Miranda's arguments are too complex to quote in detail here. His article is well worth reading by anyone
concerned about the potential for Police State U.S.A. But in the end, Miranda concludes that a serious effort to
close the border to drug trafficking would at least double the size of the current U.S. military and require
maintaining that large a presence along the border, and in drug-supplying nations, in perpetuity. And that's
without accounting for the extra force needed to fight the guerrilla warriors that would arise in rage
against so crushing an occupying force.

Of course, no politician would dare propose that force today. No, you propose 10,000 to score political
    points today. And when 10,000 prove inadequate, you propose 100,000. And when 100,000 prove inadequate…

Unfortunately, it worked

If in those centuries there had been the same freedom as we enjoy, Roman Catholicism would…
have shrunk long ago into a sect.
The Inquisition is an indelible disgrace to the religion which created it;… in its procedure this holy court,
presided over by the holiest of men, under the direct control of their holinesses the Popes, was the most
infamous instrument of injustice and the worst fomenter of murderous cupidity that the world has ever seen.

Across the country, increasingly the public, church groups, think tanks and strong-minded officials
(such as former San Jose police chief Joseph McNamara and New Mexico governor Gary Johnson) are
waking up. They're speaking against the terror created in the War on Drugs. Some are crying for an emphasis
on treatment instead of arrest. Some want limited legalization. Some say, hell, just decriminalize the stuff
and get out of our way.

Yet the prison population continues to soar, as do arrests for the most harmless of drugs. According to the
New York Times, someone in America is arrested every 20 seconds for a drug violation, and a new jail or
prison is opened each week.20 In 1998, the FBI reported an all-time high number of marijuana busts
- 682,885 nationwide.21 Eight-eight percent of those were for mere possession, not sale or cultivation.
That's more than the number of arrests for murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, combined.

Is there any sign that anyone in the federal government is listening?

On October 7, 1999, at the order of Congress, a new military command was born in Norfolk, Virginia.
Its purpose: to expand the use of the military in domestic law enforcement even beyond the Drug War.
Thanks to the latest exception to the Posse Comitatus Act, the military will now have a toehold in such broadly
defined areas of domestic law enforcement as “terrorism,” “chemical weapons” and “cybercrime.”

Of course, the military's initial role is only “advisory” - just as we merely had military “advisors”
in Vietnam, Waco and Redford, Texas.

Defense Secretary William Cohen told reporters, “The American people should not be concerned
about [soldiers enforcing laws in their cities]. They should welcome it.”

But in an article by Jon E. Dougherty in WorldNetDaily, October 13, 1999,22 Gregory Nojeim, legislative
counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington, D.C., put it more succinctly and accurately,
“When the crisis hits, those with the biggest guns will be subordinate to no one.”

Oh, yes. The federal government is listening. To the Divine Will to Power - a force that echoes through
the centuries with an ominous familiarity.

NOTES: