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These words were written by famous libertarian Karl Hess...the man whom Willy credits for "turning" him into a libertarian...but famously delivered by Barry Goldwater in his presidential nomination acceptance speech in 1964. Events showed that "extremism"...or, at least the appearance of such...may not be a vice in this case, but it was thoroughly rejected by the American people in 1964 and all other cases as well.
We often remind the Libertarian Party of its tendency to get wacky and extreme by applying "cast in stone" principals to every imaginable situation. Imagine our surprise when, in response to last week's article...More Reefer Madness...we received a complaint that WE are being too extreme on the Drug War issue!
Now, the author of this criticism...whom we will refer to as "Wiseman" for reasons that will become apparent...is not a member of the LP. He characterizes himself as a "statist liberal," but that designation is, at least in part, a reaction to our perceived libertarian anti-statist rabid opposition. When, at our request, he took the LP World's Smallest Quiz, he scored as a centrist/liberal/libertarian. Besides, in his opening shot...we engaged in a spirited week-long debate via email...he said "...the Libertarian Party isn't going half far enough - it should be pushing a Constitutional amendment stating:
Congress shall make no law criminalizing an act that lacks a defined and identifiable victim."
This is hardly a statist position!
Much of our debate centered around the use of the word "addiction," with us maintaining...as we always have...that the word is essentially useless since it encourages people to blame their voluntary behavior on the drugs, rather than themselves. Wiseman wisely pointed out that there is SOMETHING in the notion of addiction that warrants attention. He also noted that it is a good idea to warn children that habit forming drugs are much more difficult to quit than to start. In fact, it turned out that his main concern is exactly our children. While he feels, as we do, that there is absolutely no justification for government interfering in what adults do to their own minds and bodies, he feels quite strongly that there must be an age limit below which this does not apply, that strong exceptions must be made for immature minds.
We countered with our deep suspicions about the use of the "save the children" argument, that the perverts use this tack to justify treating us ALL like children, who need protection from ourselves.
But that brought up a new issue. By lumping all people who favor some form of the Drug War as perverts who get their kicks controlling other people's pleasure seeking behavior, we ignore the very real dangers inherent in unlimited use of mind altering substances both by individuals and society.
Eventually, we all came to the conclusion that "addiction" is a loaded and often inappropriate term which should be replaced by other more descriptive words. But, we also agreed that a "full speed ahead" and "damn the torpedoes" approach to ending the Drug War trashes a lot of otherwise sympathetic people's concerns. Wiseman favors legalizing and taxing the bejeebers out of currently illegal drugs, following the alcohol and tobacco route of controlling the abuse of these substances. While we have concerns...also based upon the experience of control by taxation...that this will work or not, we recognize that there has to be some very strong attention on the part of libertarians to the legitimate concerns of non-libertarians. Failure to do so, not only dooms the LP to fringe extremist status, but also bodes ill for stopping the police state tactics of the REAL perverts.
Before some of our "purer" libertarian readers jump all over us on constitutional grounds...something we ourselves brought up in the course of our debate with Wiseman...he reminded us of the preamble to that constitution, which, after all, sets the general tone for the type of government that this document authorizes. Besides declaring that to "provide for the common defense" is a legitimate concern of government, it also stated in the very next clause that to "promote the general Welfare" of "we, the people" is also a reasonable goal. We can argue about how far this authorization goes...the Supreme Court has routinely wrestled with this ever since its inception...but we can NOT argue that the constitution doesn't allow ANY interference in our activities...just because we...as individuals...don't think we are hurting anybody but ourselves. He used the example of the state interfering with Christian Scientists when they refuse to allow medical treatment for their dying children. While we winced at the thought of the government telling ANYBODY how to raise their children, we had to admit that, as parents, we would ourselves interfere if the state didn't! Is this a violation of the LP rule to never be the first to initiate force? Perhaps. But, failure to recognize that this type of interference has long been sanctioned both by popular will AND by the Supreme Court, we once again cast ourselves as extremists...and stupid extremists at that.
Finally, we all agreed that the best remedy to the current Drug War is accurate and timely information...both the good and the bad...about drug usage. By this we do NOT mean the incessant government propaganda which gives the impression that the only reason anybody uses illicit substances is to ruin their and their families' lives or to help terrorists.
Along those lines, we pass on some information about OUR favorite illicit drug, marijuana, with which we have had a lot of experience.
Good news: Marijuana is a potent appetite stimulant, a good nausea suppressor and, for some people, an excellent aphrodisiac. It also tends to make the world seem less serious, more humorous. All of these properties make it a very good drug for seriously ill...or terminally ill...people or those experiencing the harsh side effects of chemotherapy. It has few physical side effects and no one has EVER died from an overdose.
Bad news: This drug makes you STUPID! That is, by impairing your judgement and short term memory, it turns you into a good imitation of the village idiot. While this may be just "what the doctor ordered" when trying to relax after a hard day at work, it is a TERRIBLE way to accomplish serious work or to study in school. Forbidding its use by teen-agers may be the only way to deal with these effects. It also suggests that operators of machinery, especially the universal automobile, should avoid doing it stoned. In addition, the long term effects of smoking it quite possibly may have some of the same effects as tobacco smoking. Finally, marijuana saps initiative. It is very difficult to do hard physical labor as well as mental labor while stoned. This suggests that it might indeed be a good idea for companies to forbid marijuana use during work hours.
What Wiseman has done is remind us that, in a democracy, extremism never has been and never will be a good strategy for a political party. All we do by blindly applying abstract principals to each and every political situation is chase away those who, like Wiseman, believe strongly in democracy and just want to settle arguments by persuasion rather than coercion. The last thing we want to accomplish is to discourage people like him from joining the LP or simply moving the political dialogue toward smaller government and more liberty. Indeed, people like him might be able to take the LP toward actually WINNING elections, a truly revolutionary goal.
In the future, we will try to pass on more useful information about other illicit drugs. We've tried...and rejected...nearly all of them, as have all of our children. But, we are aware that you do not have to make rules against things that people do not want to do, so we'll try to tell you both the good and the bad news about each.
Talk to you later...
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