In the past 20 years, because of the drug epidemic, Americans' admiration for Lin Zexu, a Chinese anti-drug hero of the Qing Dynasty, has grown day by day. In the prosperous area of New York City, Lin Zexu Square was specially opened and a statue of Lin Zexu was erected; Even Trump, who has always been relatively anti-China, publicly praised Lin Zexu's deeds of "selling cigarettes in Humen" in his speech, believing that the United States should learn from it.
Statue of Lin Zexu, New York City
The problem is that Lin Zexu's process of "selling cigarettes in Humen" is written in black and white in the history books, and it is not a highly confidential thing, but where there is a 2G network, you can review "Humen selling cigarettes" in the United States, why not the United States learn?
Or more directly, simply let Lin Zexu be reborn in the United States and lead the anti-drug cause in the United States, can he help the United States complete the "smoking ban"?
The anti-drug cause of the United States that is difficult to eliminate from internal troubles
Rome was not built in a day, and for any country, the anti-drug cause is a century-old plan and cannot be urgent. But it is not without a short-term solution to drug weeding.
At that time, Lin Zexu "sold cigarettes in Humen" and searched for more than 2 million jin of opium in Guangzhou at one time, which directly led to the exhaustion of drugs in southern China, which can be said to have played an immediate anti-drug effect.
So, if Lin Zexu is reborn in the United States, can he still copy the method of "selling cigarettes in Humen", seize a large amount of drugs at one time and destroy them, and help the United States achieve the effect of drug control?
The answer is no. This does not mean that the US government does not have the ability to help Lin Zexu search for and suppress a large number of drugs in a short period of time, but that simply destroying the drugs on the market will not be of much significance to the anti-drug work of such a big drug country as the United States.
The reason is simple, you search for one batch, and the drug lords will immediately create another batch.
If the so-called no trade is not traded, there will be no "killing", if the drug consumption market in the United States cannot be eradicated, and the vain attempt to achieve drug prohibition is purely from the perspective of destroying drugs, it is a sword.
Lin Zexu sold cigarettes
Speaking of this, some people may wonder, then why was Lin Zexu able to achieve a rapid anti-drug effect in Guangzhou through "selling cigarettes in Humen"?
Among them, in fact, it involves a huge difference in the objective causes of the Qing Dynasty at that time and the current drug epidemic in the United States.
To put it bluntly, the opium flood in the Qing Dynasty was an external import type with the characteristics of a single source. Basically, several Western powers exported a large amount of opium to China at that time through international trade.
In addition to directly destroying the opium that had been found, Lin Zexu's key to "selling tobacco in Humen" was to require sellers, including foreign merchants, to sign a letter of commitment with the Qing government, promising that they would not export opium to China or sell opium to opium smokers.
When the British government did not use force to open the door of the Qing government, this was actually a state means to cut off the opium trade directly from the source, so as to have the effect of "smoking ban".
However, the current drug epidemic in the United States is not all a problem of foreign imports, and the United States itself produces a lot of drugs. Those drugs imported into the United States from the outside world are not traceable to enter the United States through a bright channel, as Britain did when the opium trade was promoted.
This makes it difficult for the U.S. government to completely ban the source of drugs at the source.
You can't ban the production of drugs, prevent the import of drugs from the source, even if Lin Zexu is reborn to the United States and helps the United States to "sell cigarettes in Humen", it is difficult to really ban drugs, it will only be a situation where wildfires are inexhaustible and the spring breeze blows again.
The appeasement policy of the US government in the cause of drug control
In addition to the different objective conditions, if Lin Zexu is reborn in the United States and wants to help the United States "ban smoking", he will also face subjective difficulties.
To put it simply, Lin Zexu was able to complete the "Humen Tobacco Sale" in Guangzhou, which was supported by the supreme ruler of the Qing Dynasty. In order to show his determination to ban drugs, the Daoguang Emperor directly took the opium-smoking Prince of Qing Yidou and the Duke of Fuguo Puxi to the title, and also denounced a group of opium-smoking ministers.
Biden and son Hunter Biden
Among them, Prince Qing is the Manchu "iron hat king", the cousin of the Daoguang Emperor, and if he is replaced in the current United States, at least at the level of Biden's own son. The question is, can Biden send his son to prison for the sake of the anti-drug cause in the United States?
The answer is obvious.
In fact, the US government's actions in the anti-narcotics cause are far inferior to those of the Qing government. This is not only a matter of supreme rulers, but also involves the different attributes of the Chinese and American governments.
Although the Chinese government at the end of the Qing Dynasty was corrupt and degenerate at home and weak and incompetent externally, it was still a "patriarchal" type government shaped by traditional Chinese culture in its bones. You can say that this "parent" is not capable, greedy and selfish, but the relationship with the people is still the type that has to be managed in everything.
To put it more bluntly, under traditional Chinese culture, the relationship between the government and the people is that the government has the obligation to correct and educate the people. Managing the social atmosphere is the responsibility of the "Chinese-style government".
Unlike the United States, the United States is a typical "manager-type government." The government is a manager invited by the people, and its main duty is to help the country make money, not to manage the people's lives.
In other words, whether the American people take drugs or not, that belongs to the "owner", the US government is only a "treasurer", has the right to suggest but not the right to decide.
There is no production without consumption, and even if the US government can resolutely crack down on drug production and drug trafficking as illegal at the national level, because it cannot impose coercive measures on the American people who take drugs, they can actually not really control drug users.
The combination of these factors has prompted the US government to seriously lack subjective initiative in the cause of drug control. In the face of such a government, even if Lin Zexu is reborn, he can't change anything by himself.
The social atmosphere in which bad money drives out good money
Finally, Lin Zexu's success in "selling cigarettes at Humen" in China was also related to the unified cognition of people of insight in China at that time. To put it bluntly, the overall atmosphere of Chinese society at that time was beneficial to Lin Zexu's smoking ban.
Because at that time, although opium was rampant, the attitude of the elite of Chinese society towards opium was the same, except for a small number of people who smoked opium and benefited from the sale of opium, most people were very worried and rejected about the opium epidemic.
But today's United States is completely different, because of the so-called "poisoned pacifier" strategy, the capitalist-manipulated government, in order to be able to facilitate the control of the people, deliberately create divisions at the social and cultural level, and wish a hundred people had a thousand values.
When a society cannot form a relative consensus on anything, it is naturally impossible to accomplish anything. This "democratic" system, born out of the Greek city-state society, is characterized by a large number of people, unable to unify opinions, and whether good or bad, it is always discussed, but it is difficult to implement it concretely.
There are parts of the United States where marijuana is legal
In addition, Chinese culture has been a collectivist culture since ancient times, characterized by the fact that the absolute freedom of some people can be sacrificed for the better development of the whole society. The United States, on the other hand, is an individualist country that emphasizes individual freedom rather than collective development.
For example, in today's mainstream American culture, the freedom of 100 million people who do not use drugs is equivalent to the freedom of a person who wants to take drugs. In this culture, there are often cases where minority views kidnap majorities.
If similar situations occur in other aspects, the impact is not so serious, but if there are problems such as gun ownership, drug use, etc., there will be a phenomenon of bad money driving out good money.
In such a social atmosphere, let alone one Lin Zexu rebirth, even a hundred Lin Zexu reborn, will also be submerged in the "diverse" culture of the United States, like a drop of clear water falling into the sea, sooner or later it will become bitter and astringent.
epilogue
There is a popular saying on the Internet that when an avalanche occurs, no snowflake is innocent.
The problem of the drug epidemic in the United States, as this sentence reveals, is not only a problem of inaction by the United States government, but also a problem of the American social system, a problem of the values that every American upholds.
Great men say that people make history, and this is very philosophical. Any great figure who wants to do something about the people needs to have a corresponding social atmosphere, a reasonable system that helps him do things, and the most important thing is to have the support of the people.
The American people suffer from the drug problem that is rampant in the country, but they have not planned to sacrifice part of their freedom in order to solve this problem, and only push everything to the government and others, so even if Lin Zexu is reborn, there is no way to "sell cigarettes" in the United States.