The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre Out West

"If you have a lot of what people want and can't get, then you can supply the demand and shovel in the dough."
- Lucky Luciano

"Tell me why are we, so blind to see
That the ones we hurt, are you and me?"
- From "Gangsta's Paradise" by Coolio

Arizona Senate Bill 1070, the country's strictest anti-illegal immigration legislation, has generated a lot of discussion from both sides of the political spectrum. But somehow, nearly everyone avoids talking about the root causes of the crisis that spawned SB 1070.

Arizona is suffering from a meteoric rise in violent crime, including murders, assaults and human trafficking. Most of this crime is caused by Mexican organized crime groups. In just a few short years, Phoenix has become the kidnapping capital of the western hemisphere. It is totally understandable that many Arizonians would want to take action. The public outcry over the brutal slaying of 58 year old rancher Robert Krentz and his dog made some sort of action inevitable.

SB 1070 , like most legislation produced from a panic, unfortunately has some serious flaws. The bill aims to cut down on illegal immigration. The premise is that without illegal immigrants from Mexico, we would have no Mexican crime cartels. This simplistic approach to the crime would negatively affect law-abiding immigrants without really addressing the real cause of the crime wave.

Why did the Mexican cartels invade Arizona in recent years? After all, the flood of Mexican immigrants has been going on for decades now. This question could be answered by looking south of the border. The cartels have been active in Mexico and South America for decades, demonstrating all the brutality that Arizona is now experiencing. Mexico has fought back by liberalizing its drug policy, eliminating much of the profit of the cartel's activities. The cartels have therefore moved to greener pastures up North, where our continuing war on drugs guarantees them artificially high profits.

But couldn't SB 1070 keep the cartels out of the US? Frankly, I doubt it, but let us assume that Sb 1070 was 100% effective at keeping out the Mexican cartels. Does anyone really believe that some other organized crime group would not pick up the slack? A quick check of INTERPOL will show that the Albanian Rudaj Organization, the Russian Bratva, the Chinese Triads, and even the Japanese Yakuza are active in the U.S. Any one of these groups would love to take over the drug trade. SB 1070, even if it accomplished all of its goals, would do little more than change the identity of the gangs performing the kidnappings and murders.

The cause of the problem is really the war on drugs, and hence the solution is to bring this ill fated war to an end. Consider the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre of February 14, 1929. The public outcry over this brutal mob hit brought Prohibition into question. It soon became clear that the crime and corruption caused by prohibition far outweighed its benefits. So let us view the Robert Krentz execution as the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre of our time: a horrific crime that reveals that the war on drugs extracts a price on us all that is too high to pay.

Elena Kagan, George McGovern, and Experience

"Experience. The wisdom that enables us to recognize in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced. "
- From "The Devil's Dictionary" by Ambrose Bierce.

Most of the discussion about supreme court nominee Elena Kagen has centered around her experience. Critics have noted that for all her accomplishments, Kagen has not spent much time in the courtroom. In a column published this morning, Boston Herald columnist Margery Eagan had a different take on the experience issue: the problem with Kagen is not her lack of time in court, it is her lack of time spent outside of the company of elites and positions of privilege. As Eagen points out, the current court, even with Kagen, shows diversity in the areas of race and gender, but virtually no diversity of background. All of these justices come from Ivy League schools. Only Thomas and Sotomayor have worked in state or local courts. With Justice Stevens departure, the court will have no veterans.

The problem is not just with the supreme court; the executive branch also lacks background diversity. Less that 10% of the Obama cabinet have work experience in the private sector. President Obama has never had to make payroll. Some of his statement reflect a lack of understanding of how businesses work, such as when he refers to profits as overhead, or proclaiming at a February press conference that "If [small businesses] can get the bank loans to boost their payroll ...".

Why is this lack of experience with life outside of the elites important? Consider former senator and presidential candidate George McGovern. After leaving the Senate, George bought an inn in Connecticut. Four years later, the inn went bankrupt. In his frank assessment of his inn's failure, George McGovern places the blame on policies he enacted as a Senator! Among the inn's woes were excessive regulations that place an especially heavy burden on small businesses. Lawsuit abuse was also an issue: he was forced into expensive litigation over people who fell in - or near - his establishment. Moreover, he noted that medical lawsuit abuse was driving up his medical insurance costs. As a senator, he had heard these concerns from businessmen, but dismissed them as overblown. McGovern admits that this business venture has taught him how wrong he was to dismiss these concerns, and that if he had tried his hand at a business earlier in life, he would have been a better senator and presidential candidate.

So the next time a nominee comes up for confirmation, please urge our senators to avoid unimportant issues such a ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation, and ask the really important questions:

• Have you ever run a cafe, a dry cleaner, or other such small business?
• If not, what qualifies you to judge the people who do?