Posted on 12/03/2008 10:30:35 PM PST by Eric Blair 2084
“One of the biggest incentives in the illegal selling of controlled substances is the insane profit margin so you’re off course right off the bat! Even legally distributed controlled substances are sold, though there is no insane profit margin. “
If the drugs are legal, the dealers will have an even bigger profit margin because their costs will be lower and they will be able to attract new customers.
“Judgment can’t be “taken over”, though it can be diminished. A person who is dehydrated can have diminished judgment and water, an inanimate object, can’t be blamed for that diminished state nor can it “take over” the judgment of that person in forcing them not to drink it!”
Drugs are sold by people. They have an agenda to manipulate people so that they will always turn to them for more sales. I am more interested in the major drug dealers than whether some guy grows some pot for his own personal use.
“What about a person’s (consumer’s) decision to take “harmful substances” of their own choosing?”
There’s a difference with drugs vs say, trans fats. Trans fats are harmful but they can’t be used as a tool to manipulate the minds of people. If someone wants to eat trans fats then that is his choice (as long as he understands that he can’t expect the govt to bail him with govt health care when he gets sick).
But someone who is addicted to drugs is not capable of making sound decisions.
“Is it themselves or the government, whose laws the individual is forced to follow?”
The govt isn’t the only entity that can stick a gun in back of your head if you don’t obey. Look at Somalia. Not much govt there.
“It was most concerned with Trust busting, conservation, railroad regulation, sufferage for women, secret ballots etc.”
That’s true, and the religious elements of the movement probably weren’t much conserned with those issues. But I can see how, through the sort of twisted logic used by people like Murray Rothbard, that all of the above (anti-trust, conservation, public health-ism, regulation of the marketplace) could be considered conservative, in some sense of the word. I know that several times in my life I’ve heard people try to convince me that the environmental movement is essentially conservative (you know, conservationist/conservative, they’re pretty close).
That’s one of the reasons I’d love to chuck the outdated right/left distinction in favor of a political spectrum running from more to less government: anarchists on one side, statists on the other. Progressives absolutely lie on the statist side, and so, often, do social conservatives.
No the two movements were not one and the same. Women received the sufferage and political power in many areas not particularly affected by progressives.
The main trust of progressives was obtaining greater government regulation and control of the economy through anti-trust activities, railroad regulation, conservation of natural resources, and the reduction of corruption in government.
The latter pointed to a common enemy with the suffergettes: the big city democrat machines often run by saloon keepers.
As I stated above the Saloon keepers often ran the big city political machines in the late 1800s. These were corrupt Democrats so there was a natural alliance between those with a larger progressive agenda and the WCTU anti-booze program.
I agree vocabulary is obselete in describing political ideas. Conservatism is actually Liberalism (being for Freedom.)
Drugs are sold by people.
Well, DUH!
They have an agenda to manipulate people so that they will always turn to them for more sales.
Sharing your opinion again or do you have proof?
I am more interested in the major drug dealers than whether some guy grows some pot for his own personal use.
Well then you should be for legalization because major drug dealers would have to turn into legitimate businessmen who will have to conduct their business aboveboard.
There’s a difference with drugs vs say, trans fats. Trans fats are harmful but they can’t be used as a tool to manipulate the minds of people.
You've yet to show that drugs of any kind manipulate people's minds. They're inanimate objects.
And as far as using "a tool to manipulate the minds of people" you would be just as well served to attack the MSM 'cause they sure as hell are a tool to manipulate the minds of people.
If someone wants to eat trans fats then that is his choice (as long as he understands that he can’t expect the govt to bail him with govt health care when he gets sick).
So some animals have more rights than others? Four legs good, two legs better? /Animal Farm
But someone who is addicted to drugs is not capable of making sound decisions.
Your opinion, once again, has no bearing. Plenty of folks who are "addicted to drugs" make sound decisions all of the time. By your thinking someone addicted to nicotine isn't capable of making sound decisions. Of course, your definition of "addiction" is probably a bit more opinionated than that of others.
The govt isn’t the only entity that can stick a gun in back of your head if you don’t obey. Look at Somalia. Not much govt there.
Simple response...this ain't Somalia we're talking about!
Look at what a fine job they've done with you!
Prohibition was introduced as a fraud; it has been nursed as a fraud. It is wrapped in the livery of Heaven, but it comes to serve the devil. It comes to regulate by law our appetites and our daily lives. It comes to tear down liberty and build up fanaticism, hypocrisy, and intolerance. It comes to confiscate by legislative decree the property of many of our fellow citizens. It comes to send spies, detectives, and informers into our homes; to have us arrested and carried before courts and condemned to fines and imprisonments. It comes to dissipate the sunlight of happiness, peace, and prosperity in which we are now living and to fill our land with alienations, estrangements, and bitterness. It comes to bring us evil - only evil - and that continually. Let us rise in our might as one and overwhelm it with such indignation that we shall never hear of it again as long as grass grows and water runs. — Roger Q. Mills
The federal government would still have authority over what comes across the borders, the state laws would still be in place, and a whole slew of federal alpahbet agencies that exceed the originally intended scope of the federal government go on chopping block.
“And the profits won’t be bigger because the costs are inflated now due to the black market nature of the drugs! Get a clue! Putting them on the open legal market will drastically drop the prices. Who is going to pay a dollar for what really costs a penny? “
You’re confused between cost, price and profit. If the price of drugs drops because the cost of producing them drops, the drug dealers will make more profit. And the demand for drugs (which is already very high which is why they profit despite high costs) will go up.
“So some animals have more rights than others?”
They don’t have any rights because they are as dumb as someone who is addicted to crack. You can’t build a free republic out of stupid people or drug addicts.
“Simple response...this ain’t Somalia we’re talking about! “
NYC sure looked like Somalia before Rudy.
Not necessarily. Really bad areas will get 'good' when the folks living there exercise their right to defend themselves. There is a direct connection between being unarmed, and living in a 'bad area'.
Bad goes away when people do the 'good' thing- namely, take responsibility for their own safety by exercising their right to keep and bear arms. Simple as that.
A good analogy might be: if a fire broke out in your kitchen, you'd look immediately for water (or flour, if it was a grease fire) to put it out. What the STATE would recommend would be that you call them first, ignore your sink or flour container- for fear that you might harm yourself or others- while your kitchen burns down half your house 'till they get there.
Remember this: it isn't good people using guns that gets people killed, it's the bad guys jumping in front of bullets that do.
Regarding your replies in general...nobody can be that obtuse on accident so it has to be intentional.
ok here’s the deal. Which city is safer? Rudy’s NYC or libertarian Las Vegas?
it only makes a difference if you want to live. otherwise it’s no big deal.
the point is, we know what works and what doesn’t work when it comes to reducing crime and legalizing drugs or hookers isn’t part of the equation. We don’t have gangs or the mafia running NYC.
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