The Federal Government Knows about Drugs, and They Allow Them Into the US!

 Folks,

Here's another YouTube comment that needs to be preserved for posterity. There was a clip of "American Made", starring Tom Cruise. Though I don't care for the Scientology stuff, I think that Tom Cruise is a great actor; he does a great job in every role he plays, so I like to see his movies. In "American Made", Tom plays Barry Seal. Mr. Seal was, shall we say, an enterprising businessman? He started an air freight service specializing in Colombian pharmaceuticals! It's a good movie, and I recommend it.

One of the commenters to the movie clip said that the Feds were in on the drug trade, and many agreed. I submitted the below comment. It was too good to lie buried in obscurity in some forgotten YouTube comment, so I'm reprinting it below. Enjoy!

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Shoot, I figured that out when I was in the service! I was in the US Navy. Though I normally operated the sonar, we were on drug patrol a few miles off the coast of Colombia. That put us in shallow water, so our sonar was useless. The ship's officers had us stand radar watches instead. I thought that was cool, as I got to learn something new, and I had the chance to do something different. While I don't know if I can say the exact altitude and speed parameters we'd use for flagging northbound (i.e. to the US) aircraft, I can say this: the parameters they were using would only catch the small time smugglers flying small, piston twin aircraft; it wouldn't get the bigger smugglers flying DC-7s or Mitsubishi MU-2s.

Another tell for me was how our ships were deployed. They had us only a few miles of the Colombian coast where everyone could see us; of course the smugglers hid like a bunch of cockroaches under rocks! The smarter way to deploy our ships would've been to put one or two in between the western end of Cuba and the Yucatan Peninsula; put another one between Hispanola and Cuba; then put another ship between eastern Hispanola and Puerto Rico; finally, use some USN PHMs or USCG patrol boats between the Bahamas and the FL coast. If you look at a map, anyone coming from South America HAS to go through these points! The capabilities of the USN's air and surface search radars would be more than adequate to catch anyone heading through the aforementioned choke points. Wouldn't that be the smart way to catch the drug smugglers?

Ah, but the US NEVER did that! Why not? If I, a humble PO2 sonar operator, could figure this shit out, then surely the Generals and Admirals of the Pentagon could; after all, they'd attended either the Navy or Army War College, so they knew about strategy, right? Since they'd studied and forgotten more about strategy than I'd ever learned, wouldn't the Pentagon brass be able to figure this out? The answer is yes, of course. I could only draw one, logical conclusion: that people in the upper levels of the Federal Gov't were on the take, that they were allowing the drugs to come in.

I can tell of another experience on a different drug patrol that cements my opinion for me. On this patrol, we were operating in deep water, so we were using our sonar. I was standing watch one morning when I heard this LOUD contact; he was making enough noise to wake up everything and everybody for miles around! I called it into radar, and they got it. To make a long story short, we boarded this tramp steamer. He said he was going to Panama, yet his charts had a track laid into Santa Marta, Colombia. IOW, we got him before he picked up his load of pot. We had to let him go, as he was clean; they'd lied to us, but that wasn't illegal. However, we never waited on the guy to pick up his load; we never tried to get him on the way out. Why not? IMO, to ask the question is to answer it.

Yes, boys and girls, the Federal Gov't is on the take! While I don't have hardcore proof of that, I have circumstantial evidence that certainly points in that direction. I knew 40 years ago that the Feds were on the take, and I still stand by that today.

Why Free Enterprise and Capitalism Are Superior to Socialism and Communism.

 Folks,

In response to a YouTube comment, I shared my thoughts on why communism and socialism are failures. This comment is worth preserving, so I'm making a post here. My comment is below.

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​ @Flux_40  I was merely using an understandable and relatable analogy here; I wasn't trying to discuss economic questions, per se.

That said, I think that free enterprise (i.e. many small businesses) is the best system, as the free market and the pricing mechanism send clear signals about what is desired and what works vs. what isn't desired and what doesn't work. Even capitalism, to a lesser extent, provides these feedback mechanisms. Neither socialism nor communism have this feedback mechanism, so they're even worse; they cannot and do not distribute scarce resources in a fair or complete manner.

I differentiate free enterprise from capitalism, because capitalism promotes a dog eat dog mentality, where the bigger fish eat the smaller fish; this keeps happening until you have either a monopoly, duopoly, or, at best, an oligopoly. At this point, gov't and the remaining, large corporations become one and the same; we have fascism, which results in poverty and tyranny for the people, while a small elite lives well.

If one doubts how socialism/communism is a failure, then I'll issue that person a simple challenge: look at a picture of the Korean peninsula at night. Just go to Google and enter the phrase: "Korean peninsula at night". Then, look at the pics; look at the stark DIFFERENCE between the southern and northern halves! The southern half, South Korea, is all lit up; the population has electricity. This means that they are prosperous and live well. OTOH, the northern half of the peninsula, where North Korea is located, is dark. Why? Because the people are poor; because communism cannot and will not provide people with even the basics of life, let alone the luxuries thereof.

Why is the Korean example significant? One, there is no racial or ethnic variable here; the Korean people on the peninsula are the same. Two, the Korean people share a common culture. Three, the Korean people share a common history until the mid 20th Century. Four, the Korean people share a common language. Any and all variables that have been used to explain away the failure of communism (i.e. the reason it hasn't worked is because the right people haven't tried it yet) have been eliminated in the Korean example, yet the stark differences between communism and capitalism. While the people of South Korea may not have total freedom, they have more than their brothers and sisters to the north, which gives the South Korean people a better lifestyle.

SO! Capitalism, though far from perfect, is far preferable to communism. Thanks to capitalism, we have electricity; we have indoor plumbing; we have central heating and air conditioning; we have the automobile; we have all the blessings of modern life. Is it perfect? No, especially when it get excessive and we have these huge, multinational corporations. That's why I differentiated between free enterprise and capitalism. That said, capitalism is far preferable to communism or its gatewiay drug, socialism. Again, if you don't believe me, then riddle me this: why are Venezuelans escaping their country by the millions? Could it be because socialism doesn't provide them the necessities of life, including toilet paper? To ask the question is to answer it.

In conclusion, I would challenge you to Google the classic essay, "I, Pencil", which discusses all of these topics by showing how the simple and humble pencil is made. It shows how and why free enterprise, or even capitalism, is far preferable to socialism or its logical conclusion, communism. Thank you.