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Posted on 05/23/2012 6:22:10 AM PDT by DManA
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) adopted a combative tone in a recent interview with NPR where he said that he is “doggone offended” by libertarians. He told NPR “I despise these people” and implied that he is happy to intimidate those that “dump on” him with threats of violence.
(Excerpt) Read more at mediaite.com ...
I dispute your claim libertarians are resonsible for the high taxes,big government and other ills all passed into law bt Democrat and Republican politicians.
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Disputation allowed. Thankfully there are so few Libertarians in power that they are basically ineffictive as they are laughable.
But the fact still stands, that their liberal values do infest both the dems and the repubs.
Typical. Was expecting this same lame screed - Equating the WOD to Prohibition. That argument has been shot down a million times. By logical sober minded voters who DO NOT WANT legal pot.
I’m sorry you want more dope smoking in the US. I’m sorry you are at odds with Conservatives over this and other conservative issues. But I’ve FReeped with you for years over these basic conservatives values and I’m convinced you will never learn.
You will never be a conservative.
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Sorry, that is so not true. Look at any of the political tests on line that you can take...
“I was very disappointed that Palin endorsed this slug.”
I concur. She didn’t owe it to him like some say she did to McShame to justify her endorsing McShame over J.D. Hayworth. We all would be better off with Hayworth in the Senate instead of McShame and, likewise, Liljenquist instead of Orville.
How many unbalanced budgets has Orville voted for in 36 years?
Orville’s had his chance to show what he can do. Utah has given him 36 years. He doesn’t deserve 42 years.
It’s time for a change.
Foreign policy ... I'd like to see our foreign aide terminated. Pakistan is imprisoning a Doctor who aided us in getting Bin Laden; and Pakistan got $1.656 Billion and likely in excess of $1.4 Billion in economic aide from us last year. WTF? They hid a terrorist that killed 3,000 americans and are punishing a citizen for helping us get Bin Laden (he got 30 years).
We are not making friends when we "give" the money away, in fact we are creating enemies. Look how the world views Canada vs how they view us. We give money away, with strings. Countries hate the strings, but want the money. How about we keep our money, fix our problems at home, build a strong military, and alieveate the problems we have?
I'm not a drug user, I don't drink either ... my choice. But, I'm unwilling to have my life, my family, my possessions placed at risk by denying some idiot who wants to poison himself, the poison he craves. Want Crystal Meth? IMHO, help yourself. Make it cheap, and plentiful and pure - hopefully the dregs of society will OD and we can just toss the bodies in a landfill somewhere. Society will be better off (ie. return to where it was before the laws prohibiting drugs were in effect) and we won't have the crime we all enjoy today. Further, there will cease to be the efforts put into making more addictive and concentrated drugs - no profit in it. The criminal carels will go bankrupt, innocent lives will cease to be lost, gangs will disolve as their revenue stream will dry up. We won't have a prison population with 1/6 incarcerated for doing what our esteemed President did - numerous times, and wrote about in his book. He is only President because he didn't get caught; yet for those who were caught, their lives have been ruined.
Did you look at the graph?
Vertically you have Anarchy at the bottom and Totalitariansism on top.
Horizontally it’s Communism on the Left, and Libertarianism on the right.
This is a GRAPH, you take one of the test you linked to, and they plot your political leaning on this graph. I tested next to Friedman, which I consider a compliment.
In a vast majority of the US, Marijuana is illegal. Has the drug problem gone away now, or is it even worse?
And at the end of the day, the war on drugs is really just Prohibition under a different name. The same events are taking place, enriching the criminal element, demand is increased, more potent formulations are being invented, political corruption, violent gang activity, criminal underclass. Ludicrous profit margins are driving everything.
Prior to 1937, Marijuana was legal in the US. It was largely ignored. It was used by "low class" folk, it was not wildly popular, it wasn't the "gateway" drug it's been made out to be. Chances are your grandparents may have smoked it, and somehow society didn't come crashing down either. It didn't become popular until it was forbidden.
Just like underage drinking - when you make something "illegal" you create demand. I drank a lot in High School - because I wasn't supposed to. When I turned 21 and could legally drink, there went the fun. I don't drink now, never used drugs - simply no interest in them. However, there are areas of the cities near me that I dare not go into, for fear of my personal safety. These regions are populated by gangs, drug dealers, drug users and derelicts. If drugs were cheap, available and pure - the gangs wouldn't have a money revenue stream, the drug users would hopefully OD and we could bury that problem.
All we have to do, is look at countries who have decriminalized drugs.
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html My view is fairly simple - this should be a STATE issue, and largely it is.
“Libertarians are Social Liberals. Their values are opposite to those who are conservative”
You obviously know nothing about Libertarians. Your ignorance of them is simply on par with a liberal’s view of conservatives.
“Libertarians WANTED to legalize marijuana. Why? To TAX it.”
Um, no. That is how they sold it to the stupid masses. There are many people that simply want to smoke pot but a Libertarian wants to end government control over us. Name the Constitutional enumeration or the founding idea of this nation that says the government has the right to control what you use in or on your body? We now see the ObamaCare/RomneyCare system of wanting to control what we eat. Where is anyone’s right mind does the government get that power?
Sometimes I just don't understand that woman at all.
To Hatch, just about everyone but the ‘progressives’ is a radical libertarian.
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“hopefully the dregs of society will OD and we can just toss the bodies in a landfill somewhere”
I was a “dreg” once. But there were laws in place that kept it from being as bad as it might have been, and as a result I survived long enough to experience redemption. That’s a good thing. Christians have for two millennia seen good law as the hand of Providence, creating a world safe enough for the Gospel to prosper, and for virtuous living to proper. Only since the Enlightenment, and particularly since the advent of Kantian autonomy, has freedom been seen as a supreme good unto itself.
Various methods have been deployed to balance freedom with virtue. Enlightened Hedonism, the real “liberty” at the root of both LIBeralism and LIBertarianism, simply redefines virtue down to the lowest common denominator, the self. Do all for self-interest alone, and everything else will work itself out. This actually works to some degree in economics. Not because it works perfectly, but because it works better than anything else we know, and significantly better than centrally controlled systems.
But the success of economic life presumes a functioning culture in which “selves” may operate with relative safety, and no culture can function without attempting to restrain certain corrosive evils, which, if left unattended, would make impossible the kind of human relationships necessary to sustain a relatively free economy.
For a blazing obvious example, no one is “free” to commit murder. Theoretically at least. Yes, murders will happen, but there are consequences, and those consequences are limits on freedom, and they are good limits.
Likewise, a law that limits access to poisons of the mind can also be good. I live in Illinois, near Springfield, but more rural than that. I want the meth labs shut down. I fear for the safety of my children. I have learned through one of my former criminal clients with “underworld” connections that not far from here is a place where young people are systematically funneled into drug dependency, then prostitution, then far worse, with the complicity of big name pols in Springfield. This corruption is not based any “prohibition makes drugs cool” meme. It is based on coercively creating “chemical slaves” who then generate an income stream.
This kind of corrupting influence cannot be fought in some hippie nirvana of a no rules society. Human nature is too perverse to permit it. “Enlightened Hedonism” based on self-interest, but without the inhibition of virtuous law, will lead many to the conclusion that clawing your way to the top over the bodies of the innocent is perfectly acceptable. That’s what’s happening here in Illinois. That is why we are so corrupt. Announce there is no real rule of law, and the animals will come out of hiding.
But the theory goes, make drugs cheap and the big money players will leave. No. Drug dependency is still power, and that temptation will not go unnoticed. Those accustomed to power through drugs will find creative new ways to use that power under any economic theory. It is better to draw a line in the sand, to start standing firm somewhere and fight a war you can never fully win, than to give up and lose entirely to the barbarians.
We cannot create Heaven on earth. The Marxists tried to do it, and they ended up killing millions on their “Road to Nirvana.” Libertine philosophy cannot do it either, because it shares a common flaw with Marxism, an undue optimism over the nobility of human nature. We are a corrupt people, and prone to great evil. The law is a preservative. It doesn’t cure the disease. That remains the province of God. But it can keep things from getting as bad as they might otherwise be, and that’s all good.
Yes libertarians are lefties who like conservative economics.
Here is the leftists agenda hidden behind the Libertarian Party curtain.
Libertarian Party Platform:
Throw open the borders completely; only a rare individual (terrorist, disease carrier etc.) can be kept from freedom of movement through “political boundaries”.
Homosexuals; total freedom in the military, gay marriage, adoption, child custody and everything else.
Abortion; zero restrictions or impediments.
Pornography; no restraint, no restrictions.
Drugs; Meth, Heroin, Crack, and anything new that science can come up with, zero restrictions.
Advertising those drugs, prostitution, and pornography; zero restrictions.
Military Strength; minimal capabilities.
I’m glad you are off drugs, you took the time you needed; and succeeded where many have failed. But, I’m not willing to place myself, my family or my property “at risk” of some junkie who will do literally “anything” to get his next fix. I value my family, I value my life, I value my property - I have no value at all for the junkie. This is a self-destructive individual who cares nothing for himself, nor anyone else. They are a danger; and I steer clear of dangerous situations.
We agree that drugs are bad - you went against “society” and were bound and determined to embark on a path of self-destruction, hopefully your collaterial damage wasn’t too great. Hopefully you didn’t murder someone for drug money.People will always, and have always done this. It’s part of the human experience.
Liberalism seeks equality, at the expense of others. They do not espouse “Liberty” in any true sense of the word, in fact it’s actually a form of slavery. Libertarianism seeks liberty - without imposing an expense upon anyone else. Please look at the platform for Libertarianism (http://www.lp.org/platform) it’s quite clear about the fundamental philosophy.
Consider, if the drugs were cheap, legal and available - would you have done them? I could argue that you wouldn’t. Did you sniff paint? Probably not ... why? Probably because sniffing paint is considered “low class”, the paint is cheap, readily available - but still offers quite a buzz (so I hear). But, the fact remains that you likely didn’t do that.
Prior to 1937 many illegal narcotics were freely available in America. One would think that drug use would have been incredably high, that society would be on the brink of collapse. Yet, mysteriously, it wasn’t.
My suggestion is to take the money wasted on the War on Drugs, and make drugs legal. The hard core users will OD - thereby relieving the rest of society the onerous burden of putting up with their crimes, the damage they cause and the medical burdern of forcibly putting them through rehab (http://www.peele.net/lib/court.html).
How about we let people be ‘stupid’, and those that survive and actually want help - we use the money we saved on the failing War on Drugs, on saving addicts who need and are asking for help?
If you are not free to make stupid decisions, you are not free, are you?
Libertarians are for private control, not government control. Government is for doing those things we cannnot do for ourselves and for guarding our rights. Republicans and Democrats are all for strict government controls. As far as personal standards, that is for We the People, individually, to assert, not for the government to dictate based on what party in in control.
That was a very well though out and reasonable response and I just want to say that I appreciate this kind of commentary here on FR. It’s very easy to get frustrated when discussing these matters, and it’s nice to see someone rise about the frustration and provide a calm and rational counter point.
Leftists have many avenues and vocabularies that they use to get to the homosexual agenda, abortion, drugs, a weak military and totally, truly open borders, but they never let up.
Conservatives have to constantly fight them, wherever they find them, in whatever disguise.
Ridiculous, making them cheaper, more refined, legal, readily available and with unlimited advertising and marketing would spread them everywhere.
Also, we have no idea what the laboratories could produce under a libertarian left wing fantasy. All legal, all freely advertised, the chemical companies would be creating new things with abandon, and there would never be an end to the research and marketing as we sped into the sci-fi nightmare of brain dead drones.
And yet, America prospered up until 1937 with them legal and freely available .... Kinda blows a hole in your line of reasoning, doesn't it?
Also, we have the Netherlands and Portugal with legalized narcotics; and yet their society isn't full of brain dead zombies either.
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