Seeing that George Soros and Sting are working together to “end the drug war” puts me in mind of a story an Army buddy who works in the DEA told me about busting in the door of a drug house only to find three occupants – the oldest four years old, having been left in charge while his “parents” went out to score meth. Yeah, drug use is a victimless crime – if you ignore the victims.
Apparently not content to subsidize the whining of the nonentities at Media Matters, Soros is taking a break from his adventures in currency manipulation and general scuzziness to enlist entertainment celebrities like Sting in his newest quest. The Drug Policy Alliance is the result, a group whose members, as its founder puts it, “come from across the drug use spectrum.” Yes, the junkies, stoners, hopheads, dope fiends, pill-poppers, and Lindsay Lohan are unanimous: Drug laws are bad, and it’s probably BusHitler’s fault.
The threshold problem with comments by Sting such as, “The war on drugs represents an extraordinary violation of human rights,” is that Sting presumably not only believes this piffle, but further believes that he can put down his bass and offer meaningful input into the discussion. This assumption of competence is a common delusion among celebrities, and here it has more potential for damage than most mindless celebribabble.
Now, Sting is not alone – no one in that clip says anything worthwhile. One woman, who is bald for no apparent reason, states that “The War on Drugs is a war on people of color,” as if Americans decided they would outlaw crack because they fear that black people might enjoy themselves. Montel Williams shows up to explain that drug laws prevent him from making choices about his own body, but the awful tie and ridiculous earring he chose to wear make a powerful argument against allowing him to make any kind of choices at all.
Tony Papa also appears. He went to jail for 12 years for being part of a drug deal – oh, I mean committing “a nonviolent drug offense” – and became an artist on the taxpayer’s dime. While most of us will likely ask “Why only 12?,” naturally Papa is worshipped by trendy leftist celebrities. Some Hollywood half-wit even scooped up the rights to his inspiring story. So, to repeat, Tony Papa joined a drug conspiracy, got arrested, went to jail, leveraged that into becoming a hip artist and the subject of a movie, and yet he is somehow the real victim.
Of course, there’s also the perennial “America imprisons more people than anywhere else in the world!” meme. In fact, the only drug incarceration problem in America is that too few drug dealers are incarcerated. Sting suffers from the same delusion that afflicts many of his celebrity pals. He seems to think that if the kind of people who deal drugs didn’t have drugs to deal, they would naturally flock to the world of hard work and responsibility. Oh, if only drugs weren’t illegal, the drug dealing scumbags who infest our ghettos, barrios and college sociology departments would morph into clean-shaved, untatted workerbees eagerly embracing the world of 9-5 employment. Yeah, it was outlawing meth and crack that turned the scumbags into scumbags.
At one point, the clip promises “new solutions” to the drug problem. Then Sting pops back up, smug and self-satisfied, to announce that drug laws violate his individual sovereignty. Uh, typically, when you say you are going to provide new solutions you might consider, you know, providing some new solutions instead of some new cliché.
I certainly enjoy Sting and his pals’ new-found appreciation of my personal autonomy and “sovereignty over my body.” I assume they’ll be standing by me when I reject the government’s interference in my health care decisions. Unlikely. If you think consistency is one of their strong points, perhaps you’ve been smoking the same stuff as them.
Now, Sting was always annoying but here he is reaching new heights of crappiness and pomposity in direct proportion to his declining relevance. It’s always a pleasure to hear some Brit mega-millionaire who glides around his English manor practicing tantric sex sound off on American domestic policy.
Please Sting, save us! Unleash the full intellectual firepower you’ve amassed writing forgettable smooth jazz/rock fusion tunes for people who buy their music at Starbucks. Just because you’ve been waited on hand and foot for three decades by a coterie of professional sycophants telling you you’re wiser than Buddha and smarter than Einstein doesn’t mean it’s true.
There may be a case for looking at our drug laws, but these nimrods don’t make it. The most compelling points are made by the conservatives at National Review and the libertarians at Reason. Sure, pot smokers steal your snacks, listen to Phish and sound-off with long, disjointed monologues about the miracle of hemp, but I have a hard time getting too bent out of shape by them. Many celebrities are among them, but Sting and Soros aren’t just talking about causal stoners. They think we ought to go open season on meth, crack and whatever else these degenerate half-wits today are ingesting. No thanks – I’d prefer not to live with the mess you’re rich enough to ignore.
The fact is that His Stingness knows nothing – or cares nothing – about the unspeakable devastation drugs cause, particularly within the inner cities. Instead of standing behind the one truly effective response to urban drug terror – throwing the bastards in a cell and dropping the key down the Guatemalan sinkhole – His Majesty Sting decrees that drug dealing scumbags should run free, then retreats back behind his gates and armed guards to further hone his delayed orgasm skills.
Well, Sting, let’s discuss your really keen points about why poison ought to be legal. But let’s expand the scope of our discussion to include some other celebrities who might be able to provide us with some valuable insights. Let’s invite Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger, Brad Renfro, DJ AM, and Brittany Murphy to weigh in with their points of view. Oh wait, they’re all dead. So are just a few others.
Like a Sean Penn who can’t help but fly into some hellhole, figuratively fellate the local anti-American strongman then jet back to Santa Monica in time for dinner at Pizzeria Mozza, Sting wanders out of his fairy-tale life for a few minutes to tell the benighted peons in the real world how they need to live their lives before retiring back inside his palace behind three layers of security. The violence, the abuse, the wasted potential brought on by drugs mean nothing to him; what is important is his own act of scolding his lessers for failing to conform to his personal vision.
That’s Sting’s high – lording over others as if he was something more than a glorified cruise ship bassist who got lucky and didn’t have to spend his career cranking out covers of Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” for Corona-swilling passengers during runs between San Diego and Puerto Vallarta on the S.S. Living Hell. And like so many in the entertainment world, he’s guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of possession of stupid ideas – with intent to distribute.
