Posted on 02/25/2013 3:04:49 PM PST by Shout Bits
Last week, conservative Ann Coulter took a swipe at libertarians, calling them "pussies" for their stance on marijuana. Coulter's best qualities are her bluntness (get it?) and her willingness to fight. In her "pussies" comments, she argued that, since the US is a socialist welfare state, people's choices regarding their lifestyles are her business – hence MJ should be illegal. Coulter has a point; socialism turns strangers into family. However, her conclusion that statism and central control are warranted is an abandonment of principle.
Libertarians come in several flavors, and nearly equally from left and right backgrounds. The actual Libertarian Party is dominated by barely reformed hippies and ideologues, who put drug policy front and center. Most libertarians, however, do not belong to the LP. While libertarians like GOP Sen. Rand Paul do not support the war on drugs, that issue is just an example in the spectrum of Constitutional abuses and overreaches by today's government. Perhaps coincidentally, the Tea Party has embraced much of the constitutional libertarian platform of confining government to its enumerated powers.
When conservatives complain about the cost of providing services to immigrants and their children, libertarians blame welfare, not immigration. When conservatives like Coulter complain about the harm drugs do (never mind tobacco and booze), libertarians blame socialized medicine, not drugs. Perhaps Coulter is being pragmatic by acknowledging the US socialist family, but she is conceding this generation's key battle and even the soul of the US by doing so.
Socialists refer to their subjects as family much as dictators refer to their subjects as their children. Under collectivism, the consequences of an individual's bad choices (e.g. smoking, or drinking, or irresponsible debt) are borne by everyone. This creates what economists call a moral hazard. By mitigating the negative consequences of bad behavior, the deterrent is minimized. Why not borrow too much when the government will always bail me out? Why not smoke crack when food, shelter, and health care are available no matter how worthless drugs make me? Of course the government might outlaw crack, but the criminal deterrent has proven to be less effective than the personal ruin deterrent. The best policy regarding vices is for people to live with their decisions' consequences, but socialism is a family where consequences are limited.
Coulter is a big sister who thinks MJ should be illegal so she does not have to pay for whatever negative consequences its users might incur. However, the socialist family is not one which libertarians wish to join. Banning drugs is ineffective at best, and the consequence of proscription might actually be more drug use based on decades' long trends. Libertarians are not in favor of MJ, they are opposed to substituting personal responsibility for the socialist family. Liberals just like MJ for policy reasons. While MJ is a popular example and a clear policy argument, the issue is only an example of why the government should not be the master of a socialist family.
Still, Coulter has a point. The US is a socialist welfare state, and she is forced to be responsible for the bad choices of others. She is not wrong to expect good behavior from her wards. Perhaps Coulter has illuminated the key difference between conservatives and libertarians – Coulter is willing to be a member of today's deeply flawed US socialist family, while libertarians are still willing to fight. As such a famous fighter, Ms. Coulter should try harder and expect a little more.
Shout Bits can be found on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ShoutBits
The above is not correct. Social drinking is thousands of years old.
Sorry, jsntn, my years of counseling say that no one wants inactive pot and they always smoke for the high. People do not say, "I only want the flavor."
Yes, we agree about controls.
Nonetheless, at this point in time, legalization without controls would only make the culture more dangerous. We don't need that.
I don't like things that make the culture more dangerous. Some things we can fix and others we simply have to keep rejecting because they are inherently dangerous or unnatural.
The above is not correct. Social drinking is thousands of years old.
Was alcohol illegal for those thousands of years? If not, your reply does not contradict my statement.
Sorry, jsntn, my years of counseling say that no one wants inactive pot and they always smoke for the high.
Straw man - I neither said nor implied otherwise.
legalization without controls
Who supports that? Given that Colorado's and Washington's legalizations incorporated controls, there seems to be no reason to expect legalization without controls.
What does alcohol have to do with anything? America lost the War on Alochol years and years ago. We decided as a society to be tolerant of booze and the tens of thousands of annual fatalities it brings us.
Thankfully we have not lost all our marbles and repeated that mistake with drugs.
The State's only legitimate function is to protect freedom and adjudicate and punish those who infringe on an individual's freedom; I don't think I've heard a principled libertarian argue against a speed limit. Or even laws prohibiting intoxicated driving. People own their own body, but as I own mine, others don't have the right to put my body under undue risk of their behavior.
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I can think of no greater danger to our society than to allow someone's personal freedom to use dangerous drugs to undermine the liberties we have been granted. Let me put it this way: I DO have the right to control you. If you pose a danger to society by abusing and trampling your personal freedoms, then you forfeit those rights and should be subject to the laws of a moral country.
How does someone's personal use of dangerous drugs in any way undermine the liberties we have been granted?
A person doing 120mph on an empty highway is a threat only to himself and as such that person should solely bear the consequences of his actions.
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GeronL didn’t say empty highway, now did he. And these useless dopers are not on any empty highway in our society, now are they?
Nope, while you cheer them on in their right to crush themselves, their loved ones and our society in the pursuit of dangerous drugs, don’t forget to smile as you pay more and more taxes to sustain their sorry welfare funded existence.
Or do you naively believe these cretins are healthy productive members of society and besides... the taxes that the gubmint would be collecting will cover any problems?
And we're currently losing the War on Drugs.
We decided as a society to be tolerant of booze and the tens of thousands of annual fatalities it brings us.
DUI fatalities are no more an argument against legal alcohol than against legal driving. What we decided was to no longer hyperinflate alcohol profits and channel those profits into criminal hands.
Thankfully we have not lost all our marbles and repeated that mistake
So ending Prohibition was a mistake?
Wow. You are 0 for 3 on your points. Wrong, wronger, wrongest.
Morality, ethics, a code of fairness and justice. Are all of these not integral to the law?
Freedom and liberty do not cost anyone? Try telling that to the millions of soldiers who paid the ultimate price for freedom and librety.
Anyone unwilling to take on the responsibility of freedom will not enjoy it for long.
Wow.
Bookmarked.
So Leftists will just do nothing if Libertarians gain power?
Wow?
Assign my statement to parents right over a child. Still stay wow? How about some felon tried and convicted by a jury of his peers and is in prison and a warden is in control of his rights and freedoms? No wow there, is it?
Me? I would demand and expect welfare recipients and Section 8 citizens be subjected to random drug tests. Why should they get a pass when I - as a tax paying productive citizen - have to pee in a cup to get a job and they don’t, yet they collect thousands in taxpayer monies.
You don’t think I have a right to control that aspect of their life? Sure you do.
So yeah. Use drugs and live an immoral, unproductive, socially damaging illegal lifestyle and clean your ears out as I repeat:
I DO HAVE THE RIGHT TO CONTROL YOU.
(Bookmark this too.)
How exactly would Leftists do that?
So Leftists will just do nothing if Libertarians gain power?
They'd do what they've been doing. How would Libertarians getting elected power enable Leftists to impose their will on critics any more than they do now?
I don't have to pee in a cup to get a job - but then, I have valuable skills.
I don’t have to pee in a cup to get a job - but then, I have valuable skills.
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I know you do. And your superiors at NORML appreciate them. And naturally they don’t care if you use.
Me? I work for a 27 billion dollar bank. My wife is a public school teacher. And as professionals it is expected and must be proven that employees be drug fee.
I work for a 27 billion dollar bank. My wife is a public school teacher. And as professionals it is expected and must be proven that employees be drug fee.
I work for an 8 billion euro technology company, and as a professional my employer stays out of my bodily products and evaluates me on my performance.
How does someone's personal use of dangerous drugs in any way undermine the liberties we have been granted?
Nothing to say?
Big govt leftists would still legally harass Conservatives if Libertarians gained a majority and Libertarians will do nothing to push back against the big govt leftists?
We decided to be tolerant of alcohol becuase the ill effects of prohibiting it were worse than the ill effects of tolerance.
The above comment communicated that during prohibition the primary intent of a speakeasy was to get drunk, not just to have a social drink. As you wrote: "nobody went to a speakeasy to have a social drink..."
You might have meant something else, but what you wrote suggested that the intent of drinking was to get "high".
And why were you interested in making the point about getting "high" during Prohibition? Because the parallel would have been "marijuana is illegal, therefore, it could be used more benignly if it weren't for its illegality." That, I believe, is the point of "Who says a joint is the minimum dosage of marijuana."
So, not a straw man. You did, whether you intended to or not, imply otherwise. I think your words can legitimately be read with the meaning I took away from them.
It's possible the thought wasn't transmitted as you would have liked, so I'm open to hearing what you want to say.
I'm an open-minded conservative who is opposed to adding unnecessary or unnatural danger to the culture.
How exactly would Leftists do that?
So Leftists will just do nothing if Libertarians gain power?
They'd do what they've been doing. How would Libertarians getting elected power enable Leftists to impose their will on critics any more than they do now?
Big govt leftists would still legally harass Conservatives if Libertarians gained a majority and Libertarians will do nothing to push back against the big govt leftists?
Your original statement above seemed to imply that the answer to your most recent question is "Yes." If that's not what your original statement was intended to convey, please rephrase what you did mean to say.
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