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?
I will take your feeble attempt at beeing funny instead of an inteligent retort as an unconditional declaration of surrender. You will be spared.
Yup. I normally do that posting!
These pro-drug war types are all the same. They hope that their "stupid act" will wear down everyone else, and we'll just tire of correcting them.
They have no idea who they're dealing with. Truly.
Thank you. I will be forever in your debt.
when the New Deal Congress passed the Marijuana Tax Act, it was the Conservative Republicans who were against it, on the grounds it was unconstitutional. (spcifically, using a "tax" to get around the fact that they lacked the power to ban anything in intrastate commerce; the grotesque dishonesy of requiring a revenue stamp for something, and never issuing the stamps is reminiscent of the states w/o must-issue CCW). Were they wrong then, and FDR right?
Lurking on these threads, sometimes participating, my strongest impression is that arguing with most of the drug warriors is like arguing with l*b*r*ls; the constant personal invective, lack of historical knowledge and understanding, special pleading (for alcohol), dire prophesies as well-based on observation as the "do you want our state to be the OK Corral" gun warrior BS. Drug and gun prohibitions were passed by l*b*r*ls on the basis of lies. I am always amazed at the self-described conservatives who spend so much time and energy defending Wilson and FDR policies. To me, the drug and gun laws are a shameful relic of the Progressive, New Deal and Great Society social-engineering hubris.
And I am continously amazed at the self described conservative that would spend time arguing for the legalization of something that would further cause the downfall of this nation. I agree that drug laws are perhaps not the best path to take. However, the drug laws are there for a reason. We live in a society today that would disgust the Founders. I see quotes from Paine constantly about our freedoms (and every once in awhile from Jefferson) but there were 53 other men that signed the Constitution. Some grudgingly, because they felt that too much power was going to the federal government, but that's another argument. With the exception of 2 or 3 more these men were avid Christians(M.E. Bradford's Founding Fathers and several other documented instances) and NONE OF THESE MEN never truly considered that the nation they were writing this wonderful document for would come to the point it is now.
You scream for freedom, but would refuse to accept the documented medical evidence of what most illicit drugs do to the body, refuse to accept the documented social evidence of the affects it has on families, and refuse to accept the evidence before our very eyes of what this nation has become. A squalid 'do what I want and you better not get in my way because it's what I want to do' pit. Pro-drug advocates would argue that if drugs were to become illegal that crime would drop, the government would come out of recession from the taxes, and that over time drugs would become as commonplace and used much in the same way as alcohol. Well, for those that don't look at the world through rose colored glasses and see the human race as it really is, drug legalization is not a valid option.
[W]e have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.--John Adams, President of the United States
This quote probably sums up what our nation should be and what I would fight for to my death that it can be.
But liberals do not bear responsibility for a robbery committed by someone who is PO'ed because his taxes are too high. The individual who committed the crime bears reponsibility for the act he committed. That's what "individual responsibility" means. Individual responsibility for one's own actions is the opposite of collective responsibility for the actions of others, not the same, as the hornberger who wrote this piece suggests.
Is this penetrating at all?
And, by the way, to suggest that an act of war should motivate us to behave in ways our enemies would approve is borderline treasonous. It is tantamount to taking the side of our enemies.
Keep up the good work.
Oh yes they do. That's why they bug out.;^)
And I am continously amazed at the self described conservative that would spend time arguing for the legalization of something that would further cause the downfall of this nation.
Does not agree with this:
I agree that drug laws are perhaps not the best path to take.
Your pathetic attempt to justify the harassment, inprisonment and murder of peaceful people can't even make it past two sentences before you contradict yourself. Your haste to warn us all of the great "drug boogyman" help blinds you to the reality that your WOD has marked the path for the taking of all our liberties. You are so blinded, but not completely absent from reality since you did state that "drug laws may not be the way to go". But your stubbornness outweighs comon sense in insisting on "stopping" "drugs", although you still seem to think drug laws are not the answer. You are confused, to say the least.
The rest of your knee-jerk reactionism was just as lame.
To illustrate a truth by using an absurd, false choice. Of course the drug user should bare the responsibility. Libertarian policies would reward the drug user by decriminalizing to legalizing his activities, and punish all those associated with him by magnifying the societal damage done by unchecked, undiscouraged, drug trafficking and usage.
Reward the drug user?? So someone gets rewarded when the government stops violating their rights? Someone gets rewraded when the government repeals laws that they had no authority to pass in the first place? Oh, I see now. You, nor anyone else, has ever been able to define this "societal damage" that "drug use" causes. Most of what you define as "societal damage" is either caused by their illegality or has simply occurred regardless of their illegality. 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. 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.
Anyone who does not wish to "be associated" with "drug users" can simply not associate themselves with them. That costs them nothing.
Marijuana, even in low to moderate doses, negatively affects driving performance in real situations. While previous research on alcohol effects alone show that alcohol at BACs around .10 is far more impairing than low or moderate THC doses alone, marijuana does impair driving performance. Drivers would be less than normally able to avoid collisions if confronted with the sudden need for evasive action. The effect of combining moderate doses of alcohol and moderate doses of marijuana resulted in a dramatic performance decrement and levels of impairment, as great as observed when at 0.14 BAC alone.
So according to this you would have to be over the legal alcohol limit to drive worse than someone who has had 'low or moderate THC doses'. And combining the two is worse than having a BAC of .14!! Now which is worse again
Then, I guess libertarians must join liberals and conservatives in accepting the results of their policies, if there can be such a thing as a libertarian "policy." That would be the only intellectually honest thing for any and all of us to do. Now... do you think it is a false choice to have to pick between the current glaring inequities, burdensome costs, and the full range of violations of civil rights that are a result of the "Drug War", or the greatly accelerated decline of the society, greatly increased public health problems, wider economic dislocation and weakness due to lower productivity, and further destruction of the American family that would be the result of national decriminalization or worse, legalization of all drugs? Or would it just be easier to pretend that none of this will happen, despite generations of clear evidence resulting from re-legalized alcohol abuse, narrow the argument to only concern marijuana, and proceed with what seems to be the eventual fate of the United States... drug based decrepitude?
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