Replies

Your accusation is misdirected because you wouldn't know an ad hominem attack from an adenoid. Try looking up ad hominem sometime in the dictionary and find out what it really means before you use the term. It's intellectually lazy and dishonest to rely on the overused ad hominem rhetorical defense as your argument in chief.

You would have been correct in your accusation, if for example, I had only argued that dope shouldn't be legalized because I once saw a dirty hippie smoking it. But unlike you, I provided several reasons for my position. So if you could, please come up with any remotely viable arguments whenever you disagree with me. Your accusation is itself a "sleazy" ad hominem attack.

You also said that "...most courts wouldn't know the Constitution..." Well, apparently neither do you. Your Tenth Amendment "argument" in favor of marijuana is as overreaching as the so-called "penumbra doctrine" used to justify abortion as a "right." If you're an "originalist" as you seem to me to be representing yourself, do you reasonably believe that Founding Fathers understood and intended a "right" to get stoned? It would be reasonable to conclude such an implicit understanding and intent as far as alcohol is concerned.

From ancient times, alcohol has almost always been legal and accepted in most cultures, religions, and nations. It has also been widely accepted and used by the general public for reasons other than the purely recreational use that you have advocated thus far. Apart from some Native American religious use, most hallucinogens are not condoned in this country or most other countries. In this broad context, your pro-legalization "arguments" seem too frivolous to rise to the level of a fundamental "constitutional right" like free speech or due process.

As I said, most state legislatures, federal and state courts, and public opinion, for now, do not support your pot legalization position. If the public truly supported it, then it would be legal, e.g., public sentiment ended Prohibition. So why don't you go and do something constructive and become an activist if this issue is of such burning "Constitutional" importance to you?

Try looking up ad hominem sometime in the dictionary [...] You would have been correct in your accusation, if for example, I had only argued that dope shouldn't be legalized because I once saw a dirty hippie smoking it.

ad hom·i·nem, adj.
Appealing to personal considerations rather than to logic or reason

Nothing in the definition supports your claim that an ad hominem argument ceases to be one if uttered in conjunction with a non-ad hominem argument.

So if you could, please come up with any remotely viable arguments whenever you disagree with me.

Already done in my first post to you: "[the laissez-faire, pro-legalization libertarian argument] is a principled approach" and "Programs don't get more wasteful than those whose only "accomplishment" is imprisoning people who violated nobody's rights. I'd rather see the money go to food stamps or WIC; there are good arguments against them, but at least they put food in a belly instead of a person in prison."

do you reasonably believe that Founding Fathers understood and intended a "right" to get stoned?

It is clear that they intended no federal involvement in the question.

Try looking up ad hominem sometime in the dictionary and find out what it really means before you use the term. It's intellectually lazy and dishonest to rely on the overused ad hominem rhetorical defense as your argument in chief.
You would have been correct in your accusation, if for example, I had only argued that dope shouldn't be legalized because I once saw a dirty hippie smoking it.

Che you are wrong. That is not what the logic fallacy ad hominem means. Like all your arguments in thread - you are big on know-it-all chest thumping but woefully weak on facts. You attempt to lecture someone on the "true" meaning of ad hominem while you are demonstrating you don't "know an ad hominem attack from an adenoid"

An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin, literally "argument [aimed] at the person", but usually translated as "argument to the man"), is a logical fallacy that involves replying to an argument or assertion by addressing the person presenting the argument or assertion rather than the argument itself or an argument pointing out an inconsistency between a view expressed by an individual and the remainder of his or her beliefs.
Wikipedia

do you reasonably believe that Founding Fathers understood and intended a "right" to get stoned

Absolutely. The following passage is basically the foundation of our country (it is from the Declaration of Independence, you should read it some time):

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

Jefferson says I have the unalienable Rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If I choose at any time to pursuit happiness by partaking of the herbs God gave for use to use - it is none of your freakin business nor is it the role of government to be my Mommy and to decide what I can and can not do in my pursuit of happiness as long as it does not effect somebody else's unalienable right. The founders did not make laws against inanimate objects - laws against inanimate objects are for weak-minded people that need the government to be their Mommy (IMHO).

The government has a history of drifting from the ideals that founded this country (slavery, Prohibition, etc) but IMHO it is the role of conservatives to work to conserve the principles on which this country was founded - not just go along with it because the government says so and the government is our Mommy and always right.