Posted on 12/30/2001 1:25:13 AM PST by NoCurrentFreeperByThatName
We also support the repeal of all laws establishing any category of crimes applicable to children for which adults would not be similarly vulnerable, such as curfew, smoking, and alcoholic beverage laws, and other status offenses. --http://archive.lp.org/platform/1994/cr.html
Below is a classic Roscoe dishonesty. He takes a statement about the jailing of young children that have not been charged with a crime and intentionally misconstrues it to mean that a young child runaway should not be held until his or her guardian arrives. Further more, he attempts to hide his statement by tacking on a question mark to the end of it. In the following sentence he responds to the statement as though it was fact. The original statement is blue text. Roscoe's reply is red text.
From the Libertarian platform:
We call for an end to the practice in many states of jailing children not accused of any crime. We call for repeal of all "children's codes" or statutes which abridge due process protections for young people.
Because you omitted the first sentence above are we to assume that you are in favor of jailing children not accused of a crime?
About the second sentence: That implies that under the current government young people are having their due process protections abridged. That sure sounds like young people are not being given Fourth Amendment protection. And that the Libertarian platform seeks to return full protection to the young people.
You are either incompetent, ignorant, or intended to deceive the reader. The choice is yours.
468 posted on 12/31/01 1:25 AM Pacific by Zon
A ten year runaway shouldn't be held until his or her parents or guardians are located? Libertarianism is a cartoon philosophy.
I pity you. Get well, or get lost.
Any shelter worker, or, for that matter, anyone who thinks about it for 30 seconds, will tell you that the chances are in the 99+ percentile that a 10 year old that isn't desperate to volunteer to be "held" until his or her parents can be located is a 10 year old that's being sexually, emotionally and/or physically abused by someone in his family with legal impunity--an all too common state of affairs. A child that wants emancipation usually has a damn good reason. The world is a scary place for a 10 year old without parents.
I won't take responsibility for the current libertarian platform as anyone that actually wants to run for office is going to be an evil lunkhead (the reason we have a Bill of Rights), but I can tell you where most libertarian theorists come down on the question of children's rights: namely, that they don't have many. Children are not competent to bear the rights and responsibilities of full adults, and so not members of the laissez-faire community. A toddler is not capable of understanding the moral restraint that should prevent you from murdering those you are angry with--a 6 year old is not capable of driving. To be in the moral community, you have to be able to exercise moral judgement. We do not grant rights to rocks or chickens because they are not capable of moral judgement. The same goes for younger children, and we cede them rights in a complicated and somewhat arbitrary manner as they age. None of this is particularly a central libertarian problem. Like riparian rights, or right-of-way cedings, or which side of the road to drive on, this is a question libertarians should leave to current traditions in the law, as they have no basis in theory for addressing them. Libertarians are interested in the restriction of coercion and fraud in human affairs, between citizens, and as committed against citizens. Children are not citizens, they are something else. Some of them become citizens eventually. In the mean time, they have a few slowly growing citizen-like rights, are partly the responsibility and property of their parents, tempered by the responsibility of the State to step in occasionally, on the question of who their parents really are, and whether their parents are doing them coercive harm. None of this substantially disregards libertarian theory which, as I said, applies to citizens.
This is not responsive or relevant. Judge Young's finding in law was about RESCHEDULING marijuana from Schedule III to Schedule I. You are reporting on a clause of the law in question utterly unrelated to Young's finding. After pestering me for the source, do you mean to tell me you didn't even look at it?
Don't take it personally. That's just how Roscoe treats every problem where he gets in over his head. It stands to reason that at least a few Freepers have had rational discussions beyond three back and forth exchanges with him. But I could be wrong.
This ranks right up there with laws that cite the fact a house is connected to a gas line that may be connected to an interstate gas line to justify a federal law. Standard commerce-clause abuse.
We only observe the commerce clause in the form of tradition, so we have state murder laws, but federal carjacking laws. This bends the Constitution past the breaking point.
Like I said originally, show me where in the Constitution, in plain English, it says the federal government is authorized to do this. You also have the contrast with the two prohibition amendments to work with in figuring out of the federal goverment really has authority in this.
Just because a law exists does not mean that ordinary people cannot look at it and say "This is plainly unconstitutional." We have many, many laws like that. Otherwise why have judicial review? Why appoint people like Scalia and Thomas who take these questions seriously? Why not have a $50k clerck-magistrate instead of a Supreme COurt? Why bother having state government at all?
Thank you. I'm glad that you enjoyed it.
Schedule I to Schedule II, sorry.
The point is: You don't have to be a Libertarian to be disgusted with the Drug War.
Yep. They love their drug war, but don't want to talk about where the basis for waging it comes from. They're into FDR and his New Deal socialism so far, their retinal patterns are imprinted on his butt cheeks.
You: It is immoral or anti-consititution for people to choose to live in states where there are laws against any or all emancipation of slaves? Clearly it was not at one time (see the Dred Scott Decision) What changed?
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It has been my experience in life that when people answer a question with another question of dubious relevance, it is because they either don't have an answer or they know their answer is bankrupt.
I'll answer yours though. Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness are unalienable rights which renders slavery a violation of that principle. Drug use isn't an unalienable right but understanding that liberty allows stupid choices, in my world, you could pursue those stupid choices in places where others agree with you.
In your world, you would force me and others like me to live under the tyranny of a small minority who think that drug use is an unalienable not legislatable by the citizens of states. So who's the statist here?
"The administrative law judge recommends that the Administrator conclude that the marijuana plant considered as a whole has a currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, that there is no lack of accepted safety for use of it under medical supervision and that it may lawfully be transferred from Schedule I to Schedule II. The judge recommends that the Administrator transfer marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II."
So, for POLITICAL reasons, the judge's recommendation was ignored. And that's a good thing? Oh, wait, the ends justify the means in the war on drugs. We shouldn't let things like medical research and facts get in the way. Silly me.
Again:
The Congress makes the following findings and declarations:
(1) Many of the drugs included within this title have a useful and legitimate medical purpose and are necessary to maintain the health and general welfare of the American people.
(2) The illegal importation, manufacture, distribution, and possession and improper use of controlled substances have a substantial and detrimental effect on the health and general welfare of the American people.
(3) A major portion of the traffic in controlled substances flows through interstate and foreign commerce. Incidents of the traffic which are not an integral part of the interstate or foreign flow, such as manufacture, local distribution, and possession, nonetheless have a substantial and direct effect upon interstate commerce because--
(A) after manufacture, many controlled substances are transported in interstate commerce,
(B) controlled substances distributed locally usually have been transported in interstate commerce immediately before their distribution, and
(C) controlled substances possessed commonly flow through interstate commerce immediately prior to such possession. (4) Local distribution and possession of controlled substances contribute to swelling the interstate traffic in such substances.
(5) Controlled substances manufactured and distributed intrastate cannot be differentiated from controlled substances manufactured and distributed interstate. Thus, it is not feasible to distinguish, in terms of controls, between controlled substances manufactured and distributed interstate and controlled substances manufactured and distributed intrastate.
(6) Federal control of the intrastate incidents of the traffic in controlled substances is essential to the effective control of the interstate incidents of such traffic.
(7) The United States is a party to the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961, and other international conventions designed to establish effective control over international and domestic traffic in controlled substances.
Libertarians are as hungry as liberals for judicial legislation.
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