Casualties of Not-War

A DEA administrator got awfully huffy when Cato's Radley Balko suggested that the government's attempts to stem "overprescription" of pain medications amounted to a war on doctors. So he's compiled a depressingly non-comprehensive list of collateral damage.

Comments

[Jeff]

What ever happened to that story about the doctor not treating the wife of the malpractice lawyer?
And have any doctors refused to treat DEA officials?

[joe]

Six murder charges? Murder? You've got to be kidding me.

[Fabius]

Josephus,

When you let government decide what's best for a supposedly free people, this is what you get.

Not that something analogous would ever happen with urban planning.

QFMC cos. V

[joe]

Fabius,

And when you give armed police officers the authority to use force to enforce contracts, provide physical protection, and protect property rights, you eventually end up with Amadou Diallo being sprayed by bullets in a vestibule.

This is either an argument for anarchism, or for political thought that goes beyond bumper sticker reasoning.

[Bumper Sticker]

joe is wrong

[Fabius]

"In February 1999, four New York City policemen searching for a rape suspect knocked on Amadou Diallo's door to question him. When he came to the door he reached inside his jacket, at which point the officers shot at him 41 times, hitting him with 19 bullets. The object Diallo was reaching for turned out to be his wallet." (WAPO)

What has Diallo got to do with property rights or contracts? Seems more like poor training, police brutality and racism to me.

[dave_b]

Here in Louisiana, there has been a statewide crackdown on pain management clinics by the state and federal govt's. Now they're talking about a national database to track prescriptions to ensure that no one can fill the same prescription at multiple stores. Of course, the fact that the clinics are under such heavy surveillance has unintended consequences, but we have to think of the children. Remember, it's the clinics' fault.

[nmg]

Where are the drug war advocates? I have yet to meet one or even hear of one in the news unless it's an employee of the DEA. Other than that, who is advocating this madness?

nmg

[joe]

Good of pretending not to notice the phrase "provide physical protection," Fabius. Remind me, do libertoids believe that the state has the duty to protect people from those who would harm their persons?

But you are right about one thing: poor training, racism and brutality interfered with the cops ability to do their job. Do you conclude from this that there shouldn't be any police? No? Then why conclude that abuses by other branches of government do prove that those branches souldn't exist?

[thoreau]

I can already tell that this thread is going to turn into "everybody and his bumper sticker vs. joe"

[Fabius]

I didn't say protecting people because ...

I don't see how the DEA is protecting anyone by persecuting doctors although I suppose they think they're protecting "drug abusers" from themselves.

I don't see how the NYPD was protecting anyone by shooting Diallo although they probably thought they were protecting themselves - reaching while black and all that. (And they were trying to protect - as a byproduct of catching - any future victims of the rapist they were looking for.)

I'm not sure I quite get your point. I made a cheap dig at urban planning and you went off about Diallo. I do not see the connection between Diallo getting shot and the DEA wigging out about pain doctors.

Anyway, shouldn't you be planning or something right now? I understand the taxpayers pay your salary.

[dhex's bumper sticker]

Diogenes is my co-pilot

[Super Prole]

Only Related to Bumper Stickers

Read no further if your looking for Joe-bashing.

When I was a younger and much worse-behaved man, I defaced someone's bumper sticker. The self-satisfied prig had a bumper sticker that said "Another man against violence against women". I scratched off the "violence against part". That was wrong, destruction of private property and all that, but I'd like to think I'd do it again.

SP

[Mr. Nice Guy's Bumper Sticker]

Nixon '96

[joe]

You know what Prole? You're just another man against men against violence against women.

So there.

[Semolina Pilchard]

"The self-satisfied prig had a bumper sticker that said 'Another man against violence against women.' I scratched off the 'violence against part'."

So, the resulting bumper sticker read, "Another man women"?

[Needy Guy]

My bumper sticker says ...

"I'm for everything good and against everything bad. Love me."

[YourGoodBuddyJohnnyClarke]

What you're supposed to do is slap bumper stickers for a politician you hate on the painted surfaces of randomly chosen, expensive cars. This:
1. Damages private property
2. Angers your fellow citizens
3. May reduce chosen pol's chances of election
4. Increases employment at auto body shops
5. Keeps you involved in the political process

Why, the list of benefits just goes on and on!

[Super Prole]

"Another man against ... women"

I was a lot more childish then.

Also, I'm not very good at telling stories or typing.

But apart from that and many other faults I am a net taxpayer and thus value-added to the social welfare state.

[jc]

I can already tell that this thread is going to turn into "everybody and his bumper sticker vs. joe"

Yes, but the banner advertisers like it.

[joe]

Back on track, I think this is your strongest hand. A few ads with a widow describing her husband's inability to get proper treatment (and enough discipline to keep the blue druids from marching naked and shouting "my body my choice" and insulting school teachers) could go a long way.

[Stevo Darkly]

Wait, I didn't get to pass on my ideas for bumperstickers:

Question authority. Because I said so.

Give peace a chance. Arm the doves.

Power to the Papal! [pro-Catholic thing]

If you can read this, you probably didn't go to a public school.

I'm apolitical and I vote!

Has your dog hugged your leg today?*

It takes a village to tease an idiot.*

*Ideas from my dad. Once my dad took a Farmer's Auto Insurance bumpersticker, altered it, and put it on one of the family cars. No one else noticed it until my brother had a fender-bender, and the cop asked him, "Are you really insured by Farter's Insurance?"

[df]

For any minnesotans tired of the wellstone stuff:

Park the Bus.

In response to the sticker Hatred is Not a Family Value ~
Teach children to hate hate.

[not really a lurker]

Nuke the Whales!

and how 'bout the report in Paul Fussell's "Class" of a Stanford student re-arranging the letters into "Snodfart"?

or the Princeton kid who used two stickers, kept the shield but re-arranged the letters into "stUPid University"

[dave_b]

I H8 the St8

[Brian]

joe: "Then why conclude that abuses by other branches of government do prove that those branches souldn't exist?"

The abuses committed by the welfare state are guaranteed a priori, from the very nature of what the welfare state is and what it does. Abuses committed by the police, who are ostensibly entrusted with protecting our rights, are the outgrowth of a society in which individual rights are viewed with disrespect and even scepticism.

[joe]

Brian, the comment I was answering referred not to the efficient and legal functioning of the modern state, but to corrupt and abusive practices that violate the law.

But you've just given away the game - you can yammer about corruption and rule breaking and abuses, but really, all that is just cover for your opposition to the honest, fair, and decent administration of the government.