Posted on 10/17/2003 10:34:06 AM PDT by RJCogburn
You are welcome. I am glad it was helpful.
Agreed.
I disagree. IF the allegations are true, then Rush did not say what he said in 1995 and then go out and deliberately play with fire in 1996. It seems likely that he got hooked accidentally, realized how easy it is to get addicted, and changed his mind about locking up addicts. I don't consider it a character flaw to learn from experience -- I consider it admirable.
Now, if he did advocate locking up addicts while addicted, then he's a hypocrite.
Everyone is endanger of getting addicted if they use those substances. By that reasoning, we are all addicts.
Learn a little more about addiction and addicts, then post.
Learn a little about human behavior before posting. Its a condition brought on by behavior, not a disease.
Yours is very modern interpretation: find a victim and feel sorry for him or her.
Sorry: a responsible, mature person does not get hooked accidentally; and, secondly, even if that happened, such a person does not contuinually and habitually break the law and buy illegal drugs but seeks how to get "unhooked."
He is not a victim: he faces the consequences of his own choices and his own decisions.
I disagree with the first assertion. While Prohibition certainly fed organized crime, the evidence from alcohol related disease and death figures suggest that it did, indeed, make alcohol use less prevalent. And I have every reason to believe that anti-drug laws do the same thing.
As for the crime committed by drug users, you need to account for the fact that many drugs render the addict unable to hold down a regular job and sometimes even more profoundly unable to take care of themselves. Needing $1 or $100 is similarly problematic for someone with no job and no money.
THe war on drugs is the best thing that ever happened to organized crime. The Dons of Drugdom wake up in a cold sweat after a nightmare that drugs have been legalized and taxed, and the taxes are funding education of non-users, treatment of users and for searching their vile asses down and putting them away forever.
That illegal drugs feed organized crime is beyond question. That's not the problem. The problem is that most people do not believe that making drugs legal will not increase their use and most people do not believe that the expected increase in use will be relatively harmless.
Terse, enough?...yes. But IMO, the federal government doesn't have any business enforcing state laws.
I think this assertion is false. Almost every law we have is done "half-way" and does not inevitably get abandoned or result in a police state.
We're not talking about just one law here. It's a cabinet level office, a federal agency, and a large part of the Justice Department as well as whole gaggle of over-reaching laws and federal regulations. One law can be dealt with, but this has become firmly entrenched and grown throughout the much of the federal government. And it grows every year. IMO, if it keeps growing, it WILL bring about a police state if left unchecked, especially since these agencies know how easy it is to scare the nit-wit soccer moms into believing that if it doesn't get bigger every year then their kids are going to become junkies.
We've got laws against theft, rape, and murder and these things still go on in the streets, in private homes, and in the jails. Are you suggesting that we should make these things legal?
Ye Gods, not that straw man argument again. No, it's not about making murder and rape legal as a means of reducing crime. That's up there with not giving out grades in school to decrease the dropout rate. There are laws against murder and rape because those two actions violate the rights of others. There is no victim in drug use other than the person using the drugs possibly harming themselves. If drug users want to ruin their lives, fine, that is their right. That is the risk of freedom. This isn't Nerf-World, where all the sharp edges have been rounded off and padded for our own protection. If you are not free to mess up your own life, how free are you? How can you truely be the master of you own fate? This was tried in the 1920's and it failed miserably. But at least those particular "drug warriors" respected our Constitution enough to do it the right way, via the amendment process. It was a testimate to the character of the country at the time when they realized that they made a mistake, admitted it and repealed that amendment. That is the stregnth of character that this country needs to find again.
Well, no one goes on forever, but the reality is that many people are addicts and are quite functional, as is Rush, for decades.
Jail time for Limbaugh is unthinkable and serves no one
Right. I quite agree but why is it thinkable for others?
I DOUBT this man recalled this quote; much less that Rush ever spoke it ...
You're misinformed. The fourth amendment has been severely eroded by the war on drugs. Here's an article on a recent example where 38 people were imprisoned based solely on the testimony of one corrupt undercover cop (no other evidence).
http://news.mysanantonio.com/story.cfm?xla=saen&xlb=180&xlc=1070131
Excerpt: Forty-six people, 39 of them black, were arrested in the 1999 cocaine sting in the small Panhandle town of Tulia, a farming community near Amarillo.
Thirty-eight defendants were convicted and imprisoned based on what Blackburn contends was fabricated testimony by undercover agent Tom Coleman.
"There was absolutely no evidence to back up (Coleman's) accusations," said Blackburn, who fought, along with the ACLU, to have the convictions overturned or the cases dismissed.
A major break in unraveling the state's case came while White was awaiting trial. Twelve days before the trial, she was offered probation in exchange for a plea, but she refused, Blackburn said.
The next day, a bank in Oklahoma, where White lived at the time, found a record showing she was in the lobby depositing a check around the time Coleman claimed she was selling drugs in Tulia, Blackburn said.
White deposited a $168 check and took $8 of it in cash. "That $8 saved her life," Blackburn said.
Though White's charge was dismissed, three of her siblings served a combined eight years and 22 months in prison before being pardoned.
Silly argument. That's like asking why someone who wants apple pie for dessert can't just enjoy chocolate mousse instead. Maybe they don't like chocolate mousse.
This is a common misconception. There are a lot of people in federal prison solely for marijuana use. There have been many arrests in Florida for illegal procurement/use of prescription drugs.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.