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Addicted to the Drug War
Ludwig von Mises Institute ^ | December 28, 2001 | Ilana Mercer

Posted on 12/30/2001 1:25:13 AM PST by NoCurrentFreeperByThatName

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To: dcwusmc
Could you, perhaps, point out just WHERE in the Constitution FedGov is authorized to do this? (Hint: It ain't there.) Please cite the section and article.

Actually I wasn't referring to the Federal Government but libertarian hubris blinded you to that fact. If you read what I wrote again you will note that I think the drug question is a question left to the states and municipalities.

As for legislating morality, thats the only thing we do legislate.

561 posted on 12/31/2001 12:36:00 PM PST by jwalsh07
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To: Cultural Jihad
ME: If it weren't for the War on Drugs, this kid wouldn't even have a market.

YOU: Laws do not create a market, only supply and demand do. The moral-liberal-run industries (which the L.P. lauds) help to fuel the demand. You want to end the WOD (assuming there is even one) then ban pornography and abortion and throw the pornographers and abortionists in jail, and we can win the WOD overnight.

ME: I never claimed that laws create markets, only that they distort them. I guarantee you that our hypothetical kid would not be able to sell drugs on the street corner if they weren't illegal. There wouldn't be any profit in it for him. While it is true that many drugs are grown on big plantations and produced in modern labs which are fairly efficient, the transportation and distribution costs, among others, are always higher in a black market. In a legitimate market, you wouldn't have teenagers selling drugs on street corners, just as you don't have teenagers selling moonshine on street corners.
562 posted on 12/31/2001 12:36:48 PM PST by Hemlock
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To: jwalsh07
I agree with you up to a point. That point is the "most statist" comment. Tyranny by a minority is no better than tyranny of a majority and in many ways worse. If people don't decide under what laws they live, who does? An "intellectual" elite who know better?

We have a CONSTITUTION which clearly and in easy-to-read language (so any average sixth grader can understand it) delineates what Government may do. The list is VERY SHORT. And laws may be enacted ONLY WITHIN THOSE PARAMETERS, period. Anything beyond that causes government to trespass into forbidden territory.

563 posted on 12/31/2001 12:38:01 PM PST by dcwusmc
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To: eno_,zon
Gotta run but I'll reply after the New Year.
564 posted on 12/31/2001 12:38:25 PM PST by jwalsh07
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To: dcwusmc
Perhaps by the time I get back, you will have read the tenth amendment and my position regarding it and drugs...

.

.

...But I doubt it.

565 posted on 12/31/2001 12:40:44 PM PST by jwalsh07
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To: jwalsh07
It's been my experience in life that when people answer a question with a patronizing lecture that they haven't the faintest idea what they are talking about

No kiddin? Whats your experience with condescending pricks who answer questions with questions?

The fact of the matter is that my question is, quite obviously, an answer to your question, which you have failed to respond to. But take heart, I've yet to squeeze anything but cheeky bad manners out of a prohibitionist when actually pressed to defend their slimy communist opinions in the arena of reason and evidence. Why should you be an exception?

566 posted on 12/31/2001 12:41:41 PM PST by donh
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To: jwalsh07
As for legislating morality, thats the only thing we do legislate.

We legislate all kinds of things that have absolutely no moral implications whatsoever.

567 posted on 12/31/2001 12:42:35 PM PST by tacticalogic
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To: jwalsh07
I agree with you up to a point. That point is the "most statist" comment. Tyranny by a minority is no better than tyranny of a majority and in many ways worse. If people don't decide under what laws they live, who does? An "intellectual" elite who know better?

And yet, that is precisely the point of a Constitutionally limited Republic. That a principled elite, who do understand the fundamental laws of our land, and why they are the way they are, shall maintain the contract as initially penned. That is the entire point of the bi-cameral college, the separation of powers, the establishment of two legislative bodies, the nix on a federal standing army, and, indeed, most of the "plumbing" sections of the Constitution.

568 posted on 12/31/2001 12:48:33 PM PST by donh
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To: jwalsh07
1.Actually I wasn't referring to the Federal Government but libertarian hubris blinded you to that fact. If you read what I wrote again you will note that I think the drug question is a question left to the states and municipalities.

2.As for legislating morality, thats the only thing we do legislate.

Oh, really? You failed to make clear the level to which you referred, so, as the article dealt with FedGov, anyone's natural inclination would be the presumption that we were all singing from the same sheet.

WRT your second point, you are DEAD WRONG. Morality is what an INDIVIDUAL practices. LAW is enacted to govern the interactions between INDIVIDUALS. It has NO relationship to morality. If it does, the age-old question always arises: whose morality and who decides, so you are right back where you started. Morality is the SOLE province of individuals, families and churches, not government. "MORALITY" is what the TALIBUNNIES had, and it was the INEVITABLE result of mixing morals and laws.

569 posted on 12/31/2001 12:50:37 PM PST by dcwusmc
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To: jwalsh07
Gotta run but I'll reply after the New Year.

After? That would be 2003. ...That's a mighty long run you'll be taking. Say hi to Forest, Forest Gump.  ;-) 

Happy New Year and stay safe.

570 posted on 12/31/2001 12:53:26 PM PST by Zon
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To: jwalsh07
State or local [or federal] government cannot write law depriving you of life, liberty or property, without due process, - ie - indictment & trial by jury for criminal actions. --- Prohibitions are attempts to make non-violent actions criminal by fiat law, - by the say so of a majority.

Cognitive dissonance defined.

Nope. -- You are just using high sounding weasel words as a tar baby statement. Silly & meaningless rhetoric.

Legislatures legislate morality agreeable to we the people and call them laws. They proscribe penalties for breaking those laws and after due process you do the time for the crime. In complete accord with the constitution.

A pronouncement on your part, not an argument. -- Read the 14th, it is a clear denial of such lawmaking power to states.

---------------------------------------

So yes, JW, it is both immmoral & unconstitutional for your peers to criminalize non violent behavior.

It is neither and I find you and others just as dangerous to my rights as the left. If you could assume power you would rule by fiat and the people be damned. Liberty works both ways, the difference is that I understand the notion of pursuing happiness and you don't. Sort of the difference between a spoiled child and an adult.

On the contrary, it is your empty, underlined words that are like those of a child.

------------------------------------------

You may however, volunteer to belong to a community, and regulate each others lives to your hearts petty desires, upon pain of banishment. - Just buy into a condo type association, and enjoy.

I hate to be the one to break this to you but its not me who will be joining a cult, its you. And I wish you well in your pursuit.

Yep. - Devastating rejoiner if your mental age is 12.

571 posted on 12/31/2001 12:57:22 PM PST by tpaine
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To: tacticalogic
We legislate all kinds of things that have absolutely no moral implications whatsoever.

I agree, with one slight but important distinction. Watch yourself. Please don't let the "we" slip into your wording when you know it doesn't belong.  It's an important distinction. They are parasitical elite. We allowed them to get away with using us as the host.

The biggest moral right they legislate against is the highest moral and human right -- the right to self-defense. 20,000 immoral and unconstitutional gun laws are evidence of that. The proof is in the statistics.

572 posted on 12/31/2001 1:02:18 PM PST by Zon
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To: Zon
AMEN, brother!
573 posted on 12/31/2001 1:03:46 PM PST by dcwusmc
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To: Zon
True, and I'll watch that. If morality is the only thing we legislate, ie - all legislation is based on morality, then all those immoral Brits and Aussies better start driving on the other side of the road, or they're all going to hell.
574 posted on 12/31/2001 1:08:12 PM PST by tacticalogic
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To: Roscoe
Alice In Wonderland. The CSA findings ARE the arguments for the act's Constitutionality.

What a gem this is. Do the Dred Scott findings of 1838 re-instate slavery? In the law, the Founding Clause is trumps over anything, the Bill of Rights is trumps over the individual clauses of the Constitution, and the Constitution is trumps over everything else. Regulations stand very low in this hierarchy, and findings even lower. When it comes to foundations and justification, the law flows downhill from the Declaration of Independence, through the constitution, not uphill, and particularly, not uphill from regulations that weren't even penned by Congress.

the CSA findings are the Congress's excuse not to intervene and make the the DEA follow the CSA law as it had been previously laid out. It hasn't the force of law at all, it doesn't even have the force of a judicial finding, much less the Constitutional.

575 posted on 12/31/2001 1:12:52 PM PST by donh
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To: donh
the CSA findings are the Congress's excuse not to intervene and make the the DEA follow the CSA law as it had been previously laid out. It hasn't the force of law at all, it doesn't even have the force of a judicial finding, much less the Constitutional.

Nor does it stand up to the light of honesty and wide-scope accounting. From which all valid law nullifies bad law.

576 posted on 12/31/2001 1:18:16 PM PST by Zon
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To: NoCurrentFreeperByThatName
What happened to the first thread? Pulled? I posted on the 28th and can't find any trace.
577 posted on 12/31/2001 1:43:49 PM PST by CyberCowboy777
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To: Zon; Donh; roscoe
Well crafted summarys. - Thanks.

Now we can all wait for that one line nonsense zinger of a retort from roscoe.

578 posted on 12/31/2001 1:46:49 PM PST by tpaine
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To: CyberCowboy777
Yep, it was pulled. Apparently, the discussion strayed into the forbidden zone.

The catch 22 being, of course, that the subject of these verboten topics are only known to those who use the axe.

579 posted on 12/31/2001 1:53:33 PM PST by tpaine
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To: tpaine
Now we can all wait for that one line nonsense zinger of a retort from roscoe.

Do you think there's any chance we might be able to get some cheese with those Drivel McNuggets, it being a holiday and all?

580 posted on 12/31/2001 2:00:34 PM PST by tacticalogic
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