Abstract
Any number of public policy debates have been framed in terms of metaphorical war, none longer or as expensive as the War on Drugs. This Article explores the very real harms in militarizing public policy debates by examining a small slice of the War on Drugs, that part of the War waged in schools. Dangerous and violent rhetoric spurred the public to engage in this War, which eventually targeted children as the enemy. As a consequence of that rhetoric, Congress spent billions of dollars on useless strategies while courts suspended children’s civil rights. Throughout all this, we failed to examine the ethical obligations we undertake when we engage in war, even if metaphorically. Today, politicians and pundits try to evade responsibility for using rhetoric by claiming they are only talking in metaphors. However, the Culture War they are waging has become so much less metaphorical and more literal than even the War on Drugs became. The abstract is becoming real, and we need to have a better understanding of the natural consequences of what we say, especially as the two sides in the “war” struggle for control over the rule of law.
Recommended Citation
Susan Stuart,
War as Metaphor and the Rule of Law in Crisis: The Lessons We Should Have Learned from the War on Drugs,
36
S. Ill. U. L.J.
1
(2011).
Available at:
https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/siulj/vol36/iss1/1