Posted on 02/25/2013 3:04:49 PM PST by Shout Bits
Last week, conservative Ann Coulter took a swipe at libertarians, calling them "pussies" for their stance on marijuana. Coulter's best qualities are her bluntness (get it?) and her willingness to fight. In her "pussies" comments, she argued that, since the US is a socialist welfare state, people's choices regarding their lifestyles are her business – hence MJ should be illegal. Coulter has a point; socialism turns strangers into family. However, her conclusion that statism and central control are warranted is an abandonment of principle.
Libertarians come in several flavors, and nearly equally from left and right backgrounds. The actual Libertarian Party is dominated by barely reformed hippies and ideologues, who put drug policy front and center. Most libertarians, however, do not belong to the LP. While libertarians like GOP Sen. Rand Paul do not support the war on drugs, that issue is just an example in the spectrum of Constitutional abuses and overreaches by today's government. Perhaps coincidentally, the Tea Party has embraced much of the constitutional libertarian platform of confining government to its enumerated powers.
When conservatives complain about the cost of providing services to immigrants and their children, libertarians blame welfare, not immigration. When conservatives like Coulter complain about the harm drugs do (never mind tobacco and booze), libertarians blame socialized medicine, not drugs. Perhaps Coulter is being pragmatic by acknowledging the US socialist family, but she is conceding this generation's key battle and even the soul of the US by doing so.
Socialists refer to their subjects as family much as dictators refer to their subjects as their children. Under collectivism, the consequences of an individual's bad choices (e.g. smoking, or drinking, or irresponsible debt) are borne by everyone. This creates what economists call a moral hazard. By mitigating the negative consequences of bad behavior, the deterrent is minimized. Why not borrow too much when the government will always bail me out? Why not smoke crack when food, shelter, and health care are available no matter how worthless drugs make me? Of course the government might outlaw crack, but the criminal deterrent has proven to be less effective than the personal ruin deterrent. The best policy regarding vices is for people to live with their decisions' consequences, but socialism is a family where consequences are limited.
Coulter is a big sister who thinks MJ should be illegal so she does not have to pay for whatever negative consequences its users might incur. However, the socialist family is not one which libertarians wish to join. Banning drugs is ineffective at best, and the consequence of proscription might actually be more drug use based on decades' long trends. Libertarians are not in favor of MJ, they are opposed to substituting personal responsibility for the socialist family. Liberals just like MJ for policy reasons. While MJ is a popular example and a clear policy argument, the issue is only an example of why the government should not be the master of a socialist family.
Still, Coulter has a point. The US is a socialist welfare state, and she is forced to be responsible for the bad choices of others. She is not wrong to expect good behavior from her wards. Perhaps Coulter has illuminated the key difference between conservatives and libertarians – Coulter is willing to be a member of today's deeply flawed US socialist family, while libertarians are still willing to fight. As such a famous fighter, Ms. Coulter should try harder and expect a little more.
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I’m just not going to waste my time arguing about it. I’ll continue to vote against legalization but I’m not going to get entangled in an argument about it while the nation collapses around us.
Still, Coulter has a point. The US is a socialist welfare state, and she is forced to be responsible for the bad choices of others. She is not wrong to expect good behavior from her wards. Perhaps Coulter has illuminated the key difference between conservatives and libertarians – Coulter is willing to be a member of today’s deeply flawed US socialist family, while libertarians are still willing to fight. As such a famous fighter, Ms. Coulter should try harder and expect a little more.
Ann said if we did not have a welfare state, she could care less about drug legalization. Liberaltarians ought to exit na na nu nu land and think for a change. They are liberals, mile wide, inch deep - full of utopian, mindless slogans which lead right into Marxists’ hands - ruin and dependence.
Morality, as everyone should know, cannot be legislated.
I'll quibble a bit to see what you think. You are right as far as it goes, because the proper dynamic is the reverse. Law rests upon a moral foundation that must exist prior to law.
Law which is not rooted in morality is not respected as law (Natural Law philosophers will say that law not rooted in morality or consistent with it is not law at all). In the absence of that foundation what we think of as "rule of law" doesn't exist, you have only raw exercise of power.
Freedom also cannot be legislated. The will and capacity to govern oneself exists prior to the laws that codify it. That will and capacity rests upon the same moral foundation as the rule of law and liberty itself. They rise naturally from it.
Freedom and Liberty do not ‘cost’ anyone. Cost is only associated with a Socialist State (community over the individual).
I think I know what you mean, and I don't think that is my argument. Freedom does cost of course, it requires that we willingly assume the cost of our own decisions. Once people are no longer willing (in general) they will demand an intrusive state.
You CAN build a Free country containing those unwilling/unable to govern themselves. We have had it and will always have them.
I agree. Freedom does require as a prerequisite a generally moral people. It doesn't require that everyone be moral or share the same moral views, but it does require a critical mass of people who generally are willing, able, and insistent on governing themselves, willing to pay the cost of their decisions, and it requires a certain level of trust of your neighbor. A few bad eggs (even a lot of bad eggs) can be dealt with by cops or neighbors with a rope.
The problem is when you pass the tipping point where the moral capacity for self-government is no longer general.
I'll repeat what I said earlier. You can safely legalize (or decriminalize) drug use as long as its use is marginalized to a distinct minority and there is sufficient public disapproval to keep it marginal. Once Madison Avenue gets involved, all bets are off. It is possible to have a free republic in which drug use is legal but rare. It is not possible to sustain freedom if drug use ever becomes accepted and mainstream.
For the same reason, making my culture more dangerous, I also reject gay marriage.
(As a Christian, I reject gay marriage also, of course, because God rejects homosexuality.)
Some issues are more important than others but anyone who thinks they can harass me into joining their fight on either side of the marijuana issue is wasting their time.
Well reasoned, well stated.
....sounds about right....not every person can die on every hill....and this is not one I want to die on either.
'Tricks' are the men who pay. Whores are the working women Slim spoke of.
Every one of us in a myriad of ways suffer the consequences of alcoholics. In almost a century we’ve had a war on drugs. What has it achieved? what is it’s standard of failure?
I agree about pot vs. alcohol. But I disagree on the power of the people to render things uncool. The same thing should be done with alcohol. It is considered such a great thing to drink a lot, even to be drunk. Something to boast about and tell stories about. Someday it will be like smoking. Or snuff, if you want to go back further.
When artists in the twenty-second century want to draw people in the twenty-first century, they will show them wearing glasses, walking dogs, drinking, and smoking.
Like!
Yeah they're telling us to surrender the Social Issues but offer no solution when gays are indoctrinating children in schools, when gays sue businesses for not creating a marriage cake for them or when billions of taxpayer dollars go to fund Planned 'KKK' Parenthood
Agreed.
Apparently you are not listening:
Libertarians support school choice or no government involvement at all. Parents can choose schools that support their values.
Libertarians support the right to free and voluntary association. If someone does not wish to do business with someone else, the government has no particular say. BTW the cake thing is an extreme example setting no precedent.
Libertarians are certainly against government PP funding.
Do you even know what libertarians advocate?
So as a person of principle you also support a return to alcohol Prohibition - correct?
See, taking taxpayers' money to give to other people is bad - but taking taxpayers' money to imprison other people for smoking unapproved plant material is good. Understand now?
No, as a person who did drug/alcohol counseling for years, I would (1) point out the differences between pot and alcohol, and (2) point out that alcohol is under legal controls.
As for point #1, there is a known blood/alcohol parameter beyond which people are driving impaired. With pot, the active ingredient is used to “get high”, and that is the first effect of the substance. IOW, “high” is driving impaired, whereas a single social drink about every 1.5 hours or so does not approach impairment at all.
So, we’re talking about real information about differences between the two. If there were a joint that could be smoked that did not get the person high, and they could then drive unimpaired, then I’d view alcohol and marijuana the same. I suspect, however, that if someone were selling pot that couldn’t get you close to high after one joint that that wouldn’t be very popular pot.
I don’t know your state, but in mine there must be a license to sell alcohol, hard alcohol can be sold only in state stores, there is an age limit for use, and the books are full of driving and behavior penalties for impairment by alcohol and illegal sales of alcohol.
I actually like most of what Libertarians stand for unfortunately there are too many Leftists who would impose their will on critics if Libertarians got elected power. That is what is troubling.
So as a person of principle you also support a return to alcohol Prohibition - correct?
No, as a person who did drug/alcohol counseling for years, I would (1) point out the differences between pot and alcohol, and (2) point out that alcohol is under legal controls.
As for point #1, there is a known blood/alcohol parameter beyond which people are driving impaired. With pot, the active ingredient is used to “get high”, and that is the first effect of the substance. IOW, “high” is driving impaired, whereas a single social drink about every 1.5 hours or so does not approach impairment at all.
That's not a difference in the substances but in their current typical patterns of use. When alcohol was illegal its active ingredient was used to “get high” - nobody went to a speakeasy to have a single social drink about every 1.5 hours or so.
And until a evidence-based limit on cannabinoid impairment can be established I'd be fine with a no-driving-with-any-pot-in-the-system law.
If there were a joint that could be smoked that did not get the person high, and they could then drive unimpaired, then I’d view alcohol and marijuana the same.
Who says a joint is the minimum dosage of marijuana? Educate yourself: https://www.google.com/search?q=one-hitter+pipe.
I don’t know your state, but in mine there must be a license to sell alcohol, hard alcohol can be sold only in state stores, there is an age limit for use, and the books are full of driving and behavior penalties for impairment by alcohol and illegal sales of alcohol.
I support and would expect similar regulations on legal marijuana (except for the state stores - go free market).
How exactly would Leftists do that?
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