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.
"They put drugs in their own body. Its no different then deciding to leave your seat belt off because you don't want to wear it, Its none of your business that someone else makes a poor decision."
ReplyDeleteI disagree with this statement in one sense. there is no such thing as pure individualism. all of our lives affect each others. The question you are raising is whether or not forcing someone to wear a seatbelt or it becomes a crime and how that relates to personal liberty.
So I don't reject your conclusion, nor your argumentation, for you clearly make that argument. You ask the right question. Is it the government's responsibility to forcibly take money from me because they think it is their business to invade my personal liberty and charge me with a crime that doesn't exist.
Of course, they would probably say, "It's my road, it's my rules."
Yes I agree there is no such thing as pure individualism. But there is a distinction between performing an act that exercises personal liberty without direct infringement on others liberty and performing an act that does infringe on others liberty.
ReplyDeleteIts this simple. To be a free society, you can do anything you want so long as it does not infringe on others freedom or property.
You say you disagree with my above statement. why? I could argue that if you dont have your seat belt on then there is a chance that in certain types of accident situations not having the seat belt could lesson your control of the car and thus make the accident worse or even cause it in the first place. Even if its never been proven, I could argue there is potential for it to happen. So I do see the two statements as the same.
The question is simply does drug use infringe on other peoples liberty or property? Someone could come up with crazy scenarios where drug induced people become crazy and then kill a whole town. Its basically the same thing with the seat belt. You would have to come up with some obscure situation that is not the norm.
But flip the coin. Does making drugs illegal infringe on peoples freedom or property. Yes it does both. To top it off, the crime it creates is very real and measurable. Almost all drug crime would be eliminated were it not illegal. Not only does the simple fact of drugs being illegal infringe on peoples liberty and property, but the crime it creates infringes on it as well. How many innocent people loose their lives to drug crime (both people involved in drugs and not involved)? How many people loose their personal property due to drug crime? How many are in prison?
I should be more clear. I do agree with you. I only disagree with the sense that it is none of our business in an absolute sense. For instance, when my coworker tells me that it is none of my business when he takes sick days off. however, first, it does affect me and my work load, especially if he is not actually sick. Second, it does affect me if he is abusing the system because the company I work for has changed policies due to people taking excessive sick time. This has directly affected how I take a sick day if I need to take one.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I was only saying I disagreed with the statement IN A SENSE. It really is none of my business if my co-worker takes a sick day. The question you are dealing with if whether what he does is a crime and can be regulated by the State. Under Obama Care, technically, it could be.
So I was only trying to differentiate between the idea that what my neighbor does is none of my business, yet when it comes to our actions, they always affect everyone else to some degree or other and whether I have the right to impose by force how that neighbor behaves. Based upon your argument, your solid reasoning is, "no".
I did want to speak to your seat belt example. As one who is in Fire/ Rescue and EMS, I have seen what not wearing seat belts can do. A few years ago, I had to scrape out of the mud a young woman that was ejected out of her car and was obviously killed. Her 7-year-old daughter, who was wearing her seat belt, survived the accident.
ReplyDeleteSo here is a great example of an action that left a 7 year old motherless and who now had to go live with her grand parents. Therefore, since she is now in the care of her grandparents, the grandparents are responsible financially (ie: transfer of property) for the grand-daughter.
Now the question still remains. Does the State have the right by force to make the young woman wear a seat belt? It now depends on the liberty question. Does not wearing the seat belt violate someone else's property/life? By approaching the question in that fashion, we could then come to a more solid answer than just saying it is safer for you as if the almighty state were our guardian.
I want to quickly comment on your first part of your new comments.
ReplyDeleteThis is precisely the reasons Libertarianism has not gained popularity to the extent it should.
I am in no way advocating drug use. Or am I an advocate for the people that use drugs. Libertarianism is STRICKLY a political view, not a moral one. I dont think people should use hard drugs. I know the damage they can do to people with addictive personalities. Dispite this, it is not the states place to tell me or anyone these things and to enforce their beliefs on me or anyone by force. This post and my point is strickly a political one. Sure actions like drug use can affect each other. But they do not affect a persons liberty. In other words, they are always free to stop the action from affecting them. If I used drugs it could hurt my wife and friends, but she is always free to leave me and so are my friends. When these cause and effects are regulated by the state rather than our spouses and our friends or community, this is what leads to serfdom. These cuase and effects of people on one another are the very fabric of our communities. We should be governed by our friends and family and appeal to God for authority. We do not need the state for anything except for protection.
Same exact thing with your seat belt example. I think you may have been going where the action of not wearing a seat belt could infringe on someones liberty or property. In your example it is not true. The grandparents have the freedom to not take custody of the 7 year old. Unlikely they would do that, but they still have their liberty and property completely in tact unless they make a choice to accept guardianship of the child.
The problem is that now that Americans have accepted the state not being libertarian, that they can regulate your actions just based on the fact they believe it right, we have exceeded the point of tyranny. They cant even claim Democracy (as they so like to do). In Massachucettes they enacted the seat belt law. The people got 10,000 signatures and got it as a referendum question. Then the people voted it out (pure democracy), then the state immediatly enacted the law again. The exact same process repeated itself. the people voted it out once more. The state again enacted the law. Our lovely state of serfodm just rolled over and accepted it. Twice the people repealled an unjust law, but the almightly elitist politician knew better. And the worst part is the very same serfs voted them right back in office after they wouldnt listen to the people.
The premise is this- How can a state claim to be for the people and by the people, and yet have the authority to govern things that pertain to "individual morality that does not impact other individuals liberty"? It is a logical contradiction. Their only purpose is protection and one could argue that dispute resolution is also a state function. Why doe one need the state for anything else. Unless of course, you fully acept the premise that people cannot successfully govern their own lives without killing themselves or others.
This is the main reason Liberals cling to the religion of global climate change. It gives them a premise that man will destroy other mens liberty if the state is not given authority to prevent it.
If one accepts Gods authority, he begins to recognize the state as the evil it is. All state! there is no such thing as a good government, only extreemly limited government, which by my definition, is just limited evil. If you must have evil in your life, best to minimize it and certainly not accept its authority.