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.