The Danger of Untreated Logic

March 31, 2009

I seem to suffer from a terrible malady. Periodic exacerbations leave me speechless, believe it or not. These attacks of logic do not always lead to perfect conclusions, but they are always stimulating and troubling at the same time. Consider, for instance, what seems to be a fact. The neoconservative businessmen seem to own virtually every one of the world’s major industries, save one: the drug cartels. That is, these “Free Marketeers” do not own the drugs. They own, manufacture and sell the munitions, assault weapons, bombs, various missiles to the drug cartels. They are certainly not prohibited from these sales by any governments that I know of. They are, in fact, aided by various governments, especially ours, by lack of significant regulation of gun sales. In the case of Iraq, in fact, our government has inadvertently furnished some 200,000 assault weapons to unnamed and nonregistered Iraqis, I am told.

A particularly “neopsychotic” organization called the “NRA,” in fact, encourages all people to own and use firearms. They claim that there are no “bad” or “undesirable” firearms. Only “bad” or undesirable “people” who use them. This purposely illiterate group of “psychotics” has not read that section of the Constitution that states that “a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Since these people, chief among them, individuals like Justice Scalia, Dick Cheney, Jim Gilmore, Don Rumsfeld, seem to be mentally ill, we should not blame them for their twisted logic.

The problem arises, however, if any of these Neopsychotics has any ownership in munitions companies who sell arms to members of drug cartels. Now, I’m not suggesting that people who sell arms to drug cartels ought be summarily executed, Mr. Gilmore (chief advocate of capital punishment for innocent or guilty alike). Similarly, I am not suggesting that secretaries of defense who make special deals with munitions companies in which armor and anti-missile devices for tanks are withheld from our soldiers but not from the average citizen-criminal, be summarily executed. I do feel, however, that they should be summarily exposed and dealt with in more humane ways. For instance, why not ask these people if they believe water boarding is torture. If they answer “no,” would this not be a perfect method of humane punishment?

Meanwhile, we have a huge problem, currently, with drug cartels in Mexico. It is in the form of a huge trade deficit. We export a few hundred thousand assault weapons to the cartels for a paltry few tens of millions of dollars and they sell us a few billion dollars in drugs.

We buy all sorts of things from China in an effort to promote our Neopsychotic friends' corporations- we extend favored trade status. Meanwhile, our chief source of economic aid to Mexico comes in the form of billions invested in their drug trade and only millions in our own weapons trade. Good job George, Dick, Don and all your buddies. Wouldn’t it have been nice to have bought things from Mexico instead of China? In fact, we might even have something to say about Mexican quality control leading to less dead infants and pets. Maybe an improved Mexican economy would lead to less drugs and maybe even less illegal immigration? Damn that logic, it attacks me in all the wrong places- gives me a headache and a pain in the butt.

Allen Finkelstein, D.O.