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DARE To Kill Families
...It's nothing new. DARE has always warred on the family, pitting kids against parents. Writes Diane Barnes in the Detroit News, "Children are asked to submit to DARE police officers sensitive written questionnaires that can easily refer to the kids' homes. And you might be surprised by a DARE lesson called 'The Three R's: Recognize, Resists, Report,' which encourages children to tell friends, teachers or police if they find drugs at home."

As I point out in my book, Bad Trip: How the War Against Drugs is Destroying America, drug arrests in a number of states have been tied directly to children ratting on parents. The reason is simple enough: DARE classes are taught by cops, who are duty-bound to follow up on tips from kids. The Wall Street Journal reported two Boston cases in which "children who had tipped police stepped out of their homes carrying DARE diplomas as police arrived to arrest their parents."

If we are keen enough to see them for what they are, we should be thankful for such horrifying news items. For all its destruction to families, the DARE program tips the hand of the drug-war establishment in one important regard: It brilliantly highlights the fact that the State will tolerate no competing authority. Its goals are absolute.

Writes Oxford Don C.S. Lewis in one of my favorite essays of his, "The modern State exists not to protect our rights but to do us good or make us good – anyway, to do something to us or make us something." We, in this scheme, have no right to make ourselves something or do things for ourselves unless our aims fit within those of State's, for as Lewis continues, "We are less their subjects than their wards, pupils, or domestic animals. There is nothing left of which we can say to them, 'Mind your own business.' Our whole lives are their business."

No uppity slaves will be tolerated. For the State, the province of our very will and desires are seen as under its jurisdiction. They only wait to be conquered – along with the other intermediary authorities that stymie the State's advance, which is why down through the years ambitious governments have warred on churches, businesses, communities, and families – precisely because it they will allow no other competing loyalties. It doesn't matter what the agenda is; the State wants total support and involvement from its subjects. Divided loyalties must be squashed, even if it means, in the case of the drug war, ratting on a parent or finking on a friend. The State's word is both law and final. And that means, however much you may love your mother, if you find a doobie in her drawer, you call the cops.

''Having teenagers feel comfortable talking about problems with police – you can't beat that," said Travers to the Globe. Translation: Replacing parents as the confidants of their children is key to the State's absolutist goals. The child must be taught to see his true loyalties in the camp of the police, not his parents. He must be taught to come to the police with any infraction of his parents', so the true object of his loyalties can mete out the proper punishments for nonsubmission to the goals of the State. ...