You can’t build a republic with druggies for your citizenry. People who can’t govern themselves will be governed by their fellows.
You can tolerate legalized drug use if the users are a distinct, marginalized minority and if your public morality is sufficiently strong to keep them marginalized.
So, America in the thirties could tolerate legalized marijuana use. America in the 1890s could tolerate legalized cocaine use.
If the moral disapproval was sufficiently strong among average people, we could tolerate some kind of de-criminalization as long as Madison Avenue didn’t get involved. Cocaine? Does too much damage regardless. Meth? Anyone selling meth should get a bullet in the head.
Now, to anyone who points out that the drug war doesn’t “work”, I would tend to agree. The war on murder never stops because human depravity never stops. If we have to fight drug use using police and courts, the horse has already left the barn, the moral rot has already taken hold. And until we address the moral rot we’ll never “win” the war on drugs. And as we see, the republic itself is in danger. You can’t build a free country with citizens unable and unwilling to govern themselves.
You can tolerate “decriminalized” (not legalized) stuff if the users are a small, marginalized minority and this stuff doesn’t get the governments approval.
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When I created an idealized country it was illegal to import, export or advertise illegal drugs. As long as no-one knew you were doing it, even your kids, then it wouldn’t be an issue.
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The war on pedophilia and the war on child prostitution also never ends. Oh wait, I think the Libertarian Utopianists want those legal too
...and your post makes the key point: the libertine in me wants to say do whatever, leave me alone. The realist in me knows that a drugged out society would result, and then that society would lay down for even more and faster socialism. Catch 22. Maybe this is why the USA ain’t in Revelation.....
Very well said!
(If Ann Coulter understood what you wrote, she’d either say something useful or shut up. She doesn’t seem to be learning anything as the years go by. Some sort of mental block, perhaps.)
That’s a very insightful comment, and it saddens me that too few conservatives think as clearly as you about this issue. One doesn’t need to be in favor of drug use in order to believe that we are pursuing the wrong tactics in our “drug war”, but some people can’t make that distinction.
There are only two ways that I know of to successfully stop a drug epidemic. One of them involves winning over the public so that they voluntary choose to abstain, and that can be a daunting task, no doubt. However, the other way involves the government killing a whole lot of people, which is not where I think America should be heading.
Right now, we’re not really on either of those paths. The public outreach isn’t working well, and we’re not willing to take the enforcement steps that would actually cause any effect. So, the epidemic will continue until we pick one way or the other.
Well stated. I like your premise.
IMHO, you have some flaws
1) Morality, as everyone should know, cannot be legislated.
2) Freedom and Liberty do not ‘cost’ anyone. Cost is only associated with a Socialist State (community over the individual).
3) You CAN build a Free country containing those unwilling/unable to govern themselves. We have had it and will always have them. They are the ones who burn out early in Life, and sometimes in very terrible ways.