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Pot, Poker and Prohibitionism: Do Republicans Want To Be the Party of Unprincipled Killjoys?
Townhall.com ^ | April 16, 2014 | Jacob Sullum

Posted on 04/16/2014 8:57:26 AM PDT by Kaslin

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To: ckilmer
All law making is a moral activity. All laws are an expression of some underlying moral imperative.

They only work if the prevailing morality [such as it may be] supports them.

Once upon a time, there were laws against sodomy and adultery, because everyone -- or almost everyone -- supported them.

Morality cannot be legislated.

But to try and re-introduce such laws today would prove fruitless. Society, whether right or wrong, no longer supports them.

41 posted on 04/16/2014 5:03:50 PM PDT by BfloGuy ( Even the opponents of Socialism are dominated by socialist ideas.)
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To: BfloGuy

Morality cannot be legislated.

But to try and re-introduce such laws today would prove fruitless. Society, whether right or wrong, no longer supports them.
................
So does that mean that the pubbies should be ok with abortion.


42 posted on 04/16/2014 7:31:34 PM PDT by ckilmer
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To: snarkybob

Because doesn’t every child need a good nanny?
........
Not if they have been legally aborted.


43 posted on 04/16/2014 7:32:17 PM PDT by ckilmer
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To: ckilmer

“Not if they have been legally aborted.”

And that has exactly what to do with nanny laws about pot and online poker?


44 posted on 04/16/2014 7:38:48 PM PDT by snarkybob
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To: snarkybob

“Not if they have been legally aborted.”

And that has exactly what to do with nanny laws about pot and online poker?
............
You forgot to include nanny laws against prostitution and pedophilia.


45 posted on 04/16/2014 8:16:06 PM PDT by ckilmer
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To: ckilmer

“You forgot to include nanny laws against prostitution and pedophilia.”

No. This article was about pot and online poker.


46 posted on 04/16/2014 8:20:36 PM PDT by snarkybob
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To: snarkybob

“You forgot to include nanny laws against prostitution and pedophilia.”

No. This article was about pot and online poker.
..............
Maybe so but hey shouldn’t an old bugger have the right to his own boy while he’s smoking pot and playing online poker. And to be fair to straights —some guys will want to have their prostitute on their lap while they’re smoking pot and playing online poker. Now we’re talking multitasking. Of course some people will not be able to do all these things at the same time. Some people will only do them sequentially. Some people will want to pick and choose. People need choice you know. Oh heck I left out sheep and pigs. Sorry about that.


47 posted on 04/16/2014 8:50:20 PM PDT by ckilmer
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To: ckilmer

“Maybe so but hey shouldn’t an old bugger have the right to his own boy while he’s smoking pot and playing online poker. And to be fair to straights —some guys will want to have their prostitute on their lap while they’re smoking pot and playing online poker. Now we’re talking multitasking. Of course some people will not be able to do all these things at the same time. Some people will only do them sequentially. Some people will want to pick and choose. People need choice you know. Oh heck I left out sheep and pigs. Sorry about that.”

Your argument is a bit ridiculous. The thread article is about pot and online poker.
You support a nanny state so instead of commenting on the article you throw in bunch of things that nobody is talking about.
Sorry you had an issue with pot and/or poker. I never did.
I never was a habitual weed smoker or a habitual gambler.

I have had my share of beers though. Maybe the state should make those illegal again. You know, to protect me from myself.


48 posted on 04/16/2014 9:08:28 PM PDT by snarkybob
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To: snarkybob

Sorry you had an issue with pot and/or poker. I never did.
I never was a habitual weed smoker or a habitual gambler.

I have had my share of beers though.
....
I’ve been all three. Like a lot of people, I addict pretty easily. Now I don’t even have beer in the house.

Its a fine self discipline that some people have—that enables them to do a little bit of the bad stuff and then stop. Heck its a fine self discipline that some people have to stop eating when they’re full. But most people don’t have that. You can tell because of all the fat people wandering around.

No need to ban food or beer or even cigarettes, though people with too much sugar or alcohol in their blood fill the hospitals—even more so than those with cigarette blacked lungs.


49 posted on 04/16/2014 9:21:31 PM PDT by ckilmer
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To: ckilmer

“I’ve been all three. Like a lot of people, I addict pretty easily. Now I don’t even have beer in the house.

Its a fine self discipline that some people have—that enables them to do a little bit of the bad stuff and then stop. Heck its a fine self discipline that some people have to stop eating when they’re full. But most people don’t have that. You can tell because of all the fat people wandering around.
No need to ban food or beer or even cigarettes, though people with too much sugar or alcohol in their blood fill the hospitals—even more so than those with cigarette blacked lungs.”

I can’t take credit for the self discipline. It just never was an issue for me. I didn’t enjoy weed or gambling.

I just don’t think govt regulation and prohibition is any kind of a solution for overindulgence of things that are harmless in moderate amounts.


50 posted on 04/16/2014 9:26:17 PM PDT by snarkybob
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To: CitizenUSA

I agree. I believe it should be left to the states.


51 posted on 04/17/2014 3:51:19 AM PDT by jospehm20
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To: Abathar; Abcdefg; Abram; Abundy; albertp; Alexander Rubin; Allosaurs_r_us; amchugh; ...
Right now it's all just one big uniparty called 'STATISM' as far as I am concerned. Couple of months old article.


Libertarian ping! Click here to get added or here to be removed or post a message here!

52 posted on 06/14/2014 7:48:29 AM PDT by bamahead (Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master. -- Sallust)
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To: Kaslin

It doesn’t feel like tyranny if you agree with it.


53 posted on 06/14/2014 7:50:36 AM PDT by dead (I've got my eye out for Mullah Omar.)
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To: 1010RD
I believe in individual liberty, but don’t we have enough proof that permissive laws or legalization of what had once been immoral didn’t improve human life?

So you believe in individual liberty unless individuals take liberties you don't like.

Legal or illegal it still draws the same lost souls.

Exactly.

54 posted on 06/14/2014 7:53:02 AM PDT by dead (I've got my eye out for Mullah Omar.)
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To: Responsibility2nd

Exactly which part of the article is crap?

And why do you hate the 9th and 10th Amendments so much?


55 posted on 06/14/2014 8:04:59 AM PDT by Lurker (Violence is rarely the answer. But when it is it is the only answer.)
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To: ckilmer

“just a desire to keep not to make the same mistakes I did.”

And another nanny stare busy body liberal reveals himself.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience”. — C. S. Lewis


56 posted on 06/14/2014 8:09:03 AM PDT by Lurker (Violence is rarely the answer. But when it is it is the only answer.)
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To: Kaslin

Interesting topic, but even more so is the tone. As someone who’s sympathetic to the author’s points, the abrasiveness of his writing doesn’t convince me to join him. It pushes me away.


57 posted on 06/14/2014 8:12:39 AM PDT by FourPeas ("Maladjusted and wigging out is no way to go through life, son." -hg)
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To: bamahead

Thanks for the pings!


58 posted on 06/14/2014 8:16:45 AM PDT by Finny (Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. -- Psalm 119:105)
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To: ckilmer
Those days are lost to me.

Wrong. You have convinced yourself that those days are lost to you. Those days BELONG TO YOU AND ALWAYS WILL. You may have spent those days doing something regrettable, but they still belong to you and YOU and you alone must use the tools God gave you to deal with that reality.

My desire to keep the laws firmly set against pot smoking is just a desire for younger folk not to make the same mistakes I made.

And thereby DENY those younger folks their God-given right to LEARN from their mistakes as YOU did, and as I did, and as MILLIONS of us did. Look pal, SPEAK FOR YOURSELF. My struggles with drug addictions MADE ME STRONGER and CLOSER to God. It is MY job, not the Federal government's job and certainly not your job, to deal with temptation.

Just who in the hell are you to presume which trials and errors and lessons an individual should be able to undergo in life when it comes to giving in to or resisting temptation?

Comparing lack of Federal laws against pot and poker with Federal laws regarding homosexuality and polygamy, is comparing candy bars with pine trees. What government wants to do regarding homosexuality is to FORCE people to ACCOMODATE such pretend applications to "marriage." With pot and poker (I hate online gambling, by the way, absolutely despise it), no one is advocating using government to FORCE people to engage in it or even to accommodate it.

Look, if you want to whine and cry about the "lost days" of your youth, that's your problem, and I mean PROBLEM. It wasn't up to the Federal government to rescue you then, and it isn't up to the Federal government to rescue today's kids now. It is up to THEMSELVES, it always has been, and it always will be. With the Grace of God!

59 posted on 06/14/2014 8:43:25 AM PDT by Finny (Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. -- Psalm 119:105)
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To: ckilmer

I want ZERO of my tax dollars to go for enforcing “laws” which have NO Constitutional basis or legitimacy, and which turn our once-free Constitutional Republic into a nanny, jackbooted rule of man democracy. Please show me where, besides your burnt out mind, the authority for ANY of these nanny laws exists. (Quick hint: read the WHOLE founding documents including the Tenth Amendment and the DoI before responding). Statist laws such as you advocate are what started our slide into the mass we currently are in. If you want more of the same, INCLUDING more of Obummer, keep on this track.

By the way, that whole “consent of the governed” thing? That right there is your biggest stumbling block. NO ONE CAN CONSENT TO SUCH OUTRAGES AS ARE CREATED BY YOUR WAR ON DRUGS. They are clearly amongst the very sorts of things the Founders took up arms against, as an absolute violation of one of their dearest principles.


60 posted on 06/14/2014 7:03:07 PM PDT by dcwusmc (A FREE People have no sovereign save Almighty GOD!!! III OK We are EVERYWHERE!!!F)
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