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.
Oh, absolutely. Let's just keep on with our current policy, education and making making its use less rewarding having worked out so well over so many years. That is a an ignorant statement; Doing something that doesn't work, over and over again, hoping for a different result, is the mark of a stupid person. You can write, even if you end a sentence with a verb, so I'll give you that you are not stupid. So please rethink your position on this. Do you have another idea that just... might.... possibly.... have some chance of working? Our war on drugs has NOT helped out country in any way, however it does support a vast bureaucracy intent on taking out liberties. Is that a goal you can support?
I need more info re: what you are talking about. If I missed it, I apologize for that.
I guess my point is that if drugs are legal, who will be the role models for the kids? When my son was in public school, two of the teachers were named as un-indicted co-conspirators when their son, an 18 year old senior was arrested on federal international drug charges, and were allowed to keep their jobs. The principal had a cocaine problem, the athletic teams were all snorting ritalin between quarters and the parents and teachers all did drugs together.
It's entirely possible to claim to be against "living document" interpretations of the Constitution and still engage in them.
The test is whether the end result is consistent with what is known about the intent of people who wrote and ratified it. That's what "original intent" means. If you don't have that, you got zilch.
You keep saying “this” or “that” negatively affects “society.”
For those of us who believe this country is about individual liberty, not some socialistic collectivist view of what is good for “society,” your arguments sound exactly like any other collectivists. “Any individual may be sacrificed for the good of society.” Works for communists, but not for Americans.
Hank
I don’t say this lightly, so you should be honored when I tell you that you’re an idiot. As such, I won’t argue with you. Feel free to think whatever you want. I really don’t care.
The generation who wrote and ratified the Constitution are long gone. Their views on the commerce clause are not easily applicable to our modern economy.
That is the essence of the "living document" argument.
Eva, don't think with you heart, this is a rational matter. There is such a thing called a Bell curve, you may remember if from school where you were graded 'On the curve'. The reason I mention this is that that will always be a right and left, some who excel and and some who fail to thrive. If you turn the Bell curve for any population to the vertical, you will see some at the top who are extremely wealthy, weathy, handsome, successful, whatever, most in the middle (In a healthy society) and some at the bottom who, well, they are at the bottom for a reason, SOMETIMES through no fault of their own.
You may not like it but it is just math and reason to see that if you chop off the bottom of the vertical Bell curve, through your good-intentioned meddling, all you do is make a new bottom, much larger than the original. You make a small problem bigger by you efforts, that then require more meddling to fix, and you feel so-o-o good that you are'Helping'. However, you can not mess with nature or mathematics with all the tears you shed or the tears of all the women and girly-boys who just want to 'help'. Do try to think this though.
“I don’t say this lightly, so you should be honored when I tell you that you’re an idiot. Feel free to think whatever you want.”
Well, no, I’m not interested in “honor” conferred by anyone, only in that honor which depends on my personal integrity and decency. I do feel free to think whatever I choose, and you should also. If you feel that way about freedom truly (and you should), your other views are very confusing.
Hank
No, it is a simple statement of fact. The commerce clause is barely mentioned in the Federalist Papers and Madison’s Notes on the Convention. This leaves courts with little on which to fashion rules of decision and limiting principles.
“(…) the spread of secondary and latterly tertiary education has created a large population of people, often with well-developed literary and scholarly tastes, who have been educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought” P.B. Medawar, Micro-biologist.
So tell us, then, how an activity that does not involve commerce or interstate movement - namely, California medical marijuana - would still be subject to Fed control when you think that the health insurance mandate would not. Not to rake you over the coals, more to point out the inconsistency of SCOTUS (and note that Scalia, in his concurring opinion with the majority in Raich, fell back on the Necessary and Proper Clause to butress his claims).
Sanity is not a common commodity in this area... What I am proposing would probably eliminate 80% of all urban crime in North America within two years. You might also want to look around post 75 or thereabouts, somebody noted several of the real world things which drive the drug war including prison worker unions. The thing would be hard to dismantle at this juncture but it needs to be done.
Because he's right.
In this thread I have posted writings from Madison and Joseph Story. Have you read them?
He appeared on numerous talk shows - touting that position, at the same time that the left began claiming that the war in Kuwait had been about oil, and not treaty obligations the terrified Saudi's had embarrassed HW Bush into fulfilling. This was the first time I had ever heard of him.
The fourth paragraph of my post 175 will take you to a thread that outlined the incidents. The thread also links to a photo copy of a newsletter that Ron Paul sent out to his supporters - with a condensed version of what he was saying in his TV interviews.
I fought in that war. I went into Kuwait with a TOW company as part of 2nd MEF.
I liked the dearth of casualties on our side.
Yes troops get terrified when the battle comes to the clashing point. Some break. That is war.
The Iraqi fear at the end of the line when it was too late to surrender is something Ron Paul has used as a tool to gain populist support from the one issue anti war crowd.
To this day, he has never recanted what you read in this page of his news letter -
http://s212.photobucket.com/albums/cc289/LSUfanFR/?action=view¤t=Troops.jpg
His words - "also hidden: the apparent fact that many of the rag-tag teenage soldiers were trying to surrender as they were entombed"
This was hardly a secret - it is one of those Duh things yes many troops break at the final moment. During a pitched battle quarter is no longer an option UNTIL the area is secured. That is how it is.
He never did explain how he would clear a trench line differently without the result being more dead American fighting men.
So yeah, I'm not letting this go, and yeah, I am unapologetic about it.
Some positions are unacceptable to the point you don't get a second chance - not that he has ever retracted anyway.
Why not just say that if there was a drug war that the guys in power could just close their eyes and wish all the drugs would just go away. That's about as plausible as the simplistic scenario you just listed there. closing the borders would not make much of a dent in the supply. You do realize we have thousands of miles of border and coastline in this country, right? Have you ever looked at a map in your life before?
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