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Consent of the Governed?

I can't restrain myself from commenting on Maria Tomchick's comments in the July 19 issue. I agree that the drug issue is being used as a smokescreen to cover the U.S. subsidizing one side in a civil war. That does not mean that the rebels are morally superior. The decision to come down on one side or the other, or to abstain from intervention, needs to be made on a case-by-case basis. As in any rational business enterprise, the criteria would be: which individuals initiated the use of force, and are the victims (or their allies) able to pay for military protection services.

This would result in a zero U.S. Federal budget for the military, as well as all other branches of the so-called government, including welfare. You forget that those who resist taxation are liable to be put in one of those tax-subsidized prisons you supposedly are against. Those who offer services, whether military, welfare, or whatever, need to gain their revenue from voluntary transactions and not armed robbery of those innocent of the initiation of the use of force. To be against "government" military or welfare is not be against any military or welfare.

It should be obvious that there is no "government" apart from governing actions. Anybody who governs or regulates others is a governor. Going through tribal rituals, like (probably rigged) elections, does not confer any special moral status on the political victors. We are all bound by the same natural laws.

--Kevin Bjornson, via e-mail

Imperial Drug Wars

Re: "Colombia: With Friends Like These" (ETS!, July 19):

Here, the drug war is a war against non-white Americans. Their labor is needed less and less for our so-called new economy of microprocessors and corporate mergers. The recent building of 23 new prisons and one new university in California is proof of that.

Abroad, the drug war in Colombia is a smokescreen for U.S. imperialism. That would be U.S. military domination of Colombia's economy to benefit corporations such as Occidental Petroleum, which wants to drill for oil on the land of the U'wa tribe in Colombia. The tribe has threatened collective suicide if Occidental's plan proceeds, backed by Clinton and Gore.

Opposition to U.S. imperialism is politically unacceptable in the U.S. mass media. There's a motive. It's the profit motive. Consider CBS and NBC, both of which are owned by corporate weapons makers.

--Seth Sandronsky, Sacramento