Drug Laws as Cultural Lobotomy

Liberty Magazine ^ | 9/1995 | John Dentinger

[Roscoe]

If you can't smoke crack it's like Adolph Hitler?

Pipe logic.

[KDD]

Your reading comprehension is impaired or perhaps you are drunk.

If so don't waste my time with your inane "begging".

[Roscoe]

A thread without the juvenile invocation of "Hitler" would probably be a thread without libertarian crackpots.

The polite voice of a policeman is nothing more than a mocking, deceitful expression of tyrannous authority--the arrogant inhumanity of power--even if the policeman truly believes he is being polite! The fact of government's omnipotence over the individual renders his politeness a mere hypocrisy. In fact, the truant officer is a kidnapper; the tax collector is a thief; the soldier is a murderer.

Must be hard to live with all that hatred for America.

[KDD]

That's the problem Roscoe...you see America as its government ..,

I see America as its people.

I do not love Government. But I love America.

[MrLeRoy]

There so much more information about drugs, smoking, and diseases than years ago.

The fact that drugs---including the deadly addictive drugs alcohol and tobacco---have bad effects is not new, nor is it the issue. The issue is whether government has the legitimate authority to restrict the activities of adults 'for their own good.'

[AUgrad]

I do not love Government. But I love America.

I love my country. I fear my government.

[MrLeRoy]

That's the problem Roscoe...you see America as its government ..,

I see America as its people.

I do not love Government. But I love America.

Nicely said. Not surprising that Roscoe has no honest response.

[Roscoe]

Feel the love:

The polite voice of a policeman is nothing more than a mocking, deceitful expression of tyrannous authority--the arrogant inhumanity of power--even if the policeman truly believes he is being polite! The fact of government's omnipotence over the individual renders his politeness a mere hypocrisy. In fact, the truant officer is a kidnapper; the tax collector is a thief; the soldier is a murderer.

[MrLeRoy]

The author of that text is an idiot. How is that relevant to FR?

[Roscoe]

The author of that text is an idiot.

Who do ya think the author is?

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/profile?u=9340

[MrLeRoy]

I see no explicit claim of authorship there---just a lack of attribution.

[Roscoe]

Orwellian.

[MrLeRoy]

Your vocabulary exceeds your intellect.

[MrLeRoy]

Are you the author of the text on your FR home page?

[KDD]

Principles have Consequences
To understand the state of a society, one must discover the extent to which a given philosophy has been institutionalized and has penetrated the spirits of its citizens. On this basis, one can then explain a society's history--and forecast its future. This is what makes intelligible the fact of Hitler's rise, and the inevitability of America's decline.

If you have been taught--and accept--that oppression is proper, then you will participate in a form of gradual social suicide. You will, as a matter of course, help to spread within your society the attitudes that must be nourished in order to accept oppression. (They are, after all, your own attitudes.) As a result, a greater and greater percentage of the population will come to embrace social institutions that eventuate in the self- destruction of society. (Thus the continual victories of collectivist politics.)

For example: Starting with the premise that sacrifice is a fundamental requirement of human existence, it is inevitable that laws will be passed mandating sacrifices. The unwillingness of an individual to accept the sacrifices that "the law" demands will be perceived as a violation of civilized decency. Thus even if a man starts out as benevolent, a consistent application of the collectivist principle of sacrifice will drive him, against all his better feelings, to accept the necessity of violating individual rights. Here you see the indirect--and largely unrecognized-- influence of philosophy on human existence.

Principles do count. If we destroy the principles by which we live through cowardice, expediency, fear, or any other reason, we will destroy the basis of our existence.

A man living under a totalitarian government, who has no real knowledge of what freedom is, will suffer a condition of enslavement, but if he does not misperceive his situation, then his only burden is that of being a slave.

Citizens of the United States also suffer a condition of enslavement, but they have been taught that their nation was established in freedom, and that their ancestors were free, and all their lives they have been led to believe that they themselves are free. Devoutly but falsely believing themselves to be free, they refuse to acknowledge the fact of their enslavement.

But the reality of that fact is inescapable. Once they are released from the school system and enter mainstream society, these slaves--having been thoroughly indoctrinated by the government with the notion that America is a free society and that they are free people--immediately encounter such coercive phenomena as: selective service, driver's licenses, vehicle registration (read a New Hampshire license plate: "Live free or die"), income tax, property tax, business licenses, and the myriad regulations that control all aspects of their daily lives. Thus they have a double burden: the enslavement itself and also the psychological effects of the hypocritical discord between the reality they live in and the falsehood of their beliefs.

I stand by those words.

[Roscoe]

Feel the love.

[MrLeRoy]

I stand by those words.

Did you write them?

[KDD]

This was written by a graduate student who will go unnamed.