Thread: Barney Frank Bailout Bill (H.R. 4173)

Originally Posted by TexasBorn

Judy, it's great that you have passion, although misplaced in my opinion. Your idea of legalizing might make sense in a perfect world, with perfect parents, perfect schools, perfect regulations and perfect drug users. However, if there is only one bit of wisdom that I've managed to hang onto in all my years it's Murphy Law and the law of unintended consequences. Cities like "Amsterdamned" with it's needle park ignored Murphy and are painfully still in the throes of learning those "unintended consequences". There's a reason the U.S. became the greatest country on earth and it wasn't because we compromised our social values by allowing creeping liberalism to take hold.

Originally Posted by Judy

Originally Posted by TexasBorn

Originally Posted by Judy

Originally Posted by TexasBorn

"...In fact, most drug users aren't doing anything at all that harms or damages anyone except themselves..."

Highly debatable. Family members, employers and friends might come to a different conclusion.

If we legalize/regulate/tax the illegal drug industry, then we can control the products, the sales, and use the taxes drug users pay to better education the public on the risk and consequences of using drugs and provide free rehabilitation for anyone who needs or wants it using no one's dimes but their own, which would be a vast improvement over the current situation.

Just exactly who is the "we" who would be doing the regulation? Government?? Let me sleep on that one after I've had a good laugh and an involuntary stomach purge

Prohibition drove alcohol sales underground and criminal. But people still drank, got drunk, got arrested, committed crimes, killed people and destroyed families. Prohibition was lifted, the trade was "regulated" but people still drank, got drunk, got arrested, committed crimes, killed people and destroyed families. See a pattern here?

Legalize drugs? Look to places like "Amsterdamned" to get some answers as to how this wonderful experiment has worked out. Sorry, that's not the kind of place I want to live and raise my kids and I think a majority of American families would agree with me.

Let's not kid ourselves by ignoring cause and effect. The effect on ordinary Americans will still be the same, regulated or not. The unintended consequences? Children will get the message that it must be ok since it's legal, just like booze. Judy, people are tired of the gradual and insidious encroachment on their moral and religious values and sometimes one has to draw a line in the sand and say no more.

The "we" would be government regulators much the way we regulate the pharmaceutical industry that regulates the production, distribution and sales of prescription medicines coupled with the way we regulate alcohol and tobacco products.

No one is killing anyone in the United States over buying or selling alcohol, and no neighborhood, school, apartment building, park, street corner or alley is under the siege of alcohol gangs controlled by criminal foreign alcohol cartels.

No one is encroaching on anyone's moral or religious values by legalizing, regulating and taxing the illegal drug trade and legalization won't impact children in a negative way at all. In fact, it will make drugs much harder for them to get and they'll be more educated about the risk and consequences before they use because part of the taxes collected will be used to do just that, and if they do get them, the drugs will be safer made with proper mixes so they don't accidentally overdose, and parents will have free counseling, medical care and rehabilitation to deal with it properly.

As to employers, employers can still drug test if they want to. Nothing in legalization will change an employers right to random drug tests. Although, a couple of years ago when I was doing research on this, there was a national OSHA study that shocked the researchers that showed no link between drug use and work-place accidents.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one, TexasBorn. I don't understand why people are attracted to drugs, but the fact is a certain percentage of our population is, and the best moral and Christian thing we as a society can do, is ensure a legal safe American controlled-trade, that's regulated by quality, quantity and age, using a civil code of regulations instead of a criminal code. To me there is nothing Christian or moral in sending someone to prison and totally ruining their lives because they used or sold drugs to consenting adults, and that's assuming you didn't kill them in a drug raid before they even got their day in court. The War on Drugs is what's immoral and when you learn what is actually happening to these poor people because of the War on Drugs, I believe you'll agree with me.

www.leap.cc

Judy, you missed two key points:

1. The effect of drugs on the human body will always be the same, illegal or not.

2. You have ignored the law of unintended consequences and this is where I believe that your arguments fly off into lala land. Too many opinions and speculation on what might/could/should happen in the event that drugs become legalized. There is a reason that there hasn't been a national outcry to legalize dangerous drugs...the common sense of everyday citizens. People instinctively know the dangers of opening pandora's box and how hard it is to close once the genie is out.

You say ..."there is nothing Christian or moral in sending someone to prison and totally ruining their lives because they used or sold drugs to consenting adults..."

There are two major flaws in this argument:

1. It isn't immoral to punish someone for breaking the law of the land. Without laws and the enforcement thereof, we have anarchy. Why should someone knowingly selling or possessing illegal drugs be given a pass?? Nonsensical in the extreme.

2. Also, how can one reasonably assume that someone won't sell a potentially deadly drug to children? Of course the answer is "we can't".

NO AMNESTY & NO DRUGS.

No, you don't understand. After legalization, the drugs will be legal, regulated, monitored, controlled. What people do to their own bodies is up to them, TexasBorn. We're a free nation of free people. If people want to eat themselves to death, they can. If they want to kill themselves, they can. If they want to be addicted to prescription medications, they can. The number one selling pharmaceutical in the US with much higher addiction rates and far greater consequences are anti-depressants and Gaba drugs, not marijuana or cocaine or even heroin.

Yes, we can reasonably assume that legal licensed regulated monitored retailers will not sell these drugs to children. It will still be illegal to sell to children, same as it is today.

It's up to parents to make sure their kids don't use drugs. They won't be able to buy it from the legal industry. The amount distributed at any one time to a customer will be regulated by quantity so they won't have much to "sell" to children should they be so inclined and there'll be no profit in it for them. So it's going to be much more difficult for children to get their hands on these drugs than it is now. Hopefully parents will see the opportunity this affords them to better manage their own children and make sure they know where they are, what they're doing and who they're doing it with. That's the responsibility of parents, not society. If parents don't do a good job as some won't, then this program provides better education, free counseling, free medical care and free rehabilitation for the children. All the parent has to do is drive them to the center or if the child is old enough to get themselves there, then just walk in and they'll find a full-range of assistance and care.

TexasBorn, I know it's hard to come to grips with the reality of what can and can not be done. But no longer are careless parents who let their children run wild unattended to a reasonable excuse for making adults who for whatever reason what to smoke pot or snort cocaine or whatever into criminals and steal their liberty and destroy their lives and the lives of their family. Mind your own family, your own kids and let everyone else mind theirs. Then amongst the drug users who again for whatever reason choose to use can take care of themselves with the portion of the FairTaxes they alone pay to regulate the trade in a safe manner and seek free counseling, free medical care and free rehabilitation for anyone of them who wants or needs it. They alone paid for it, so it's theirs alone to use the services as they see fit or deem necessary.

The War on Drugs and what we do to our fellow citizens in the "name of the children" and "our bodies", is immoral, unChristian and unAmerican. The drug laws are unjust laws, TexasBorn, just like slavery laws were unjust laws, and born of evil. The War on Drugs set of drug laws exist to enrich prison owners and operators, lawyers, prosecutors, law enforcement, judges, politicians and businesses who serve these special interests. When a society has run so far amok that it thinks sending a 12 person armed SWAT TEAM into a private home to "look for marijuana growing in the home" and end up killing the occupant, it's time to ditch the laws that authorize such an evil racist absurdity in a free nation of free people.

Blacks are arrested and incarcerated 7 to 1 when they are only 12% of our population and use drugs at the same rates as whites, and less than whites in certain categories such as pregnant women.

The War on Drugs is a racist, evil, futile, pointless failure that benefits no one except the foreign cartels and their Paypals here in the states who profit from an underworld black market illegal drug trade managed with guns and violence instead of a legal industry regulated under a rule of law that society can abide.

We became the greatest country in the world when Americans were free to smoke tobacco, use drugs, drink alcohol, and pretty much anything else they wanted to do until they hurt another person or damaged or stole their property.

It was republicanism that founded the United States and advanced every cause we hold dear as Americans because of its liberalism. Today, the term "liberal" means liberal spender, not liberal believer, and has been unfortunately twisted to refer to authoritarian socialists. Our founders were Radical Republicans who conceived liberalism, the people who fought in the American Revolution like my great-great-great grandfather were liberals, the people who founded the Republican Party were liberals like my great grandfather who joined the Union Army to risk his life to free the slaves, one of the almost 2 million volunteers who fought that war for the United States who did likewise.

"Republican ideology in the United States
"Main article: Republicanism in the United States

"In recent years a debate has developed over its role in the American Revolution and in the British radicalism of the eighteenth century. For many decades the consensus was that liberalism, especially that of John Locke, was paramount and that republicanism had a distinctly secondary role.[3]

"The new interpretations were pioneered by J.G.A. Pocock who argued in The Machiavellian Moment (1975) that, at least in the early eighteenth-century, republican ideas were just as important as liberal ones. Pocock's view is now widely accepted.[4]. Bernard Bailyn and Gordon Wood pioneered the argument that the American Founding Fathers were more influenced by republicanism than they were by liberalism. Cornell University Professor Isaac Kramnick, on the other hand, argues that Americans have always been highly individualistic and therefore Lockean.[5]

"In the decades before the American Revolution (1776), the intellectual and political leaders of the colonies studied history intently, looking for guides or models for good (and bad) government. They especially followed the development of republican ideas in England.[6] Pocock explained the intellectual sources in America:[7]

" "The Whig canon and the neo-Harringtonians, John Milton, James Harrington and Sidney, Trenchard, Gordon and Bolingbroke, together with the Greek, Roman, and Renaissance masters of the tradition as far as Montesquieu, formed the authoritative literature of this culture; and its values and concepts were those with which we have grown familiar: a civic and patriot ideal in which the personality was founded in property, perfected in citizenship but perpetually threatened by corruption; government figuring paradoxically as the principal source of corruption and operating through such means as patronage, faction, standing armies (opposed to the ideal of the militia), established churches (opposed to the Puritan and deist modes of American religion) and the promotion of a monied interest — though the formulation of this last concept was somewhat hindered by the keen desire for readily available paper credit common in colonies of settlement. A neoclassical politics provided both the ethos of the elites and the rhetoric of the upwardly mobile, and accounts for the singular cultural and intellectual homogeneity of the Founding Fathers and their generation."

"The commitment of most Americans to these republican values made inevitable the American Revolution, for Britain was increasingly seen as corrupt and hostile to republicanism, and a threat to the established liberties the Americans enjoyed.[8]

"Leopold von Ranke 1848 claims that American republicanism played a crucial role in the development of European liberalism,[9]:

" By abandoning English constitutionalism and creating a new republic based on the rights of the individual, the North Americans introduced a new force in the world. Ideas spread most rapidly when they have found adequate concrete expression. Thus republicanism entered our Romanic/Germanic world.... Up to this point, the conviction had prevailed in Europe that monarchy best served the interests of the nation. Now the idea spread that the nation should govern itself. But only after a state had actually been formed on the basis of the theory of representation did the full significance of this idea become clear. All later revolutionary movements have this same goal…. This was the complete reversal of a principle. Until then, a king who ruled by the grace of God had been the center around which everything turned. Now the idea emerged that power should come from below.... These two principles are like two opposite poles, and it is the conflict between them that determines the course of the modern world. In Europe the conflict between them had not yet taken on concrete form; with the French Revolution it did."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republicanism

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"Liberalism (from the Latin liberalis, "of freedom; worthy of a free man, gentlemanlike, courteous, generous"[1]) is the belief in the importance of individual freedom. This belief is widely accepted today throughout the world, and was recognized as an important value by many philosophers throughout history. The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote praising "the idea of a polity administered with regard to equal rights and equal freedom of speech, and the idea of a kingly government which respects most of all the freedom of the governed".[2]

"Modern liberalism has its roots in the Age of Enlightenment and rejects many foundational assumptions that dominated most earlier theories of government, such as the Divine Right of Kings, hereditary status, and established religion. John Locke is often credited with the philosophical foundations of modern liberalism. He wrote "no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions."[3]

"In the 17th Century, liberal ideas began to influence governments in Europe, in nations such as The Netherlands, Switzerland, England and Poland, but they were strongly opposed, often by armed might, by those who favored absolute monarchy and established religion. In the 18th Century, in America, the first modern liberal state was founded, without a monarch or a hereditary aristocracy.[4] The American Declaration of Independence includes the words (which echo Locke) "all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to insure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."[5]

"Liberalism comes in many forms. According to John N. Gray, the essence of liberalism is toleration of different beliefs and of different ideas as to what constitutes a good life.[6]

.......

"In the United States, there were two major liberal revolutions in the 19th Century, the first political, the second leading to Civil War. In 1829, populist candidate and war hero Andrew Jackson was elected to the first of two terms as the 7th president of the United States. During the era of Jacksonian democracy, the franchise was extended to include, for the first time, all White adult male citizens. Jackson also attempted to change economic policy in the direction of laissez-faire economics, in what came to be known as the "Bank War".[36] Jacksonian democracy came to an end during turmoil surrounding the anti-slavery movement. Before the Civil War, in the North as well as the South, Blacks were not allowed to vote, to serve on juries, to go to school, to testify in court in any case involving a White person, or to hold public office. The Civil War led to the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed those slaves in states in rebellion, and to the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the US Constitution, which abolished slavery throughout the United States, and extended equal rights to people of all races, in theory if not always in practice.[37]"

-------

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism

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It wasn't social conservatism that built our country. It was radical, republican liberalism. It's why we're free, it's why we became the greatest nation on earth. But in America, we've always had our political ideologicals couched and most times correctly with decent civil bahvior and economic pragmatism. It's why we have welcomed legal immigrants, but have laws against illegal immigrants. It's why we have free markets and free trade, couched by regulations and protectionism.

It's the same with the illegal drug business policies. These policies have failed because we abandoned our political ideology and used cruel unAmerican, anti-liberty authoritarian means to deal with it. If we return to our political ideology and let freedom ring, but couch it with regulations and protectionism, we will succeed in managing an industry for its rightful goal, to ensure the safety of the product, to protect consumers, to regulate the business, protect it within our borders, and of course tax it, then we can pragmatically use the tax revenue paid by those who consume the products to pay for the regulations, pay for the education of the risk and consequences of using (to avoid those unintended consequences), and fund the public purpose which is to help those who need our assistance through free on-demand without stigma counseling, medical care and rehabilitation for anyone who wants or needs it. When extended beyond the regulation of an industry to authoritarinism of an industry and took a legal liberty away creating an dark, sinister, cruel and violent industry ... we let our citizens and nation down. It's an "epic fail" because we abandoned the very principles that our county was founded upon and have been the proven ones that made the United States the Dream of the World.

It's time to get back to our real roots and that is legalization to restore liberty, regulation to impose the economic pragmatism we're famous for, and taxes on the transactions under the FairTax, which provides a share of running our government like any other product but with an ear-mark for paying for the known consequences which is the need for free on demand counseling, medical care and rehabilitation.

When we stray from our concept of a free people in a free nation, we always fail. When we stick to our concept of a free people in a free nation purchasing regulated products in a protected industry, then we always succeed. Our own history proves this program will work.

As to Amsterdam, there's been publicity about the use of drugs in public view and public spaces and what happened to a park there. Legalizing drugs won't allow the use of the drugs in public view or public spaces. One of the regulations will be confinement of use to private homes and private spaces, not in areas where the public would be. There may be some of that, but we have a lot of that now in certain areas of the United States already. When it's legal to use in your own private space like at home, then people won't be out on the streets in alleyways free to run and hide for smoking pot.

I think it will work much better, the whole industry will be much safer in every respect, there will be no violence or hard crime related to drugs, no one will go to prison, no one will be shot, no one will die from an accidental overdose because the mix/cut wasn't right, people will be better informed and education which will reduce over time some of the heavy drug use, there will be no more cross-border activity associated with the illegal drug trade, and most importantly, we won't be violating anyone's civil rights or infringing upon their liberty, instead we will be helping them to make better choices, be more careful, and if they aren't, then we stand ready with programs they paid for to provide them the quality professional help they need.

Eventually, the allure of drugs will wane over-time. In the meantime, no one is killed or arrested, everyone's making some money, the illegal aliens running this criminal enterprise now will be shut out of the business and run back where they came from, and the people who need help will get it.

And that my friend, is the best we can do for our fellow citizens, within the confines of our Constitution and political ideology as free people in a free nation, just like our founding fathers would have wanted and hoped we'd do.

Judy, my head is spinning from the long diatribe for drug legalization. If I didn't know better I would almost swear that this was written by our silver tongued, empty suit of a socialist President, Obama. I don't even know where to begin so I will just simply say a silent prayer for the loss of common sense and the moral compass of so many of our citizens. Legalization and subsequent federal regulation of drugs would ultimately end up as another tax or unwanted burden upon every income earning citizen in the country. No thanks. Got enough of that. If dope smoking, drug popping people want to organize and help out their fellow drug users then let THEM foot the bill and pay for the outcome. If the citizens of this country wanted to legalize drugs then they would have been already available in your local 7-11. Thank goodness common sense prevailed. People are SICK of being pushed toward an immoral, drug enhanced, social free for all. If the wacked out liberals had their way in this country we would all end up becoming slobbering, destitute, fornicating vegetables living in the gutter and waiting for the next handout or drug fix from the government. Drug use is NOT victimless be it legal or not. Wanna do drugs or smoke dope? Go ahead, do it in your own home, roll the dice but don't expect other people to subsidize your personal choices. To quote Forrest Gump...that's all I've got to say about that.


[quote=Judy][quote=TexasBorn]Judy, it's great that you have passion, although misplaced in my opinion. Your idea of legalizing might make sense in a perfect world, with perfect parents, perfect schools, perfect regulations and perfect drug users. However, if there is only one bit of wisdom that I've managed to hang onto in all my years it's Murphy Law and the law of unintended consequences. Cities like "Amsterdamned" with it's needle park ignored Murphy and are painfully still in the throes of learning those "unintended consequences". There's a reason the U.S. became the greatest country on earth and it wasn't because we compromised our social values by allowing creeping liberalism to take hold.

Originally Posted by Judy

Originally Posted by TexasBorn

Originally Posted by Judy

Originally Posted by TexasBorn":2amaibxh]"...In fact, most drug users aren't doing anything at all that harms or damages anyone except themselves..."

Highly debatable. Family members, employers and friends might come to a different conclusion.

If we legalize/regulate/tax the illegal drug industry, then we can control the products, the sales, and use the taxes drug users pay to better education the public on the risk and consequences of using drugs and provide free rehabilitation for anyone who needs or wants it using no one's dimes but their own, which would be a vast improvement over the current situation.

Just exactly who is the "we" who would be doing the regulation? Government?? Let me sleep on that one after I've had a good laugh and an involuntary stomach purge;)

Prohibition drove alcohol sales underground and criminal. But people still drank, got drunk, got arrested, committed crimes, killed people and destroyed families. Prohibition was lifted, the trade was "regulated" but people still drank, got drunk, got arrested, committed crimes, killed people and destroyed families. See a pattern here?

Legalize drugs? Look to places like "Amsterdamned" to get some answers as to how this wonderful experiment has worked out. Sorry, that's not the kind of place I want to live and raise my kids and I think a majority of American families would agree with me.

Let's not kid ourselves by ignoring cause and effect. The effect on ordinary Americans will still be the same, regulated or not. The unintended consequences? Children will get the message that it must be ok since it's legal, just like booze. Judy, people are tired of the gradual and insidious encroachment on their moral and religious values and sometimes one has to draw a line in the sand and say no more.[/quote]

The "we" would be government regulators much the way we regulate the pharmaceutical industry that regulates the production, distribution and sales of prescription medicines coupled with the way we regulate alcohol and tobacco products.

No one is killing anyone in the United States over buying or selling alcohol, and no neighborhood, school, apartment building, park, street corner or alley is under the siege of alcohol gangs controlled by criminal foreign alcohol cartels.

No one is encroaching on anyone's moral or religious values by legalizing, regulating and taxing the illegal drug trade and legalization won't impact children in a negative way at all. In fact, it will make drugs much harder for them to get and they'll be more educated about the risk and consequences before they use because part of the taxes collected will be used to do just that, and if they do get them, the drugs will be safer made with proper mixes so they don't accidentally overdose, and parents will have free counseling, medical care and rehabilitation to deal with it properly.

As to employers, employers can still drug test if they want to. Nothing in legalization will change an employers right to random drug tests. Although, a couple of years ago when I was doing research on this, there was a national OSHA study that shocked the researchers that showed no link between drug use and work-place accidents.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one, TexasBorn. I don't understand why people are attracted to drugs, but the fact is a certain percentage of our population is, and the best moral and Christian thing we as a society can do, is ensure a legal safe American controlled-trade, that's regulated by quality, quantity and age, using a civil code of regulations instead of a criminal code. To me there is nothing Christian or moral in sending someone to prison and totally ruining their lives because they used or sold drugs to consenting adults, and that's assuming you didn't kill them in a drug raid before they even got their day in court. The War on Drugs is what's immoral and when you learn what is actually happening to these poor people because of the War on Drugs, I believe you'll agree with me.

[url="http://www.leap.cc

www.leap.cc[/url]

Judy, you missed two key points:

1. The effect of drugs on the human body will always be the same, illegal or not.

2. You have ignored the law of unintended consequences and this is where I believe that your arguments fly off into lala land. Too many opinions and speculation on what might/could/should happen in the event that drugs become legalized. There is a reason that there hasn't been a national outcry to legalize dangerous drugs...the common sense of everyday citizens. People instinctively know the dangers of opening pandora's box and how hard it is to close once the genie is out.

You say ..."there is nothing Christian or moral in sending someone to prison and totally ruining their lives because they used or sold drugs to consenting adults..."

There are two major flaws in this argument:

1. It isn't immoral to punish someone for breaking the law of the land. Without laws and the enforcement thereof, we have anarchy. Why should someone knowingly selling or possessing illegal drugs be given a pass?? Nonsensical in the extreme.

2. Also, how can one reasonably assume that someone won't sell a potentially deadly drug to children? Of course the answer is "we can't".

NO AMNESTY & NO DRUGS.

No, you don't understand. After legalization, the drugs will be legal, regulated, monitored, controlled. What people do to their own bodies is up to them, TexasBorn. We're a free nation of free people. If people want to eat themselves to death, they can. If they want to kill themselves, they can. If they want to be addicted to prescription medications, they can. The number one selling pharmaceutical in the US with much higher addiction rates and far greater consequences are anti-depressants and Gaba drugs, not marijuana or cocaine or even heroin.

Yes, we can reasonably assume that legal licensed regulated monitored retailers will not sell these drugs to children. It will still be illegal to sell to children, same as it is today.

It's up to parents to make sure their kids don't use drugs. They won't be able to buy it from the legal industry. The amount distributed at any one time to a customer will be regulated by quantity so they won't have much to "sell" to children should they be so inclined and there'll be no profit in it for them. So it's going to be much more difficult for children to get their hands on these drugs than it is now. Hopefully parents will see the opportunity this affords them to better manage their own children and make sure they know where they are, what they're doing and who they're doing it with. That's the responsibility of parents, not society. If parents don't do a good job as some won't, then this program provides better education, free counseling, free medical care and free rehabilitation for the children. All the parent has to do is drive them to the center or if the child is old enough to get themselves there, then just walk in and they'll find a full-range of assistance and care.

TexasBorn, I know it's hard to come to grips with the reality of what can and can not be done. But no longer are careless parents who let their children run wild unattended to a reasonable excuse for making adults who for whatever reason what to smoke pot or snort cocaine or whatever into criminals and steal their liberty and destroy their lives and the lives of their family. Mind your own family, your own kids and let everyone else mind theirs. Then amongst the drug users who again for whatever reason choose to use can take care of themselves with the portion of the FairTaxes they alone pay to regulate the trade in a safe manner and seek free counseling, free medical care and free rehabilitation for anyone of them who wants or needs it. They alone paid for it, so it's theirs alone to use the services as they see fit or deem necessary.

The War on Drugs and what we do to our fellow citizens in the "name of the children" and "our bodies", is immoral, unChristian and unAmerican. The drug laws are unjust laws, TexasBorn, just like slavery laws were unjust laws, and born of evil. The War on Drugs set of drug laws exist to enrich prison owners and operators, lawyers, prosecutors, law enforcement, judges, politicians and businesses who serve these special interests. When a society has run so far amok that it thinks sending a 12 person armed SWAT TEAM into a private home to "look for marijuana growing in the home" and end up killing the occupant, it's time to ditch the laws that authorize such an evil racist absurdity in a free nation of free people.

Blacks are arrested and incarcerated 7 to 1 when they are only 12% of our population and use drugs at the same rates as whites, and less than whites in certain categories such as pregnant women.

The War on Drugs is a racist, evil, futile, pointless failure that benefits no one except the foreign cartels and their Paypals here in the states who profit from an underworld black market illegal drug trade managed with guns and violence instead of a legal industry regulated under a rule of law that society can abide.

We became the greatest country in the world when Americans were free to smoke tobacco, use drugs, drink alcohol, and pretty much anything else they wanted to do until they hurt another person or damaged or stole their property.

It was republicanism that founded the United States and advanced every cause we hold dear as Americans because of its liberalism. Today, the term "liberal" means liberal spender, not liberal believer, and has been unfortunately twisted to refer to authoritarian socialists. Our founders were Radical Republicans who conceived liberalism, the people who fought in the American Revolution like my great-great-great grandfather were liberals, the people who founded the Republican Party were liberals like my great grandfather who joined the Union Army to risk his life to free the slaves, one of the almost 2 million volunteers who fought that war for the United States who did likewise.

"Republican ideology in the United States
"Main article: Republicanism in the United States

"In recent years a debate has developed over its role in the American Revolution and in the British radicalism of the eighteenth century. For many decades the consensus was that liberalism, especially that of John Locke, was paramount and that republicanism had a distinctly secondary role.[3]

"The new interpretations were pioneered by J.G.A. Pocock who argued in The Machiavellian Moment (1975) that, at least in the early eighteenth-century, republican ideas were just as important as liberal ones. Pocock's view is now widely accepted.[4]. Bernard Bailyn and Gordon Wood pioneered the argument that the American Founding Fathers were more influenced by republicanism than they were by liberalism. Cornell University Professor Isaac Kramnick, on the other hand, argues that Americans have always been highly individualistic and therefore Lockean.[5]

"In the decades before the American Revolution (1776), the intellectual and political leaders of the colonies studied history intently, looking for guides or models for good (and bad) government. They especially followed the development of republican ideas in England.[6] Pocock explained the intellectual sources in America:[7]

" "The Whig canon and the neo-Harringtonians, John Milton, James Harrington and Sidney, Trenchard, Gordon and Bolingbroke, together with the Greek, Roman, and Renaissance masters of the tradition as far as Montesquieu, formed the authoritative literature of this culture; and its values and concepts were those with which we have grown familiar: a civic and patriot ideal in which the personality was founded in property, perfected in citizenship but perpetually threatened by corruption; government figuring paradoxically as the principal source of corruption and operating through such means as patronage, faction, standing armies (opposed to the ideal of the militia), established churches (opposed to the Puritan and deist modes of American religion) and the promotion of a monied interest — though the formulation of this last concept was somewhat hindered by the keen desire for readily available paper credit common in colonies of settlement. A neoclassical politics provided both the ethos of the elites and the rhetoric of the upwardly mobile, and accounts for the singular cultural and intellectual homogeneity of the Founding Fathers and their generation."

"The commitment of most Americans to these republican values made inevitable the American Revolution, for Britain was increasingly seen as corrupt and hostile to republicanism, and a threat to the established liberties the Americans enjoyed.[8]

"Leopold von Ranke 1848 claims that American republicanism played a crucial role in the development of European liberalism,[9]:

" By abandoning English constitutionalism and creating a new republic based on the rights of the individual, the North Americans introduced a new force in the world. Ideas spread most rapidly when they have found adequate concrete expression. Thus republicanism entered our Romanic/Germanic world.... Up to this point, the conviction had prevailed in Europe that monarchy best served the interests of the nation. Now the idea spread that the nation should govern itself. But only after a state had actually been formed on the basis of the theory of representation did the full significance of this idea become clear. All later revolutionary movements have this same goal…. This was the complete reversal of a principle. Until then, a king who ruled by the grace of God had been the center around which everything turned. Now the idea emerged that power should come from below.... These two principles are like two opposite poles, and it is the conflict between them that determines the course of the modern world. In Europe the conflict between them had not yet taken on concrete form; with the French Revolution it did."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republicanism

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"Liberalism (from the Latin liberalis, "of freedom; worthy of a free man, gentlemanlike, courteous, generous"[1]) is the belief in the importance of individual freedom. This belief is widely accepted today throughout the world, and was recognized as an important value by many philosophers throughout history. The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote praising "the idea of a polity administered with regard to equal rights and equal freedom of speech, and the idea of a kingly government which respects most of all the freedom of the governed".[2]

"Modern liberalism has its roots in the Age of Enlightenment and rejects many foundational assumptions that dominated most earlier theories of government, such as the Divine Right of Kings, hereditary status, and established religion. John Locke is often credited with the philosophical foundations of modern liberalism. He wrote "no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions."[3]

"In the 17th Century, liberal ideas began to influence governments in Europe, in nations such as The Netherlands, Switzerland, England and Poland, but they were strongly opposed, often by armed might, by those who favored absolute monarchy and established religion. In the 18th Century, in America, the first modern liberal state was founded, without a monarch or a hereditary aristocracy.[4] The American Declaration of Independence includes the words (which echo Locke) "all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to insure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."[5]

"Liberalism comes in many forms. According to John N. Gray, the essence of liberalism is toleration of different beliefs and of different ideas as to what constitutes a good life.[6]

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"In the United States, there were two major liberal revolutions in the 19th Century, the first political, the second leading to Civil War. In 1829, populist candidate and war hero Andrew Jackson was elected to the first of two terms as the 7th president of the United States. During the era of Jacksonian democracy, the franchise was extended to include, for the first time, all White adult male citizens. Jackson also attempted to change economic policy in the direction of laissez-faire economics, in what came to be known as the "Bank War".[36] Jacksonian democracy came to an end during turmoil surrounding the anti-slavery movement. Before the Civil War, in the North as well as the South, Blacks were not allowed to vote, to serve on juries, to go to school, to testify in court in any case involving a White person, or to hold public office. The Civil War led to the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed those slaves in states in rebellion, and to the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the US Constitution, which abolished slavery throughout the United States, and extended equal rights to people of all races, in theory if not always in practice.[37]"

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism

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It wasn't social conservatism that built our country. It was radical, republican liberalism. It's why we're free, it's why we became the greatest nation on earth. But in America, we've always had our political ideologicals couched and most times correctly with decent civil bahvior and economic pragmatism. It's why we have welcomed legal immigrants, but have laws against illegal immigrants. It's why we have free markets and free trade, couched by regulations and protectionism.

It's the same with the illegal drug business policies. These policies have failed because we abandoned our political ideology and used cruel unAmerican, anti-liberty authoritarian means to deal with it. If we return to our political ideology and let freedom ring, but couch it with regulations and protectionism, we will succeed in managing an industry for its rightful goal, to ensure the safety of the product, to protect consumers, to regulate the business, protect it within our borders, and of course tax it, then we can pragmatically use the tax revenue paid by those who consume the products to pay for the regulations, pay for the education of the risk and consequences of using (to avoid those unintended consequences), and fund the public purpose which is to help those who need our assistance through free on-demand without stigma counseling, medical care and rehabilitation for anyone who wants or needs it. When extended beyond the regulation of an industry to authoritarinism of an industry and took a legal liberty away creating an dark, sinister, cruel and violent industry ... we let our citizens and nation down. It's an "epic fail" because we abandoned the very principles that our county was founded upon and have been the proven ones that made the United States the Dream of the World.

It's time to get back to our real roots and that is legalization to restore liberty, regulation to impose the economic pragmatism we're famous for, and taxes on the transactions under the FairTax, which provides a share of running our government like any other product but with an ear-mark for paying for the known consequences which is the need for free on demand counseling, medical care and rehabilitation.

When we stray from our concept of a free people in a free nation, we always fail. When we stick to our concept of a free people in a free nation purchasing regulated products in a protected industry, then we always succeed. Our own history proves this program will work.

As to Amsterdam, there's been publicity about the use of drugs in public view and public spaces and what happened to a park there. Legalizing drugs won't allow the use of the drugs in public view or public spaces. One of the regulations will be confinement of use to private homes and private spaces, not in areas where the public would be. There may be some of that, but we have a lot of that now in certain areas of the United States already. When it's legal to use in your own private space like at home, then people won't be out on the streets in alleyways free to run and hide for smoking pot.

I think it will work much better, the whole industry will be much safer in every respect, there will be no violence or hard crime related to drugs, no one will go to prison, no one will be shot, no one will die from an accidental overdose because the mix/cut wasn't right, people will be better informed and education which will reduce over time some of the heavy drug use, there will be no more cross-border activity associated with the illegal drug trade, and most importantly, we won't be violating anyone's civil rights or infringing upon their liberty, instead we will be helping them to make better choices, be more careful, and if they aren't, then we stand ready with programs they paid for to provide them the quality professional help they need.

Eventually, the allure of drugs will wane over-time. In the meantime, no one is killed or arrested, everyone's making some money, the illegal aliens running this criminal enterprise now will be shut out of the business and run back where they came from, and the people who need help will get it.

And that my friend, is the best we can do for our fellow citizens, within the confines of our Constitution and political ideology as free people in a free nation, just like our founding fathers would have wanted and hoped we'd do.

[/quote:2amaibxh]

Originally Posted by TexasBorn

Judy, my head is spinning from the long diatribe for drug legalization. If I didn't know better I would almost swear that this was written by our silver tongued, empty suit of a socialist President, Obama. I don't even know where to begin so I will just simply say a silent prayer for the loss of common sense and the moral compass of so many of our citizens. Legalization and subsequent federal regulation of drugs would ultimately end up as another tax or unwanted burden upon every income earning citizen in the country. No thanks. Got enough of that. If dope smoking, drug popping people want to organize and help out their fellow drug users then let THEM foot the bill and pay for the outcome. If the citizens of this country wanted to legalize drugs then they would have been already available in your local 7-11. Thank goodness common sense prevailed. People are SICK of being pushed toward an immoral, drug enhanced, social free for all. If the wacked out liberals had their way in this country we would all end up becoming slobbering, destitute, fornicating vegetables living in the gutter and waiting for the next handout or drug fix from the government. Drug use is NOT victimless be it legal or not. Wanna do drugs or smoke dope? Go ahead, do it in your own home, roll the dice but don't expect other people to subsidize your personal choices. To quote Forrest Gump...that's all I've got to say about that.

Drug legalization under the FairTax achieves exactly what you claim should be done. It and I quote you:

"If dope smoking, drug popping people want to organize and help out their fellow drug users then let THEM foot the bill and pay for the outcome."

Under my plan only drug users pay taxes on drug use, only they pay the taxes required for regulation enforcement of the business and only they pay for the cost of free counseling, free medical care and free rehabilitation. Under my plan, you can keep your moral compass and all your money. Under my plan drug users are contained within with their own little world of a safe regulated trade that doesn't cost anyone else a dime in taxes.

Today, under your plan, Americans who don't use drugs are paying for $70 billion a year in law enforcement plus the medical cost of drug use, yet illegal unsafe drugs are available anywhere any time anyone wants to buy some.

since i am the person who made the post,
what does my post have to do with pot or legalizing it?

can we stay on topic