LOOKING THE OTHER WAY

Dear Editor:

I would like to congratulate Aspen law enforcement for having the
courage to boldly look the other way as a declared noncombatant in the
war on drugs. In fact, I think the taxpayers of Pitkin County would
support extending the intractable logic of their position on drug
enforcement to other areas of the law. Say, for instance, if a local
bank is robbed I am sure local law enforcement would pull out all the
stops and canvas the bank for clues, actively pursue the perpetrators
and even scour the county and beyond in search of clues, participants,
aiders and abettors. But why?

Banks have been robbed as long as they have existed (thousands of
years) and they will continue to be robbed for thousands of years to
come, so why continue this senseless war on bank robbery. Further, if
a bank is robbed, it has no effect on the money I have in that bank;
my money is in my account (actually electronic blips floating in
cyberspace -- but don't dwell on that too long) not in the teller's
till, so no citizen is harmed, just the bank, a bloodless heartless
corporation -- not a living thing. Yes, a victimless crime. If the
banks want protection, they can hire their own security, not consume
scarce county resources and put our noble officers' lives at risk. I
say, let the banks take care of themselves or let the federal
government deal with the problem, banks are federal institutions after
all.

While we are on the subject of intractable logic as applied to solve
society's ills, let's consider the war on hunger. There have always
been hungry people and we continue to have hungry people despite our
best (sort of) efforts, so obviously the war on hunger is not working
and should be abandoned. In fact, the only way to "win" the war on
hunger is to stop fighting it; if we just stop feeding all of those
hungry people they will be gone soon enough and no longer a burden.

On the other hand, maybe the war on hunger will save one child from
starvation. Maybe the war on drugs will save one child from a life of
drug dependency. But wait, it can't be logical to expend significant
resources for such a trivial payoff. We should conserve our resources
for more important things; I just can't imagine what that might be.

Zane Dennis