Gang violence: no end in sight?

In my former life as a troublemaker, there was one thing I learned. Authority with no spine, and no substance is really no authority at all. Someone who stands there glaring at you, waits patiently, or worse, succumbs to your demands, is no better than your partner in crime, and with the recent gang violence that has overran our beautiful city, being a bystander is exactly the worse thing we should do. In the very recent past, three dozen shootings and the 16 dead are just the beginning of an escalating gang war that is almost certainly going to escalate. These events have sent citizens scrambling for solutions, and some of these solutions were presented in an open forum on March 18th 2009, at the south Vancouver neighborhood house, mediated by M.P, Ujjal Dosanjh. Some of the ideas were interesting; others intriguing, while some were just downright ignorant. Most ignorant of all was the proposal of legalizing marijuana, one of the many ideas proposed at the neighborhood house. The idea was that gangs are essentially a business, and if you want to run a business out of business then you take away its market. Simple, logical, no money involved, we can all get back to our martinis and social lives like civilized people. If these people want marijuana so bad, it’s now legal. What’s the matter with that right? Wrong. As others have stated, like most other products made in Canada, our weed is largely shipped out to the states in exchange for guns and cocaine. So if we took away their market here, we would also have to find a way to legalize pot in the states. Fat chance. Obama may be liberal, but democrats in the south are nowhere near as liberal as conservatives up north, so if it’s not even possible here yet, you can bet that the U.S won’t even be thinking of legalization anytime soon. On top of this is the sheer moral dilemma. How do we justify giving more marijuana to individuals who are abusing the substance? How do we justify making a highly potent neurotoxin accessible to anybody who walks into a drug store? Not only are the health ramifications enormous, but we haven’t even started considering the ethical ramifications. I support free will and freedom of choice, but why should we appear to advocate drugs that we know are addictive, and are harmful to our bodies. Would you sit idly by, and let one of your loved ones drink a whole 10 liters of hydrochloric acid? For this reason, we should not appease those who call for legalization, and instead work towards other means of counter-acting the violence that has descended onto our streets. One of the better proposed suggestions for cleaning up our streets is the increased enforcement personnel, in addition to a reformed criminal justice system. One of the most prominent proposals at the meeting was an integrated force comprised of the various police branches in the different municipalities in addition to the RCMP. This way, resources will be shared and efficiently executed. This wouldn’t be an ideal solution, but would be a first step in the right direction, in a method of punishment and correction, rather than appeasement and legalization.

Testing...testing...1...2...3

So first post here...

inspired by a fellow political enthusiast of another view point, ive decided to start my own...

this blog is going to be dedicated to the rantings of a 17 year old...not necessarily partisan...but not necessarily impartial either

the subject matter is mostly going to be politics...but i guess im going to have columns dedicated to ordinary thoughts or an ordinary student...from a perspective of a populist.

Im always welcome to comments and suggestions for writing...but please keep it constructive...theres not much i can say to a "YOU SUCK" post...

happy reading!