But cigarettes don't cause people to kill people. People can smoke all they want, I don't care.
But in many, many, many cases... alcohol is much more destructive than either. Many alcohol-users drink and drive all the time, causing significant death and destruction.
But the rate of addiction is much higher for hard drugs. All my friends drink, none have killed anyone or been killed. A few of my friends have done drugs, most lost their jobs, one was killed by a dealer. A million people have similar stories as mine. I vote what I know and that's what I know.
But we do not penalize Alcohol users who stay at home, for the actions of those who drink and drive. We don't invade people's homes and smash bottles of Vodka; we punish those who actually drive while drunk.
Yep, because society has decided that alcohol isn't as dangerous as hard drugs.
Sure... but unless you think that it is your responsibility to slay the wicked for their Moral Vices, it is the first advent which is our Life-example as Christians.
No, not totally. In the first advent He was an example to teachers. Turn the other cheek only applies when ministering and you offend someone. We are not to let people treat us as He was treated. He was meant to be sacrificed, we aren't. We're allowed to stand up for ourselves.
You don't believe in breaking in someone's home to enforce the law. What if you lived in the middle of a city and a neighbor was keeping a hydrogen bomb in his garage and said he was going to set it off. Should the police be allowed to break in this person's home and get the bomb? A bomb holder's problem's wouldn't be confined to his home and I feel that too many drug user's problems spill out into the street. I vote accordingly. You feel drug users do a good job of keeping their problems to themselves and you can vote accordingly. We agree to disagree, don't we. I went through this exact same stuff in 1200 posts in two days a month ago and don't feel like going through it again. If you want to see everything I wrote, I'll direct you to those threads if I can find them. Only 1% of the population want to legalize hard drugs and so this argument isn't worth a lot of my time. You're not going to get your way anytime soon. And it's things like this that make me never want to be part of the Libertarian party nor want to be around them if they were to run their own state or nation. Sorry.
Your friend who was killed by a dealer... he wasn't gunned down in one of those notorious street battles between employees of Rite-Aid and Wal-Mart Pharmacy fighting over Viagra turf, was he? Didn't think so.
Not to be flippant with the memories of the dead, but realize this: Opium was legal (a dutied import, on the regular customs schedule) in the US until 1905 (shortly after Governments began pushing heroin as a "cure" for morphine addiction... oh, great). But legal Pharmacists are not widely known for shooting eachother, or customers, over "turf".
You know it. So... "vote what you know"?
You don't believe in breaking in someone's home to enforce the law. What if you lived in the middle of a city and a neighbor was keeping a hydrogen bomb in his garage and said he was going to set it off. Should the police be allowed to break in this person's home and get the bomb?
What if your neighbor owned a gun?
If he said he was going to shoot you, then the Cops should take an interest.
If he didn't, the cops shouldn't.
Now, of course, as concerns nuclear weapons... I believe that a man should have a sufficient "fence" around his property to contain negative externalities... which renders the "private possession of nuclear weapons" unjustifiable for anyone with less than, say, ten thousand square miles of barren desert at a minimum.
However, the Government doesn't necessarily see it that way. Libertarians have demonstrated this... at least one libertarian has previously declared his intent to build a neutron bomb in downtown New York City (just to see what the Government would do).
Guess what... The Government sent them instructions -- and tried to subsidize them.
I mean, forget the current hysteria on kids discovering something dangerous about the Bomb in public libraries or (today) the Internet; in 1979 in response to us, the government promptly sent us instructions.
I applied for and promptly received a DOD number from the Pentagon, endless invitations to Military Surplus auctions, all along with a packet of specifications stamped TOP SECRET in sinister candy striped boxes that, upon advice of my father, as a retired Pentagon and intelligence high official, I promptly and without opening got rid of in an incinerator.
There was thus also the call of collective service. I received materials computer-addressed to "Dear Mr. Neutron" urging me to sign up for tax breaks in some Byzantine pro-disadvantaged and illiterate-minority hiring scheme of the City that, I must confess, after diligent re-reading, I never really quite understood. "The City of New York… believe we can encourage deaf, dumb, blind, alcohol-, controlled substance- or motor-dishabilatated (?) people who may not have reading or numeric skills in [here I presume the computer filled in a blank in the form-letter] home neutron-bomb industry with this tax advantaged initiative."
Holy cow. And people like that writer make fun of Libertarians?
Who was I to disagree with the City Fathers of the Mightiest Metropolis on Earth, by virtue of the UN presence, the very capital of the planet? They wanted those "blind blind-drunks" and folks who were "usually OK as long as they took their medication" sitting there next to me, cheek by jowl, as we crafted home N-bombs like a South Manhattan Santa with his whacked-out elves.
As I circulated drafts of this article over several months for comment, a friend noted that the climate was indeed different — in a way.
Chico, California, had passed a law — not against owning a Nuclear Bomb, not against building one, but exploding one in city limits. The fine is set at $500.
Call them up. They are very proud of this law.
A bomb holder's problem's wouldn't be confined to his home and I feel that too many drug user's problems spill out into the street. I vote accordingly. You feel drug users do a good job of keeping their problems to themselves and you can vote accordingly. We agree to disagree, don't we. I went through this exact same stuff in 1200 posts in two days a month ago and don't feel like going through it again. If you want to see everything I wrote, I'll direct you to those threads if I can find them. Only 1% of the population want to legalize hard drugs and so this argument isn't worth a lot of my time. You're not going to get your way anytime soon. And it's things like this that make me never want to be part of the Libertarian party nor want to be around them if they were to run their own state or nation. Sorry.
Majority Vote does not define Truth.
Try as I might, I can't make myself see...
And if I as a Christian can't morally Pray for it...
...Then I as a Christian I can't morally Vote for it.
As always, JMHO. Best, OP