Thomas Sowell and Milton Friedman make their cases for ending the War on Drugs (YouTube videos)

YouTube | Thomas Sowell and Milton Friedman

[10thAmendmentGuy]

Thomas Sowell on the War on Drugs

Milton Friedman on the War on Drugs

[10thAmendmentGuy]

Why do they love shooting dogs so much? I’ve seen some horrible videos on YouTube and other places where these cops who think they have the skills of Navy SEALs (they don’t) break down doors and shoot dogs that were running AWAY from them. I have two dogs - two collies. If a police officer broke into my house (by mistake, because I don’t use or sell drugs) on some flimsy warrant and shot one of my dogs, I would kill them, and claim self-defense. How could I not? Anyone who would shoot a friendly dog is undoubtedly a threat to my life as well as the lives of other innocent civilians. Hopefully I’d get a reasonable jury.

[VanDeKoik]

You would do that over Pot?

What about ciggs and booze which have actually killed more people?

[10thAmendmentGuy]

Insisting on continuing the War on Drugs is as stupid as the liberals' defending the War on Poverty. Neither "war" has worked.

Exactly. By the way, I grew up in Cortland County, so I'm not too far from you. Went to Geneseo for college, which is not too far from you either. Upstate pride!

[onona]

IBT Smokem if you gottem.....

(running for the popcorn now...)

[SoCal Pubbie]

“We cannot legislate morality ..”

I understand what you mean here but aren’t all laws simply the legislation of morality? Is not a murder charge the judicial enforcement of one of the Ten Commandments?

[DungeonMaster]

If you knew that legalizing weed would defund a million young black males who refuse to work, would you realize that this decision is a no brainer? A less important side effect would be the saving of billions of dollars in prison costs law enforcement and, dare I say it, increased government revenue.

[10thAmendmentGuy]

I know a lot of ethanol addicts that rob, steal, beg, prostitute themselves, et al. that do no other drug. And ethanol is legal.

This is one issue that Sowell falls down flat on. Imagine if cocaine were put back in Coca-Cola? There was a reason it was removed back in 1903.

Yes, Coca-Cola removed cocaine from their product because the scientists knew it could be harmful That is true. But you're wrong when you say that cocaine was completely removed from Coca-Cola in 1903. They continued to use miniscule amounts of it in their product until 1929. The quantity used was incredibly low, and had no chance of addicting anyone to the substance. Are you also aware that Bayer pharmaceuticals made Heroin available for use in cough elixirs as well as aspirin in the 20th century? It offered real relief for whooping coughs as well as bronchitis.

So what is your solution? Should we ban alcohol? You mentioned alcoholics that prostitute themselves. Are these women? Geez. I wouldn't want to see what an alcoholic prostitute looked like. Probably as bad as the meth-addict ones.

[icanhasbailout]

Replace ‘guns’ with ‘drugs’ in your screed and you’ll get a taste of what the Left would do to you if they could, all they lack is the power that you seem incredibly eager to give to them. May you never experience the end result of what you advocate.

[Christian Engineer Mass]

“big-government statists”

Yes, a minority of republicans are that. Bush, Lindsay GRaham, Arnold, etc.

But “pragmatist” doesn’t mean anti-statist. It kind of means whatever you want it to mean. It means practical. A liberal would say a liberal republican is pragmatic. And a conservative republican would say a conservative is pragmatic.

Those dickweeds at foreignpolicy would say they’re pragmatic.

Still. There is no need to differentiate from a minority. Most republicans are not big government statists, hence no modifier is required to define one who is not.

That’s why I had to ask. Since wanting to legalize dope is a liberal policy, I wondered if you meant pragmatic in it’s liberal sense.

[10thAmendmentGuy]

I understand what you mean here but aren’t all laws simply the legislation of morality? Is not a murder charge the judicial enforcement of one of the Ten Commandments

Partially right. In some respects, all of our laws are the product of morality -- the PERSONAL morality of those legislators who write them. Our rights come from God, however, not from elected legislators. Murder is contradictory to core Judeo-Christian values. Using marijuana or alcohol, for example, does not. Using them to excess so that you are no longer a functional member of society does, but that is hardly the role of government to step in and punish the responsible users because of the comparatively few people that need to be protected from themselves. I don't have any problem with people who disrespect laws made by imperfect men that have no basis in our moral tradition. I don't use drugs, but people who use drugs responsibly are making an important statement.

[LearsFool]

As someone who is staunchly anti-drug-legalization, I have to admit that Sowell has some good arguments.

It says a lot about our society that legalization of narcotics could be seriously and reasonably considered “cutting our losses”. If he is indeed right on that point, are we better off with the druggies or the tyrants? That’s really the only choice that confronts us given the condition of our fellow citizens.

What a sad state of affairs.

[10thAmendmentGuy]

Since wanting to legalize dope is a liberal policy, I wondered if you meant pragmatic in it’s liberal sense.

Yes, some liberals support legalizing marijuana. Many do not (Obama doesn't, at least not anymore). No Democrat president has ever advocated it. No Democrat nominee has ever advocated for it. I don't want to legalize only marijuana, I want to see all drugs legalized, because of the harm that results from their illegal status.

If some Democrats support legalizing marijuana, they also support government-funded rehab and health care for drug addicts. I do not. I support abolishing the welfare state and making people responsible for themselves. If someone wants to sit at home and use crack cocaine (in Milton Friedman's video above, which you SHOULD watch, he points out that the federal government created the crack cocaine problem) or heroin then that's their prerogative. They should not expect any assistance from the state and if they hurt innocent people because of their addiction then they should be locked up for long periods of time, if not forever. We are a society with limited resources. Does it not bother you that some rapists serve less time than low-level crack dealers? Does it not bother you that we are letting violent people out of prison to fight the war on drugs?

You want a shot at getting some black votes for conservative policies and politicians? How about coming out against the drug war? The drug war has devastated inner-city communities more than any other area, as thugs are lured to the prospect of easy money as street-level drug dealers. They dismiss the prospect of education because they think they can make more money satisfying the insatiable American demand for drugs. This idea has WIDE appeal among black audiences, and unlike welfare promises and reparations, it doesn't involve the government spending any more money. It involves us spending less money.

Can we agree at least that the federal government has no business fighting the War on Drugs and that is it a state issue? We required a constitutional amendment to get prohibition of alcohol passed back in the 1910s. It is only because the Supreme Court has perverted our Commerce Clause so much that we now have a federal war on drugs. Let the states decide what to do with this problem. We will have 50 different approaches and we can really see what works best.

[Blood of Tyrants]

I want to end it for one reason, because the federal and state governments have used it as an excuse for stealing our property and liberty. Our loss of freedoms by the government snooping into every aspect of our lives is far more damaging than some pothead smoking a doobie then watching cartoons and eating cheetos.

[Steel Wolf]

I understand what you mean here but aren’t all laws simply the legislation of morality? Is not a murder charge the judicial enforcement of one of the Ten Commandments?

This is a very logical point. You are correct, in that law is fundamentally nothing more than morality codified into a system of measurement and punishment.

When people say 'You can't legislate morality', what they really mean is that 'You can't make people virtuous through the law alone.'

The moral code not to murder may be written in stone, and if I kill my hated neighbor, I'll go to jail. If jail is the only reason my neighbor still lives, that's fear of punishment, not an internalized sense of virtue.

If I would not kill my hated neighbor, even if murder was legal, because I believed that murder was wrong, then virtue carries the day, even if the legislated morality of the law is absent.

The law can punish individuals for drug possession, but in many communities, it's not considered immoral to sell or do drugs. The prevailing social sentiment is that it's a good way to make money or feel better. The morality of the law can't be pushed onto those communities.

It's the same reason that I'm happy to drive 90mph in the desert, even if the speed limit is 65. I don't really care what the law says in that circumstance. I don't find the morality of the legislature compelling. That said, I'd still drive by a school with kids running around at 10mph, even if there were no laws and no signs. In a lot of cases, the morality of the state is out of synch with the prevailing morality of it's citizens.

[RightOnTheBorder]

Actually the government did poison alcohol. Methanol (wood alcohol) contains several poisonous substances that make it unfit for human consumption. It is also useful in a number of industries and was thus easily obtainable even during prohibition. Eventually, some enterprising bootleggers discovered how to remove enough of the poisons to allow humans to drink it. The government response was to mandate that more poisons be put into methanol.

[Molon Labbie]

SoCal, I don’t think we can legislate the moral failures in these particular offenses.

I firmly believe that government is poor parent, and your parent’s ethics and mores will define you much better that government telling you, “No you SHALL not put that in your body.” At most government should treat adults like adults, and perhaps warn them there are physical and mental consequences to drug abuse. And then stay out of people’s lives on the matter.

Murder, if not legislated directly, would still be a mala in se crime. Narcotics abuse, I am not convinced of that.

[wildbill]

Here’s libertarian John Stoessel ‘owning’ Ann Coulter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qaiz8gNw3M&feature=related

She often draws a blank and relies on the argument that drug users are all on welfare and don’t work. Stoessel doesn’t call her on that or use the argument that she is supporting a huge law enforcement bureaucracy and hundreds of thousands of users jailed for posession who will probably never rise above that stigma to become productive.

Later on in the segment Larry Elder and some folks from the Cato institute point out the contradictions in the argument by ‘conservatives’ over drugs and big government and individual responsibility.

[Gunslingr3]

“Republican pragmatist” As opposed to what?

republican opportunists, republicans-in-name-only, republican ideologues, republican idealists, etc.

[muawiyah]

i think you are nuts.

[10thAmendmentGuy]

LearsFool, keep in mind that Thomas Sowell wrote that newspaper column that the video is based on in 1984, 13 years after the War on Drugs started (1971). It is now 27 years later, and the results are even worse than when Sowell penned that article. Not only have rates of drug use not declined, but how many articles do we see posted on here of corrupt police officers engaged in some aspect of the drug trade? How many articles have we seen about unconstitutional and disgusting asset forfeiture programs that presume people who are carrying a lot of cash are up to no good. Those who are presumed guilty until they acquire enough evidence to prove to the authorities that they are innocent. Take a look at this map:

Botched Paramilitary Police Raids

What about all of the innocent people killed by police in the name of drug eradication?

Remember Jose Guerena in Arizona? He was a decorated U.S. Marine who died in Arizona on May 5, 2011. He was killed by cops who serve under a Democrat, Sheriff Dupnik that blamed Tea Party members for the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords. Dupnik's Keystone cops killed a man in cold blood and they didn't find any drugs in his home.

In January of this year, a 68-year old retiree in Framingham, Massachusetts was killed by a SWAT officer searching a home for drugs. As they had the man lying down, an officer moved to check him for weapons. The officer was a klutz, and so he lost his balance and fell. When he fell, his weapon discharged, and the retiree (an innocent civilian, mind you) was killed. Before the raid took place, police had found the target of the raid, the retiree's stepson, somewhere down the street. They found some drugs in a sock. Is it worth it to you to have innocent people killed in the name of finding some drugs in a sock? In many of these cases, no drugs are found at all. These are two cases from this year. This monstrosity has been going on for 40 years. It is time to say enough.