Right? Not Stossel

Vancouver 24 Hours ^ | June 2, 2006 | Irwin Loy

[Lorianne]

John Stossel thinks sweatshops are good for workers, while minimum wages hurt the poor.

Controversial? Sure. Just don't call him a Conservative.

"I'm a Libertarian," according to Stossel, the TV network consumer reporter turned staunch free-market defender. "I hold beliefs Conservatives abhor."

Speaking at a luncheon hosted by the conservative Fraser Institute think tank yesterday, Stossel made it clear his politics don't quite fall within the traditional left or right wing spectrum.

He takes no issue with gay marriage, for example, while he says sending troops to Iraq "wasn't a good idea." At the same time, lefties likely won't love his views on global warming - "Those environmental guys," Stossel said, "seem to be acting more like psychics than following the science."

But Stossel's contentious governments-are-bad preaching also extends to drug laws, which he says are causing harm.

[Physicist]

Read "Give Me a Break" for his absurd hypothesis.

I read it cover-to-cover, and what you say is simply false.

Stossel no more believes that ALL drug problems will be solved by ending the WOD than he believes all alcohol problems were solved by ending prohibition. But ending prohibition sure solved most of them.

[Beagle8U]

If you look at the Libertarian platform, there is little to separate them from liberals except they like guns and don't like taxes. Everything else is about the same.

I think "Liberal-terriors" would be a better name.

[calex59]

The absurd hypothesis as you put it, is based on fact. One fact that is easily checked is the repeal of prohibition. How anyone can understand that repealing prohibition eleminated, at least 99 percent, the crime associated with Alcohol and think that somehow the methods used agains alchohol will work with drugs is flabergasting! Particularly in light of the faillure of the WOD and the ease with which people obtain drugs.

The truth is, if drugs were legalized addiction would drop, as alcoholism and drinking dropped when prohibition was repealed.

Stop making drugs profitable by legalizing them and you will take the crime out of it.

The reason gangs and the mafia started selling drugs was because their alcohol money dried up. Legalize drugs and that dries up, viola, no crime, no drug runners, no street gangs because their money would be gone.

Back in the 1930s thru the 50s, street gangs were a minor element because they had no money to purchase serious weapons. With the advent of gangs selling drugs they became a major factor in our lives. MS-13 for example would leave here if there was no drug money to be made, drug runners would stop coming across the border because they couldn't make a profit here.

People who can't see that are just blind to the truth and letting their morality and the fact they want to control other people and tell them what to do get in the way of clear thinking.

[Sam Cree]

Stossel is against govenment taking a central role in the ordering and arranging of society, he believes in the free market - this isn't too far off the libertarian, or for that matter, classical liberal, position.

This point of view doesn't fly with the Left, or with most of the Right.

[rottndog]

People who can't see that are just blind to the truth and letting their morality and the fact they want to control other people and tell them what to do get in the way of clear thinking.


Ditto! Just the facts....no emotions....just the facts.

[balrog666]

Gee, how would the police get paid if we abolished the WOsD?

[muir_redwoods]

"The Bill of Rights doesn't argue anything. It assumes a whole bunch of stuff out of whole cloth. I happen to agree with most of what it assumes. But they are principles, not arguments."

So full of error.

The BOR assumes nothing out of "whole cloth", it enumerates divinely given rights. I agree with all of it, not most of it and therein is the difference between libertarians and traditionalists. We accept all of the freedoms guaranteed by the BOR. The principles of the BOR are the most cogent arguments ever written down in the history on mankind. One would have to know the history to know that virtually the whole world disagreed with them when they were written down for the first time.

I am worthy of freedom, sorry about you.

[Physicist]

If you look at the Libertarian platform, there is little to separate them from liberals except they like guns and don't like taxes. Everything else is about the same.

Yeah, well the Libertarians are but a tick on the ass of the libertarians, most of whom are Republicans, and who believe in free markets, abolition of transfer payments (including Social Security), elimination of bureaucracy, separation of school and state, strict Constitutional constructionism, deregulation, and sucking ANWR dry of oil.

Liberals?

[ovrtaxt]

The LP is a collection of idiots. Most people with libertarian views wouldn't waste their time voting for them.

Unfortunately, there aren't many candidates left to vote for in any party.

[Beagle8U]

"I am worthy of freedom, sorry about you"

There is freedom somewhere slavery and legal drugs and abortion.

Its not an all or nothing kind of thing.

[Beagle8U]

I agree with many libertarian positions, I'll never agree to go along with abortion of queer marriage it evil and morally wrong.

As for the legal drugs, most mean pot, but that will never happen, it cost business to much money. There is no simple way to prove someone is fried. You cant smell it on their breath, and they can still walk straight.

Come up with a simple breath test and it might. Even with a piss test, it only shows traces, it wont prove someone high, or if they smoked a joint last weekend.

[Beagle8U]

** abortion OR queer marriage

[HairOfTheDog]

Stossel's a good independent writer that's always worth the read. Just don't try to put him in a box and he won't disappoint you.

[carenot]

** abortion OR queer marriage

I am a libertarian.
I don't care if queers get married.

Abotion, except for life of mother is murder.
Murder is the State's business, not the Fed Govs.

[TEEHEE]

Let me explain... No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

Inigo BUMP!

[Beagle8U]

"I am a libertarian.
I don't care if queers get married"

You must like paying more in taxes and subsidizing health care for an unhealthy lifestyle?

Queer marriage will give you both of those, regardless of how you feel about it morally.

[rottndog]

As for the legal drugs, most mean pot, but that will never happen, it cost business to much money. There is no simple way to prove someone is fried. You cant smell it on their breath, and they can still walk straight.


Someone who is coming to work fried will probably not be fired for being fried--Most likely that person will get fired for lack of performance on the job. On the flip side, people who like to get fried probably won't go to work fried because they value their jobs and don't want to get fired. This is pretty much self-regulating.

Also, any cost to employers in the pursuit of a drug free work environment (drug testing) will be money well spent when you consider the costs and liability involved with having employees on the job under the influence.

[Sandy]

For Stossel to predict that if we eliminated the WOD all the problems associated with recreational drug usage would disappear

Except Stossel makes no such prediction; not even close. He predicts--and rightfully so--that if we eliminated prohibition the problems associated with prohibition would disappear.

[Mannaggia l'America]

Stop making drugs profitable by legalizing them and you will take the crime out of it.

If legalizing drugs will "stop making drugs profitable", then who will sell them? If there's no profit, who will have any motivation to make the drugs or sell them?

I certainly don't want government in the drug making/selling business - that wouldn't be very libertarian...

[skr]

If drugs only affected the people that take them, then I wouldn't want to waste taxpayer money and police time either. If only.