Am I a dirty liberal? I am not party affiliated – that is for sure. Am I entirely permissive? I don’t think so. But here’s the thing – I believe that anything you force someone to do is going to be something they are going to fight against. Whatever someone does it has to be a personal choice.
If you think drugs are a bad idea, it doesn’t mean, no matter how much data you give someone else, that they are going to agree. Persuasion is going to be a much more effective method of getting someone to see what you perceive as the error of their ways, rather than trying to slam in the rules you resort to when your communication is not being received.
How did they win the war on drugs? How can they win the war on drugs? Well, it seems that the notion of reframing street drugs as new modalities of treatment seems like it might be the way they have chosen. If they can turn a profit from the drugs it seems that their desire to stop people using is less of a problem.
Sad to say, but, as ever, it seems that when enough of the mainstream population is affected by a problem, then they do something. If it is a minority that is slowly being eradicated by drugs problems or disease, then the inconvenience is minimal, and so you calculate that it is easier to let them fade away than to try and remedy the situation. It is cheaper. Social action is very often a fiscal matter rather than a moral matter.
Morality is very often a dividing line that is drawn by disagreements about lifestyle choices. Strangely, morality, as defined by lifestyle, seems to be something that excuses government intrusion, where lifestyles that comply with the conservative viewpoint, or are fiscally driven, seem to warrant less and less regulation. Small government is great when it affects business, but large government is needed when it comes to making sure that those whose lifestyle choices you don’t like get stamped out.
Choice is the only thing that matters. If it isn’t, and you are forced to comply, then you are moving away from the ideal scene. Making a place great again, if it is dependent on removing choice from any sector of the community, is a misfire; it is a lie. If you like the removal of choice from a minority just because their choices make you uncomfortable, the you really don’t understand the value of the choice that is in fact allowing you to be just as you are. You are sat on different sides of the scale, and if you let the balance be eroded, you are not going to benefit in the end. Where the scale tips in your favour by the erosion of someone else’s liberty, it will eventually rebalance in the erosion of your liberty as well. Control is something that eventually is applied unilaterally by those who have it, because those who are freer become a threat.
Am I a dirty liberal? Probably. But I am not party affiliated. Why? Because neither of them is answering the questions being asked. Why? Because they have dollars stuffed in their ears. The people asking the questions don’t have enough dollars to stuff in their ears to drown out the problems.