Our emphasis here is based not only on the growing seriousness of drug-related crimes, but also on the belief that relieving our police and our courts from having to fight losing battles against drug use will enable their energies and facilities to be devoted more fully to combating other forms of crime.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that focusing on serious crimes can help law enforcement allocate their resources more effectively by de-emphasizing the war on drugs.
Milton Friedman emphasizes the importance of redirecting the focus of law enforcement from drug-related offenses, which he perceives as a losing battle, to more serious crimes. He argues that by alleviating the burden of failed drug policies on police and courts, these institutions can better address other criminal activities that pose a greater threat to society, thus enhancing overall public safety and justice.
In practice
In a speech about law reform, one could cite this quote to advocate for changes in drug legislation.
The economic miracle that has been the United States was not produced by socialized enterprises, by government-unon-industry cartels or by centralized economic planning. It was produced by private enterprises in a profit-and-loss system. And losses were at least as important in weeding out failures, as profits in fostering successes. Let government succor failures, and we shall be headed for stagnation and decline.
Universities exist to transmit knowledge and understanding of ideas and values to students not to provide entertainment for spectators or employment for athletes.
There is no place for government to prohibit consumers from buying products the effect of which will be to harm themselves.
There is one and only one social responsibility of business - to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.
The great danger to the consumer is the monopoly -whether private or governmental. His most effective protection is free competition at home and free trade throughout the world. The consumer is protected from being exploited by one seller by the existence of another seller from whom he can buy and who is eager to sell to him. Alternative sources of supply protect the consumer far more effectively than all the Ralph Naders of the world.
The strongest argument for free enterprise is that it prevents anybody from having too much power. Whether that person is a government official, a trade union official, or a business executive. If forces them to put up or shut up. They either have to deliver the goods, produce something that people are willing to pay for, are willing to buy, or else they have to go into a different business.
Even if torture works, what is the point of 'defending' America using a tactic that is a fundamental violation of what America ought to mean?
We are prone to see what lies behind our eyes, rather than what apprears before them.
Sitting here with one's knitting, one just sees the facts. -"The Blood-Stained Pavement
Western laziness consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so that there is no time at all to confront the real issues.
Goodness in words creates trust, goodness in thinking creates depth, goodness in giving creates love.
As long as habit and routine dictate the pattern of living, new dimensions of the soul will not emerge.
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