Save that Nazi crap for someone else. Laws have evolved over time, and yes, there were/are some bad ones that have been on the books. But they have been changed. Like I told you, if you don't agree with them, change them through the proper channel.
So now I would happily abuse, torture, and kill people, and I'm prejudice because I don't think people should be allowed to use drugs....sorry sport. I wouldn't do any of those things, but I'd throw your butt in jail for drugs, that you can count on.
So you would break the rules under some circumstances, yes or no? If yes, please at least provide a bare outline of when that's acceptable. I've provided you with a similar outline as to when I think drug use is acceptable and when it is not, return the favor.
I'm happy you'll throw my butt in jail for doing drugs. It means I was right about you. I don't know that you are predjudiced against any race or religion as I've never heard your opinion on that. I have heard your opinion on
the rules though, and sometimes rules are unjust, sometimes massively so. As I've asked, a few times now, when does obeying a rule become wrong and therefore breaking it at least understandable, if not right in the strictest sense?
The Law for the Protection of German Blood, perhaps you've heard of that? It was a law, or a
rule as you call it, in part laying out how Jews were defined and to be expunged from German society. How many people should have obeyed that
rule and willingly waddled onto the cattle cars and into the ghettos and gas chambers while they worked through the "proper channels" to change the
rules?
You have made the absolute statement that the rules are the rules and should be obeyed period,
not me. Therefore
you're the one who has to defend that position if you want to continue this debate. I dare say I've presented you with a couple of historical examples of
rules where you can't defend that absolute view. Simply put, that's because it is
wrong. Logically, morally, ethically. In
every way that matters such blind and unquestioning subserviance to the law (rules) is
wrong whether or not they are just or unjust.
You adhere to the higher authority of right and wrong, or "what you perceive to be right or wrong". You want to make the rules, become a politician. You're right. I take orders. From people I respect and trust.
Well I've explained myself fairly in depth for such a message board debate as to
why I think it is wrong to lock people up for nonviolent behavior that endangers no other person. I've done so on both moral and practical grounds. I've yet to hear anything from you justifying your view except:
1) I'm older, therefore I'm right.
2) I'm a veteran, therefore I'm right.
3)
Some people screw up with drugs, therefore
all users should be locked up.
4) I've seen people make the wrong decision with drugs, therefore I'm right (corrollary of reason 1 perhaps).
5) I've seen violence surround the sale and distribution of drugs, therefore I'm right.
6) Those are the rules, therefore I'm right.
In a nutshell that's what you've said. To sum my views/responses up in a nutshell:
1) Nonsense and not worth a reply.
2) Nonsense and not worth a reply.
3) Nonsense and not worth a reply, however in short hand we are no more justified in banning guns and locking up all those who posses guns because a few people use them irresponsibly. In so doing we violate their rights. Whether you like it or not,
if someone is
not hurting another human being or behaving recklessly so such harm is likely, they have the right to smoke, snort, swallow and inject whatever the **** they please. They have this right because if they don't have it, anything
and everything can be made illegal, and this is so because such a change in the law from concentrating on how people affect each other to how they affect themselves, or to just being completely arbitrary, leads to a situation where there is no valid distinction to be made between a law and an aesthetic opinion which can not and
should not be enforced on others. Such reasoning puts law above ethics, above morality and above justice. The correct relationship is the other way around. Ethics and morality come
before and
above law. Justice comes
before the law, if need be
at the expense of the law, and often
in spite of the law.
4) People will make those decisions
regardless of the drugs' legality, alcohol use/abuse during alcohol prohibition as an example. Making the drugs legal will have the same effect as the legalization of alcohol, it will ensure a safer product to at least get rid of accidental deaths due to mere use, and will eliminate the violence surrounding the black market trade.
5) See above. Once more, with alcohol as an example, once prohibition is repealed the violence stops. People can still **** up and do stupid and irresponsible things under the influence. They will do that
regardless of their drug's legality. Legalization eliminates the black market and the associated violence. Legalization also narrows the focus of the law and allows for more efficient use of limited law enforcement funds, because instead of trying to sweep up all users the law only concentrates on those who are harming others or acting extremely recklessly.
6) Althought I've spent some time on this particular response of yours because it more than any other really annoys me, in the end it boils down to the same as 1, 2 and 3, nonsense and not worth a reply.
I would never admit to being wrong when I'm right. Drugs are poisoning our country and destroying our children. I will continue to fight the war. And if a few non violent criminals, and make no mistake about it, they are criminals, get arrested, well, they shouldn't be involved in illegal activities.
A person of such arbitrary action, who so desperately lacks any moral and ethical reflection concerning their own actions in support of the state as you, is what destroys and poisons society,
not drugs. Drug dealers who sell to kids have a similar lack of reflection. The consequences of their actions don't bother them, they
don't care if innocent lives are destroyed because of what they do, so long as their own interests and views of the world prevail in their own brains at the end of the day. The legal manufacturers of drugs however
do care or at least have
some incentive to eliminate any unintentional harmful effects of their drugs. They have at least
some incentive to behave in an appropriate manner that doesn't hurt others.
Shall I BOLD the word "lawful" for you?
No, because unlike you I addressed the point when you brought it up. You've only in this post finally admitted bad laws exist. Progress! And it seems the bolding helped as you only addressed the point
after I did that. Perhaps I was right about your vision.
I have not come across an immoral law on the books lately. Could you be more specific.
Any victimless crime, or have you missed the thread? I understand we disagree on the point, but you've yet to offer a real reason as to why the peaceful and otherwise nonviolent users must be locked up along with all the others. You've said you don't care if they get caught in the sweep of the law. Well it's fine you don't care, but that's not a reason as to
why they should be locked up. A simple change in the law lets you deal with the problem population exclusively and leaves them alone. Such a change lets you concentrate limited resources on the real problem as well, so it benefits you as well as the peaceful, nonviolent, nonreckless users. You've said drugs poison society, I've yet to see any evidence that it's anything but
prohibition causing many of the problems you mention, and I've yet to see any evidence that the problems that aren't
caused by prohibition and that can justifiably be laid at the feet of drug abuse are in
any positive way affected by continued prohibition. More to the point, as during alcohol prohibition, those problems are
exacerbated by prohibition. They are made
worse. It is self defeating and making all the problems you supposedly want to cure society of worse, not better.
And here you go again with "people like me" crap. Would those be the law abiding citizens, military, law enforcement, religious, family oriented, ....exactly what people like me?
People who destroy the lives of others for unjust reasons. People who obey and enforce arbitrary laws that destroy those families you are so oriented towards because one or more the parents or children uses a subsance
you disapprove of. After all, they can use alcohol and can be hooked on pain killers with a prescription, but God forbid they puff a joint and get caught.
You are willing to lock people up and destroy their lives for reasons which you yourself admit are at times unjust or 'wrong' or 'bad,' perhaps even massively so. Even if those people are simply caught up in a larger web of justly arrested people, in doing so you are the epitomy of exactly what you are supposed to be protecting citizens from: mindless violence against peaceful people. Perpetual prohibition for perpetual sobriety and health I guess would be the way to put it. If you get the reference you might see the problem. You are sacrificing a peaceful sum of citizens who have been
made into criminals through an arbitrarily passed series of laws for the achievement of your version of a perfect world. I, on the other hand, understand people are different, have different tastes and act in different ways, which is why the only laws I support, and would willingly enforce were that my job, are ones that restrict behaviors on the part of one person which are
inherently harmnful to another person, or so reckless as to be
likely to cause such harm. Using drugs in and itself is
not such a behavior. I am
not talking about driving under the influence, I am
not talking about falling deep into a pit of addiction and neglecting your kids/family, I am
not talking about people who rob or steal to feed their habit, I am
not talking about people who
act violently or recklessly in any way towards others while under the influence or in an attempt to get under the influence.
You either
can't differentiate between the violent and nonviolent, the reckless and the responsible, or more frighteningly you simply
won't make such a distinction or can but
don't care enough to do so.
Perhaps at base what we're dealing with here is in fact what was the motivation behind prohibition originally. Perhaps you don't care about those people being locked up because you
want them locked up. Perhaps you
can distinguish between the peaceful and the violent, and just don't care because there's a
certain kind of person you want to eliminate
regardless of what they have or have not done to deserve any punishment, and drug use is just the excuse. I suspect that's the case, that through aesthetic and moral arguments you've been convinced that nonviolent drug users are the equivalent of a junkie who murders a whole family and robs their house, but only after raping every female in the house, to support his habit. In other words what I've said in one of my original posts, and thanks for helping me demonstrate this point:
That's also why few people tend to change their minds on this topic. Once they've bought the "drugs are Evil" line rationality takes a back seat when it comes to discussing the issue. Do a search and find out how many times this quote or a paraphrase of it has been uttered: "If we make marijuana legal what's next, rape and murder?" Not only are such statements not unheard of, back in my school days as an activist on this issue I heard it all the time and saw it and similar quotes from legislators all the time. That's how detached from reality a lot of our most highly placed drug warriors are. If someone is willing to equate legally being able to smoke a joint with raping and/or murdering another human being, there's really nothing you can accomplish with that person in terms of debate because any connection to reality on this issue has fled their minds a long, long time ago.
