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Obama Interviews David Simon? The Drug War Gets Weird

One of the strangest videos I’ve seen in years consists of Barack Obama (yes, that guy) interviewing David Simon, the creator of the epic television series The Wire.

The Wire, which aspires to a realistic presentation of Baltimore street life, is a devastating expose of the failure of the drug war, public schools, the welfare state, and punitive policing as a means of social uplift. The series pictures a level of ineffectiveness and corruption that overwhelms the viewer with a realization: the government is the number one barrier to turning this violent wasteland into a civilized world.

The viewer is gradually led to realize that our old views of who the good guys and bad guys are not only wrong; they might actually be inverted. We come away with some admiration for the victims of law enforcement, and a great deal of disgust for the people who run the regime that victimizes them.

Whatever the creator’s intention, you would have to be blind to not see it as an indictment of 50 years of failed policy.

Why did Obama interview the creator? The president says that he likes the show. “I think it’s one of the greatest not just television shows, but pieces of art, in the last couple of decades,” he says. “I was a huge fan of it.” Further, Obama explains that he wants Simon’s view on what should be done.

Simon does his best to suggest decriminalization of drugs and less reliance on jails and courts, though he is clearly pulling back a bit on his views given that he is being interviewed by the president.

The strangest bit of this interview is how Barack positions himself not as a proponent of these failed policies, or even as the actual president of the United States that is supposedly in charge of enforcing them, but rather as some kind of intellectual impresario who is attending to a national conversation about drugs, crime, and poverty.

Obama doesn’t come right out and say it but his language and approach seem designed to suggest his strong sympathy with decriminalization. He condemns “this massive trend towards incarceration, even of non-violent drug offenders…. And the challenge which you depict in your show is, folks going in at great expense to the state, many times trained to become more hardened criminals while in prison, come out and are basically unemployable. And end up looping back in.”

Obama even uses the word libertarian:

There is an increasing realization on the left but also on the right, politically, that what we’re doing is counterproductive, either from a libertarian perspective, the way we treat nonviolent drug crimes is problematic, and from a fiscal perspective is breaking the bank. You end up spending so much more on prison than you would with these kids being in school or even going to college that it’s counterproductive, and it means everyone’s taxes are going up, or at least services that everybody uses are being squeezed, or we can’t hire cops to deal with violent crime as you talked about. But we’re all responsible for at least finding a solution to this, and the encouraging thing is I think awareness is increasing.

He concludes his interview with the strongest hints of the need for a massive policy change. “If we can start down this path to a more productive way of thinking about drugs and its intersection with law enforcement, twenty years from now we can say to ourselves: ‘well, maybe we got a little smarter.’”

What is going on here? It’s probably correct to see this interview as brilliant politics. Obama comes across as hip, connected to pop culture, intellectually broad and considerate, and open to ideas from all sides. With his hinting in the direction of decriminalization, he gives hope to legions of supporters. He also manages to exculpate himself, to some extent, from the ghastly results of the very policies he has overseen and vastly expanded during his six years of being the most powerful person on earth. This is brazen but it is also smart.

What is the broader significance? An interview like this — one that signals a much-needed shift in drug and prison policy — would have been inconceivable a decade or two ago. It’s unimaginable that Reagan or the Bushes would have interviewed the creator of a show that condemns the drug war.

But these days, the failure of the status quo has become overwhelmingly obvious at all levels in society. The ruling class has pushed police state tactics as far as they can go, and they have backfired with a stunning ferocity. And this is why we see the ongoing wave of change taking place at the state and local level, toward decriminalization of marijuana and a more therapeutic approach to the problems of drug abuse.

Popular culture is helping to push the trend. It is revealing torrents of anomalies in the dominant policies and making it impossible not to consider alternatives. The shift is so irresistible that even the president of the United States finds it in his interest to distance himself from his own policies. This is why it doesn’t really matter whether Obama’s interview with Simon reveals the White House’s political cynicism. The signaling here is suggestive of a dramatic turn in public life, away from state escalation toward a more rational approach.

The Wire is only one of many pieces of pop culture that indict the drug war police state. One of my favorite is “Orange Is the New Black” on Netflix. Season three is on the way, and seems to be growing in popularity. Here is my review of Season 1 and also Season 2.

The message here is that people do not lose their humanity when they go to prison. Prisoners still have aspirations, feelings, emotional needs, particular tastes, brains, and souls. What this means, in the end, is that they cannot finally be controlled. There are constraints, enforced by coercion, as with any aspect of life. People both in and out of prison face that. And what do people do? They form a society. They figure out ways to trade. They assemble based on human volition, tribe, interest. They work the system. They make the system work for them.

Most significantly, the enforcers within the system have long stopped believing that what they are doing is good, productive, and workable. That’s the ultimate sign of decay, and the sign that something else can rise up and take its place. The ground is indeed shifting beneath our feet.

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Free the People publishes opinion-based articles from contributing writers. The opinions and ideas expressed do not always reflect the opinions and ideas that Free the People endorses. We believe in free speech, and in providing a platform for open dialog. Feel free to leave a comment!

Jeffrey A. Tucker

Jeffrey A. Tucker is Founder and President of the Brownstone Institute. He is also Senior Economics Columnist for Epoch Times, author of 10 books, including Liberty or Lockdown, and thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press. He speaks widely on topics of economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture.

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16 comments

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  • It’s hard not to be cynical after seeing this interview, but I agree that it is brilliant politics. When I was working on my blog piece (http://superfluouswoman.liberty.me/2015/01/30/on-making-low-people-interesting-the-wire-gets-it-right/) on “The Wire,” I saw an interview where David Simon was quoted as saying he was a Marxist. It would actually be interesting to hear how his views on government have evolved. In listening to Simon talk about the effects of prison on the families of the imprisoned drug warriors, I was reminded of Anne Applebaum’s “Gulag,” which describes even more wrenching dysfunction imposed on a Soviet empire that imprisoned and killed tens of millions of its own.

  • It’s hard not to be cynical after seeing this interview, but I agree that it is brilliant politics. When I was working on my blog piece (http://superfluouswoman.liberty.me/2015/01/30/on-making-low-people-interesting-the-wire-gets-it-right/) on “The Wire,” I saw an interview where David Simon was quoted as saying he was a Marxist. It would actually be interesting to hear how his views on government have evolved. In listening to Simon talk about the effects of prison on the families of the imprisoned drug warriors, I was reminded of Anne Applebaum’s “Gulag,” which describes even more wrenching dysfunction imposed on a Soviet empire that imprisoned and killed tens of millions of its own.

  • I agree with the thrust of your essay that the drug war, prison industry, and police state systems are horrid. Of course, I think any reasoned examination of Obama’s campaign donors for 2008 and 2012 reveals extensive funding from the prison industry. These policies are abusive, violent, and degrading, not only to those targetted by them, but also by those operating them at the mine face. However, I don’t think these policies are broken. Creating an underclass that cannot get normal jobs has been an outcome. I believe the people with meaningful power wanted that outcome and established these policies to gain it.

    Certainly the history of police systems, including the original London metropolitan police of the early 19th Century, and the history of the drug war including the original treaties the USA ratified in the 1920s reveals a broad thread of racism, elitism, sexism, and a desire to dominate and subjugate other people. I don’t think the system is broken, Jeffrey. The system wants the results it is producing and it is prepared to continue backing these tactics to obtain those results.

    People will be free, in whatever circumstances they find themselves, to the extent they can arrange it. Which is, frankly, why we built the SilentVault system.

  • I agree with the thrust of your essay that the drug war, prison industry, and police state systems are horrid. Of course, I think any reasoned examination of Obama’s campaign donors for 2008 and 2012 reveals extensive funding from the prison industry. These policies are abusive, violent, and degrading, not only to those targetted by them, but also by those operating them at the mine face. However, I don’t think these policies are broken. Creating an underclass that cannot get normal jobs has been an outcome. I believe the people with meaningful power wanted that outcome and established these policies to gain it.

    Certainly the history of police systems, including the original London metropolitan police of the early 19th Century, and the history of the drug war including the original treaties the USA ratified in the 1920s reveals a broad thread of racism, elitism, sexism, and a desire to dominate and subjugate other people. I don’t think the system is broken, Jeffrey. The system wants the results it is producing and it is prepared to continue backing these tactics to obtain those results.

    People will be free, in whatever circumstances they find themselves, to the extent they can arrange it. Which is, frankly, why we built the SilentVault system.

  • Love your article, love ‘The Wire’, and agree with your analysis of what the show presents. Just COULDN’T watch the interview, though. I can’t listen to the POTUS for more than a minute. Just the cadence of his speech makes me ill after these 6 years.

  • Love your article, love ‘The Wire’, and agree with your analysis of what the show presents. Just COULDN’T watch the interview, though. I can’t listen to the POTUS for more than a minute. Just the cadence of his speech makes me ill after these 6 years.

  • @jeffreytucker This interview is almost copy paste from Atlas Shrugged. I think it’s Mr Thomson who is the leader, and he is willing to consider any idea to keep the system going, including discussing with John Galt and Dagny Taggart.

    Don’t be fooled. This guy lives by being a con, well spoken but dishonest in action.

    Get out while you still can.

  • @jeffreytucker This interview is almost copy paste from Atlas Shrugged. I think it’s Mr Thomson who is the leader, and he is willing to consider any idea to keep the system going, including discussing with John Galt and Dagny Taggart.

    Don’t be fooled. This guy lives by being a con, well spoken but dishonest in action.

    Get out while you still can.

  • I still hope Obama is diagnosed with an extraordinarily painful, though rapidly progressing, cancer of some kind. Even if he went perfect libertarian from here until then, that would be a far more charitable future than he deserves, given how many lives he has destroyed.

  • I still hope Obama is diagnosed with an extraordinarily painful, though rapidly progressing, cancer of some kind. Even if he went perfect libertarian from here until then, that would be a far more charitable future than he deserves, given how many lives he has destroyed.

  • When George Soros started backing the “Drug Policy Alliance”, I figured it was time to start paying more attention to people like Jan Irvin, who have been pointing out that “psychedelic” (“mind-change”) drugs would be more appropriately called “suggestible” because they open one’s mind to suggestions from external sources. People “trip” in the way they expect to trip. It is truly a journey deeper into the self, whatever that self is.

    I suspect this interview is part of an effort to ease the shift being made by TPTB from forcing people to be compliant to warming them (ala the frog in the pot) to be compliant. Plato even suggested that substances be ingested by the masses to make them more compliant to the designs of their philosopher kings. And I think that was actually going on with the “Eleusinian Mysteries”. Wikipedia describes thus: “At some point, initiates had to down a special drink of barley and pennyroyal, called kykeon, which has led to speculation about its chemicals perhaps having psychotropic effects.”

    We are too aware, now, with this Internet thing and all these cell phones and online forums, for the brutality of a police state. We need to be drugged for them to proceed, and so they have to end their drug war, and having Obama interview Simon is a great ploy to ease into that.

    You may have noticed the tendency of schools to recommend drugs for children who are more natural than the stilted “good schoolboy” who sits still and parrots back whatever facts he is told are true, and learns eventually to rationalize them. Just as they rely on parents to make their “unruly” children take drugs, and on us to keep ourselves in financial prisons (see losthorizons.com and the difficulty of spreading the truths on display there), they will now turn to us, their victims, to keep ourselves drugged as well.

    Still, their hubris will end them, someday… maybe while I’m still alive. That would be so cool!

  • When George Soros started backing the “Drug Policy Alliance”, I figured it was time to start paying more attention to people like Jan Irvin, who have been pointing out that “psychedelic” (“mind-change”) drugs would be more appropriately called “suggestible” because they open one’s mind to suggestions from external sources. People “trip” in the way they expect to trip. It is truly a journey deeper into the self, whatever that self is.

    I suspect this interview is part of an effort to ease the shift being made by TPTB from forcing people to be compliant to warming them (ala the frog in the pot) to be compliant. Plato even suggested that substances be ingested by the masses to make them more compliant to the designs of their philosopher kings. And I think that was actually going on with the “Eleusinian Mysteries”. Wikipedia describes thus: “At some point, initiates had to down a special drink of barley and pennyroyal, called kykeon, which has led to speculation about its chemicals perhaps having psychotropic effects.”

    We are too aware, now, with this Internet thing and all these cell phones and online forums, for the brutality of a police state. We need to be drugged for them to proceed, and so they have to end their drug war, and having Obama interview Simon is a great ploy to ease into that.

    You may have noticed the tendency of schools to recommend drugs for children who are more natural than the stilted “good schoolboy” who sits still and parrots back whatever facts he is told are true, and learns eventually to rationalize them. Just as they rely on parents to make their “unruly” children take drugs, and on us to keep ourselves in financial prisons (see losthorizons.com and the difficulty of spreading the truths on display there), they will now turn to us, their victims, to keep ourselves drugged as well.

    Still, their hubris will end them, someday… maybe while I’m still alive. That would be so cool!

  • Particularly in his last and longest comment (dissertation), I had the distinct feeling Obama was stringing words together from an approved list, words he knows from experience sound good to ignorant people and to his progressive constituents, but which are meaningless and can’t possibly get him in trouble. I’m sure in this interview and other speeches he gives he doesn’t even listen to himself, hardly even knows what he is saying. He just spews what he knows government dependents want to here. It is his minions’ pablum. He may use a computerized word generator to write his script for encounters such as this. Perhaps that is why David Simon towards the end of the interview is at a loss for words himself and can do no more than nod his head and blink.

  • Particularly in his last and longest comment (dissertation), I had the distinct feeling Obama was stringing words together from an approved list, words he knows from experience sound good to ignorant people and to his progressive constituents, but which are meaningless and can’t possibly get him in trouble. I’m sure in this interview and other speeches he gives he doesn’t even listen to himself, hardly even knows what he is saying. He just spews what he knows government dependents want to here. It is his minions’ pablum. He may use a computerized word generator to write his script for encounters such as this. Perhaps that is why David Simon towards the end of the interview is at a loss for words himself and can do no more than nod his head and blink.

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