By – Jeffrey B. Stamm
The bleeding of our nation’s wounds caused by the Left’s war against personal responsibility and accountability can be stopped.
The great levelling force that the Left has relentlessly employed to transform every aspect of our culture in order to achieve “equity” has long relied upon a war against “intolerance” as their principal weapon. More recently, however, our social justice warriors—along with their oh-so enlightened and compassionate allies in Big Media, Big Tech, and Big Business have determined that a tolerant society is, well, just no longer enough.
Given their perpetual focus on perceived inequalities across social, racial, gender and economic groups, the Left has ratcheted up both their tactics and their tone against traditional America. Many have argued that the war they now wage is against our conventional meritocracy, even against merit itself. It is, however, more basic—and threatening—than that.
It’s a war against standards.
Standards in what constitutes the truth. Standards in acceptable levels of discourse. Standards in the meaning of citizenship. Most of all, it is a war against any standard of acceptable individual behavior.
To put it another way, we have been so bludgeoned with the obligation of endless tolerance and unquestioned compassion that we must no longer demand personal responsibility of our fellow citizens. To require some semblance of self-control of our neighbors today is to invite a torrent of ferocious public attacks and bullying from our sanctimonious betters.
To accept the leftist dogma that all behaviors are relative, even those that are harmful, stupid, or evil, requires not only an astonishing level of intellectual laziness, but also a kind of shameless moral cowardice. It is the modern version of what the late William Gairdner once described as “pandemic public ignorance,” where the people, to believe such misguided recklessness, become “dupes of appearances, wishful thinking, inadequate facts, and pseudo arguments.”
Nothing more exemplifies this reality than the current explosion of violent crime and drug use in our nation today—most acutely in anti-police, deeply-woke big cities.
It is no mere coincidence that, in the wake of greatly diminished behavioral standards in modern America, we are witnessing a double helix of corresponding escalations in homicide rates and drug overdoses. Both of these activities—murder and dope—can arguably be described today as mostly “lifestyle crimes,” not criminal activities born of passion or “systemic” causes.
Despite the misguided or outright fraudulent assertions that the “stresses” of the COVID-19 pandemic directly led to skyrocketing homicides and overdoses, both have been, instead, a deadly and still-rising combination of lifestyle-influenced acts devoid of self-control, exacerbated by an ever-increasing supply of drugs across the country. The former is encouraged by our modern decadent culture and the latter tolerated, even sanctioned and incentivized, by many of our current leaders.
Since we can track the direct nexus between illegal drug use and trafficking and how it drives all manner of property and violent crimes across society—as much as two-thirds according to one study—it is not the “war on drugs” we should rail against, but, rather, the Left’s war on standards.
As such, what follows are four critical elements of a reinvigorated national platform needed to reduce crime by reducing illegal drugs.
1. Re-Educate
The public must come to understand what the police know—that dope doesn’t simply destroy lives and steal souls, it devastates entire communities and peoples.
That, despite the liberal narrative, we do not structurally or systemically engage in “mass incarceration,” nor are our prisons filled with drug users. In fact, they’re not even filled with drug traffickers. They’re bursting with violent criminals and serial thieves.
That we’re not going to treat and prevent our way out of the drug problem. And, although it is also true that we’re not going to police our way out either, our own history has shown that the law enforcement component targeting drug production and trafficking is the most necessary and effective part of that comprehensive three-legged stool.
Most Americans have no idea how truly dangerous the world has become. How many people and criminal groups wish to prey upon and destroy our society in order to enrich themselves. How narcoterrorists and warlords now control an entire nation right on our southern border. Yet, unlike in the past, too few citizens today understand that society requires those who reinforce the good over the bad on our behalf. They, therefore, must be reminded of that essential truth before it’s too late.
2. Re-Stigmatize
We are constantly lectured to by our more sophisticated and caring elites that we must not stigmatize those who are addicted to drugs and, thus, need treatment. Well, I don’t believe anyone, public or private, actually targets for abuse those who willingly step forward seeking help for their demons.
No, that’s a straw-man argument designed to absolve drug users of any responsibility.
Since nearly all addicts begin as recreational drug users, this is precisely the behavior we must stigmatize in order to enlist the forces of society and conscience to prevent and reduce the addicts of tomorrow. Illegal drug use should be shunned and scorned by our culture—at least every bit as much as we have done with tobacco.
We have to stigmatize the 15-yr old boy who thinks he’s cool getting high with his friends after school vaping the latest form of purified THC extract, or the college girl who thinks she’s sophisticated ordering fentanyl on the dark web and paying for it with some virtual currency for delivery to her dorm room. Most importantly, we absolutely must have the courage to stigmatize those social, political andmedia influencesthat normalize or excuse drug use among our fellow citizens.
3. Re-Locate
What I’m referring to here is responsibility.
At its core, the drug epidemic in America is a problem of individual self-control. It’s not caused by racism, poverty, social dysphoria or any other supposed root cause.
We have to put the onus back on the individual, to take responsibility for his or her own safety and well-being. Certainly, government is part of the solution, especially its critical role in reducing drug availability, but it cannot be the sole answer, the singular and perpetual deus ex machina.
Quite simply, individual character and lawful behavior matter. They matter for self and, cumulatively, they matter for society. If not, then as Edwin Delattre has warned, “the country’s resources will be exhausted in efforts to save the citizens from themselves, whether or not narcotics are legalized.”
4. Re-Commit
Law enforcement does not receive the resources remotely proportional to the threat. We should substantially increase funding for policing at every level—local, state, federal, international, and most critically, at our southern border. We have to do a better job at cutting off the toxins pouring into our communities at the hands of ruthless transnational criminal cartels that have clearly morphed into narcoterrorists.
The evidence over the past fifty years is clear: prevention and treatment programs are necessary, but they’re only strategically effective when drug availability is reduced. Time and again, we have proved that enforcing our state, federal and international drug laws works: against LSD in 60s, the country’s first heroin epidemic in the 70s, powder cocaine in the 80’s, crack in the 90s, and meth labs in the 2000’s. Clearly, these poisons were never completely eliminated, but we achieved significant reductions following aggressive—and reasonable—measures targeting drug supply.
We know that drug dealing is not a “non-violent activity,” as so many of our elites declare. Rather, the evidence abounds that it is inherently violent. To paraphrase former drug czar John Walters, at more than 107,000 drug overdose deaths last year, we intuitively understand that drug trafficking is the most murderous criminal activity in the history of America!
We used to do all of these things—and they worked! Not perfectly, but they worked surprisingly well in a free and democratic society that must continuously strive to balance liberty and order. We need to resuscitate them all! We need to once again find and cultivate truth over deception, self-control over self-absorption, responsibility over excuses, and duty over surrender.
To do otherwise will continue to tolerate, even reward, selfish and destructive behaviors that only serve to invite a Hobbesian nightmare where American life becomes poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
Jeff Stamm is a 40-year law enforcement veteran, having served as a Deputy Sheriff in Sacramento, California, a Special Agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and as the Executive Director of the Midwest High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program. He is also the author of “On Dope: Drug Enforcement and The First Policeman” and speaks extensively on the global drug threat.
Without LAW and ORDER you have TERRORIST antifa and TERRORIST blm, ILLEGAL ALIEN TERRORIST INVASION, CORRUPT DOJ, FBI, IRS, CDC, and you end up with DICTATOR Beijing biden and COMMUNIST harris.
What patriotic Americans can do to resist the destruction of our constitutional republic.
First, recognize that the United States is not a functioning constitutional republic, but a government being deliberately transformed into a one-party totalitarian state.
The federal government, as an institution, is hopelessly corrupt and, although we have elections, we do not have a representative government. It cannot be reformed. It can only be ripped out and replaced.
Do not expect any top-down solutions for America’s problems to miraculously emerge from Washington D.C. The U.S. government has seceded from the people. Most members of Congress act more like foreign occupiers than executors of the views and needs of their constituents.
Angelo Codevilla noted that the United States already has a bona fide ruling class, which transcends government, a political aristocracy that sees itself as distinct from the rest of society and as the only element that may act on its behalf. The ruling class considers those who resist it as having no moral or intellectual right, and, now, any civil right as well.
Republican Party leaders neither contest that view nor vilify their Democrat counterparts because they do not want to challenge the ruling class, they want to be part of it.
The Republican leadership has solidified its choice to no longer represent what had been its constituency, but to adopt the identity of junior partners in the ruling class. By repeatedly passing bills that contradict the views of its voters, the Republican Party has made political orphans of tens of millions of Americans.
The only remaining course of action for patriotic American, who want to restore our constitutional republic, is a bottom-up political insurgency based on the Constitution and the Founding documents.
Foremost among them are the Second and Tenth Amendments.
The Second Amendment, “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,” is now the only obstacle standing between freedom and the absolute tyranny the federal government now wishes to impose.
Buy firearms and lots of ammunition.
Identify constitutional sheriffs or law enforcement officers in your community and coordinate with them to form a “well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State.” That is, a militia capable of being deputized to fight against, not just criminality, but incursions by a tyrannical government.
Above all others, preserving the Second Amendment is the hill to die on.
The Second Amendment is not just the basis for the right of self-defense, but it is also the defense against tyranny and the guarantor of all other rights as the Founding Fathers recognized.
“The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
– Thomas Jefferson, Commonplace Book (quoting 18th-century criminologist Cesare Beccaria), 1774-1776
“To disarm the people…[i]s the most effective way to enslave them.”
– George Mason, referencing advice given to the British Parliament by Pennsylvania governor Sir William Keith, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, June 14, 1788.
The Tenth Amendment states:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Refuse to comply with and actively resist unlawful and unconstitutional edicts from the federal government.
Remove and replace any local official acting contrary to the interests of the people. Take control of the local government, prosecutors, and school boards. Coordinate your activities with other similarly-acting communities in your region. Create Democrat Party- and Establishment Republican-free zones.
Give Democrats a taste of their own medicine. As much as local law will permit, arrest and prosecute or organize civil lawsuits against individuals or organizations engaged in the destruction of our constitutional republic.
Identify by name, address and photograph all illegal aliens in your community, which will facilitate their later deportation. Challenge all local employers who hire illegal aliens and any non-governmental organization facilitating the transport or support of illegal aliens in your community. Launch lawsuits when appropriate.
Strictly enforce Equal Opportunity. Expose and eliminate programs promoting grooming and sexualization of children, Critical Race Theory, and all similar forms of anti-American indoctrination.
Immediately, state out loud and often that Joe Biden is not a legitimate President of the United States, but a usurper, who was installed in office through an election stolen by organized voter fraud.Until the November 3, 2020 election is satisfactorily addressed, there can be no election integrity and the United States will remain a banana, not a constitutional republic.
Admittedly, my list of actions by patriotic Americans to restore our constitutional republic is not exhaustive. Add your own ideas in the comments section.
In any case, the time for action is now. The collective effect of even the smallest acts of non-compliance can have an impact.
Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D. is a retired U.S. Army Reserve colonel and a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq. He had a civilian career in international business and medical research. Dr. Sellin is the author of Restoring the Republic: Arguments for a Second American Revolution.
Amac has become as corrupt as our government when they began to violate “free speech”.
Vigilante then too IF warranted & armed shop owners
Excellent article. Sadly, most parents were soft on their children because they thought their parents were too strict. I see able-bodied young boys who don’t lift a finger to help their fathers with yard work and many families hire outside help instead of making their kids do even simple household chores. Sigh. Forties and fifties were the good old days.
Somehow, some way, we need to restore law and order to America and when we restore law and order we need to start at the very, very top and show the rest of America that no one is above the law, not political parties, not the news media, not any race, not white, not brown, not black, if you are the grand exalted ruler of the most powerful country on earth and you or your family commits a crime, your punishment will be equal to that as if you are a popper.
Treason is treason no matter who commits it, influence peddling is influence peddling no matter who sells out for 30 pieces of silver, burning and looting is burning and no matter which group likes it.
We need to make Justice blind again!
Great article! To accomplish those four critical elements is going to take a lot of doing. It will require federal, state and local governments that are completely onboard with law and order. This is a must; and won’t be accomplished easily, especially in blue areas. . What is operating under the guise of “education” needs to be completely overhauled and retooled (Get the federal gov’t out of it, for starters). And of course, individuals need to be deprogramed; unlearn all of the “woke” narrative that was created to foster hatred and division…which undeniably leads to violent crime. Yep…that will take an awful LOT of doing!
I couldn’t agree more; what’s being waged against this country (and the Western World) “is a war against standards.”
We’ll need to clean the MUCK out of FBI and DOJ before we can make much progress. They allow their “friends” to do anything and punish us deplorables for simple trespass!
Easy, incarcerate the ambilvalent dumbocrats, DAs, Judges, politicians, 0’bama, 0’biden, antifa, blm, ms-13, schumer, pelosi, Adam Piece of Schiff, AOC, the mooselm brotherhood, etc., who have allowed the lawlessness,
This is one of the BEST articles on this topic I’ve read. Why? Because it not only identifies the problems and the causes… but it also proposes logical solutions. This author should be drafted by the next Republican administration to put some of these solutions into practice. on a much wider scale.
You are going to need to build lots of jails for all these loonies. No cash bail hard assets so they will show up. You need lots of law and order judges. Clean the streets of this lawless people including petty thief
The masses have been brainwashed by the elites for decades. Brainwashed into surrendering their own liberties. Brainwashed into occult practices. Brainwashed into moral depravity. Brainwashed into not even believing their own eyes and ears when it comes to making leadership choices. It is not too late to correct course or delay the onset of tyranny. Vote for conservatives across the board. Not every conservative all that good, but the alternative is self serfdom, China style.
Constructive work, responsibility, nuclear family, honesty, obeying laws, and patriotism are what the Conservatives support. Laziness, dishonesty, doing drugs, and breaking laws are what the Democrats are all about. Instead of encouraging people to do their best, the Democrats push the narrative of social justice, racial equity, and white supremacy. The Marxist Democrats are all about rewarding dysfunctional behavior and punishing those who have earned their income and position by giving it their all. A strong work ethic and competency go a long way in a true Constitutional Republic.
Biden admin. is being soft on crime: 1) AG did not arrest protesters at Supreme Justice homes 2) Enforce the immigration laws that are in place at Southern Border. Why ignore these two problems that will lead to bigger problems in the future. Get tough on crime.
There are many cases in the last 10-years that someone would not have died if they would have followed the orders from law enforcement at the very start. People need to follow these orders like they were raised to in the 1950s. Why does anyone think it is okay to walk out of any store with items that they did not pay for & not pay the consequences for their actions.
Kanye West was welcomed to WH by Donald Trump a couple of years ago & Tucker Carlson interviewed him on FOX this month. Not so sure many people were impressed by these two examples. And time will tell where this person is headed.
First and foremost we need to charge the perpetrators who opened the border to allow what is happening and shut the borders down.
Liberal-Democrats are using the inequality of human ability, as a factor in political representation, to justify the equalization, by government, of the satisfaction of need. As we have seen, the cost is unsustainable. They are playing minority diversity against itself, increasing some, to the disadvantage of others, making a pretense of representing all. Fundamentally, liberalism’s perspective on law and, particularly, obedience to it, is the problem. Historically, since the dawn of creation, personal choice, based on a pre-determined rightness or wrongness of it, has had consequences. There is no sophisticated elitism in the policy agenda of the liberal-democrats. They are primitive, perverse, wicked and deceitful and they believe that, by majority rule and its power, they can avoid accountability for the wrongness of their choices, morally and ethically. The evidence of this is the cost, financially, of attempting to do so.
Law and Order, what a novel concept! . . . Imagine an America with Law and Order!
One of the MAIN duties or responsibilities of Government is to protect the innocent law-abiding citizen in society. To punish the mad dog offender/law breaker and get them away from the innocent in society! But when the criminals are in charge, there is not a whole lot of punishment going on. Instead the prison’s consist of a resort environment with revolving doors. Sad.
Crime will always be an issue because one question is never addressed: “who is committing the crime?” It’s the one time RACE is never an “issue”! The one “disparity” no one ever brings up is the one in crime. Sorry if this is racist but crime stats do not lie.
Democrats keep saying they’re oppressed by others when in reality it is by them!!! The media, pro sports with their end racism bs continue to cover for them fueling hatred. Public schools push this crap encouraging blacks to lash out more and more on the white oppressors. The epitome of bs!!!
Re-arm. There; I fixed it for you.
We need to aggressively resurrect capital punishment in this county. We spend millions keeping murderers in jail on life sentences. What entitles a murderer to a life sentence ? Yet the taxpayer
pay countless millions every year for endless defense schemes, finally after 4-5 -6 years we send a
obvious murderer to an endless sentence. It costs $60,000 to keep a murderer in jail every year.
We should execute murderers within 30 days after sentencing and give the $60.000 every
year to the victims family. We are twisted.
Than way don’t they want the same in there neighborhood and towns
This article is TRUTH!!!
People need to be careful what they wish for. Elections have consequences.
So well said! Cut off the supply of drugs. Educate everyone on the dangers of these evils. Don’t forget the legal forms of medication that are also doing great harm to our society! Often times these go hand in hand. Drugs are not, nor will ever be the answer for poverty or problems. You are correct when you remind us that truth and accountability are always the right paths to take. Thank you
The leftist Nazis are not going to get me to “re” anything
Nailed! A copy needs to be sent to everyone in Congress and Senate.