Look, I am good friends with several Big-L peeps, but they do have a tendency to come unglued about the use and abuse of dope. I reach my personal limit of THAT fairly quickly. Short fuse, yes.
Here's a Facebook thrashing I just had to administer:
"My expound-atorium is open for business, and YOU, Libertarian readers, are about to get the "business"!
I've been taking heat on my page from Friends who claim to be Conservatives, but should more correctly refer to themselves as Libertarian. CONSERVATIVES do not accept as appropriate the use of mind-altering substances without regard to effects spread into the world outside the users' clothing (well, SOME of them keep their clothes on, some don't), but LIBERTARIANS have this logical flaw in their political philosophies. The next paragraph includes my swinging this "clue bat", and it WILL hurt if you get in the way of my swing, but here goes:
The Libertarian high-horse you sit on keeps your body almost two yards in the air. It's not fun to fall two yards to the ground, but you will. Read my comment below, and know this: There is NO dispute that cannabis is an intoxicating substance, and there is NO dispute that once THC from using it gets into the human body, it takes DAYS for it to be filtered out. Those are facts of science. The derivative and VERY provable reasoning which follows is that there are a LOT of cannabis users going about their daily lives in our society, WHILE STONED. They are driving, working at jobs, doing things that LEGALLY REQUIRE sobriety, and they are not sober, they are STONED. This puts ME and others at increased risk as I go legally about MY daily life. I certainly have a RIGHT to ask my Government to reduce that risk for me, and they have done so, putting laws on the books which have proper Constitutional foundation (so says SCOTUS, for now). If all cannabis users (and alcohol users) were masters of self-discipline, there wouldn't be a problem: if they got stoned, they would restrict their associations with society until they weren't stoned or high. We know this isn't the case, and in fact, the very use of mind-altering substances without regard to the welfare of others involved is a reliable indicator of a LACK of self-discipline, and THAT'S where the Libertarian argument falls off of the afore-mentioned High Horse.
(Here is the "comment below") it referred to the "Feds can't have jurisdiction over recreational drugs" canard I hear all the time:
10A says things not in the Constitution belong to the States, but Interstate Commerce definitely is in the Constitution, and so the Feds MAY regulate on interstate transfer of cannabis products AND the dollars involved (there is no such thing as money that does not move interstate within banks). NO banking can be done by the cannabis companies unless the Feds approve it. Other than that, if it's grown in Oregon, processed in Oregon, sold AND consumed in Oregon, the Feds don't control it, Killer Kate does. Wretched Reese does. What Sessions is trying to say here is that all of the cannabis-legal States have "overflow", and "leakage" of the product across State lines, and THAT is what the Feds are going after now. If Oregon does a good job of policing it's own cannabis market, the Feds won't do a thing, but you know Salem, they can't do ANYTHING right....
Okay then, there you have the LOGIC of an actual CONSERVATIVE. Refute it if you can, Libertarians. Oh, BTW, the next part of your faux-conservatism I will go after is your "Fortress America" thing, but I'll give you a hint so you can prepare to meet me in debate: two word hint: ISLAMIC JIHAD.
Sorry I'm late with this, but we've a couple of things to consider here. Locals keep tellin' me about some study done in Denmark or somewhere over there, showin' that stoners are actually better at drivin'. Turns out, the only such study I found said that stoned drivers were marginally better than drunks. Look in archives of JAMA from about June of '91. Synopsis of article from, I believe Aeronautics & Space Medicine, concerning trials in a flight simulator. Four subjects, all given test of reaction times while sober and straight to establish baseline. Subjects given dope to smoke, then tested again and showed slowed responses. After 24 hours, still measurably affected times, even though 2 of the pilots said they didn't feel they were still under the influence of the THC. Now, the users here tell me that "dispensaries" advise them that they only need to wait 4 hours after usin' "medical" pot, before drivin'. And from what I've seen and heard, the stuff they use now is much more powerful than that from the early 90s, not to mention the weak Mexican stuff I smoked in the 60s.
Posted by: Inbredredneck | January 27, 2018 at 16:18
I've never been a fan of the Libertarian style "Oh, but it's just me doing what I want to do, man!" drug use. Drug use isn't a victimless crime. Someone else will ALWAYS be affected, whether it's the kid who's mommy is too stoned to be a parent, or the taxpayers forced to pay for healthcare on someone who can't stop jabbing dirty needles into their legs and getting MRSA infections that require millions of dollars.
If I could block their actions from affecting me, then they might have an argument. But they can't, and they know it. Been to the Pugetropolis lately? Last time I was there, driving from SeaTac to Ft. Lewis, I saw plenty of people toking on a bong while doing 55 down I-5 on a Thursday evening.
If it affects me, then I should have some say in it, and I say "No, sorry, you don't get to get high all day every day while I put up with the consequences of your actions".
Posted by: Ragin' Dave | January 13, 2018 at 17:27
There you go applying common sense & logic again! :)
Merle
Posted by: Merle | January 05, 2018 at 11:28