BRING FREEDOM HOME FIRST

The U.S. is ready to save the world from oppression, if President George W.
Bush's inaugural address can be believed.

While I'm happy to be an American and I wouldn't really want to live
anywhere else, I believe we need to look at domestic oppression before
saving everyone else.

I didn't hear anything about drugs in the speech, but I heard a lot about
freedom for those who don't have it. Illegal drug users have little freedom
now in this country.

As I reread the text of the speech three paragraphs struck me, particularly
as they might apply to victims of the drug war here.

"We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every
nation: The moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and
freedom, which is eternally right," Bush said.

Oppression and freedom are at the heart of the drug war, and the choice has
already been clarified for those who are willing to see. With hundreds of
thousands of people behind bars because drug laws, it's time to ask: Does
oppression become moral when the oppressor thinks it's for the good of the
oppressed?

"America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or
that women welcome humiliation and servitude, or that any human being
aspires to live at the mercy of bullies."

But we continue to pretend that jailing chemical dissidents, those who take
drugs not approved by the U.S. government, somehow is preferable for them.
Women caught with the wrong drugs, or even those simply caught in the wrong
place at the wrong time with the wrong person, spend years behind bars
here. Sadly we do live at the mercy of drug war bullies, who insist on
checking the chemical purity of ourselves and our children through drug
tests; who arrest the sick and dying for trying to relieve their pain; who
see themselves as above laws which restrict federal bureaucrats from
getting involved in local political issues.

"We will encourage reform in other governments by making clear that success
in our relations will require the decent treatment of their own
people. America's belief in human dignity will guide our policies, yet
rights must be more than the grudging concessions of dictators; they are
secured by free dissent and the participation of the governed. In the long
run, there is no justice without freedom, and there can be no human rights
without human liberty."

That last sentence is inspiring, in theory. Unfortunately, in reality,
freedom, justice and human liberty are under assault by the drug war.

Let's get it right here before insisting that everyone follow our lead.