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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (76801)	4/4/2000 7:16:00 PM
From: Father Terrence	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

When I speak of rights I speak of the underlying intrinsic rights that are not based on a morality, but based on the fact of Man's existence and what is pro-life as opposed to anti-life. These are the "basic" rights or "universal" rights as recognized and defined by the Founding Fathers. Yes, some drugs do have anti-life characteristics. But it should be left to individual free will as to whether or not to partake of them. I advocate the regulation of drugs, not the criminalization of them. And where is the proverbial line drawn once a free people give up freedoms in the name of a non-existent "common good" -- a "good" defined by the moment, on a whim, by what is popular or in fashion on any given day -- or perhaps even worse, a "good" defined by a popular politician? The answer is the line is NOT firm, but becomes mutable. Constantly pushing the boundaries, moving inexorably towards greater oppression. We have criminalized cocaine, heroin, crack, marijuana, designer (artificial) drugs and, for a time, alcohol... what is next? Tobacco? Caffeine? Chocolate? All these are drugs too. As the line is pushed forward towards new constraints and almost invisible tyrannies by little tin gods, it passes by ranks of good citizens who, by the nature of the calculated action, literally become a new criminal class with the stroke of a pen, the slam of prison bars, and the turn of a key in a lockdown. The day these bastards criminalize tobacco is the day I am a criminal. For I will work unceasingly against the efforts of those entrusted to protect our individual freedoms who have violated their oaths to the country, its people and our philosophy that the individual must be held higher than the State. I am watching the USA turn into a variation of a Kafkaesque society and refuse to stand by idly and monitor its writhing death-throes as it progresses in its awkward tumble pellmell into a self-made hell. The purpose of moral objective laws are to protect the rights of the individual and the rights of the individual's property. This extends to entities also such as corporations, partnerships, etc. The purpose of law is not to subject individuals to subjective, malleable dictates pronounced by smug, appointed judges seeking to aggrandize themselves by erecting Solomonistic fiefdoms in the environment of their courts. Nor is the purpose of law, in a moral, free society, to impose social order, but instead to direct the intrinsic power held within a State to the service of the individual and objective justice constructed in meticulous, objective ways to ensure that rights are protected. RIGHTS - not social order. "Social order" is what was imposed in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. Is that what you advocate here? Sieg heil, Mr. President... Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the president of the glorious "United States of *Amerika*"? Father Terrence

To: Neocon who wrote (76801)	4/5/2000 3:11:00 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Morality is unnecessary to law- you can have and support and obey laws for mere expediency- without regard to "right" and "wrong"- unless you want to label expediency a type of morality- which I think is a stretch.

To: Neocon who wrote (76801)	4/5/2000 5:01:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 108807

>it is impossible to become a regular user of opiates without addiction< This is incorrect. And it is the sort of quasi-scientific doctrine that badly distorts the drug issue. Drugs are demonized in our society on the back of such authoritative and yet incorrect pronouncements. Ideas such as this are used to promote the underlying principle (one that I reject) that the price of allowing the citizen to own and use, say, LSD morphine methamphetamine cannabis etc. (ultimately alcohol, tobacco and firearms) would be unthinkably high. It's really just an extension of "Reefer Madness" - propaganda that is patemntly ludicrous to the experienced, but recruits the moral horror of inexperienced upstanding voters. It is not possible to have a balanced discussion of drug use in the USA as long as the Just say No crowd succeeds in selling the idea that drugs are this unconditional evil that sucks the decency, the fear of God out of people.