Posted on 09/28/2001 7:45:14 AM PDT by sendtoscott
Conservatives are fond of preaching the importance of taking "individual responsibility" for one's actions and beliefs. But when you ask them whether they're willing to take responsibility for the robberies and muggings that their beloved decades-long war on drugs have produced, they always and inevitably respond with, "Oh, no. We don't intend our policies to result in those things and therefore we're not responsible for them. Only robbers and muggers, with their lack of respect for liberty and private property, are responsible for their actions and beliefs."
Today, when you ask conservatives whether they're willing to take responsibility for their beloved decades-long foreign-aid program and interventionist foreign policy that have produced so much enmity, hatred, and perverse consequences for our country, their response is, not surprisingly, the same: "Oh, no. We don't intend our policies to result in those things and therefore we're not responsible for them. Only terrorists, with their lack of respect for liberty and private property, are responsible for their actions."
Question for conservatives: With respect to welfare programs, do you still feel that good intentions don't matter and that advocates of the decades-long war on poverty should take responsibility for its destructive consequences, or do you now feel that only the food-stamp mother in the grocery-store line is responsible for her actions and beliefs?
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You deny the historical lessons of alcohol prohibition.
The criminalizing effect of prohibitory law, in itself, is what leads to the 'damage to society'. In effect, the prohibition of mind altering substances, makes every user an outlaw.
The very fabric of society, a respect for the rule of law, is openly scorned.
Wisely, our constitutional form of government has provided a solution to the problem, which now works [to an extent, but not well enough], in the way we control alcohol.
Prohibitory law violates due process. -- No state may deprive a citizen of life, liberty or property, without due process, as per the 14th amendment.
Thus, - states are empowered by their citizens to 'regulate' public use & sale of property, not to outlaw or ban it.
--- This method works, in a fashion, for booze. -- Why not drugs?
Look to the irrationality of fanatical 'drug warriors' for your answer.
Can anyone make sense of this?? Anyone? Anyone?
Am I then justified in conflating religious conservatives such as yourself (I assume) with these same Bolshevikss because you're all 'moral-authoritarians'?
I certainly don't think so, nor do I see how your claim is justified.
Thus, - states are empowered by their citizens to 'regulate' public use & sale of property, not to outlaw or ban it. --- This method works, in a fashion, for booze. -- Why not drugs?
Isn't it odd how the power hungry totalitarians can twist the word "regulate" into "ban" or "criminalize possession of". Nothin in our Constitution would indicate that our founding fathers intended on any government having the power to ban simple possession of property.
The WOD types will also tell you that Due Process is not violated because you knew that possession was illegal in the first place. Thus, due process involves you being punished for violating their edict. Of course, this is false because their is no just power to "ban" possession of property.
Superby said!
Your post illustrates the precarious position this nation would be in if the libertarians' greatest dream (i.e., "do whatever you want," "moral relativism," "no government," etc.) is ever realized. While claiming to "speak for the Fathers," libertarians will never admit that the Fathers would never have envisioned an America where there are no laws, no borders, and no accepted standard of morality. Instead, they stealthily embrace the opinions of liberal courts to hide behind while claiming to be true "patriots." HOGWASH!!!
Like it or not, if we choose to live in a society we all bear a degree of responsibility to ensure its survival and prosperity. Libertarians reject that notion, inventing an insane notion of "personal sovereignty," again refusing to accept that "no man is an island" and the responsiibility that comes with being a member of society.
Libertarianism, are at least the sick brand that sendtoscott and others advance here on FR, is an insidious and deadly plague that will eradicate all that the Founders wished to establish.
Freedom rationed responsibly is freedom guaranteed.
Perhaps you are the one to shut up, scott. The owner of this forum you are squatting on is not in favor of drug legalization, or having anarchists use his forum to advance their twisted agendas.
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Jihad, it's time you cleared this matter up. Has someone here at FR given you a mandate to speak for JR?
Do you have some special influence? - I've seen rumors to the effect that posts/threads seem to disappear when you complain, much more often than normal. --- Is this true?
Libertarians reject that notion, inventing an insane notion of "personal sovereignty," again refusing to accept that "no man is an island" and the responsiibility that comes with being a member of society.
Wow what a load of lies.
This Libertarian is a productive, working member of society who volunteers his time, gives to charity, pays his share of taxes, is active in his community, is a veteran of the armed forces, is a fathful husband, a loving father, he also chair his local LP affiliate and is active in politics.
As a matter of fact I took my Webelos Den to a local business last night to help a local man, a stranger that we never met before, and has only spoken with his wife on the phone the night before last and helped them get some of his crops in because he has taken suddenly ill and had gone into emergency surgery. yep-three hours last night being an island and focusing on my fingertips...
Freedom rationed responsibly is freedom guaranteed.
NOONE but but myself should be rationing my freedom.
noone
We must pity folks like you think that "personal sovereignty," is an "insane notion".
A2J: I wonder if can act without another's permission, and whether you lacked a father figure growing up and strive for external discipline...
Trotting out your "look at my patriotism" cart again, I see.
Each time that I've had the misfortune of viewing your self-back-patting rant, I can't help but think that in engaging in all of those well-intentioned endeavors you are either:
1. Really concerned about the state of our society to the point of action; or
2. You do so out of guilt for past sins.
Which is it?
I'm attempting to point out that prohibitory law, - the banning of property, - is unconstitutional.
Works for guns, applies equally to 'drugs', -- Both can be dangerous possessions when used by immature/deranged individuals. -- Thus the key is constitutional methods of regulating public use, not prohibition.
Death due to hard narcotics overdose, suicide, brain damage, kidney and liver damage, lung and nasal tissue damage, mental illness, destruction of families via divorce, spousal and child abuse, pre adult abuse and addiction, incapacitation and intoxication leading to auto, home, and occupational accidents, job loss, decline in mental capacity, loss of economic productivity, moral decline, sloth, loss of sexual capacity in men, and much more, are all aspects of "societal damage" caused by drugs that have nothing whatsoever to do with illegality. There, neatly defined for you, so that you can understand why we conservatives find it hard to jump on the "just let 'em all kill themselves if they want to" libertarian bandwagon.
And I dont understand this, "Unchecked, undiscouraged".... yadda yadda. Only with "drugs" does your type try to argue that "legality" equals promotion and encouragement. This is not so and you damn well know its not.
Horsehockey. Did "legality" encourage the massive increase in the use of abortion as a form of birth control, killing millions of unborn children, effectively denying them their god given rights to life and a chance to grow up? Seems to be the case, I'm sorry to say. Liberals blind themselves to the destruction the "culture of death" has visited upon our society, so as to adhere to their creed of leftist political correctness. Do libertarian's likewise blind themselves to the destruction the "culture of drugs" had done and will do to that same society? Again, I'm sorry to say, it seems to be the case.
When you demand the end of alcohol and tobacco, I will listen to you. When you state that their legality encourages abuse, I will listen.
I do hearby demand the end of all alcohol and tobacco abuse, and the resulting death, disease and debilitation that such abuse causes. You may now listen, but the people who are the abusers doubtless will not. Do I demand legal prohibition of alcohol and tobacco? No. This is a question of individual responsibility, not unenforceable laws that lead to widespread black market activity.
"AHAH!!!!" you scream, jumping up and pointing an accusing finger at me. "You are a HYPOCRITE! You are no better than anyone else you criticize for the same kind of fraud!" you righteously pronounce. "Why is prohibition wrong for alcohol and tobacco, and yet right for all "illegal" drugs? You want to impose your morality on others selectively, which is a violation of those citizen's constitutional rights! How can you elevate yourself above the totalitarian leftists who conspire to take all our rights away? At least they are more honest in their agenda."
I'm sorry to say that you are absolutely right, correct, and therefore... you win the debate. You have rightly pointed out a glaring inconsistency in the philosophical structure of my argument. You have remained true to your principles, and I have forsaken mine. You would now pose for photographs as the Dean of the College of Polemical Knowledge presented you with your trophy, and I would resignedly offer you my handshake in congratulations for your victory.
If our lives and our society were just such a collegiate debate, that would be the end of it. But this is not the case. We have arrived at a impasse, at cross purposes. For the sake of discussion, let's pose this as a Libertarian vs Conservative argument. You strive to "liberate" citizens from the burden of an interfering and oppressive government, leaving a person's fate up to his own devices. Laws passed by a ruling elite are only a means to repress an individuals rights, seldom if ever to protect them. We strive to "conserve" what is right and healthy in our society, community, and nation by limiting the growth of government, respecting the constitutional rights of the individual, and yet protecting the members of our society from all threats, external and domestic. Drugs represent a dangerous and debilitating threat of both kinds. To be true to their principles, Libertarians must ignore and discount any threat to society that drugs pose, regardless of the resulting realities and subsequent ramifications. As Conservatives, we must realize that same threat, and attempt to defend society against it. What is the best way to do this is the argument we should be having, and not one over the absurd and tragically fraudulent contention that drug abuse is merely a "victimless crime" and most users are not so adversely affected anyway. But, the later, not the former seems to be the case, I'm sorry to say.
Anyone who does not wish to "be associated" with "drug users" can simply not associate themselves with them. That costs them nothing.
Well, again you are at least partially correct. Most do. Divorce, dismissal from employment, removal of incompetent persons to state hospitals, break ups of various kinds of personal relationships, dissolution of friendships, estrangement of families, eviction of tenants, arrest and removal of intoxicated individuals from private commercial premises and public institutions, arrest and conviction of abusers while in violation of various DUI laws, and other such methods of disassociation are commonly used by those who are burdened by people who abuse drugs. But "Anyone" means "everyone" in this case.. sadly, that is why your statement is not ultimately true. Those who are killed by someone driving in a drug induced stupor cannot disassociate themselves from the dashboards of their automobiles, just as those children who are abused by a drug addicted parent will not easily forget that abuse. So, it seems that this is not such an easy argument to win. To do so means to lose the validity and credibility that this debate is supposed to bestow on the winner. But, this is really not just a debate, it is the very future of our country in the balance. And those who ignore this dilemma, certainly have no solution or answer to the original problem.
OK. So ban alcohol.
If you are an idiot who wants to get wasted on smack, and you cost the government money in terms of emergency health services, public disorder, and hospital treatment, you are infringing others rights to enjoy their property.
Putting aside the issue of whether the government should pay for health care . . . the "public disorder" argument sort-of works. If a high person goes and breaks a window they're infringing on the rights of others. So arrest him for vandalism. Duh.
Basically, by creating a nation of addicts,
Fallacy #1: Assumption of increased addiction due to legalization. No evidence given for this.
you people impose costs on the rest of us to clean up the mess behind.
Fallacy #2: Assumption that society must bear the costs of individual stupidity. A socialistic premise.
Where do you take into consideration our rights, the people who are not stupid enough to be tempted by narcotics?
Fallacy #3: Statement reveals a false belief that you have demonstrated how drug use itself violates the rights of others. All your examples are of someone violating rights while they are high, without even demonstrating how being high contributes to that behavior let alone how it causes said behavior.
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