Written and published on 7 November 2016
Previously titled: On Making America Safe for Americans

• SAFETY AND LIFE-AND-LIMB HAZARDS IN UNREGULATED OCCUPATIONS
• PUBLIC SAFETY AND THE RECREATIONAL DRUG INDUSTRY
• THE REPEAL OF PROHIBITION: A GUIDEPOST TO POSITIVE SOCIAL CHANGE
• ANTICIPATED PAYBACK IN TERMS OF THE COMMON GOOD SHOULD WE LEGALIZE UNREGULATED INDUSTRIES

Dear Ones,

I posit that legalizing and taxing unregulated occupations would make America safe for all Americans …

SAFETY AND LIFE-AND-LIMB HAZARDS IN UNREGULATED OCCUPATIONS

Let us take a look at unregulated occupations …

• We have sex workers.
• Also those recreational drugs that are illegal.
• Also mafia activities, such as (per Wikipedia) “illegal gambling operations, loan sharking, extortion, protection rackets, drug trafficking, fencing, and labor racketeering through control of labor unions.” –from Link: “American Mafia,” in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Mafia … CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported License

For all these occupation, there are safety and life-and-limb hazards. There is flow-through for each of them, from the workers to those they serve, and to their families.

It is worth consideration that this feeling of being unsafe is contributing to the general feeling in America that we are not safe. Protecting workers in these unregulated occupations might help all of us to feel more safe, as …

• Physical conflicts inevitably occur when occupations are termed ‘illegal’, and
• ‘Acting out’ occurs when this onus of blame and judgment is laid upon the Souls of large swaths of our citizens.
• Very clearly,  labeling certain occupations as ‘illegal’ results in violence in our society, violence in the streets, loss of life amongst law enforcement, the volatile spread of STDs, including the HIV / AIDS pandemic, and so on.
• Let us take this leap of intuition: May it not be so, that improving the safety of those of our citizens involved in unregulated occupations might also redound to our benefit? Might it not help make America safe for all Americans?

PUBLIC SAFETY AND THE RECREATIONAL DRUG INDUSTRY

Illegal recreational drug dealers are a case in point. There is danger of drug overdose (through constant contact with these substances), and there is danger to life itself, either through overdosing (either accidental, or suicidal, or inflicted by others and made to appear accidental), or through the fatalities incidental to drug wars.

Drug wars cause casualties, both recoverable and fatal, amongst law enforcement and non-participating civilians as well.

If we remove the blame and judgment, and instead deal with the reality that there is an eager market for recreational drugs now labeled illegal, then we will have at hand many new possible solutions to the social issues we now face.

THE REPEAL OF PROHIBITION: A GUIDEPOST TO POSITIVE SOCIAL CHANGE

There is a legal and societal precedent in the repeal of laws prohibiting alcohol in 1933. The result was …

• An end to mafia violence with regard to the sale of liquor, and
• Increased revenues through taxation of alcohol sale, which revenue might be applied to positive societal goals

ANTICIPATED PAYBACK IN TERMS OF THE COMMON GOOD SHOULD WE LEGALIZE UNREGULATED INDUSTRIES

Clearly, this precedent may be applied in the case of sex workers, illegal drug dealers, and mafia activities. Results similar to those experienced in the repeal of prohibition laws might be anticipated …

• The spread of HIV / AIDS infection, and of other STDs, might be slowed. This would be of great positive benefit to our work force 20 years from now, as the number of HIV / AIDS-related fatalities among newborns might be less.
• The War on Drugs would come to an end. Gangs would not be involved in illegal activities.
• The scope of the War on Violence might be greatly diminished. Law enforcement fatalities would decrease, and law enforcement could become more involved in community education regarding the law and our rights and obligations as Americans.
• America could put the tax revenues from unregulated occupations to good use in the arenas of health care, education, other community services, and infrastructure improvements, and
• Small communities across the nation might also benefit by taxation of previously illegal activities, which tax they might apply to needs specific to their own locales.

In love, light and joy,
I Am of the Stars

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