The drug war vs. the war on terror

Chicago Tribune ^ | December 13, 2001 | Steve Chapman

[CrossCheck]

On Oct. 25, six weeks after the worst terrorist atrocities in our history, the United States was bombing Afghanistan, Colin Powell was discussing a post-Taliban government, investigators were grappling with anthrax in the mail, and federal agents were . . . well, they were going after pot smokers in California. If John Ashcroft had been around during the Chicago fire, he would have been handcuffing jaywalkers.

[Dan from Michigan]

It is really funny how you Libertarians want drugs legalised and validated but then say that you are not pro-drug.

You all sound like democrats(Mario Cuomo) who say they are pro-life, but will vote to keep all abortion legal

Here's the difference. Abortion DIRECTLY affects others. Smoking a bong directly affects nobody but the person smoking it. If someone wants to do it, it's none of my business, OR YOUR BUSINESS.

You drug warriors are EXACTLY like the gun grabbers.

[Liberal Classic]

The enumeration in Romans 13, of certain sins, shall not be construed to deny the government the ability to creat laws to punish other wrongs.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Government does not have the ability to punish wrongs except for those things that it is explicitly allowed to punish.

[realpatriot71]

Get this dumb notion of "at risk" out of your head, Tex. You put yourself "at risk" every moment you live. You do not have a right to live your life without "risks". No one, no person, no government can guarantee that no one will harm you. That is why we have laws to punish people for HARMING you. That is the governments duty - to protect rights through the impartial punishment of violations. It is not the governments job to hold your hand and make sure you are safe from "bad people". It can't do that. It can only protect you through punishment of violations of YOUR rights.

As always, excellent!

[Dan from Michigan]

It is morally wrong to put those around you at physical, financial, and psychological risk.

How does smoking a joint do that? BTW - I don't use drugs.

[Liberal Classic]

...psychological risk.

Hello,

Could either one of you define "psychological risk" for me, please? Is this the risk you run that you might change your mind? Heck, reading FR runs a psychological risk to Democrats.

[FreeTally]

By the way, regarding the correlation between certain drugs and crime, I'd bet that only a few of them (perhaps cocaine, heroin and PCP, just to throw out a few guesses) could be shown to have an equal or higher correlation than alcohol

Actually, when you sift through all the propaganda, PCP is the only "drug" shown to actually "cause" crime. The nature of the drug, in any amount, is to literally put you out of your mind. PCP literally fries your brain - this is fact. You feel little pain, do things "super-human" and then dont remember it too well. The drug is practiacally non-existent today because of this. Almost any person in law enforcement, who has had experience with PCP, will tell you there is no market for it, not because of drug laws, but because it is slightly safer than drinking gasoline. See, the free market works wonders!

[Dan from Michigan]

The govt probably thinks I'm putting others at psychological risk. I have views the JBT's don't like.

[Texaggie79]

Homophobia is a liberal only term?

Yup. Homosexual activity is wrong and is immoral. I personally don't think that the state should punish it, but our founders saw it as detrimental to society, and saw nothing unconstitutional about implementing laws against it.

You still have not given me your source that says the Founding Fathers directly supported sodomy laws. I'm waiting.

I was not aware you needed one. Usually common sense would kick in and tell you that the very state bodies that passed these laws were the very state bodies that contained our founders. But if you want writing, start here

Your arguments make an a priori assumption that every person who does a recreational drug will go on to harm another person.

No it does not. Just as I don't assume that every private nuke will go off. The threat is enough. Snorting a line of coke robs you of your reason, and culpability, as well as your ability to stop if you do it enough. You have no right to do that in a state that decides that that is too much of a risk and harm to it.

[Dane]

You drug warriors are EXACTLY like the gun grabbers.

Oh here comes the smear again. Gee can you show me where there is constitutional amendment to unbridled drug use?

The founders knew that the right to bear arms was a key to liberty, their silence on drug use says to me that they left it up to future generations to deal with scrouge of drugs.

In many ways you pro-druggies are EXACTLY like the gun grabbers in which you interpret things in the constituion that are not in there.

[Dakmar]

Actually the sodomy laws were all state laws, I don't think there were ever any federal ones, so the founding fathers had nothing to do with those laws, unless they also served in state governments.

[Texaggie79]

Which do you think is the better position to take?

I will post this reply in assumption that you have the ability to use logic.

When you legalize drugs, use will skyrocket, and no sane person can argue that. Cheaper, safer, legal drugs spell HIGHER use, period.

Now you have millions of more people getting high destroying themselfs and others, but realpatriot is happy because that is one less thing that he is not being told that he can't do.

Now all these addicts need help. People without work, companies closing left and right. Do you know what this is perfect fodder for? LIBERALS!!! Social programs will be needed to help all the addicts. Welfare, healthcare, treatment. All to be paid by the ones left sober and working.

Libertarians never think long term with their selfish ideals.

[Texaggie79]

The public school should not be a vehicle for parental policing.

I completely agree. However using hard drugs is a universal wrong. There is never a situation where kids should not alert police to their parents using HARD drugs, NEVER.

[Dan from Michigan]

I'm not a druggie.

Oh here comes the smear again. Gee can you show me where there is constitutional amendment to unbridled drug use?
You mind telling me what right and business the FEDS have into coming into people's homes, breaking down their doors, STEALING their property without a conviction? I'm not saying drugs are good. I'm saying the drug WAR is EVIL.

The founders knew that the right to bear arms was a key to liberty, their silence on drug use says to me that they left it up to future generations to deal with scrouge of drugs.

It's a STATE issue, and the feds should stay out of it outside of the borders.

In many ways you pro-druggies are EXACTLY like the gun grabbers in which you interpret things in the constituion that are not in there.
I read the constitution as it is written, not as it is interpreted.

[Texaggie79]

So you haven't a problem with private nukes in your neighbors homes, or your nighbor aiming a loaded weapon at your child? It is all risk, no harm.

[Texaggie79]

Smoking a bong directly affects nobody but the person smoking it.

Can't use that line on me Danny boy :-P I support legalized pot. Now say that same line with crackpipe instead of bong.........

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

I'm pretty sure that if it was legal to keep private nukes in your basement

It is Legal. Right now.
So what's your point?

The Libertarian Chocolate-Covered Neutron Bomb

• The President himself sent over the Bomb-making Plans.
  We contacted several 12-year olds as technical consultants, one of whom, with that youthful simplicity that is a genius of its own, simply wrote a nice polite letter to the President, Mr. Jimmy "I'm a Nuclear Engineer" Carter, and soon received de-classified bomb-construction instruction material from the US Government Printing Office.

  I mean, forget the current hysteria on kids discovering something dangerous about the Bomb in public libraries or (today) the Internet, in 1979 in response to us, the government promptly sent us instructions.

• While the manufacturing techniques themselves are ultra-highly classified, the Russian photocopies of the techniques are... free public domain.
  An engineering teacher who had taken an interest assured us it gave sufficient information on how to build a bomb, though not a very good one. The reason is that though the concepts were not secret, the advanced manufacturing techniques were indeed ruthlessly classified and quite unobtainable, not that it was anything the Soviets were unlikely to know, merely able to, one prayed, duplicate. He helpfully pointed out that while the US N-Bomb manufacturing techniques were classified, the copies of Soviet documents that were copies of them and that he had obtained at a recent conference in Vladivostok, weren't.

  Oh.

• Possession of Pistols and Water Balloons may be illegal; However, the private manufacture of Neutron Warheads is... a matter of personal discretion.
  After another radio interview with media personalities Roger Grimsby and later Joe Franklin, and assurances, obtained by my doubting attorney from the Federal Government that only mass manufacture and transportation of nuclear weapons was (partially) regulated, we got serious.

  After all, on the show another attorney called in who pointed out that while capital (i.e big) weapons in the US Constitution are prohibited to the States, they are pointedly not so prohibited to the people, and there were many collectors of tanks, bombers and other items, defused of course, but easily re-commissioned—but beware, pistols were illegal in Manhattan. As were balloon bombs tossed from windows.

  Thus, we were in business.

  Libertarians supplying free or low-cost N-bombs to the US Government—why not?

• Ever helpful, the Department of Defense will be happy to tell you where to procure your Nuclear-Warhead-Manufacturing supplies.
  Recently a woman was denied entry into a Graduate library program on the basis that she was a Libertarian. As movingly reported in this newpaper, in New Zealand one person has been denied entry on that basis. But there was no such repugnant official discrimination then, at least in weapons manufacture.

  I applied for and promptly received a DOD number from the Pentagon, endless invitations to Military Surplus auctions, all along with a packet of specifications stamped TOP SECRET in sinister candy striped boxes that, upon advice of my father, as a retired Pentagon and intelligence high official, I promptly and without opening got rid of in an incinerator.

• Need a Tax Shelter? The Government will subsidize your private home manufacture of Nuclear Warheads with generous tax breaks -- PROVIDED THAT you employ deaf, dumb, blind alcoholics in the production of your personal Neutron Bomb.
  There was thus also the call of collective service. I received materials computer-addressed to "Dear Mr. Neutron" urging me to sign up for tax breaks in some Byzantine pro-disadvantaged and illiterate-minority hiring scheme of the City that, I must confess, after diligent re-reading, I never really quite understood. "The City of New York… believe we can encourage deaf, dumb, blind, alcohol-, controlled substance- or motor-dishabilatated (?) people who may not have reading or numeric skills in [here I presume the computer filled in a blank in the form-letter] home neutron-bomb industry with this tax advantaged initiative."

  Who was I to disagree with the City Fathers of the Mightiest Metropolis on Earth, by virtue of the UN presence, the very capital of the planet? They wanted those "blind blind-drunks" and folks who were "usually OK as long as they took their medication" sitting there next to me, cheek by jowl, as we crafted home N-bombs like a South Manhattan Santa with his whacked-out elves.

• But be advised -- if you are going to manufacture Nuclear Warheads in your basement, a Fireworks Permit WILL BE required.
  But there was a mushroom cloud on the horizon. The attorney had said something along these lines, and I received a first warning from the City for having an illegal sign, was told I was not subject to most regulation as long as I was a sole proprietor and got a Fireworks permit, and, mercy, absolutely did not offer the chocolate for sale as a consumable.

• However, would-be private manufacturers of basement Neutron Bombs should be aware -- while the private manufacture and possession of Neutron Bombs is entirely Legal, the City Council of Chico, California will assess a $500 FINE for exploding a nuclear warhead within city limits.
  As I circulated drafts of this article over several months for comment, a friend noted that the climate was indeed different—in a way.

  Chico, California, had passed a law— not against owning a Nuclear Bomb, not against building one, but exploding one in city limits. The fine is set at $500.

  Call them up. They are very proud of this law.

[Texaggie79]

Government does not have the ability to punish wrongs except for those things that it is explicitly allowed to punish.

Ok where is the list. Last time I checked, the Constitution said it was up to the STATES and the people on anything beyond that which is not covered by the Constitution, just as you quoted.

[Texaggie79]

Could either one of you define "psychological risk" for me, please?

When I use that, I pretty much am addressing the close family of the user. Children are severely psychologically damaged in seeing their parents high on hard drugs.

[realpatriot71]

Actually there is nothing that mentions homosexuality at all. Sodomy is listed along with rape, and Jefferson was almost certainly referring to forced sodomy (anal rape). You cannot make the conclusion from that passage that consentual sodomy was to be outlawed. I personally do not see how homsexuality is detrimental to society. If a certain number of our population want to bump the wrong kind of fuzzies, that does harm anyone but themselves.

It's like FreeTalley said, you do not have a "right" not to be at risk.

[LazarusX]

the druggies would concede that DUI, DWI, and sale to minors (under 21) could be penalized as attempted manslaughter and allow for no Medicare/Medicaide coverage of drug related illness. You wanna fry your brains; go ahead. Don't get us to pay for it, your future health problems, or get our kids hooked on drugs.

Calling recreational drug users "Druggies" is a bit much since our recreational habits do not define us. Is someone who has a beer on a friday night an Alcoholie? Am I a Swimmie since I start my days with a swim?
That said, I agree completely that those that cause harm to others because of their drug use should be dealt with very harshly. It's not an accident when you do something stupid because of drug use. I read a story this morning about a rapist in Spain getting his sentence reduced because he was drunk at the time. Appalling.