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.
Yes, that’s why I said if someone has the proclivity to abuse a substance, then they will, legal or not.
All cities of any size have places like that. Places get cleaned-up, then they die, then new places take their place. It’s the way it is, as long as there are those that will abuse substances, whether legal or not.
But just because there is a potential problem there, does it therefore mean the federal government should just assume powers not granted to it by the Constitution? Seems to me that is the line of thought that gave us the behemoth fedgov we have today - because there were problems that needed solving and the feds just usurped the powers to try to solve them (emphasis on the word 'try').
We don't have a generation to throw away. ...but I'll go along with your drug legalization, as long as you ban government subsidy of drugs and government paid for treatment of drug abuse and related health issues. How's that?
I'm sure that those promoting the solution of the other problems felt the same way you do about the fedgov intervening against medical marijuana. And that's the point - too many conservatives are in favor of limited government until it limits what they want government to do.
Ok with me.
No, I’m trying to get the simple point that if you morons weren’t the ones trying to prohibit the drugs and trying to stop the drugs coming into the country, the drug cartels wouldn’t exist.
There’s a reason we don’t have alcohol cartels anymore. And there’s a reason why there are alcohol users yet there is no war on alcohol. It’s not the user that causes the war, it’s the person trying to prohibit the substance that causes the war. I know it’s a hard concept for you to understand, but I guess you skipped that week of junior college.
I disagree. I think the fundamental problem is that we didn't step up and make whatever necessary amendments were needed if that original grant of power needed to be modified.
The fundamental problem is that we got too damned lazy to fight the politicians and make them do it right, and they let them turn it into an open-ended grant of power.
What Story warned against is exactly what happened, and we're facing the prospect of civil war to get it remedied and the longer it goes on the worse it's going to be when if comes down to it.
It is plain to see that you are not familiar with the normal usage of “initiation of force” and its context so I supplied it for you.
Force need not be physical even with your inference.
The IRS can certainly apply force without touching you in any physical way, right?
Lawsuits depriving one of the full use or full value of their property need not involve physical contact or physical intimidation.
My last paragraph in that post referred to many activities that do not directly harm any adults who partake appropriately. Yet these activities have restrictions by the government based on the displeasure and controlling attributes of other citizens.
In these cases one group of citizens uses the threat of government force via police action against another group of citizens who partake in activities that do not harm the first group who deprive the second group from liberties.
If I can raise enough support for my anti-TV cause should I sponsor a law disallowing you the use of your tv because some people over indulge and become slothful??
Or deprive you of some food item because some over indulge and become ill?
Or deprive you of something else you might like to do in the name of Community Safety and Health?
In these cases I would be initiating force against you by using the threat of government police action to deprive you of actions that you can do in your own home that have no direct effect on anyone else.
Is that what you call freedom and liberty?
Who knew? I though that FDR’s New Deal was responsible for the vast expansion of federal power, but now I am informed that the federal ban on marijuana was at fault.
Nice weaselly sidestep - the point is that your attitude that the fedgov should DO SOMETHING about California medical marijuana, even though there no commerce nor interstate movement involved, is directly akin to the same torturous logic we saw in the New Deal-era Wickard decision - and in the mindset of those who just had the fedgov usurp powers rather than gain them through amending the Constitution.
Why are libertarians still in love with the drug war?
The libertarian effort to legalize drugs has only isolated token success. Using it as an issue to win elections has been a failure.
The establishment politician’s addiction to my hard earned money is a more important fight we can win if we agree to fight the common enemy. Both conservatives, libertarians and populists should get pragmatic and unite in opposition to the addictive behavior of the parasites who are using destructive force against the producers in society.
Those of us who support legalization of pot should put it on the back burner, just as the conservatives should do.
All Congress has to do is "find" a "substantial effect on interstate commerce" and suddenly an Enumerated Power materializes. It's MAGIC!
They usually stammer, stutter and argue that "people are doing drugs now"..."blah blah blah".
I just beg for someone to say, "SO WHAT?" "IT IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS, MY BUSINESS OR GOVT'S BUSINESS WHAT A SOVEREIGN HUMAN BEING DOES TO HIS OWN BODY".
"DO WE, OR DO WE NOT OWN THIS PIECE OF FLESH CALLED SELF?"
Once you have answered that Mr. Medved, answer this, "do you believe in private property rights"?. If you answer in the affirmative, ask then, "am I not a free man"? "Created in the image of God, with rights and responsibilities to Him"?
State then "Drug usage and abuse is arguably a sin, if I am condemned to eternal judgment because of it, so be it" but "The govt has NO PLACE stepping into Gods role in my life, so LAY OFF"!! The law should only step in when a direct harm happens to another. A legal complaint is brought by another human being, a request to address harm that ONLY THE GOVT CAN CORRECT, not insert itself into food, tobacco, health, retirement or drug issues.
This shi'ite of having the govt bring charges needs to end. Unless you are attacking the govt, why would they charge you anyway? I can tell you in a nutshell, it gives them control over EVERY SINGLE HUMAN within their self proclaimed "jurisdiction".
One last thing, if the "drugs" of antibiotics were available to adults over the counter, how much lower would health care costs be? Doctors exist to help those that cannot help themselves, what is wrong with teaching the masses how to do that effectively? Do we need govt to tell us our child has an ear infection? That we have strep throat? A cold? No, I can diagnose the need for antibiotics at the same rate as someone with 12 years more of education. Pharmacists are even better than doctors at it, and at a much lower cost.
The point is, the govt has placed itself in a position it does not belong. WE THE PEOPLE, need to quit whining about the dangers of Liberty, and GROW UP.
At best, it can be said that by implication, in the seldom expressed understanding of the Framers of the Constitution, and in early commerce clause cases, purely intrastate commerce was regarded as beyond the scope of the federal commerce clause power. In practice, the distinction between intrastate and interstate commerce has changed according to how they are defined and the circumstances of the era.
If not for the medical marijuana issue, I doubt that the federal commerce clause would be of much interest to anyone except legal scholars and a handful of practitioners. It is not the stuff that makes for civil wars.
NO, the answer lies in getting rid of the welfare state. The only reason govt steps in legitimately, is they foot the bill. There is not too much freedom, but too much govt.
The Constitution transferred a limited and enumerated set of powers from the States to the federal government. The scope and limits of that transfer of power was fixed at the time of transfer as being what the power was understood to be by those who wrote and ratified the Constitution.
Unless and until it is altered by amendment, those powers remain as the were at the time of the original grant of power.
What is it about that you don't understand?
By that standard, smoking, overeating, gay sex, premarital sex, not studying, not sleeping enough, playing poker, weekend football playing, the Super Bowl, and eating candy, should all be considered proper places for govt regulations. Just admit it, you love big govt, just with proper "conservative controls" on it.
I am pretty sure that a pedophile directly harms another person, as would a drug dealer selling to a non-adult, or who steals from another, or kills someone while operating machinery. They do not harm anyone else, by sleeping in the woods, but they do if they sleep on the street. Laws should be pretty simple to write and administer, unless you have laws against doing something that lowers your IQ, or lessens the GDP.
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