The problem is… they’re not, in this society. I have, for example, no problem supporting a helmet law for motorcycles, because if an uninsured person is severely injured, society will not leave him to bleed on the street. If an adult puts himself into a coma with drug use, we will not turn away and let him expire. Even if that’s the wisest course … it’s just not going to happen.
For this reason, I support restrictions on drugs.
I’d not be foolish enough to join the S.486 debate this early on, and clearly this is not the right forum for this subject to develop – but:
Surely yer ideals and motives are straightforward enough, Bricker, but ye must be kidding to put forth the argument that the society’s decision to assume the responsibility for the actions of its members therefore gives the society the right to dictate and control those actions.
This is the argument of petty tyrants, and denies the very foundation of a representative democracy – the majority rules by the sufferance of and with respect for the minority, not by virtue of opinion polls and bully pulpits.
Yer certainly right with respect to how this society justifies the punishment of those who step outside the current whims, and you state the reality of our current practice quite accurately. But simply stating, “That’s how it is,” rather neatly sidesteps the issue at hand – we’re all acutely aware of what is actually happening, and ask only how “what is” can be squared with the supposed, stated, written, and sanctified ideals that have been forged in blood across the history of this nation.
If yer sacred documents and enshrined truths are subject to change at the whim of the popular press then at least tell the truth – “As a nation, we believe firmly in, and will gladly sacrifice the lives of our sons for, whatever Dan Rather told us to believe in last night.” This manner of statement rather better describes “what is,” and relieves those who would struggle to find precedents and ‘Constitutional’ arguments to defend what is, in truth, little more than the moral and political fashion of the times.
Dr. Watson
“He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression.” – Thomas Paine, ‘Dissertation on First Principles of Government, 1795.’
Bricker – though I may not be as eloquent as Crick&Watson, I respectfully submit that your logic could lead to unexpected consequences if followed in all cases. For example, you could require that all persons living near rivers, fault lines, hurricane landfall areas, etc. be removed to safer locales. No more riding of rollercoasters either, unless you have insurance. And most sporting activities would be banned. After all, my insurance and taxes go up because of the idiots who inevitably get hurt.
My point is that freedom comes with a price. Sometimes that price is money, other times it is human lives. I know that we trade some of our freedom for reasonable risk, and we as a society have to constantly define “reasonable”. But I certainly don’t think we should trash the 1st amendment in order to save some hypothetical potential drug user.
Let me clarify what I meant.
The rationale I described is always to be balanced: the needs of the society against the freedom of the individual. We always do that when implementing laws. If we did not, if we held that the individual’s rights always trump society’s rights… why, we’d have anarchy.
So the question is not whether we may automatically impose whatever standards are necessary. But are we appropriately balancing the need to protect our society against the need to safeguard the rights of the individual? Or as C&W so poetically put it, “…with the supposed, stated, written, and sanctified ideals that have been forged in blood across the history of this nation.”
For example, as has already been made clear, I am a staunch proponent of gun freedom, being a Lifetime NRA member and gun owner. But I do not quail at the police investigating a man who patrols his yard with a loaded shotgun when there are kids playing next door, even though the man has done nothing but exercise his constitutional right to bear a firearm on his own property.
Now, here’s a bulletin: the “Constituional rights” that were “stated, written, and sanctified ideals that have been forged in blood across the history of this nation,” do change with the mood of our times.
Prior to 1914, evidence obtained illegally, in violation of the Fourth Amendment, could be used against a defendant in a federal criminal prosecution. Then along came one Weeks, whose home was searched without warrant, and certain papers seiezed that were evidence of a crime. The governemnt refused to return those papers, and instead used them in Mr Weeks’ trial. He was found guilty, and appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. The Court announced a new rule of Constitutional law: that henceforth, illegally seized evidence cannot be used against a defendant in a federal criminal trial. Otherwise, they said, the Fourth Amendment was valueless.
But the Fourth Amendment hadn’t changed one word since 1789! The view of society, the “…the whim of the popular press …” had changed its view was what constituted ‘reasonable.’
By the way, that decision only bound Federal courts. It wasn’t until 1961 that state courts were forbidden from using illegally seized evidence against a defendant. See Mapp v. Ohio.
So while it’s comforting to think of these rights as carved in granite and existing for all time, the reality is that they will always be subject to interpretation by those currently in a position to do the interpreting.
Now, you may argue that it is a unreasonable exercise of the balancing test to require helmets, forbid drug information dissemination, or criminalize fully automatic weapons. But in each case, you must agree that the balanzing test is there.
As to the case that started this discussion, I offer no comment as to on which side the seesaw ought to come down.
OK. You agree that we trade freedom for risk. So do I. We force roller coaster owners to submit to safety inspections. We require persons living in an area to evacuate if a bad hurricane is imminent.
The question now becomes, “Is this trade a reasonable one?” In the case of drug information being made illegal… I offer no opinion.
Okay. Drugs should be legal, with vigorous enforcement against sale to minors and driving while intoxicated. Gambling, prostitution, sodomy, and motorcycling without a helmet should be legal, too…but I’ll stop myself from going into a rant and getting too far off the subject.
What really bugs me is this:
It’s one thing to make a substance or activity illegal. But to make it illegal to talk about it? I find it alarming that lawmakers don’t recognize that slippery slope.
I posted a query in GD a few days ago (which did not, alas, take off) about The Hitman, a book that gave precise, step-by-step instructions on how to undertake a successful career as a professional murderer.
A man used that book to plan and execute (ahem) a plot to kill three people. He was caught and convicted.
The bereaved family then sued the book’s publisher, alleging that it was through their book that this man gained the knowledge to commit the crime. The publishers, they claimed, were really sort of co-conspirators. Their publication of a book with killing instructions, said the family, was no different than if they had sat down with the man and helped him develop the fatal plan.
Comments on this case?
Drugs? What drugs? Does this mean no more of those annoying prescription drug ads on tv?
Can still host your drug info sites on other countries web sites very easily.
Maybe we could resurrect the topic in GD. I am in Dallas this week, so I am away from my usual home computer and can only contribute sparsely. But I think it is an interesting topic.
Perhaps not in your eyes or mine, but the gov’t seems to decided that NEWS about drugs is illegal too, though not mentioned in the bill. Mcaffery complained about two different NEWS sites, saying they violated the bill!! Everything on these sites is straight out of a newspaper. If you think they’ll enforce this law as it is written, you’re nuts. CA voters decide they want medical marijuana. Gov’t says nu-uh. Washington D.C. voters say they want it. Gov’t at first refuses to even COUNT THE VOTES, then when they do and see that it passed, they just chuckle like scolding parents and do nothing.
Is that a democracy?
The right to freedom of speech IS. Anything you can write down on a piece of paper, like how to manufacture a bomb, how to synthesize mind-alterting chemicals, etc, etc IS COVERED! You can find out how to make any drug or bomb you want right down at the local library.
Passage of this bill would ensure you couldn’t even demonstrate how to make hemp rope, I assume. The DEA sure seems to think even owning imported hemp products should be a crime now. They confiscated 17 truckloads of sterilized hemp seed bound for a birdseed factory a few months ago.
death toll from pot = 0
death toll from guns = innumerable
Yer points are well taken Bricker, and again reflect the reality of “what is” in the administration of our version of justice.
Considering the forum, I’ll question only two points. From general to specific – I think your point is not so much that ‘Constitutional rights do change,’ than that interpretations of those rights change. I suppose I must preface this thought with my personal opinion that the concept of “inalienable rights” is foolish and idealistic, and denies the reality that the only rights any human enjoys in a societal context are those that hundreds of thousands have died to create and guarantee. Simply being born gives you the natural right to either find food or be food, and nothing more.
That said, within the context of interpretation it is difficult to find sweeping precedents that have fundamentally altered the language of the Constitution short of actual amendments. A search and seizure interpretation is a far cry from an attempt to outlaw the dessemination of knowledge. The relative worth of the knowledge may be questionable at best, but trying to eradicate the knowledge by banning its communication evokes images of totalitarianism.
More specifically, yer argument concerning the ‘balance of rationale’ is yet again an accurate description, but points out that the ‘balance’ can be no better than the person holding the scale. The argument here is not about whether a government has the ‘right’ to make judgements, but rather about the damage done when those judgements aren’t ‘right.’
The fact that the information in question pertains to a subject that is held in contempt doesn’t alter the chilling ‘foot in the door’ nature of the proposed legislation, and for some reason I keep hearing echos of that famous, ‘. . . and I did nothing because I wasn’t a Jew . . .,’ quotation.
I was going to add a few thoughts about yer “Hitman” question, but I’m already steamin’ up the place with all this hot air, and I’m running out of adjectives anyway, so I’ll shut-up now.
Dr. Watson
“Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism.” – Mary McCarthy, 1958
>^,^<
KITTEN
Fluff yer hair Beula, I’s feelin frisky - M.S.