On my alleged libertarianism
Here, I said:
if there’s one sure fire way to make anything worse, it’s to have the government either 1) regulate it or 2) ban it. Guaranteed.
I wrote that in haste and, well, obviously didn’t necessarily mean anything. Tom called me on it and said:
Yes, because lead-based paints are a far more pervasive problem than they ever were before the meddling government got involved…
There are, indeed, some things that the .gov ought to regulate. I think the more correct way to have phrased that would be:
If there’s one sure fire way to make any complex social issue worse, it’s to have the government either 1) regulate it or 2) ban it. Guaranteed.
I present as evidence: The war on civil liberties err drugs and prohibition. Discuss.
October 19th, 2006 at 1:39 pm
What’s the saying? A Liberal will legalize anything so long as you can tax and regulate it? Personally, I don’t like the War on Drugs, but I don’t know if I’m comfortable with Crystal Meth being sold in the gas station either. I’m for legalisation of drugs, but I do think there should be some regulation as to the content of what goes in them. Start with the Mary Jane, see how that works, and then move on to other drugs.
October 19th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
I challenge his base assertion, that lead based paints ever WERE a pervasive problem. There are a lot of countries that still use paints with far more lead in it that anyone did here, and I don’t see a problem with them producing any more mongoloids than our public education system does.
October 19th, 2006 at 2:09 pm
And the only regulation that I want to see on drugs is Descriptive Labeling regulations.
October 19th, 2006 at 2:11 pm
On drugs, I don’t think legalization is the answer. I think decriminalization is the answer. What’s the difference? You don’t officially legalize the sale of drugs, and in fact you can even leave such sales illegal. But possession is no longer a crime, and being under the influence is only a crime in circumstances similar to those for alcohol.
Oh, and we’ve absolutely GOT to stop “helping” other governments crack down on drugs. Colombia is a mess because of it, Afghanistan is a mess becuase of it, and we never seem to learn.
October 19th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
Lead-based paints make you Asian? Points for digging deep in the obscure slur well, there, Phelps…
October 19th, 2006 at 2:55 pm
I think the “war on drugs” has been a failure. It’s just another way that the government arrogates more power to itself and incrementally takes away more of our rights. Generally drugs should be legal while penailizing the behavior of those who abuse them and not forcing taxpayers to pay for the results of their abuse.
I view the “war on terror” in the same way. Our government should identify the enemy which uses terror and Congressionally declare war on that enemy and STOP LETTING THEM IN OUR COUNTRY!!
October 19th, 2006 at 3:31 pm
I’ll stand up for anyone’s right to snort lead based paint if they want to 😉
October 19th, 2006 at 5:06 pm
If anyone thinks decriminalization is a good idea, I entreat them to spend a week in Amsterdam where they have such laws.
If you legalize/decriminalize drugs then you’re going to make a new culture and social class: the stoner. You’d have to have some pretty ironclad work restrictions and allow for liberal testing and labor laws, too. Afterall, right now, if you get tested positive for pot or some other drug where I work, you’re fired on the spot. Decriminalize it, and it gets tougher to do.
Granted, one could easily say “who cares if my co-worker smokes pot or drops some acid white at home”. Sounds good, but what if you make pyrotechnics or explosives for a living? What about being a doctor, lawyer, or cop?
If you legalize drugs, you’ll make a sub-culture that can LEGALLY take drugs but may not be able to find a job that will let them work there.
Most jobs now drug test. No way you could get a normal job around West Tennessee if you’re a consistent drug user . . . save for public school teacher. We don’t test them. We just test . . . the bus drivers. Go figure.
October 19th, 2006 at 5:10 pm
Dude, we have all that now.
October 19th, 2006 at 5:40 pm
Not really. We have a bunch of druggies that can’t get jobs because they do illegal drugs. What happens when those drugs AREN’T illegal? How do businesses determine what drugs are okay?
Another thing. How do the police test for under the influence. Under the influence of WHAT? LOL!
October 19th, 2006 at 5:46 pm
I’d rather keep it illegal, but remove or reduce the laws allowing abuses. If you’re stupid enough to drive down i75 stoned off your arse, you deserve to be arrested. Same goes for someone memerized by the sound of grey while LSD takes its toll in the middle of a street or a mall.
On the other hand, you shouldn’t have your car confiscated, or your front door broken down.
To give the most obvious counter to SayUncle’s starting post, LSD was legal for a good few years before it came to national attention. During that time, the drug’s effects in recreational environments combined with memetic techniques caused essentially viral infection rates: some individuals exposed dozens, and in rare cases hundreds and even thousands, to the drug. In addition to the cliche of a bad trip, those exposed often had life-changing mood changes that became permanent, and yet others would have recurring effects of the drug even without a dose of it. The societal effects of widespread LSD usage are incalcuable, with medicinal use being minimal. Comparatively, since the ban on LSD, the drug has nearly disappeared, and outside of occassion and quickly-stopped large-scale distributors, it’s not considered a notable threat.
October 19th, 2006 at 7:26 pm
You know, alot of these problems would solve themselves if the Feds would start paying attention to the 9th and 10th Amendments. If the people of California wanted to legalize the production and distribution of pot entirely within state borders, then the people of CA should be allowed to do it. As long as it doesn’t cross state lines, the Feds should have no authority to regulate or tax it.
As conservative/libertarian that I might be, Congress does have a constitutional authority to regulate pollution and lead in paint. Air and water pollution usually cross state lines, thus making it a national, not a state, issue. And paint that is manufactured in one state and shipped to others automatically falls under the Interstate Commerce Clause.
You could, according to the example mentioned above, have a manufacturer of “extra leaded” paint who could legally sell and ship it only within the state where it was made, but it’s doubtful many people nowadays would buy it.
October 19th, 2006 at 7:30 pm
Drug possession is not a good example when you are debating individual responsibility vs. government responsibility, which is what ALL these questions boil down to.
Our Founders proposed a State where the individual was the King, as opposed to the Colonial case were the King was Everything (“Le Roi est L’etat”). They wrote a somewhat imperfect Constitution that tried it’s best to ingrain the idea of Individual Responsibility. The Federalist Papers are full of essays that extoll the value of the Federal power, but ALWAYS leave the actual responsibility for ALL behavior in the hands of the individual citizen.
Since the days of the Founders, those who want less responsibility for individual behaviors (started with Andy Jackson and the early Democrats) have mounted a consistent campaign to force the Federal government to accept responsibilities that the Founders clearly wanted the individual citizen to retain, forever.
The founders would have known how to deal with stoners: they wouldn’t have barged into their homes and taken their dope away, but they would have allowed the stoners’ bosses to fire them at will, and would NOT have shouted from the pulpits that the congregations MUST pungle up for their support. They would have just let the stoners to rot in the gutter, as they did the enebriates, and jail them if they became a nuisance to passers-by or daily commerce.
October 19th, 2006 at 8:19 pm
I’m all for legalizing marijuana. You can smoke pot and still go to college, have a job, and carry out adult responsibilities.
With hard drugs (like heroin and crack cocaine) that just isn’t true. So people who get addicted wind up being wards of the state in one capacity or another – welfare, prison, Social Security disability, etc. So society has a legitimate interest in regulating those drugs.
I do think it’s crazy that in some places you can get 10 years in prison for possessing crack. Some of the drug laws are ridiculous.
October 19th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
You can get fired for being drunk on the job, and alcohol is legal. Being stoned would be just as quick a route to the unemployment line.
October 19th, 2006 at 9:48 pm
Sure lead based paints are illegal, as is asbestos. Both are pretty much proven health hazards. But still there is a negative side to the ban. Lawyers are still going after paint and asbestos companies for all they can squeeze. And the ban on 5 gallon toilets created a bootlegging industry of people bringing in “illegal” toilets from canada.
October 20th, 2006 at 12:46 am
I like to think that regulation is that democratic comfort zone between those who absolutely trust liberty and those who have no trust in liberty at all.
Prohibition is the absolute lack of regulation of markets where the government cedes all regulation to the gun toting self regulation of addicts, gangsters and predators. I recently had the following letter published in my local newspaper regarding a special legislative session on guns and violence here in Pennsylvania.
Conservative economists tell us that over-regulation stifles profitable market growth. The totally unregulated black market for drugs proves this to be true.
October 20th, 2006 at 8:34 am
Beerslurpy . . . you’re right, but you can test for booze. The problem with hard drugs is that they stay in the system, and it’s impossible to test for them.
For example, someone gets hurt at work, and they go tot he hospital. The drug test comes back positive for crack, pot, and meth. The worker insists that he/she only does that at home. How do you prove otherwise?
Also, do you want a person who regularly takes LSD to run the fork lift that carries the black powder into the drying oven?
It’s like many things in this world. It all SOUNDS good . . . until you try to make it work.
October 20th, 2006 at 2:36 pm
Ravenwood:
But still there is a negative side to the ban. Lawyers are still going after paint and asbestos companies for all they can squeeze.
And the absence of a ban would change this exactly how? And in fact, big-L Libertarians tend to argue that the threat of such lawsuits would be a better deterrent than government bans would. Such an argument doesn’t withstand even cursory scrutiny, but that’s what they argue.
October 20th, 2006 at 4:11 pm
Dude, when you show up to work drunk, they dont give you a breathalyzer. They just say “gosh, bob sure is slurring his speech and stumbling into cabinets today” or “wow nancy is acting kinda stoned in that meeting” and bingo youre in a meeting with HR and then youre canned. By the same token, I could have a couple of beers during lunch and go comletely undetected if the quality of my work didnt suffer. This is how things already work today. There is no need to make it work.
Everything bad you can say about drug-induced hazards is the WORST with alcohol- it slows reactions and weakens judgment while giving the user a sense of overconfidence in their abilities.
With pot, the user is greatly slowed, but they are made overly aware of their impairment by the drug. In the Australian “stoned driver” tests (using simulators) drunk users tended to drive faster than normal and unseafely while stoned users tended to drive slower than the control group and overcompensate for their impairment. Drugs like cocaine and meth greatly increase reaction time (although they produce other severe and readily noticeable symptoms).
The objections that are being raised to the legalization of weed could all be raised to the legalization of alcohol, but our society copes perfectly well with the occaisional alcohol abuser.
October 20th, 2006 at 6:00 pm
“You can smoke pot and still go to college, have a job, and carry out adult responsibilities. With hard drugs (like heroin and crack cocaine) that just isn’t true.”
*cough* William Halsted
“…people who get addicted wind up being wards of the state in one capacity or another – welfare, prison, Social Security disability, etc. So society has a legitimate interest in regulating those drugs.”
Assuming “society” exists, which it doesn’t, this argument can be applied to anything someone doesn’t like. The proper answer is to eliminate and minimize the stealing of money, so that you are not forced to pay for the mistakes and poor judgment of other, less responsible individuals.