Drug War: Interview with a Police Officer

The Sierra Times ^ | 03. 5. 03 | M. Simon

[tpaine]

"I figured it was important to know that this is a Libertarian rag that will search out a Libertarian slant to any story, even if they have to go to another country to get someone's personal views on the WOD.
23 -rp-


I figure it is important to point out that this 'robertpaulsen' character is a rabid libertarian hater that will search out an anti-libertarian slant to any story, even if he has to go to ridiculous extremes to find something to rant about. - He's quite amusing in his mania.

[Dane]

Howabout Jews? You think when 51% of society doesn't like Jews we should start putting them in prisons?

BTW, thoughty, why do you imply and equate the WOD to the Holocaust?

Are drug users being rounded up in freight cars and gassed to death on March 6th, 2003?

They are not and never will be in America. But what the hey, you got the issue you care about the most, drug use, and use the innocent victims who were killed for their religion as a corrollary, to make a cynical political point.

For some reason I believe that if you and Hillary ever had a private meeting, you two would get along just fine.

[jimt]

You probably know this, but if you start swapping posts with Dane don't expect rational responses, expect ad hominems.

The basic drug warrior response is "we don't like it so it should be illegal".

[Dane]

You probably know this, but if you start swapping posts with Dane don't expect rational responses, expect ad hominems.

Now where did I throw out an ad hominem? All I did was in reply #42 was to ask thoughtomator, why he/she equates the WOD to the Holocaust.

I asked he/she if drug users in modern America are being loaded up in freight cars and gassed to death.

I also noted that, IMO, that thoughtomator's political tactics and rehtoric is very similar to Hillary's.

[robertpaulsen]

"My post was a direct quote from the article."

You are correct. I apologize.

51% of the people in this country don't decide squat, even presidential elections. We are a representative republic, governed by a Constitution which, among other things, guarantees an equality of justice. No one is going to be throwing any "group" in jail.

Unless it's a group of pot smokers, that is.

[jimt]

Now where did I throw out an ad hominem?

...if you and Hillary ever had a private meeting, you two would get along just fine.

Uh, if it quacks like a duck...

Now prove me wrong and argue the points in the article.

[thoughtomator]

Well yes of course, which is why after a half dozen replies by the WoD fundamentalists, they are unable to answer a very simple question. I knew this before I posted the first time because it's fun to tweak some noses.

More seriously - Dane - just take a moment to think about your position on the WoD and the reasons used to justify it. If the WoD logic is acceptable, that since people don't like drugs, drugs should be illegal, where does that reasoning end? So far I have heard nothing that could not be easily applied to ANY group that ends up on the short end of the 51%.

Maybe you'll be a little bit more receptive to this comparison: If 51% of people don't like guns, should guns be made illegal? Of course not - there's a basic natural right of self defense to consider, as enumerated in the Second Amendment. If the natural right of the Second is sacred, why treat the natural right to be left alone as long as you don't hurt other people, enumerated in the Fourth Amendment, with such contempt? This is what I don't understand about the WoD.

Drugs are not my favorite issue, national security is. In all the issues I consider, however, the natural rights of man are paramount. To abandon this principle would be to abandon intellectual honesty entirely.

Since the WoD lacks any principle other than asserting the supremacy of the state over the individual, where's the rationale? Or is that it - do you believe that the state should have unlimited authority over the individual?

[Dane]

...if you and Hillary ever had a private meeting, you two would get along just fine.(Dane)

Uh, if it quacks like a duck...

Now prove me wrong and argue the points in the article(jimt)

Uh you prove me wrong that in America that drug users are being loaded up in freight cars and being gassed to death.

You can't because it is not true, but that still doesn't stop Libertarians(just like Hillary) to pull out all the ridiculous rhetorical arguements to make their cynical political points.

[thoughtomator]

You want to discuss this issue seriously, fine, the issues are on the table and it's in your court. If one reference to Jews causes you to spaz about the Holocaust to the point where you are unable to conduct a serious conversation, perhaps you'd better go back to lurking and leave the posting to people with real ideas.

[Dane]

Well yes of course, which is why after a half dozen replies by the WoD fundamentalists, they are unable to answer a very simple question.

Uh it looks like after your flowery rhetoric in reply #47 you can't and you will not answer the question of why you knee jerkingly implied and equated the WOD to the Holocaust as stated in your reply #32.

Also, when calling someone a "fundamentalist", maybe you should look in the mirror.

JMO, but you will see a "drug" fundamentalist who does his/her two minutes of hate towards those non-existant drug warriors who round up drug users and put them in freight cars and gas them.

[thoughtomator]

Sure I'll answer that question very directly. I made the reference to Jews because, the WoD logic, as presented here, unmodified, could be applied to Jews as easily as it is applied to drug users. (Is it a short leap from unjustly imprisoning people to massacring them wholesale? No, I will grant that there is a difference. But it would certainly be a very awkward and difficult to explain difference.) Now, please justify your WoD stance in a way that could not be used to justify imprisoning Jews or blacks or Hindus or left-handed people, should a majority of voters determine that it should be so.

[davidr]

Geez, guys, all I did was buy ad time for our conference call classes on the Constitution on Sierra Times and now I'm a shadowy behind-the-scenes power? That's a pretty good deal! If you advertise w/ J.J., he may let you be a secret evil influence too :)

For the record (if you'll forgive me being on topic for a moment), I've never I don't drink, I've never done drugs, and I've never even been drunk - but I think the War on Drugs has got to go. It's totally destroyed plenty of rights, it trashed the framework of our Republic, and it sure hasn't done anything to keep people off drugs. It's dead, Jim; now give me my tax money back and quit seizing citizen's houses.

PS. Please check out our conference call classes at
http://www.northbridgetraining.com/confcall

David Rostcheck, North Bridge Training Institute

[Dane]

You want to discuss this issue seriously, fine, the issues are on the table and it's in your court. If one reference to Jews causes you to spaz about the Holocaust to the point where you are unable to conduct a serious conversation, perhaps you'd better go back to lurking and leave the posting to people with real ideas.

Spaz?? Looks like you are spazzing in embarassment that you implied and equated the WOD to the Holocaust.

Must be intellectually embarassing equating the death of 6 million Jews who were killed because of their religion, against your arguement.

[Zon]

"The difference between a good law and a bad law is that a bad law creates criminals, while a good law identifies them." -- R. Alex Whitlock

Ready-made criminals with a Senate vote and stroke of the pen.

Politics suck -- politics suck objectivity out and insert irrationality in.

Sometimes a small error will be compounded over and over until it becomes a massive problem.

In mid-term and presidential elections tens-of-millions of people vote for the lesser of evils despite that it still begets evil. How can so many people thinking they're right be so wrong?

"No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him." -- Thomas Jefferson

"If a person thinks they've harmed by a person's drug possession they can take the person/defendant to court and do their best to prove to an impartial jury that they/plaintiff had been hammed by that. The plaintiff would be lucky to convince a third of the jurors that they had been harmed by the defendant -- let alone convince all twelve jurors, which the plaintiff needs to obtain a guilty verdict."

Drug warriors haven't been harmed by another person's drug possession. Via their support for the WOD the want to force people to live by their communitarian standards. They do that by enlisting government agents to initiate force, threat of force and fraud on their behalf. Proof is simple and best expressed by an example of a defendant's lawyer speaking to an impartial jury:

"Clearly the plaintiff and his lawyer have failed by all accounts to show any evidence -- failed to show even one single piece of evidence -- to support his claim that he has been harmed by my client's drug possession. The plaintiff's claim is wholly unsupported.

"Since supporters of the war on drugs have nothing but wholly unsupported claims they chose to harm people that possess drugs by enlisting government agents to initiate force on their behalf. That is, they are truly guilty of that which they falsely accuse others of: initiating harm against a person that's minding his or her own business."

The drug abuse problem, free of government intervention (read WOD; war on people), is a medical and education problem, not a crime problem. Much the same as alcohol abuse is a medical and education problem. Like alcohol prohibition that was responsible for creating the environment for crime to flourish, the government's WOD creates the environment for crime to flourish.

Why has the war on drugs by all accounts failed to be won? That DEA has no motivation to reduce any drug problem. For, it has no desire to reduce its jobs or power.

"If drugs make you stupid what does that say about someone who declares war on them, inanimate objects that they are, and is losing?" -- Freeper

 

[thoughtomator]

Wow you just don't get it. I am a Jew. I want you to explain to me why your logic couldn't be used to imprison me and my family should popular passions once again rise against us, as they have against people who use certain drugs (I'm not even going to get started on the widespread legal use and abuse of alcohol, antidepressants, and cocaine derivatives). That is the source of my ire for the WoD - it hands an unprecedented amount of power to the government over its citizens. If the Fourth can be destroyed, so can the First.

And you, apparently, will be there at the head of the line to make it happen. I hope you're proud of yourself. You strut like you think you are defending the Jews with your Holocaust rhetoric, when in actuality you are doing your best to create an environment where it could happen again.

[Dane]

And you, apparently, will be there at the head of the line to make it happen. I hope you're proud of yourself. You strut like you think you are defending the Jews with your Holocaust rhetoric, when in actuality you are doing your best to create an environment where it could happen again.

Really? Huh, you still have not pointed out any historical facts where drug users in America have been hoarded up in freight cars and gassed to death.

When they are, I will be right next to you in protesting.

[thoughtomator]

So it's just fine and dandy with you to arbitrarily incarcerate a portion of the population, as long as there's no gassing involved. Gotcha. Very French of you to pledge your solidarity.

[Dane]

So it's just fine and dandy with you to arbitrarily incarcerate a portion of the population, as long as there's no gassing involved. Gotcha. Very French of you to pledge your solidarity.

Arbitrarily what?

Whew, first you are embarassed for trying to equate drug users as Holocaust victims, and now you are saying I'm French?

JMO, but you are the one who is acting French with your lack of logic and basing your arguemnents in emotion.

Oh BTW, are you still simmering over your pro-drug defeats in last November's election?

Where the three major pro-drug culture intiatives(AZ, NV, and OH) were all defeated by big margins.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't see the backers of those pro-drug intiatives with their doors pounded down, woken up in their homes, and put into freight cars and gassed for stating their views and getting their intiatives on the ballot.

All I see and hear from the pro-drug crowd on FR is that John Walters(President Bush's drug czar) should be tarred and feathered for speaking his opinions about the drug culture.

[realpatriot71]

I got an idea. Why don't you organize a movement, call it the Libertarian Party, and push for a Constitutional amendment to legalize pot. That's what the pro-alcohol people did and it worked for them. And you're always saying that we should treat pot like alcohol.

Don't be intentionally dense rp. What was the reason for an Amendment legalizing alcohol? Oh! Because there was first an Amendment making alcohol illegal. Why don't you guys organize a movement, call it: "neopuritans R us" and push for a Constitutional amendment making pot illegal.

[thoughtomator]

I feel sorry for you fella. You're a sad, sad man who will never understand the joy of honest intellectual discourse, eventually to die knowing nothing but your own prejudices. May God treat you better in the next world than He has in this one.