Why not?
James Delingpole ·
February 17, 2012 at 4:57pm
VANCOUVER, Wash. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul decried the “war on drugs” Thursday night, telling supporters in Washington state that people should be able to make their own decisions on such matters.
Voters in Washington are likely to decide this year whether to legalize the recreational use of marijuana
“If we are allowed to deal with our eternity and all that we believe in spiritually, and if we’re allowed to read any book that we want under freedom of speech, why is it we can’t put into our body whatever we want?” Paul told more than 1,000 people at a rally in Vancouver, a suburb of Portland, Ore.
Yep. Go on Ricochet friends. Tell me: why not???
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Comments:
Oct '10
Re: Why not?
We have chosen to be a socialist nation, whether us conservatives agree or not. Having made that choice, we have also chosen to share the cost of the pathologies of lifestyle, whether drugs, gluttony, laziness or even hazardous sports activity, seat belts and helmets.
The logical outcome is that we all get to legislate on your freedom to use recreational drugs. Like it or not, the choice of socialism gives us the power to overrule your freedom.
Don't like that? Then work for the defeat of socialism, not the natural children of socialism.
Dec '10
Re: Why not?
Two or three times a year the proponents of legalized marijuana attempt to get it on the ballot and routinely fail. If legalization can't even get on the ballot in a state like the Peoples Republic of Washington, then I don't see the general population as ready for such a thing. Also, those who advocate for it don't give a rat's posterior about liberty; all they care about is blissful ignorance of reality.
May '10
Re: Why not?
Because there are some substances that are so detrimental to your health and especially to your ability to function properly in society, and have little to no positive purpose at all outside of perhaps very controlled circumstances; and often cause you not only to harm yourself but others and society at large, that it is not, repeat not, a private, individual matter.
This is one clear area where, quite unfortunately, libertarians tend to have such tunnel vision. Their concern for the rights of private individual freedom, largely a good instinct, override all other concerns to the point they cannot even contemplate them.
Edited on February 17, 2012 at 5:22pmMay '10
Re: Why not?
Sure...and they should be able to drive drunk as well...right?
Feb '11
Re: Why not?
Don't just legalize it, give it to them for free. The sooner they overdose and remove themselves from the gene pool, the better for the rest of us.
May '10
Re: Why not?
Just look at the history of opium use and the effects it had on China. Yes, the West was the Colombia of China-- except picture Colombia going to war with us to force us to allow drugs into our market whether we liked it or not, just to solve their trade deficit.
How did that turn out for the Chinese? Their society was devastated for over 100 years. Men left their families and work to hang out and become worthless addled bums, or worse, criminals.
The Communists eventually solved the problem of opium after they took over in 1949. They took all the users, shot them, and dumped them in a mass grave. I'm not saying we should use the same approach here. But if anything, our war on drugs and our penalties for users is far too lenient to make much of a difference.
Edited on February 17, 2012 at 5:34pmRe: Why not?
@raycon. That is a straw man argument and you know you're better than that. You're essentially saying "socialists smoke dope. We hate socialists. Therefore we shouldn't legalize dope till socialism has been destroyed."
@thekingprawn. Yeah, and of course, people who drink alcohol don't use it as a form of blissful escapism. They use it to improve their translations of Homer into Sanskrit.
@Chris Deleon This isn't even an argument. It's an assertion from prejudice. As for this "little to no positive purpose": says who? Says you? Who made you king of rules, king of morality.
@keithpreston. Straw man.
Guys, guys, I know I chose this topic to provoke. But you are SERIOUSLY going to have to do better than this.
Re: Why not?
@ChrisDeleon "I'm not saying we should use the same approach here..." No. Heaven forfend...
Dec '10
Re: Why not?
James, I never indicated I am a proponent of alcohol consumption.
My basic thing is that if the people want it to be legal they can elect a government that will make it legal. So far they haven't. Sad thing for this particular campaign is that stoners generally aren't very persuasive, especially when the munchies kick in and they can't focus on the task at hand.
May '10
Re: Why not?
James Delingpole:
@Chris Deleon This isn't even an argument. It's an assertion from prejudice. As for this "little to no positive purpose": says who? Says you? Who made you king of rules, king of morality.
This is absurd. Empirical evidence from all around the world, including people around us, near and dear to us, suffer from these horrible drugs. And you have the guts to tell us we're prejudiced? It's all just one person forcing their prejudice on another?!?
Wake up to reality. Drugs are horrible things that in many cases have NO redeeming qualities whatsoever. Pot may have some, but it gets abused far more often.
And this argument "Who made you king? King of morality?" is juvenile. In some ways, libertarians have not gotten beyond their teen years in their thinking. This is why libertarian philosophy is so over-simplified, to the extent of causing tunnel vision. Sometimes we make rules as a society that certain individuals don't like. That doesn't make us "kings." Sometimes individuals are too foolish for their own good. A society that has empirically experienced the devastating outcomes of this foolish behavior may choose to outlaw it.
Edited on February 17, 2012 at 5:58pmMay '10
Re: Why not?
Again, I call out libertarians on their tunnel vision. You are not an island! You can't just destroy yourself because you think you have the right to, especially if you take down others around you as you flame out. You mean the world to your loved ones. And society has also invested in you. You did not pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Are you going to say that in the name of individual freedom you have the right to throw all of that away?
Edited on February 17, 2012 at 5:45pmMay '10
Re: Why not?
That "straw man" has resulted in many deaths on highways much more dangerous than the M1, my friend.
That man will hunt in this republic...if we can keep it.
Jan '11
Re: Why not?
James, because:
(1) Among the many ways in which we are not all equal, we are not equally-well equipped to be rational, autonomous persons.
(2) The more rational and autonomous we are, the better off we all will be.
(3) Certain drugs, especially those that impair the quality of one's conscious mental states and the rational processes among them, and especially those that do so addictivley, rob their users of those features of persons necessary to their well-being as rational, autonomous persons, and consequently compromise the general well-being of our culture.
You may recognize this as a libertarian argument for some limited forms of paternalism!
Update: When our fates are inextricably linked, as they are by our political institutions, can you really believe that we have no interest in the mental health of our fellow citizens?
Edited on February 17, 2012 at 5:52pmDec '11
Re: Why not?
As soon as there is a breathalyzer-type test for THC, then that drug will probably be legalized.
That being said, I do not, as a tax-payer, want to pay for the bad habits of others. I'm happy to finance the long-term effects of my own. The libertarian urge to leave the individual to his own devices is trumped by the statist push to make everything the concern of the state. So, while individual indulgences might be "legal", the cost will be born by all - and there's nothing in that idea that supports liberty, IMHO.
Re: Why not?
Back in 2010 when Prop 19 (aka The Regulate, Control, and Tax Cannabis Act) was on the California ballot, we had a few discussions of the topic. Here was one I started. One argument I found persuasive at the time:
Jun '10
Re: Why not?
I say, lawyers to the rescue. If pot is legalized, it will soon, like everything else, be commodified. Smaller growers will be gobbled up by mega-growers; you'll be able buy pallets of it in Costco, or locally sourced micro-pot in Whole Foods. But best of all, the FDA will have to LABEL it and revealed therein will be the fact that with it's high tar content, Mary Janes cause, yes, lung cancer. Righteous outrage will ensue. Delicious irony as the potheads who can't afford the "good stuff" defend Monsanto. Eventually the public outcry about second-hand pot smoke will waft it's way to various state capitals as horrified mothers tell of potheads making their children fall off swings at parks and playgrounds. And then, like the sweet cigarillo before it, pot will be ... Outlawed.
Re: Why not?
Furthermore, at the time I stated that "my puritanical proclivities predispose me to believe that the popularization of pot would be a net loss to society. I love liberty because it frees us to pursue virtue. But I will not fight for the species of liberty that expressly enables us to pursue vice."
May '10
Re: Why not?
I'm still not sure how it happened that laws came about banning one of God's plants. That just seems crazy to me.
May '11
Re: Why not?
You lot are trying too hard to phrase this in libertarian terms. As a conservative, I have no such problem. We recognize that there is ancient wisdom in tradition, and that we tinker with taboos and moral settings at our shared peril.
We do not claim that the United States is a libertarian utopia (or any other variety). It is the country as set up by the founders, and it succeeds like gangbusters when not run into the ditch by Marxists and other assorted Progressives whose M.O. is relenteless, disorienting change.
In each question of rights there is a balance to be had (nose vs. fist, etc), and we have been fairly consistent in where that balance is on this score. Serious excursions have failed seriously.
This is not "Because" as a defense. It is Sowell's argument that a given person is probably not, in fact, smarter than all those who came before him.
Edited on February 17, 2012 at 5:58pmJun '10
Re: Why not?
The legalization of pot is just one more way we allow people license to do as they please. The part libertarians fail to understand is that drug use is a pernicious form of excessive self-gratification. This so-called lifestyle choice makes many users (not all) useless to society as a whole. Marijuana corrupts both thinking and personal morality. The fact that alcohol is legal doesn't mean we need to allow another intoxicant into the blood stream of the body politic.