UN Official Calls for Marijuana Ballot Rollback

[TheWalrus]

Well, weed can't be used to kill someone so its kinda apple and oranges. Things that have potential to kill others definitely deserve more regulation than harmless plants. Even from a libertarian point of view that still holds true since the philosophy calls for laws and such for actions and things that cause harm.

Fair enough. But alcohol and other drugs cause harm, do they not? As do any number of other things. Should there be background checks for those who want to drink or collect knives?

I actually agree with limited, but sensible, gun control laws. But the problem is that's not a principled stance, it's a practical one that subverts the principle of generalized freedom and civil liberty. Rob has shown himself to more of an absolutist on those principles so I was curious why he seemed to be willing to limit people's liberty relative to gun ownership but not in other ways.

[tylerdolphin]

Fair enough. But alcohol and other drugs cause harm, do they not? As do any number of other things. Should there be background checks for those who want to drink or collect knives?

I actually agree with limited, but sensible, gun control laws. But the problem is that's not a principled stance, it's a practical one that subverts the principle of generalized freedom and civil liberty. Rob has shown himself to more of an absolutist on those principles so I was curious why he seemed to be willing to limit people's liberty relative to gun ownership but not in other ways.

Never really thought about it like that. Yeah it does fly in the face of what most people would consider a right (privacy). My thoughts on it are basically that viewing the world through a hard and fast principled window is going to lead you to inevitable problems. In some circumstances youre either going to have to contradict the philosophy you adhere to or youre going to be on the wrong side of common sense.

As far as knives, fair enough point. I could walk out with a big ass knife now and kill someone pretty easily. Alcohol Id say is pretty regulated though. Its illegal to drink if youre under 21 and you can't drive drunk or in most states with an open container. I wouldnt be opposed to adding laws that prevent repeat alcohol related offenders from buying alcohol.

[TheWalrus]

Never really thought about it like that. Yeah it does fly in the face of what most people would consider a right (privacy). My thoughts on it are basically that viewing the world through a hard and fast principled window is going to lead you to inevitable problems. In some circumstances youre either going to have to contradict the philosophy you adhere to or youre going to be on the wrong side of common sense.

As far as knives, fair enough point. I could walk out with a big ass knife now and kill someone pretty easily. Alcohol Id say is pretty regulated though. Its illegal to drink if youre under 21 and you can't drive drunk or in most states with an open container. I wouldnt be opposed to adding laws that prevent repeat alcohol related offenders from buying alcohol.

I agree. You can take the analogy even farther, too. Why not background checks on anyone who wants to visit a Web site that talks about how to build bombs out of fertilizer and other household items? I would wager as many people are killed in this country every year by ad hoc bombs as they are by fully automatic assault rifles. Part of the problem with taking a hard line on civil liberty is that the 2nd amendment deals with weapon ownership specifically. It's not inferred, like a "right" to eat certain foods or smoke certain herbs. The burden should, therefore, be even higher on restrictions on those actions than they are on other liberties. Yet often you see people cherry picking their specific issue and defending it on principle and letting the line on the rest fall to common sense.

[rob19]

I agree. You can take the analogy even farther, too. Why not background checks on anyone who wants to visit a Web site that talks about how to build bombs out of fertilizer and other household items? I would wager as many people are killed in this country every year by ad hoc bombs as they are by fully automatic assault rifles. Part of the problem with taking a hard line on civil liberty is that the 2nd amendment deals with weapon ownership specifically. It's not inferred, like a "right" to eat certain foods or smoke certain herbs. The burden should, therefore, be even higher on restrictions on those actions than they are on other liberties. Yet often you see people cherry picking their specific issue and defending it on principle and letting the line on the rest fall to common sense.

It's a fine line you tow in regards to limiting liberties for perceived safety reasons. Wait till someone pulls a gun, or small bomb at a football game, or concert, or restaurant, or University; it could be conceivable that we could live in a country that has TSA body-searches & x-ray scans at just about every public setting. Could you make the argument that that would be 'safer'? Sure. Does anyone really want that? I doubt it.

If the cherry-picked issue is online privacy, I believe a background check to see if someone has a criminal history or mental illness before selling them an assault weapon is a bit different than senselessly recording citizen's google searches, & online activity.

[TheWalrus]

It's a fine line you tow in regards to limiting liberties for perceived safety reasons. Wait till someone pulls a gun, or small bomb at a football game, or concert, or restaurant, or University; it could be conceivable that we could live in a country that has TSA body-searches & x-ray scans at just about every public setting. Could you make the argument that that would be 'safer'? Sure. Does anyone really want that? I doubt it.

If the cherry-picked issue is online privacy, I believe a background check to see if someone has a criminal history or mental illness before selling them an assault weapon is a bit different than senselessly recording citizen's google searches, & online activity.

The point is that if it's a principle you shouldn't be cherry picking at all. Why should someone with a criminal history or mental illness be restricted in doing something the Constitution specifically allows them to do? I can see the practical reason, but my modus opperandi includes something of a practical view of these issues (which is not to say I agree with all or even very many of these restrictions). Your stance is generally more absolutist, therefore if you're going to appeal to the practicality of gun control you need to square it with your other views.

[rob19]

Voting is a constitutional right but we don't allow former convicts to vote either. You use the term absolutist, I don't know that's an appropriate label. I have differing opinions on differing situations. I happen to believe online spying is wrong. I also happen to believe we should try & avoid selling assault-rifles to bi-polar sufferer's. If you want to call that contradictory, I disagree, but you're entitled to that opinion.

[TheWalrus]

Voting is a constitutional right but we don't allow former convicts to vote either.

Actually this varies from state to state (in most states convicts are at least eventually allowed to vote again) and anyway is this sort of disenfranchisement is authorized by the 14th amendment. Restricting the right to bear arms on account of criminal behavior or mental health is not a part of the Constitution so far as I know.

You use the term absolutist, I don't know that's an appropriate label. I have differing opinions on differing situations. I happen to believe online spying is wrong. I also happen to believe we should try & avoid selling assault-rifles to bi-polar sufferer's. If you want to call that contradictory, I disagree, but you're entitled to that opinion.

Well, I'm just trying to get at where you're coming from, because your previous statements on this issue generally haven't included such equivocations. For instance (both of these came from our discussion in the "Anything Goes" thread a little while back):

I understand all candidates are a compromise of sorts, but what’s worth losing some of your basic civil liberties for?

Shouldn’t civil liberties be everyone’s primary concern though? What could possibly take precedence over your freedoms?

That sounds like a pretty firm statement of principle, not something only applies to stuff like online spying -- which exists in a grey area of Constitutional freedom -- and not weapon ownership -- which is spelled out in black and white constitutionally. What could be a more basic expression of civil liberties and basic freedoms than the debate over the right to bear arms?

As soon as you make the debate about the practicality of not selling assault weapons to schizophrenics you open up for the other side the usefulness of online spying and the potential terrorist attacks that have or could be prevented by it. The implications of a principled stance on civil liberty does not stop at the edge of certain issues just because you want them to.

[rob19]

I believe civil liberties should be a priority for people; This is the Land of the Free, after-all. You stated most people would prefer tangible materials like braces for their kids, & that’s fine, I can understand that. However, if everyone was like that, the rallying cry for the American Revolution might have been more akin to; “Give me Liberty, or give me Dentures!” I’ll continue to support representatives that put an emphasis on protecting civil liberties, because the implications of supporting representatives who don’t prioritize civil liberties has already been well documented & displayed in the current state of affairs (NSA, NDAA, Patriot Act, etc).

In regards to constitutional unclarity; why is it that we don’t amend the constitution more frequently to reflect the ever rapidly evolving society? It was crafted so that it could be amended to adapt to current needs; Why have it otherwise? Why rely on something that needs to be individually interpreted by each judge because the verbiage may no longer apply to contemporary happenstance? Why is the last time that thing’s been updated in 1992; & before that 1971? It’s 200 years old, the time’s a changing. They didn’t have the internet 200 years ago; Amend it to include your digital property, as well as any other things that may need to be updated to reflect modern circumstances. There’d be no need for a style-of-judge concern if we could consent to modernize our primary documents of governance.

[TheWalrus]

I believe civil liberties should be a priority for people; This is the Land of the Free, after-all. You stated most people would prefer tangible materials like braces for their kids, & that’s fine, I can understand that. However, if everyone was like that, the rallying cry for the American Revolution might have been more akin to; “Give me Liberty, or give me Dentures!” I’ll continue to support representatives that put an emphasis on protecting civil liberties, because the implications of supporting representatives who don’t prioritize civil liberties has already been well documented & displayed in the current state of affairs (NSA, NDAA, Patriot Act, etc).

I don't think the choice is between civil liberties and braces. I just think that for most people, braces tangibly matter and the loss of civil liberty is a conceptual annoyance and really not much more (up to a certain point, anyway). That may horrify you but it shows up consistently in the polls (one of the downsides of capitalism is a populace monomaniacally focused on upward mobility or just making enough to survive at the cost of greater awareness about policy). If you're working 60+ hours a week, you simply doesn't have time to be continuously informed on these matters, and anyway I think the average person already believes that the government actively spies on them but as they consider themselves law abiding don't really mind it. I know I was told from an early age that if you said "bomb" and "president" in the same conversation your phone call would be taped and analyzed at the FBI. That kind of world -- where freedom is always just an emergency from being taken away -- is I think the average person's concept of the way things are. And on some level they're not disgusted by that, but comforted by the notion that nothing will stand in the way of their lives being protected, just as an avowed pacificist will take up a gun to protect his family.

In other words, most people are not primarily ideological, they're practical. Which is both good and bad.

In regards to constitutional unclarity; why is it that we don’t amend the constitution more frequently to reflect the ever rapidly evolving society? It was crafted so that it could be amended to adapt to current needs; Why have it otherwise? Why rely on something that needs to be individually interpreted by each judge because the verbiage may no longer apply to contemporary happenstance? Why is the last time that thing’s been updated in 1992; & before that 1971? It’s 200 years old, the time’s a changing. They didn’t have the internet 200 years ago; Amend it to include your digital property, as well as any other things that may need to be updated to reflect modern circumstances. There’d be no need for a style-of-judge concern if we could consent to modernize our primary documents of governance.

I agree with this completely.

However, you didn't answer my line if inquiry relative to gun ownership.

[rob19]

I don't think the choice is between civil liberties and braces. I just think that for most people, braces tangibly matter and the loss of civil liberty is a conceptual annoyance and really not much more (up to a certain point, anyway).

Being indefinitely detained is not an ethereal concept though, it’s a tangible reality.


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Suppression of journalism, activism, protesting, & free-speech, are all corporeal realities. Do you recall what Rand Paul said about the possibility of a government that could detain citizens over disagreements? No one wants that. No one should even want that mechanism to be in place.

That may horrify you but it shows up consistently in the polls (one of the downsides of capitalism is a populace monomaniacally focused on upward mobility or just making enough to survive at the cost of greater awareness about policy). If you're working 60+ hours a week, you simply doesn't have time to be continuously informed on these matters, and anyway I think the average person already believes that the government actively spies on them but as they consider themselves law abiding don't really mind it. I know I was told from an early age that if you said "bomb" and "president" in the same conversation your phone call would be taped and analyzed at the FBI. That kind of world -- where freedom is always just an emergency from being taken away -- is I think the average person's concept of the way things are. And on some level they're not disgusted by that, but comforted by the notion that nothing will stand in the way of their lives being protected, just as an avowed pacificist will take up a gun to protect his family.

In other words, most people are not primarily ideological, they're practical. Which is both good and bad.

I’m sure you personally though don’t believe the government is spying on us in order to protect us; that is such a crock of **** notion. In the words of Stephen Fry; “The riotous, chaotic freedom we enjoy, which causes so much of a headache for all of us, is infinitely better than the rigidity of tyranny & control”.

However, you didn't answer my line if inquiry relative to gun ownership.

Here’s my feeling on this; why even have a constitution if we find ourselves not abiding by it, disregarding, or contradicting it in terms of our policy? Do I personally believe persons with schizophrenia or armed assault charges should be able to buy firearms? No. Does it prohibit this in the constitution? Also no. Should we amend it more frequently to address some of these issues so that’s it’s no longer a point of contention or interpretation? Absolutely. I believe it should be respected more than it currently is, & I believe it should be modified to reflect modern concerns with far more frequency.