Posted on 07/29/2002 9:55:32 AM PDT by WindMinstrel
I don't expect to convert you. Some people seem to be impervious to logic. Most of the arguments against pot are invalid? Who cares! Pot is less harmful than alcohol? So what! Pot is not a gateway drug? Damn the facts, I think it is! Of course, the best line of all is, since pot is harmful to kids and can screw up their future, we should therefore arrest them if we catch them with it, give them a criminal record and REALLY mess up their future.
No, I do not expect to win you over to my side. I simply wish to demonstrate to others how insane your side is. And you make it easy...
That's the LP cultist's problem, and has been since the 60s, drug use. Recreational drug use is wrong, something they can’t accept. Legalization of their list of drugs would only make things worse, could never improve the situation. They just cannot accept that reality.
PULL! Yeah, and alcohol Prohibition really did a lot to stop America from drinking. All it did was create organized crime, expand federal police powers, corrupt law enforcement and turn formerly law-abiding Americans into lawbreakers. Prohibitions against pot have done the same. Cripes, pot is a plant people can grow in the back yard, like tomatoes. But the prohibitionists have turned it into a cash cow for criminal gangs instead.
All their huffing and puffing doesn't change one person's mind about it.
PULL! There has been a steady erosion of support for the drug war, with many former proponents re-examining their position.
Most of us know better, which for some reason, they can't grasp.
PULL! That is the liberal mantra - we know what is better for you than you do.
They'll never succeed in getting anything changed, not even medical marijuana.
PULL! Medical marijuana has been passed by many states. Many other states have decriminalized possession up to one ounce. If you are gonna debate on FR, at least try to keep up with current events.
They can't even sell this by hiding behind the Constitution.
PULL! Never heard it that way - hiding behind the Constitution. I never realized the Constitution was a duck blind. Sad to see that you believe it is such.
They just don't get it. Maybe I ought to feel sorry for LP types. Maybe they're just incapable of knowing better.
I think they're actually glad you don't like them.
If you favor legalization of pot, then your standards are not the same as the rest of society, and, on this issue, you are not a part of "society", thus your confusion as to being able to locate it in three dimensions. If enough people share your view, new standards can be shaped, and society will change. But, before society changes it's collective mind yet again on this issue, I think they need a better reason than, "Why not?"
I do NOT think that hard drugs should be legalized. That stuff is a short, hard road to hell, and I've NEVER seen of anyone who not only destroys themselves, but often destroys or harms people around them with it. Having said that, I think the problem of hard-drug addiction needs to be treated on the demand side.
But you cannot apply this same line of thought to weed. Just as we do not punish the millions of social drinkers for the actions of alcoholics, we should also realize that most people who use pot are not a menace to society. Just ask any cop what they would rather deal with - a room full of drunks or a room full of potheads. Pot prohibition is nuts. Period. And I have no desire to ever smoke the crap again, so you authoritarian propagandists can spare me that accusation for my stand on the matter. I just think the enforcement efforts against pot are a complete waste of my tax dollars and a complete insult to the intellegence of citizens...
I would re-examine your premises. From the article:
Most such liberalization measures fare well at the polls — California's passed with 61 percent of the vote — as long as they aren't perceived as going too far. Loosen, but don't legalize, seems to be the general public attitude
People (or society, if that is your approach) are a bit smarter than you make them out to be. People realize that the current approach is a failure. But they also realize that there can be a downside. So they will take baby steps with referenda (because the pols are too enamored of the drug war), and try and find other approaches. Within five years, I would venture that pot will be either decriminalized or legalized in probably 45 of the 50 states - and the feds will bitch and moan, but the states will have spoken. And that action will revive the 10th Amendment from below, because the people have given up on the feds administering CPR on the 10th from above...
Society didn't declare it illegal, Congress did - in fact they didn't even declare it illegal, they just agreed to attach a tax stamp to it. And they did it based on outright lies and misinformation from a disenfranchised career bureaucrat in prohition enforcement named Harry J. Anslinger, who proceed to impose de facto prohition by refusing to issue the stamps. And if we all had obeyed the law, we wouldn't know we'd been lied to. And if people like you had their way, we never would.
That reply tells me all I need to know about you. It appears that you have failed to grasp the concept of compelling interest, which simply stated means the Government better have damn good reason before it interferes in the private lives of citizens. Something being illegal would appear to be ample justification of it's being illegal, does that pretty well sum up your philospphy on the matter?
Unless you have a convincing argument that legalizing drugs pays benefits that outweigh the above drawbacks, the only people you will convince are those that don't care about children, and those that want to do drugs on a recreational basis. I'm conservative, believe in the US Constitution, and believe in freedom, something that is not universal in this country. If you can't convince people like me, your most promising converts, how are you going to convince moderates? What new argument do you have that you have not already put forward? That's my point. Argue until you're blue in the face, but with all the evidence that the immediate legalization of drugs now unlawful to take or possess would cause much more problems than the dissolution of the DEA or the happiness of a few potheads. The truth of it is, you LP types could care less about any ill effects of your plan. "That's somebody else's problem." But you're up against superior numbers of people who totally oppose this and will not allow it to happen. But the LP and its dedicated followers were never creatures of logic to begin with. Cheap shots by Neil Boortz in debates on the subject will not do the trick. Thankfully, it's a group that will never take power in substantive numbers; a dog catcher here, a city councilman there, etc. Thank G-d for small favors!!!
I am not confused about not being able to locate it. I understand it does not exist. What does exist, as I have said before, is the individual. Any claims about the good of "society" or other such tripe are merely stage dressing to deflect attention away from damage being done to individuals in the name of some non-existent amorphous mass.
This society, which at one time declared pot legal, has had a change of heart and declared it illegal. If one obeys the law, I don't see how this hurts anyone.
Large majorities have voted to decriminalize in every state that such measures have been proposed in. In Washington DC the federal government itself refused to allow the counting of votes after a referendum on decriminalization in order to avoid embarrassment. This is because anyone willing to open their eyes realizes the current system is an utter, wasteful failure.
It was not "society" that decided pot was going to somehow be illegal because, again, it does not exist. It was the Imperial Federal Government, at the behest of certain industrial tycoons, who decided to criminalize a plant. Because of this we've had decades of wasting money and lives in order to... what, exactly? I don't know. Neither does anyone else. But we must keep at it! To do otherwise would be... different, I suppose.
Who does it hurt? Take a look at a federal prison. Take a look at the last fifty years of eroding Constitutional protections in the name of this unwinnable War on Human Nature. Take a look at the younger generation growing up with utter contempt for the law. Then realize the correct answer to "Who does it hurt?" is "everybody".
You believe in FDR's Constitution, something that is not universal in this country, and certainly not on this forum.
Nice try. That referenda is a significant challenge to the drug warriors. Plus, many states have passed medical marijuana initiatives.
You would find a lot more support if you would quit the illogical opposition to marijuana and instead concentrate on hard drugs. I haven't been a hard drug user. But I have seen plenty of the carnage from them, and I oppose their legalization, just think we should try a different way of dealing with them. In turn, I have known a lot of users of pot, and IMO it is far less harmful than alcohol, a drug that killed an aunt and an uncle in my family. This isn't about a desire for me to consume pot legally - I have no desire to ever smoke it again. It is instead about a desire to direct efforts at real problems. Pot isn't one.
I envy you. I've got them all virtually memorized. Also have the complete series on DVD. Just missing a couple of 'lost german' episodes (got about half of those).
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