Posted on 07/09/2002 12:48:48 AM PDT by Alan Chapman
Are you high? There's a difference between American police officers following the US constitution and state laws which we have made freely... and the Gestapo, whose activities and existance would be impossible under the US constitutioon and US state laws. There is a difference between the US and Nazi Germany. The kid didn't turn his dad in for not liking the national leader, nor for being Jewish. Jews weren't trying to get high, they were trying to avoid being exterminated. There is a huge difference between a government like that of Naxi Germany with laws that violate free speech and a government like ours which has laws banning the use and sale of certain drugs. Free speech is essential to political liberty- the use of drugs for pleasure is not essential for anything, not even for pleasure.
I know these distinctions don't seem so great right now, but once the drugs wear off they'll be blatantly obvious.
Our system is set up so that laws we see as unjust can be challenged- legally. Our system is set up so that we can toss people we see as inadequate or dangerous out of office. Our system was set up so that things we don't like can be protested - and the government has no right to stop you from advocating that drug laws be lifted, no right to stop you from public protests of US laws pertaining to drugs. The first ammendment is still there, and you can praise drugs all you like, and criticize the government to your little heart's content. You couldn't do that in nazi Germany. When our country gets to the point that you can't hold a pro-drug rally to ease drug laws, give me a call. I don't support the use of drugs but I do support your right to wax eloquent or to make a fool of yourself in public.
Nazi Germany was Nazi Germany because a lot of people decided that they could violate basic inalienable rights like life, the right to bear arms, free speech, and religious liberty. They decided that intimidation of other people with violence was acceptable. It wasn't Nazi Germany because people upheld the law- it was Nazi Germany because not enough people had respected the laws of the former German republic, and because they had no US constitution. Nazis thought it was OK to vandalize, even though it was against the law. They decided it was OK to break into Jewish business and OK to destroy things belonging to other people. The LAWLESSNESS preceeded the rise of the Nazis. Once they had used lawlessness to come to power, they turned around and used their own laws to stay in power. They could not have come to power but for the lawlessness of both the communists and themselves.
Where's the victim in a child molestation case? That's easy! The child is the victim.
Where's the victim in running a meth lab? The buyer? Unlikely, since the buyer of the meth is (or should be) fully aware of the consequences of the consumption of methamphetamines.
Molesting a child is (in latin) mala in se, or bad on it's face. Growing, selling, and using marijuana is mala prohibitum, which means it's bad because the state prohibits it.
I can't understand how this kid didn't see it coming. He's doomed his father to misery and poverty. He's opened his father's assets to seizure (theft) by the state. Of course his relatives hate him. If a relative of mine turned in her father for mere drug crimes, that person would be on the outside of the family, looking in with her nose pressed up against the glass!
I don't blame the drugs. I blame the criminal. To hell with "The Devil made me do it." It's a cop-out.
The Soviet Union made a saint of a little creep who turned in his parents for anti-Soviet activities. This little creep is just the same.
You don't know that, since the reporter didn't ask the obvious question, or if he did, chose not to print it. In all probability the kid did talk to his dad about the drugs, butr it wasn't the kid's responsibility to talk to dad about the pot- it was dad's responsibility not to grow pot in the home. It isn't the kid's responsibility to talk to an unethical father- it is the father's job to demonstrate good ethical behavior to his kids.
Ever tried to get through the thick skull of a drug user, whether the user uses pot or uses booze, or uses diet pills or uses some hard stuff? Ever tried to talk to an anorexic? they don't even use drugs and you can't get them through the denial stage. It's like talking to a wall. I've tried it for years. I've watched people destroy their lives and their kids' lives with something as seemingly light as pot. If someone wants to waste their own life because they can't live with themselves while they're not on drugs, that's one thing. But when they expect other people to go along with it and live with it too, that is when the drug user is wrong. Dad could wait until his kids have grown up and left home- after all, his kids couldn't legally leave home to get away from the drugs, and mom was probably like a lot of moms and not up to the task of facing off with dad about his problem. So Dad was forcing his crime onto his family's shoulders to bear, and that is always wrong.
Family is not family once the rights of the whole family has been subordinated to one man's pursuit of pleasure at the expense of others' integrity or safety. There is only ONE wrong person in the story and that is the FATHER. He is the ONE person who could have prevented this from ever becoming an issue. But his quest for a good time overrode his desire to be a good father. His desire for potted plants overrode his desire for a son.
Where's my can of worms....oh, here it is!
A fellow constitutionalist, eh? Try this idea on for size. His father does have a constitutional right to grow dope in his basement.
Think i've been smoking? Read:
Amendment IX: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Basically, that translates to: just because we didn't list it as a right doesn't mean the people don't have the right.
Still not convinced? Try:
Amendment X: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
That means that if the Constitution does not grant the power to the goverment to prohibit marijuana or other substances, then the power is implicitly denied.
Of course, the state's ability to prohibit are dependent on that state's constitution, but drug prohibition is largely a federal mandate anyway.
The answer is no. Why is the answer different when the drug in question is methamphetamine instead of alcohol? It's inconsistent, and it's the inconsistency which I find most abhorrent.
I agree totally. Or they should have the courage of their convictions that a "law" is wrong and should be changed by challenging it in court by blatantly breaking the law and daring the authorities to try you for it. Maybe you can become an advocate from prison ... think of your standing then.
You pays your money and you takes your chances.
Eaker
All in all, this kid is a product of a system that promotes self rightousness over honor, self over family, and the right to have gay kinky sex than the right of an adult to grow plants that the "government" has decided are "bad" for you.
Considering this kid's comment, "I thought: no guts, no glory," it also appears that this kid was seeking notoriety and thought that he'd score some points with "the government", thinking that will help him get a quick promotion if he were to join the Marines.
What a good little Nazi.
While the father's judgement may not have lapsed in allowing his kid to see that he was involved with growing marijuana, it's NOT as if he was running a meth lab, contrary to what many overzealous drug warriors might imply. Nor was he molesting his kids. In either of those two cases, the kid WOULD have done the right thing. Here however, it only appears that the kid wanted to get back at dad for favoring his sister. What a spoiled rotten selfish little twit.
"Stand up for what you believe in, don't follow the crowd and be your own person."
I guess that means have your dad tossed in prison subjecting him to daily anal probes by AIDS infected sickos, and having your little sister and brother tossed in foster homes. "If it feels good, do it"....
That much I agree with. As far as the constitutionality of drug laws, let me ask you this. Why did Congress need to pass a constitutional amendment to prohibit alcohol, but found no such requirement in prohibiting another drug, marijuana (especially when such drug is simply a plant that has been grown for thousands of years for human use)?
Is using the "Commerce Clause" of the Constitution to outlaw such substances, the floodgates have been opened for all of the abuses that we see today, from gun control laws to everything under the sun. An argument could be made that if Congress wanted to, using the Commerce Clause they could mandate national driver licensing and prohibit spitting on sidewalks...
Is that what we want?
That should have said, "may have lapsed". I haven't yet had my morning DOSE of coffee.. :)
all the jack-asses here who laud him for following the law should consider that we have millions of laws and everyone breaks at least one of them. Every time you drive a car you see speeders. Only a fascist or a mind-numbed robot dork sees it differently.
Who cares if this kid lost his connections to his family by doing this, but now his two younger siblings are not really going to have any parent as they grow up.
If the government schools are going to teach kids to call 911, then the government should take the kids and raise them theirselves. We sure don't need kids who disrespect their parents like this.
I disagree. It is criminal behavior. If this guy wanted to grow his own he should have moved to a location where it is allowed. He broke the law. His son turned him in.
The kid did the right thing.
Addressing a previous poster on the illegal gun thing. According to the constitution there is no such thing as an illegal gun.
God Save America (Please
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