Category Archives: Drug War

UPDATED (7/10): LinkedIn: Stanton Peele On ILANA And Addiction

Argument, Classical Liberalism, Drug War, Healthcare, Ilana Mercer, Intellectualism, The Therapuetic State

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Thank you, Stanton Peele, PhD., for an inspired LinkedIn review. We represent an era of intellectuals in which left and right had so much in common, Stanton being a 1960s liberal; myself a 19th Century classical liberal.

“Ilana Mercer is the most independent thinker of the 21st century — she was that in the 20th. She saw a path that we didn’t follow away from myths of mental illness and incorrigible international conflict. But we have instead followed the roads she eschewed while she, the Cheshire Cat watched grimacing and catcalling our missteps. Need I say we require her insights more than ever?”~ STANTON PEELE, PhD., J.D., best-selling author, addiction expert (review on LinkedIn)

Dr. Peele is the only theorist and clinician I’ve ever respected on the vexing matter of addiction–now a thriving industry with poor outcomes, increasingly, if reflexively, vested in maintaining dysfunction.

I recognized Stanton for the outstanding thinker he is when I read and wrote about his seminal and best work, “Diseasing of America: How We Allowed Recovery Zealots and the Treatment Industry to Convince Us We Are Out of Control .”

Calgary Herald readers were irate, at the time. The same readers (whom I loved) were as annoyed when I wrote about ADHD, in 1999. Boy, are people vested in a  medical diagnosis for legitimizing and authenticating all aspects of The Self. I continue to hold Dr. Peele as the best thinker on the subject. Like myself, he has mentored (knowingly and unknowingly) followers who have adopted his thinking.

Some mentions are here:

“Addictions Are About Behavior, Not Disease” (June 22, 2000)

“Medical Mumbo Jumbo Does Not Explain Addiction” (June 29, 2000)

“Charlie Sheen’s Out of the AA ‘Troll Hole’” (March 4, 2011)

“Addicted To The Drug War” is a wide-ranging libertarian think piece written originally for the Mises Institute in 2001. A section, “ADDICTION: VICE OR DISEASE?” is inspired by Stanton Peele’s work.

MORE on the drug war.

MORE on the Therapeutic State and Industry (almost indistinguishable).

UPDATE (7/10): In reply to the Comment:  I do not know any thinker, other than those who followed the pioneers I’m citing here, who questioned philosophical fundamentals of mental disease and addiction, as Dr. Peele does and as my sweet, kind friend, the genius Thomas Szasz (RIP) did in his monumental works. (R.D Laing was a loon):

https://www.ilanamercer.com/2012/09/im-sad-not-libya-israel-9-11/

I’ve not looking for exposes; I’m looking for analytical truth to bolster the empirical. That’s my method; it’s theirs. Dr. Szasz was the pioneering genius. His books were prescribed at my South African alma mater. Now it has reverted to the anti-intellectual American drek, namely that of diseasing all aspects of behavior.

“Broken Brains” (2002)

Manufacturing Was Outsourced And The Working-Class Decimated, All For Cheap Goods And … Corona

COVID-19, Drug War, Economy, Labor, libertarianism, Outsourcing, Populism, Race, Welfare

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Denial of white decline is to be found on the Left and Right–and certainly in the reporting of Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.

Likely following in the popular footsteps of the annoying J.D. Vance of Hillbilly Elegy fame—Kristof returns to his hometown, Yamhill, Ore., to find, I wager, exactly what he expected to find, or else he’d never have embarked on this “journey” (he follows the news and the money):

Dying white people (hush).

the kids who were on my old school bus, Bus No. 6,” recounts Kristof … “About a quarter of the kids on the No. 6 Bus have died from drugs, alcohol and suicide

Come on, Nicholas, say it: Whites. (“American White Male Misery Is Real.”)

He also won’t own up to the part his ideological ilk played in the demise of the American working class.

The exchange the likes of Kristof have plumped for: Outsourcing America’s manufacturing base, thus consigning the working class to social oblivion, all in exchange for the wonders of cheap shit and … Corona Virus.

I recall how I was mocked in 2003 for decrying outsourcing, and promoting localism while libertarian, namely daring to question (not sanction) the sacred allocation of resources by business.

MORE: “Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn shine a light on sweeping economic and social struggles across the United States in an important new book.”

WHITE MALE MISERY In America

America, Drug War, Economy, Multiculturalism, Psychiatry, Race, Racism

The Economist’s writer is no angel. But he is dancing like so many angels on the head of a pin in order to minimize the effects of systemic hostility toward white men in America:

… thoughts of suicide were slightly higher on average amongst less-educated whites than other groups.
… heavy drinking was higher amongst whites than other groups.

… opioid abuse along with other prescription drug abuse and illegal drug use remain much higher amongst non-college educated whites. Other research has shown that whites commit suicide at a higher rate than blacks and Hispanics: according to the CDC, white non-Hispanic Americans commit suicide at around three times the rate of blacks and Hispanics, with the highest and growing toll amongst older men.

…increased suicide rates among white men may be caused in part by a decline in income and status.

The Economist also cleverly attempts to minimize the dire situation of white men in America by implying that these “poorly educated” white ingrates are still “better off than women and minorities.”

Then of course, there are the solutions of shallow economic reductionism:

Increase the minimum wage. Provide more generous earned income tax credits. (“Because of lower incomes, minorities and women are more likely to be eligible for EITC payments, and to benefit from minimum wage increases.”)

READ: “Depression is increasing among Americans reaching middle age: Misery is spreading across all groups, but poorly educated white men remain the unhappiest.” (5/15/019)

AOC Targeting “White” Business

Business, Communism, Drug War, Economy, Race, Socialism

In the dangerous and twisted universe of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whites who start businesses are guilty of an act of domination, to be punished, rather than appreciated and applauded for their initiative.

This woman, who earned a degree in economics from and AMERICAN UNIVERSITY—yes, American institutions bred AOC’s ignorance—doesn’t understand that the risk of starting a business is borne by the entrepreneur. The investment and planning of a successful commercial enterprise are undertaken by the businessman. If he or she succeeds, and most small businesses do not, the benefits redound to the community.

In appears here that our command economist would gladly regulate who starts a cannabis businesses. As she sees it, that whites get a business plan together, so as to be granted a license to trade cannabis, clearly reflects badly on them.

“According to an industry trade publication, 73% of cannabis executives in Colorado and Washington are male, 81% are white,” said Ocasio-Cortez during the hearings. “In the state of Massachusetts, just 3.1% of marijuana businesses in the state were owned by minorities, and just 2.2% were owned by women. Is this industry representative of the communities that have historically [borne] the greatest brunt of injustice based on the prohibition of marijuana?”

“Absolutely not,” replied Barnette, who is one of the nation’s few African-American medical marijuana business owners.

“It does not look like any of the people who are reaping the profits of this are the people who were directly impacted,” Ocasio-Cortez concluded.

Meet the Press - Season 71