Ron Paul, Hookers, and Heroin

I'm not an anarchist. I'm not against any government regulation. I'm simply for the minimum amount of government regulation allowed under the Constitution in order to maximize individual liberty.

The government does have some authority and legal and moral responsibility to act.

For instance, it is perfectly acceptable for an adult to have a beer and the government has no business regulating that. However, because we know there are health risks when children and alcohol are involved, the government has a responsibility to prohibit the sale of alcohol to nine year olds. Likewise, just as it is perfectly acceptable for an adult to have a beer and the government has no business regulating that, the government does have the responsibility to patrol our highways for drunk drivers.

As long as it doesn't affect me, what business is it of mine?

 

No doubt others are getting rich off of it, but the Taliban is indeed financing their war with the poppy trade, and the farmers are making plenty of money. There are numerous sources that show this. Here is just one.

Yes that is what we always hear. But the Taliban has encouraged the growing of poppies whenever it suited their purpose.

Before the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan the Taliban were threatening to allow the resumption of poppy cultivation if the Americans attack:

"According to Lateef Afridi..."The ban on poppy growing was very unpopular, and right now the Taliban need friends," Mr. Afridi told The Independent. "In the past few days I have heard that the Taliban have not only lifted the ban, they have given the farmers back the weapons they confiscated from them."

You don't suppose that the invasion had anything to do with Afghanistan being Bin Laden's base of operations? Or that Al Qaeda was openly training thousands of terrorists from around the world there?

 

Neighborhood children (or your kids) will see people shooting up in public and consider it normal, a behavior to emulate.

Your real estate value may decrease if you live next to a drug addict who gets high in public. Also, I'm going to assume that heroin addicts are not the most fastidious housekeepers.

The brain-addled addict might do something stupid like set fire to his house while heating up his drugs. Or he might hallucinate and decide to do something crazy like shoot your dog (or your kids.)

You could be on vacation when a burglar invades your house. Your inebriated neighbor might see this and think it is "cool", and fail to call the police.

I could go on...

 

Not if they have parents who do their job.

Yeah...and? My real estate values may also decrease because a highway runs too close to my home. My real estate values may also decrease because local government indcotrination centers (i.e. "public schools") do not perform well. Are you suggesting that we should make highways and public schools illegal?

While unfortunate, that's the consequence he faces for his own stupidity, not a valid reason to overstep the bounds of the Constitution and make criminals out of otherwise law abiding citizens.

My mother once set our house on fire while cooking dinner. I don't recall anyone suggesting that we make meatloaf illegal.

Don't we already have laws against these things?

What does that have to do with anything?

As it happens, when we lived in town, our house was robbed one weekend while we were out of town and not one of our neighbors called the police. As far as I know, none of them were drug users. So what private behavior should we have made illegal to ensure that they would have called the police?

 

:thumbsup:

A big AMEN. God Bless You, JDF.

 

I guess we see who the true small gov't conservatives are.

 

Thanks. I'm just always amazed that the first reaction of a liberal is that parents are too incompetent to raise their children and so the government must step in.

 

Your statement was, "As long as it doesn't affect me, what business is it of mine?" whereupon I listed some ways in which your life would be impacted. Asked and answered. Oh and thanks for insinuating I was a liberal for merely answering your question.

 

And I answered by explaining why some would not affect me, while others would not have any more effect on me than any of a number of common legal things.

It's unfortunate that you chose to ignore my questions while I tried to be respectful enough to you to take the time to answer yours.

 

I'm going to go ahead and assume you are in favor of gay marriage since you stated,

"The issue is whether or not the federal government has the authority to regulate what a person does in private or what two people do consensually."


And you said,

"I'm simply for the minimum amount of government regulation allowed under the Constitution in order to maximize individual liberty."

And also,

"As long as it doesn't affect me, what business is it of mine? "

 

When Lot went to Sodom, did he petition the government to pass a law, or did he appeal to individuals to repent ?

 

He did neither.

 

You are crazy. He wanted them to repent bad enough to offer his daughetrs. You know this.

 

I don't see it. He didn't want the people to have s*x with the angels, so he offered his daughters.

6 So Lot went out to them through the doorway, shut the door behind him, 7 and said, “Please, my brethren, do not do so wickedly! 8 See now, I have two daughters who have not known a man; please, let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as you wish; only do nothing to these men, since this is the reason they have come under the shadow of my roof.”


http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis 19&version=NKJV

 

Kinda supports my assessment, eh ? He wants them to repent. You are twisting my question, probably because it's a good one.


Did the Sodomites know they were angels ? Be honest.

Christians preach repentance to individuals, not theocratic mandates to governmenmts.

 

Further, if Lot went there and DIDN'T tell the government to outlaw the offensive action, does that mean he approved of the action ?





Silly question, I know, but the logical outcome of your argument.

 

He wants them to do something not as wicked as they desired, and offers them an alternative method of sinning. That's not a call to repentance.

The text is unclear, but probably not.

 

I don't know where you are going with this, but the original discussion has to do with making activities that are currently legal into illegal activities (drug use, prostitution, etc.)

Not calling for something to be illegal as being a tacit endorsement was not a part of the discussion.

 

Yeah, probably not.

And no matter if you call it repentance or not, the appeal was to the individual, not the law.

 

Thanks I learned the technique from you.

My bet would be you're willing to use government force to keep taking my money that I still earn the old fashion way so it can be spent to fight your worst fears by a government who has thus far shown only incompetence in it's fiscal duties and total disdain for the taxpayers who foot the ever increasing debt of fighting the losing battles on every front in all the "wars" the government has declared on everything.

Hmmm . . . Interesting, our government has since WWII declared war on drugs, war on terrorism, war on poverty, war on illiteracy etc., etc. but it hasn't declared war on any single country we are now invading, occupying and or "bombing for the children" since WWII!

And it's performance in all of the above so far is how should I put it? A most dismal failure.

But yet . . . you're still willing to believe it can get something right?

You got alot of faith in big government I'll give ya that. :smilewinkgrin:

Legal drugs = smaller government and less drugs. Illegal drugs = bigger government and more drugs and more prisons and more overcrowding of those prisons which means more prisons and more prisoners and more overcrowding and more prisons until one day we wake up to find we've gone from the land of the free to the land of the most incarcerated prison population in the world and growing. Oh wait we reached that point some time back didn't we? Nevermind.