Posted on 08/01/2002 3:27:45 PM PDT by Tomalak
That is an excellent point. I think you're the first libertarian I have heard who holds that position.
In my opinion, no on in favor of the "War on Drugs" is conservative. War as a domestic law enforcement model is about as radical and unconservative as you can get. That does not mean that I think all drug use is an inalienable right. Unfortunately in most "drug war" threads one quickly learns those are the only two opinions anyone wants to discuss.
We need more concentration on areas of agreement between conservatives and libertarians. I think we easily have a majority in the country opposed to the "War on Drugs," even if they are opposed to drug legalization. But if the radicals on both sides get to define the terms of the debate, we'll continue with the status quo unchanged.
I disagree.
IMO the 14th applies the Bill of Rights to the states.
I have the same opinion, - thus, we agree overall on the 14th.
But it causes some problems if you use the 9th in conjunction with the 14th. The 9th was fine when it was linked with the 10th. But throw in the 14th, and you have a recipe for judicial activism. IMO the 9th was put in place to keep the feds from restricting rights not enumerated in the BOR.
The 9th & 10th are still linked & valid. You are right about the purpose of the 9th, but it wasn't working after the civil war. Thus, the 14th was necessary to defend even the 2nd, among the others.
Read the ratification debates from 1868. Lots of good points defending gun rights, which were being violated by states.
But the states still had powers to restrict those unenumerated rights as they saw fit (some states or localities, for example, ban or restrict the consumption of alcohol).
Yep, states & localities can lawfully 'regulate' the public possession & use of booze. But in private, on private property, - imo, -- they have no such power, and never have had. 'Fiat' prohibitions of harmless types of property are unconstitutional, in my book.
Once the 14th came along, it stood in contradiction to the 9th, a situation the courts have resolved by basically ignoring the 9th.
I don't 'see' the contradiction. Can you explain further?
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- And made it clear that while states can make law to 'regulate' public acts using due process, they can not prohibit or infringe upon private victimless acts, - IE - 'sins'.
I would disagree to a certain extent. Please review my post above to Khepera that covers my opinions of DUI laws. There is legal precedent to not just act again harm, but also act against a certain probability of harm. And that is what Khepera is talking about. The most sound debate is, how do we mitigate against harm?
We discussed DUI just the other day. I agreed it is a legal use of the police power of states, if used with extreme caution for violations of due process.
Prostitution is often NOT victimless - diseases are spread, families are impacted. So what is the proper role of dealing with that, and what can be done to mitigate harm?
The state of Nevada is the proper 'role model', imo.
Republican=Republican
Independent=Republican who swore to his father he would never be a Republican.
Libertarian=Independent who wants dope legalized.
2nd truth:The first Libertarian has yet to be born who has a sense of humor!
Pray for GW and the Truth
And that, sir, is an excellent point in return. I have noticed that, on drug threads, if the participants start making common ground and start honestly debating differences, the flame-throwers suddenly quit posting, and go find another thread where the food fight is in full swing. I, for one, am sick of that - of the sweeping, stupid generalizations, of beliefs so entrenched that they are impervious to reason. The drug war threads on FR too often become an intellectual Somme - a battlefield with no objective, other than inflicting carnage on both sides. Time to change that.
No, it's not. You're simply hearkening back to the frontier, boomtowns, and waterfronts -- places where rough people have always congregated.
By far the greatest number of Americans were and are hardworking, honest, and above all, quiet. History rarely takes note of such people, which is why you are prompted to make the comment you did.
It's kinda subtle, but let me try. I think we would agree that, prior to the 14th Amendment, the 9th and 10th stood together as a cast iron fence around the federal government, but the Bill of Rights had little to no bearing on the states. The first eight amendments define legal rights of individuals, and the 9th and 10th define limitations on the federal government.
Now, the 14th is passed. OK, amendments 1 thru 8 of the BofR now apply to the states. But what about the 9th? Does an amendment that is meant as a constraint on federal power still apply when joined to the 14th, which extends federal power? That is the contradiction, IMO. The one reference to the 9th by SCOTUS in recent history, in the Griswald decision, was an effort by liberal justices to justify creating a new federal right under the 9th and imposing it on the states via the 14th. I don't think that you or I wanna go there...
We discussed DUI just the other day. I agreed it is a legal use of the police power of states, if used with extreme caution for violations of due process.
And the devil is in them thar details. But the feds have been the ones pushing the DUI envelope, most recently by mandating a drop in the legal limit from .1 to .08. So I think such "harm threshhold" laws, for lack of a better term, are better off at the state level - but I also acknowledge how this concept, when grabbed by busybody activists, can become a serious problem - a municipality could prohibit a McDonalds from opening because of fat issues, or a research lab from opening because of animal testing issues. But that, IMO, goes with the territory.
Government, like any other human invention from guns to butter, can be used for good or bad. But we shouldn't disregard government just because it can go bad - that, in the immortal words, requires eternal vigilance. But, if we insist on fighting among ourselves, we are not being vigilant, but misdirected. Both libertarians and conservatives, I think, can agree upon the fact that the fox should be shot if it tries to get into the henhouse. It is only when we fight with each other that the fox gets a chicken dinner...
Zon: Each person's moral compass points north. North being the right to their own life and by extension, right to their own property. That's why by comparison there is a much smaller ratio of violent crimes and fraud than crimes of vice.
Poppycock. There are fewer violent crimes because they are harder to conceal. Corpses are far more conspicious than bad checks.
It appears that you contend that coercive laws create a greater deterrent to crime than a person's conscience/moral-compass. Following your logic if there was an easy way to hide dead bodies leaving no trace back to the murderer then there would be as many murderers as people that smoke pot.
To knowingly write a bad check in order to get something for nothing is fraud and the victim can take the criminal to court. There's far more people smoking pot than people writing bad checks. Also, many checking accounts have overdrafts. For people that don't have overdraft accounts, the banks charge the accountholder when they overdraw their account. That's business, not a crime. Likewise their are far more people using recreational drugs than there are thieves, get-something-for-nothing bad check writers and other non-violent frauds combined.
Zon: To the violent criminal that has a broen moral compass the gun-toting, north-pointing moral-compass citizen becomes the greatest deterrent to the criminal. Studies have shown that violent criminals in prison said that when they were on the outside they far more feared being confronted by a citizen with a gun than a law enforcement officer with a gun. Again pointing to the moral compass as being a far greater deterrent to crime than coercive laws.
Apparently this "moral compass" is mounted in transparent plexiglass in people's foreheads. How else do criminals know if they are being held at gunpoint by a holy man or a mad man.
Your obfuscation is duly noted. To the criminal a cop is the holy man in which the criminal finds safety compared to being confronted by an armed citizen with a north-pointing moral compass. But of course I already said that in the post you replied to yet you thought it more important that you obfuscate to make your invalid point appear as valid. It's called deception. And you're not very good at it.
On the several occasions I've been held at gunpoint, the moral philosophy of the antagonist was THE LAST DAMN THING ON MY MIND.
Fine. But were you searching your mind for the criminal codes to discern who was violating the law? Are you a criminal? Apparently not because criminals know they are breaking the law and are aware of the differing degrees of risk whether it's a cop or a citizen pointing a gun at them. It is because the criminal knows he is violating the sanctity of human life that causes his acute awareness of who is pointing the gun at him. The criminal's moral compass may be broken but it is still present to let him know that he should fear for his life. IMO where you erred is in being the victim you tried injecting the criminal-mind's broken moral compass into your thinking (it didn't fit so you rejected it.) That unnatural "fit" is why you rejected what I wrote. Think about it. You don't think about the criminal's moral outlook because your moral-compass is pointing north as it should be -- you're in valid self-defense mode because you know you didn't violate anyone's rights. The criminal is in defense mode; defense for his life and he'd rather be up against a cop than a citizen with a gun. Having violated a person's rights the criminal's best defense is to give himself up.
Zon: The violent criminal fears for his life when confronted by a north-pointing moral-compass citizen with a gun. ...Yet by comparison feels safe when confronted by law enforcement officers that enforces the laws.
What color is the sky in your world?
Blue. I suggest you drop the grandstanding rhetoric.
Have you ever met the LAPD or the New Orleans police or a Russian militia? Criminals don't feel safe when confronted by these folks.
I also suggest you brush up on your reading comprehension. Note the words above in bold. They are: "by comparison". I'll reword. The violent criminal fears an armed citizen far more than he fears a law enforcement officer that enforces the laws. Also, I referred to LEOs in general, not specific police organizations or specific militia as you so disingenuously tried to change the context. Or perhaps it was just an innocent mistake you made. Either way it's your problem, not mine. My statement which was a general statement holds valid and is backed up by studies of violent criminals in prison.
Actually, a lot of the Libertarians are pretty funny people. They're just tired of being slandered as potheads for wanting changes to the drug laws...
A great point to debate. Is it better to make prostitution illegal, or try to come up with legal controls for it? Go for it, guys, and try to respect each other's points. I don't think either one of you is in favor of crack whores running around spreading AIDS. How do we combat that?
He's left out the most important thing, though, which is trust.
A country may have the most moral and upright populace known to man, but if individuals do not trust that their fellow man wants to -- and most like will -- do the right thing, then the foundation for a small, freedom-protecting state is destroyed. If I cannot trust you, then I must pass a law to prevent you from doing something wrong.
There is indeed a lack of trust in modern society (IMHO it's mostly unwarranted). There are a lot of reasons for it. Ideological propaganda (mostly leftist, but also rightist); the still present worship of "experts"; the presence of a global, rapid-response news media which focuses on the bad apples; entertainment media which actively champions untrustworthiness; and so on.
The issue here is not so much how to restore morality (which most people posess already), but instead to restore trust. That's a tough assignment -- but it is probably true that a return to stigma would go a long way toward doing it.
And, one supposes, a mysterious plague that takes out the Hollywood types (very libertarian they are -- about behavior, at least) who have been so effective in removing stigma from our culture.
I've noticed (for a long time) that posters that use hyperbole and much rhetoric have weak arguments if and when they get around to serious discussion.
Here we are on this thread - a few conservatives and a few libertarians, making some good progress on resolving differences. We agree that the drug war as carried out by the feds is not a good idea. We agree that we have a lot of common ground regarding the 10th amendment. A very civil, constructive debate. And then you have to stagger in and drop this crap on the thread. Take it somewhere else. I'm sure there are conservative/libertarian food fights raging elsewhere on the forum, why don't you find one of those and start your flame-baiting there.
I bet Libertarians line the bottom of the wage scale in this country based on their threads.
I bet the posters on this thread could come up with a vastly superior insult to that one, if we so desired. But we really don't. Care to add something to the debate? Pull up a chair.
That was only a point to someone oblivious to logic. It just so happens that there are only a few libertarians and a few conservatives active on this thread.
You make the obvious distinction for us all. Libertarians are NOT Conservative. So it is unusual they wish to remain on a conservative forum.
That is not your call. That is JimRob's. Anyone debating on this forum is his guest and has his blessing. It is not your perogative to insult his guests. It is telling about your manners, or lack thereof, that you choose to do so.
Where are your guys Libertarian forums?
BTW, I'm a Republican. Telling that you got confused about that. Folks who wade into a discussion, without reading it first, armed with nothing but insults, often can't tell the players apart without a program...
Not laws, consequences. You can have consequences without laws.
Following your logic if there was an easy way to hide dead bodies leaving no trace back to the murderer then there would be as many murderers as people that smoke pot.
You betcha. Examples? Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Buchenwald, etc, etc.
Eventually people would start taking countermeasures.
Your obfuscation is duly noted. To the criminal a cop is the holy man in which the criminal finds safety compared to being confronted by an armed citizen with a north-pointing moral compass. I also suggest you brush up on your reading comprehension. Note the words above in bold. They are: "by comparison". I'll reword. The violent criminal fears an armed citizen far more than he fears a law enforcement officer that enforces the laws. Also, I referred to LEOs in general, not specific police organizations or specific militia as you so disingenuously tried to change the context. Or perhaps it was just an innocent mistake you made. Either way it's your problem, not mine. My statement which was a general statement holds valid and is backed up by studies of violent criminals in prison.
The Russian militia are LEO's. In what time period and in what nations was this study conducted?
You make it sound like either libertarians or the others, but that's not true.
The libertarians defend property rights, the socialists do not. When it comes to personal behavior, however, they are more alike than different.
If you were to look only at what some Hollywood socialist said about say, sexual promiscuity, drugs, homosexuality, or what have you ... and then you looked at a libertarian's comment on the same, you wouldn't find any significant difference.
The difference between them is merely that the socialist will try to remove the consequences of bad actions, whereas the libertarian will not. But the actions themselves? Either one will say "go right ahead, and to hell with those who say you shouldn't."
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