"Conservatives" adopt Progressive Principles

[TDPerk]

"Conservatives" adopt Progressive Principles

http://www.volokh.com/2014/01/17/conser ... riorities/

After first explaining how Bork's views--Bork a supposed conservative--extrapolate to both the prohibition of consensual sex and to the lack of any right not to be raped, if a majority choose otherwise, shows in parallel the abhorent police state Ladajo favors, and the refutation, if the conjecture is true, of the worth of the American Revolution.

We see here the horrifying consequences that follow from the notion that rights are benefits created by the state. That contention empties the word “right” of any real content, and replaces it with a permission extended by the superior state to the inferior individual, when and how the state chooses.

The founding fathers were familiar with this argument, and they rejected it. John Locke, the intellectual progenitor of the American Revolution, is most famous for his Second Treatise of Civil Government, passages of which Jefferson paraphrased in the Declaration. But in his First Treatise, Locke had focused on refuting the arguments of Robert Filmer, a monarchist whose view of rights was remarkably similar to modern positivism. Filmer claimed that government owns citizens, and that it may give them rights or withhold rights from them whenever it sees fit. So, Locke asked in his rejoinder, can princes also eat their subjects? If we recognize that rights are not just government-created permissions, we also can recognize that there are limits on what government may justly do to us. But Rehnquist and Bork held that government comes first, and that it gives people freedom when it wills, and for its own purposes. Their argument, as Locke said, lies in a little compass, and it is this: that all government is absolute monarchy, and the ground they build on is this: that no man is born free.

I reject the contention categorically. With his assertion only the firm smothering hand of the police can keep a lid on society, Ladajo gives his game away entirely.

Ladajo and Diogenes are not merely wrong but self evidently idiots in their chosen view, and traitors to 1775 and all uniquely good in that year.

Rights inhere to the individual, and they pre-exist the state, and they are not severable from the individual by any contract--no law organic, statutory, or private can command a wrong to be done and be rightfully enforced.

This includes a prohibition on the consumption of alcohol--which if unjust and unwise was at least done with benefit of an amendment--or any other enjoyable substance.

It includes the defensive keeping of firearms where not legal, or the smoking, injection, or snorting of a substance with enjoyable effects, regardless of a law to the contrary. This includes religions disapproved of.

Your rights don't end until someone's nose starts, and nothing criminal can have happened until you connect with someone else's nose.

The point of the scare quotes are, of course, that these people aren't really conservatives at all.

[ladajo]

Keep googling away. Eventually you may learn something, the internet is full of useful stuff. Everything is true!

So, just because, once again I will state my position as completely against "dominate and intimidate" policing.

But what does that matter in the face of a perky nutjob who sees things the way he wants them to be.

Perk, you like to cite 1775 like some sort of magical banner. Too bad that if you were there you would have done nothing but stay at home and whine about injustice.
You are soft.

You would have had not the guts to go out and confront the crown. You would have been one of those, "let us just all get along" pussies who had not the foresight to see it was not going to work. You would have thought Sam Adams a bully who took rights from others. After all, he was responsible for the near murders of tax collectors just trying to do their jobs.

Patriot my ass, you are not even close. You know not the founding principle of the fight. The entire idea of a society based personal responsibility and accountability is beyond you.

But you still want your cops. Someone has to arrest those who break rules (that you argue should not exist).

[TDPerk]

You don't know me. You're so wrong I have to laugh.

[TDPerk]

"Perk, you like to cite 1775 like some sort of magical banner."

It was something magical. I am not surprised you don't believe it.

And where'd the presumption of googling come from? I visit that website regular. It's the apropos-ness which was co-incidental.

[ladajo]

"Perk, you like to cite 1775 like some sort of magical banner."

It was something magical. I am not surprised you don't believe it.

And where'd the presumption of googling come from? I visit that website regular. It's the apropos-ness which was co-incidental.

You should actually study some history. The revolution was ugly, dirty, splintered and almost did not come together or succeed. It was a very close thing, not some glorious fantasy you have painted in your head. To borrow a quote, "it was a close thing". A close thing that very much changed the history of the world (I would like to think for the better), but at significant expense to many folks in loss of life, dignity, property and honor on both sides.
Magical it was not. Blood, sweat, tears and some dice rolls it was.
I would recommend Philbrick's new book, Bunker Hill if you have not read it. Another good read that gives some good insight into the drama that was Washington is Hackett Fisher's "Washington's Crossing".
War is never magical. And the american revolution was certainly one of the least magical ones if there is such a thing. It was death, pain and mayhem which ended many.

[ladajo]

You don't know me. You're so wrong I have to laugh.

Well I guess that makes us even.

Except for the niavety part. You got me beat there for sure.

[ladajo]

Educate yourself on what pot does to you

And how it harms your brain

[Diogenes]

"Conservatives" adopt Progressive Principles

http://www.volokh.com/2014/01/17/conser ... riorities/

After first explaining how Bork's views--Bork a supposed conservative--extrapolate to both the prohibition of consensual sex and to the lack of any right not to be raped, if a majority choose otherwise, shows in parallel the abhorent police state Ladajo favors, and the refutation, if the conjecture is true, of the worth of the American Revolution.

You characterize Ladajo's position as favoring a police state? This is the position of a kook, not of someone who is reasonable.

I reject the contention categorically. With his assertion only the firm smothering hand of the police can keep a lid on society, Ladajo gives his game away entirely.

Anarchy will get a police state faster. It is YOUR position which is the advocacy of a police state, you are just too shortsighted to realize it.

Ladajo and Diogenes are not merely wrong but self evidently idiots in their chosen view, and traitors to 1775 and all uniquely good in that year.

Hey! F*CK YOU @SSHOLE! Nobody who is rational is going to buy your childish argument that the interdiction of fools usage of dangerous substances is tantamount to advocating a police state or being a traitor to the founding principles of this nation.

This is why rational people regard "Libertarians" as nutburgers.

[Teahive]

Ah, the myth of "rational" people...

[GIThruster]

You should actually study some history.

Not to mention he keeps connecting 1775 with amendments in the Bill of Rights which was about 15 years later.

[TDPerk]

@GIThruster

"Not to mention he keeps connecting 1775 with amendments in the Bill of Rights which was about 15 years later."

What's not to connect?! The first was inspired by what led to the second.

@Teahive

"Ah, the myth of "rational" people..."

People are rational, plenty rational enough that the best course in political economy, is to govern the least you can get away with--the governors are always less rational about any given person's life, that that person is. That's true both when people are sampled individually and when viewed as an aggregate.

@Diogenes

"You characterize Ladajo's position as favoring a police state?"

He has said it himself, admitted it.

"This is the position of a kook, not of someone who is reasonable. "

Take it up with him.

"Anarchy will get a police state faster. It is YOUR position which is the advocacy of a police state, you are just too shortsighted to realize it."

Except I've never advocated anarchy once in my life. Again, you'll tell yourself what ever lies you need to. Your handle is the tribute hypocrisy pays to virtue.

"Hey! F*CK YOU @SSHOLE! Nobody who is rational is going to buy your childish argument that the interdiction of fools usage of dangerous substances is tantamount to advocating a police state or being a traitor to the founding principles of this nation.

This is why rational people regard "Libertarians" as nutburgers."

You lose it because you have no counterargument, you are animated by no high principle, liberty least of all--and that's the only excuse for the whole country existing.

There is no line to draw between one substance or material, the discrete use of which affects a sole person in and of itself, and another harmful thing, to say one should be prohibited a priori, and the other not. By every argument you've made, tobacco, coffee, and alcohol should all be illegal (or at least coffee after 3pm, unless you have a permit for it). You're not conserving anything of worth, you're just preserving a dead loss.

@Ladajo

"Well I guess that makes us even.

Except for the niavety part. You got me beat there for sure."

What's naive about seeing something is wrong in principle, and non-functional and expensive besides? You've got nothing in counter evidence. I'm nothing if not an empirical man.

"You should actually study some history...[editing a bunch of blather out]"

I call it magical because I have studied the history, I know exactly how close a thing it was. I know what it cost people.

The result was magical, it was the greatest advance in human society yet seen, and for two thousand some years before.

Not that you appreciate it, you reject the concept. You think society needs police to hold a lid on itself.

Police are hired guns, nothing more, nothing less; hired with the expectation that you more expertly do what people already do every day, which is keep the peace. It'd be great if the bulk of you could be more humble and competent about it, if only by driving out the worst 10% of you.

Just be still enough to consider that a woman got shot in the head in front of her kids, by a dummy whose every stupidity you've steadfastly defended, because he had his finger on the trigger when he had no target at all, and you're claiming it's nothing but propaganda--not evidence something wrong with how you do business.

[GIThruster]

Your rights don't end until someone's nose starts, and nothing criminal can have happened until you connect with someone else's nose.

That is really the question, and you're presuming the answer. Sensible people agree that this is not true. We REQUIRE for example, that people pay for auto liability insurance, because they can quite by accident, do more harm than they can pay for with a car. So we do indeed look at the possible outcome's consequences and from there make an adult decision--something you seem incapable of doing.

This same dynamic is behind restrictions on prostitution--because history clearly demonstrates that allowing significant portions of society to demean and cheapen humanity has far reaching consequences--far beyond what libertarians tell us is really a "victimless" crime.

We require people to wear helmets when they ride motorcycles. Why? We require them to wear seatbelts. Why? We outlaw bestiality, and incest, and other private behaviors. Why? Because even though these things appear to be private choices, they have very public outcomes.

The outcomes with drugs are obviously public. Take for instance the unfortunate though fantastically common error made by those in the drug culture, that they should treat others as if they're sympathetic to smoking dope. 1/10 people smoke dope but druggies pretend that this is normal behavior. It's not normal. It's criminal behavior. People don't walk into a room full of relative strangers and talk about burglarizing the neighborhood, but for some oddball reason, those in the drug culture seem to think they should talk about their lawlessness with the average man, when in fact, the average man is not sympathetic. So why does this happen? It happens because private behavior doesn't remain private, even when it's lawless, unless there is a social sanction against it. When sympathy arises for a lawless behavior, that behavior is let out of the box, and spills out into the rest of life and culture.

Your drug use, is polluting our culture and destroying our way of life. Before Vietnam, cannabis was not socially acceptable. It has become ever more socially acceptable despite its strong correlations to crime, stupidity, cognitive impairment, poverty, and general dopiness, because drug users feel they need to force the issue down the throats of everyone around them. You see, these things don't stay private. If they did, we would not be having this conversation. its only because crank libertarians hold these destructive views that we have the discussion to begin with. And given all the harm and destruction of people's lives that all sorts of illegal drugs do, no sensible person thinks they ought to be decriminalized, just as we don't want to see prostitution, bestiality and incest decriminalized.

This is not rocket science. Its simple common sense.

[ladajo]

"You characterize Ladajo's position as favoring a police state?"

He has said it himself, admitted it.

See, here is where you are full of shit again Perk.

Show me where I said I favor a police state.

Let me state again, (as I have many many times before in many threads), I am against a police state, and specifically I am against, "intimidate and dominate" policing.

You are having a very hard time with simple concepts.

Policing is a natural function of any society. Societies have proven throughout history they are not self-policing.
Any stability and progress is based in a precept of accepted norms and adherence to them.
Adherence however is the rub. Human nature clearly ditates personal interpretations of what adherence means and requires.
It is for those bell curve outlayers that policing is required. Those "hired guns" that upset you so.
Why?
Because not everyone on the curve can protect themselves equally from those at the far ends.
When the curve flattens, more policing is required.
Once it flattens enough, no amount of policing is sufficient.
In case you have not noticed, we are in a flattening curve situation.
The police are struggling, and in that struggle becoming more likely to make mistakes due to the overburden placed on them.
This overburden is a clear function of our society's continuing trend towards acceptance of lack of personal responsibility and accountability.

It is clearly beyond you to ken that the introduction of a "By Definition" lack of personal responsibility and accountability creating drug as legal and perfectly acceptable adds to the problem at hand. One that furthermore has a built in demonstarted mechanism to create a pharmacological and pyschological desire for more effect and more use, what some people call a "self licking ice-cream".

What Pot does to you

And how it harms your brain

Or do you dispute the findings of these current reports?

[GIThruster]

from the above link:

Frequent use of cannabis, especially in adolescence, is associated with the development of schizophrenia, a chronic neurodevelopmental disorder. During adolescence, when schizophrenia typically presents, profound changes occur in the brain, often through synaptic pruning, a process that endocannabinoids help regulate.72 Using cannabis interferes with adolescent neurodevelopment, and imaging studies associate marijuana use with adverse development of the hippocampus and the cerebellum.73–75 Epidemiologic data associate heavy adolescent use of marijuana with both an earlier onset of schizophrenia and a 2-fold increased risk of developing schizophrenia.76 To be clear, the use of cannabis in adolescence does not cause schizophrenia but increases the risk of its onset, suggesting interplay between marijuana use and genetic predisposition for schizophrenia.77 For people who develop schizophrenia, ongoing use of marijuana is associated with more severe psychosis and impaired performance on tests of attention and impulsivity.78, 79 Marijuana is a psychoactive substance whose psychiatric complications are known to increase with early onset and regular use.

Cannabis use is associated with impairments in memory and cognition. Heavy cannabis users have deficits in the encoding, storage, and retrieval of memory.80 A recent animal model found that cannabis impairs working memory by activating astroglial cannaboid receptors in the hip- pocampus.81 These findings correlate well with the association between heavy marijuana use and bilateral volume reduction of structures involved in memory like the amygdala and hippocampus.82 Marijuana users often perform poorly on tests of executive function, information processing, and visuospatial perception.83

The use of cannabis is more modestly associated with depression and suicide in epidemiologic data. Frequent cannabis use is significantly associated with depressive disorders in bothanimal models and epidemiologic studies.84 Hyperactivity of the endocannabinoid system is associated with impulsivity and suicidality, which is borne out in epidemiologic studies where a significant association is observed between marijuana use and suicidal ideation and attempt.85

Finally, cannabis is the most commonly used and abused illicit substance in the world. In the United States each year, approximately 6500 individuals begin to use marijuana daily, of whom 10–20% will develop cannabis dependence.86, 87 Among people admitted to substance treatment facilities in the United States, marijuana is the most frequently identified illicit substance.88

[ladajo]

Glad to see that at least one person besides me took the time to read them.
Of course I don't expect the pro crowd to do so as it might interfere with the chosen reality they live in.