Posted on 05/05/2011 10:01:32 PM PDT by OldDeckHand
While it took a little while for the Republican candidates attending tonights debate to get going, the sheer diversity on the panel guaranteed some spirited answers, paramount among them Rep. Ron Pauls steadfast adherence to civil liberties, which somehow concluded with him supporting legalization of heroin to raucous applause highlighting the thick tension between conservatives and libertarians on the GOP.
During a lightning round where candidates were asked to answer questions about the issues that would give them the most problems during the primaries, both libertarian candidates Paul and former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson were asked to defend their liberal stances on drugs. First was Rep. Paul, who Foxs Chris Wallace confronted with his controversial position that drugs and prostitution should be legalized. His unapologetic response elicited cheers from the crowd, as he argues that, just as you dont have the First Amendment so you could talk about the weather, civil liberties do not exist to protect personal rights upon which most agree. He later likened private freedoms like this to religious freedoms, prompting Wallaces follow-up: Are you suggesting that heroin and prostitution are an exercise of liberty?
(Excerpt) Read more at mediaite.com ...
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Is it armed with Assault Weapons? With extended clips?
Do you have any idea how many things are processed (highly, at that) in manners that are highly dangerous and toxic??
Many of them are in your grocery store.
Or are you just saying this, because you think the Rubes will buy it if you CAPITALIZE SCARY WORDS?
BOO!
And I'd like a heroine or two, if you don't mind. They're my type.
I would use as many heroines as I could get my hands on.
Same with lettuce users. Oh wait. No, it’s cheap. And you can buy it by the pound anywhere.
Nice point.
Might also add, abortion is protected by privacy.
But a pot user can have his dog shot by the cops on the way through the door with the battering ram.
(Druggie accusation in 4....3.....2....)
But you’re also smart enough to know the why.
Legalization take too much money out of the government system. That’s why it’ll never happen. That’s why the Shill arguments will always be with us. “crack” babies. “Reefer madness”.... whatever it takes.
Gotta protect those $$$$$$$. Running it, prosecutions, stomping on humanity with a big fat budget. Big Bidness.
>> Which one?
I guess the reaction to my post regarding appreciation for Paul’s anti-statist views.
I think heroin is used as the “gotcha” argument, and yeah it’s a legitimate point, but one that’s completely abstract in comparison to our “healthy” liberties the govt is currently hammering to death.
I don’t agree with Paul on foreign affairs, but he right on life, and he’s also right on the fundamentals of liberties.
For survival, Paul throws the cult some bones, but I think his views are more pragmatic than the popular perspective that drives in the donations. And maybe I’m wrong about it all. FWIW, I don’t have a political investment in Paul. But I’m glad he shows up for the debates. His anti-statist contributions by definition are vital for our independence.
If you believe in the constitution then you have to believe that the government has no right to stop someone from using drugs. I mean if you break the law like drive while drugged up do some other crime then you will go to jail. Right now we have a lot of junkies in jail on minor crimes and our jails are getting full! I’ve been at the juncture to legalize all drugs and tax them. This could kill the illegal drug trade. They could use the tax money to help people get off of drugs.
“Fixed and that sounds good to me. let them die”
No. You missed what I meant.
Heroin kills the addicts. Fine.
But people on heroin kill other people. Often. They will kill their own mothers for another hit.
Ditto meth and crack, but to a lesser extent. A FAR lesser extent.
The evil heroin spawns to those who AREN’T using it is hard to believe. Unless you’ve seen it.
And I’m guessing you haven’t...
You’re trying to draw an analogy between heroin and lettuce?
Please elaborate.
Good grief. I’m all for much smaller government, but this whacko sounds like a freakin’ anarchist.
Where in the Constitution does it say we are to have each other’s back?
I read it. The farmers grow the opium because it's the only way they have to make enough money to survive. The west promised aid --it never arrived.
...I ask if he or his neighbors have received any of the millions of dollars being poured into Badakhshan Province by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and other Western organizations in an attempt to lure Afghan farmers away from poppies. "They promised the Argo district's governor that they'd give us bags of wheat seed and fertilizer," he replies. "But they haven't." The remark is similar to one by an elder of the nearby Tashkan district: "The government said, 'We'll build roads, bridges, and canals, and you'll forget poppies forever.' That was five years ago. They've done nothing."
In fairness, several things have been donea newly paved highway from Feyzabad to Kabul, road construction projects in Tashkan, a saffron farm in Baharak, and 18 new district police offices. But for every worthy project scattered throughout this vast northern province is a village like Sar Ab in Yamgan district, where the lack of a medical clinic led residents to use opium as their only medicine until half of the 1,800 villagers became addicts. Or the village of Du Ghalat, in Argo, where a hundred children huddle like cattle on the dirt floor of a collapsing schoolhouse built with opium money that has dried up as poppy eradication proceeds. Or the millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars earmarked to fund agricultural projects in Badakhshan, which, according to one counter-narcotics official, "never got hereit disappeared."...
Then build more prisons.
They could use the tax money to help people get off of drugs.
This is your idea of conservatism?
I think the right question is guarded for whom?
Who are they guarding it from?
LOL
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