War on Drugs - Gov't Overstepping its Bounds?

1) I have observed that many who object to the legalization of narcotics assume that legalization of private possession and use of narcotics also implies the legalization of criminal activities done under the influence of drugs. I do not understand this leap. In what way does not arresting people who use drugs in the privacy of their home imply that a police officer will just wave to a passing crack head, as he drives by at 80 miles per hour, smoking a crack pipe.

2) I have also observed that many who object to the legalization of narcotics assume that people who support legalization simply wants to use drugs - as if this matters. First off, the motivations of the proponents of legalization do nothing to alter the substance or lack thereof of their argument. But, just to address this wildly popular notion: I, for one, have no desire to use any drug that is currently illegal, nor do I hope to need or desire any drug that is legal for medicinal or recreational purposes. I rarely even drink beer. My objection to the government prohibition on certain drugs is on the grounds that what people do in the privacy of their homes is none of the government’s business, so long as it does not violate the rights of others. Whether you want to possess drugs, weapons, or beanie babies should be no concern of your neighbor, your police department, or any echelon of government, so long as it does not violate the rights of others. If you have 10 pounds of plutonium, for instance, that violates the rights of your neighbors. If you have 10 pounds of cocaine, that does not violate anybody’s rights.

3) Likewise, I do not understand why proponents of legalizing drugs take such weak stances in favor of it, such as “well, alcohol is worse for you than pot, and alcohol is legal.” This assumes that the government's actions can be justified by their probability of positively influencing your health. Evidence exists that smoking is worse for your health than alcohol, as well. Should we ban cigarettes and arrest anyone who purchases, distributes, or smokes them? Since when is it the government’s responsibility to protect a person from himself? The purpose of government is to secure our rights, by protecting private property, and attempting to safeguard us from hurting each other. In other words, government’s role is to stop a man about to commit murder, not to stop a terminally ill cancer patient about to euthanize himself.

The bottom line is that what consenting adults do in the privacy of their home is none of the government’s business, nor is it the business of you or I, so long as people do not do direct harm to one another, one another’s property, or otherwise violate one another’s rights. Neither I, nor my government, have the right to tell you that you cannot snort cocaine in your home, whether you want to do it or not. The government has the right, and the duty, to arrest you if you attempt to drive on a public road, while under the influence of a drug, while impaired visually or mentally, or even if you have not had sufficient sleep to stay awake, while driving.

I welcome thoughtful responses to this post; particularly those which refute any of the arguments above, or offer suggestions to strengthen the arguments.

I do not see how less government oppression is a liberal outcome, unless you are using the old meaning of the word - when it had the opposite meaning from today.

Because I deal with “what is” not what "should be". In a Darwinist libertarian society then drug users would be a self-correcting problem. They would either starve to death or rely on friends and family to take care of them. The reality is that we are a "victim" society where no one can be expected to pay for his or her own bad choices. That is what I meant. I am not willing to create a new "victim" class of legal drug users. The only reason drug users are not allowed social security and state disability payments today is that their disability is caused from an illegal act. That is just one example of why legalizing presently illegal substances is a liberal outcome to a libertarian solution.

“But as I noted above, it's the "impaired" driver's property too. Why is it acceptable for you and I to use government to define what one can and cannot do on property that also belongs to someone else?”

It is not acceptable for you and I to use government to define what one can and cannot do on property that belongs to someone else. That is why I oppose the War on Drugs. You and I have no right to dictate what my neighbor does on his personal property, so long as it does not violate the rights of others.

As for public property, it belongs to you, I, and every other citizen (even the drunk guy). It is acceptable for you, I, and every other citizen to use government to define what one can and cannot do on public property, because we collectively own the property. Therefore we collectively determine what is acceptable behavior on the collectively owned property. I can forbid you from coming onto my property for any reason that I want. You can forbid me from coming onto your property for any reason that you want. Likewise, we can come up with rules that regulate behavior on our property.

You are correct that it is “the ‘impaired’ driver’s property too”. He is part of the body of citizens, and thus has a say in whether to deem drunk driving acceptable or not acceptable on our property. If we (you, I, the drunk guy, and all other citizens) deem drunk driving to be forbidden on our property, then how are his rights violated? This is not his land exclusively. Public roads, lands, waterways, et cetera, are our property. If you and I make a rule that forbids the drunk guy from driving on his personal property, and use the power of government to coerce his obedience to this foolish rule, then that is a violation of his rights.

I do not see how we violate anybody’s rights, when we deem drunk driving on public roads - our roads - to be illegal and punishable at the hands of government.

"The reality is that we are a "victim" society where no one can be expected to pay for his or her own bad choices. That is what I meant. I am not willing to create a new "victim" class of legal drug users. The only reason drug users are not allowed social security and state disability payments today is that their disability is caused from an illegal act. That is just one example of why legalizing presently illegal substances is a liberal outcome to a libertarian solution."

So we advocate government further violating the rights of others, to lessen the impact of government's current violation of our rights? I do not see violation of the rights of my fellow citizens as the means to lessening the oppression that I recieve at the hands of my government. I think that your approach to dealing with "what is" will only help us along towards what "should not be". But, either way, I think that we both know that drugs will not be legalized in our lifetimes, so we may have some common ground on what is is.

Below is a post that I made in another thread, regarding our welfare state. Do you think that the outcome of the situation that you described would fall in line with this?

"How about if we all break and bankrupt the system by quitting our jobs and registering for welfare, unemployment, disability, and every other give-away program that the our ridiculous government has implemented. The plunder will stop when there is nothing left to plunder.” - from post #11, “Who pays the income taxes?”

"How about if we all break and bankrupt the system by quitting our jobs and registering for welfare, unemployment, disability, and every other give-away program that the our ridiculous government has implemented. The plunder will stop when there is nothing left to plunder.” - from post #11, “Who pays the income taxes?”

All forms of government that allows each citizen the right to vote will eventually evolve to socialism. The only thing that changes that is when the money runs out, IOW Atlas Shrugs. We are far from that point but eventually the takers will so overwhelm the givers that the system will collapse under its own weight. I am in no hurry for that to happen and the best that we can do is delay inevitable. I am sorry but the critical mass is just not there for your idea to have any chance of success. The fact is that most people are happy with their lives and give the WOD 5 minutes a year thought if they think of it at all. Pot will probably be decriminalized in a few states in the near future but there is no national desire to see anything else legalized.

I do not see violation of the rights of my fellow citizens as the means to lessening the oppression that I recieve at the hands of my government.

If your purpose is truely to restore the rights of Americans, and not just procure cheap pot, then your course and the course of the LP should be a campaign to restore the Constitution. Our Constsitution, as written, and as the supreme uncontested law of the land, would put and end to the WOD, welfare, EPA, all of it.

The WOD is used to strengthen Washington because it goes after the least respectable acts/people in our culture. The public does not complain.
The LP is failing in the debate, because it is champion to the least respectable acts/people.

Drop the anti-WOD and champion Constitutional goverment, and then the people will pay attention. The WOD cannot exist with a Constitutional goverment. The fight has been chosen poorly.

Do you see? There will ALWAYS be a good reason to pinch the Tax payer. I re-itterate my previous statement, that those who would enjoy the freedom to use drugs will NOT be willing to let me enjoy being left alone. I WILL be required to pick up the pieces of their useless lives.

I made that offer out of pragmatism. Although you can make the case that everyone should know better, it's not unusual for someone to get in over their head before they realize it. I've seen it happen with several friends who developed a drinking problem.

Offering assistance the first time is likely to turn that person back into a productive citizen again. If they aren't prediposed to that kind of problem, that will be the last time. If you look (or ask) around you, there are many examples of people that have successfully kicked an addition and stayed sober.

But, if they back-slide a second time, it's clear they are unwilling to take responsibility for themselves and there's no point in continuing to help them. Sadly, I've seen that as well and had to walk away.

"You and I have no right to dictate what my neighbor does on his personal property, so long as it does not violate the rights of others."

Public property is our neighbor's property as well as ours. Seems to me that the logical extension of your statement is that: "You and I have no right to dictate what my neighbor does on ~~his personal~~ public property, so long as it does not violate the rights of others."

"It is acceptable…to define what one can and cannot do on public property, because we collectively own the property."

But on what basis is it acceptable? Collective ownership can't be the basis because the "one" in question is one of the collective owners. You already know the answer. It's in the logical extension of your statement that I noted above: a violation of the rights of other.

So, in response to your assertion that "The government has the right, and the duty, to arrest you if you attempt to drive on a public road, while under the influence of a drug, while impaired visually or mentally, or even if you have not had sufficient sleep to stay awake, while driving": In what way does driving while impaired violate the rights of others such that it forms the basis for the Government's right and duty to arrest one if one attempts to drive on a public toad while impaired? In other words, why does the government have this right and duty if there is no direct harm or violation of rights?

"If we (you, I, the drunk guy, and all other citizens) deem drunk driving to be forbidden on our property, then how are his rights violated?"

If we all agree, then his rights are not violated because we have all agreed to give up some of our individual rights for whatever reason. And that is an answer to the question "Why does the government have this right and duty if there is no direct harm or violation of rights?"

"I do not see how we violate anybody's rights, when we deem drunk driving on public roads - our roads - to be illegal and punishable at the hands of government."

Collective agreements aside for the moment, we are restricting someone's liberty because of harm they might or might not cause, not because they actually hurt anybody else or violated someone else's rights. It's like prohibiting free speech to someone because they might slander someone else, even though they also might not.

By the way, your argument:

Implies that if private property is collectively owned, one of the collective owners can be denied its use by the others for reasons that they find acceptable.

Ignores the rights of the minority. (Remember that one of the basics of our system is the protection of the rights of the minority from the whims of the majority.)

Implies that one who is speech impaired could be denied "free speech" if the majority found that to be acceptable.

"You and I have no right to dictate what my neighbor does on his personal public property, so long as it does not violate the rights of others."

I do not see the logic of this, nor do I see how it is an extension of what I wrote.

”But on what basis is it acceptable? Collective ownership can't be the basis because the "one" in question is one of the collective owners.”

The “one” in question, if he is the owner, is also one of the people who is involved in the collective agreement.

”In what way does driving while impaired violate the rights of others such that it forms the basis for the Government's right and duty to arrest one if one attempts to drive on a public toad while impaired? In other words, why does the government have this right and duty if there is no direct harm or violation of rights?”

We collectively agree on rules for behavior on public property. Among those rules is that we agree that we may arrest any member of our collective group of owners, if that individual violates the rules that we agree on. We use the government as an objective body to enforce the rules that agree to on our public property. The government – you, I, and all other citizens – has the right to objectively enforce the rules that we agree upon for behavior on public property, for the same reason that you or I can work together to enforce rules on a piece of land that we have joint ownership of. Government has the duty, because that is what we task government to do.

By the way, your argument: Implies that if private property is collectively owned, one of the collective owners can be denied its use by the others for reasons that they find acceptable. Ignores the rights of the minority. (Remember that one of the basics of our system is the protection of the rights of the minority from the whims of the majority.) Implies that one who is speech impaired could be denied "free speech" if the majority found that to be acceptable.

Yes, it does imply what you stated. Of course, this is because the Constitution, and the rights that the Constitution forbids us from denying one another, have not been part of this discussion.

I do not see,,,

I don't know how to get around that,

We collectively agree on rules for behavior on public property.

You keep telling me that we can and do collectively agree on rules but you can't seem to tell me why we do or why we should agree to the rules in question which is what I am trying to get you to do.

Of course, this is because the Constitution, and the rights that the Constitution forbids us from denying one another, have not been part of this discussion.

Ok, but that lack only applies to my parenthetical statement about the basics of our system, and to the comment about private property. The rights of a minority and free speech are not dependent on the Constitution.

Drop the anti-WOD and champion Constitutional goverment, and then the people will pay attention. The WOD cannot exist with a Constitutional goverment. The fight has been chosen poorly.

Championing the supremacy of the constitution is exactly what Libertarians do. The WOD is a fine example of what happens when the govt ignores people's rights. The consequences are drastic and provide a great object lesson.

Is there a better example than trying to control individual, consensual behavior and proceeding to civil forfeiture, no-knock raids, shooting planes out of the sky and sentences longer than for murder to show the insanity of the whole thing?

”You keep telling me that we can and do collectively agree on rules but you can't seem to tell me why we do or why we should agree to the rules in question which is what I am trying to get you to do.”

Why we do or why we should agree upon rules for behavior on public property are because that is what the people desire. My only point was simply that we can and that we do establish rules for behavior on public property, not why we should and why we do establish those rules.

Likewise, I was pointing out why we cannot dictate how people behave on their own property, so long as they are not violating the rights of others.

I do not believe that our government has the right to outlaw activities that do not violate the rights of others. Consenting adults using drugs in the privacy of their homes or on their own property is not a violation of anyone’s rights. Therefore, I do not think that we can outlaw such an action.

Because you, I, and all other citizens own public property, we can create a deliberative body to establish ground rules for behavior on our property and a body to objectively enforce those ground rules.

Behavior that does not violate the rights of others, when done on your own property, may violate the rights of others, when done on public property. A good example is the rule in question, regarding driving while intoxicated. This is harmless to everybody except yourself, when done on the privacy of your own property. But, when you drive while intoxicated on public property, you not only risk doing harm to other people, to other people's property, and interrupting other people's travel, but you do violate their rights by using their (and your) property in a way that they do not approve of.

There will always be people who do not like the rules made, governing behavior on public property. This will be true of any rule. The alternative to making some rules is to make no rules. When no rules are made, people will inevitably engage in activity on public property which violates the rights of others.

Why do we create rules against driving impaired? Our society has found that this activity is likely to impair the driver’s ability to safely operate a vehicle. We see this as an unnecessary risk that is worth banning, because of the likelihood of doing harm to other drivers, causing an accident that disrupts traffic, does harm to property, etc.

Why should we? I think that we should continue to outlaw driving while intoxicated, because of the reasons that I gave for why I believe we do outlaw it now - and because I believe that it would occur in greater frequency, if it was legal, thus resulting in even greater violations to the rights of others.

All righty then.

In response to the assertion:

"The government has the right, and the duty, to arrest you if you attempt to drive on a public road, while under the influence of a drug, while impaired visually or mentally, or even if you have not had sufficient sleep to stay awake, while driving."

I asked:

"Why does the government have this right and duty if there is no direct harm or violation of rights? If one drives while impaired, but makes it from the point of departure to the point of arrival without causing any harm, what is the rationale for the government's 'right and duty'?"

And your response to the questions is:

"But, when you drive while intoxicated on public property, you not only risk doing harm to other people, to other people's property, and interrupting other people's travel, but you do violate their rights by using their (and your) property in a way that they do not approve of."

"Why do we create rules against driving impaired? Our society has found that this activity is likely to impair the driver's ability to safely operate a vehicle. We see this as an unnecessary risk that is worth banning, because of the likelihood of doing harm to other drivers, causing an accident that disrupts traffic, does harm to property, etc."

What I get out of that is that you think the government has the right and duty in question not because of the harm an impaired driver actually does, but because of the harm an impaired drive might do, the risk, the potential violation of rights. Other than that the only specific violation of rights you allege is "using their (and your) property in a way that they do not approve of" and if that is a violation, there is at least some "Free Speech" related case law that is in error.

Following your argument, if the government has the right and duty to arrest you (in your private vehicle I might add) because of what you might do on public property, then it has the same right and duty to arrest you on your private property (which is normally placed square in the middle of public property) because of what you might do. So if some one can make a case that the use of currently illegal drugs might cause harm to others (say one might start a fire that could spread to the neighborhood) it would be all right by your standards to arrest that person for their drug use, and the illegality of the drug in question is justified

I am not saying I believe any of this, just that this is what I get from you.

"We see this as an unnecessary risk that is worth banning, because of the likelihood of doing harm to other drivers, causing an accident that disrupts traffic, does harm to property, etc."

I would like to point out that if instead of arresting impaired drivers for what they might do, we stood them up against a wall and shot them when they actually did harm other drivers, cause an accident or harm property, then drivers might consider it an unnecessary risk to drive while impaired.

"What I get out of that is that you think the government has the right and duty in question not because of the harm an impaired driver actually does, but because of the harm an impaired drive might do, the risk, the potential violation of rights."

No. That is not what I think or what I wrote. That is why the government does, but not why it can.

To summarize from my last post, the government can exercise the right and duty in question for the following reason:

"Because you, I, and all other citizens own public property, we can create a deliberative body to establish ground rules for behavior on our property and a body to objectively enforce those ground rules."

The government does act in the way that it does for the following reason:

"Our society has found that this activity is likely to impair the driver’s ability to safely operate a vehicle. We see this as an unnecessary risk that is worth banning, because of the likelihood of doing harm to other drivers, causing an accident that disrupts traffic, does harm to property, etc."

No. That is not what I think or what I wrote. That is why the government does, but not why it can

But that's what I asked. My question was Why does the government have this right and duty... I don't recall asking why the government can although I might have somewhere in this mess. And I did not ask why the goverment "does act this way."

It still sounds like you are saying the government has a right and duty to arrest someone because that someone poses a risk (might cause harm) to another. That's a scary thought as a standalone. And you did add "unnecessary."

By that same logic, you might say our society has found that people under the influence of certain drugs are more likely to harm others in some way, that the risk of this harm is unnecesary, and that the governemnt has a right and duty to make the drugs illegal and arrest the people who use them.

Consider the meanings and relationships of does, can and should.

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