I was recently reading William Graham Sumner’s “What the Social Classes Owe to Eachother,” which is from the 1880s, when the state was vastly less involved in our lives but the exact same arguments for its expansion we hear today were gaining momentum. He goes on about how throwing winos in the drunk tank supports them in their drunkenness. Which seems counterintuitive, but is plain as day when you think about it for a moment.
Personal responsibility takes care of itself, unlike the Welfare State. In the very least we know problems like drunkenness or drug addiction take care of themselves if people do not. You won’t be a drunk forever on your own, unless you happen to be a famous writer or somesuch. Why do we interfere with this process? Out of sympathy for the drunk? But that’s their problem. Because we fear worse should drunkenness be unbound? For instance I’m always hearing about how heroin addicts will be robbing me to make a living in the event heroin is legalized. But they already do that, first of all. And there’s be a lot less heroin addicts if we stopped taking care of them, because heroin is a deadly addiction.
Some people just can’t see how criminalizing a thing can give you more of it. But what gives you more of it still is coddling the abusers. That is, the Welfare State gives you more people who need welfare. Worst of all possible outcomes may be legalizing drugs and coddling users in the warm embrace of the state. From a practical perspective, not according to the dictates of justice, that is. Putting them behind bars is better than leaving them free and paying all their bills if you want not to support their habits, I’ll admit.
Not to mention that legal heroin would be much cheaper and motivate correspondingly less theft.