Posted on 06/22/2011 5:21:01 PM PDT by hamboy
That's not for water.
The US manufacturers about 24,000,000 tons of beer per year. The US also manufacturers about 2,250,000 tons of wine per year. We are also the #4 wine producer in the world. We import 1 million tons or less of beer per year. We import (best I could tell) about 1/4 of the wine we consume which makes us the largest single country consumer of wine on Earth.
What that means is that if we have a 10% drop in beer consumption that is a greater amount of adult beverages than all the wine consumed in the country.
Distilled beverages are a different situation but I am assured on good authority that only a handful of people in this country anticipate drinking whiskey on the same scale as most others drink beer or wine (or both).
Shouldn't take you more than 10 minutes to find the same statistics (NOTE: Convert gallons to barrels, and barrels to tons)
“That’s not for water.”
:-)
A side effect of old age is impaired judgment. Should we ban old people, too?
Your initial point was that "sobriety doesn't guarantee good judgment." My response was that intoxication guarantees impaired judgment. Old age does not. Complications associated with old age, including strokes and Alzheimer's disease may impair judgment. I have known many people in their nineties with judgment I rate higher than your, based upon this small sample. I am all for banning strokes and Alzheimer's.
Children would have made for a better example.
Not really. I've had my share of hard knocks. But, I still try to keep a positive outlook on life.
Sounds to me like you're trying to convince yourself of that. If this were actually the case, you wouldn't need intoxicants to vacation from reality.
While Reagan did some good, he didn't walk on water. Sure, he cut taxes, but he also made a deal with the liberals on Congress to let them spend money like drunken sailors.
You're going to have to be more specific. Reagan did quite a few things that libertarians hate. Firing the air trafic controllers, for example. The war on drugs was a centerpiece of his presidency, and, again, a majority of conservatives approve of it.
Does it bother when your heroes, the drug warriors, bust down the door of the wrong house and shoot someone's grandmother?
I'd probably try to leave specific examples out of this debate, if I were you. Horrible, horrible crimes committed by drug users dwarf the few police miscues you can come up with. By an exponential factor. And you must be aware of this, right? Any mistake made by law enforcement is regrettable, but they wouldn't be made if people like yourself (and myself twenty years ago) obeyed even the laws we found inconvenient. Another difference between the prohibition of alcohol and the prohibition of drugs is the much smaller percentage of people who ignore the current law because they think its unjust.
If Jesus had lived during prohibition, you would have had him arrested for distribution of alcohol.
Religious ceremonies were exempt from prohibition. And if you actually read the NT, it's not like drinking wine was a major part of Christ's life. It appears at a wedding and the Last Supper. And that's about it.
Getting stoned is not the only reason to smoke pot, which is why many states have passed medical marijuana laws.
You're kidding, right? The fact that so-called "medical marijuana" is a ruse for states that want to flout federal drug laws is easily the worst kept secret in politics today. Even pro-drug libertarian advocates like John Stossel mock "medical marijuana." In fact, the AMA does not endorse the use of "medical marijuana" to treat any illness or condition. Why? Because real drugs are administered in known quantities, to regulate their effects on patients. There is no prescribed drug that is smoked. And "medical marijuana" is an especially poor treatment for cancer patients, because smoking marijuana weakens the immune system, and increases the risk of pulmonary infections. And THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, is available in pill form, under the name Marinol.
Today, in the cities and states where "medical marijuana' has been made legal, the other worst kept secret is that most patients seeking "medical marijuana" have nothing wrong with them. The right doctor will give you a prescription for just about any complaint. They should lose their licenses to practice medicine for taking a political statement that they know breaks their oath to avoid harming their patients. I have no problem with truly terminal cancer and AIDS patients seeking one last thrill, but, again, other drugs DO work better. Their primary motive remains to get stoned.
To repeat: Every time you suggest that non-addicted people use alcohol and marijuana the same way, you are being dishonest.
Actually, the "main page" doesn't list any specific political positions, just as the "main page" of the American Conservative Party does not. The homepage of FR states as its mission "champion[ing] causes which further conservatism in America." That would have to include keeping the drug laws, which has been a major policy of American Conservatism for forty years now. You have been wasting your time on FR for over ten years now. You and your kind would be better served by a libertarian website, where you could actually pick your candidate and rally behind him. That won't happen here. People here have strong feelings about RINO candidates like Mitt Romney. Libertarians like Ron Paul and Gary Johnson are complete afterthoughts who get completely ignored.
Actually, no. I have never identified myself as a libertarian here or elsewhere. You sound like much like liberals who believe they know everyone else better than they know themselves. Your views and definitions hold the same level of relevance as theirs in my opinion, which would be next to none.
You will notice I don’t post much, mainly because of “your kind”. You do conservatives and your causes no favors by behaving like an ass to folks who agree with 95% of your beliefs.
I get much use out of the latest articles page on a daily basis and will continue to do so. So no waste there.
I have not supported either of those candidates so you could say they have been ignored by me as well.
It would seem there a quite a few people who have been here on FR for a good many years who also do not agree with you.
Further, polling suggests a solid majority of Americans support medical marijuana, and over the last 40 years support for general legalization has increased fourfold. Only six state have a majority of people who identify themselves as conservative, which by your measure would mean a much lower percentage. It won’t be long before you are on the losing end of public opinion.
In short, you are more wrong than right and not just in this anti-libertarian rant.
Good luck in your little exclusive world.
And BTW, much of post 125 is outright lies and fabrication.
If that is all you have, you have lost already.
Liberty is evidently something you support only when squares with your narrow misinformed views.
Actually, the Feds - and most likely the State - have no place regulating or outlawing a plant that literally grows like a weed and which requires no processing.
The quickest way to cut the legs out from under the foreign drug cartels is to overturn the prohibition on marijuana use, possession and growth.
It would also be Constitutional.
As to your response: how do you react to those under the influence of alcohol who “bother” you.
How many of your employees have worked hung over or which of them might have vodka in their thermos or that supersized soda container?
There is no Constitutional justification for making laws about a plant or its use that does not entail processing or sale.
I came to this realization during the ‘90’s when I was trying to buy poppy seeds for my herbal garden. My grandmother had grown them and, as a doctor, I was trying to collect as many traditional medicinal plants as I could. I discovered that the FDA sometimes stopped these seeds in the mail and sometimes didn’t. In the mid-90’s, a lady was arrested for selling seeds from her flowers to other gardeners.
“How many of your employees have worked hung over or which of them might have vodka in their thermos or that supersized soda container?”
That wasn’t tolerated and they knew it so outside one that I caught that had gone out and had a beer for lunch and fired he was the only one.
If that is all you have, you have lost already.
Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not the one trying to "win" anything here. My position is the law of the land.
For future reference: If you're going to call someone a liar, it helps if you be specific.
True, most libertarians on this thread are either dishonest about their own philosophy, or ignorant of it.
A quick test then:
Do you support a defense of marriage amendment?
Do you still support the Iraq War?
Do you still support the Afghan War?
Do you support the Patriot Act?
Do you support legalized prostitution?
Do you support Meghan's Law (NJ) and similar sexual predator laws?
Do you accept the fact that no US government operatives had any involvement in 9/11?
Do you support a national ID card for immigrants?
Do you support a amendment protecting the American flag?
Did you support the "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military?
Do you believe it is a crime to harm a fetus while committing other crimes?
Are you pro life except in cases of rape and incest?
Do you oppose physician assisted suicide for the terminally ill? Do you support preferential trade agreements with some countries?
I could go on, but I think you're starting to get the point. Answer "no" to any two or three of these (in addition to your legalized drug stance), and you're starting to have a problem. Conservatives and libertarians have much in common. That's probably the basis of your little identity crisis. It's the differences that matter here. There is nothing wrong with being a libertarian. It's hanging out as a libertarian on a Conservative website that's the problem. And if legalized drugs is the only personal freedom issue that matters to you, then I hate to break it to you, but you are a loser. No wonder you use drugs to escape your own reality.
It would seem there a quite a few people who have been here on FR for a good many years who also do not agree with you.
Don't I know it. I'm not trying to change your minds here, so much as to accept the reality of who you really are, and what it is that you believe in. Then, if you're smart, you'll figure out for yourself that you don't belong here.
marijuana, and over the last 40 years support for general legalization has increased fourfold. Only six state have a majority of people who identify themselves as conservative, which by your measure would mean a much lower percentage. It won’t be long before you are on the losing end of public opinion.
Polls can be composed in many ways to get the desired outcome. I have yet to see a so-called "medical marijuana" poll that didn't favor legalization. The majority of those polled are ignorant of who ends up qualifying for legalized drugs. The relevant polling concerns the percentage of Americans who support legalizing marijuana in general, in that case, a solid majority remains in opposition. Drug activists have been using the "medical marijuana" ploy in attempt to gain ground in the political battle. Pro-abortion activists do the same thing with incest and the dreaded "back alley abortion." For gun control, it's assault weapons. In the states that have legalized it, "medical marijuana" is so abused that I predict the whole thing will eventually blow up in your faces. Again, the AMA recognizes no practical use for marijuana, but looks the other way for the terminally ill. "Medical marijuana" officially jumped the shark when Turtle on got a prescription for headaches on "Entourage." Meanwhile, even Amsterdam, the Holy City, has begun to see the error of its ways, and is strengthen its drug laws. Go right on thinking that the Conservative position is on the losing end of public opinion. People who need drugs are always their own worst enemies.
How? I get out the way ~ and if they do something, there are ways. Why, what do you do?
I did not imply that I do anything about people who bother me, you did in your post # 2.
Nevertheless, there is no Constitutional justification for Federal involvement in the issue of a substance that does not require manufacturing or processing. In fact, the Feds don’t truly have any business in regulating manufacturing and processing, either.
Which is some pretty serious ju-ju.
This is basic Ethics 101. (Remember, we are talking about what is truly a weed, and which can be picked up and used without any sort of processing.)
(Metaphor - My husband and I visited the Grand Canyon last week.) Ethically, I can ethically choose to walk close to the edge of the canyon, even where there were no railings, and still expect the government to forbid and/or to punish someone from pushing me over the edge.
The Declaration of Independence is really all the documentation that you need to understand that the purpose of government is to protect our inalienable rights from being infringed: to prevent others from killing, enslaving, or stealing. The Constitution and the Federalist Papers only support this philosophy, they don’t add to it. Government does not and cannot legitimately protect us from our bad choices, except when we are in danger of killing ourselves - and even then, government must err on the side of more liberty and less restrictions on personal freedom.
For instance, laws against suicide and laws that allow the government to lock up those they deem insane are tricky and should only be used in cases where there is a real danger. Remember the Soviet Union’s examples and some of those in our history. Laws that force the suicidal or those that the government in power deem “insane” to undergo shock therapy or forced drug therapy have proven less than helpful to the suicidal and subject to abuse by the government.
The FOUNDING FATHERS allowed dueling! Whatever they said in the Federalist Papers or elsewhere must be counseled by that fact.
Don’t be silly - the rights are for the individual. As I said, just read the second paragraph of the Declaration.
If a person chooses to use a substance that is not reasonably expected to kill or cause permanent harm, there is no reason for the government to interfere in his actions. There is no one else there to infringe his inalienable rights. There is no role for government in this case.
Your point about dueling actually underscores my case: government must be very careful when limiting the poor choices of individuals.
In the case of dueling, however, the government may legitimately step in to prevent each of the duelers from attempting to harm the other and may punish the causing of harm to another if either survives.
That includes dueling.
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