I assure you, the harm done to the Constitution, the Republic and our individual liberty in the name of your precious war on some drugs is VASTLY greater than any possible harm done you by some drug user, by several orders of magnitude. And don’t forget, when you trade liberty for the ILLUSION of security, it’s MY liberty that goes down the drain along with yours... and I promise you, I do NOT take that lightly. I do keep in mind those of you who are so willing to give MY freedom away along with your own. It is precisely YOUR sort of attitude that makes Obaminations possible, and I remember THAT, as well.
Do you see a fundamental difference in government limiting your freedom to use drugs because of the harm you might cause me and the government limiting your freedom to drive the wrong way on the highway because of the harm you might cause me? Or limiting your freedom to drink and then drive, because of the harm you might cause me?
I understand that we could debate the relative risk of harm to me for each of those actions, and choose to limit your freedom for some but not others based on the RISK of harm.
I just want to know if you believe the government HAS a right to limit your freedom in order to protect my person and property, and if so why you believe that it is constitutional to do so in some of those cases, but not for mind-altering chemicals.
I say this because, in my opinion, if you accept that there is an inherent risk to me in drug legalization, and accept that government can constitutionally limit one person’s freedom in order to protect another’s life or property, then I don’t think it is a constitutional question anymore, but simply a question of value — whether the limits are worth the rewards in this case.
I simply don’t see how you can draw the drug question in stark black-and-white terms, unless you also draw those other things above in the same black-and-white terms. If you do, that is great — I am just seeing if there is consistancy. I would understand a philosophy which says that government can ONLY act to punish actual harms, and cannot limit freedom merely to limit the PROBABILITY of harm.
And to use the driving example, many of us drive as if the important thing is whether we cause actual harm, and we don’t truly respect the government’s limitations on us. Most of us speed, some people float through stop signs, some will go through stop lights if they think it safe, or cross railroads with flashing lights. These are actions which indicate a disdain for the government’s right to limit MY freedom simply because something I do MIGHT harm someone else.