Watch out when the Libertarian statists come for you.
Charge: Criminal drug-evasion.
Posted on 12/30/2001 1:25:13 AM PST by NoCurrentFreeperByThatName
I too see them as beginning to do a turnabout on the drug issue. -- It would behoove you Rino-socialists to lead, rather than follow, - imo.
The repeal of the drug war, plus an abandonment of income tax, in favor of some type of sales tax scheme, should be the goals of every liberty loving conservative. It's amazing that so many can't see such obvious solutions. Perhaps it's because so many here are not really conservative?
I am a mainstream Repblican, not a Libertarian. I don't do anything stronger than cognac, but it beats me how arresting stoners makes me either safer or freer. Conversely, for every fewer federal employee I am measurably and materially freer, and safer! That is why I, and tens of millions of other conservatives, have no sympathy at all for the Drug War.
So what state in a year would you and ALL your family be in if you used illegal drugs? Would everything be normal or would addictions cause problems? In this example, you were innocent before you got addicted, right? How innocent are you as you need to sponge on the extended family around you and on the monies in the social kitty to help you in rehab? Money better spent to cure cancer or fight terrorism with!
Bad enough law enforcement has to use fund due to the weak minded. I can only immagine the giant social and economic cost surrounding illegal drug use.
We had economist articles about legalizing drugs on FR. They pointed out that addicts would greatly grow and their problems would cost society's piggy bank quite a bit to deal with.
Best solution? Be an adult with adult-like responsibility and DON'T EVER START TO USE ILLEGAL DRUGS.
Your whole line of reasoning is too obtuse to even comment on. For that matter, why not embrace any evil because the other guy might embrace it first? It's all just rationalization and conjecture based upon irrational fear, rather than rational thought based upon Reality.
Ain't it the truth! Which reminds me, another fun aspect of the WosD is the potential for corrupting the Armed Forces. I don't want to see the Army become as corrupt as the DEA or the border patrol or the Sheriff's Dept that manufactured its own speed (somewhere in FL, IIRC). In an earlier post I mentioned that repeal will most likely reduce the amount of lying in our society; ditto for corrpution - it won't go away, but there would be less reason to bribe.
For an explaination of this you have to go back to FDR. He established the governments authority to regulate virtually anything you might have or any activity you might engage in. The Orwellian logic goes something like this:
The federal government has the right to regulate interstate commerce. This gives them the right to prohibit your ownership of anything that could conceiveably be bought, sold, or trade, because you might buy, sell, or trade with someone in another state. A large part of the federal government's expansion, including the WOD is based on this idea that "regulating interstate commerce" actually means "regulating potentially interstate potential commerce".
You can't deal justly with individuals by making generalizations. If they attempt to violate someone's rights, or endanger others by their severe public intoxication, then lock em up.
So what state in a year would you and ALL your family be in if you used illegal drugs?
This question, while no doubt hysterically dramatic, is completely irrelevant to the matter at hand. The government is not my parent, and it's none of the government's business what I or anyone else does on their private property, unless a violation of rights occurs. It is not within the Constitutional scope of the federal government to prohibit its citizens from possessing inanimate objects, because of what might happen if someone were so stupid as to misuse them.
It's interesting that you hadn't directed that comment to Virginia-American when he said in #187: "... or the Sheriff's Dept that manufactured its own speed ..."
The point is: You don't have to be a Libertarian to be disgusted with the Drug War.
Well, the point I was trying to make was you advised against making generalizations about drug users, but ignored the generalizations of corrupt sheriffs which V-A brought up.
The main issue for me is the simple ethical one of just knowing what is right and what is wrong and having the gonads to do the right thing in life.
Take freedom to the furthest extent and you have anarchy. Another issue is that illegal drug use is corruption of the innocent by way of ignorant new consumption due to a lack of education or irresponsibility of youth.
Why would you want to grow illegal drug users? Seems so unethical to me. If you make the claim you don't want that, then why push for something that would directly cause new addicts? That would be throwing human reason out of the window. Which illegal drugs can make a person do by the way!
Also be careful to take note of where the pot you smoke is grown since there are seriouis new issues life threatening chemicals in the pot grown in places such as Hawaii. Go read what is in the news lately.
I would find out where it comes from and go look for the articles in the news to make sure you are not poisioning yourself. The Hawaiian stuff has chemicals in the soil that causes bad brain damage. So do your own investigation based on what you use.
It is immoral or anti-consititution for people to choose to live in states where there are laws against any or all emancipation of slaves? Clearly it was not at one time (see the Dred Scott Decision) What changed?
As I said before, if you want to make a moral argument, don't do it by counting the noses of the pigs at the trough. Use reason and facts, just like courtrooms insist on.
And this raises a whole other issue which I haven't seen addressed by those who advocate legalization. Since our whole form of self-governance is based on rationality, the ability to offer consent, and clear-headedness, why would anyone advocate the "right" to abrogate self-governance unless they were haters of liberty or were just sorely ill-informed? That is why I associate Libertarianism with the Baathist Party of Iraq, which applauds the efforts of the L.P. Do people have a "right" to destroy their own ability to self-govern? If the inalienable right to life/liberty/pursuit of happiness can be self-abrogated (as someone here claimed) then they would have no problems whatsoever with the consensual burning of the Bill of Rights. And who but an enemy of the Constitution (or the ill-informed) would approve of that?
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