In considering the morality of our current War on Drugs, we need to look at what exactly a war means.
The government is defined by its unique monopoly on the use of violent force. As economist Ludwig von Mises explained:
The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning. Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.
This definition is not controversial either. President Obama recently defined the State by saying, "what essentially sets a nation-state apart, which is the monopoly on violence."
What is the moral basis for the use of violence by either a person or government?
A person is morally justified in threatening or using violent force when another initiates violent force against his/her person or property. In other words, you have the "unalienable right" to self-defense.
Since government represents people, we extend (authorize) this right to the government to carry out our natural right to self-defense for us. The idea is that by granting government this monopoly on the use of violent force, order is created.
But a moral governments use of force cannot have a purpose exceeding your private purpose of the use of force.
Which is More Dangerous: Marijuana or Machine Guns?
This last February, a SWAT team broke into a Missouri family's home, fired seven rounds at the family's dogs, and arrested Jonathan E. Whitworth as his 7-year-old boy watched in horror.
A man arrested on suspicion of drug charges and child endangerment said he is concerned with the actions of police who shot two dogs they described as “aggressive” while serving a drug-related search warrant at his home earlier this month in southwest Columbia.
Whitworth was arrested, and his wife and 7-year-old son were present during the SWAT raid, Haden said. A second dog, which Whitworth’s attorney Jeff Hilbrenner described as a corgi, also was shot but was not killed.
Police discovered a grinder, a pipe and a small amount of marijuana, Haden said. Because the SWAT team acts on the most updated information available, the team wanted to enter the house before marijuana believed to be at the location could be distributed, she said.
Whitworth ultimately plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge for possession of drug paraphernalia. The drug and child endangerment charges were dropped.
You can watch the SWAT raid on Whitworth below. It's very disturbing.
The only real "child endangerment" that I can find, is when the soldier-like "peace officers" stormed the house while firing shots at the boy's dogs (who are clearly whining, not being aggressive).
If you feel like you just watched a video depicting a military raid on suspects in Baghdad, you're not alone. As Radley Balko put it:
This is the blunt-end result of all the war imagery and militaristic rhetoric politicians have been spewing for the last 30 years—cops dressed like soldiers, barreling through the front door middle of the night, slaughtering the family pets, filling the house with bullets in the presence of children, then having the audacity to charge the parents with endangering their own kid.
Conservative-icon William F. Buckley once noted that "nobody has ever been found dead from marijuana." Yet we allow armed government agents to bust into private homes, terrorize innocent children, and shoot family pets while they're at it?
For what? Possessing a small amount of a plant that grows in the ground?
As an individual, would you be morally justified in carrying out this violent act?
Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. -- Matthew 7:12
It's clear in this case that the machine guns were far more dangerous than the marijuana. So we must ask ourselves, can we really create (or nurture) a virtuous society by way of immoral acts of violence?
Not an Isolated Event
This story isn't an isolated event either. There are 100-150 of these raids every day in America, the vast majority being just like the Whitworth case you just experienced.
Unfortunately, this is all too common a story.
Police Raid Berwyn Heights Mayor's Home, Kill His 2 Dogs
A police SWAT team raided the home of the mayor in the Prince George's County town of Berwyn Heights on Tuesday, shooting and killing his two dogs, after he brought in a 32-pound package of marijuana that had been delivered to his doorstep, police said.
Calvo said yesterday that he did not know how the drugs wound up on his doorstep. He works part time as the mayor and serves as director of expansion for the SEED Foundation, a well-known national nonprofit group that runs urban public boarding schools.
"My government blew through my doors and killed my dogs," Calvo said. "They thought we were drug dealers, and we were treated as such. I don't think they really ever considered that we weren't."
Calvo described a chaotic scene, in which he -- wearing only underwear and socks -- and his mother-in-law were handcuffed and interrogated for hours. They were surrounded by the dogs' carcasses and pools of the dogs' blood, Calvo said.
Berwyn Heights, Maryland Mayor Cheye Calvo's family and dogs were the victims of a botched violent drug raid. The package, which had been traced by the police, was delivered to the wrong address, resulting in absolute horror.
Drug use may be immoral, but the War on Drugs ... with its unnecessary violence, raids, needless injuries and deaths of not only users, but of police, innocent children, suspects and bystanders ... is even worse.
This is not how a virtuous, Christian society acts. We can successfully help drug abusers without resorting to immoral violence.
