Just Say Yes

In this post I am going to defend the side of a highly controversial issue that the Libertarian takes. That is, the legalization of drugs. Yes and that means all drugs, Heroine, Crack Cocaine, you name it. On the surface and to someone that perhaps has not thought this logically through, this may sound outrageous. I know it did to me at one time. Once a logical case is built to support the idea, you may still disagree, but hopefully I will prove that it is you who is not logical.

Let me start with the every day hypocrisy that is in our law that almost all Americans citizens agree with and thus are indeed hippocrates themselves. Ask yourself, should alcohol be legal? Before you dismiss this as "beer, booze and wine are completely different", explain why that is? What is different about alcohol that makes it any safer, better, less damaging to society, needed in any way, exceptional from other drugs, more accepted, and finally more legal?

Is alcohol safer than any hard drug like Coke or heroine? Well since it kills far more people every year, I think that's pretty easy to answer. Does it destroy families? Yes! Does it cause addiction? Yes! Does it cause fatalities? Yes! Can you overdose? Yes! Is there any question you could ask about other drugs that would separate them from alcohol? The simple answer is NO. It is in every way just as dangerous as any hard drug out there. If not, then more so. So why then is it legal?

This question was once asked by our all knowing all powerful government. And in attempts to remove it from our society, we went through Prohibition. Prohibition was an all out catastrophe. It created more crime than it could have possibly hoped to remove. When there is a demand for a product, government always fails to remove that demand. Regardless of what deterrent, law or regulation is enacted.

My point here isn't to show you that alcohol is bad. I think everyone knows the dangers and problems that come with alcohol. So why is it tolerated?, because the alternate is worse. Prohibition proved it. Prohibition was one of the principal factors that brought about the American mafia. Durgs are still under prohibition, and that effect in the drug world is identicle to the alcohol world. Exactly the same. The only diefference is peoples general perception of drugs vs thier general perception of alcohol.

The logic I really want people to accept is the concept of freedom. Whether alcohol is bad for you or not is really besides the point. Prohibition should have never been tried. It is not the states job to protect you from yourself. This will always lead to a form a tyranny. In some ways this Tyranny is worse, because it hides in the form of safety or protecting you. The question that you need to answer is- do you need the state to protect you from yourself? Perhaps you think "of course not, but others do" (think of the absurdity of that statement and the elitism it displays). Freedom is not just about being free to choose good things. You dont get freedom as long as you choose healthy apples. Freedom is the ability to go against what others think you should. if we all agreed what was good, why would we need freedom? Its about the freedom to do anything you want so long as you don't infringe on someone else's freedom. If you want to drink yourself to death, you should have the freedom to do so. If you view this as desireable, then you should have the freedom to do it! If freedom meant always choosing what the government deems as the good thing to do, you wouldnt need it. The freedoms that Americans have lost in the name of safety and protection are now bordering Serfdom. Hows your trip to the airport? All in the name of safety people must view you nude and touch any body part they want. The police can give you a fine for not buckling your seat belt. All in the name of safety. Who are you hurting when you don't buckle your seat belt? Think of the logic here. A cop pulls you over and hands you a ticket because you put yourself at higher risk. You didn't put him at risk. You didn't put any other driver at risk. You did absolutely nothing morally wrong, yet because you opted not to increase your chances of safety during an accident, he can make you pay money. That is tyranny, not freedom! To have freedom you must have the ability to choose what others deem wrong (as long as it doesnt hurt others, because then your infringing on their freedom) There are thousands and thousands of these rules. You are experiencing tyranny from your government. But because they say they are doing it for you and your well being, you let it happen. If you think a free society means always picking what is the best thing for you, then you need a lesson in freedom. Freedom means doing what you want (without hurting others), that is it! There is no freedom disclaimer that says in a free society you must pick the best choice, it just means you make the choice for you, and nothing more.

So back to drugs, the reason I talked about the hypocrisy of alcohol is because everything that is true for alcohol is also true for any drug. You may think that drugs should be illegal because people on drugs can and will hurt other people. My argument is that there may be some small truth to this, but it is nothing compared to the amount of hurt to other people that is done by making it illegal. The "War On Drugs", has been an utter failure. The black market and crime that is created by illegal drugs is far worse than any issue with having legal drugs. The worst part of it all is that the war on drugs and the fact that drugs are illegal not only creates a whole new industry of crime that would otherwise cease to exist, it does absolutely nothing to deter its usage. The war on drugs has had the identicle effect that prohibition had. Exactly the same!

Make drugs legal and you have people using drugs and whatever problems come with it.

Make drugs illegal and you have people using drugs and whatever problems come with it, and in addition you have a massive industry of crime to support it (this has cause more harm to people than any amount of drug use possibly could).

Does the war on crime have its intended affect? Perhaps you think - sure its an utter failure, it just hasn't done it correctly yet. I ask you to consider the following as a true statement:

If a product has a demand, it is impossible for government to remove it.

Meaning, there is no such thing as a government waged war on crime that is successful. I have a bit of evidence to back up that claim. Since we have been at it for 30+ years in the U.S. and almost every country in the world has done the exact same thing with the exact same results. Not one country has lessened its citizens drug use. Yes different counties have different levels of drug use. None of them have anything to do with the law and any war on drugs.

Case in point. In Amsterdam, less than 5% of school aged children has tried Pot. In the U.S. its almost 20%. Yes Amsterdam has more drug use than other countries (and it is actually very close in per capita) but much of that is due to people going there from other countries to experience Pot legally. But this detracts from my point. It doesnt matter if legalizing drugs does increase the actual use, being free doesnt mean the government forces you to do what is right or correct by gun point. Being free means you do what you want and its your personal responsibility to figure out what is best for you, not the governments.

There is so much to write on this subject that shows the complete lack of governments ability to control drug use. All the while this effort always has the actual effect of hurting its own citizens by creating a market of crime. The money that is wasted is absolutely crazy. I beg you to consider this a fact. It is wasted money! It cant be done! We cannot remove drugs from people who want them. We can only make them do two wrongs instead of one. Instead of it just being a bad idea to use drugs, now we have made them criminals too. What did any drug user do that is actually criminal? They put drugs in their own body. Its no different then deciding to leave your seat belt off becuase you dont want to wear it, Its none of your business that someone else makes a poor decision. In the attempt to save that person, we made them into a criminal too. Great job government!

If you think alcohol should be legal but drugs should not, then you are a hyippocrate and contradict yourself. Otherwise, you have the burden to explain why the two are different.

Consider the current health care crisis. what would it mean if anyone could get access to any drug they wanted without the consent of a doctor? Before you point out all the obvious negatives that most people think of. Think of what it would mean to the person that cant afford a doctor and the medicine, but could afford one. I could write on this one point for an hour, but will cut this one short for now.

Road To Serfdom

My brother and I had a recent discussion on Facebook about politics and economics with a good friend of mine...well mostly my brother had the discussion. He is the smarter one. What was interesting is how my more "liberal" friend claimed to be neutral about ideology and was just a middle of the road pragmatist. Of course I challenged my friend about his presuppositions to which he has never responded. Such is the attitude of the Political Left. Their worldview simply cannot be challenged.

At my brother's request, I am attempting to work my way through The Road To Serfdom by F.A. Hayek. What I really appreciate is the author's preface to the original editions. In the very first paragraph he wrote:

...the essential point remains that all I have to say is derived from certain ultimate values. I hope I have adequately  discharged in the book itself a second and no less important duty: to make it clear beyond doubt what these values are on which the whole argument depends.

 It is quite refreshing to read an author that grasps this important facet of any argument. Hopefully I will have some time to interact and/or make comments about this book as I read it.

How Do You Fix Health Care? Cmon, I'll show you

When I was 5 or 6, my dad got a job at Ratheon and I remember that new found wealth came with a card he kept in his wallet. It was a Blue Cross Blue Shield. I can remember once or twice the effect that card had. When asked by the admin at the doctors office if he had insurance, he whipped out that card with a sense of confidence and pride. My point could end there. I could tell you we should all have that sense of confidence when visiting the doctor that my dad had back in 1970's. And for many it does end there. Especially for our current president and his fellow progressives.

What I didn't realize then was the damage that special confidence has and what was missing because of that Blue Cross Blue Shield card. What was missing was the need for my dad to worry about the cost of that doctors visit. Sound crazy?

It sounds crazy because of the emotion that comes with the subject of health care. There is not one of us that does not have an emotional story that involves health care in some way. That emotion brings many of us (including myself at one time) to abandon logic in favor of emotion.

If my dad and most others were not worried about the cost of this visit, who was? Was the doctor then worried about how much he was charging? Of course not. I am an adamant supporter of the free market and absolute liberty. I believe that the free market will always come up with the best solution. Health insurance is really the one mistake it has produced that it is difficult to debate. See, after WW2 when businesses were competing for labour, raising pay during a time of very high inflation was not attracting employees. So business used health insurance as a way to make an attractive compensation package. Of course as usual, the free market was not at the core of the problem, government was. Had it not been for the inflating dollar, higher wages would have accomplished what was needed. But when the dollars is becoming more worthless from Fed printing, people always want the things money can buy and not money itself. Hence the insurance industry took hold. Through government cohesion with private companies, Blue Cross came out on top and became the primary benefit for most large companies. The rest is history.

Now government wants to solve the problem they helped create. Of course if you are a logical fellow, you understand that the only way to fix this problem is to figure out how to use the free market and remove insurance from the picture. People must SHOP for their health care in order for doctors to worry about what they are charging. There is no other possible way for the health care industry to become more efficient. There are other road blocks as well. Namely the AMA.

Please take a moment to read this article from the Mises Institute.

http://mises.org/daily/5066/The-Myth-of-FreeMarket-Healthcare

I hope I have explained how to fix the demand side of the health care problem. If not, I will spell it out. There are a few different ways to remove insurance from the picture. It will have to be done in steps. The best idea I have heard is for business to take the $14,000 per person average they spend on insurance (between what you and the company spend) and take $3,000 and spend it on catastrophic insurance (say you get cancer, etc...), Now you are covered only for the really serious health care issues (this is the actual purpose of insurance, not to buy your normal expenses), then take the other $11,000 and put it in an account for you. You use this $11,000 to buy all your normal health care expenses for the year. If there is money left over, its yours! If you spend more than the $11,000, guess what? Its yours! This will drive down costs. If will force you to think every time you purchase health care. The only argument opponents will have is that now people will curb much needed health care. That arguement means you dont know whats best for you, money or health care. If you want to buy into the argement, that fine. Just dont tell me I dont know whats best for me, because I do. (thats called Liberty, get it?)

The other aspect that needs to be fixed is the supply side of the issue. This is where the removal of the AMA's power comes in. Also the removal of government regulation in the health care industry. If a 5 year med school drop out wants to start a practice but charge 2/3 less money, so what. Get over the emotion of the debate. Is having unaffordable health care that the poor cant buy at all really better than having unregulated doctors in action? This is this idea that one must be an exact doctor by the states definition or he cant be anything. Imagine if we applied that logic in all sectors. You would have to be a master mechanic in order to change a tire. You must be a graduate cheif in order to flip burgers. You get the picture. We do allow this with small pieces of the health care industry, such as in the example of chiropratics (and dont think the AMA didnt fight that tooth and nail!), but it could be applied on a much broader scale if we could get the government out of the picture. This would massivlely expand the supply side of health care.

As a Libertarian, I believe that we should not even need a prescription (except in the case of anti-biotics, becuase you have the power to hurt someone else), but in all other cases, I believe you should have liberty to do as you see fit. its not the governments job to protect you from yourself. But this last paragraph is a debate for another day.

A Crime Against Democracy

Radical Tea Partier, Michelle Bauchman, nails it.

You heard the president this week offer an accommodation to the states to opt out of the individual mandate where necessary to tailor to their own states.  Why isn't that the sort of give the Republicans wanted?"

BACHMANN:  David, that's not a give at all.  In effect all that is is a pretext for implementing a single-payer plan.  If you recall the president's entire statement, he said, "The states can opt out as long as they stay within the requirements of all of Obamacare unless they want to go with single-payer plan."  Obamacare is a crime against democracy.  It has been a deception from the beginning.  Remember, the president told us it was a mandate, not a tax.  Now in the federal court he's arguing it's a tax, not a mandate.

Thomas Friedman and the Price of Gas

Once again, the Left admits their purpose in life to destroy the American way of life. Once again the Left admits their real purpose in gasoline prices. It is not about freedom folks. It is about despotism. Here is Thomas Friedman with Bob Schieffer.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Bill Daley, the White House chief of staff, said on Meet the Press this morning that one of the options now is to consider using oil from the Strategic Oil Reserve in order to bring down the price of gasoline in this country. Does that make sense to you?

THOMAS FRIEDMAN: That would rank in my top five worst ideas of 2011 so far. I think that there's one thing we should finally be doing is using this opportunity to have a credible energy policy that begins to reduce our addiction to oil.

Gasoline is almost $4 a gallon. We know that's a red line where people really start to change their behavior. At a minimum, I'd be talking about a tax that basically says we're going to keep it at $4. If it goes below we'll true it up, if it goes above that we're not going to touch it. Maybe say we're not going to implement it until 2012. So you signal people it's going to be coming, you don't change the – you don't harm the economy today but you get people to change their behavior.

Bob, if we don't to that, going forward the difference between a good day and a bad day for America is how the 86-year-old king of Saudi Arabia basically manages this reform process. That's where we're putting ourselves. We're putting ourselves in the hands of probably the most frail, antiquated regime in the Middle East. They will be setting your gas price.

I realize this still doesn't convince my "pragmatic" friends who really believe the earth needs to be saved. But as even Green Peace leaders have admitted, this is not about saving the earth. It is about destroying Capitalism. This is about controlling your behavior to the way they want you to live. If it were really about oil shortages, then why not drill? Oh wait! That solution leads to freedom, and we can't have that!

No Bias...Right?

Once again, the Media demonstrates their own bias. On the top of the hour news on my local AM station, it was reported that Reuters News headline stated, US Judge Refuses to Halt New Health Care Law. Now the obvious impression you get from this head line and the first paragraph is that Vinson is not really stopping Obama Care in his recent decision. Yet if you read the actual article, it states,

But U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson ordered the administration to seek an expedited appellate review within the next week of his Jan. 31 ruling that favored arguments by 26 states that the law's requirement that Americans buy health insurance starting in 2014 or pay a penalty was unconstitutional.

So in other words, Judge Vinson was forcing the Administration to follow his declaration. But as I argued before, the story goes on to admit that President Obama is in fact a lawless President when it states,

The Obama administration has said previously it would appeal the ruling and continue implementing the law...

So there you have it. President Obama was just going to continue as if Judge Vinson didn't exist. But later in the day, the headlines changed, once again, demonstrating their bias. See Reuters here.

US Judge May Escalate Battle Over Health Care Reform

Now this is insane. Judge Vinson is not escalating anything. We have a lawless President who is ignoring a Federal Judge's ruling. But when you read the first paragraph, you would think the ruling has not occurred yet.

A Florida judge could on Monday become the second U.S. judge to declare President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law unconstitutional, in the biggest legal challenge yet to federal authority to enact the law.

"Could on Monday"????? What in the world was the 78 page decision written a couple of weeks ago? As ABC News reported,

“It was not expected” he wrote, “that they would effectively ignore the order and declaratory judgment for two and one-half weeks, continue to implement the Act, and only then file a belated motion to “clarify.”

Not expected my rear end. Judge Vinson knew full well what Obama would do because he has already done it. Vinson however is (I believe) being very kind to President Obama. As the old saying goes, "Give a man enough rope, and he'll hang himself on it."

Mike Huckabee and Media Bias

If you Google Mike Huckabee and Kenya, you will find that one of today's big stories is how Mike Huckabee said that our President grew up in Kenya. Now the reality is that this story is a non-story, which I will explain in a moment. But it does illustrate that the Old/Liberal Media is as biased as any media. It demonstrates the arrogance of the Old Media's portrayal of itself as being unbiased.

I have become convinced over the years that the Framers of the Constitution's First Amendment never meant the idea that only one group of unbiased news paper reporters were somehow the Republic's protectors of democracy. Instead, the First Amendment was meant to protect a freedom of the press in order that all biases may be reported. So the idea that CNN or MSNBC are unbiased and the Guardians of our system is simply nothing short of arrogance.

Now for this illustration I am going to use the UK's Telegraph article simply because it is such a good example. The story quotes Huckabee as saying,

One thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, (is) very different than the average American

This is turn is used to discredit Huckabee's explanation of "Mr Obama's decision in 2009 to return a bust of former Prime Minister Winston Churchill." The story then goes on to say another negative about Huckabee by planting doubt in your mind about Huckabee's true motivation.

He failed to note that the bust was on loan from former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who offered it to President George W. Bush in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as a symbol of trans-Atlantic solidarity.

The very next sentence goes on to plant another doubt about Huckabee's motivation.

Mr Huckabee also did not mention that Mr Obama replaced the Oval Office fixture with a bust of one of his American heroes, President Abraham Lincoln.

So twice, Huckabee fails to note facts which the author of the story believes to be relevant.

Let's deal with the problems of hidden biases that really come from the Press, not Huckabee.

1) Please notice that the argument by Huckabee that President Obama has a dislike of the Brits is never refuted, but is in fact supported by the story itself.

...his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather. He probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather."

Mr Obama's grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, was detained in a 1952 uprising against British colonial rule in Kenya. Mr Huckabee said childhood stories of the Mau Mau rebellion would lead President Obama to want to return the bust of Churchill, who ordered a crackdown against that uprising.

So the real basis for Huckabee's assertion is sound. But after reading the story as a whole, the impression one gets is the opposite. That President Obama was not influenced by his father's or grandfather's stories of the Brits is completely passed over.

2) President Obama did send back that bust of Churchill because of the situation of his grandfather. No alternative explanation is offered in the story. The author tries to sound as if this was just done with no motivation by the President at all other than Obama wanting to have a bust of Lincoln in its place. But President Obama has snubbed the Brits in more ways than this.

Also, by what logic or sound reason links replacing the bust with one of President Lincoln? What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

3) The story makes Huckabee a bad guy by insinuating that Huckabee was purposely being deceptive by stating, "he failed to note". Well, in this very story the reporter does exactly that! The writer attempts to link Huckabee with "birthers" while admitting that Huckabee denies the accusation Obama was born in Kenya by stating,

Many conservative activists believe – and some have unsuccessfully filed lawsuits to prove – that Mr Obama is a Kenyan who does not meet the U.S. Constitution's citizenship requirement.

What this stories fails to point out that the first people to file a lawsuit on this was a Hillary Clinton supporter and lawyer! Yes, I dare say it. Hillary lawyer friends did this very thing. Yet even though the story mentions Hillary Clinton's campaign war machine, it never mentions or "fails to mention" Democrats doing this very thing.

4) The story does explain that President Obama lived in Indonesia from ages 5-10. What it fails to note is the ease of which a person could accidentally conflate President Obama's location from residing in Indonesia to Kenya. Think about it. How many stories have you heard that say Obama was born in Kenya. Now how many stories have spoken about Obama having lived in Indonesia.

Isn't it likely that Mike Huckabee simply conflated the locations? In fact, I have done the same thing in personal conversations. I was not trying to be deceptive, but those parts of world are not exactly familiar to most Americans, including me. Some of us are either geographically challenged or our memories just get old. So when the location of Kenya is mentioned over and over again, isn't Huckabee's mistake obvious?

In conclusion, what is this story all about? Why do we need an entire non-story about someone's memory and conflation of two locations in a distant part of the world? I'll leave that conclusion to you. But if times are tough on the guy you love and will do anything for, surely a good non-story turned story might just help.