The Dish

"Alcohol and tobacco cause many more deaths in users than do drugs. Decriminalization would not prevent us from treating drugs as we now treat alcohol and tobacco: prohibiting sales of drugs to minors, outlawing the advertising of drugs and similar measures. Such measures could be enforced, while outright prohibition cannot be. Moreover, if even a small fraction of the money we now spend on trying to enforce drug prohibition were devoted to treatment and rehabilitation, in an atmosphere of compassion not punishment, the reduction in drug usage and in the harm done to the users could be dramatic.

This plea comes from the bottom of my heart. Every friend of freedom, and I know you are one, must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence," – Milton Friedman, in a 1990 open letter to Bill Bennett, big government conservative.

(Hat tip: Stuttaford.)

Well, it’s a little late, but not completely nuts:

Consider these data: Between November 2004 and February 2005, according to the Brookings Institution’s Iraq Index, the number of coalition soldiers in Iraq rose by 18,000. In that time, the number of Iraqi civilians killed fell by two-thirds, and the number of American troops wounded fell by three-fourths. The soldiers were soon pulled out; by the summer of 2005, American and Iraqi casualties rose again. Later that year, the same thing happened again. Between September and November of 2005, another 23,000 soldiers were deployed in Iraq; once again, both Iraqi and American casualties fell. In the early months of 2006, the number of soldiers fell again, and casualties spiraled up.

An addition of 20,000 seems insignificant to me – another signal to the enemy that we can be outlasted. A commitment of another 50,000 to 75,000 troops to Iraq is a different matter. I just doubt this president has the political capital to do such a thing.

What do you do if you’re a punk rock group stuck in the 1980s and forced to make an MTV music video? Here’s one answer from the Replacements.

Click here to see the other entries…

The polling suggests he’s currently stronger against most Republican rivals than Hillary. Check out the match-ups here.

In honor of Milton Friedman, two YouTubes of Friedman talking first about the failure of socialism; and then about how to spend money. When you listen to Friedman and then think of how the Bush-Rove Republicans have run the federal government, you realize how grotesque a perversion of conservatism the current Republicans represent.

A reader sees similarities:

Do you see any analogies between Christopher Hitchens and yourself? Both of you have been turned on by your erstwhile "friends" for failing to sign up to their rigidly orthodox positions. He was turned on by the left, and you by the right. Basically, you are both immensely irritating to those who are incapable of thinking for themselves, and who expect loyalty to a dogma, rather than skeptical inquiry in pursuit of the truth. Both of you are too independent-minded to be co-opted by any sect. If anything, I would say that your ability to admit when you were wrong displays even more courage than Hitchens does. Also, your justifiable hatred of fanatical Islam lead you both to make the mistake of supporting the Iraq war. (Oh yes, and you are also both very good at promoting yourselves by courting controversy.)

I loved your passage about a Christians taking into account the Bible, the Church and the Pope, but not accepting these things uncritically. I found it very, very moving. I can’t help comparing the humanity of this paragraph with the thuggish certainty of many "conservatives". The passage refuses to quell doubt but also resists the temptations of relativism or nihilism. This is the delicate balance that all decent men must strive for.

An interesting contrast between now and eight months ago. What happened in the last eight months? It wasn’t that Iraq veered in a new direction; it had been headed downhill for two years. It’s that Peters’ denial collapsed. And Arthur Chrenkoff – who used to provide Instapundit and the WSJ regular updates on the "real," thriving state of Iraq, distorted by the MSM – is writing novels. Maybe he was always writing novels.

Sheena Easton demanded an entry.

Another classic:

"In great contests, each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time," – Abraham Lincoln, memorandum dated September 30, 1862.

My italics. But they are a remarkable three words. One of the principles ultimately at stake in the relevant contest was slavery – something which Lincoln indisputably opposed. And yet skepticism restrained him even then from invoking God’s sanction for his actions. Can you imagine what today’s absolutist conservatives would now say of him? And the moral equivalence they would accuse him of?

A fine mess.