Tyranny Research Paper

In January 2004, senatorial candidate Barack Obama firmly opposed the twenty two-year war on drugs, saying that the United States’ approach in the drug war has been ineffective (Debussman).  Although the term, “war on drugs,” was originally coined by President Richard Nixon in 1971, it wasn’t until Ronald Reagan announced that “drugs were menacing society” that it became a major policy goal to stop widespread use. Following Reagan’s promises to fight for drug-free schools and workplaces, the United States boosted its efforts in its most recent declaration

The War on Drugs was the United Sates government’s attempt to stop the sale and use of illegal drug use. It consisted of anti-drug legislation all with the plan to end drug abuse in America. President Nixon declared and coined the phrase “War on drugs” and increased drug control agencies and pushed for harder sentencing for drug offenses. The war on drugs is an issue that we are still fighting and many of the policies put in place did more harm than good. The drug war affected all people, but it had unequal outcomes for different racial groups and many of the historical pieces of legislation put in place impacted these outcomes and are still affecting many people of color today.

Imagine sitting in a room full of 54 other men in the summer with no air conditioning so your country can have a strong government with equal power. The constitution was written because the Articles of Confederation was to weak. They wanted to have a strong government but one that protected against tyranny. Tyranny is when one person or one group of people have more power than another person or group of people. The constitution guarded against tyranny with federalism, separation of powers, checks and balances, and congress.

Tyranny can be found in several forms, which is why we need several defenses against it. In 1787, our new country held a Constitutional Convention. Delegates from most of the states came together to fix the Articles of Confederation, our first constitution. In the end, they decided to make a whole new constitution, a written government plan, that could hold our states together and protect us from tyranny. As we had just recently freed ourselves from a situation of tyranny by one with King George III, it wasn't a scenario that we wanted to repeat itself. The job was to frame, or structure, a brand new plan that could do this. The Constitution still continues to protect us because it was a strong document with a strong plan. The Constitution

On June 17th 1971, President Richard Nixon stood in front of congress and announced his widely criticized War on Drugs. The President claimed that drugs were the “Public Enemy Number One” among Americans. Fast-forward to 1986, Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. This act placed mandatory minimum sentences on minor drug infractions. The war on drugs not only incarcerated a very high number of Blacks, but also tore families apart in an effort to clean up neighborhoods which still affect many African American families almost a half-century later.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon initiated the national War on Drugs, which focused on the passage of policies geared toward fighting illegal substances (Amundson, Zajicek, and Hunt, 2014). During this time, Nixon allocated two-thirds of federal dollars for treatment of drug addiction and prevention of new users and one-third of federal dollars for interdiction and enforcement (Amundson et al., 2014). After Nixon’s initial War on Drugs program, policies and programs began to shift. Under the Regan Administration, the War on Drugs became more punitive and there was a reversal of federal dollars. Under the new and subsequent regimes, two-thirds of money was spent on interdiction and enforcement and one-third was spent on treatment and prevention (Amundson et al., 2014). Under this new Administration came tougher sentencing, an increase in prison spending, and mandatory minimum sentencing for drug offenses (Amundson et al.,

The War on Drugs created a precedent in the criminal justice system. When the term War on Drugs is heard, people think that crime was increasing at the time, which is why President Reagan officially declared the war in 1982. However, contrary to popular belief, crime was actually decreasing at the time and the idea of civil rights and desegregation was on the rise. The declaration of the War on Crime was actually part of a Republican strategy that uses “racially coded political appeals” when it comes to crime to attract white voters that are afraid of, and threatened of, the idea of desegregation (Alexander,

The War on Drugs began in increments, first with President Nixon and secondly with President Reagan (Hill, Oliver, Marion, 2012). While under the Nixon administration, the Drug Enforcement Administration was developed due to the thought of how drugs can affect an individual as well as a community. Drugs did not only affect the user and the community, but also the families as well as children. Out of all the presidents, it is documented that President Nixon was one who had discussions about drugs more than any other president (Hill, et al., 2012).

Through all of the pop music and big hair there was a growing epidemic of drug usage in the United States. To stop this Ronald Reagan began the War On Drugs, but since he has left office the war has been brought to a stand still. The War On Drugs that Ronald Reagan pursued in the 1980s has been put on the back burner, the amount of drugs and people using them has not decreased, all the while there has not been any new developments to try and prevent drug usage to further build up the arsenal against the War on Drugs.

The War on Drugs is a term that is commonly applied to the campaign of prohibition of drugs. The goal of this campaign is to reduce the illegal drug trade across America. This term “ War on Drugs” was used during Nixon’s campaign in which he declared War on Drugs during a press conference in 1971. Following this declaration many organizations were created to stop the spread of drugs, like the DEA and Office of Drug Abuse Law Enforcement. Note that Nixon’s approach to this problem was to fund treatment rather than law enforcement. After Nixon’s retirement from office, most of the funding went from going into treatment to the law enforcement. Which militarized the police force giving the officer’s military weapons and gear. With this, the sentencing for possessing drugs was changed as well, resulting incarcerations rates to increase overtime. The increase of incarceration rates started to create many patterns that were soon noticeable. The funding’s that go into the law enforcement has shown to greatly have an affect on the incarceration rates.

It is a lamentable truth that tyranny has arguably existed as long as one human has had the power to control another through force in a society. This was the case with the Pharaohs of Egypt thousands of years of ago, and is still the case today in North Korea and other parts of the world. It has always been the dream of enlightened and free people to seek and destroy tyranny in any form in which it is found because it is the ultimate affront to the freedom of will and thought which they themselves enjoy. In order to understand how tyranny may be forever eradicated, it is necessary to compare ways in which tyranny is incompatible with being free in various ways. Though tyranny, by definition, affects all freedom of those under its lash, it begins by oppressing the mind, which leads to a

So it has played itself out throughout history, governments that think themselves the writers of morality began to think themselves morally superior to all others, that its people are foolish or incapable, and a kind of moral tyranny is the result. King George know the importance to fighting this kind of thinking. The duty he felt the whole world had in stopping the Nazis was based off of the idea that governments did not have the right to force others to adhere to their morality. The moral law is a thing outside of the legal realm, although laws should strive to adhere to it. To avoid being tyrannical, even if it has the best of intentions, a government should not think itself somehow the only enlightened entity capable of knowing the moral

Drugs have been a part of America’s society since the 1800s, and since then people have become more aware of its effects. It was not until 1914 when the first federal drug policy was passed, the Harrison Narcotics Act, which enforced the production of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and morphine (Opium Throughout History). However, what people know as “The War On Drugs” was declared in 1971 by President Richard Nixon to combat drug abuse in the United States (Thirty Years of…). Those that opposed the war argue that there are significant problems that have been created as a result of drug criminalization. One of the most notable examples are the disproportionate rates of arrest on African American drug dealers. On the other hand, those that support

Most people believe that the war on drugs started when President Nixon declared war on drugs in 1971. This is not true the war on drugs actually started in the 1870s, mostly to target certain racial groups, like the Chinese, black people and Hispanics. The very first anti-opium acts were directed at the Chinese immigrants. Then in the early 1900s, the first anti-cocaine laws were directed at black men in the south. In the 1910s and the 1920s, the first anti-marijuana acts were directed at the Mexican immigrants. It was not until the 1960s, that drug abuse started to rise among the “hippies” and returning soldiers from Vietnam.

To many, selling or using drugs equates to violence and brings harm to loved ones, children especially. These people want to completely get rid of drugs like heroin, cocaine, marijuana, etc. The War on Drugs started in 1971 by President Nixon and continues today with a growing presence of the Federal Drug Administration. Economists have proven the War on Drugs to have more unintended consequences than intended benefits, causing the government to take steps backwards in reducing drug use and distribution—unintended consequences, such as a supply-side drug war that gives incentives to dealers, denying consumers of their rights and better health conditions, and causing regular Americans and society to pay for it, while increasing crime rates altogether.