Posted on 04/09/2011 7:27:52 AM PDT by AustralianConservative
My surname is a giveaway. But in case you don’t know, I’m from a Dutch background and have a genuine interest in what Larry Collins described as “Holland’s Half-Baked Dutch Experiment” (Foreign Affairs May/June 1999).
For sure, the worst kept secret has been out for decades. “Our liberal drug policy has been a failure, but its advocates are so rooted in their convictions they can’t bring themselves to admit it,” explained Dr. Franz Koopman, director of De Hoop drug rehabilitation center in Dordecht. “First, we banalized cannabis use. We have left our kids with the idea that it’s perfectly all right to smoke it, and from there it was an easy step for them to move to the notion that it’s also okay to use mind-altering substances like ecstasy.”
Today, Holland is still a drug capital.
It’s no coincidence either that European socialists are open to embracing mind-destroying drugs, as opposed to, say, open debates on “manmade” global warming.
The unromantic truth: I’ve witnessed the drug revolution, and it’s an Orwellian lie. If you want more government in your lives, then go soft on drugs. Decriminalizing rape will never reduce rape crimes, so what motivates elites to mother society’s brain-raping sellers?
I also have an intellectual ally in Dr. Theodore Dalrymple. The British author of Our Culture, What’s Left of It reasons (p. 232), “If the war against drugs is lost, then so are the wars against theft, fraud, rape, murder, arson, and illegal parking. Few, if any, such wars are winnable. So let us all do anything we choose.”
(Excerpt) Read more at weekendlibertarian.blogspot.com ...
Is this your blog? You post to it often.
Why don’t you just post the entire article here according to forum guidelines?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2702200/posts?page=1
I think we’ve got a serial blog pimp here... take a look.
I’m easy(and to a point, libertarian)...legalize it...but remember...there is a significant percentage of the population that will have psychotic episodes from their herb use....
I guess the response to that is that while everyone wants to legalize drugs in the Libertarian mindset, none want to think of the consequences.
I would be all right with that line of reasoning if the consequences were considered. For example, legalize pot but the person cannot receive any public assistance ever again. No freebies.
Same for other drugs. Plus, the police have a free hand when dealing with the person who becomes violent. Crazed PCP person on a rampage? Why should the cops fight them?
Everybody wants the rights, no one, and I mean no one, wants the responsibilities.
It is the major reason why Libertarian positions on drugs is nonsensical.
I’ll be happy to read the article if you will post the whole thing. If it is any good I might visit the blog too.
Thanks,
The libertarians that I used to hang with were all very big on accepting responsibilities along with rights. They did not want to be forced to pay for other peoples bad choices any more than you do. I believe that you are seriously misstating the libertarian position.
He sure does. It seems in his past he has posted from a few other sites as well, but the articles have still mostly been all by the same author.
This blog post is inaccurate.
To start with, the big picture of the Netherlands is that while soft drugs and prostitution are legal (and I’ll only mention in passing that it is also a religious missionary capital of the world), the problem does not lay in the drugs or prostitutes themselves, but in those “drug and prostitution tourists” who are “ugly”.
The typical Dutch youth actually uses *less* drugs than the young people in parts of Europe where drugs are illegal. Not just less in frequency, but less in quantity, as well.
On a related note, the decline in marriage among the young tracks pretty close to that in the rest of Europe, whether or not prostitution is legal.
The recent political shift in the Netherlands to the right, while driven by a rejection of the left and immigration, has focused on clamping down on the “ugly” tourists, by restricting the drug trade and prostitution. That this is associated with morality is dubious, because it is seemingly done to *avoid* dealing with the issues of too much government and too many illegal aliens.
Which sounds all together familiar here in the US, where for years, the Republicans have “thrown bones” to conservatives on social issues to avoid dealing with major problems.
So the bottom line is that drugs and prostitution are not the real problem in the Netherlands. Never have been.
Hardly.
Not once have I seen a Libertarian argue about the consequences. Not once.
(Experiences may vary. Use as directed.)
The War on Drugs, like the War on Poverty, is a fedgov program that uses the New Deal Commerce Clause as it's constitutional authority. Do you want a War on Rape and a War on Murder run by fedgov?
This is the era of the Tea Party and the Tenth Amendment. Drug Warriors will be thrown under the bus. Count on it.
But would there be a significant percentage increase if pot were legalized? I've yet to see any evidence that fedgov drug policies have reduced drug use. According to the DOJ's own figures, the rate of addiction to opiates and cocaine was higher in 2000¹ than in 1900² when these drugs were legal.
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¹http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1454298/posts?page=88#88.
Crunching the fedgov numbers, it works out to an addiction rate of ~1.5%.
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²"By 1900, about one American in 200 was either a cocaine or opium addict."
http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/demand/speakout/06so.htm
For those in Rio Linda, 1 in 200 = 0.5%.
No, they’re not. Because drug users actions don’t just affect themselves (I wish it would) but their entire family.
Do you honestly think the government is going to ignore child neglect because the parents are stoners?
Reduction in drug use will not occur UNTIL there are really stiff penalties for users, and drug growing, manufacturing and selling is a capital crime in this country.
Right now there are no penalties except rehab and a short jail sentence for users.
"Iran has executed more than 10,000 narcotics traffickers in the last decade;"
http://www.payvand.com/news/04/mar/1012.html
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"Iran has the highest proportion of heroin addicts in the world and a growing Aids problem." [2004 BBC report]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_world/3791889.stm
Right now there are no penalties except rehab and a short jail sentence for users.
Get used to that and worse, at least from a Drug Warrior's perspective. Failed big government programs like the War on Poverty and the War on Drugs are headed for the ash heap of history. We simply won't be able to afford such fool's errands.
Americans love life, Muslims do not. Anyone with common sense would know that.
A stoner, faced with a hangman and rope, will give up dope rather go to the gallows.
Excuse me, but were you not advocating the Iranian approach in your prior post?
A stoner, faced with a hangman and rope, will give up dope rather go to the gallows.
So are you advocating hanging users or not?
Yes, I believe drug users and traffickers should be executed.
You are right that a significant percentage of people risk psychotic episodes when using – and that’s why I oppose it. The least supporters could do is admit that. Oxford University studies have.
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