Letter to the Editor: September 9, 2001

Letter to the Editor of The Denver Post: 

Your editorial, titled "Turning in Son Courageous" and dated Saturday, September 8, 2001, was disappointing to say the least. Telling the public that "Castle Rock Councilman Jack Hurd and his wife are to be commended for the great courage they showed in blowing the whistle on their own 18-year-old son after finding possible drug-making materials in his room" is obscene! 

I suppose your government-controlled, propaganda-dispensing newspaper should feel proud. You have once again sold out the citizenry of America by perpetuating this nation's illegal drug war. 

In the 1920's our country did not have a huge drug problem. Yet, inexplicably, our government decided to turn another personal responsibility issue for adults into a Federal matter by prohibiting drugs in this country. 

To comply with the Constitution and make this Prohibition legal, the government was required to make an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving it the authority to enact this law. The government did not do that, though. 

No Amendment authorizing the prohibition of drugs in this country was ever passed by the House of Representatives, the Senate, or the President. Nor did 3/4 of the (then) 48 states ever ratify any such Amendment. At least with alcohol prohibition the government passed an Amendment. (That Amendment was later repealed because it caused more harm than good by fueling a violent black market for alcohol, and by sparking organized crime wars, much as drug prohibition does today.)

You cannot regulate man's behavior or determine what he takes into his own body if that individual is causing harm to no one but himself. Our government has been illegally trying to push their drug war upon the citizens because they want to control us. Or perhaps they want to provide a "Government Parent" to keep our adult citizens in line.

Creating a black market by making drugs illegal increases the price of drugs and creates a profit motive for criminal types to push drugs on generations of our children. Eighty years after the illegal prohibition to "cure our problem" was begun, and roughly 20 years after former President Bush began his "war on drugs," drugs have become a huge problem in this country. That problem was started by, you guessed it again, the government. All the while, that same government enacts new illegal laws that violate our rights, steal our property, kill our citizens, violate the sanctity of our homes, and turn our country into a police state. Billions of our tax dollars have been spent to "fight" this drug war. 

I want the "Denver Post" to tell me why the government is doing this to America, the land of the free. Isn't this just another form of slavery? Whose pockets are being lined?

Check out my website at www.stanley2002.org, and then justify to yourselves why our jails are filled with non-violent drug offenders when we can't find room for the child molesters, rapists, killers, robbers, etc, whom the government always lets out early to prey on America's weak and defenseless one more time. 

Yes, congratulations to the Hurds for turning their son in as a criminal, and for perpetuating this obscenity. I don't suppose they considered counseling their son with parental love and paying for a drug rehabilitation program. No. Instead the father says, "It's your son. There was the possibility he could get in trouble." So then he calls the police and gets his son in trouble. This reminds me of Nazi Germany, where people would turn in anyone for anything to perpetuate the Big Lie for one more day. At what cost, America?

This man, one might conclude, put politics ahead of his own family, not wanting to take the chance his son would get in trouble and make dad look bad. So instead this politician served his own son up on a platter. How could we have allowed it to come to this, in our beloved country?

Let's find out if the "Denver Post" has the grit to really let the public scrutinize their editorial. Print my rebuttal in your newspaper. 

Is the "Denver Post" really the mouthpiece of a government bent on indoctrinating the population to support their illegal war? Or are they truly serving the community by providing a forum for discussion, truth and First Amendment rights? 

Sincerely,
Rick Stanley
US Senate Candidate
Libertarian Party