Dennis was absolutely right to observe that I "would have posted something on this story if [I] weren't still hip deep in the big move to Michigan." The story (involving a mayor and his wife who were apparently mailed a package of marijuana as part of a scam, then subjected to a gruesome home invasion in which their dogs were killed by a cowardly SWAT agents who doubtless consider themselves "warriors") is an absolute outrage.

The word "warriors" is in quotes because I think the war on drugs is a perversion of warfare -- which is supposed to involve mutual combat. The drug "war" simply involves government forces attacking civilians. While this case attracted attention mainly because it involved a mayor, it is yet another numbing example of deadly police state tactics being deployed against non-violent "suspects" in the war against human appetites, and it's just outrageous. We are all at risk. Anyone can mail a package to anyone, just as anyone's home can be raided because of a bureaucratic mistake. No violent crime, no threat to the public safety, is necessary to trigger deadly force. Because, while drug crimes do not involve violence (and not legitimate targets of violent home invasions) these days, the innocent have everything to fear.

Think you can defend yourself? Think again. As Dennis pointed out,
Cory Maye,

still sits in prison because a cop knocked down the wrong door in the middle of the night. He had received the death penalty for defending himself, but the ruling was overturned.

Robert Kovalchik, a neighbor and Calvo's high school history teacher at Parkdale High School, said he was shocked that county officials had not apologized.

"This smacks of something from Nazi Germany," Kovalchik said.

No system is ever perfect, and mistakes can happen anywhere and at any time. It's the callused lack of accountability that resembles totalitarianism. Frankly, it scares the crap out of me that these things keep recurring:

Calvo said he wants federal officials to examine policies that he said have led Prince George's police officials to serve warrants on wrong addresses and kill family pets before.

In once such case, Prince George's sheriff's deputies executed a warrant on the home of Frank and Pamela Myers of Accokeek in November. The Myers told sheriffs that they had the wrong address as their dog began barking from the yard. The couple asked if they could retrieve their dog, but deputies refused. Minutes later, two shots were fired and the dog was killed, according to a notice of a tort claims filed by attorney Michael J. Winkelman. The Myers were never charged and nothing was seized from their house.

Anyway, while I didn't have time to blog about this until now, I did have time for a standard, garden variety conversation about it of the sort I've had before, because I want to understand what drives the drug war mindset. However, I find that it comes down to two completely different and irreconcilable mindsets. One mindset really cares about the personal immorality of other people, and wants to use government to police it, and the other which either doesn't care, or else (as in my case) doesn't think it's the government's business.

What I have never, ever been able to understand is why people care so much that they want to use state violence to police unhealthy or immoral appetites. To understand why people think the way they do, I try to put myself in their position, and in a case like this, I have to ask, simply,

Why should I care whether my neighbor smokes pot?

Why would I care? Can anyone help?

Seriously, I might as well care about his personal sex life. Or what he eats. Unless he's eating human victims or screwing children, it just doesn't make sense for me to care. Well, in the sense that I might care about anyone's health issues I might care, but not enough to invoke the power of the state. Even if he weighed 600 lbs., I don't believe in jailing people for gluttony. Unless he's threatening my safety or keeping me awake, or else he's my friend and comes to me for advice or something, my neighbor's lifestyle and health issues just aren't my business or concern. Nor are mine his.

What is it that makes people think they should be? It's an important question, for it's what drives the "war on drugs," and other misguided "wars" to reform humanity.

From a religious perspective, I realize we're all sinners (although I can't find marijuana in the Ten Commandments), but that doesn't quite explain the mystery.

UPDATE: Richard Miniter looks at the related issue of outdoor (yes I am serious) smoking bans, and thinks the problem comes down to Puritanism:

Puritans are people who want to live according to a strict moral code of their own devising and want to make you live their way too.

...The modern form, what I call"hippie-Puritanism," has one innovation: it is godless. That means that the last check of Puritan ambition is gone. With God went the idea that other people are ends, not means. The rest of us are simply extras in their private movie of moral vanity.

Now L.A. and a host of other cities (some disturbingly east of the earthquake zone) are considering outdoor smoking bans. They have already banned smoking in offices, eateries, bars and beaches. Outdoors is next. Followed by a ban on smoking in your private car.

What is behind this Puritan impulse? Public health, you say. Well, that is what they always say. Witches were problems of moral health (the witches, not the witch hunters', mind you) and alcohol was destructive to mind, body and society....

Even where smoking is banned, there's still a right to carry.

UPDATE: Professor Bainbridge comments on the double standard, noting that this case mainly received attention because it might have happened to reporters.

...The Washington Post or NY Times reporters look at this case and immediately think: "It could happen to me!" So the story gets saturation coverage--even in Great Britain!

Meanwhile, the MSM ignores the plight of African-American and Latino minority communities caught in the War on Drugs' crossfire between paramilitary SWAT stormtroopers and gang thugs. How many brown and black families per year are terrorized by cops erroneously executing no knock warrants on the wrong premises? We don't know because the media only pays attention to collateral damage from the War on Drugs when it happens to people like Mayor Calvo.

Indeed. Look how little traction the Cory Maye case has gotten, outside of blogs and Reason magazine.

This smug elitism borders on outright racism, and reminds me of the memorable line from Don Zaluchi in The Godfather:

...In my city, we would keep the traffic in the dark people, the coloreds. They're animals anyway, so let them lose their souls.

MORE: Speaking of animals, am I alone in noticing that when police shoot dogs in these raids, the amount of sympathy generated depends on whether it's the "right" breed of dog?

"A Labrador?" "Why, that could happen to my dog!"

But don't other dog owners love their dogs?

(I point this out only because it's tough for me to forget Coco can be shot by the police with impunity -- simply because she's a "pit bull.")