Posted on 02/28/2003 10:03:14 AM PST by libertylady
I have recently noticed that the home page of Free Republic no longer has the icon at the top which states that one of the goals of this website is protecting our freedom and our Constitution. Can anyone help me shed some light on this? I would hope that this is a temporary change and not an official declaration made by the staff of this website. With the lack of articles and lack of alarm posted on this website about the Draconian Patriot 1 and Patriot Act 2 I have began to wonder about whether this site really does support the Constitution.
Gore lost. Deal with it.
Y'all do a great job running this forum. Thanks.
Which is why we need 60 in '04. :-)
Reality is that the existing laws don't exist to provide for a utopia, they exist to protect the populace against the damage done by users and abusers because we know the effects that this crap has on family and community. And it isn't that NO ONE follows the law, it's that people who think themselves above the law don't follow it. Not as high sounding now - is it. I don't need to go to absurd extremes and manipulations of the truth in order to make the case against legalization. You guys have to beg extremes and paint us pictures of jackbooted thugs. Sorry, we already have jackbooted thug pictures - they are largely of the dope smoking and peddling type arrested in large raids.
Seat belt laws we can agree upon. They're moronic and misguided because seatbelt use is a 50/50 proposition. It however is in no way comparable to antidrug laws. And it's dishonest to compare them.
I'd be happier to see spending reduced, government programs cut, Congress living within its means but, after all, we are gearing up for war (maybe two or three) and that's normally going to mean deficit spending - happens for every war.
At least Bush is trying to do this while cutting taxes. If the Democrats you are so willing to cede power to were in control, they'd be holding the military spending to Clintonian levels and pushing for a tax INCREASE.
The "no difference" cry of the third-partyites has been thoroughly debunked. There IS a difference between how Republicans govern and how Democrats govern and it is worth making sure Democrats don't return to power. That sometimes means compromising to hold the majority.
I don't like it any better than you do but I'm not willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Didn't you learn anything from eight years of Clinton? Do you want them back?
Sorry, I don't have talking points and don't need them. I have a brain that I bother to use and put to good use. And instead of chasing the same bad argument around the track again, I should tell you to go read what I've said again. Your problem isn't that drug use and abuse doesn't harm people and should therefore be allowed. Your problem is that drug abuse DOES harm the people around the user extending to the community level and therefore has been made illegal. TRY BEING HONEST FOR ONCE.
I say that because you actually claimed drunks don't get arrested for drunk driving, but marijuana users get arrested for alcohol intoxication and claimed "potheads" are violent, while drunks are not.
Excuse me sir, but, you are a liar. I did no such thing. I stated that EVERYONE that I personally have known to be arrested for drunk driving was NOT an alcoholic but was rather a DRUG user. Everyone. From people I worked with in the packing house years ago, to people I worked with in retail, to friends and associates. I've not known one single person arrested for dui that was not a pot smoker or abuser of another substance; but, not one of them an alcoholic - not one. Not even close. If you want to sit and lie, you need the ability to rewrite what I said, cause it's right there in the thread for everyone to go back and read - which you didn't bother to do in the first place evidently. And probably because what I actually said gives you no ground for your agenda in argument..
That's why we have stiff laws against public intoxication, drunk driving,
We have pi laws to keep people from walking into traffic, from getting rowdy and causing public uproars because they're drunk and out of control. We have PI laws because people don't wish to be burdened by idiots who are not in control of their full faculties and end up being an imposition upon us all. DUI laws were passed to try to save lives. You guys can't be honest for 10 seconds, can you. Anti-smoking laws came about because Democrats wanted to defund republicans - plain and simple. And they demonized tobacco growers, processors and users to get that done. Republicans allowed it to happen because public perception was that they "didn't care". Again, truth escapes you. Cigarettes have less than a 10% chance of causing cancer - which doesn't meet the threshold scientifically to blame smoking for cancer. But that fact was steamrolled by democrats and liberal scientists in order to create their illusion used to demigogue the issue. And conservatives here - except possibly for you - know that. I would suggest you know it too but choose to dishonestly ignore that in order to use it as example for your arguments. Would be in keeping with what you've done so far - so I've little reason to doubt that this is the case.
Do you then propose we jail people who use alcohol after a hard week? I didn't know the federal government was actualy an armed self-help program.
Ahhh, begging the absurd again in order to think you're making a salient point. Geepers I wouldn't have expected that (/sarcasm).
So where's the epidemic of beer-related crime? We had one when the stuff was illegal. Name a "beer baron" alive and operating today.
They are, as I've previously stated, two dissimilar issues. You try to tie them together as though they were the same - Drug abuse and alcohol use. They are not and the impact on family and society are greatly dissimilar. You can't argue that, so you have to play games. Well, you keep playing your games - cause you're sinking your own argument just like the extremist liberals are sinking their own arguments. Conservatives have had their fill of this handwringing relativistic crap that's been forced down our throats for years.
Let's see, both tobacco and THC are cancer-causing, body-altering drugs, and tobacco is chemically addictive to boot. As for alcohol, you yourself repeatedly, and truthfully, state both that and marijuana make people "drunk." The only difference is that potheads don't go around beating their wifes and getting involved in fights.
you must be reading from your talking points again. More dishonesty. Who'd have thunk it. Tobacco doesn't meet the threshold to be labeled scientifically as a cancer causing item - it's likelyhood, if memory serves, of contributing to cancer is 7%. So it does not meet that standard. But beyond that you have to back way off to call tobacco a "body altering drug" which can be said of every bit of food we consume daily. The problem with pot is not that it is body altering but that it is MIND altering. Two dissimilar things you try to equate dishonestly as though they were the same. Dishonesty. Seems ingrained in you or at least in your talking points.
So where were all these crimes, murder sprees and collapse of civilized man when marijuana, heroin and cocaine were perfectly legal? Even up until the 1920s and 1930s, you could buy these drugs at pharmacies. I don't recall roving streets gangs running drugs rings and drug lords making millions.
Puh-lease! Fact gathering in those days was not as well rounded and indepth as it is today; When drug abuse finally got recognition for the damage it was doing, it was dealt with. Again, being dishonest. This is like saying that before drunk driving was made illegal it really was never a problem before. No, it is precisely because it came to be understood as a problem that the activity was made illegal. Lest you prevail upon us to be stupid and not consider the facts. That is the only way these arguments gain any weight. Just like the argument that you lose fewer brain cells smoking pot, yet we are hard pressed to find an alcohol burnout unless we go to the absolutely most extreme cases of alcoholics that drink 24/7 at incredibly high volumes. One need not go that far to find pot smoking burnouts that think weed 'opens the mind'. But then that's what makes cultists love such drugs.. You're wasting your time. People on the Hill are far more intelligent than I. And just because democrats pander to the nutcase far left of their wing that is a fractional minority doesn't mean that Republicans or conservatives in general are MORONIC enough to do the same and even consider this idiotic notion. It's one thing to say pot might have a medical application, of that I am already convinced it can, I'm just not convinced there is nothing out there that cannot meet the same ends that is already legal. Nor am I convinced that medical application means that legalization is a must. That is not a maintainable case.
If a law says you must jump off a bridge do you do it? That is why a jury system exists for the jury to judge the law as well as the crime.
”It however is in no way comparable to antidrug laws. And it's dishonest to compare them. (set belt laws)”
Why?
Um.. err... I've been trying to find a nice way to tell you that you really should tone down the colors a bit.
Just IMHO of course.
And the difference is.....?
Deal with it.
Unfortunately,we are all having to deal with it.
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