How can you be for personal freedom and against it at the same time? Does the contradiction matter?
When recreational drugs are legal...
- Thread starter Bill Mattocks
- Start date
How can you be for personal freedom and against it at the same time? Does the contradiction matter?
That is the issue we're debating. It's not a side effect. If I'm respecting your property and not usung force against anyone, then why do you care? If you don't care, then why do you support prohibition?
I think those who are saying they don't want others 'controlling' their bodies are those who don't have to cope with the aftermath of drug taking and drinking. I don't care what people take either just like Bill, he's right though that when your drug/drink habit impinges on others then it becomes society's business. Smoke, pop, inject and drink as much as you like but put me and mine at risk then I promise you will pay and so says society.
Dealing with the effects of drink driving...I'm assuming that the breathalyser and fines etc is meant here but what about the other effects of drink/drugged driving? The deaths, the scars, the maiming caused by a drunk or drugged driver? To see the aftermath of the devastation caused by drugs and drink is to sometimes despair at the folly of the human race.You get into a car while drugged up and aim that car down the road and damn right I will control your body - right into a cell. You have a right to take what you want,you do not have a right to endanger others, it's as simply as that. Take your 'pleasure' in private and I don't believe anyone has the right to tell you what to do, commit crimes, if you put people at risk, harm people or behave in such an anti social way that you are a danger then no you don't have the right to do what you want. If you can't accept that as a price you pay for being part of a society then you should go live as a hermit or among people who don't care if you harm them. To live in a civilised society we have to make compromises, as Bill says we all have things we don't like or we do like and others don't but we can't blunder through selfishly demanding that what we want is the only thing that matters, not if we want to live in society and most of us want and need to, we are a social species.
Take what you like just don't involve anyone else in what you do.
You may not be doing harm but there's plenty who are, is the price of your freedom to ingest whatever you like to be at the cost of others lives?
OP
OP
It's not a contradiction. Absolute personal freedom means I get to do whatever I want. Living in society means there are limits on what I can do. There is a balance between the two. Some societies tilt more one way, some another. Ours offers pretty much the maximum in personal freedom, but still makes concessions to the needs of society. And I'm good with that.
OP
OP
Yes, it's a side-effect.
Because I do not care about you personally or what you do. I do care about what affects my society and me. If you get stoned all the time and steal to support your habit, you represent a threat to my safety and the safety of the rest of society. If drugs make you violent, you are a threat. I don't care what's in your body, I care about what you do when it's in your body or what you do to put it in your body.
I don't understand the question. I do not support prohibition (of alcohol). I do support prohibition of drugs. Contradiction? Yes. So sue me. I get to have opinions, even contradictory ones.
OP
OP
It's the eternal cry of the doper - they always think society is against them. It's not personal, all you crackheads and pot smokers. Nobody gives two figs about you, including if you live or die. All we care about is the damage you wreak on our society. Personal? No. I don't care if people pour Drano down their throats. I only care what they do once they've done that, or what they do in order to get their drug of choice. I don't care about any drug addict's personal choices about their body. If I did, I'd take objection to their Meth Mouth and their garish tattoos and their unsanitary piercings and their poor personal hygiene and their general lack of intelligence. But I don't, because I DO NOT CARE ABOUT THEM. I only care about how they harm the rest of us.
Dear drug addict - it's not about you, you prima dona. It isn't personal and never was. Get over yourself; you're not important enough for me to care what you do to get high.
Dear drug addict - it's not about you, you prima dona. It isn't personal and never was. Get over yourself; you're not important enough for me to care what you do to get high.
Gee! You close your eyes for 5 minutes and a thread goes ballistic. 
I just wiped out everything I wrote because I've said it all before and thought, I am not convincing anyone so why bother. We are in the trenches with our hard hats on and nobody's going nowhere soon. Keep up the good work chaps. :snipe:
I just wiped out everything I wrote because I've said it all before and thought, I am not convincing anyone so why bother. We are in the trenches with our hard hats on and nobody's going nowhere soon. Keep up the good work chaps. :snipe:
Is someone hurt every time someone takes a drink, smokes a joint, or takes a pill?
If one respects property rights and doesn't use force to get what they want, what more can you ask of them? What more do they owe society?
This contradiction matters, because it means that you have no control over your own body. This is a recipe for chaos and disaster. Society can allow or ban whatever it wants based on the strength of propaganda. It can force you to buy health care, it can force you to kill overseas, it can force you to die simply by procuring enough strength to make it so. If you are happy with this kind of society, that's your choice. Don't complain when it's whims turn against you.
OP
OP
Incorrect. I don't smoke, don't drink, and don't take recreational drugs. At all. None. My drug of choice is coffee.
Society could ban coffee. They could ban anything because you don't have control over body, the government controls it. Taken further, if you don't have control over your own body, you don't have any basis for property rights either. Anything could be taken ffrom you at any time simply because people want it. Without self-ownership, the might makes right...that is the philosophy you espouse with the acceptance of your contradiction.
pgsmith
Master of Arts
I am a firm believer in legalizing recreational drugs. However, the whole "you shouldn't control my body!" argument is ridiculous, extreme, and totally outside of today's reality. The only possible way for anyone to have total control of what they do with and put into their bodies is to go live by yourself on a deserted island. Living within the laws of society is a fact of life in our crowded world. To rail against it is simply whining, and does nobody's cause any good!
The things that bother me more than the chance that traffic fatalities will go up is the toll from our "war on drugs". I grew up across the border from Juarez, Mexico. It was a fun place to go and visit, although you could never forget that you were in Mexico. Today, Juarez is one of those cities in the center of the drug war violence, and nobody goes there if they have any choice. Over 10,000 people have been murdered because of the amount of illegal money involved. 10,000 people, in the city of Juarez alone! That is due almost entirely to the stepped up efforts of the U.S. to stop the drug trade. An effort that has resulted in no less drugs than before the war started, just a lot more deaths. The problem is that at this point, it is impossible to go back to where things were before all of the effort was expended in the 'war on drugs'. The criminals have become too rich and powerful. The only way left to stop the flow of blood is to legalize recreational drug use and start collecting taxes on it. Because of the efforts of the government to rally the people behind the 'war on drugs' for so many years, the option to legailze has been effectively removed from the table. So, I'm afraid that the violence will continue to escalate, and the costs to combat the criminals and their violence will continue to escalate. I prefer not to think too hard about where the cycle will end up, since I've discovered that I'm pretty much powerless to do anything about it.
P.S. Caffeine is a psychotropic recreational drug.
That is an emotional response driven by the media. Driving impaired in any way is an incredibly stupid thing to do, whether it is from being drunk, drugged, angry, or distracted. Only one third of the traffic fatalities in the U.S. involve drinking or drugs in any way. That means that 2/3 of the deaths, scars, and maiming are caused by idiots who shouldn't be driving a car, but nobody complains bitterly about the idiots.
The things that bother me more than the chance that traffic fatalities will go up is the toll from our "war on drugs". I grew up across the border from Juarez, Mexico. It was a fun place to go and visit, although you could never forget that you were in Mexico. Today, Juarez is one of those cities in the center of the drug war violence, and nobody goes there if they have any choice. Over 10,000 people have been murdered because of the amount of illegal money involved. 10,000 people, in the city of Juarez alone! That is due almost entirely to the stepped up efforts of the U.S. to stop the drug trade. An effort that has resulted in no less drugs than before the war started, just a lot more deaths. The problem is that at this point, it is impossible to go back to where things were before all of the effort was expended in the 'war on drugs'. The criminals have become too rich and powerful. The only way left to stop the flow of blood is to legalize recreational drug use and start collecting taxes on it. Because of the efforts of the government to rally the people behind the 'war on drugs' for so many years, the option to legailze has been effectively removed from the table. So, I'm afraid that the violence will continue to escalate, and the costs to combat the criminals and their violence will continue to escalate. I prefer not to think too hard about where the cycle will end up, since I've discovered that I'm pretty much powerless to do anything about it.
P.S. Caffeine is a psychotropic recreational drug.
Tgace
Grandmaster
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=11148
"Joseph A. Califano, Jr. is president of the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University in New York City. He was President Lyndon B. Johnson’s top aide for domestic affairs from 1965 to 1969 and Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare in the Carter Administration."
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"Joseph A. Califano, Jr. is president of the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University in New York City. He was President Lyndon B. Johnson’s top aide for domestic affairs from 1965 to 1969 and Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare in the Carter Administration."
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All arguments for decriminalization are rooted in self ownership. It's not silly at all.
Big Don
Sr. Grandmaster
CA courts routinely ban people convicted of DUI from consuming alcohol, with multiple tests per week
Crazy, violent people are crazy and violent regardless of what's legal and what's not. I grew up (almost) in the sixties, became a cop in the eighties and worked with juvenile offenders in between. People that kill will kill regardless of what laws are legislated.
If I had it my way, I'd pump marijuana smoke into every prison in the country. (After procuring the cookie concession in the prisons of course.) Then pump a ton of it into a session of congress. The youtube hits would be off the charts.
) in the sixties, became a cop in the eighties and worked with juvenile offenders in between. People that kill will kill regardless of what laws are legislated. If I had it my way, I'd pump marijuana smoke into every prison in the country. (After procuring the cookie concession in the prisons of course.) Then pump a ton of it into a session of congress. The youtube hits would be off the charts.
I'm too tired to make a cogent response to this now, it being 3:30 in the morning 
. I would just say that, for the most part, not all but most, there's a lot of emoting and shouting going on and not an awful lot of listening and understanding.
Even in my sleepy state I am surprised at the tangents and extremes posters are serving up in response to each other and pretending it's a rational discussion. Come along my forum comrades, you won't serve any purpose other than making each other angry carrying on so.
. I would just say that, for the most part, not all but most, there's a lot of emoting and shouting going on and not an awful lot of listening and understanding. Even in my sleepy state I am surprised at the tangents and extremes posters are serving up in response to each other and pretending it's a rational discussion. Come along my forum comrades, you won't serve any purpose other than making each other angry carrying on so.
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