Whether it is the drug war or airline safety, the US federal government has a bad track record managing risks. The solution is for individuals to make their own choices and then to face the consequences of those choices.
Whether it is the drug war or airline safety, the US federal government has a bad track record managing risks. The solution is for individuals to make their own choices and then to face the consequences of those choices.
Whether it is the drug war or airline safety, the US federal government has a bad track record managing risks. The solution is for individuals to make their own choices and then to face the consequences of those choices.
Thank you for tuning in to the Ron Paul Liberty Report.
Today with me is Daniel McAdams, who's the executive director of the Institute for Peace and Prosperity.
And Daniel, as a co-host, I'm glad to see you here again today.
Good to be back.
Good.
All right.
You know, just recently, I saw an article in the Houston Chronicle.
It was a local article.
It had to do with somebody dying in prison, which sort of caught my attention.
And the story went that he died from probably meningitis.
Why was he in prison?
Why was he in a cell with a bunch of other people?
It turned out to be one of these drug issues.
He had been arrested a while ago.
He was on probation.
He broke his probation and was caught with cocaine.
So serious stuff in this day and age.
But it raises the question about risk.
You know, we know about the drug war and how bad it is, but we also know how serious drugs can be.
But there are so many things that are risky in society, anywhere from touching a hot stove to watching out for automobiles.
Who teaches us and how do we manage risk?
What if we eat too much or whatever?
So under these circumstances, it was assumed under the drug war that this guy was caught.
Then he broke his parole.
At the end of the year, he was thrown in prison.
And he came down with meningitis and he died from this.
And it just seems so out of character of what a free society would be all, but I think there's so many wrongs here.
What was the kid's background?
What was the young man's background?
Well, it wasn't one of these kids that you might think of that is destitute and out on the street, a drug dealer, and all this thing.
He's a graduate of Baylor University.
He worked in a youth camp and he was struggling with this.
And, you know, I think of drugs like this, some people consider it just a sin.
You know, if you're a good guy and behave yourself, you won't use drugs.
And that would solve the whole problem.
There may be that certain things can be taught, you know, socially by parents that may come close to that, but that's really not the issue.
And the other is making it a crime.
You know, and if it's a crime, then we're going to be able to risk this.
I happen to think, possibly because of my medical background, that it's more in a category of a disease because, you know, a lot of people can drink a little bit of alcohol every night and never use it excessively.
And others, they just go nuts over this.
And this is the way with drug.
But to me, the issue here is measuring risk.
But here, this guy, not even 28 years of age, and he never committed a violent crime.
So, of course, it makes our case for just doing away with the drug laws and the war on drugs.
So throwing him in jail almost was a death penalty in a way.
Some horrible disease.
I think that's a good comparison.
And, you know, in many ways, all human beings have shortcomings.
Nobody's perfect.
And our argument is that for most things, people should make up their own choices.
And sometimes they're bad and they suffer the consequences.
And others close to them can help.
But I don't know why those who like big government and like war on drugs want to put certain individuals who may have an abnormal desire to rule over other people, put them in charge, and think that they can do right.
If they're opposed to the individuals making their own decision, why is it so wonderful to put somebody in government to make these decisions?
And then, you know, you could look at the airport.
Are we safe at the airports because TSA is there?
And evidently with this recent case about Germany Wings, I don't think they did a very good job there either.
Well, that was the U.S. government right after 9-11 mandating that the flight deck has to be secured and you can never get back in.
And here it works completely against, and then a lot of people died because of it.
You know, I was thinking about wondering how this could be.
And maybe this is maybe a stretch.
Maybe if that pilot had was armed, it would have been very legitimate, dangerous in itself to shoot that lock off or something.
What a tragedy that was.
But governments can't seem to solve these problems when it comes to drugs and treatment.
Just think of how they try to treat kids that are emotionally disturbed.
They give them psychotropic drugs.
And by the way, that pilot on Germany Wings, he was on drugs, on psychotropic drugs, and actually had an injection.
And that's government, you know, so often regulated.
It wasn't even an illegal drug.
It was illegal management by government that weren't able to screen the pilots.
Well, the other issue that I often thought about when we discussed this at first was the remember the government's food pyramid that they came out with a couple of decades ago.
They came out with the recommendations of what everyone should eat, and obesity started shooting through the roof.
So it looks like they got it wrong and they're having to redo it.
But the basic principle here, I believe, is everybody is exposed to risk.
Who's the most responsible to deal with the risk?
To me, it's the individual and the family and friends and neighbors who might help.
But when all the burden is thrown on the government, you really give up way too much liberty.
At the same time, they don't achieve anything.
They're trying to make us safe, whether it's direction on food and what we eat, but they're trying to make us safe from drugs.
And this is how they do it.
They take a guy that needs a little bit of help, you know, and here he ends up dying of meningitis in a prison that were housing other drug people too that were using drugs.
To me, I don't think it's a very good idea to depend on the government for very much at all.
About all I'd like to depend on the government would be is to do their very best to guarantee our right to take care of ourselves and maybe restrain the illegal use of force when people become violent.