September 27, 1986 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD – SENATE (Bayes page number) S 13973 (link)
Mr. BIDEN… These vitally important programs will now go unfunded if this amendment is not adopted. The TASC Program was designed as a response to a rapidly increasing proper crime rate caused, in significant part, by drug offenders. We all know why that is. The fact of the matter is that, unless you happen to be a multimillionaire or have access to a bank, if you have a drug habit, it is an expensive habit. And there is no doubt in anyone’s mind why there is so much street crime. Somewhere on the order of 50% of all the street crime in America is attributable to drug abuse. That is, when someone wants to go buy the cocaine or go buy the heroin or go buy the marijuana, they crack someone over the top of the head, take their wallet, take their purse, and half the time they are under the influence at the time. I see my colleague from Arizona standing, I am happy to yield to him.
Mr. GOLDWATER. I was interested in what the Sen. had to say about the cost of the dope habit. And I recall – I may be wrong – but I think I recall that England at one time sold narcotics at drugstores without prescriptions or anything else. I have often wondered – not facetiously – whether that might not be a cure in our country. They are going to kill themselves eventually. Let them do it cheap.
Mr. BIDEN. Well, you know, Mr. President, we sometimes smile about that, but the Senator from Arizona has raised a question that a number of very, very thoughtful and intelligent people have raised, and that is the argument that has been underway for some time in this country along the following lines: If, in fact, we not only have spawned a multibillion-dollar industry – over $110 billion a year and profits to illegal syndicates and individuals, not unlike the days of prohibition – in light of that fact and coupled with the fact that 50% of the crime on the street, violent crime, is attributable to a junky going out and forcibly wresting from a citizen their dollars and their cents and their money and in the process, many times, killing, maiming, or at least abusing them; and the fact that over 50% of the burglaries in America, the reason why people break and enter into homes is in order to pay for their drug habit – they steal your television, sell your television, and by the heroin – they say. “Well, if that is the case, why don’t we just legalize it?”
Now, it sounds funny, but look at it for a moment. If, in fact, drugs were legalized, that any heroin addict could walk into a clinic and get heroin, then the need to go out and mug my mother in the parking lot of the Acme is diminished, because they do not need the money in her purse. And also those major crime syndicates, which flourish and feed off society, would have their pocketbooks emptied very rapidly because people would not be paying for it. So it is not a crazy idea.
But I would say to my friend from Arizona, who is in fact one of the true civil libertarians in this country – and I mean that sincerely – the answer is one that will not come to him is one that is unexpected and one that his philosophy, understandably, will find somewhat difficult. It is that big brother made a judgment that, in fact, we not only should protect those addicts and junkies who will kill themselves – the average age, for example, of a heroin addict, the life expectancy is about 28 years of age. They die by then not because they are shot, by the police as they are jumping barriers, but because they overdose on heroin. They, in fact, kill themselves with the drug. And that is why the average life expectance of a drug user is relatively low.So we, as a society, have made the judgment, which I happend to subscribe to, that we should, in fact, protect our citizens even those who are inflicting this sin upon themselves.
The second reason is that as a people it seems to me, I say to my friend from Arizona, the government of the United States should not knowingly condone something they have no doubt about the effect of the use of. In other words, even though we would diminish, I have no doubt, diminish crime, and we would diminish the size of the syndicates, it seems to me, I say to my friend from Arizona, we would be making such a statement about the morality of this country that it is something we could not live with, that if we as a country were to conclude that notwithstanding the fact we could reduce crime, the price at which we would reduce it would be to legalize something that is patently immoral on its face, and legalize something that in fact we know will result in the death of thousands and thousands of American. Although on balance the argument can be made we probably would have less crime, and we would have less of a pernicious impact on the part of organized crime, and we have as a society opted not to do that. As usual – and I am not being solicitous – my friend from Arizona not only has the insight to raise the tough questions, but has the courage to raise them.
Quite frankly, as my colleague from Arizona knows, most people would not even want to raise that question for fear that the political opposition would run around saying, “Charlie Smith is for heroin, and Charlie Smith is for such and such.” We need more of that kind of input into this question. I compliment my colleague. I do not ask him to accept the answer other than to acknowledge that it is the reason why we have chosen not to go that route.
Mr. GOLDWATER. I am quitting politics. So I can accept the Senator’s answer. He has satisfied me.
By spewing forth such absurd lies couched in the unvarnished superstition and strutting ignorance that “we” must be forced at gunpoint to send police to shoot kids over plant leaves, Biden revealed his true colors. Today, plain thermometer readings show no increase. Yet this doddering blowhard expects your sanction to be thrust back into the Dark Ages of answers that cannot be questioned.(link) If Big Brother, after listening to lobbyists, chooses to send men with guns out to shoot kids and confiscate bank accounts until the economy again crashes into a depression, it was a good time for Goldwater to retire.
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Brazilian Sci-fi from 1926 featuring the usual beautiful daughter of a scientist touting prohibition and racial collectivism in America’s Black President 2228 by Monteiro Lobato, translated by J Henry Phillips (link)
Find out the juicy details behind the mother of all economic collapses. Prohibition and The Crash–Cause and Effect in 1929 is available in two languages on Amazon Kindle, each at the cost of a pint of craft beer.
Brazilian blog…
The Looter Kleptocracy has evidently pressured media companies such as WordPress to make blogging as difficult as possible before the election. Twelve million libertarian votes would go a long way toward removing new impediments to blogging and restoring the usual formatting tools.
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