At a time when they seek to \u201cunite\u201d their party and regain the power that it squandered during the tenure of Bush II, the spectacle of Republicans shouting from the rooftops over the prospect of their fellow adult citizens being permitted to purchase pot appears singularly apropos.\u00a0 Most Americans no more care about this than they care about deploying their sons and daughters throughout the world as missionaries to spread the Gospel of \u201cGlobal Democracy,\u201d or whatever we\u2019re calling it these days.<\/p>\n
Considering that neoconservative Republicans fear the \u201ce\u201d word\u2014\u201cextremism\u201d\u2014about as much as they fear the \u201cr\u201d word (\u201cracism\u201d), they should resist the impulse to wax hysterical over the fact that some American adults resent being charged with a crime for ingesting potentially harmful substances.<\/p>\n
Even intellectually, however, the opponents of legalization are on shaky ground.<\/i><\/p>\n
First of all, neoconservatives are both untruthful and unfair when they accuse their rivals of being a bunch of junkies whose sole motivation is the desire to use drugs themselves.\u00a0 But even if <\/i>it was true, it would still be logically irrelevant.\u00a0 As the \u201cfather\u201d of Western logic, Aristotle, noted, the circumstances <\/i>of an arguer have no logical <\/i>bearing on the soundness or cogency of his conclusions.\u00a0 To suggest otherwise is to commit a special version of an ad hominem fallacy.<\/p>\n
In other words, even if the champions of decriminalization were all stoned out of their minds, they may still be right.<\/p>\n
Closely related to this first cheap shot is another to which many neoconservatives are all too ready to resort.\u00a0 Not infrequently, they suggest that it is those<\/i> \u201clibertarians\u201d\u2014those unhinged, marginal, drug-happy \u201cextremists\u201d\u2014who are pushing for all of this legalization business.\u00a0 \u201cLibertarian\u201d functions as a subtle epithet here, just as dishonest and just as fallacious as any other ad hominem attack.<\/p>\n
It is, of course, true that libertarians tend to overwhelming endorse the decriminalization of drugs. Yet this is because, like those of us conservatives who still want to conserve the civilizational inheritance bequeathed to us by our Founders, they value liberty. In fact, some of these \u201clibertarians\u201d are some of the brightest lights of \u201cthe conservative movement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Are Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell dope-smoking burn outs?<\/p>\n
In September of 1989, Friedman wrote an open letter to Bill Bennett, who was then the \u201cDrug Czar\u201d of the first President Bush.\u00a0 Friedman implored Bennett to radically reconsider his plans for combatting drugs, for, he alleged, they promise to produce \u201cmore police, more jails, use of the military in foreign countries, harsh penalties for drug users, and a whole panoply of repressive measures [that] can only make a bad situation worse.\u201d He assured Bennett that this \u201cdrug war\u201d of his \u201ccannot be won by those tactics without undermining the human liberty and individual freedom that you and I cherish.\u201d<\/p>\n
Friedman readily concedes that \u201cdrugs are a scourge that is devastating our society.\u201d Yet he chastises Bennett for \u201cfailing to recognize that the very measures you favor are a major source of the evils you deplore.\u201d It is the illegality <\/i>of drugs that \u201ccreates obscene profits that finance the murderous tactics of drug lords,\u201d \u201cleads to the corruption of law enforcement officials,\u201d and \u201cmonopolizes the efforts of honest law forces so that they are starved for resources to fight the simpler crimes of robbery, theft and assault.\u201d<\/p>\n
Friedman notes that had drugs\u2014not just marijuana, mind you, but all drugs\u2014been decriminalized 17 years earlier when he first called for it, crack cocaine never would\u2019ve been invented, for \u201cit was invented because the high cost of illegal drugs made it profitable to provide a cheaper version [.]\u201d\u00a0 Thus, \u201cthere would today be far fewer addicts\u201d and \u201cthe lives of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of innocent victims\u201d throughout America, particularly in its \u201cghettos,\u201d and beyond \u201cwould have been saved [.]\u201d<\/p>\n
In \u201cDrug Addicts and Busy Body Addicts,\u201d Thomas Sowell echoes many of Friedman\u2019s sentiments. He writes: \u201cBad as drugs are—and many of them are deadly\u2014it is not the drugs themselves but the illegality<\/i> of drugs that is corrupting individuals and whole communities\u201d (italics original).<\/p>\n
Sowell refers to the \u201cmorally anointed,\u201d those \u201cliberals\u201d and \u201cconservatives\u201d who \u201cwill never give up their attempts to tell other people what to do\u2014and get the government to impose their beliefs on others.\u201d He calls them \u201ccrusaders\u201d who \u201clike to talk about \u2018solutions\u2019\u201d while failing to recognize that \u201clife is actually one trade-off after another.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sowell insists that if \u201cthe morally anointed\u201d traded off their zeal to criminalize drug usage, then the rest of could receive in return \u201can end to drug-related murders of policemen and of innocent by-standers in neighborhoods where drug wars take place;\u201d \u201ca substantial reduction of the nation\u2019s prison population, relieving over-crowding and providing space to hold violent criminals;\u201d and \u201can end to drug-financed corruption of law enforcement officials, including judges, and of politicians here and in foreign countries.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are no \u201csolutions,\u201d here, only \u201ctrade-offs.\u201d\u00a0 Criminalizing drug use comes at a great cost.\u00a0 While being bombarded by all of the rhetoric pervading this debate, Sowell interjects some sober thought.\u00a0 It all boils down to one fundamental question:<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you prepared to give up in order to get what you want?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At a time when they seek to \u201cunite\u201d their party and regain the power that it squandered during the tenure of Bush II, the spectacle of Republicans shouting from the rooftops over the prospect of their fellow adult citizens being permitted to purchase pot appears singularly apropos.\u00a0 Most Americans no more care about this than…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n