Posted on 12/23/2010 9:47:12 AM PST by Second Amendment First
Chalk this one up to a real head-scratcher.
Pat Robertson, the televangelist who once ran for president, said on his show, the 700 Club, that he thinks marijuana should be legalized.
Yep, the Christian conservative preacher who said the Katrina hurricane was God’s way of punishing America for abortion policy is now on the side of the pot lobby.
“I’m not exactly for the use of drugs, don’t get me wrong, but I just believe that criminalizing marijuana, criminalizing the possession of a few ounces of pot, that kinda thing it’s just, it’s costing us a fortune and it’s ruining young people,” Robertson said. “Young people go into prisons, they go in as youths and come out as hardened criminals. That’s not a good thing.”
Of course, Mr. Robertson is not alone in his thinking. California’s proposition 19, which would have legalized marijuana in that state, failed in November, but not before lining up an impressive list of supporters from across the political spectrum.
Representative Ron Paul, the Texas lawmaker who ran for president in 2008, has advocated leaving the decision about marijuana up to the states. And even Sarah Palin, who opposes legalizing pot, has said she thinks police shouldn’t spend a lot of time hunting down offenders.
“If somebody’s gonna to smoke a joint in their house and not do anybody else any harm, then, um perhaps there are other things that are cops should be looking at to engage in,” Ms. Palin said on Fox News last summer.
(Excerpt) Read more at thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com ...
The question for gov’t is - does it violate the rights of others?
The question for the individual is - does it harm me?
The answer for the gov’t is ‘no’. The answer for the individual is ‘yes’.
Could someone under the influence of a drug harm others? Sure - and when they do, arrest and prosecute. Even make laws against certain activities like with alcohol and for minors.
Many things can harm others indirectly - workaholism, gambling, unfaithfulness, internet porn, investing without knowledge, etc. but those don’t violate people’s rights directly.
As far as taxation goes, I don’t see the case for it like with gasoline, eg. which amounts to a user fee that repairs roads. Other than regular sales tax (or part of a consumption fair tax) I don’t support taxation for social engineering like the liberals do.
So it IS like alcohol. Merry Christmas.
According to the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse:
Children who drink are 50 times more likely to use cocaine than non-drinkers.
Children who smoke are 19 times more likely to use cocaine than nonsmokers.
See that? Everybody can play!
> According to the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse:
> Children who drink are 50 times more likely to use cocaine than non-drinkers.
> Children who smoke are 19 times more likely to use cocaine than nonsmokers.
The problem with that is that the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse has a self-interested reason for coming up with such ‘statistics’. I don’t doubt there were questions and answers that lead to those results, but the question is, is it a correlation or causation?
If the question to drug users were, for example, did you drink as a kid or smoke as a kid? But what if they would ask ‘did you chew gum as a kid?’ or ‘did you play video games as a kid?’ - what do you think the results of those questions would be? 100%? And what conclusions could one draw from that?
I don’t buy it. I taught in an inner-city public school for a number of years and the kids who smoked pot were a disaster in class. They just sat there and smiled and had no clue what was going on.
The less we criminalize it, the more acceptable it becomes and the more adults think it is OK, the more kids think it is OK.
A lot of our kids are screwed up enough as it is without adding more pot to the mix. And with our wonderful pot-smokin’ coke snortin’ zero president comin’ out an tellin’ us about usin’ it, more kids think it is OK. “See, he used drugs an he became president! So why shouldn’t I use it?”
He’s getting senile — poor old Pat.
Counterfeit vodka is often laced with methanol and drinking that stuff can blind you. But it doesn't stop sensible people from drinking, responsibly, properly manufactured and properly sold and properly labelled vodka.
If they get into trouble by virtue of drinking to excess, it's their fault, not the fault of the booze. Or, to bastardize a popular 2nd Amendment analogy, gins don't kill people, people kill people.
The worst thing about defending the law as it presently stands is that it relies on the MyWifeAlwaysWinsTheArgument gambit to justify the most absurd double standards...
Hands up married guys here, who've ever had your wife consistently shoot arguments down with a standard "rule of thumb" that she regards as totally infallible - as long as she's the one using it... but as soon as you have a situation where you could cite the exact same "rule of thumb" to your advantage instead of hers, suddenly she finds an exception to the rule.
Regulation concept, in a nutshell:
1. Booze that's been manufactured under controlled conditions by reputable companies, may be safer to consume than counterfeit hooch. If you choose to go with the counterfeits or abuse the legit stuff, on your head be it.
2. Prescription drugs that are manufactured under controlled conditions by reputable companies, may be safer to consume than allegedly similar drugs from an unknown source. If you choose to go with the counterfeits, or abuse the legit stuff, on your head be it.
3. Tyres that are manufactured under controlled conditions by reputable companies, may be safer to use than allegedly similar items from an unknown source. If you choose to go with the counterfeits, or abuse the legit stuff, on your head be it.
Rinse and repeat ad infinitem.
4. "cannabis that is grown under controlled conditions by reputable companies..." STOP! I must not be pwn3d by my own infallible logic! Cannabis is badder than tobacco! Period! ABORT RETRY FAIL!
Of course, what makes this farce even more dumb, is the fact that the people doing this, are genetically incapable of seeing how inconsistent they are being.
At the same time that the teetotallers were desperately trying not to have an EPIC FAIL on their experiment at alcohol prohibition, another bunch of wooly-minded idiots were thinking, "we've got to do something about those evil snake oil salesman flogging any old tat and passing it off as efficable medicine" and along came the FDA. Did those two groups of people never, ever speak to each other?
Here's a radical idea: decide on a moral position, and apply it consistently across the board. So, if you want prohibition of all drugs, apply the exact same prohibition to booze as well. If the prohibition logic has legs, it'll work across the board.
Conversely, if you want the free market to clean up the streets, allow the regulated manufacture and sale of everything, including cannabis. If the free market's as good with cannabis as it is with booze, then it'll clean up the streets.
Well, like many, you're comparing apples and oranges which I addressed in post #35.
Absolutely. But...you only see the Gateway Theory questioned that way when booze and cigs are blamed. The same logic applied to pot seems to be ok. Go figure.
Well, like many, you're comparing apples and oranges which I addressed in post #35. Another aspect of pot is its psychedelic element which ushers the user into a spiritually dark world that some have difficulty returning from and leaves people wounded and scarred.
I'm against legalizing pot use, but the people of each state must decide that for themselves.
I'm against legalizing pot use, but the people of each state must decide that for themselves.
> Well, like many, you’re comparing apples and oranges which I addressed in post #35.
That may be one part of the question but the post is on Pat R. saying that it should be decriminalized.
You can argue that pot is more harmful than alcohol and claim it’s an ‘apples and oranges’ type of argument, but that doesn’t address whether it should be legal like alcohol.
The ‘apples’ to ‘apples’ argument here is whether it violates the principles embodied in the Constitution - does it violates the rights of _others_. And in this case, merely consuming alcohol or pot does not. That it harms oneself is not the question unless there’s a Constitutional principle where the gov’t protects one against oneself and no such wording exists. In fact, it is stated by many of the Founders that wasn’t their intent.
Even your argument regarding ‘what’s worse’ is arguable. 40,000 people die in car accidents as a result of DUI per year. While drugs themselves may take a person into a more ‘spiritually dark’ area - the results of alcohol in terms of death and harm for others may be greater.
> OK, as far as laws and enforcement goes, this is NOT a federal government issue. The Constitution doesn’t give Congress to power to regulate things like this. So it’s a state issue.
I’m against legalizing pot use, but the people of each state must decide that for themselves.
Most state constitutions have the same limitations on violating life, liberty and property. And the _principle_ is the same a person has property in themselves and their body. The difference between this issue and abortion is that another life is endangered.
One could make a non-principled but pragmatic argument that abortion is ‘better’ for the woman/couple involved, and whether it is under state or federal law is a moot point - it violates the rights of another.
One can’t switch to ‘pragmatic’ when it fits their views and hold to ‘principled’ only when it fits their views... as one poster pointed out. It isn’t apples and oranges - it’s whether you believe that any gov’t should have the ability to protect you against yourself. When you give them that, you’ve given more than just a limitation on pot.
“Perhaps we should legalize forcible rape”
You are making an apples and oranges comparison.
Unlike “forcible rape”, no one “forces” someone else to smoke pot; no one who smokes pot is denying the rights, life and liberty of someone who is not smoking spot.
In the case of “forcible rape” one person is the victim of something done by someone else. When someone smokes a little pot, they are a “victim” (bad habit) only of their own action. Prosecuting people for making dumb mistakes that do not directly affect someone else is a waste of the essential purposes of law enforcement - prosecuting people for harm they directly do to others.
The better analogy would be, since we’re prosecuting people for smoking a little pot, why not prosecute people for habitually over eating.
> The better analogy would be, since we’re prosecuting people for smoking a little pot, why not prosecute people for habitually over eating.
That’s coming if Meechele has her way.... Good point - it has to harm another to violate the principles of our gov’t.
“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
— Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82
The Drug War is officially over. If you can’t keep Pat ****ing Robertson on board, it’s done for.
Thanks. And don’t bogart that joint, my friend.
A couple of thousand years of Cannabis products made the Middle East what it is today, but at least they didn’t use much alcohol like Western Civilization did over those centuries.
The West had lots, and lots of alcohol, and almost no pot, the Middle East had lots and lots of Cannabis, and hashish, and almost no alcohol, it is interesting how stoner like the Middle East is.
*GASP* The horror! ;-)
Seriously, you've got to do better than that. Almost everyone in the world has locked themselves out of their car at one point in their lives. Dead sober at that!
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