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.
And we should ban everything in existence that gives hurt to people in any way, shape, or form?
Is that what you want? For you are emotionally hurting me...
:-P
Then I take it you are for drug legalization. For our nation, founded by more moral men then us, found it right and just to *NOT* impose controls over what any man, or woman could ingest.
It was only in the mid-1910s did this concept become morally acceptable. The Harrison Act of 1914 was the first law on this matter.
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Just because something's 'always been this way' doesn't mean that it's 'always been this way'.
My point exactly. The difference between a juvenile and an adult.
It can also be put in terms of human (civilized) consciousness.
Lock up everyone who's used a drug! Alcohol, tobacco (nicotine), doctor-proscribed prescription medicine!
Sheesh! Talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel, here.
Seems to me that you're real beef (and mine) is with the government's welfare state. So instead of being diverted from that and wasting your attention on the red-herring of drugs, you really ought to simply keep your eye on the welfare state problem.
How could the Commerce clause affect the sale of Californian-grown marijuana for sale in California?
Of course not, then the political parties would have one less ‘issue’ to campaign on.
Same with abortion, or guns. Neither party has a vested interest in actually dealing with the problem, for if it was solved... how could they motivate their base to come out and vote?
Hmm, sounds like you’ve saying that marijuana is bad for you.
Maybe we ought to ban McDonald’s food, too. It’s bad for you as well.
Your vitriol against Dr. / Rep. Paul is nothing short of the bitterness that is spewed out by the progressives over @ MSNBC, DailyKos & DU. Typical PaulHater BS.
It is the PaulHaters that I don’t mind offending....& in fact, I take pleasure in raising their blood pressure. Perhaps all of them should go to work for President Ahmadinejad of Iran. They would be good mouthpieces for him.
No I'm not. I'm not the one using anything. I am acknowledging that society will. You present no evidence to the contrary, and in fact, don't even engage the issue.
So you think society holds individuals accountable for their alcohol related problems? I don't think so.
I accepted your terms for the discussion. Simply disagreeing, especially when I stated the conditions I would agree with you tells me yours was not a thought out response. That's fine if that's what your standards are, but if libertarians are serious about persuading people, you'll need to do better than just shout "Prohibition!"
Because some folks need an adult to show them that some behaviors are simply self-destructive, anti-social and immoral. Some need to be forcefully shown. Next question?
I suppose you “in favor” of having folks doing all sorts of every day behaviors (some risky) while out of their minds is just a “self expression” thing, for tax revenues?
News flash-libertine behaviors happen to affect many others; so don’t get upset when you harm another and the big ugly dude with a sharp stick adds the punctuation marks to the story; hey, it is his right to do so under your mistaken reality, right?
How many of you have policed up body parts after a car full of high, drunk kids splatters all over the highway? Or maybe a car full of otherwise family members destroyed by a crack head out of his gourd (probably never was much there in the first place, though). Maybe the house breaker who rapes, murders and mutilates a couple becuase they did not have a hit of herion or enough cash to buy one for him? If it was legal, he’d have the funds to obtain it legally? yeah, okay. Only if obamacare funds it out of taxpayer’s pockets.
Victimless my butt. That’s your reality.
No other reponse from me-either you see the reality of (illicit or not) “recreational” use of drugs or you don’t.
God Bless
“I am acknowledging that society will.”
Society means the government in most people’s lexicon, ie, the welfare state.
I was born in 1950, does that make me old enough? How old are you?
I guess we’ve just led different lives.
These are different types of harm. The food at McD’s may make one fat but it does not trigger schizophrenia.
Okay. That doesn't change my point.
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