At the heart of the decades-long war on drugs is the notion that the federal government is people’s daddy. One of the purposes of a daddy is to keep his children from doing bad things. One of the most important parts of being a daddy is to prevent children from doing bad things to themselves, such as putting the wrong things into their mouths. That’s what the drug war is all about it — keeping adult-children from putting bad things into their mouths and punishing them when they do.
But adult-children are different from children. Adults are adults. Nonetheless, the drug war converts them into adult-children. The drug war says: “We fully understand that you are adults. However, you must be treated like adult-children because you are putting bad things into your mouths, just like you did when you were children. Therefore, we have no choice but to step in and stop you from doing that, even if it means sending you to your room in a state or federal penitentiary.”
Hardly anyone questions or challenges this notion. Most everyone has accepted the fact that it is the responsibility of governmental officials to take care of their adult-children and keep them from doing bad things to themselves.
Of course, there are other manifestations of the daddy state. With Social Security, for example, the government has inculcated the mindset into the American people that it is the role of government to take care of seniors by using the IRS to take money from younger people and giving it to older people. The notion that young people should be free to make that decision on their own has been long forgotten or rejected. Young adult-children cannot be trusted to help parents and grandparents on a voluntary basis. They must be forced to do so, which will, the argument goes, make them caring, compassionate, and responsible members of society.
It’s the same with the drug war. Adult-children of all ages cannot be trusted to live their lives “responsibly” — that is, without ingesting drugs. So, federal or state officials have no choice but to step in and force people to behave responsibly by punishing them for making irresponsible choices.
Let’s assume that a person is living alone and smokes marijuana and snorts cocaine every day within the privacy of his own home. The state says: “No, we will not permit that to happen. We must ensure that that person becomes a responsible member of society. We will take that person into custody and jail him in order to make him a responsible member of society.”
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In essence, the drug war manifestly perfectly the lives of bees in a bee hive. The purpose of every bee is to serve the hive. If a bee is slacking, he is hurting the hive. The hive must ensure that that bee becomes a productive member of the hive. Once the bee is restored to its rightful role in the hive, the hive is restored to health and order.
That’s the way it is in a daddy state. The purpose of every adult-child in a daddy state is to serve the collective. If an adult-child is ingesting drugs, that hurts the collective. To restore the health of the collective, it is necessary for the daddy state to restore the adult-child to health and responsibility. That’s what drug laws are designed to do — to make each child-adult a healthy and responsible member of society so that the hive or the collective can grow or prosper.
What happens if an adult-child declares, “I don’t want to be part of the hive or the collective. I wish to live for my own sake. I wish to pursue happiness in my own way, even if it is antithetical to the interests of the hive or the collective. Just leave me alone.”?
That person becomes a grave threat to the hive or the collective, not only because he is not serving the best interests of the hive or collective but also because he might influence other adult-children to begin thinking the same way. That person needs to be taken care of, with the aim of molding his mind so that he can rejoin the hive or collective as a responsible, healthy, and contributing member.
That’s, of course, is what Ritalin and other such drugs are for when it comes to children who instinctively question the state’s centers of regimentation and indoctrination knowns as “public schools.” Once the state drugs the child, it becomes easier to mold his mind in a responsible direction and make him a good member of the hive or collective.
Of course, hardly anyone bothers to ask an important question: Why are so many members of the hive or collective choosing to ingest drugs in the first place? Maybe it has something to do with living in a hive or a collectivist society, one in which the state wields the authority to punish people for living their lives the way they want … and, of course, calling it “freedom.”