"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ~ H.L. Mencken
Drug Nazis Claim Prop 19 'Unconstitutional'
In truth, even the statist Constitution does not preclude California from legalizing pot.
(1 vote)
- Login to post comments
User Login
Search This Site
Related Columns
Recent comments
Root Strikers
Non-Voting
Civil Disobedience
Reprint Rights
Comments
Oh, this IS rich -- drug warriors using the US Constitution to justify their own personal agendas; that is, to preserve their own careers. I was once told by a drug cop (in the process of ransacking my home) that the Constitution doesn't give me the right to use drugs. The reality is that, by not empowering the government to regulate what I own or put into my body, the Constitution does, indeed, give me the right to get high. The reality is that EVERYTHING about prohibition and its spin-off war violates EVERYTHING the Constitution stands for. Or I should say "once stood for."
Another unfortunate side effect of this whole business is that it depends upon and then increases the logical fallacy of an appeal to authority. What drugs should be banned? What drugs should be legal? Trust your government, who will ensure that the best doctors testify, that the best pharmaceutical corporations exist, that the best science gives us the answers. We have computers now, and better schools. Errant science is a thing of the past.
If a scientist says the globe is getting warmer, then it's getting warmer. If a scientist says that a drug is dangerous, then it's dangerous. If a scientist classifies what seems to be just one more ordinary aspect of your personality an abnormality, then it's an abnormality. It goes on and on, thanks to the regulation, officialization, and institutionalization of education.
We musn't be trusted to think for ourselves. We must trust in scientists who are called scientists by other scientists who have gone to the same official institutions. I just read an article today that quoted Barack Whoever that "blind faith" in the market is what got us where we are. Seeing as the free market is nothing more than individuals who choose to relate, what this Barack dude was really saying is that "blind faith" in humanity is dangerous.
And he should know. He went to all the right institutions, so he must know what he's saying. I guess drugs really are bad. When they say they are. Except when they change their minds.