Posted on 09/07/2009 3:09:41 PM PDT by Arec Barrwin
The racism of marijuana prohibition
Enforcement of marijuana laws disproportionately affects young African Americans -- even though their usage rates are lower than whites'...
So while the purported mainstream is delighting to "Weeds" and contemplating the new revenue that state-regulated marijuana would generate, there's even greater urgency to ending the prohibition of marijuana. California can't wait any longer to end the racist enforcement of marijuana laws.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
“Why are you being so sanctimonious about it?”
I’m being calm and patient, while I wait for you to understand that there is a difference between excess and the proper exercise of power.
“He may have a pair, but his outburst stained the dignity of the Congress and the Office of the Presidency.”
Road apples. It is far past time for decent people to realize that when they are dealing with scumbags, civility is just a self-imposed handicap.
You know what the difference is between this and what the demonrats do every time a republican president speaks?
The demonrats do it as a group, and don’t apologize afterward.
“that’s like the third post in a row where you made no argument”
I’ve made my arguments, and you failed to respond. When you gave up and turned to nonsensical slurs, I saw that trying to reason with you is futile.
You’re following Lenin’s maxim, “Accuse others of what you do.”
You’ve made no augments. In your first response to me you said something about being surprised that people fall for a form of illogical argument, apparently 50 years after the argument was made, yet you didn’t even point out which argument was illogical or why it was so. Then you went on some condescending jag about how you may explain more but that I could figure it out for myself and blah blah blah.
If you’re whole argument boils down to just claiming someone’s point is illogical without stating why, then you don’t have much of anything.
So, you didn’t read the thread.
Not my fault. Your responsibility.
Hey, you’re the one who said my argument was illogical. The least I expect from you is to point out why. You appear to be incapable.
Reading between the lines reveals that blacks are dopers and can’t hold their dope. This is such a flattering appeal.
Garbage. If it applies it to drugs, then it also applies to health care, the environment, and just about anything else Congress wishes to legislate. Read Walter Williams' piece on constitutional contempt and learn something:
Regarding the "general welfare" clause so often used as a justification for bigger government, Thomas Jefferson said, "Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated." James Madison said, "If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions."
-snip-
Congress is not alone in its constitutional contempt, but is joined by the White House and particularly the constitutionally derelict U.S. Supreme Court.
http://economics.gmu.edu/wew/articles/07/congressionalconstitutionalcontempt.htm
Also, clipping your nails is racist.
What is "excess" except in relation to some fixed standard, such as the Constitution?
What's the point of a discussion board like this one if you're not willing to "discuss," and instead just sit there waiting for me to divine your point through mental telepathy?
MSNBC says the 10th amendment is "a bunch of baloney"
That according to brilliant constitutional scholar MSNBC's David "biased in favor of facts" Shuster, who matter-of-factly insists the "general welfare" clause in Article 1 of the Constitution "unambiguously authorizes" social welfare spending like "social security, Medicare...
-snip-
“I found someone who supports dsc’s take”
We all know that liberals have to resort to lies and character assassination.
It’s interesting that purported conservatives and libertarians who argue for drug legalization do that too.
Even people who are 60, 70, 80 percent conservative argue like liberals when arguing one of their residual liberal positions (like legalization of drugs).
I have never signed on to the “take” you try to attribute to me. To use the new slogan of the sensible center, “You lie.” Not, of course, that you care. You have a vice to protect, and nothing can be allowed to stand in the way of that, least of all the truth.
“What is “excess” except in relation to some fixed standard, such as the Constitution?”
When the Constitution is silent on some matter, one must reason from original intent, applying the reasonable man standard.
Problem is, you reason incorrectly.
Whenever someone frames an arguent in the form, “If it applies it to X, then it also applies to Y,” their argument is specious.
The suitability of the death penalty applies to murder; it does not apply to littering.
It is appropriate for the government to criminalize drugs; it is not appropriate for the government to pursue socialist policies and programs.
Look at what you’re equating: prohibition of drug use with the imposition of socialism. It’s batty on the face of it.
You just refuse to get it: The prohibition of drugs is not “unlimited powers,” nor does it constitute “whatever in (congress’s) discretion.”
The fundamental dishonesty in the arguments your side has been attempting to make, though, is that you don’t merely want to argue that the federal government can’t prohibit drugs: your ultimate aim is to force upon us the view that no government has the authority to prohibit drugs. These references to the 10th Amendment are hypocritical in the extreme.
Much of our drug problem has actually been attacks on us by foreign powers — the USSR, for instance — and by various terrorist and communist groups that are our enemies. Attacks across our national borders, aided by the fifth column here at home.
Not only is it appropriate that the federal government should address a problem that crosses our national borders, it is utterly beyond the powers of the states to do so.
The fact that some of our government agencies have become jack-booted Nazi thugs is a problem, but it is a separate matter from the propriety of drug prohibition.
“Hey, you’re the one who said my argument was illogical.”
I didn’t say it was illogical. I said it was sophistry.
Definitions of sophistry on the Web:
•Sophism: a deliberately invalid argument displaying ingenuity in reasoning in the hope of deceiving someone
•An argument that seems plausible, but is fallacious or misleading, especially one devised deliberately to be so; The art of using deceptive speech or writing; Cunning or trickery
•A seemingly plausible, but fallacious and devious, argumentation.
______________________________________________________
It is misleading to argue that alcohol is more dangerous than pot **and** that marijuana should therefore be legal. It is misleading whether or not alcohol is actually more dangerous to health than pot.
This is because there are many factors other than danger to the user’s health that justify prohibiting pot.
You can easily figure out for yourself what these are, so I’m going to give myself a break and not type them in — again.
Sorry pal, but you both are stretching the GW Clause beyond anything intended by the founders by attaching your pet causes to that power.
Drug use is a vice and a health issue. Fedgov has no business regulating intrastate drug policies.
It is inappropriate for fedgov to do either, your pet issue notwithstanding. You don't get to carve out an exception.
Look at what you're equating: prohibition of drug use with the imposition of socialism. It's batty on the face of it.
You really need to read Madison. Both are corruptions of not only the GW Clause, but of the Commerce Clause as well. Wickard has allowed Congress to legislate over health, guns, the environment, and the WOD. You're stuck with legitimizing them all if you support Wickard. So I ask...
do you think Wickard is consistent with the original understanding of the Commerce Clause... yes or no?
You just refuse to get it: The prohibition of drugs is not "unlimited powers," nor does it constitute "whatever in (congress's) discretion."
You are in error. If Congress can impose a national prohibition as a regulation of commerce or under the guise of providing for the GW, it can impose Obamacare and Cap & Trade. You have no principled constitutional argument against the latter two.
The fundamental dishonesty in the arguments your side has been attempting to make, though, is that you don't merely want to argue that the federal government can't prohibit drugs: your ultimate aim is to force upon us the view that no government has the authority to prohibit drugs. These references to the 10th Amendment are hypocritical in the extreme.
I believe States have such authority with regard to drugs, just like they currently do with alcohol.
Much of our drug problem has actually been attacks on us by foreign powers - the USSR, for instance - and by various terrorist and communist groups that are our enemies. Attacks across our national borders, aided by the fifth column here at home. Not only is it appropriate that the federal government should address a problem that crosses our national borders, it is utterly beyond the powers of the states to do so.
AFAIK, no one is arguing otherwise with regard to Congress legislating over drugs crossing the borders. The dispute is over which government - fedgov or the states - have constitutional authority over intrastate drug policies. So I await your "yes" or "no" on the Wickard question in bold above.
The "original intent" was that the "general welfare" clause was NOT an unlimited grant of power to the federal government over anything and everything that could be considered to be related to the "general welfare."
And on that point, the Constitution is not silent, nor are the men who drafted it. Thomas Jefferson called it "sophistry," as I mentioned earlier, to say that it is.
Are any of those other factors NOT related to the problems created by prohibition in the first place, such as gangsterism, violent crime, adulteration, police corruption, etc?
“The “original intent” was that the “general welfare” clause was NOT an unlimited grant of power”
No matter how many times you repeat that deceptive little fewmet of anti-reason, it will never become valid. No matter how many times you insist that the parrot is resting, it is dead.
No “unlimited grant of power” is required for a *limited* exercise of power. You are hoping that people won’t notice that drug prohibition is not in any way an “unlimited” exercise of power.
Most of us, though, understand that, and do not confuse a limited exercise of power with an unlimited exercise.
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