"That's just flat out the dumbest thing I've ever heard in reference to the prohibition/restriction of actions based on harm done to others. I assume that you accept that behavior that harms people can be prohibited or regulated. Murder, loud music, public sex acts? Maybe one of those would qualify for you?"
If X murders Y, he has by the very commission of this act harmed Y (obviously).
If X plays loud music near Y, he has probably bothered Y; the important part is the playing of the music itself is the act which is potentially harming Y.
Again, if X and Z perform sex in public, it is their action itself which is the offense against Y.
By this good reasoning, a man who is publicly intoxicated may be arrested, whereas one who is equally drunk at home is not -- because the one at home has not brought offense. If X, drunk, then leaves his house and drives, or robs a store, then it is is this second action, not the original act of drinking, which is the offense.
Following this line of thinking, one would likewise conclude that if X smokes marijuana, Y, his neighbor, is not harmed by the action itself; if X goes on in his intoxicated state to commit criminal action, it is that action which is criminal per se.
Now, potentially, X may be harmed by the smoking itself, in the same sense that we can say that smoking tobacco may harm X, overindulgence in drink can harm X, eating of unhealthy food can harm X, and so forth.
If we assert that self-harm of this sort is punishable, than when we bring punishment for marijuana, we also keep the door open to those who would criminalize other behaviors, on the grounds that we (the people) are generally harmed by the self-abuser's health or lifestyle problems caused by his choices. In this fashion smokers are being demonized; busineses are prohibited from allowing smoking, prohibitive taxes are levied, government social services are brought to bear against parents who smoke, and so forth. The same technique is now beginning to be used against eaters of unhealthy food.
This, essentially, is the argument: do the people have the right to criminalize behavior they feel is unwise, or do the people have the right to possibly unwise behavior?
I have no direct stake in marijuana; I do martial arts and have no time for things that impair my aerobic conditioning. However, in the general principle, I'm for letting people alone until and unless they actually cause a harm to others, because the other line of thinking is socialist in nature: "we" the majority are empowered to override "your" choices. I prefer the opinion that the word "adult" means something -- a citizen capable of choosing how to defend himself, how to think and express himself, and how to manage his life generally, all without the prior consent or approval of the state.
That's not my point. My point is, do the people have the right to decide whether the behavior is simply unwise or whether the behavior is sufficiently harmful to others to warrant abridging it.
The argument you're making is to answer the question, which is the methodology of trying to win the argument in the arena of ideas. Good for you, but that's not my point (see my #102).
The bone I'm picking is with the notion that the people should not be allowed to decide such things in the arena of ideas, because smoking pot is a constitutional right, and is therefore untouchable. The problem with this logic is that someone has to decide the question of harm. I say that should be the People after open and honest debate. I don't want it to be some appointed judge with a Napoleon complex.
No.6, thank you for your penetrating post.
Here is the nut of it:
"If we assert that self-harm of this sort is punishable, than when we bring punishment for marijuana, we also keep the door open to those who would criminalize other behaviors, on the grounds that we (the people) are generally harmed by the self-abuser's health or lifestyle problems caused by his choices. In this fashion smokers are being demonized; busineses are prohibited from allowing smoking, prohibitive taxes are levied, government social services are brought to bear against parents who smoke, and so forth. The same technique is now beginning to be used against eaters of unhealthy food.
This, essentially, is the argument: do the people have the right to criminalize behavior they feel is unwise, or do the people have the right to possibly unwise behavior?...."
In fact, it isn't 'the People' who lead these control-freak social movements, but usually paid agents of the state whipping the people into hysteria over these 'health' issues with their own money. In addition, the bogus gubmint 'science' sucks on innumerable public titties.
Why Americans are largely blind to the metastasizing socialism in their own country when they recoil from it so strongly in foreign climes eludes me, even after all these years of following US politics.
Those who support the Constitution and America's historical foundation have always been a minority - I don't know if that can work in the long run.