Posted on 10/17/2003 10:38:34 PM PDT by Luis Gonzalez
You are OK with legalizing marijuana but oppose further lessening of drug criminalization.
To your credit, you describe this position as hypocritical.
In the next post to me you say:
By the way. Your tagline has a tremendous fallacy. There is c) both.
This is a clue to the source of your dilemma. If your positions are not based on principle, inconsistencies will inevitably occur.
Regards
J.R.
By this article.
Even though I understood it.
True. But a political party is not a principle.
...you don't get to either set them in place, nor do you get to place yours above them.
Principle is meaningful only when it is applied consistently. And that it not just my opinion.
As long as we're doing a bit of a Q & A here, you could tell me your position on drugs such as nicotine and alcohol being legal for consumption.
I would add caffeine to the list. In my opinion these and all other mood altering substances should be legal.
People who use them are harming only themselves. So long as they don't harm anyone else in the process there is no problem.
People raise the "cost to society" argument implying that taxpayers foot the medical bill for drug and alcohol abusers and that impaired drivers cause accidents.
These are separate issues. No one is rightfully responsible for the medical care of a stranger and I gave up on the DUI issue when I realized it was impossible to rationalize jailing a person with a 0.80 BAC and letting a person with a 0.7999 BAC drive home from the sobriety checkpoint.
Regards
J.R.
And that is what creates a political party, many people applying principles consistently.
What appears to confuse you, is the idea that many people may share similar principles, that they may be willing to seek compromise with like-minded individuals and sequentially balance those principles in a manner which places not allowing those gathered together in a party with principles that stand in radical opposition of their own, to gain political offices, and as such, political power, ahead of all other principles, is in fact a principle in and of itself.
This does not confuse me at all.
When it comes to matters of principle compromise is not an option.
Assuming you consider yourself to be a small government conservative how can you logically justify Bush's modest tax cut and his desire to create a new multi billion dollar entitlement program?
Is this an acceptable compromise for you?
Government either: shrinks, remains constant, or grows.
The republicans are growing government. What I am confused by is the claim that it is better when republicans grow govt at a rate of 1X because the democrats will grow govt at a rate of 2X.
In the final analysis there is no practical difference.
Regards
J.R.
The problem is, that in a nation where everyone has an equal right to a voice in their government, government without compromise is tyranny.
"When I began entering into the give and take of legislative bargaining in Sacramento, a lot of the most radical conservatives who had supported me during the election didn't like it. "Compromise" was a dirty word to them and they wouldn't face the fact that we couldn't get all of what we wanted today. They wanted all or nothing and they wanted it all at once. If you don't get it all, some said, don't take anything. "I'd learned while negotiating union contracts that you seldom got everything you asked for. And I agreed with FDR, who said in 1933: 'I have no expectations of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average.'"If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later, and that's what I told these radical conservatives who never got used to it." ~~ Ronald Reagan, in his autobiography, An American Life
That statement is only partially true. The part that is incorrect is the root of the problem.
For example, every year spending bills move through congress. All the lawgivers agree that the Defense Department needs money. They do not agree on the amount. A compromise on the amount is reached and the bill passes. That is an acceptable compromise.
National defense is a legitimate function of the federal government. By passing a DoD spending bill no principles (in this case the Constitutional limits of the government) were violated.
The problem is that the attitude that compromise is both normal and acceptable has been extended to issues where compromise is absolutely not normal or acceptable.
The Reagan quote refers to being happy with getting 75% of what he wanted. That is fine so long as every item in this statistic was conservative and Constitutional.
In actual practice the republican leadership at the national level gives us 75% of what the democrats want (more socialism) and call it a victory because the democrats did not get 25% of what they originally wanted.
That is not a winning strategy.
Regards
J.R.
Nice sounding paragraph, but no details as to what YOU consider issues where compromise is absolutely not normal or acceptable.
Mind you, others with equal rights to voice their opinions may think that your position is absolutely not normal or acceptable.
And they are Americans just like you and I.
"That is fine so long as every item in this statistic was conservative."
In other words, tyranny is fine as long as it is conducted in accordance to YOUR political ideology.
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