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It's people like you who don't understand the term "free republic". To someone like you, if big daddy government ain't on the job, nothing's gonna git done.

You, however, appear to be convinced that if the government doesn't step in and watch your kids, they'll be heroin junkies within the year, and no amount of parenting on your part can change that.

Mark Twain once said that there were three kinds of lies: Lies, damn lies and statistics. But as smart as he was, he missed one, the sort that you've offered here: Buffoonish lies.

Show me where I said anything in our conversation or even on this thread about the government needing to prevent kids from having access to "gateway drugs" so they wouldn't become addicts.

Well, perhaps that is the level of child neglect you're used to, but most caring parents would take steps to ensure that their child is not out boozing it up.

I disagree with you on a point of public policy, therefore I am a child abuser...do you actually believe you're making a rational argument at this point? And isn't the bud supposed to make people mellow?

In your case, we need to assign government agents to your children so that they will be properly supervised.

Yes, yes, having a law that prevents little Billy from buying a six pack at the Super Suds is exactly the same as assigning government agents to do our parenting for us. Thank goodness you came to offer stunning clarity on that. [Nods thoughtfully, puffs on a pipe even more thoughtfully]

BTW, are your kids home schooled?

Oh, however did this country survive the first one hundred and fifty years or so where there were no federal restrictions on cultivation or usage of any plant you could possibly sow?

I don't recall discussing pot with you before this post, except to mention the fact that pro-legalization folks can point to abuses by police. Can you point to any arrests?

How did we survive those dangerous days when people were free to make bad choices for themselves?

You mean like yesterday, today, last week...? I haven't seen anyone ban cigarettes yet, for instance. There's no federal Department of Making Sure You Don't Get Four Earrings, a Sports Car and a 25 Year Old Mistress During Your Mid-Life Crisis. And certainly no federal agent has arrived to prevent you from posting silly and libelous comments on the Internet.

According to panty-bunching folks like you, we'd all be dead in a year or so if big daddy government weren't enforcing restrictions on our personal behavior for our own good.

Hmmmm...again you have managed to detect thoughts and feelings that I neither expressed or even detected in my own head. Truly, you are some sort of paranormal wonder! [Puffs on pipe in an even more thoughtful and impressed manner]

Have you considered offering the CIA your services so you can read the minds of terrorists for them?

You're not from New Orleans, by any chance, are you?

Blimey, I never noticed before how the failure of New Orleans and Louisiana authroities to implement even the simplest disaster plans is exactly like having a drinking age. Truly, you have enlightened me today, and the most impressive part is how you're not blowing things out of proportion at all!

Oh, and that "blah, blah, blah" at the beginning of your post...very witty and insightful. Your gratuitous insult made your point all the more compelling, old bean.

Yes, yes, I'm sure you have just read my mind. Even though the thoughts I think about the nature and role of government have no resemblance to what you've written, I'm sure you know my mind better over an Internet connection than I do. And I'm sure, for instance, that the reason I'm on the Nanny State Ping List here at FR is so I can cheer on the Nanny State, even though I do the opposite. Truly, you have shown me my true self, O Great Prophet.

I can't read your mind. I can only go by what you have written here, and what you have written on this thread is essentially support for a nanny state. I honestly don't see how you can reconcile your alleged anti-nanny state beliefs with support for the War on Drugs. Isn't outlawing the ingestion of a substance in one's own home the ultimate in nanny-statism? How is that different from banning trans-fats or cigarettes? If, every time someone got high, somebody else, somewhere, dropped dead, I could understand outlawing drug use in the home, but the reality is that most people get high in their own homes, or drunk, and it affects nobody else but themselves. If they choose to run out in public and cause trouble afterwards, that is a different story, but we're talking about someone using or cultivating in their own home.

Most supporters of the War on Drugs cite various crime statistics, such as gangland murders, drug deals gone bad, etc. without realizing that outlawing drugs creates that crime, just as Prohibition created a windfall for the Mob, and thus increased gang crime. It has also encouraged Law Enforcement to escalate tactics to the point of becoming fully militarized, and tossing the Constitution (no-knock raids, pre-trial asset seizures, etc.). It has also turned otherwise good citizens into criminals. Why would good citizens violate drug laws? Because good citizens in the USA tend to think of themselves as free, and it is very difficult to see yourself as a free man when you let government tell you what you can eat, or smoke, or grow in your backyard. So, good citizens do that sort of thing anyway, in a sort of denial that our "free" society will attempt to jail them for it.

I would encourage everyone to stay drug and alcohol free for their entire lives, but I would never consider using the deadly power of the government to force that choice on people, because I do not believe it is the governments place to run people's lives for them. That is nanny-statism, a position which, despite your protestations, seems to be one that you embrace.