Libertarian Movie?

Writes Matt Robare: “I just got back from American Gangster, Denzel Washington’s new movie based on the life of North Carolina-born Harlem drug lord Frank Lucas. The basic premise is NYC in the late 60’s, early 70’s: New York’s DEA controls the city’s heroin market by confiscating it from dealers and junkies and then selling it back to the mafia after cutting it. Lucas, taking inspiration from superstores that cut out the middlemen and buy directly from the manufacturers, begins buying pure heroin from a Kuomintang remnant in South East Asia and smuggling it into the US via the military. He later describes what he’s doing thusly: ‘I sell a product that’s better than the competition’s for cheaper than the competition’ and becomes the most successful Gangster in NYC. It’s a wonderfully made movie.

“During the previews there was ad for Charlie Wilson’s War about the Texas congressman who started supplying Afghan fighters with weapons and training to fight the Soviets–in other words, the man who created Osama bin Laden!”

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10:18 pm on November 12, 2007