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Saturday, March 23, 2013

Liberty Pen: The John Stossel Show: Ann Coulter: The Case Against Liberty

Source:FreeState Now

I’ll give Ann Coulter credit for something. For perhaps the first and last time. Perhaps the first time I heard her make a good point about anything. That as long as we have a so-called welfare state where we have to pay for others health care and mistakes and so-forth, that we shouldn’t be forced to subsidize things that could add to those costs. Which is why she’s against legalizing marijuana. Which as a Liberal I think about myself. I believe in a high deal of personal freedom, as long as it comes with personal responsibility and rule of law. The problem that drug warriors have and Ann Coulter being one of them, is that the argument that they use against marijuana is the same argument that can be used against alcohol, tobacco and prescription drugs. All drugs that have health risks and come with a cost for society and that we’ve decided as a country that we are going to tolerate those risks. As a cost for living in a free society and liberal democracy. And more than half of the country has already decided that marijuana is a risk worth taking as well.

Ann Coulter makes the best case for why marijuana and other illegal narcotics should be illegal. I still disagree with that for several reasons. That freedom has its awards and risks. So the question is who should be left with the power to make those decisions. Government making those decisions for us, or should the people be able to make those decisions for themselves and hold them accountable for the decisions that make. Rather than government trying to make decisions for people in how best to live our own lives. People they don’t know and never met, generally from a far away place. The other problem that drug warriors have is their contradiction to their argument that they don’t even see, or won’t acknowledge. That is they are fine with alcohol, tobacco, steroids, prescription drugs, sugar, caffeine and so-forth. All legal drugs that have costs and risks for society that have harmed and ruined lives and have taken lives.

But marijuana and other illegal narcotics for drug warriors are not acceptable, because they believe it has high costs and risks, for society. That will harm people and ruin as well as take lives. And that’s something they haven’t been able to respond to. In any democracy or free society, there’s going to be risks versus reward, benefits and harm. The question is who should make the decisions with how people live their own lives. The people them self who one way, or another will have to deal with the consequences of those decisions whoever makes them. Or government trying to make decisions for people it doesn’t know from a far away place in most cases. And I’m always with the individual when it comes to our own lives.




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John F. Kennedy Liberal Democrat

John F. Kennedy Liberal Democrat
Source: U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy in 1960