the crew of the plane... then how do you propose to track and
follow the plane?

The pilot knew what he was doing. He was making a run for the border,
and freedom. He gambled and lost.