Posted on 04/04/2010 6:51:11 AM PDT by rabscuttle385
An article by a conservative named Cliff Kincaid, who serves as editor of the Accuracy in Media (AIM) Report, provides a perfect example of how different libertarians are from conservatives and, well, for that matter, how there ain't a dime's worth of difference, when it comes to individual freedom, between conservatives and liberals.
The article concerns the drug war and is entitled, "Dopey Conservatives for Dope." Ardently defending the continuation of the drug war, despite some 35 years of manifest failure, Kincaid takes fellow conservatives to task who are finally joining libertarians in calling for an end to the drug war. He specifically mentions columnist Steve Chapman, whose article "In the Drug War, Drugs are Winning," which was posted on the website of the conservative website Townhall.com, was apparently what set Kincaid off.
Chapman made the point that it is the illegality of drugs that has produced the drug gangs and cartels, along with all the violence that has come with them. The reason that such gangs and cartels fear legalization is that they know that legalization would put them out of business immediately.
Consider alcohol. Today, there are thousands of liquor suppliers selling alcohol to consumers notwithstanding the fact that liquor might be considered harmful to people. They have aggressive advertising and marketing campaigns and are doing their best to maximize profits by providing a product that consumers wish to buy. Their competitive efforts to expand market share are entirely peaceful.
Now, suppose liquor production or distribution was made a federal felony offense, just like drug production or distribution. At that point, all the established liquor businesses would go out of business.
However, prohibition wouldn't mean that liquor would cease being produced or distributed. It would simply mean that a new type of supplier would immediately enter the black (i.e., illegal) market to fill the void. Those suppliers would be similar in nature to the current suppliers in the drug business or, say, Al Capone -- that is, unsavory people who have no reservations about resorting to violence, such as murdering competitors and killing law-enforcement officers, to expand market share.
At that point, the only way to put these Al Capone-type of people out of business would be by legalizing booze. Once prohibition of alcohol was ended, the violent liquor gangs would immediately go out of business and legitimate businesses would return to the liquor market. The same holds true for drug prohibition.
The big objection to the drug war, however, is not its manifest failure and destructiveness but rather its fundamental assault on individual freedom. If a person isn't free to ingest any substance he wants, then how can he possibly be considered free?
Yet, for decades Kincaid and most other conservatives and most liberals have taken the audacious position that the state should wield the power to punish a person for doing bad things to himself. In fact, the drug war reflects perfectly the nanny-state mindset that has long afflicted both conservatives and liberals. They feel that the state should be a nanny for American adults, treating them like little children, sending them to their jail cell when they put bad things in their mouths.
Kincaid justifies his statism by saying that drugs are bad for people. Even if that's true -- and people should be free to decide that for themselves, as they do with liquor -- so what? Why should that be any business of the state? If I wish to do bad things to myself, why should the likes of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, George W. Bush, and John McCain wield the power to put me into jail for that?
Quite simply, Kincaid: It ain't any of your business or anyone else's business what I ingest, whether it's booze, drugs, candy, or anything else. I am not a drone in your collective bee hive. I am an individual with the natural, God-given right to live my life any way I choose, so long as my conduct doesn't involve the initiation of force against others.
For decades, conservatives and liberals have been using the drug war as an excuse to assault freedom, free enterprise, privacy, private property, civil liberties, and the Constitution. They have brought nothing but death, violence, destruction, and misery with their 35-year old failed war on drugs. There would be no better place to start dismantling the statism that afflicts our land than by ending the drug war.
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
The 9th Amendment is quite relevant here as well, isn't it?
WOAH...just as I am typing this, Shannon Breen (sp?) on FOX News is mentioning an upcoming story on legalizing po in CA! CHECK IT OUT!!!!!!
Clarence Thomas' concurrance in US v. Morrison
"The majority opinion correctly applies our decision in United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995), and I join it in full. I write separately only to express my view that the very notion of a "substantial effects" test under the Commerce Clause is inconsistent with the original understanding of Congress' powers and with this Court's early Commerce Clause cases. By continuing to apply this rootless and malleable standard, however circumscribed, the Court has encouraged the Federal Government to persist in its view that the Commerce Clause has virtually no limits. Until this Court replaces its existing Commerce Clause jurisprudence with a standard more consistent with the original understanding, we will continue to see Congress appropriating state police powers under the guise of regulating commerce."
Yours is a very sane and rational approach. Some state like Texas should try it. There may be better ones, and there are certainly worse ones that sound good on paper. Other states should try those. States who pick rational leaders will migrate towards the policies that work better over time.
Oh, wait, the fedgov runs the War on Drugs. Sorry, we can’t try your approach. And besides, anyone who wants to is a drug-addled hippie Ron Paul libertarian nutjob. /last sentence is SARC
And that works out as drugs are pretty freely available in prison.
Yet statists believe that making society a prison will solve the drug problem
And I have no problem calling out someone who tries to conflate the powers of collecting taxes with the power to regulate commerce and present that as a valid argument in the debate.
I see Thomas as wishing to resort halfway back to the original understanding - that there needs to be commerce and/or interstate movement, but once that standard has been met, there is a federal regularoy role.
Hence the feds would not be able to crack down on California medical marijuana, nor use the Commerce Clause as a rationale in situtations such as creating federal laws in the Violence Against Women Act, but would still have the powers to regulate actual commerce.
I think that statement by Justice Thomas proves that he is an advocate for legalizing drugs & turning our children into drug addicts. Anyone w/ a slight amount of common sense can see through those comments. < / sarc >
Our government DOES NOT WANT TO WIN the war on drugs.
On what basis do you "see" that?
The 9th Amendment is a restriction on federal power, it has no proper bearing on the states - states were free to prohibit alcohol prior to and after Prohibition.
From the scope of his arguments - specifically, the use of ‘more consistent’ - not ‘return to’.
Who should regulate the above vices... the states under the Tenth Amendment; or fedgov under the Commerce Clause?
Conservatives don’t like the drug war. We really hate the drug use. There would be no drug war if there was no drug use. The users have given government the excuse to do the drug war. Don’t blame the people who did not start this mess.
And you submit that we should agree that's sufficient count Clarence Thomas as viewing the current drug domestic drug war as being on sound constitutional footing and consistent with an "original intent" interpretation of the document?
Show me any boundary between the state and federal government authority that the federal government could not sweep away with that same argument.
Instead, elections happen every two years, and Congress can undo the drug war through legislation. But you have to win in the court of public opinion to facilitate change there - I see that already happening when it comes to pot, but I doubt you'll get traction with hard drugs - I used to be more in favor of legalization until I had to deal directly with a crackhead - who is now where he belongs - in jail, where he can't harm others out in society - because the impacts of his habit didn't stop with him - and such impacts seldom do stop with the user when it comes to hard drugs.
Exactly...that's why I thought it, too, was just as relevant as the 10th Amendment is on the drug issue -- that if the People proclaim their right to use marijuana, the fedgov doesn't have the power to interfere in what the states & the People have chosen to do.
I don’t consider drugs, gambling and prostitution to be legitimate enterprises to be regulated. I can understand health regulations on prostitution, and I can see charging income tax on any income, legal or illegal, but I can’t see anyway to force the participants to pay their income tax, except maybe to make them file quarterly like independent contractors. I frankly, don’t care whether people gamble, do drugs or engage in prostitution, but I don’t like the societal problems that go along with the drugs, gambling and abuse of alcohol. Maybe we could set up places in every state where every vice is perfectly legal, where people don’t drive cars and can just stay until their money runs out. Then they can go to the Obamacare clinic and receive the drugs for assisted suicide. End of problem.
Do you (or anyone else) have any idea on how the feds will react if California voters decide to legalize marijuana in the November elections?
What would the Obama Administration do?
If the Dims are able to keep control of both Houses of Congress, how will they react?
If the GOP takes over next January, will their current Drug Warrior mentality win out, or will they respect the rights of the People under the 9th & 10th Amendments & keep out of it?
I think addicts are people who make really poor choices but Nanny government hasn't solved any problems even while taking away the freedoms of the reponsible people.
It all boils down to the choice of freedom and responsibilty for one's acts versus government control.
We are on opposite sides of the fence.
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