The War on Drugs Is Really a War on Minorities

By Arianna Huffington, Los Angeles Times. Posted March 27, 2007.

Democratic presidential candidates crave the Latino and black vote, but ignore the Drug War's unfair toll on people of color.

There is a subject being forgotten in the 2008 Democratic race for the White House.

While all the major candidates are vying for the black and Latino vote, they are completely ignoring one of the most pressing issues affecting those constituencies: the failed "war on drugs" -- a war that has morphed into a war on people of color.

Consider this: According to a 2006 report by the American Civil Liberties Union, African Americans make up an estimated 15% of drug users, but they account for 37% of those arrested on drug charges, 59% of those convicted and 74% of all drug offenders sentenced to prison. Or consider this: The U.S. has 260,000 people in state prisons on nonviolent drug charges; 183,200 (more than 70%) of them are black or Latino.

Such facts have been bandied about for years. But our politicians have consistently failed to take action on what has become yet another third rail of American politics, a subject to be avoided at all costs by elected officials who fear being incinerated on contact for being soft on crime.

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DEA Now Accepting Tips On-Line

Public Encouraged to Notify Authorities of Illegal Drug Trafficking via DEA.gov

MAR 26 -- (WASHINGTON D.C.) The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has a new tool to catch drug traffickers around the world. Starting today on this web site, www.dea.gov, the public can inform federal drug agents about illegal drug trafficking activity in their communities by submitting a tip on-line. The information can be submitted anonymously; however anyone who submits a tip must select a local division in order to route the information to the best possible location.

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Big Brother now more like a nanny

Laws are targeting everything from grease to cell phones

Monday, March 26, 2007

By MICHAEL HILL

of The Associated Press
You're not eating that! Put the phone down! Pull those earbuds out! And put down that bat; you'll hurt someone!

Lawmakers around the country are passing or proposing laws to regulate the grease your doughnuts are fried in, the calls you make from the road, what you listen to when you cross the street, even the bat your kid hits a baseball with.

The ideas are offered with the best intentions - usually to minimize a newly recognized danger or to encourage healthy behavior. Lawmakers worry, for example, that text-messaging while driving can be deadly and that foods fried in trans fats promote heart disease.

Critics counter that regulating french fries and Blackberries infringes on personal liberties. "Nanny government" some critics call it, and they point to a playpen full of behavior-related bills before city councils and state legislatures.

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A Dream Deferred: Legal Barriers to African Hairbraiding Nationwide

by Valerie Bayham

Introduction

The District of Columbia government once threatened hairbraider Pamela Ferrell and her husband Talib-Din Uqdah with fines and jail time for practicing their craft without an unnecessary government license. But this year, the entrepreneurial couple celebrate their twenty-fifth year in business and the “little” shop the government once tried to shut down is thriving, providing opportunity not only for Ferrell and Uqdah, but for the dozens of women they’ve trained over the years who have now gone on to start their own businesses.

Now, if only the rest of the nation would learn from this and similar success stories and remove government barriers to honest enterprise now imposed on hairbraiders. D.C. once ordered hairbraiders to take 1,500 hours of irrelevant training to get into business. But now hairbraiders are braiding, customers are satisfied and the D.C. city government collects taxes from businesses that would otherwise have been forced into the underground economy.

Despite this and similar success stories in Arizona, California, Mississippi, Minnesota and Washington, other states continue to impose arbitrary and stiff licensing burdens on would-be hairbraiders—making no one happy except those protected by these government-imposed cartels.

Determined to help other entrepreneurial braiders break these chains, Uqdah founded the American Hair Braiders and Natural Haircare Association (AHNHA). As president, he has worked with braiders across the country to challenge cosmetology regulations that arbitrarily restrict the right to braid for a living with needless coursework and examinations. He views his struggle for economic liberty—the right to earn an honest living—as fundamental to the success of America and for the African-American community. Today, he is more passionate than ever that braiders do not belong in the cosmetology regime. And his message—of passion, skill, opportunity and hard work as the only entrance requirements to the braiding profession—is winning the war one small battle at a time.

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Barr calls for strengthening Libertarian Party

By Robert Stacy McCain
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Libertarian Party leaders gave a standing ovation to former Rep. Bob Barr after the ex-Republican called for "a multidecade effort" to build a movement to make the party nationally competitive.

"The future of America is the future of the Libertarian Party," Mr. Barr told a weekend conference of state party chairmen. "And the future is bright."

The former congressman from Georgia, who recently became the Libertarian Party's regional representative in the Southeast, told a Saturday luncheon that many "real conservatives" have become disillusioned with Republicans.

"They are eager for a philosophical home," Mr. Barr said. "There are enough of them out there that a significant number can be weaned away" from the Republican Party.

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The Libertarian Vote

by David Boaz and David Kirby

David Boaz is executive vice president of the Cato Institute. He is the author of Libertarianism: A Primer and editor of The Libertarian Reader, Toward Liberty, and Left, Right & Babyboom: America's New Politics. David Kirby is executive director of America's Future Foundation and a graduate of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

The main theme of political commentary in this decade is polarization. Since the battles over the impeachment of President Clinton and the Florida vote in 2000, pundits have been telling us that we're a country split down the middle, red vs. blue, liberal vs. conservative. Political analysts talk about base motivation and the shrinking of the swing vote. But the evidence says they are wrong.

Not all Americans can be classified as liberal or conservative. In particular, polls find that some 10 to 20 percent of voting-age Americans are libertarian, tending to agree with conservatives on economic issues and with liberals on personal freedom. The Gallup Governance Survey consistently finds about 20 percent of respondents giving libertarian answers to a two-question screen.

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Government regulation goes step too far in Nevada

by George Will

PHOENIX - In the West, where the deer and the antelope used to play, the spirit of ''leave us alone'' government used to prevail. But governments of Western states are becoming more like those elsewhere, alas.

Consider the minor - but symptomatic - matter of the government-abetted aggression by ''interior designers'' against mere ''decorators,'' or against interior designers whom other interior designers wish to demote to the status of decorators. Some designers think decorators should be a lesser breed without the law on its side.

Those categories have blurry borders. Essentially, interior designers design an entire space, sometimes including structural aspects; decorators have less comprehensive and more mundane duties - matching colors, selecting furniture, etc.

In New Mexico, anyone can work as an interior designer. But it is a crime, punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and up to a year in prison, to list yourself on the Internet or in the Yellow Pages as, or to otherwise call yourself, an ''interior designer'' without being certified as such. Those who favor this censoring of truthful commercial speech are a private group that controls, using an exam administered by a private national organization, access to that title.

This is done in the name of ''professionalization,'' but it really amounts to cartelization. Persons in the business limit access by others - competitors - to full participation in the business.

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