The War on Drugs has Been a Disaster, so Why is Trump Doubling Down? And Much More!

Main Discussion Topics​

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Trump's Chicago National Guard Deployment

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• Trump claims Chicago is "most dangerous place on Earth" after Labor Day weekend violence

• Statistical reality: Memphis, Tennessee ranks as most dangerous US city by crime metrics

• Chicago doesn't make top 10 most dangerous American cities

• Plans to expand military deployment to other cities including Baltimore

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James provided constitutional analysis: "He would have to invoke either invasion or insurrection as a legal justification for that given the limited powers of the federal government. It is so funny. The right, you know, Michael made this point the other day when it comes to strict interpretation of the constitution. The right is not consistent about any of this."

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Legal Framework and Federal Overreach

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• Discussion of 1807 Insurrection Act and Posse Comitatus Act limitations

• Federal court already ruled Trump's LA deployment violated federal law

• National Guard can provide support roles but cannot engage in active law enforcement

• Constitutional concerns about federalizing local police forces

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James explained the legal requirements: "Otherwise, it needs the state and local government to say, yeah, please come in and help... They cannot be active in law enforcement, investigation, making arrests and so forth. That's simply a violation of the law."

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War on Drugs as Root Cause of Violence

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• Central thesis: Drug prohibition creates secondary violence and corruption

• Historical parallel to alcohol prohibition and rise of organized crime

• Half of US prison population incarcerated for drug-related offenses

• Drug laws enable gangs and international cartels through black market profits

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James's prosecutorial perspective: "The real cause of violence on American city streets. Places like Chicago, the war on drugs... are, in my view, the major determinants of crime... It's not the drugs that are killing people. It's the laws that are killing people."

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Trump's Militarized Drug War Escalation

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• Coast Guard incident: 11 people killed on Venezuelan ship allegedly carrying drugs

• Trend de Aragua gang designated as terrorist organization

• Doubling down on failed prohibition instead of addressing root causes

• Constitutional questions about treating drugs like weapons under Commerce Clause

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Fourth Amendment Violations and Police Corruption

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• Analysis of botched drug raids causing civilian casualties

• Georgia case: Flash grenade permanently injured infant in crib during raid based on $50 drug sale

• No drugs found, lies about reliable informants and weapons

• $3.6 million settlement (deemed insufficient by hosts)

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James outlined Fourth Amendment requirements: "Most people aren't familiar with the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution... what it says is the right of the people to be secure in their persons papers. Houses and effects from unreasonable surges and seizures shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause."

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Constitutional Analysis of Rights vs. Legal Entitlements

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• Discussion of Ayn Rand's critique of "states' rights" concept

• Distinction between natural individual rights and legal governmental jurisdiction

• Federalism as separation of powers rather than inherent governmental rights

• 14th Amendment role in federal enforcement of individual rights

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Michael clarified the distinction: "I think there's a conflation going on... We will only come to the conclusion that human beings naturally have individual rights. That is accurate, however. The United States Constitution and the Federalist Scheme does give states the right to legislate certain things."

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Historical Context and Objectivist Critique

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• Comparison to alcohol prohibition's crime wave and Al Capone era

• James's critique of fellow Objectivists who downplay drug war's impact

• Crime rates declined until prohibition, then surged with organized crime

• FBI and federal law enforcement expansion as response to prohibition-created problems

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Personal Anecdotes

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James's Brooklyn Experience (Early 1980s)

• Lived in Bedford-Stuyvesant during high-crime period

• Self-defense incident leading to retaliation beating

• Debate over justified self-defense vs. assault charges

• Michael and Mark disagreed on legal justification for James's actions

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Constitutional Principles Discussion

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Mark on Government Limitations: "The Constitution is your bulwark against authoritarianism. You should cling to it like a life raft, like a lifesaver, because without it, the federal government can run roughshod over you."

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James on Drug War Impact: "If there's a single thing I could do to affect criminal justice in this country, it would be legalized drugs. That would have by far, absolutely, by far the most dramatic effect in reducing crime."

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Michael on Enforcement Priorities: "If you got rid of the war on drugs, you would eliminate a lot of crimes. But not only that, you would also free up law enforcement to actually investigate real crimes."

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Key Legal Points

No-Knock Warrants and Qualified Immunity

• Requirements for bypassing knock-and-notice constitutional protections

• Problems with unreliable confidential informants

• Qualified immunity protecting officers despite constitutional violations

• Section 1983 civil rights lawsuits as limited remedy

Commerce Clause Abuse

• Supreme Court's expansion of federal criminal law authority since 1930s

• Most federal criminal law justified under "bizarre interpretation" of Commerce Clause

• Departure from Madison and Jefferson's federalism vision

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Book Recommendations

Referenced during constitutional discussion:

• Works by Ayn Rand on individual rights vs. states' rights (The Virtue of Selfishness, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal)

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Notable Quotes

James on Prohibition Lessons: "We had a historical object lesson that could not be more clear, the prohibition of alcohol. Crime had been going down in America until we prohibition... We passed prohibition, make alcohol illegal. What happens? Al Capone gets really rich and organized crime gets really powerful."

Mark on Self-Ownership: "This would not happen in a capitalist society where you have the constitutional right to defend yourself out of the Second Amendment and where you have a constant right to your life and your property, and to dispose of those as you see fit."

James on Drug War Corruption: "The fact of the matter is that most of the corruption of local law enforcement is a direct result of the money involved in the war on drugs. Where do you think the corruption comes from? It's when law enforcement is doing something they ought not to be doing."

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Key Themes

• Constitutional limitations on federal police power

• Drug prohibition as cause rather than solution to violence

• Fourth Amendment protections under assault

• Historical parallels between alcohol and drug prohibition

• Government corruption enabled by unenforceable laws

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Capitalist Thought of the Day

"If the war on drugs would cease to exist, if these drugs were legalized, so much of the corruption and so much of the violations on of rights would go away, the prison populations would drop. And we wouldn't have the most populated prisons in the world anymore because so many of those people are there for drug offenses folks. And then the law enforcement would have time and the energy and the manpower to focus on real bad guys. The people who are trying to steal from you, the people who are trying to harm you. Those people who should be behind bars, not the people who choose to have, to pursue or to imbibe a product that is forbidden by law, just because the law says so." - Mark