Posted on 02/17/2019 11:41:44 PM PST by AzNASCARfan
I don’t trust U.S. pols so it goes without saying that I don’t trust a word from any Mexican pol. But I’m pretty sure U.S. government complicity in the drug trade goes back well before the Reagan administration.
No names that I saw, but I am hearing that El Chapo did during his trial... First was the $100 million he paid to the previous Mexican President. Then from what I read, they cleared the courtroom when he started naming American Politicians.
So how do you think Maxine Waters and Nancy Pelosi are living large in their multi-million dollar mansions in the most expensive state in the country from a measly congressional salary for the past 30 years?
Clearly your idea of "anything" is a total failure.
Should we keep doing the same thing and hope it turns out differently, or would you have a death state for what ever infractions they deem appropriate? That kinda only leaves one choice.
Revoke the govts authority to regulate drugs! If you are sick, injured, in pain, etc, you should be allowed to purchase what ever drugs you need, without a govt sanctioned permission slip! If you don't know what drugs you need consult a doctor.
Do you not see the monopoly they have set up? It is not constitutional by any means. We functioned as a nation for over a hundred years without a nanny state dictating our health care choices. True there were snake oil salesmen then, and things haven't changed except the state now takes a cut from them, and in the case of Monsanto it outright owns the govt sanctioning agency.
PS Some of the most patriotic patriots have been Democrats! Just because their party is currently outright and open communist doesn't mean everyone in the past was!
The current Rethuglicans are even worse! We can withstand an enemy at the gates, but spies and traitors within will be our downfall
No, although I may as well be living in the Podiatrist office. Been there for the last five Mondays and got a date with him at the Hospital on the 28th to finish what he should have a few years ago.
I have no idea.
watch yer mailbox...
Will do. Thank You
Yep, it's been done already...by the Clinton Crime Cabal.
Sorry, the years have not been super-kind to my eyes, even now the near sight.
Will have to get that fixed...
Have a great day.
Conservative and Libertarian values overlap in many places.
Anti-drug laws enforcement is not one of those.
So the necessary question becomes: in what places do your own Conservative values overcome Libertarian views?
nathanbedford: "But we are still committing national suicide because we are demonstrably unable to shut open access to the most addictive drugs.
You're getting the worst of both worlds."
Maybe.
So do this mental exercise: list the names of every country successful at reducing drug addiction following your Libertarian ideas.
A pretty short list, right?
Now list the countries successful at reducing drug addition using stronger law enforcement.
Still a short list, but not zero.
This exercise suggests the path to reduced addiction is stronger law enforcement, not less.
So their best practices should be noted, civil liberties issues engineered around.
nathanbedford: "Who in the world around here is advocating for open borders?"
Open to illegal drugs, right?
How many died at Pearl Harbor, was it 2,400?
How many died on 9/11/01, was it 3,000?
How many die these days from illegal drug overdoses, is it 70,000 per year?
In four years that's about the same numbers of Americans as died in combat, in all of WWII!
In what sense is that not a national emergency or form of national suicide?
Same questions to you as to nathanbedford: Can you name countries where your ideas succeeded?
I think not.
The model for reducing drug addition is stronger law enforcement.
It was successful here till the drug nazis of mercy thrust prohibition upon us.
In coming to your conclusion, "This exercise suggests the path to reduced addiction is stronger law enforcement, not less" you acknowledge one of the real problems with effective drug prohibition: "So their best practices should be noted, civil liberties issues engineered around." Not only do we both acknowledge that successful reduction of drug addiction using stronger law enforcement is "a short list, but not zero" but we both recognize the real threat to our precious civil liberties in pursuing that elusive goal.
For about a decade now I've been contributing the occasional reply to the same effect as I have written in this thread. Let me be intellectually honest, too, there might well be downsides and risks in the legalization of hard drugs. Among the several replies I've written over the years, the issues don't change in the dilemma only worsens, let me choose one from 2012 that renders my point of view most vulnerable but which is responsive to your inquiry:
Economics 101 Tells Us That the War on Drugs is a Complete Failure: Prices Are Going Down, Not Up
Sat Jul 07 2012 03:49:46 GMT+0200 (W. Europe Daylight Time) · 36 of 123
nathanbedford to brent13a
We are are pursuing the war on drugs to its tragic conclusion even to the threshold of destroying the Bill of Rights, thoroughly corrupting the administration of justice, over populating our prisons, destroying huge portions of succeeding generations, mortally threatening respect for the rule of law, breaking families apart, engorging government, depleting the treasury, and actually making addiction to drugs more widespread. The idea that taking the profit motive out of drug distribution would not put the cartels out of business is absurd. However, to raise the question as you do whether one is willing to accept open distribution, or very open controlled distribution, of extremely dangerous drugs is legitimate because half measures will not prevail over the drug cartels because they will not eliminate the profit motive.
That means that those of us who advocate the legalization of drugs must be courageous enough to advocate the legalization of the most deadly drugs and the most addictive drugs. It does no good to stand for the legalization of pot only. The profit motive must be withdrawn from the trade and that means the profit motive for all drugs. That implies easy access at reasonable prices below prices which are profitable for cartels to operate for adults of extremely dangerous and extremely addictive drugs. There is no way around that.
The situation we have today is similar: we have easy access at reasonable prices (but prices nevertheless inflated because the drug is illegal so the trade is profitable for cartels) by adults or children to extremely dangerous and extremely addictive drugs.
I want the choice. I am a conservative I want the choice vested in me as an individual and not taken away from me and invested in a government. I want the power to choose to be free of drugs and at the same time to be free of the threat of being mugged so that some addict can pay for his habit by robbing me. I want to be free of the threat of home invasion. I want to be able to enjoy free access to the public square. Therefore, I am willing to tolerate others making the wrong choice and addicting themselves because a dangerous, addictive substance is relatively easy and legal to obtain. My belief is that fewer people will make that choice because there is no incentive for addicts to push drugs to fund their own habits. Presumably, addicts will have access to cheap drugs and will have no need to resort to crime or violence to satisfy their habituation. The government chronically makes the wrong choices for us, it deprives us of freedom of choice, it exposes us to violence, it creates a black market and actually supports prices within that market.
I want to end the moral hazard of drug abuse. If an adult citizen of the United States makes a choice to use hazardous drugs let's him alone bear the consequences as much as possible-to the degree that he alone bears the consequences for abusing alcohol. Let not society, by rendering the choice illegal, shift the costs and unanticipated consequences onto those of us who choose not abuse drugs. Let the government stop making me collateral damage in its war on drugs.
To return to my own comments:
As I noted at the beginning, you are intellectually honest in balancing civil liberties against the presumed values of drug prohibition. But you ask the question in reverse, "So the necessary question becomes: in what places do your own Conservative values overcome Libertarian views?"
My answer: where manifestly intrusive values trample on civil liberties to no successful effect and so disparage respect for the rule of law that other conservative values are damaged thus leading to "national suicide", that is the place where libertarian values overcome conservative values, indeed, that is the place where libertarian values save conservative values.
sorry I am a crabby old lady and I thought you thought I was bragging about streaking haha
Because of drugs ability to literally alter one’s mind and personality (rarely for the better) and the direct impact it has on violence and disturbances of all sorts, it has a special standing that we need to consider if we indeed want a civilized society.
I agree with ( the interlocutor during the discussion in 2010) fully here. That is why I said:
if one weighs the value of the liberty to ingest illicit drugs against the harm that is done to society by those under the influence, the debate is over.
In other words, if those were the only considerations, there would be near unanimity in need to enact and vigorously enforce dracoanian drug prohibition laws. I also think that the law is an extremely blunt instrument to effect "decency." It is liable to unintended consequences, corruption, and self-defeating excess, all of which we've seen in the war on drugs. And that is why I said:
On the other hand, if one looks at the corruption and unanticipated blowback from our drugs policy, one could very easily come to the opposite conclusion, as I have.
The strength of my argument is the weakness in your argument: we have done it your way for decades and it is obviously failing. The weakness of my argument is that there is no data to tell us what would happen to our modern society in the absence of drug prohibition. I could be completely wrong and drug use could go viral and society might suffer severe disintegration as a result. There is no data to tell us. Either way the risks are great, the costs of miscalculation high and we have few resources left in our financially and morally impoverished society to spare if we get this wrong.
End of old reply
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