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Posts Tagged ‘Prohibition’

Walter Block: Hats Off To Oregon

Posted by M. C. on January 9, 2024

Under alcohol prohibition, there were deaths due to gangs fighting each other for turf. No such occurrences take place under legalization. Do we really want to go the Mexican route, where drug gangs are so powerful? Oregon, and Oregon alone, is showing the path out of that particular morass.

Walter Block: Hats Off To Oregon

By Walter E. Block

Many states have legalized marijuana, not just for medical purposes. They have also done so for entertainment, and hats off to them too. The government, nor anyone else, simply has no business prohibiting adults from imbibing whatever drugs they wish into their own bodies.

Prohibition, whether of alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, or any other drug for that matter, is profoundly incompatible with the ideals of democracy (not that this system is any great shakes either, but that is an entirely different matter). Such laws are in effect stating that adults are too stupid to know what kind of substances to imbibe. But if they are that foolish, it would be a disaster, would it not, to allow them within a million miles of a voting booth. On the other hand, they are indeed allowed to cast a ballot. Those morons? The critics simply cannot have it both ways. Either the citizenry are idiots and ought to be prohibited from certain drugs, in which case they should not be allowed to vote, or, if they are, then they ought to be trusted and not be treated like children when it comes to drugs. Paternalism is fine and dandy for kids, but certainly not for adults, at least not according to the democratic ethos.

So, yes, congratulations to the many states that have legalized pot for medicinal or entertainment or any other purpose.

But Oregon deserves special congratulation in this regard. It has employed this libertarian doctrine of freedom not only to cannabis, but to other, possibly more addictive drugs as well, including small amounts of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine. However, the Beaver state now finds itself under attack for its civilized legal system.

See the rest here

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There Is No Federal Solution

Posted by M. C. on April 28, 2022

If there is to be a war on drugs, government funding of education and health care, government welfare programs, government grants and subsidies, discrimination laws, gambling laws, and a minimum wage, then these things must be instituted at the state level. This, of course, does not mean that they are desirable, and, in fact, all of them are antithetical to the principles of liberty, even at the state level.

There Is No Federal Solution

by Laurence M. Vance

The twentieth century in the United States can certainly be characterized by the massive increase in federal solutions to right every wrong, correct every injustice, and fix every problem, real or imaginary. This mentality is what gave us things like the New Deal, Social Security, Prohibition, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Fair Deal, the Great Society, the War on Poverty, the War on Drugs, Medicare, and Medicaid. Unfortunately, much of this is still with us.There are a number of issues where the federal government has so clearly and plainly violated the Constitution by its solutions that it boggles the mind that anyone would defend its actions.
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With the coming of the COVID- 19 pandemic in 2020, the 50 states reasserted themselves as problem solvers, but not in a good way. Governors, mayors, county commissioners, and city councilmen enacted draconian lockdowns, quarantines, face mask requirements, the closure of “unessential” businesses, bans on indoor dining, the closing of schools, stay-at-home orders, contract tracing, curfews, capacity limits on stores and restaurants, the canceling of concerts and sporting events, social distancing requirements, prohibitions on weddings and funerals, vaccine mandates, and the closure of bars, churches, theaters, amusement parks, and casinos.

Compared to the actions of the states, the federal government’s role at the beginning of the pandemic almost seems benign. The federal government initially did what it does best: hand out money. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act gave $1,200 to each adult, plus an additional rebate of $500 per qualifying child. The Tax Relief Act gave every adult $600, plus another $600 per qualifying child. The third COVID-19 stimulus package passed by the U.S. Congress was the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). It provided adults with a maximum “recovery rebate” of $1,400 per eligible individual, plus an additional $1,400 per qualifying child.

But, of course, the federal government did not stop there. President Biden repeatedly promised on the campaign trail that he was going to “shut down the virus.” Soon after Biden took office, on January 29, 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) instituted a face mask mandate for all people while on public transportation (airplanes, trains, subways, buses, taxis, ride-shares, maritime transportation, trolleys, cable cars) or at transportation hubs (commercial airports, bus terminals, commercial vessel terminals, train and subway stations, seaports, U.S. ports of entry, dedicated ride-share pick-up locations).

Throughout 2021, the federal government did everything it could to promote and mandate the COVID-19 vaccine. Biden’s “Path out of the Pandemic,” issued on September 9, maintained that his administration would “continue to use every tool necessary to protect the American people from COVID-19.” Additional actions were announced in December “to combat COVID- 19 as the United States headed into the winter months.

Biden’s statements

But then Biden made two brief statements that seemed to negate everything that the federal government was doing. In late December, Biden spoke with state governors on a call regarding potential strategies to manage the continued impact of COVID-19. After White House COVID coordinator Jeff Zients cleared the press from the room, Biden took questions from several governors. Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, chairman of the National Governors Association, spoke about challenges his state was experiencing in responding to the pandemic: “And so one word of concern or encouragement for your team is that as you look towards federal solutions that will help alleviate the challenge, make sure that we do not let federal solutions stand in the way of state solutions.” Biden then surprisingly said that “there is no federal solution” to the COVID-19 pandemic and declared that it “gets solved at the state level,” before he boarded a helicopter and departed for his home state of Delaware.

See the rest here

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Voting for Evil – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on August 18, 2021

William Anderson has summed it up nicely: “Most conservative Christians abhor libertarianism because they see it as promoting a permissive lifestyle from abortion to taking drugs. Yet, what they fail to understand is that the restrictive, prohibition-oriented state that they are trying to create (and also preserve) is much more likely to take away all liberties than a state that gives people permission to live as they wish (within the boundaries of not doing harm to others and engaging in peaceful exchange).”

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/08/laurence-m-vance/voting-for-evil/

According to most conservative, evangelical, and fundamentalist Christians, Democrats are evil, and voting for Democrats means voting for evil.

I certainly can’t disagree with this. After all, the Democratic Party is the party of socialism, collectivism, paternalism, statism, abortion on demand (at taxpayer expense if they can get away with it), LGBTQ “rights,” social justice, economic egalitarianism, feminism, environmentalism, climate change, green energy, universal healthcare, affirmative action, government regulations, higher taxes, welfare, organized labor, public education, anti-discrimination laws, defunding the police, and alternative lifestyles.

What these Christians fail to see—ignorantly or willingly—is that the Republican Party is not just the stupid party, it is likewise evil, and voting for Republicans means—in most cases—voting for evil. Don’t believe me? See the scores of articles I have written over the past seventeen years about the Republican Party. But enough about what some Christians see as God’s Own Party.

There is another way that these Christians say that people vote for evil. This is when elected officials or voters in a state vote against what can be described as moral values or family values.

Now, we are not talking about abortion, which is certainly a great evil. I am referring to what libertarians call victimless crimes.

Thus, if elected officials in the legislature or on a city council or county commission vote to legalize or decriminalize the medical or recreational use of marijuana, legalize or relax laws against prostitution, make it easier for strip clubs and massage parlors to open, or expand legal gambling, then they are said to be voting for evil instead of what they are actually doing—voting for more freedom. The same negative things are said of voters who approve ballot initiatives to let any of these things take place.

In other words, anyone who votes for the government to allow people to have the freedom to commit sin or vice, engage in immoral or unhealthy actions, practice a deviant lifestyle, engage in risky or financially ruinous activity, use addictive or mind-altering substances, or harm themselves—even though in doing so they are not violating the personal or property rights of others—is voting for evil.

The Christian’s ultimate rule of faith is the New Testament—not canon law, church tradition, church councils, papal decrees, the Church Fathers, the writings of the Saints, the Reformers, Reformation creeds and confessions, denominational pronouncements, or even the Old Testament, although “whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope” (Romans 15:4).

There is no support in the New Testament for the idea that Christians should seek legislation that would criminalize victimless crimes—whether they are sins or not. Voting against such legislation is not voting for evil.

It is not the purpose of Christianity to change society as a whole outwardly; it is the purpose of Christianity to change men as individuals inwardly. The Christian is in the world but not of the world. He is to “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Ephesians 5:11), not legislate against them. The Christian is to “live peaceably with all men” (Romans 12:18). Christians are to pray for those in authority that they, Christians, “may lead a quiet and peaceable life” (1 Timothy 2:2). The attitude of the Christian should be to mind his “own business” (1 Thessalonians 4:11) and not be “a busybody in other men’s matters” (1 Timothy 4:15).

Christians should be seeking to change hearts and minds, not look to the government to regulate behavior that doesn’t violate the personal or property rights of people. Christians are making a grave mistake by looking to the state to legislate morality. It is not the purpose of Christianity to use force or the threat of force to keep people from sinning.

William Anderson has summed it up nicely: “Most conservative Christians abhor libertarianism because they see it as promoting a permissive lifestyle from abortion to taking drugs. Yet, what they fail to understand is that the restrictive, prohibition-oriented state that they are trying to create (and also preserve) is much more likely to take away all liberties than a state that gives people permission to live as they wish (within the boundaries of not doing harm to others and engaging in peaceful exchange).”

Voting for men to have the freedom to do as they will (and suffer any negative consequences for doing so) as long as they don’t violate the personal or property rights of others is not voting for evil. It is voting to punish them for doing so that is voting for evil.

Laurence M. Vance [send him mail] writes from central Florida. He is the author of The War on Drugs Is a War on Freedom; War, Christianity, and the State: Essays on the Follies of Christian Militarism; War, Empire, and the Military: Essays on the Follies of War and U.S. Foreign Policy; King James, His Bible, and Its Translators, and many other books. His newest books are Free Trade or Protectionism? and The Free Society.

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Why Chesterton Despised Thanksgiving Day | Intellectual Takeout

Posted by M. C. on November 30, 2020

Chesterton, to put it mildly, was not a fan of Puritanism in any of its guises. Theologically, Puritanism is rooted in Calvinism, and the determinism of Calvinistic predestination was anathema to Chesterton. But at issue here is another aspect of Puritanism, namely the temptation of Puritans, then and now, to promote—and enforce—prohibitions.

Oh well, you say, those prohibition-minded Puritans are long gone. Not so, countered Chesterton, who could point to the brief success of the movement to prohibit the sale of alcohol in America.

https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/why-chesterton-despised-thanksgiving-day/

By Chuck Chalberg

Did you know that England also has a Thanksgiving Day?  Well, actually it doesn’t. But G. K. Chesterton did propose such a day for his England. And therein lies a tale, or at least a few thoughts for a Thanksgiving Day conversation. 

Chesterton’s thoughts on thanksgiving with a small “t” are not at issue here. But they are important. He thought that a sense of gratitude was crucial for human happiness. For him, that sense should begin with thanks for this world and one’s very existence in it. Even in his darkest days, days of unbelief that were touched with thoughts of suicide, Chesterton always held on to some sense of belief—and his life—by “one thin thread of thanks.”

But his thoughts about an official Thanksgiving Day for England were more directly tied to the origins of the first thanksgiving feast in the New World and its perpetrators, the American Puritans. 

Chesterton, to put it mildly, was not a fan of Puritanism in any of its guises. Theologically, Puritanism is rooted in Calvinism, and the determinism of Calvinistic predestination was anathema to Chesterton. But at issue here is another aspect of Puritanism, namely the temptation of Puritans, then and now, to promote—and enforce—prohibitions.

Oh well, you say, those prohibition-minded Puritans are long gone. Not so, countered Chesterton, who could point to the brief success of the movement to prohibit the sale of alcohol in America.

Oh well, you respond, that foray into prohibitionism has been thoroughly discredited and is now nearly a century behind us. Maybe so. But during the heyday of the 18th amendment Chesterton was on hand to point to the follies—and dangers—of the prohibitionist mind set. He was also on hand to ask us to remember to thank God for “beer and burgundy by not drinking too much of them.”

Today Chesterton’s words remain on hand to remind us that there are links between the Puritan mind of the 17th century and what he has termed the “Modern Mind.” It is a cast of mind that still “cries aloud with a voice of thunder” that there are always things that must be “forbidden.”

This cry could come from prohibitionists declaring that “there must be no wine.” Or it could come from pacifists who insist that “there must be no war.” Or from communists who stipulate that “there must be no private property.” Or from the “secularist” who decrees that “there must be no religious worship.”

All of these prohibitionists, and more besides, remain determined to ride roughshod over Chesterton’s “ordinary man.” That would be the “ordinary man” who had a right to live—and order—his own life as he saw fit. Those rights included the right to “judge about his own health,” the right to “bring up children to the best of his ability,” and the right to “rule other animals within reason” among many other ordinary rights.

In sum, G. K. Chesterton was far from convinced that Puritanism was dead and gone. In fact, it was all too alive in the “Modern Mind.” That was the mind that could not accept what Chesterton regarded as the “Catholic doctrine that human life is a battle.” More often than not, these are the battles that one fights with oneself, which is to say battles that should be fought without benefit of official—and officious—prohibitions.

Having come to the United States twice while the 18th amendment held legal sway, Chesterton experienced a direct encounter with this version of prohibitionism. Teetotaler that he wasn’t, G. K. Chesterton had reason to object to the powers of prohibitionist thinking over the modern American mind (even if he occasionally benefited from home brew in professors’ homes while lecturing at Notre Dame in the fall of 1930).

When back home in England, Chesterton’s objections gave way to thanks. That would be thankfulness that his country had not taken a similar step. In fact, it was this very sense of thankfulness that led him to propose a Thanksgiving Day for England. It would be a day to “celebrate the departure of those dour Puritans, the Pilgrim fathers.” Once here, they gave thanks and feasted (probably without beer or burgundy).

But if Chesterton is right, they also left their mark on America and the modern American mind, a mark that had lingered here long after their departure not just from England, but from this world.

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Dr. John C. “Chuck” Chalberg writes from Bloomington, Minnesota.

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The War on Some Drugs | International Man

Posted by M. C. on September 9, 2017

Frankly, if you want to worry about drugs, it would be more appropriate to be concerned about the scores of potent psychiatric drugs from Ritalin to Prozac that are actively pushed in the US, often turning users into anything from zombies, to space cadets, to walking time bombs.

http://www.internationalman.com/articles/the-war-on-some-drugs

Longtime readers know that although I personally abstain from drugs and generally eschew the company of abusive users, I think they should be 100% legal. Not just cannabis. All drugs. Read the rest of this entry »

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