“That is the argument being used against second-hand smoke, transfats on healthcare costs and carbon dioxide emissions. You are a statist.”
I don’t know whether you are mistaken or lying. Don’t much care. You have a moral obligation to make a legitimate effort to understand what a person says before you engage in detraction.
“If you are arguing that they can be one and the same, then you are arguing for the union of church and state and absolutism.”
That’s how leftards argue. Assign the worst possible interpretation to a person’s remarks, stretching and distorting as desired, then attack your own creation. I don’t have much patience with such dishonesty.
“There were state laws before the federal takeover.”
And you go so far as to ignore places where I agree with you?
“I’m arguing bottom up”
You’re arguing bass ackwards. That is why you arrive at incorrect conclusions.
“I have a right to conscience”
No, you have a right to a *properly formed* conscience. In America we extend others the freedom to cling to a distorted conscience, but that’s a freedom, not a right.
“and whether one becomes privately intoxicated is a matter of conscience”
Dead wrong, on any number of grounds. No point in repeating them yet again, as you just put your fingers in your ears.
“the federal government was not given power to regulate intoxicating substances or anything else except as regards commerce between states.”
The federal government is given the power to “provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.” Insomuch as it is recognized that such crimes as murder, rape, and theft are criminalized as detrimental to the general welfare, behavior that leads to those crimes is seen also to fall under that purview.
“Rights do not come from the people.”
Laws, however, are supposed to. As this is not a Constitutional issue, you can either lobby for the laws you want or lobby for a Constitutional amendment. If you want either of those outcomes, you need to persuade others.
“…recognize a right that exists…”
Buncombe. No such right ever has existed, or ever could.
“…these all govern acts between people and are thus not matters only of conscience?”
And neither is recreational drug use solely a matter of conscience.
“Providing is spending or setting aside for”
Perhaps you can cite a (non-leftist) constitutional authority for that. Your reading would require the federal government to out-source national defense. Silly.
“Without any enumerated power to control people’s lives”
Like the enumerated powers government has to criminalize murder, rape, and theft?
“you are willing to use any vagueness you can find to establish statist control”
As Thomas Sowell wrote, “It is amazing how many people think that they can answer an argument by attributing bad motives to those who disagree with them. Using this kind of reasoning, you can believe or not believe anything about anything, without having to bother to deal with facts or logic.”
I have refuted your arguments using facts and reason. Now you attempt to answer my arguments by attributing bad motives to me.
“…based on your morality that happy hour is evil.”
So, am I to understand that you’re a God-hater too? Btw, it’s not *my* morality.
“There is no limit to the logic that left or right can put that mischief to.”
As H. L. Mencken wrote, “It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.”
“I look to minimize rape, murder and theft by laws against rape, murder and theft, not by taking guns away from law-abiding citizens”
We wave a fond farewell, as you drift further and further from any argument actually presented against your position, eventually to become mired in the Sargasso Sea of personal slur and stalking horse arguments.
It happens that I am a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment. In fact, I regard any restriction on weaponry as unconstitutional.
“Murder and theft, in my view, are caused by the laws against drugs”
Yeah, I used to think that myself. In later decades I realized that I was wrong. Even if we provided free dope, housing, and food to junkies, they would still prey on others and deprive others of their right to be secure in their persons and their property.
“much as Prohibition gave opportunities to organized crime in the 1920’s.”
It was the demand for hooch and the willingness of society at large to break the law that gave opportunities to organized crime. Dope is neither the medical nor the moral equivalent of booze.
“It isn’t like we haven’t seen this before.”
Yes, it is. Laws against the recreational use and eventual addiction to, say, Fentanyl, are not the equivalent of the 18th Amendment.
The federal government DOES NOT make the laws against murder, rape or theft for the 50 states.
Well, since you have stopped offering any arguments and rely on the same abuse (or even more of a stretch) of the “general welfare” clause to get what you want as many leftists do, I can only conclude that you do indeed ride that commie horse.
The crimes involved with drugs are crimes because of drug laws, and the war on drugs has done more to limit freedom in the US than just about any other law in the country.
Not the freedom to use drugs but other freedoms, the right to own property, the right to carry our own money around in a suitcase if we desire too, without being arrested for it.
The bottom line is this: Outlawing drugs has caused more crime than it ever prevented. Your arguments are based on two things: Morality(yours)and the need to control others. People who are violently anti-drug, such as yourself, are usually motivated by religious beliefs(although there is nothing in the bible about not taking drugs)and the need to control others and make them conform to your beliefs.
Think about this(although you will not think about it other than how to make another one of your over long rants): Drugs were legal in this country before the turn of the century, we had no more addicts then than we do now(adjusted for population), drugs today are as plentiful, or maybe more so, than they were then, the difference being now you can't go about buying them openly.
The war on drugs has done nothing but accelerate crime, bankroll gangs and cause massive importation of drugs into our country up through the southern border(along with importing criminals).
The daily killings in Mexico over drugs can be directly attributed to our war on drugs. If there were no market for the illicit drugs(and there would be none if they were leaglized)there would be no mexican drug cartel.
Making something illegal has always had the effect of making a black market for it and increasing crime, BECAUSE OF THE MONEY INVOLVED IN THE SELLING OF SAID ILLEGAL PRODUCT. Cigarettes will shortly be in the same fix as drugs, being sold on the black market and causing needless killings and other crimes.
I know this comment will have not alter your opinion, you are beyond hope and will continue with your self righteous beliefs until the day you die.