Posted on 07/24/2002 2:46:24 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
Do you disagree with those responses?
Or would you rather just fling insults and not even attempt to discuss issues?
Hey, I can fling 'em and I can discuss...I would prefer to discuss.
Ahhh...guess there is no reasoning with you.
Calling me a pre-pubescent schoolgirl is 'reason' to you? How juvenile.
Here I was just trying to get you to actually read how GOPcapitalist to each of those positions. Do you disagree with those responses?
Read my posts, and HIS, to see what we disagreed about. - Then, - if you had made a point of your own, without an insulting lead-in, - I would have responded in a normal fashion.
Or would you rather just fling insults and not even attempt to discuss issues? Hey, I can fling 'em and I can discuss...I would prefer to discuss.
Weird, -- Al, - you burst on the scene, insult & preach at me on the pretext of 'peacemaking' and now presume to lecture even more.
-- Look in the mirror, you are not a saint.
Now, about GOPcapitalist's responses to the positions, and my suggestion on a compromise regarding the WOD, what do you think?
Thank you. It's about time, even though I've been telling you that for several days. Now ask yourself - was all that worth it?
This is yet another case where you should also consider taking your own advice.
As a side note I might also add that you sure do get bent out of shape when somebody throws a single insult, albeit an acurate one in light of your behavior, in your direction. It doesn't seem to impede you any from dishing out what you cannot take in return. As the old saying goes, if you can't stand the heat...
I lean toward a passive illegality on drugs themselves. Keep them illegal per se, but enforcement needs heavily reformed.
First and foremost the fed's power needs to be seriously curtailed. The most offensive practice, IMHO, is the seizing of cash from persons with large ammounts of paper money on them under the presumption that it must be drug money but without any demonstrated proof. It's nothing more than state sanctioned theft.
I believe persons who commit criminal acts under the influence of drugs should be hit with the hardest sentences available. Persons who commit crimes and are found in possession of drugs while doing so should have an additional count added to their sentence. Persons who commit crimes as a means of obtaining possession of drugs should similarly have an additional count added to their sentence. Persons who simply possess small ammounts drugs (i.e. found in their homes) should recieve a minor citation where applicable with penalties gradually increasing for repeat offenses, but the first count should not be some ridiculous high level felony 10 year jail sentence for small ammount possession.
I also agree - no government health care handouts for drug addicts. No needle distributions etc. If a person chooses to use drugs, he alone is responsible for the consequences on his health.
And as you said, dump unsubstantiated search and seizures, wiretaps, federal spying etc.
Make it legal to possess and sell. Any other situation leads to more government powers in the name of fighting crime. But, as always, the individual bears the responsiblity of their actions, not society.
In a healthier society, I would agree with you completely. However I do think there is at least a minimal discouragement value to be gained from making something technically illegal (i'd do it state by state, of course). It won't stop anywhere near all of it, but that's fine. It's just the way things stand culturally in America as of now, I believe that the legalization of, say, marijuana would do more to exacerbate drug use than it would if our culture were healthy. That is why I would not oppose it in other circumstances, possible future ones included, but oppose that final step now.
The issue of government power is definately there, but it too can be diminished by (1) dropping everything down from the federal level to lower levels and (2) lessening the sentences for minor drug offenses. I think on a practical level the police simply aren't going to stage a massive high tech undercover drug raid on an apartment to get a lower end misdemeanor for possessing a small ammount of marijuana.
I suppose a reasonable comparison could be to underage drinking as it stands right now. Underage drinking gets prosecuted right now, but almost exclusively when carried out in public or in automobiles. But how many times have you ever heard of an undercover FBI sting outside an apartment complex using special sensors to try and find a hidden stash of liquor under some underage college kid's bed? It simply isn't worth the effort, and I suspect neither would small ammounts of drug possession if they carried something less than multi-year jail sentences. Not that I condone any such drug use, I simply believe that there wouldn't be overzealous prosecution on minor drug charges if those charges were themselves actually minor.
Rather, I mean it in the sense that we live in a society that has in many respects disregarded its roots in liberty, its grounding in absolutes, its continuance in the truth, and its enrichment in a heritage of all three of these things.
The alternative that grows increasingly stronger is a society of relativist left wing garbage that recognizes no truth, no certitude, and no freedom beyond the license assumed by its propagaters as a tool to do whatever they want whenever they want to a degree that it violates the liberty of the rest of us around them.
Truth, liberty, heritage, certitude - none means anything to the political left beyond a select and ocassional tool with which one may temporarily advance leftism only to disregard once it has run out of use. When they do purport one of these things it's little more than a facade, because at the core of leftism is "I get to do whatever I want with whatever power I want to whoever I want and everybody else be damned." Sadly the left has discovered that government itself is a prominent and efficient tool with which they may achieve their tyrannical and deceptively promoted goals.
You cannot stop the abuses in the enforcement of the War on Drugs unless you stop the War on Drugs. The point that the tenth amendment forbids the Federal government from regulating drugs should be all a person needs to hear.
You can fight out whether one or the other drug should be illegal in your state legislature but you know the result will be partial or full legalization in some states which will make it seem very silly in the others. Ultimately common sense will reign and the War will be over. It has already lasted much longer than its predecessor insanity, alcohol prohibition.
Bump attempt :)
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