DIGGING AT ROOTS OF THE DRUG WAR

While a vast number of people are beginning to grasp the harm caused on
society by the failed Drug War, a recent letter writer (Letters, Dec. 22,
1999) wished to expand the war to go after producers of tobacco. I wonder
if he just doesn't accept that Liberty is an inalienable right of the
individual, or that his idea of Liberty is the cause and effect of a
public-school education or other form of federal propaganda program.

Granted, some lives are cut short or disrupted from the use of tobacco.
Alcohol has an even greater impact on those types of events. The same is
true in regards to the use of illegal drugs. Similar results, and in many
cases with higher percentages of death and destruction, are experienced
from the use of fire, automobiles, electricity, aggression, prescription
drugs and on and on.

We risk death when we defy gravity, put ourselves into motion, and in
consuming a wide range of foods. But it is our Liberty, and the
responsibilities that are inherent to Liberty, that should guide our
decisions on activity. Certainly not the whims of others.

We condone many of these activities because we weigh in a benefit to
society. But must an activity benefit society or the state in order to be
acceptable? When we allow others to decide the activities to which we may
or may not participate, we abuse and cause harm to our Liberty, which is
our most precious entity.

This Drug War, and all the other forms of nannyism, is a war against
certain people. It is directed against people who do not conform to the
vision of a better world held by others. The Nazi's of Germany also had a
vision of a better world. The common denominator between them and those who
wish to control lives today is the usurpation of Liberty and the desire to
subject not only their own citizens, but other nations to their vision of a
better world. And it's very important to remember that the Nazis did not
take power in Germany. Power was granted to them by people who bought into
the deceitful and emotional rhetoric put before them.

I often wonder how those that advocate nannyism can in clear conscience
celebrate our libertarian founding, and the men who pledged their lives to
establish a nation of free individuals rather than simply a State. Our Bill
of Rights is slowly but surely transforming into a list of rights of the
State. This nannyism that runs rampant over our Sweet Land of Liberty is
simply soft-core fascism. Fascism with training wheels.

R.L. Root, Westminster, CA