Posted on 12/21/2005 9:39:56 AM PST by Know your rights
[...] Organizers blasted the federal Drug Enforcement Administration for targeting businesses that are legal under Proposition 215, a California law that permits marijuana use for medical treatment. Demonstrators said the action would restrict access to regulated pot shops for seriously ill patients. [...] "They didn't do any arrests, just took drugs and computers," said Paula "Cookey" Brown. "It just seems like a straight armed robbery." [...]
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
You replied:
Hey, refer to this. I never said that all laws were just, nor did I ever say that the implementation of those laws equated to justice. Got it now?
What's with you and this law & justice fetish?
There is nothing inherently unjust about a law against immoral behavior. Most of our laws are against immoral behavior. What's your problem with that?
I then noted the "problem":
-- Rule by a 'moral majority' will infringe on our Constitutional rights to life, liberty or property. Bet on it.
Which is why the Founding Fathers developed a representative republic rather than a pure democracy. You were aware of that, weren't you? Maybe not.
Far more 'aware' than you paulsen. You spend your time here arguing in favor of the DEA & the moral majorities 'War'.
I argue for our individual freedoms in our Constitutional Republic. -- "Got it now"?
If you were, then you wouldn't have made such an ignorant statement.
My statement factually contradicted yours on 'moral law'. -- Your "ignorant statement" reply is just another infantile personal comment.
Whoa!
"Reasonable risk of harm"? You said nothing about reasonable risk before. You said actual harm. Let me see ... ah, here it is:
"There's a difference between punishing behavior that results in harm (either to people or property) and restricting behavior for the sake of restricting behavior. The former is justice. The latter represents government intrusion into the life of the individual. And that is inherently unjust."
Hmmmm. Nothing in there about "reasonable risk of harm". Plus, you're admitting you accept some arbitrary, politically driven BAC limit as not being "intrusive into the life of the individual"?? Pretty selectively indignant, aren't you?
Well, now that you've opened the door, then allow me to retort. It appears to come down to society's definition of "reasonable" risk, now doesn't it? And I would venture to say that legal drug use DOES represent a reasonable risk to society. As do the majority of citizens.
"And I choose the former, if only to annoy collectivist, puritanical nanny-staters like you. :o)"
Yes. You believe your crusade to be moral and just. Yawn.
"And by the way... the issue for me has little to do with the legalization of pot. The issue is personal freedom/responsibility."
Oh, for sure. The standard disclaimer for almost all the drug supporters here at FR.
"Man, if that was your best shot, ..."
Actually, it was my parting one.
The United States is a nation that believes in the rule of law. We, of all the nations on this planet, have democratic ways of amending our laws.
We don't need to resort to breaking the law to do so.
Exactly rob, -- we are breaking our own law of the land with the 'war on drugs'.. There is no amendment to prohibit drugs in our Constitution.
Other than our drug laws (which I don't consider a moral cause) what was the last issue where you considered law breaking to be morally justified? Civil rights in the 60's? And before that?
None of our fed & state laws infringing on our right to keep and bear arms are morally justified. They are repugnant to our basic constitutional principles, as are all such prohibitive decrees.
Look, if you don't like the rules set by society either change them or go live your life above the tree line and smoke dope to your heart's content. I truly don't care what you do in your cabin in the wilderness.
But if you choose to walk erect among us, then you live by our rules. Take that!
Too bad you can't take your own advice paulsen. We've had Constitutional rules for over 200 years, rules you scoff at and want to change [without amendment] to allow a 'moral war' on drugs; -- and anything else you consider "immoral"..
Get real.. You & your cohort do not have the delegated power to wage moral war, nor does any level of government.
"Actually, it was my parting one."
Another empty promise.. Our boy never stops spouting the same old agitprop..
Condo association rules aren't laws
So what? They're rules with the force of law.
and I have the freedom to NOT live under those rules (by not living in a condo).And you have the freedom to NOT live under society's rules (by not living in the society).
But laws that take away an adult's personal freedom, on the assumption that NO ONE will behave responsibly are, in my view, immoral and unjust.OK, you've amended you original argument and inserted a falsehood into it. What laws make the assumption "that NO ONE will behave responsibly"?
They're heavily into euphemisms to hide the poverty of their arguments.
"...Too bad the UN can't get in on the scheme too...."
Who to say they're no involved in some way?
The let's see how honest you are. How many banned accounts have you had?
Fine. That's how the majority of people view drugs. Deal with it. If we're wrong, convince us otherwise and the laws will change. Until then, they remain.
"In one of your posts, you defended the re-legalization of alcohol by saying that prohibition was a mistake."
And I told you why. The people really didn't want it, the lowest consumption of alcohol was at the beginning of Prohibition, the laws weren't being enforced (eg., the known existence of the speakeasies), and it lasted a mere 13 years. Two-thirds of the people voted to take that power away from the federal government and return it to the states and all the states voted to make alcohol legal again.
"... then why is smoking pot under the same circumstances so different?"
Under the same circumstances as what I just posted? There's your answer -- the circumstances are totally different.
"But as far as drug use posing a reasonable risk, I still think that it poses no more risk than alcohol use (except, perhaps, to the individual)."
Are you, therefore, saying that pot smokers will replace alcohol drinkers, such that there is no increase in the reasonable risk of harm to society? Or will pot smokers add to the reasonable risks we already face with legal alcohol?
"But you're correct if you mean that I consider the preservation of personal freedoms as a moral imperative, and the usurpation of such freedoms as immoral."
I think I hear God Bless America playing in the background. Spare me. We're discussing dope here, not man's inhumanity to man.
By the way, that philosophy demands that all drugs be legal. Do you support that, or do you have yet another qualifier waiting in the wings?
"Next you'll accuse me of being a drug addict, and that too is fine by me."
Since I haven't done so already, the chances of me doing it in the future are pretty slim.
Wow, you're in full retreat.
And all parties have the freedom to not enter into a contract, making this an issue of choice.
Nonsense. You move into a condominium, you're bound by any agreemnets you may have signed as well as pre-existing rules, regulations, covenants, conditions and retrictions, whether you've signed them or not. In fact, you're bound by them whether or not you ever signed any contract with the condo association.
"Society's rules" don't have the right to suppress my freedoms
Backwards. Society's rules define your freedoms within that society.
BTW, Proposition 215 didn't legalize pot selling businesses.
But one WAS created, unlike a Harm vs. No Harm government which has yet to see the light of day anywhere in the world in all of recorded history.
" Popularity is rarely a good indicator of justice or worth."
No, but coupled with longevity it comes closer.
"It's Illegal because it's Immoral"
Who claims that? Granted, most of our laws concern immoral behavior, but many immoral acts remain legal. It used to be that people were restrained from immoral acts by their own sense of decency and self esteem. That's been replaced by a selfish, hedonistic, individualistic "if it's legal I can do it and don't you dare criticize me" attitude. Hence, all the laws.
"It's Immoral because it's Illegal"
It immoral because it debases Man, and we're better than that.
Gun laws that limit access to firearms by law-abiding citizens fall into that category.
Assume the premise, beg the question.
A lot of that going around. It seems to be what passes for an argument from the other side.
Like arriving late to a lecture and hearing, "So in conclusion ...".
"The first principle of republicanism is that the lex majoris partis is the fundamental law of every society of individuals of equal rights; to consider the will of the society enounced by the majority of a single vote as sacred as if unanimous is the first of all lessons in importance, yet the last which is thoroughly learnt. This law once disregarded, no other remains but that of force, which ends necessarily in military despotism." --Thomas Jefferson
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