Posted on 08/19/2003 5:05:43 AM PDT by AppyPappy
Damn right! I'm practical if nothing else.
Thank God that less 'practical' men once defended "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" with "our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."
You go it.
Despite the protestations of pro-dope libertarians in denial, drug use cripples and destroys the body and mind. However, Americans will never allow drug users to die in the streets. The socially progressive laws that have been enacted by liberals or uttered into existence by activist courts over the past 50 years will never permit it.
If addictive and useless drugs are decriminalized or legalized, new multi-hundred billion dollar per year entitlement drug abuser coddling programs will spring up across the length and breadth of this land (as has happened in the Netherlands), and the taxpayer will be forced to reward drug users for their self-indulgence.
Provide evidence for your claim.
If you believe that, you're way beyond denial. You're certifiably nuts.
Every state or country that has "relegalized" drugs has seen a huge increase in new entitlement programs to coddle the drug user. Every one.
I'll take reality over your pro-dope mental swoon any day as a better predictor of what will happen if and when drugs are "relegalized."
You aren't for liberty. You're for the drug-user's license and indulgence at the expense of his tax-paying neighbors. That is not only socialism, but the worst sort of socialism.
Provide evidence for your claim.
Yeah, those less practical men fought for the right for legal drugs, pornography, abortion, Indian Casinos, and freedom from religion. Their "Sacred Honor" would have had them execute drug users on the spot.
They fought because they hated things like the Stamp Act and Taxation without Representation.
If Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man" had been about the freedom to smoke marijuana we'd still be a colony of Great Britain.
They were extremely practical men who focused on the priorities.
They were extremely practical men who focused on the priorities.
But they did not say, "I don't exercise right X so I won't bother defending it"---in fact, as has often been posted here, many of the Founders lost much by siding against Britain.
They were convinced about those rights they were to defend. To this date, no one has convinced me of why a drug user's right to smoke pot, shoot heroin, or smoke crack are in my best interests. To this point, the WOD has not inspired civil disobedience like The Sugar Act or The Townshend Act.
Let me know when drug users start rioting for their right to smoke medical marijuana....
As I said, it's been often noted on FR that fighting for independence did not turn out to be in the best interests of many of the Founding Fathers. Guess they weren't "practical" enough.
To this point, the WOD has not inspired civil disobedience like The Sugar Act or The Townshend Act.
To disobey the WOD one doesn't need to riot---just to use illegal drugs as several million Americans do.
There's a difference in fighting for something and escaping from something; but if it makes you happy, I believe in everyone's inalienable right to be a fool, to make unwise decisions that have a negative impact on their health, their emotional lives, and their family lives. I believe that people should be completely free to psychologically damage their wives and children. I'll fight for their right to be utter failures, to play small, to see the highlight of their lives as a joint, some Ecstasy, or crystal meth.
Let me know when the next NORML meeting in Northern CA takes place so I can participate in the right of individuals to squander the time and talents that God gave them. Let me know when the next Santa Cruz City Council meeting occurs so I can support the Santa Cruz Mayor in making Sensimilla the official plant of the Central Coast. Let me know when Johnny Potseed makes his next pass through the apple orchards and vineyards of western Sonoma County so that I can pay homage to him as a true folk hero of the American Dream/Nightmare.
We have FREEDOM (from reality) to gain; and our vision of ourselves as a free and noble people to lose.
I hope so---the alternative is to let government control almost every choice we make. E.g., what you eat can have a negative impact on your health.
You think the alternative to drug legalization is government control? Just wait for drugs to be legalized. Then our elected officials will control the marijuana trade the way the tobacco trade is regulated. The tax on a pack of "BUD Light Ups" (a subsidiary of The Budweiser Company) will pay for free medical marijuana for the terminally ill and the terminally lazy. The government will regulate the THC content of each joint. The government will subsidize pot production in the Mid West, but will sue Big Marijuana for damage caused by second hand smoke. Federal and State governments will employ thousands of people in Free Needle Exchange Programs, and these same governments will spend billions in defending themselves against lawsuits from individuals whose loved ones OD'ed on government approved heroin....
You think legalization of drugs makes a society free? Nope. Legalization of drugs is a pimple on an elepant's @$$. The real enemy is not those who oppose the legalization of drugs. The real enemy is The Great Satan, Big Gov't, that turns everything into a trough for stuffing its great bloated guts.
MrLeRoy..., I don't know how old you are, but I'm getting the feeling I'm talking to someone who's either very young or very naive.
If not, what is the alternative to drug relegalization?
The real enemy is The Great Satan, Big Gov't, that turns everything into a trough for stuffing its great bloated guts.
As it does with $36 billion of drug war money every year.
I don't know how old you are
39.
Defund to a great extent the WOD, and let it be a matter for local and state governments to handle. That would save many billions right there.
Clear all prisons of individuals arrested for possession of controlled substances but increase penalties for those who commit crimes while under the influence of drugs.
All foreign nationals found in possession of controlled substances are deported.
All foreign nationals found in possession of controlled substances, with intent to sell, become guest laborers in the US-Mexico Border Fence Project.
All individuals with 2 or more felony convictions committed under the influence of drugs have all assests confiscated.
Rape or murder, committed under the influence of drugs, warrants an automatic death penalty.
People want to use drugs, fine. Just make the penalties so severe for committing crimes while under the influence (and the same should hold for alcohol) that the problem becomes self correcting....
Something made some of you desperately afraid of freedom. Any idea what that was?
Why is it that all Libertarians think that only they understand freedom and that everyone else is a fascist and a statist? I'm actually anti-WOD, but have little use for drug users, or alcohol users, for that matter. I believe that you should have the freedom to drink yourself, drug yourself, or scr3w yourself silly. But if you bother me or my family, criminally, while engaging in whatever stupidity you happen to be engaged in then I should have the right to have you sent away for a very long time.
I've nothing against freedom, just don't screw with my life, liberty, or my pursuit of happiness and we'll get along fine. F--- with me or mine and I'll make sure your choices are taken away from you.
I'm tired of my tax dollars going to pay for the consequences of other peoples' stupidity.
You catch AIDS from a dirty needle then why do my tax dollars need to support you or your treatment at county health services? Why do my tax dollars go to fund HIV testing and Hepatitis C testing for illegal immigrants at the Department of Social Services? Why do I need to contribute to your methadone, your drug or alcohol rehab, your post drug abuse mental health counseling, your vocational counseling, your career placement service, etc. etc.?
Don't talk to me about your freedom, let me know how you're going to guarantee mine.
Clear all prisons of individuals arrested for possession of controlled substances [...]
All foreign nationals found in possession of controlled substances are deported.
All foreign nationals found in possession of controlled substances, with intent to sell, become guest laborers in the US-Mexico Border Fence Project.
I'm on board with all that.
increase penalties for those who commit crimes while under the influence of drugs.
All individuals with 2 or more felony convictions committed under the influence of drugs have all assests confiscated.
Rape or murder, committed under the influence of drugs, warrants an automatic death penalty.
People want to use drugs, fine. Just make the penalties so severe for committing crimes while under the influence (and the same should hold for alcohol) that the problem becomes self correcting....
I'm not sure that penalties for crime X should be higher for offenders who were under the influence---but we certainly agree that they should be not one bit lower.
Reasonable...
But the issue was that some guy wants to hand out needles because he figures it'd reduce the spread of disease. What part of that is about your tax money?
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