Posted on 10/23/2006 5:03:34 PM PDT by JTN
Nevada is known for gambling, 24-hour liquor sales and legal prostitution. Yet the main group opposing Question 7, an initiative on the state's ballot next month that would allow the sale and possession of up to an ounce of marijuana by adults 21 or older, is called the Committee to Keep Nevada Respectable.
In Colorado, opponents of Amendment 44, which would eliminate penalties for adults possessing an ounce or less of marijuana, are equally certain of their own rectitude. "Those who want to legalize drugs weaken our collective struggle against this scourge," declares the Colorado Drug Investigators Association. "Like a cancer, proponents for legalization eat away at society's resolve and moral fiber."
To sum up, smoking pot is less respectable than a drunken gambling spree followed by a visit to a hooker, while people who think adults shouldn't be punished for their choice of recreational intoxicants are like a tumor that will kill you unless it's eradicated. In the face of such self-righteous posturing, the marijuana initiatives' backers have refused to cede the moral high ground, a strategy from which other activists can learn.
The Nevada campaign, which calls itself the Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana, emphasizes the advantages of removing marijuana from the black market, where regulation and control are impossible, and allowing adults to obtain the drug from licensed, accountable merchants. To signal that a legal market does not mean anything goes, the initiative increases penalties for injuring people while driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
The "regulate and control" message has attracted public support from more than 30 Nevada religious leaders. The list includes not just the usual suspects -- Unitarian Universalist ministers and Reform rabbis -- but also representatives of more conservative groups, such as Lutherans and Southern Baptists.
"I don't think using marijuana is a wise choice for anyone," says the Rev. William C. Webb, senior pastor of Reno's Second Baptist Church. "Drugs ruin enough lives. But we don't need our laws ruining more lives. If there has to be a market for marijuana, I'd rather it be regulated with sensible safeguards than run by violent gangs and dangerous drug dealers."
Troy Dayton of the Interfaith Drug Policy Initiative, who was largely responsible for persuading Webb and the other religious leaders to back Question 7, notes that support from members of the clergy, which was important in repealing alcohol prohibition, "forces a reframing of the issue." It's no longer a contest between potheads and puritans.
The Colorado campaign, which goes by the name SAFER (Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation), emphasizes that marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol and asks, "Should adults be punished for making the rational choice to use marijuana instead of alcohol?" This approach puts prohibitionists on the defensive by asking them to justify the disparate legal treatment of the two drugs.
So far they have not been up to the task. Mesa County District Attorney Pete Hautzinger has implicitly conceded marijuana itself is not so bad by implausibly linking it to methamphetamine. In a televised debate with SAFER's Mason Tvert, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers insisted "the only acceptable alternative to intoxication is sobriety."
That's fine for those who avoid all psychoactive substances as a matter of principle. But since most people -- including Suthers, who acknowledges drinking -- like using chemicals to alter their moods and minds, it's reasonable to ask for some consistency in the law's treatment of those chemicals, especially at a time when police are arresting a record number of Americans (nearly 787,000 last year) for marijuana offenses.
Despite a hard push by federal, state and local drug warriors who have been telling voters in Nevada and Colorado that failing to punish adults for smoking pot will "send the wrong message" to children, the latest polls indicate most are unpersuaded. Perhaps they worry about the message sent by the current policy of mindless intolerance.
Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine and a contributing columnist on Townhall.com.
I thought I pulled the handle on you? Does posting the same thing over and over and over make you feel more assured in yourself? Consistency in err is no virtue. Scratch that, I'm going to try and find out what's wrong with this ejection system.
Does posting the same thing over and over; -- ["the citizens of the states effected have the authority to prohibit or legalize pot, as well as polygamy, incest, etc."] and over make you feel your point is valid?
Our constitutions 'Law of the Land' protects us from such majority rule prohibitions. Learn to live with it.
Who decides what reasonable restrictions are in your utopia if not the majority?
Bear in mind this sacred principle, that
though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail,
that will to be rightful must be reasonable;
that the minority possess their equal rights,
which equal law must protect,
and to violate would be oppression."--Thomas Jefferson
Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. Dead on.
Now who is to decide what is "reasonable"? Will it be the final majority through due process, after open and free debate, or will it be five appointed men?
The fact that the majority shifts on every issue is a powerful tool in keeping us all "reasonable", what exactly are the checks on judicial diktat?
"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God?" --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia, 1782.
GOD MADE HERB
GOD SAW THAT IT WAS GOOD
GOD GAVE IT TO MAN
Genesis 1:11
Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth"; and it was so.
Genesis 1:12
And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:29
And God said, "See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food.
Some seem to believe that an herb given by God to man and beast alike at the beginning of time and which has grown freely almost everywhere, including here long before our nation was formed, is permissibly eradicable or controllable by the federal government through powers granted by the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution. It is an impossible task to devise a logical explanation of how the commerce clause can prohibit the personal growth and consumption of an herb gifted by God. In light of the rest of the Constitution any such perceived mandate dissolves and exposes the government as deluded by its grandeur.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their
Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness."
Preamble: ...secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity...
Amendment V: nor shall (anyone) be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Amendment IX: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the PEOPLE.
Amendment X: 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.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof
Nowhere in the Constitution is it enumerated what one may put into ones body. Therefore, that right is reserved for the states or the people. However,
since God has already specified in the Bible what one may consume, it is, in fact, the People’s God given right.
Who decides what reasonable restrictions are --- if not the majority?
We the people have already decided, -- read the BOR's and the 14th for reasonable restrictions on the police powers of State/local/fed governments.
Not an answer and you know it. Now answer it. Who decides?
Who decides what reasonable restrictions are --- if not the majority?
We the people have already decided, -- read the BOR's and the 14th for reasonable restrictions on the police powers of State/local/fed governments.
Not an answer and you know it.
Anyone rational can see that I have answered it, and that you are in denial.
More of the usual hiding behind non-commitment.
People don't agree with you about what is reasonable. Are you aware of that?
People don't agree with your cherry picked unenumerated rights. Are you aware of that?
There is a disagreement. Who decides who is right? The People who have every reason to pass reasonable laws, so as to protect themselves, or five appointed men?
Answer the question if you have the guts.
Since you are already protected in your own mind, and you don't think the People have the authority to make laws that require a determination of what's reasonable anyway (I'm sure you don't want to change things thru majority rule), I think I will live with it just fine. Let's see, I'm not craving pot yet, so I think I'll be OK. Should there be an insurrection of a small fanatical element to take over and dictate to the People that they no longer get to have any voice in determining what's reasonable, I'll load up my enumerated rights and solve the problem.
We the people have already decided, -- read the BOR's and the 14th for reasonable restrictions on the police powers of State/local/fed governments.
Answer the question if you have the guts.
If you had any guts, you would admit that you have no rebuttal for the fact I've stated; -- our Constitution and its Amendments place reasonable restrictions on the police powers of State/local/fed governments, and the people elected to pass reasonable laws, so as to protect us all.
Five appointed men? -- The USSC is only empowered to have "-- appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make. --"
Answer the question. What could you possibly be so scared of?
So if the People aren't to be allowed to decide, and the USSC isn't to be allowed to decide, that would leave just you to be grand master of deciding what's reasonable regulation/prohibition? Hugo Chavez is that you?
The conventional wisdom about the scope of state police powers goes like this:
--- in the early days of the Republic, state regulation was limited by the common law principle of sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas (you should use what is yours so as not to harm what is others'), implying that legitimate regulation existed only to prevent concrete harm to specified interests.
Sometime around the (previous) turn of the century, the story continues, the principle changed from the old sic utere to the new principle of salus populi est suprema lex (the good of the public is the supreme law), suggesting that states could regulate as they chose so long as they claimed to be working to promote the public safety, welfare, or morality.
Like all such conventional wisdom, this approach is somewhat simplistic.
But it captures a large grain of truth.
The range of activity that courts, and legal scholars, view as within the scope of legitimate regulation is considerably larger than it was previously.
In 1886, for example, influential legal commentator Christopher Tiedeman wrote:
This police power of the State extends to the protection of the lives, limbs, health, comfort and quiet of all persons, and the protection of all property within the State.
According to the maxim, sic utere tuo, ut alienum non laedas, it being of universal application, it must of course be within the range of legislative action to define the mode and manner in which every one may so use his own as not to injure others.
Any law which goes beyond that principle, which undertakes to abolish rights, the exercise of which does not involve an infringement of the rights of others, or to limit the exercise of rights beyond what is necessary to provide for the public welfare and the general security, cannot be included in the police power of the government.
It is a governmental usurpation, and violates the principles of abstract justice, as they have been developed under our republican institutions.
THE EVOLVING POLICE POWER: SOME OBSERVATIONS FOR A NEW CENTURY, David Kopel, Glenn Reynolds
Address:http://www.davekopel.com/CJ/LawRev/EvolvingPolicePower.htm
If you had any guts, you would admit that you have no rebuttal for the facts I've stated, ones that answer your question; -- our Constitution and its Amendments place reasonable restrictions on the police powers of State/local/fed governments, and the people elected to pass reasonable laws, so as to protect us all.
Answer the question. What could you possibly be so scared of?
Amusing, -- you're stuck on repeating a challenge already met. --- Admit it, if you had any guts, you would attempt to rebut the facts I've stated.
So you absolutely won't give a simple answer.
Well then you are easily dismissed. Someone that likes to hear themselves talk, but has no follow through.
Your lack of an answer can only leave the inference that you prefer an esocteric world where the Constitution is a god that lords over the people down to the most minute detail without the need for the involvement of human minds or hands. Because in your happy world, these people who cannot be trusted to decide if a vice does them harm, are protected from themselves by.... well apparently by you alone deciding what your god says.
Unless, you change your mind on answering "who decides what's reasonable?", I don't see any point in your making further posts to me. The stick is broken, the horse is dead, and I'm bored with your obsession.
I've already answered that all of us, -- "we the people' have decided what's reasonable, - as embodied in our Constitutuion.
I don't see any point in your making further posts to me.
Feel free to quit this exchange at any time, S-man..
The stick is broken, the horse is dead, and I'm bored with your obsession.
Whatever. -- I'm never bored with discussing Constitutional misconceptions..
You are the expert in Constitutional misconceptions, that's quite clear. I see from your posting history that you are a one trick pony, and Jack has become a very dull boy. Perhaps you need to pick up a hobby (legal would be good) or get a girlfriend or whatever applies. But you've still got that broken stick and that horse ain't goin' no where.
You might want to hide on November 7th. The unwashed will be voting without your permission and there's bound to be a majority at the end of the day.
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