Posted on 11/12/2012 5:16:33 AM PST by AtlasStalled
With little pushback from law enforcement within its borders the United States increasingly is serving as a global distribution hub for the Mexican drug cartels.
Last week police in Melbourne, Australia busted two suspects including a reputed "high ranking member of the Comanchero Motorcycle Club" for their alleged roles in receiving cocaine shipments from an unidentified Mexican drug cartel in the United States as reported by Andrew O'Reilly for Fox News: "while it is unclear which cartel the outlaw motorcycle club members were working with, it is well known that Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán's Sinaloa cartel has a major stake in Australia's burgeoning cocaine market."
Earlier this month Quebec police charged more than 100 individuals for their alleged roles in a drug conspiracy which used a trucking firm to bring cocaine into Canada from the United States, and the arrested include those with suspected ties to the Italian Mafia, the Irish West End Gang and Hells Angels motorcycle club as reported by The Canadian Press.
The 'Ndrangheta or Calabrian Mafia also has developled a partnership with the Mexican cartels in the United States for moving cocaine from New York City into Italy. Nicola Gratteri, a top anti-Mafia prosecutor in Italy warns that "this mafia is quickly spreading in the United States, particularly in Florida and New York" as reported by Beatrice Borromeo for The Daily Beast: "Gratteri's latest operations . . . uncovered a new route in the mafia's international drug trade, centered in New York City, where the crime syndicates can secure easy access to cocaine shipped in by Mexican cartels."
Security analysts are at a loss to explain why law enforcment has failed to break the distribution infrastructure which the Mexican drug cartels have established within the United States as reported by Sari Horwitz for The Washington Post:
"The success of the Mexican cartels in building their massive drug distribution and marketing networks across the county is a reflection of the U.S. government's intelligence and operational failure in the war on drugs, said Fulton T. Armstrong, a former national intelligence officer for Latin America and ex-CIA officer. 'We pretend that the cartels don't have an infrastructure in the U.S.,' said Armstrong, also a former staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and now a senior fellow at American University's Center for Latin American and Latino Studies. 'But you don't do a $20 billion a year business . . . with ad-hoc, part-time volunteers. You use an established infrastructure to support the markets. How come we're not attacking that infrastructure?'"
Let's face it: the U.S. is just a druggie nation.
So if somebody claims it, it must be accepted as true?
And the issue is not making ANY money, but making the kind of profit margins that magnify the ability to commit real rights-violating crimes. As a rule, such profit margins are provided only by laws against victimless "crimes" - because victims and their loved ones avoid or resist the crime beforehand, and cooperate with law enforcement and prosecution afterward.
so any law that restricts them must be removed, right?
If the act violates no unwilling individuals' rights, and the law channels into criminal hands the kind of profit margins that magnify their ability to commit real rights-violating crimes, then the law should be removed.
As a rule, such profit margins are provided only by laws against victimless "crimes" - because for real crimes with actual victims, victims and their loved ones avoid or resist the crime beforehand, and cooperate with law enforcement and prosecution afterward.
As a rule...Lowering the norms for personal behavior takes away freedom for all. The libertines blab about rights but never obligations.
As part of that percentage that does not use drugs I have rights too so while I can see prosecuting a war on drug use and would certainly fight it differently I’m not the least inclined to surrender.
Yet you refuse to support raising the norms for personal behavior by banning the addictive mind-altering drug alcohol, which is very often used to impair mental ability and judgment.
The libertines blab about rights but never obligations.
I don't know about libertines - libertarians recognize the obligation to respect the individual rights of others. What other obligations do you claim that free men have?
As part of that percentage that does not use drugs I have rights too
Which "rights" do you claim would be violated by legality of currently illegal drugs? And how are those "rights" not violated by legality of the addictive mind-altering drug alcohol?
so while I can see prosecuting a war on drug use and would certainly fight it differently I’m not the least inclined to surrender.
Yet you support our surrender in the war on the addictive mind-altering drug alcohol, which is very often used to impair mental ability and judgment.
Alcohol can and has been used for centuries as a food without being used to impair judgment and ability even if often abused.
Illicit drugs have no appeal unless they are used to impair judgment and ability. Some of these drugs can be used for medical reasons, cocaine, barbiturates, meth, opium, perhaps even pot but no heroine user would shoot up without experiencing the “mind altering” effects except to prevent withdrawal.
No, I don't favor a Prohibition Era style ban on alcohol for the reasons above but I have no trouble at all with tightening restrictions on it far more than what exists.
“Yet you support our surrender in the war on the addictive mind-altering drug alcohol, which is very often used to impair mental ability and judgment”
I support no such surrender at all. Getting high, getting drunk, getting “buzzed”, whatever term is used, is manifestly a lack of self control and an unwillingness to adhere to accepted social norms in all areas of life.
The so-called libertarians are mostly just libertines under the skin.
My rights? I have a right to work beside someone who is not shaking and sweating from the meth he took so he could work eighteen hours straight, I have a right to use the city park I've paid for without having to step around used needles and condoms. I have a right not to have my neighborhood turned into a cesspool like parts of San Francisco is.
And I also have a right to expect my fellow citizens to obey even unpopular laws even those that appear “victimless” on the surface.
“What other obligations do you claim that free men have?”
Only two very broad obligations: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.
If you want to claim that the mind-altering properties of alcohol are closer to those of a hot meal than of illegal drugs, you go ahead and look silly; any reader who's ever drunk enough alcohol to impair judgment and ability knows how presposterous your claim is.
Alcohol can and has been used for centuries as a food without being used to impair judgment and ability even if often abused.
Alcohol can and has been used for centuries without being used to impair judgment and ability, sure - but as a food?! Please provide evidence for a tradition of using alcohol to meet dietary caloric requirements.
And the fact that alcohol is often used to impair judgment and ability leaves you with a very thin reed on which to hang your claimed distinction from other drugs - particularly when one notes that impairment was the whole purpose of alcohol use when that mind-altering drug was illegal. (Or do you think many patrons of illegal speakeasies were there only to drink ceremonial toasts?)
No, I don't favor a Prohibition Era style ban on alcohol for the reasons above but I have no trouble at all with tightening restrictions on it far more than what exists.
What further restrictions do you support?
I have a right to work beside someone who is not shaking and sweating from the meth he took so he could work eighteen hours straight,
You fabricate "rights" as well as any liberal - your employer may hire whoever they choose, and you have the right to work beside them or quit, period.
I have a right to use the city park I've paid for without having to step around used needles and condoms.
It'll be much easier to eliminate drug use in parks if users have someplace legal to use.
I have a right not to have my neighborhood turned into a cesspool like parts of San Francisco is.
Depends what you mean by "cesspool" - I support local ordinances against public intoxication, loitering, and eyesore properties.
What other obligations do you claim that free men have?
Only two very broad obligations: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.
Government may require citizens to love God?!
I made no such claim and it's obvious that I didn't. Why claim that I did?
“Government may require citizens to love God?!”
No. But a moral and self regulating populace is the only way a society can prosper. That lack is destroying this one.
The question was not about governments nor was my answer so why are you saying that?
“Alcohol can and has been used for centuries without being used to impair judgment and ability, sure - but as a food?! Please provide evidence for a tradition of using alcohol to meet dietary caloric requirements.”
It's taken as part of the meal, it's being used as a food. It might be mixed into food or drank but it's part of the meal, being used as food.
“Please provide evidence for a tradition of using alcohol to meet dietary caloric requirements.”
That's silly! Who has ever sat down to eat with the thought of: “I must meet my dietary caloric requirements.”
Devotees of Weight Watchers...maybe.
“You fabricate “rights” as well as any liberal - your employer may hire whoever they choose, and you have the right to work beside them or quit, period”
No they may not hire whomever they choose as they have a responsibility not to allow impaired workers on the job. Companies don't do drug testing just to annoy workers, they have both moral and legal obligations. And no one has the right to expect me to give up my livelihood so they can indulge their dangerous habits.
The invention of rights is the business of so-called libertarians not me. Killing infants before birth, bimbos taking their clothes off as free speech, advocating child rape, pornography, homosexual displaying their vile practices in public parades...”victimless’ crimes.
“It'll be much easier to eliminate drug use in parks if users have someplace legal to use”
What? Restrict someone’s right to use drugs in a public park? If drug use is a legal right and victimless why not in public parks?
“And the fact that alcohol is often used to impair judgment and ability leaves you with a very thin reed on which to hang your claimed distinction from other drugs - particularly when one notes that impairment was the whole purpose of alcohol use when that mind-altering drug was illegal”
Not so, not so. Wine at meals and celebrations has been a tradition long before there was a U.S. or Prohibition. Did you think those people suddenly headed to a speakeasy to get drunk just because of Prohibition?
On alcohol. I haven't anything specific in mind, any regime has strengths and weaknesses. And in any case self regulation born of recognition of our obligations to our fellows to not degrade the society they must share is at the heart of all law.
“It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings, collected together, are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately.”
(Thomas Jefferson 1816)
If you want to claim that the mind-altering properties of alcohol are closer to those of a hot meal than of illegal drugs
I made no such claim and it's obvious that I didn't.
No, that's NOT "obvious" - I could see no other reason why you'd bring up the “mind altering” properties of a hot meal. Feel free to explain your reason.
Why claim that I did?
I didn't - notice that I said "If".
so any law that restricts them [criminals who are making money] must be removed, right?
If the act violates no unwilling individuals' rights, and the law channels into criminal hands the kind of profit margins that magnify their ability to commit real rights-violating crimes, then the law should be removed.
The libertines blab about rights but never obligations.
I don't know about libertines - libertarians recognize the obligation to respect the individual rights of others. What other obligations do you claim that free men have?
Only two very broad obligations: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.
Government may require citizens to love God?!
No. But a moral and self regulating populace is the only way a society can prosper. That lack is destroying this one.
Do we agree that laws cannot create a moral and self regulating populace?
The question was not about governments nor was my answer
It seems you've lost the thread of the conversation. As the text I've included above shows, your statement about obligations stemmed from your question about which laws must be removed.
Alcohol can and has been used for centuries as a food without being used to impair judgment and ability even if often abused.
Alcohol can and has been used for centuries without being used to impair judgment and ability, sure - but as a food?! Please provide evidence for a tradition of using alcohol to meet dietary caloric requirements.
It's taken as part of the meal, it's being used as a food.
That's a broader definition of "food" than the dictionary's:
food
noun
1. any nourishing substance that is eaten, drunk, or otherwise taken into the body to sustain life, provide energy, promote growth, etc.
2. more or less solid nourishment, as distinguished from liquids.
3. a particular kind of solid nourishment: a breakfast food; dog food.
4. whatever supplies nourishment to organisms: plant food.
But accepting your definition for the purpose of this discussion: so what if it's taken as part of the meal? Does this mean you accept the legality of marijuana brownies - or any orally ingestible recreational drug, any of which can be taken as part of the meal?
“You fabricate “rights” as well as any liberal - your employer may hire whoever they choose, and you have the right to work beside them or quit, period”
No they may not hire whomever they choose as they have a responsibility not to allow impaired workers on the job. Companies don't do drug testing just to annoy workers, they have both moral and legal obligations.
Employers have a legal responsibility/obligation to make sure that workers doing jobs with the potential to injure are unimpaired - but that doesn't even come close to your fabricated “right to work beside someone who is not shaking and sweating from the meth he took so he could work eighteen hours straight.”
And no one has the right to expect me to give up my livelihood so they can indulge their dangerous habits.
Again, it's the employer's rights at issue - and if there's no realistic potential to injure they can hire who they want.
The invention of rights is the business of so-called libertarians not me. Killing infants before birth,
That violates the rights of the unborn person - as Libertarians For Life recognizes (http://www.l4l.org).
bimbos taking their clothes off as free speech,
I agree that calling it "speech" is nonsense. Bimbos have the right to take their clothes off in front of strangers for money for the simple reason that this act violates no individual's rights - no invention involved, just a recongition of the proper limits of government.
advocating child rape,
Please quote any libertarian as speaking in advocacy of child rape.
pornography,
The making and viewing of pornography is a right because it violates no individual's rights - no invention involved, just a recongition of the proper limits of government.
homosexual displaying their vile practices in public parades...”victimless’ crimes.
One may not behave however one wishes in public - I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a libertarian who is willing to defend the "right" to public defacation (even if that individual brings along a scooper). In such prudential matters, I agree that majority sentiment is what establishes the line - "in public" being the key phrase.
It'll be much easier to eliminate drug use in parks if users have someplace legal to use.
What? Restrict someone’s right to use drugs in a public park? If drug use is a legal right and victimless why not in public parks?
Same reason as "why not in JustSayNoToNannies' or count-your-change's front yard" - the property does not belong to them and they don't have the owner's permission. Very libertarian.
And the fact that alcohol is often used to impair judgment and ability leaves you with a very thin reed on which to hang your claimed distinction from other drugs - particularly when one notes that impairment was the whole purpose of alcohol use when that mind-altering drug was illegal.
Not so, not so. Wine at meals and celebrations has been a tradition long before there was a U.S. or Prohibition.
Getting drunk dates back as far - your reed remains thin.
Did you think those people suddenly headed to a speakeasy to get drunk just because of Prohibition?
No, I know they were acting on the age-old tradition of getting drunk - your reed remains thin.
I have no trouble at all with tightening restrictions on it [alcohol] far more than what exists.
What further restrictions do you support?
On alcohol. I haven't anything specific in mind,
But you do know you have NO trouble AT ALL with FAR MORE tightening? Seems like a contradiction to me ...
any regime has strengths and weaknesses. And in any case self regulation born of recognition of our obligations to our fellows to not degrade the society they must share is at the heart of all law.
Wrong - when law steps in it is by definition no longer "self regulation."
“It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings, collected together, are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately.” (Thomas Jefferson 1816)
Jefferson does seem to have become much more authoritarian in his later years; you may call it experience and wisdom, I call it being corrupted by power. That quote avoids addressing (or assumes a certain highly disputable answer to) the key question: since the individual is bound by the actions of God, how can it be that the collection is bound by the actions of men?
I brought it up because you kept using it, I guess to equate alcohol and pot but since the term can be applied to so many other things your usage fails to make any equivalency.
Simply being “mind altering” is meaningless here as saying “derived from plants”. I'll try to explain in greater detail from now on.
“What other obligations do you claim that free men have?”
That's the the question I was asked, that is the question I answered. I didn't attempt to read more into it than was asked.
No, laws don't make people moral, laws are the stick part of carrot and stick. Laws reflect a society's opinion of the moral, or the practical and utilitarian.
All moral codes have called upon the individual to regulate himself even if punishment is not possible by society.
Jefferson and others like him recognized that society at large had to have a common morality just as much as the individual and that was his observation.
“Again, it's the employer's rights at issue - and if there's no realistic potential to injure they can hire who they want.”
“..... and if there's no realistic potential to injure they can hire who they want.”
The above wasn't part of your former comment that I responded to, his rights are thus limited by his obligations to his workforce.
I can detect no consistent “libertarian” position on abortion. Libertarian is a self defining postion so those who call themselves libertarian will land on yes, no, maybe and perhaps.
But the libertarians who defend the operation of strip clubs and publishers of pornography had to restort to calling such “freedom of expression” or “protected political” speech since no reasonable argument ccould be made for legality. Another invented right since no basis can be found for calling it a right.
Of course no libertarian wants his property values lowered by a strip club next door to his home or business.
“Please quote any libertarian as speaking in advocacy of child rape”
Please quote where I said they did.
“Same reason as “why not in JustSayNoToNannies’ or count-your-change's front yard” - the property does not belong to them and they don't have the owner's permission. Very libertarian.”
The libertarian should argue that drug users and homosexuals pay taxes and fees just the same as everyone else so they own the park as much as anyone else, and that sitting on a park bench with a needle in their arm harms no one else, violates no ones rights or ability to use the park.
That is the libertarian test isn't it?
Our front yard is owned only us not the public, I'm the only payer for my yard and hold title to it, not the public. Therefore it can't be compared to the public streets or parks.
“I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a libertarian who is willing to defend the “right” to public defacation (even if that individual brings along a scooper).”
That's true but it's also true that a reason not consistent with the libertarian philosophy would be just as hard to find.
What rights would be violated? Whose rights would be infringed? Very libertarian.
“But you do know you have NO trouble AT ALL with FAR MORE tightening? Seems like a contradiction to me ...”
Not at all as I explained, “any regime has strengths and weaknesses”. So no, I don't have some specific plan.
And as I added self regulation is recognition of obligations to others. Where it exists it's not necessary for the law to step in. It is that lack of self regulation that makes laws necessary. Thus laws can be...can be moral instructors.
Jefferson's comment:
“It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings, collected together, are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately.” (Thomas Jefferson 1816)
isn't difficult to understand. If it's wrong for the individual to violate a moral code, it's wrong for the same reasons for a million to do so.
“Jefferson does seem to have become much more authoritarian in his later years; you may call it experience and wisdom, I call it being corrupted by power. That quote avoids addressing (or assumes a certain highly disputable answer to) the key question: since the individual is bound by the actions of God, how can it be that the collection is bound by the actions of men?”
If “the individual is bound by the actions of God,..” why would we assume the collective isn't?
It's just as wrong for the larger group to commit murder as the individual and hence Jefferson seems to be calling for a moral society and government based upon the the moral individual.
“One may not behave however one wishes in public..”
True but not for reasons the libertarian would suggest.
I brought it up because you kept using it, I guess to equate alcohol and pot
No, to point out a similarity - which is NOT to "equate."
Simply being “mind altering” is meaningless here
Nonsense - it has a clear meaning that is inconvenient to your position. Alcohol and pot readily impair mental ability and judgment (YOUR phrase) whereas a hot meal does not.
as saying “derived from plants”. I'll try to explain in greater detail from now on.
You should try to refrain from foolish word games from now on.
No, laws don't make people moral, laws are the stick part of carrot and stick.
If the stick can't achieve the desired end, what is the justification for using it?
Laws reflect a society's opinion of the moral, or the practical and utilitarian.
Society can make clear its opinions without fining or imprisoning people.
so what if it's [alcohol] taken as part of the meal? Does this mean you accept the legality of marijuana brownies - or any orally ingestible recreational drug, any of which can be taken as part of the meal?
I missed your answer to this question.
Again, it's the employer's rights at issue - and if there's no realistic potential to injure they can hire who they want.
“..... and if there's no realistic potential to injure they can hire who they want.”
The above wasn't part of your former comment that I responded to, his rights are thus limited by his obligations to his workforce.
Which, as I said and you omitted, doesn't even come close to your fabricated “right to work beside someone who is not shaking and sweating from the meth he took so he could work eighteen hours straight.”
But the libertarians who defend the operation of strip clubs and publishers of pornography had to restort to calling such “freedom of expression” or “protected political” speech
Please quote a self-professed libertarian who says that.
since no reasonable argument ccould be made for legality. Another invented right since no basis can be found for calling it a right.
I stated the basis and you omitted it from your reply: these acts are rights because it violates no individual's rights.
Of course no libertarian wants his property values lowered by a strip club next door to his home or business.
I don't know what libertarians think about zoning laws - I support them since I think they're typically a reasonable approximation to what a free society would voluntarily accomplish through easements, covenants, and the like. And zoning strip clubs is a far cry from banning them.
Please quote any libertarian as speaking in advocacy of child rape
Please quote where I said they did.
Right here: "The invention of rights is the business of so-called libertarians not me. Killing infants before birth, bimbos taking their clothes off as free speech, advocating child rape".
Same reason as “why not in JustSayNoToNannies’ or count-your-change's front yard” - the property does not belong to them and they don't have the owner's permission. Very libertarian.
The libertarian should argue that drug users and homosexuals pay taxes and fees just the same as everyone else so they own the park as much as anyone else,
And have the same right as anyone else to vote for the officials who decide the permitted uses for the collectively owned park.
and that sitting on a park bench with a needle in their arm harms no one else, violates no ones rights or ability to use the park. That is the libertarian test isn't it?
"Ability to use" is a red herring - you need my permission to do anything in my front yard whether or not it affects my ability to use my front yard. And shooting up in a park whose owners have collectively decided not to allow that is a violation of their rights.
Our front yard is owned only us not the public, I'm the only payer for my yard and hold title to it, not the public. Therefore it can't be compared to the public streets or parks.
Wrong - each has an owner, whether you, or me, or a collective, so they can be compared.
I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a libertarian who is willing to defend the “right” to public defacation (even if that individual brings along a scooper).
That's true but it's also true that a reason not consistent with the libertarian philosophy would be just as hard to find.
What rights would be violated? Whose rights would be infringed? Very libertarian.
Perhaps - but it has no bearing whatsoever on private behavior. In private, one has the right to defacate, or view porn, or use drugs.
But you do know you have NO trouble AT ALL with FAR MORE tightening? Seems like a contradiction to me ...
Not at all as I explained, “any regime has strengths and weaknesses”. So no, I don't have some specific plan.
Do you have any trouble with far LESS tightening - since that regime, like the current one, would have strengths and weaknesses?
laws can be...can be moral instructors.
If we have any legitimate authority to morally instruct adults, it is certainly not by means of governmental force.
Jefferson does seem to have become much more authoritarian in his later years; you may call it experience and wisdom, I call it being corrupted by power. That quote avoids addressing (or assumes a certain highly disputable answer to) the key question: since the individual is bound by the actions of God, how can it be that the collection is bound by the actions of men?
If “the individual is bound by the actions of God,..” why would we assume the collective isn't?
Who assumed that? Governments are made up of men and their actions are thus the actions of men. Let God judge the collective as He judges every individual.
the fact that alcohol is often used to impair judgment and ability leaves you with a very thin reed on which to hang your claimed distinction from other drugs - particularly when one notes that impairment was the whole purpose of alcohol use when that mind-altering drug was illegal.
Not so, not so. Wine at meals and celebrations has been a tradition long before there was a U.S. or Prohibition.
Getting drunk dates back as far - your reed remains thin.
Did you think those people suddenly headed to a speakeasy to get drunk just because of Prohibition?
No, I know they were acting on the age-old tradition of getting drunk - your reed remains thin.
I missed your response to these points.
The libertarian would have no consistent reason NOT to defend such a “right”. You have offered no reason that private actions should NOT be brought into the public realm and declared “rights”.
“I missed your response to these points”
Go back and look again and if you don't find a response perhaps I felt no response was necessary to the point or the point not worthy of response.
The libertarian would have no consistent reason NOT to defend such a “right”.
You may be right - feel free to go find a libertarian with whom to argue the point.
You have offered no reason that private actions should NOT be brought into the public realm and declared “rights”.
It's clear to me that the distinction between private and public is self-evident; if you don't agree, then that distinction is certainly and immediately established by the self-evident truth that there are acts we have the right to perform in private but not in public (e.g., making love with one's spouse). If you think a libertarian can't consistently make the distinction, again, feel free to go find a libertarian with whom to argue the point.
the fact that alcohol is often used to impair judgment and ability leaves you with a very thin reed on which to hang your claimed distinction from other drugs - particularly when one notes that impairment was the whole purpose of alcohol use when that mind-altering drug was illegal.
Not so, not so. Wine at meals and celebrations has been a tradition long before there was a U.S. or Prohibition.
Getting drunk dates back as far - your reed remains thin.
Did you think those people suddenly headed to a speakeasy to get drunk just because of Prohibition?
No, I know they were acting on the age-old tradition of getting drunk - your reed remains thin.
I missed your response to these points.
Go back and look again and if you don't find a response
I didn't.
perhaps I felt no response was necessary to the point or the point not worthy of response.
I think it more likely you have no coherent response. I'm content to let readers decide.
Homosexual acts between consenting adults have always occurred in private but private toleration was never the goal but rather public acceptance and indeed approval.
Likewise drug use.
Evidently the distinction between pubic and private acts is not so self evident in the libertarian philosophy.
Nor is there any basis in the libertarian tangle for this self evidentury distinction.
“If you think a libertarian can't consistently make the distinction, again, feel free to go find a libertarian with whom to argue the point.”
Oh, I have and in the end the self destructive nature of their philosophy is obvious when examined in any depth.
So what's the conclusion - should we ban private commission of all acts that we don't want to become public? Drunkenness? Marital sex?
Homosexual acts between consenting adults have always occurred in private but private toleration was never the goal but rather public acceptance and indeed approval.
Likewise drug use.
That's not my goal. My goal is to see respected the natural rights of adults to do in private anything that violates nobody else's rights - such as make love with their spouses, or use drugs.
the fact that alcohol is often used to impair judgment and ability leaves you with a very thin reed on which to hang your claimed distinction from other drugs - particularly when one notes that impairment was the whole purpose of alcohol use when that mind-altering drug was illegal.
Not so, not so. Wine at meals and celebrations has been a tradition long before there was a U.S. or Prohibition.
Getting drunk dates back as far - your reed remains thin.
Did you think those people suddenly headed to a speakeasy to get drunk just because of Prohibition?
No, I know they were acting on the age-old tradition of getting drunk - your reed remains thin.
No, what should be banned is the public commission of that which society might willingly tolerate when performed in private. Marital sex does not fall into this class. It is part of a contract between two persons that the state recognizes with certain rights and privileges attached not just something that is tolerated as a private vice.
The argument for toleration of private drug use pornography, homosexual acts, etc. was that is was private and therefore didn't involve anyone else rights.
That this was a false and deceptive argument is evident by the demands for toleration of those same acts in the public sphere as a right unto its self.
An example of this being the demand for public recognition and approval of so-called “gay marriage” and “medical” marijuana.
“That's not my goal. My goal is to see respected the natural rights of adults to do in private anything that violates nobody else’s rights - such as make love with their spouses, or use drugs”
Then public displays of these private acts might violate the “natural” of the public?
So you're OK with legality of private drug use?
The argument for toleration of private drug use pornography, homosexual acts, etc. was that is was private and therefore didn't involve anyone else rights.
That this was a false and deceptive argument is evident by the demands for toleration of those same acts in the public sphere as a right unto its self.
No, that proves only that those individuals who make both arguments are false and deceptive. Those, like me, who argue for the former and against the latter are entirely consistent.
An example of this being the demand for public recognition and approval of so-called “gay marriage” and “medical” marijuana.
Support for medical marijuana, which has well established medical usefulness, doesn't imply support for legal recreational use - any more than support for opiate painkillers by prescription implies support for legal recreational use of those substances.
My goal is to see respected the natural rights of adults to do in private anything that violates nobody else’s rights - such as make love with their spouses, or use drugs.
Then public displays of these private acts might violate the “natural” of the public?
Which is why I'm not arguing for legalizing them in public.
the fact that alcohol is often used to impair judgment and ability leaves you with a very thin reed on which to hang your claimed distinction from other drugs - particularly when one notes that impairment was the whole purpose of alcohol use when that mind-altering drug was illegal.
Not so, not so. Wine at meals and celebrations has been a tradition long before there was a U.S. or Prohibition.
Getting drunk dates back as far - your reed remains thin.
Did you think those people suddenly headed to a speakeasy to get drunk just because of Prohibition?
No, I know they were acting on the age-old tradition of getting drunk - your reed remains thin.
What I said was, “No, what should be banned is the public commission of that which society might willingly tolerate when performed in private”.
I assume by “drug use” you're speaking of use outside medical need. And with that I am not O.K. with legal or not.
“No, that proves only that those individuals who make both arguments are false and deceptive. Those, like me, who argue for the former and against the latter are entirely consistent.”
On what basis would you argue for differentiating the former from the latter? It is indeed the the argument that is false and deceptive as the argument for toleration or legality was privacy and the argument for not keeping private acts private was a right to recognition as a public right and legality.
“Support for medical marijuana, which has well established medical usefulness, doesn't imply support for legal recreational use - any more than support for opiate painkillers by prescription implies support for legal recreational use of those substances.”
In practice it largely does. Medical marijuana becomes legal and suddenly thousands of people have a medical condition that only marijuana will relieve.
Opiates are not treated as casually by the public as marijuana. Tell a parent their kid smoked a joint and they might be angry, tell that same parent their kid is knocking back a pint of paregoric and their reaction will almost certainly be alarm.
Then public displays of these private acts might violate the “natural rights” of the public?
“Which is why I'm not arguing for legalizing them in public”
Then by definition legalizing public displays of what is tolerated when kept private,”victimless crimes”, makes victims of the public, something I believe you called invented rights.
So you're OK with legality of private drug use?
I assume by “drug use” you're speaking of use outside medical need. And with that I am not O.K. with legal or not.
Your "legal or not" confuses me - my question was whether you're OK with legality of private drug use, not whether you're OK with private drug use itself.
No, that proves only that those individuals who make both arguments are false and deceptive. Those, like me, who argue for the former and against the latter are entirely consistent.
On what basis would you argue for differentiating the former from the latter?
Very simple: in public, some acts can infringe on the rights of others who are also in public, while in private this is not the case.
It is indeed the the argument that is false and deceptive as the argument for toleration or legality was privacy and the argument for not keeping private acts private was a right to recognition as a public right and legality.
If two different people make those two different arguments, how is either of them "deceptive"?
Support for medical marijuana, which has well established medical usefulness, doesn't imply support for legal recreational use - any more than support for opiate painkillers by prescription implies support for legal recreational use of those substances.
In practice it largely does. Medical marijuana becomes legal and suddenly thousands of people have a medical condition that only marijuana will relieve.
Straw man. Who claims that ONLY marijuana relieves those conditions? That's not a requirement of any medical marijuana statute I know of.
And even those alleged "thousands" are a small fraction of the adult population, so legal medical marijuana falls far short of full adult legalization.
Opiates are not treated as casually by the public as marijuana. Tell a parent their kid smoked a joint and they might be angry, tell that same parent their kid is knocking back a pint of paregoric and their reaction will almost certainly be alarm.
And rightly so - opiates are more addictive and more dangerous. The fact remains that support for opiate painkillers by prescription doesn't imply support for legal recreational use of those substances, and by the same token support for medical marijuana doesn't imply support for legal recreational use.
Then public displays of these private acts might violate the “natural rights” of the public?
Which is why I'm not arguing for legalizing them in public.
Then by definition legalizing public displays of what is tolerated when kept private, ”victimless crimes”, makes victims of the public, something I believe you called invented rights.
Yes, the "right" to commit perverted acts in public is an invented "right" (like your invented “right to work beside someone who is not shaking and sweating from the meth he took so he could work eighteen hours straight”). Do you think you're in some way contradicting me?
the fact that alcohol is often used to impair judgment and ability leaves you with a very thin reed on which to hang your claimed distinction from other drugs - particularly when one notes that impairment was the whole purpose of alcohol use when that mind-altering drug was illegal.
Not so, not so. Wine at meals and celebrations has been a tradition long before there was a U.S. or Prohibition.
Getting drunk dates back as far - your reed remains thin.
Did you think those people suddenly headed to a speakeasy to get drunk just because of Prohibition?
No, I know they were acting on the age-old tradition of getting drunk - your reed remains thin.
“Very simple: in public, some acts can infringe on the rights of others who are also in public, while in private this is not the case.”
“some acts”? What might those be?
It is indeed the the argument that is false and deceptive as the argument for toleration or legality was privacy and the argument for not keeping private acts private was a right to recognition as a public right and legality.
“If two different people make those two different arguments, how is either of them “deceptive”?”
It's not two arguments but all one that tolerated private acts should become public rights and therefore protected by legality and finally acceptance as normal.
In practice it largely does. Medical marijuana becomes legal and suddenly thousands of people have a medical condition that only marijuana will relieve.
“Straw man. Who claims that ONLY marijuana relieves those conditions? That's not a requirement of any medical marijuana statute I know of.
And even those alleged “thousands” are a small fraction of the adult population, so legal medical marijuana falls far short of full adult legalization”
You have it backwards, I said after legalization claims of suffering some condition would abound not that any condition was referenced in statutes.
One can go on google and find testimony for marijuana's beneficial use for numerous conditions, fibromyalgia, loss of appetite, nausea, sleeplessness and on and on.
It's believable that marijuana might be beneficial in many of these conditions, what is not believable is that as soon as medical use legality was obtained thousands would suddenly become sufferers.
If virtually any adult can pass muster as a sufferer then full adult legalization is not so far away.
“Yes, the “right” to commit perverted acts in public is an invented “right”
Invented by whom? By those who claimed a “right” to perversion in private?
“... (like your invented “right to work beside someone who is not shaking and sweating from the meth he took so he could work eighteen hours straight”)...”
That right to me and obligation to the employer was created by law as a matter of safety and liability in the work place both for the impaired worker and those around him.
“Do you think you're in some way contradicting me?”
You're doing that just fine without my help.
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