The subject is the total legalization of drugs, not pot reform.  The historical example is the Chinese society that turned into a mass of addicted zombies when the British actively pushed opium for the express purpose of enhancing its economic agenda in the Far East.  The Emperor did not appoint Lin Zexu to his post because he was eager to be an autocrat; it was in response to an existential threat to the country.

VAT tax?  "Value-added tax tax"  ;-D

Is there any reason whatever to believe that this one won't slide into political correctness like every other show does eventually?

Hot dog!  He has always done very good stuff.

Mike Nelson is not a liberal- in fact, he has been a semi-frequent guest on HWX (his wife does Christian women seminars).  You could probably get Mike himself to show up.

You need some kind of revenue department, but it is the complexity, and thus the discretion, that causes the problems.  If the code is simple and defined by few clear rules, the problem diminishes.

The trouble is, Congress' source of power is the ability to dispense favors to rent-seekers.  And they need an enforcement arm to do that.  Hence the IRS.

Nice re-direct, Fred, but I didn't "advocate" anything.  I pointed out your logical non sequiturs, and suggested that before we take precipitous actions that can't be undone we study the past so that we don't repeat mistakes.  We have a good example of what became of one society that went from being possibly the most advanced on earth to a failing group of spaced-out druggies- all promoted deliberately by the English as a form of warfare.

I hate booze (love caffeine), so you can ignore me as a total drug prude if you wish.  But alcohol, which is indeed chemically more damaging than pot, is not ingested solely for the purpose of getting high.

And the claims of reduced crime-fighting costs are wildly overinflated in a glorious example of how to lie with statistics.

#1 and 2 are purely assertions, #4 relies on 1 and 2 being true.

I encourage the militant indiscriminate drug legalizers to pause for just a moment and study China regarding opium.  I fully understand the objective- and there are some surface-logical points.  But there is a cost-benefit tradeoff for every law.  In my experience the pot fans tend to play games with the statistics that rival those of the global warmers.

No, ask Kevin, who is, along with Jonah and James, the very very best of National Review, to declaim on his excellent piece from New Years Eve, "Risk, Relativism, and Resources".  Brilliant stuff- he explains particularly well why it is so important that we acknowledge that lots of people have lots of different risk tolerance profiles, and we need to acknowledge that on a policy basis and in the way we ask for votes. 

The turnout no-shows who abandoned Romney in November and (along with the >95% African-American vote bloc) were low-risk-tolerance voters who can't stand Obama, but believed, with some justification, that our side doesn't care about them either. 

There is a good message for them if we take off the green eyeshades for a bit and re-think our policy prescriptions.  We campaign as though we are still obsessed with beating the Russians and reducing top marginal rates, because we haven't championed a new idea since then.

Your notion of victory is elimination of all of those programs? 

"acceptance of defeat" is failing to do the sensible reforms because we fear the Lefty caterwauling.  The reason the Lefts get by with that dreck is because of the social darwinists on our extreme Randian Right who pretend that we can go back to 1932.

Your living room is not an applicable analogy.  And mass deportation is what is preposterous, exactly what I pointed out in my first post response.  It is physically almost impossible, very expensive, and politically moronic. 

Which is why you need to fix the chain system, e-verify, block both Northern and Southern borders, and implement a solid visa entry-exit system first with the determinations of effectiveness by a multi-partisan body, not the DHS Secretary.

Meanwhile, you deport property and batttery criminals and suspend the other deportations; after the security certification, set up the RPI path to legalization process. 

But knock off all the "round up the (insulting ethnic description) and dump them all in Juarez" nonsense.

Off to Ellicott City..... Fells Point is great for wandering around, just don't go too far North of there.

Fear?  Who implied anything about fear?   I was reacting to the pragmatically utterly ridiculous statement that "all illegals should be deported".  Morally and legally, of course they should. 

But on its face, looking at the doability of this, the concept is- sadly- preposterous.  Which is why it is so important now to reform immigration now, and do it right- that is, smart- for a change.  And that is not to repeat the Simpson-Mazzoli mistake reflected again largely by the Gang of 8 bill, but avoid the nasty Mirengoff/CIS approach as well. 

Tone matters.

At 50 illegals per bus, we'll need 275,000 buses roaming the countryside arresting everyone who looks Latino.  You need at least 4 military guards per bus, so that's a million soldiers.  This will be a pretty significant logistical process, not even counting all the court cases.

I hope you are not serious, and I fear that you are.

All of these government-enabled and universally demanded systems have good ways they could work and bad ways to work. 

But they are alldemandedby the voting population even if we wish they were not- and when we spend all our time trying to pretend that the US, with entrenched systems in place or in growing demand, will uniquely ignore the voters and avoid their existence, we set ourselves up for disaster of Churchill 1946 proportions. 

Instead, you do what W did- take control, and prevent a bad approach by putting ion place a sensible and sustainably-structured system, one that uses free markets and has the incentives and disincentives needed.

We could fix ObamaCare, Social Security, and Medicare- but we will never have the chance because the public does not trust us- for good reason.  If we spend all our time saying that the programs need to be killed, they will take us at our word and vote leftist idiots into office.

Sorry, but that is reality.  Recognizing that fact does not make me a progressive.

Not quite.  I believe in markets.  The US political market, as well as those of every developed society in the history of the world, demands that, in addition to domestic security, public education, a postal service, and national defense, governments now assist with access to health care, certain consumer protections, and ensuring some kind of old age assistance.  We may not like the fact that the body politic is not taking care of all this each for himself or herself, but the fact is, you can't find a non-banana republic that doesn't do these things.  Some do a good job- regarding pensions, Chile and Sweden (yes, I am serious- if we had their personally owned 401(k) system instead of SS....), regarding education, Sweden (universal vouchers, public schools compete), health care (Switzerland, parts of French).  Others (UK) are simply bad.