We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
Court slaps authoritarian wrists A US court has ruled Ashcroft’s storm troopers can no longer hound doctors and threaten license revocation if they prescribe weed for pain.
Grass is legal for medical purposes in a number of States – notably California -and effectively decriminalized in several. Unfortunately the Feds believe they can override state laws at will.
Libertarians long have played a prominent role in legalization campaigns. One former National Chair also spent time as a major player within NORML.
“Come the Revolution”, the DEA will be one of the first organizations to go. I’d suggest they all keep their CV’s current, but I’m not sure what sort of productive jobs they could get. There’s not a lot of call for their skillset in a Civil society, and I don’t believe Saddam will be hiring after this winter.
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
You know, I’m not actually very much “pro-weed” at all, I used to smoke that shit all the time in college and frankly I think making marijuana a regular part of your life is an exceedingly stupid idea. Having said that (and as a registered libertarian) I feel obliged to point out that *if* any government was *really* serious about eradicating drugs they’d target demand not supply. Think about it – what’s more effective: burning pot fields in Columbia or making every single W2-Form worker in this country take a piss test to get his/her check each pay period? Demand always dictates supply, that’s why no matter what sort of nutty shit you’re into if you’ve got the cash to engage in it some yoyo will always rise up to offer to sell it to you. I therefore claim that by examining the US government’s exclusively supply-side approach to drug abuse one is forced to conclude that they either (a) don’t really want to stop drug use or (b) are so thick that by comparison Michael Moore looks absolutely profound. For fuck’s sake, the common cold killed 20,000 last year in the US and tobacco kills over 1000 a day. These people need jobs or something, they’ve got too damn much time/energy on their hands.
John Ashcroft doesn’t have any stormtroopers. Suggesting that he does is just silly. Maybe you need to fire up the ole’ bong and chill.
This issue always gives me a headache. On one side you have arguments like “drug laws are racist”, on the other, “drugs finance terrorism”. Once again, political rhetoric – liberty = nonsense.
The ludicrous thing to me, as highlighted by these comments in fact, is the frame of the debate rather than the details. Are any of the people who commented arguing it is the role of government to prevent people from drinking alcohol? If not, why not? If it is fine for this to even be considered by government, why not also ban all harmful things you might put in your body, like alcohol and tobacco? And then high fat food, which after all causes heart disease. And why not require under pain of arrest than the USDA daily nutrition levels be enforced rather than suggested as presumably that would reduce all manner of diseases. Surely than is the logical progression as clearly tyhe chamical make up of your body it is not a matter for individual choice then.
If you accept that it is ok to politicize what a person decides to stick in their own body, which is to say to allow other people to decide what is and is not acceptable, rather than leaving it to the owner of the body in question, then please not not expect the debate to be limited to what you think is sensible because you are already admitting you take a collectivist derived and violence enforced view of such matters and thus what you think is of only minor arithmetic importance.
A person can of course be held responsible for actions against others but if a person is not sovereign over their own body, then spare me any ‘home of the free’ crap and just admit that collectivism is alive and well in the blogosphere.
Please don’t get me wrong. The drug war has to end. I conducted a small guerilla hit myself this morning before I went out and raked the leaves. There is no chance on earth that smoking my joint in my house is my neighbors business much less any concern of anyone in Washington DC. Marijuana will be legal in the US within the next few years. Other drugs will take longer and they probably should. We have created societal norms for illegal drug use. We need to establish societal norms for legal drug use. While I am not personally or in principle against the ‘1 day plan’ for ending the war on all drugs, it isn’t going to happen that way.
None of expect these things to happen quickly, and in fact some of us would define “libertarian idiotarians” as those who think we can. We look to the future but can only act in the present. One must realize one lives in the here and now and plan accordingly.
That is why I applaud this small and incomplete victory for our side.
Fear not, this comes from the most overturned circuit in the US Federal judicial system. This ruling won’t stand.