Posted on 01/08/2003 11:57:05 AM PST by MrLeRoy
No.
Must be---you know nothing else about me.
No.
I was, and am, making fun of the "I can do whatever I want with my body" crowd because they are narcissistic to the point of idiocy. If you have no contact with anyone, of course you can do whatever you want to yourself, but as soon as you are part of society, you need to be responsible and take into account what your actions may do to others. It doesn't matter if we are talking about legal or illegal drugs. I may have a few drinks at a party, but I would take into consideration, if my children were around, the example I was setting. I would take into consideration if I were planning on operating a motor vehicle. I would take into consideration if I had to go to work the next day.
For nearly everyone there is a responsibility that extends beyond one's self. While I was in parody mode in my previous post, I believe my point is sound.
There are many who consider as an injury to themselves any conduct which they have a distaste for, and resent it as an outrage to their feelings; as a religious bigot, when charged with disregarding the religious feelings of others, has been known to retort that they disregard his feelings, by persisting in their abominable worship or creed.
But there is no parity between the feeling of a person for his own opinion, and the feeling of another who is offended at his holding it; no more than between the desire of a thief to take a purse, and the desire of the right owner to keep it. And a person's taste is as much his own peculiar concern as his opinion or his purse. It is easy for any one to imagine an ideal public, which leaves the freedom and choice of individuals in all uncertain matters undisturbed, and only requires them to abstain from modes of conduct which universal experience has condemned.
But where has there been seen a public which set any such limit to its censorship? or when does the public trouble itself about universal experience. In its interferences with personal conduct it is seldom thinking of anything but the enormity of acting or feeling differently from itself; and this standard of judgment, thinly disguised, is held up to mankind as the dictate of religion and philosophy, by nine tenths of all moralists and speculative writers.
These teach that things are right because they are right; because we feel them to be so. They tell us to search in our own minds and hearts for laws of conduct binding on ourselves and on all others. What can the poor public do but apply these instructions, and make their own personal feelings of good and evil, if they are tolerably unanimous in them, obligatory on all the world?
No person ought to be punished simply for being drunk; but a soldier or a policeman should be punished for being drunk on duty
Mill
Read all of it.
Nobody here supports taking drugs in front of children or to the detriment of their job performance, so I don't know why you bothered to post this. The issue at hand is whether government has the authority to ban drug use; do you have a position on that?
Huh? Don't people own their body? How can you tell them not to take drugs in front of children?
I have already explained why I post almost exclusively on this topic.
and hold irrational views about it.
Like I said, based on my position on legalization.
How can you tell them not to take drugs in front of children?
My not supporting it doesn't mean I'm enlisting the power of Leviathan to prevent anyone else from doing it.
My belief is based on your behavior and presentation of argument, not views. It also does not exist in a vacuum. Perhaps you are an exception. There probably are people who hang out in bars and don't drink or hang out at ski lodges and don't ski, but they'd be exceptions.
So, we all support terrorism. Well, everybody except the Unibomber before he got caught.
My belief is based on your behavior and presentation of argument
Yet you keep evading my explanation of my "behavior and presentation of argument." Why is that?
It also does not exist in a vacuum. [...] There probably are people who hang out in bars and don't drink
What does this mean? Do you know people who post almost exclusively on legalization whom you know for a fact are drug users?
[MrLeRoy:] God, I suppose. And if His ownership of our bodies were a legal as well as a moral fact, it would be relevant---but it ain't.
So have you completely abandoned substantive discussion in favor of defending your beliefs about my alleged drug use?
You keep asking me about it.
I don't follow your comment about God and legality etc...
We are not refering to boorish or rude behavior, for however distasteful, rarely interfers with another's "rights".
What we are discussing, beyond SUV's, is a person's right to be inebriated. Not being clearly Constitutionally protected, it is open to some debate.
I would not for the life of me deny someone a drink, tote, shot, or snort, if said action effected no one but the drinker, toter, shooter, or snorter. Unfortunately, many drinkers, toters, shooters, and snorters do it in front of their kids, or before they get behind the wheel, or in other ways that do impinge upon life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of others.
Since one who is impared is a poor judge of his own actions, society has but laws into effect that restrict the use of certain substances under certain conditions. These circustances often seem arbitrary, especially to those predisposed to favor the substances most restricted, but they are derived from society's historical norms and expectations. They are also drawn from the substances potency, effect, method of ingestion, and other considerations. Sometimes they are silly, often they are valid. Their whimsey or seriousness notwithstanding, they are the law and we are not allowed to pick and choose which laws we will and won't obey without consequence.
Fortunately our Government is set up in such a way as to allow the amendment or abolishment of laws, when enough of society has agreed that the law is unjust or misguided. That day may come when some or all of these laws will be so judged, but I would not hold my breath waiting.
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