Government benefits from crime, drugs and extortion

June 21, 11:45 PMAnchorage Libertarian ExaminerKevin Wilmeth

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The Anchorage Daily News carried an Associated Press article today that tickled the irony bone.

It's about government aggrandizing its own power through practices of extortion and theft, and financing itself by controlling and manipulating the drug trade.  According to one "reluctant" source:

"The situation is very dangerous for us.  We give them money or our fuel, or they kill us."

Sounds about right, doesn't it?  You know the drill:  Shut up and pay your taxes and nobody gets hurt.  You also know about how many billions of dollars have been expended in the War on (Some) Drugs, the only noticeable impact of which has been to engorge the government by whole agencies and departments at the expense of the Bill of Rights.  One could go on all day about how various arbitrary regulations and programs, imposed on threat of force and funded with stolen money (taxes), fit the classic definition of extortion...how all the Wars (on drugs, guns, the airwaves, cyberspace, "domestic terrorists" et cetera ad nauseam) are predicated on declaring a threat du jour (they're gonna get you) packaged with a snake-oil solution (provided by?  C'mon, do you even have to ask?), the perfect example of a protection racket...you get the idea.  Governments cannot operate without extortion or theft;  it has been this way since the beginning of time.

Oh, I see, never mind.  It appears that the article is about the Taliban.

Boy, that makes me feel better.  I was starting to get worried!