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The Tea Party and the Drug War
National Review ^ | June 7, 2010 | Jeffrey A. Miron

Posted on 06/07/2010 11:20:04 AM PDT by bamahead

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To: Abundy

thank you for supporting immorality


81 posted on 06/07/2010 10:33:07 PM PDT by RaceBannon (RON PAUL: THE PARTY OF TRUTHERS, TRAITORS AND UFO CHASERS!!!)
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To: Abundy

we’ll let those prisoners live in your house and do drugs instead

make you happy?


82 posted on 06/07/2010 10:33:46 PM PDT by RaceBannon (RON PAUL: THE PARTY OF TRUTHERS, TRAITORS AND UFO CHASERS!!!)
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To: RaceBannon

neither of your posts address the constitutionality or conservative nature of my points

instead you make emotional and irrational appeals

I would also point out that it is not government’s job to enforce morality. Do you want to be subject by law to a morality that you do not agree with?

nor is my recognition of that fact in any way supporting these people’s lifestyle choices. in fact, I don’t support their choices and would prefer to let them kill themselves on their choices instead of taking my tax dollars to try to force them to make other choices

as for having those people in my house to do drugs...sorry, I don’t do drugs and if someone comes in my house uninvited I exercise my right to defend myself


83 posted on 06/07/2010 10:40:12 PM PDT by Abundy
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To: tacticalogic

Stipulated.

As this thread proves, these discussions invariably devolve into silly and boring name calling.


84 posted on 06/07/2010 11:37:18 PM PDT by absalom01 (Claire Wolfe, call your office.)
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To: bamahead
You want a wasteful war to quit?

How about we throw in the towel in the War on Poverty first?

It has been going on longer, and we may have the fattest poor people in the world, but we have an awful lot more of them than when the war started.

Please note the law was written around the Constitution in the area of controlled dangerous substances, they are not banned, per se, just illegal to posess without authorization: regulated to the point there is a de facto ban.

What we need are people who will respect both the letter and founder's intent in the Constitution, and the rest will be taken care of if they stay adherent to those principles of limited and responsible government.

Cluttering up that goal with individual divisive issues is a liberal wet dream.

85 posted on 06/08/2010 1:04:54 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
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To: Abundy

if you dont get it, then you are a doper yourself and not worth explaining it


86 posted on 06/08/2010 4:12:58 AM PDT by RaceBannon (RON PAUL: THE PARTY OF TRUTHERS, TRAITORS AND UFO CHASERS!!!)
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To: Abundy

from another thread:

True Liberty is not license. Those who think as you, sir, pervert liberty, and destroy the fundamental principles that allow a culture to thrive economically. This is the error of libertarian philosophy.

What libertarianism proposes is moral relativism under the pretense of “non-interference.” However, in the final measure, the result is that guaranteed outcome of any morally ambiguous system, which denies human nature and the transcendent truths that govern all cause and effect relationships. In practice the imagined utopia of the libertarian is identical in its altruistic deception to that of atheistic communism; and the outcome is predictable: the destruction of the individual and the corporate body of humanity we call society.

Libertarians think they may advance the cause of “social liberalism” simultaneously with “fiscal conservatism;” but this duality of purpose is folly, and works diametrically and insidiously against itself. The social plagues induced by such novel philosophies invariably drain the public treasury, render the distinctions of absolute right and wrong to ambiguity, destroy public confidence in justice, and dissolve private wealth.

Human society does not and cannot exist in a moral vacuum. A society that having no absolute standards of conduct defers all decisions to the individual, exercising little or no restraint on behavior, abdicates the single most legitimate purpose of the state: to increase the common good and uphold the moral order. To quote Edmond Burke:

“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites, — in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity, — in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption, — in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

-— Letter to a Member of the National Assembly (1791)

A corrupt society, filled with men of licentious inclinations, cannot maintain its economic stability; or do you suppose the folly of the Roman Republic is worth revisiting in our times? “Give us bread and circuses!”

Economics does not transcend moral absolutes. Economics does not trump the Natural Law. History proves conclusively that no immoral or amoral culture can long prosper, nor survive its growing litany of perversions against the Natural Law; for such a corrupt body becomes its own undoing. Unfettered liberty generates unfettered vice.

Vice is not virtue; even if for a time libertarianism may advance a nation’s economic standing, it remains a foundation of sand because it denies the absolute transcendent truth indelibly stamped on the consciousness of every man by He who created all things. God is not mocked.


87 posted on 06/08/2010 4:22:33 AM PDT by RaceBannon (RON PAUL: THE PARTY OF TRUTHERS, TRAITORS AND UFO CHASERS!!!)
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To: elkfersupper
Define "we".

As things stand right now, "We" means taxpayers. And of course, with the current welfare state, they wouldn't go hungry or homeless. There'd be no need for "we" (meaning you and me as individuals) to help them.

88 posted on 06/08/2010 6:36:58 AM PDT by MEGoody (Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.)
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To: The Comedian
*Slammin'* question.

Sorta like when Clinton said "Depends what the definition if is is." ;)

89 posted on 06/08/2010 6:37:40 AM PDT by MEGoody (Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.)
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To: rabscuttle385
Child neglect is already a crime.

So instead of spending the money on the WOD, we'd be spending it on increased incidents of child neglect.

90 posted on 06/08/2010 6:39:35 AM PDT by MEGoody (Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.)
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To: clee1
I don’t mean to sound heartless, but I don’t think there will be more addicts if drugs are legalized, nor do I believe that less families suffer because they are currently illegal.

I'd have to disagree. Whenever something is made legal, the stigma is reduced, and you have more of it. Abortion is a prime example.

91 posted on 06/08/2010 6:40:35 AM PDT by MEGoody (Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.)
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To: Deb
And you should see my "jack boots"! I have purple, really cool Kelly green and black ones with American flags.

Since I'm sure your "jack boots" will get plenty of wear this election year, I found some online when you need to replace (stomping traulls is hard on boots, eh?) ...


92 posted on 06/08/2010 8:56:50 AM PDT by Servant of the Cross (the Truth will set you free)
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To: Deb

Deb, and the rest,

I’m not a drug user. Never have. Never smoked. Drank alcohol once in my lifetime to celebrate something. Won’t do it again.

I am also a cancer survivor.

Was there pot available for me to help with the nausea? Yes. Did I partake? No.

Now, from my perspective, and believe me, if you haven’t been there, you have no clue what you’re talking about, if there’s a way to help that, and you can bring yourself to do something to help, then you want that available.

A simple take is not “legalization” but to take it out of the fed’s hands. If California wants to have pot houses, so be it. If Nevada wants full heroin bars, that’s their choice. If Utah wants to ban it, that’s their choice. But, NO FEDERAL INVOLVEMENT.


93 posted on 06/08/2010 10:54:15 AM PDT by spacewarp (Gun control is a tight cluster grouping in the chest and one in the forehead.)
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To: Servant of the Cross
Those boots are FABULOUS!!!

Don't know if you've ever played on a "drug thread". They're really fun and it doesn't take much to get them going crazy.

94 posted on 06/08/2010 11:19:03 AM PDT by Deb (Beat him, strip him and bring him to my tent!)
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To: HKMk23
Not until Israel dispensed with this libertarian streak and opted for a monarchy did they begin their ascent to their Golden Age under David and Solomon.

The level of lawlessness shown by government agents who trample the Bill of Rights under the pretext of fighting the war on drugs, far exceeds that shown by drug users.

95 posted on 06/08/2010 3:55:54 PM PDT by supercat (Barry Soetoro == Bravo Sierra)
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To: bamahead
The problem at the Party level is that practically made it their ONLY issue. And I admit, the legalization rationale does sound ridiculous standing on it’s own, until you quantify it within an overall movement toward smaller, less intrusive government, and the elimination of the welfare state as a whole.

The Libertarian Party has failed to craft that message as part of the broader move toward smaller government.

That's because the LP is trying to sell easy, because older libertarians have had to face worse than you guys. Compared to the smearing they used to face, "LIBERALtarian" is pretty mild. Remember when Gore Vidal called Bill Buckley a crypto-Nazi? Older libertarians faced that kind of smear too. They had to become inured to being taunted as "right-wing extremists."

So, when the hippies showed a little sympathy to libertarianism, it's no surprise that the libertarians jumped right in. An issue like drug legalization makes libertarians look permissive - the opposite of the 'authoritarians' they were smeared as.

96 posted on 06/08/2010 4:15:28 PM PDT by danielmryan
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To: Abundy
The WOD has increased government authority via erosion of the 4th and 5th amendments; increased government spending; militarized law enforcement; caused overcrowding in prisons (which increases government spending) and engendered a distrust between law enforcement officers and the citizens they serve.

He has his point. The "war on murder," "war on robbery" and even the "war on rape" did nothing of the kind. The worst offshoot from crackdowns on those crimes was false accusations. I'm not trying to minimize the hurt that false accusations cause, but miscarriages of justice don't warp the system as a whole.

97 posted on 06/08/2010 4:28:28 PM PDT by danielmryan
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To: supercat

The level of lawlessness shown by BOTH sides is THE CORE of the issue. BOTH sides keep pointing fingers of blame at each other, and using that to rationalize their own misdeeds. It’s like catching two kids fighting, and all you can get out of them is crap like, “Well, he started it,” and “He hit me first,” and “I was playing with that and he grabbed it.”

It’s just one cock-and-bull story after another.

BOTH sides are WRONG.

The government’s too heavy-handed, and the druggies can’t grok that “righteous” in the context of “self-government” has NOTHING to do with playing Black Sabbath records at 78rpm.

THE SOLE DEMAND of LIBERTY is RIGHTEOUS SELF-GOVERNANCE.

Failure (or refusal) to meet that demand results in a loss of liberty.

Look, here’s a breadcrumb to get you pointed right: grab you bible and check out Romans chapter 3. Hunt up the phrase “righteousness apart from the Law.”

I think you’re probably smart enough to go from there. Now, it may boil down to whether or not you want to, and that’s your prerogative, but once you recognize that it’s you making that choice, you also recognize that you own it all; that playing the blame game is OUT.

You might also hunt this one down, as it’s also appropriate to this discussion: Whom The Son sets free is free, indeed.

Now THAT’S liberty!


98 posted on 06/08/2010 6:12:57 PM PDT by HKMk23 (Boy! LOOK at that! Them figs'll be ripe sooner'n ya think. [Matt. 24:32])
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To: HKMk23
The level of lawlessness shown by BOTH sides is THE CORE of the issue.

The danger posed to innocent people by lawless government agents so vastly exceeds the danger posed by pot smokers, that pursuing the latter while the former are allowed to run wild is--at absolute minimum--a gross mis-allocation of resources, equivalent to prosecuting an office-worker for 'stealing' a Post-It to remind himself to buy groceries, while ignoring workers who steal millions of dollars' worth of equipment or merchandise.

There can be no real law and order unless the government and its agents conduct themselves lawfully, and are held to a standard at least as high as the population at large. In the vast majority of human endeavors, people will adapt their behavior depending upon what is required. It's human nature. If it becomes well-known that government agents will be allowed to act lawlessly, many will begin to do so.

Someone who favors law and order should regard a cop who breaks into someone's dwelling in a fashion inconsistent with the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments (the Sixth clarifying 'due process of law') as a burglar if he doesn't accost any occupants, or as a robber if he does. Titles of nobility are forbidden under the Constitution, and a person's legitimate duties can by definition not include illegitimate actions.

99 posted on 06/09/2010 4:01:57 PM PDT by supercat (Barry Soetoro == Bravo Sierra)
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To: MEGoody

That is a problem associated with socialism, not a problem associated with liberty.


100 posted on 06/09/2010 6:13:47 PM PDT by elkfersupper (Member of the Original Defiant Class)
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