(Shirley Sherrod Story Palate Cleanser) - Resurgent Libertarian Ideals: What does it mean?
Can you spot the message in the Jefferson disk above? Picture taken at the Monticello, Virginia museum.
by the Left Coast Rebel
Can I speak for myself?
I hailed in my youth from distinctly dark red lenses (as in the traditional rah-rah red/blue political identity). Yet somewhere in between my growth in thought and ideas I found the philosophy of Ayn Rand. And much like Les Carpenter over at Rational Nation, she changed my perspective - even though much of the Objectivist train of thought was already 'hardwired' inside my mind.
My perspective has changed and evolved from there but a stubborn libertarian streak remains, as it probably always will. And I'm not a card-carrying member as many in the movement push (in my eyes) what is a rigid, stiff way of looking at things. And that I find off-putting.
For instance, I could care less about the de-criminalization of pot, while our nation is in the midst of the greatest freedom-grab in perhaps our history. And it's not that I have a problem with the idea, it's a forest-for-the-trees issue and it saddens me that libertarians obsess over the issue so much.
Nevertheless I still learn so much and become more and more like my libertarian brothers and sisters. I think blogger/activist Trestin Meacham knows just what I am talking about too.
Due in large part to the massive failure of the big-government, Keynsian economics 'compassionate conservatism of the Bush administration that led the way to the progressive/collectist power grab today, libertarian ideals and prism of thought has gained a much larger audience and is on the up-and-up in America.
Is this surprising?
Reason's Nick Gillespie, John Stossel and Virginia Postrel chat about just that:
Cross posted to Left Coast Rebel.
I understand where you're coming from as far as why you don't identify with the legalization movement and think the issue is trivial, but let me try to put it in broad-scope context and garner some support...
ReplyDeleteMarijuana prohibition was just one of the several government cover-ups in our history, and the legalizers' belief is that the Feds should be held accountable for these lies, especially given the way they have negatively affected our very society.
Think about this: worldwide marijuana prohibition laws have created a society where alcohol is the intoxicant of choice--weed is bad. Drink an ice cold beer instead. Alcohol is a poisonous substance that is very harmful to the human body and mind, completely disorienting the drinker from their surroundings and, in most cases, causing people to do things they regret, including violence, rape, or other uncontrollable emotionally-driven actions.
Each time you drink you are poisoning your liver and other internal organs, and overdosing on alcohol is extremely easy as it breaks down the inhibitions of the drinker. Alcohol poisoning kills approximately 85,000 per year, and our government and society accept and encourage use of this substance for "fun".
Throw automobiles into the mix, and you have an additional 15-20,000 deaths a year on your hands, plus property damage and life-threatening injuries to those lucky enough to survive.
When you think about how many commercials/billboards/magazine ads there are for alcohol, and how the industry has glamorized it for decades, it's easy to see that our society is in fact encouraging the recreational drinking of a poison that costs over 100,000 innocent American lives every single year.
Now let's check out marijuana. It currently enjoys widespread popularity in spite of its illegality; the US has 30 million users and counting. Science has proven that it is an effective medical treatment for glaucoma, symptoms of AIDS, side-effects of chemotherapy, anxiety, simple nausea, and chronic musculoskeletal pain. It has also been proven to cause many types of cancer cells to, in effect, eat each other, thus slowing down the process of malignancy.
The non-psychoactive variety of marijuana, or "hemp", has the potential to fill our needs for myriad natural materials and restore nutrients to barren soil, and could even be capable of replacing petrochemical fuel, plastic, paper, textile, and more.
We're talking a possible CURE to cancer, an end to the government-endorsed peddling of dangerous pharmaceutical drugs (which, by the way, cause about 32,000 deaths a year in the US), and full-scale, completely renewable biodegradable industry.
You can't say that this isn't a valid concern for us as an American society. The money that the government could glean from taxation is trivial compared to the social change and overall medical well-being of our population that is at stake here.
And yet the government made this illegal based on complaints from DuPont chemical company, a racist journalism agenda spearheaded by William Randolph Hearst, and the forgery of the AMA's support for prohibition (which they actually strongly opposed).
As a Libertarian you should resent this fraud that we have been forced to live with...now we have smugglers from foreign lands desperately struggling to supply us with things we could produce ourselves and make money off of, and over 280,000 deaths to date on the Mexico-US border proves that our government is doing all it can to prevent us from creating our own market for relatively benign substances.
It's only illegal if they say it is. I hope you have a new understanding of this movement, and, if you live in California, hope you will vote Yes on 19 and watch this society repair itself one issue at a time.
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ReplyDeleteVeronica - You obviously have some very strong beliefs on the topic of marijuana and I essentially agree with most of them.
ReplyDeleteI wish you had listened a little more to the other points in my post here - I essentially said that pot legalization is way down the priority list right now in what I believe this nation should be confronting - especially from a financial standpoint.
Patience though, you will prevail - thanks for your strong voice!
I put 250,000 human lives before money any day of the week. It's what our politicians have forgotten about...they would literally rather see us die in droves than lose that dollar.
ReplyDeleteJeffersonian Left Coast Rebel!
ReplyDeleteDo I win a prize?
I am heartened to see libertarian coming to the forefront. I am reading The Road to Tyranny now, and man is it an eye-opener. The man was prescient. Any rational person who reads that and The 5000 Year Leap will be truly angry at what we have become.
If the Republican party is to survive and reform its self, it must become more Libertarian. Far too many people are waking up and realizing what the two party shell game is getting us. While the Republicans are better than the Democrats, they have a large hand in the big government machine.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link.
Wow a lying Democrat hypocrite, how unusual.
ReplyDeleteVeronica - I'm not sure what your point is here, I agree with many of your points on pot but here you have lost me.
ReplyDeleteSilver - Yes! I am heartened as well, I think of it as a 'back to the roots' essentially.
Trestin - I totally agree and knew that you would like this post, you and I are close in age and thnk alike on this.
Malcontent - Me? Hope not :)