Posted on 02/15/2006 2:22:52 PM PST by MRMEAN
Sad, isn't it? Before I came to Free republic, I thought all reasonable conservatives opposed stupid wasteful crap like the WOD. But then I had only been exposed to upper-middle class, professional conservatives.
I'm kind of embarrassed at my naivete.
The only portion I didn't personally like was the zero tolerance rule for the Coast Guard. The problem with it was some fisherman could have his boat tied up for months because one of his crew had smuggled some dope on board.
The fisherman would get his boat back but by then he could be hurting. Fortunately we were able to get that policy changed...in the mean time I knew some skippers who didn't take lightly to folks bringing dope on board. Fisherman tend to be a...physical group.
I wouldn't doubt it. The fabricated drug hysteria of the 80's sure fooled many of the more credulous.
I guess you consider President Reagan to be one of those credulous. I have a higher opinion of him.
I have great admiration for him, but as I said, I would have to disagree with him on this issue. I'm not sure I'll ever find anyone with whom I agree about everything, and if I did, I probably die from fright.
Do you think his pull out from Beirut was the right decision, given the intervening years' events?
That's one of his decision I didn't like.
Great, let's have total anarchy, then. Everyone just do whatever they feel like.
Sorry, but there are victims in the drug use. Users are victimized if something as small as pot is laced. Ecstacy has killed people, even some who took it by having it slipped into their drink. Heroin and Cocaine don't need to be mentioned, the ill effects of them are too well known.
http://www.capet.com/marijuana.htm
Granted, hte war on drugs isn't doing well, but that means a change in strategy, not giving up. Education is a very good place to start.
As for drug dealers, personally, I feel any caught selling hard drugs should be charged with first degree murder and given the death penalty. Also, it should be carried out in short order, not 25 years down the road.
Just because it isn't labeled as "war," do you think large cities have just given up and legalized gangs?
,,,,,,Sorry, but there are victims in the drug use. Users are victimized if something as small as pot is laced. Ecstacy has killed people, even some who took it by having it slipped into their drink. Heroin and Cocaine don't need to be mentioned, the ill effects of them are too well known.,,,,
Uh having someone put something into your drink is illegal whether it be drugs or poison, again a shotgun tactic for a small problem. Victims of those types crimes are not victims of illegal drugs, but illegal acts, the drug just being one of many possible poisons. So heroin and cocaine have ill effects, so does smoking, alcohol, obesity, etc, should we outlaw those too?
Splitting hairs as to how they got into someone else's body does not change the fact of the drug killing some people.
So heroin and cocaine have ill effects, so does smoking, alcohol, obesity, etc, should we outlaw those too?
Death from those drugs isn't necessarly a long term death, most of the time. Nor is it merely an "ill effect." Again, users aren't always sure what the drug has been cut with and legalizing those would just end up adding to already growing problem. Make it available cheaply and there is no incentive to try to get off of it nor is their any longer a barrier to some who might not have tried to before to try it now.
Haven't you heard of the smoking bans? That is just one step towatds illegalizing that too.
I agree in part.
I do think we should legalize soft drugs like pot, and I also think that posession should not include jail time, and that some aspects of the drug war are worth ending.
But that doesn't mean I'm against it completely. I realize what he's saying about libertarian principles, and I generally agree, but there are some things that go too far, and certain hard drugs that completely wack people out are too far.
Most drugs do not come from Mexico. A bigger share of them come from Mexico then any other individual country, but not most. It's around 30% from what I read. (of things like Cocane and Heroin).
As is giving somebody gin if they asked for ginger ale.
My biggest objection to Prohibition II is that it is used as a justification to erode people's rights, including people's right to protect their homes against unknown assailants (see Cory Maye). To the extent that the "War" cannot be fought without subverting the Constitution, it should not be fought at all.
Whenever this is a demand, there is a supply to meet the demand. At all times, under any conditions, not matter what, no exceptions whatsoever.
To even moderately reduce the supply in the face of a demand would require a system more restrictive and lacking in liberty than an Islamic police state.
Sorry, it's not worth the price to keep those who would medicate themselves to death from doing so. 
Robbery, rape, murder, terrorism, fraud, arson, kidnapping, sexual abuse of minors...these things HAVE to be illegal in order to preserve the Social Order, in order to preserve civilization. If outright murder is legal (and I'm going to avoid the abortion sidetrack right now), if it was legal for you to get up, break into your neighbor's house, and slit his throat...well, things such as neighbors and houses wouldn't exist, because the anarchy would prevent people from living civilly. If your neighbor could kill you without recompense, and he knew he could, then you wouldn't leave your house for suspicion that your neighbor might harm you or your family. We need the belief that those who would harm us and our property are either A) already weaned out of the population or B) at least deterred by the threat of imprisonment if they tried such a thing. Heck, you wouldn't have a house, because without an arbitrary force out there separating murderers and arsonists from society, each individual has to be his own law enforcement officer, protecting his family and property and life 24/7--there would be no specialization of labor, thus no economy worth preserving, thus no civilization of any value. No lumber yards, no electricians, no oven manufacturers, no architects, no carpenters, no highway builders, no internets, no economy, just chaos and a hellhole, not unlike most of Africa, Latin America, and Arabia, with corrupt or nonexistent Rule of Law.
And there's the keyword, Rule of Law, a set of boundaries that all are accountable to, and that all citizens know all other citizens are held accountable to. A set of regulations defined by restraining those behaviors that disrupt the civil process, and thus allows people to live confidentally that most of the defrauders aren't in the business world (thus the need for contract law), that child molesters are in prison, that arsonists are deterred from burning down your house. These things aren't illegal because they are wrong or evil or sinful--they have those qualities and its a convenient overlap, but those qualities aren't what make those behaviors illegal or we'd have alot more laws and alot more criminals cause there are lots of evil and sinful things that are legal right now--those specific behaviors are illegal because civilization is contingent upon their illegality. So it isn't a matter of "winning the war" on robbery, or rape, or murder, or terror. These things HAVE to be illegal, in every society or there is no society. It's comparing apples to hippopotamuses.
If the War on Robbery is necessary, than the War on Drugs is voluntary--drug use is a different behavior that rape, at least in the context of having certain drugs (like booze) legal and others illegal. If someone shoots heroin, it has no more bearing on anyone else than if someone gets drunk or reads 'Catcher in the Rye'. That drunk person might sulk in his house, or he might drive and kill someone. That person might read Catcher in the Rye and go to bed, or he might get a gun and shoot a singer or a President. Its when the behavior carries over to someone else that it becomes a problem. If we can have a civil society where booze is legal, and only have certain boundaries for the behavior--don't drive drunk, for example--than those same boundaries can be put in place for pot smoking or snorting cocaine--don't drive while high.
Drug use, in and of itself, does not disturb the Rule of Law anymore than any number of other self destructive and stupid behaviors. If anything, it hampers the effectiveness of the Law by diverting needed tax payer money from chasing down terrorists to chasing down drug dealers. It makes the notion of Law look ineffective, and thus the Law is flauntable. Bad laws don't save society, they hasten the destruction of it, by turning the governing authority into a Paper Tiger, one that can't win its self declared "War on Poverty" or "War on Drugs". Its why it is so important that whatever law is on the books, either MUST be on the books so that we have civilization, or it must be enforcable. Drug use is wrong, but there are plenty of things that are wrong--stupidity, bad parenting, laziness, insufferable ignorance about economics, George Clooney. Illegality does not equal wrong, and Wrong doesn't equal illegality.
I honestly don't know what to do about drugs. Drugs and the death penalty, I can't give a strong answer either way. I don't pretend to have all the answers, nor do I think one needs to take a definite side on every idea and every position and every concept in the history of man. But when comparing the War on Murder, the War on Rape, and the War on Drugs, one doesn't fit, one isn't the same as the others.
Plenty of weed comes from Mexico, but none of the good stuff comes from there.
Or at least, that's what my friends tell me.
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