IntLibber wrote:Diogenes wrote:
While thinking about this, I considered my position on the drug issue, and at first thought the two things seemed to be a case where It appears the two issues are the same, and so I asked myself "How are they not?"
Mandatory seat belt use for your own good, vs Mandatory drug prohibition for your own good.
Well, my contention regarding drugs has always been that the users are already pretty much lost, and there is really no point in interdicting them if the purpose was to save them from themselves. However, it's not so simple as that. People who voluntarily use drugs are known to injure other people in at least two ways.
By driving under the influence and causing a crash or an accident, and by luring other people into trying a drug. The second injury is by far the worse of the two because it is far more common and far more damaging than most car crashes.
If the argument could be made that not using a seat belt causes other people to also not use a seat belt, and if then that person gets injured in an accident because they weren't wearing a seat belt, then it might be reasonable to suggest that the two examples are equal. But it is an excessive stretch to suggest that one person's lack of use would cause injury to another in the same manner as one person getting another hooked on drugs. One is indirect and highly improbable, while the other is direct and highly likely. And there is the distinction.
Anyway, my point was that I DO question my thinking from time to time, and if I cannot reconcile it with the facts before me, I am forced to change my mind, or at least call my previous conclusions into question.
That's just how I roll, and I recommend that methodology to everyone.
It's good to see you reconsider your position and explain yourself. I would like to respond to your logic here to help disabuse you of remaining logical errors.
Firstly, the first excuse, that a drugged person could get into accidents and cause harm thereby, well, most of the vehicle accidents in the US are alcohol related, so you are exercising a double standard here. By your logic, all alcohol should be banned for the same reason. Can't have it both ways.
You cannot argue that alcohol does not cause accidents. You are trying to argue that because we excuse the one thing, then we must also excuse the other. This is a variation of "Two wrongs don't make a right, but it d@mn sure makes them equal! " One thing being wrong does not excuse another thing for being wrong. With this in mind you feel the need to correct MY logical errors?
IntLibber wrote:
Additionally, harm done via vehicle accidents by drugged persons is generally a tort issue, where economic harm is done to others that must be paid for. In a situation where the driver is under the influence of alcohol, the person is usually able to keep their job, earn money, and thus pay damages to those they harm.
If we are to split legal hairs in discussing a philosophy, then you could argue that the cops deciding not to stop someone who is clearly drunk driving and a threat to the public is also a "tort" issue. The cop's failure to enforce the law is not Criminal, and if the drunk hurts or kills someone, the Cop isn't criminally responsible. This legal hair splitting requires us to believe that running someone down because you were angry at them is a "criminal" issue, while running them down because you thought they were a "Pink Elephant" is a "tort" issue.
The victim, feeling exactly the same injury in either case, can be forgiven for not appreciating the distinction. In our society, we should do everything reasonably possible to prevent people from getting run down, regardless of the intent or lack thereof of the driver.
IntLibber wrote:
Conversely, the drug user, when drugs are illegal, typically loses their job due to their drug use not because of any greater incapacity, but because the social and legal stigma of using drugs rather than alcohol (even though alcohol does greater damage) causes persons to lose their employment, and are thus reduced to being uninsured, living as criminals, and are thus unable to compensate their victims for the damage they do. If drugs were legalized, then drug users could be more likely to keep their jobs, stay insured, and thus be able to compensate victims as well as alcoholics are able to. So, your first argument fails on both logic and economic grounds.
You argue that people using illegal drugs are "more likely to keep their jobs, stay insured, " ? Really? Most of the people I know who used drugs couldn't keep a job at all because they were completely non-functional for anything useful. All they wanted to do was get high. You are probably arguing on behalf of wussy weed, which is the lethal equivilent of a water pistol, while I am discussing REAL drugs, like Crack, Meth, Oxycontin, Heroin, Loritabs, Zanax, Opium, etc. You know, REAL drugs which would be legalized under the misguided belief that "marijuana's not so bad, we should legalize ALL drugs just so we can have a consistent Philosophy! "
Again, you question
MY logic?
IntLibber wrote:
Your second argument, that drug users entice others into using drugs, is no different than the peer pressure to drink alcoholic beverages, and as I've previously demonstrated, alcohol does far more damage to society.
I don't recall if you've mentioned this previously, but do you have ANY experience with people using REAL drugs? Here's a snippet from a website that can hardly be construed as anti-drug.
Dr. Mary Holley, obstetrician and chairperson of Mothers Against Methamphetamine, informed the Associated Press that one's initial hit of meth is the equivalent of ten orgasms all on top of each other, each lasting for 30 minutes to an hour, with a feeling of arousal that lasts for another day and a half. She is quick to confess that the effect doesn't last long: "After you've been using [meth] about six months or so, you can't have sex unless you're high. After you have been using it a little bit longer you can't have sex even when you're high. Nothing happens. [Your penis] doesn't work."
http://www.rotten.com/library/crime/dru ... phetamine/
IntLibber wrote:
The legal system considers every individual responsible for their own decisions. It doesn't matter if someone tries to persuade you to use drugs, they aren't forcing you to take em, it is your choice, grow a pair.
I can say that nobody has ever forced me to use any drug (other than my doctor) but I lived under a lot of pressure to drink from age 15 onwards. Any illicit drugs I've ever tried has been my own choice, free of any influence.
You ever see this scene?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nNhOH4Y0bI
That's a joke, but that's how it works in real life. It is not simply a peer pressure effect. People see other people thoroughly enjoying something, and they want to try it. It's not peer pressure, it's instinctive.
It's like seeing your cousin (or brother, or friend) riding a wave runner, or a go-cart, and you cannot help but want to give it a try yourself. But with drugs, once you try it, the pleasure is so intense that you simply must do it over and over. It tampers with your ability to think because it's more pleasure than your body was designed to deal with.
Getting someone hooked by showing them how much fun it is, and by offering them a sample,
IS an injury.
IntLibber wrote:
I can also say that alcohol has done far more damage to myself, and others, in my life, than any drug has. You are blaming the wrong scapegoat for the ills you see in society.
I am not excusing alcohol. I am acknowledging that it is currently a fact of our existence. My argument is this. Why would we want another one just as bad, and others which are far worse? Again, you are trying to use the "One wrong justifies another wrong" argument.
IntLibber wrote:
So your second argument also fails, hard.
Your critique falls hard. My argument, not so much.