Social Conservatism

Neoperspectives ^ | 8/1/06 | me

[traviskicks]

Well, the gov may have succeeded in making farmers rich, but doubt the program achieved its aim of alleviating a 'food shortage'. Ultimately, I'd bet even farmers were hurt, if not financially, morally.

And ya, the drug debate is often characterized as a black and white issue, when cultural differences also play a large roll. Also, in muslim countries they have raised the threshold of punishment (death in some cases) so high as to make risking bootlegging etc.. unnacceptable. It is a complex issue, but I still think legalization is the answer.

Do you have any info/link on how drinking rates went down during prohbition? Never heard that one, or even knew it was measured. The 'failure' of prohibition mentioned in the article was referring to the rise of organized crime and public corruption resulting from prohbitionist attempts.

[qlangley]

>>Well, the gov may have succeeded in making farmers rich, but doubt the program achieved its aim of alleviating a 'food shortage' Oh, it absolutely did. It created huge surpluses - a problem now largely ameliorated by other programmes. There were grain mountains, wine lakes, milk lakes, etc. This was surplus food which the government bought up and put into storage. No shortages at all. Of course, that didn't mean that no-one was going hungry. Government intervention in the market put the prices up enormously. For some products prices were double the market rate. So some individuals may have been short of food, but Europe as a whole had plenty. The surpluses were often used for 'third world aid'. In plain English that means they were dumped on the market in developing countries free, or virtually free, bankrupting local farmers and in some cases causing the land to fall out of cultivation altogether. On balance, it was, and remains, an even more offensive and damaging policy than America's own agricultural 'protection'. Click here for more on agricultural protection rackets.

[freepatriot32]

Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here

[mugs99]

The incidence of alcoholism and alcohol related disease was much reduced during prohibition. Consumption was also reduced.

Not true. Reductions were measured during the first year of prohibition. As organized crime grew to supply the demand so did consumption, alcoholism and alcohol deaths. Teenagers dying from alcohol overdose became epidemic. That's why Pauline Sabin led the Mothers of America march on Washington to repeal prohibition. They did it "for the children".
.

[lonestar67]

36. Mark S. Gold, The Good News About Drugs and Alcohol (New York: Viliard Books, 1991).

No, it worked. Various use and abuse indices immediately went down.

There was a criminal strategy to increase use. Criminals caused the increase not the law.

Laws do not cause people to use and do illegal things and I grow weary of libertarians saying it does.

Stop rationalizing wrong things by blaming them on "the law."

Quite frankly, alcohol still is highly destructive.

[NapkinUser]

"Social Conservatives also tend to be the weakest along the spectrum of economic Conservatism and may also oppose free trade and immigration etc..."

There is nothing conservative about illegal immigration. In fact, I believe it's the national libertarian's position on illegals that makes them so disliked here, even by some libertarians.

[mugs99]

36. Mark S. Gold, The Good News About Drugs and Alcohol (New York: Viliard Books, 1991). No, it worked. Various use and abuse indices immediately went down.

Wrong. Read the DPFT History of Prohibition Part I 1898-1933. It covers both alcohol and drugs. There you will find the irrefutable facts and figures.

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition Says the same about alcohol and drug prohibition:
"The stated goals of current U.S.drug policy -- reducing crime, drug addiction, and juvenile drug use -- have not been achieved, even after nearly four decades of a policy of "war on drugs". This policy, fueled by over a trillion of our tax dollars has had little or no effect on the levels of drug addiction among our fellow citizens, but has instead resulted in a tremendous increase in crime and in the numbers of Americans in our prisons and jails. With 4.6% of the world's population, America today has 22.5% of the worlds prisoners. But, after all that time, after all the destroyed lives and after all the wasted resources, prohibited drugs today are cheaper, stronger, and easier to get than they were thirty-five years ago at the beginning of the so-called 'war on drugs'".

Retired seattle police chief Norm Stamper:
"Illegal drugs are expensive precisely because they are illegal. The products themselves are worthless weeds - cannabis (marijuana), poppies (heroin), coca (cocaine)- or dirt-cheap pharmaceuticals and "precursors" used, for instance, in the manufacture of methamphetamine. Yet today, marijuana is worth as much as gold, heroin more than uranium, cocaine somewhere in between. It is the United States' prohibition of these drugs that has spawned an ever-expanding international industry of torture, murder and corruption."

Jerry Oliver, former chief of police in Detroit:
"It's insanity to keep doing the same thing over and over again. If we did not have this drug war going on, we could spend more time going after robbers and rapists and burglars and murderers. That's what we really should be geared up to do. Clearly we're losing the war on drugs in this country."

Stop rationalizing wrong things by blaming them on "the law."

The drug war protects the violent drug gangs that are flooding our country with drugs and endanger our children. Why do you support torture, murder and corruption?
.

[lonestar67]

What's not to like about torture, murder, and corruption?

[mugs99]

What's not to like about torture, murder, and corruption?

LOL...
Thanks for confirming my suspicion!
.

[traviskicks]

I agree entirely. thnx for that link. You might enjoy:
http://www.neoperspectives.com/farmsubsidies.htm

[traviskicks]

I thought that social conservatism was in favor of government restrictions on personal freedoms and economic conservatism was in favor of financial and regulatory freedom, economics freedom. Combined, they equal conservatism, the ideological philosophy. If these definitions are correct then illegal immigration falls under the social conservative aspect of conservatism.

[tacticalogic]

I've run into a few who manage to get it right, but very few. Most of them are purely political opportunists, ready to sign up for the "living document" New Deal Constitution if it gets them what they want right now.

[phoenix0468]

Per capita drug use may have been declining. That doesn't mean that the number of users is declining, it just means that as the population grows there are less new users. Also, these numbers, just like any other can be used by political groups, special interests, etc. pretty much any way they want. You can use percentages or raw numbers depending on whether you want to show an increase or a decrease. Heck, the number of murders per capita in Detroit has been reduced by, say 3%, over the last ten years. Law enforcement could jump up and down touting their progress in fighting crime. When in fact, the number of murders (raw number that is) may have increased by say 10%. How is that progress? I don't see it that way. From a moral perspective, keeping drugs illegal and fighting the traffic and crime that comes with it is correct. From some ideological perspectives, the money spent fighting drugs and related crime, is a waste and making drugs legal could at the least reduce the crime involved if not definitely the illicit trafficking. But is it morally correct or ethically correct to make something legal just to appease immoral members of society? If we used this line of thinking, there would be very few laws, and none that legislated moral behaviors that should be illegal. I don't want to use some silly slippery slope argument. I realize that immoral crimes that harm another individual or infringe upon someone else's rights will always be seen as necessarily legislated by Libertarians, but it still opens up a Pandora's box of immoral behaviors that could be made legal and shouldn't.

I have heard all the arguments for and against making drugs legal. Currently, I sit on the side of the fence opposed to legalization. The reason being is it upholds our societies moral integrity. I don't see the legalization of drugs as helping enough at the expense of our societies moral justifications for fighting it.

The dealers, thugs, and criminals who use drugs as their modus operandi will just find some other illicit thing or act to continue their crime.

[traviskicks]

"The dealers, thugs, and criminals who use drugs as their modus operandi will just find some other illicit thing or act to continue their crime."

Well, this is where our fundemental disagreement lies. I agree statistics can be manipulated, although it seems per capita use is still a pertinent measure. However, I think the dealers, thugs, and criminals, were in effect created by government, they did not exist before incentives were in place that necessitated their existance. This might explain this theory a bit more:

http://www.neoperspectives.com/sweatshopsandwelfare.htm

[phoenix0468]

Criminals have been in existence since the beginnings of society. Most exist solely to subvert the moral societal systems due to their own immorality and or dysfunction. Crediting government with the creation of crime is absurd. Before there was government there was law. Either set forth by some religious entity or the society as a whole. If someone broke society's laws they were punished. Government did not create criminals or crime. And government did not create drug dealers or the crime they propagate. This is the fundamental difference that Conservatives and Libertarians have. Libertarians like to blame government for things like crime, or even for war (even if the war was a result of some other entities aggressions).

Governmental regulation of morality is necessary, governmental regulation of industry and markets is necessary. And as most libertarians like to oppose, war in many cases in history was and still is necessary. I mean what would a Libertarian president have done with Hitler? "Ah, it's ok, as long as he isn't attacking us, we're fine."

[tacticalogic]

Governmental regulation of morality is necessary, governmental regulation of industry and markets is necessary.

Where the "social conservatives" tend to part ways with political conservatives is over the means. They're often too willing to adopt the liberal mantra of "big government does it better" and seek their solutions in further expansion of the federal government for things that should properly be left to the States.

[phoenix0468]

Now this I absolutely agree with. I think you hit the nail squarely on the head and that would put me firmly in the political conservative column. I definitely do not believe the federal government needs to be the primary benefactor of society. It should perform it's role as it was intended, and leave most law, that does not affect interstate commerce or activity, to the states.

[tacticalogic]

Government did not create criminals or crime.

Like it or not, sometimes it does.

[phoenix0468]

Please be more specific.

[tacticalogic]

It should perform it's role as it was intended, and leave most law, that does not affect interstate commerce or activity, to the states.

The role it has assumed in "regulating interstate commerce" is a far cry from what was intended, too.