You're right. With our present system we have no prostitution and no drugs. Yeah, right.
"I knew plenty of folks in school who did not use drugs because of the criminal penalties associated with them."
You should hang out with a better and smarter class of people. I don't know anyone waiting for them to be legal that doesn't already use them.
"You just made the argument for repealing the laws against all murders, if 100% observance is required to make a law effective."
How did I do that?
Not many people believe murder is okay. But for over 30 years abortion has been legal and many have come to believe that it is just another form of birth control and that there is nothing wrong with it. Rather than put resources and effort into writing a law, we'd be better off providing education, counselling, and alternatives to abortion. A lot of people decry abortion -- and rightly so, but will do nothing to give the mother an alternative. Yes, I know she is responsible for her own actions, but if she doesn't see any other option but abortion or a life of misery for herself and her baby, how can we logically expect her to continue a pregnancy. A bit more reality, abortions were performed before Roe v. Wade and they still will be after it is repealed.
"Untrue., Crime rates have been steadily declining."
Really? Then why are prisons so over crowded? Why don't we have enough prisons? If they are declining (and that's not the smell of books being cooked) then it's not declining fast enough to aleviate the prison crisis.
"Up until now, I have seen you as simply wrong but reasonable. But if you are seriously comparing our government to Soviet totalitarianism, you are simply insane."
Read what I said. Soviet communism is dead, but socialism is alive and well. What do you call the imposition of the income tax, social security, medicare, the prescription drug program, etc, etc, etc, if not socialism?
I am not insane, but you are delusional and in denial if you don't believe that socialism has a grip on us.