Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 3:42am

The Origins and Role of Government

So we’ve been discussing the proper role of the state on this blog recently, particularly as it relates to the legalization of marijuana. This discussion, in all of its unfortunate snarkiness and nastiness (to which I freely admit having contributed, not that I’m proud of it) is really a discussion on the proper role of the state.

I think it is rather uncontroversial to assert that America was basically founded upon the Lockean social contract theory. We begin with the proposition that everyone has basic natural rights: to life, liberty, and property. In a hypothetical scenario in which there is no coercive authority (the state/government), we must also act as our own judge, jury and executioner. In this anarchic situation, our rights to life, liberty and property are unsecured. In order to secure them, we collectively renounce our right to be our own personal government and transfer that right to a government we establish by contract. Our property – life, liberty and estate – is more valuable and necessary for life than our “right” to do as we please, when we please, to whomever we please.

The terms of the contract are rather simple. They are stated very simply in the Declaration of Independence. Governments exist to protect our natural rights. They don’t exist to make us “better people” – that’s what the Church is for. They don’t exist in order to achieve “social justice” – that is what private charity and free markets are for. The individual American states were founded by people of like-minds who wanted to establish communities that reflected their religious values – Pennsylvania for Quakers, Maryland for Catholics, and so on. The Constitution was created by the states mostly for the purposes of common security.

Government is not a positive good. It is an evil necessary to prevent the greater evils that would result from total anarchy. As such, it must be kept on the tightest of all possible leashes, which is why so many Americans demanded a Bill of Rights as a condition for the ratification of the Constitution. If men in a state of anarchy would be evil, they don’t suddenly become angels because we give them titles, badges, and offices. The evil in our hearts is the evil in their hearts, and the greater the scope and depth of the powers we give to governments, the greater potential for evil we establish.

This is all the more true when governments are run by people who don’t believe in natural rights at all, and who likely, if they believe what is academically fashionable, don’t believe in  free will and the dignity that attends it. It is all the more true when they are run by people who don’t believe in, or seem to understand, the concept of private property, and who consequently believe that their role is to decide how much of our own labor we are allowed to keep for ourselves. It is the absolute worst when it is run by people who believe it is their mission, divine or self-appointed, to save people from themselves – to rule and use coercive force for people’s “own good” in the manner of a parent to a child who doesn’t yet have the use of reason.

We are entitled to personal liberty within the limits of other people’s rights because we have souls, because we do have free will, the use of reason, and therefore the inherent capability to choose our own path in life, and in this our dignity as human beings lies. There is no practical or consequentialist argument that can override this basic fact about human nature, because it was established by God Himself.

None of this entails an endorsement of immoral and anti-social behavior. Moreover, I don’t object to local communities placing severe restrictions on individual liberty, provided that individuals are free to leave at any time. A monastery is a good example of what I have in mind: it is voluntarily formed, it is a life of rigorous discipline, and no coercive force keeps a man in it. He submits his own will to a higher rule of life. A workers cooperative is another example. So are the American colonies I mentioned previously. Voluntary collectivism (particularly in the service of God) may be our highest calling as individuals, but involuntary collectivism is among the most degrading things we can possibly be subjected to.

We don’t have to fit the textbook definitions of a communist or fascist state to experience what it is like to have our dignity violated either. We can have pockets of vicious totalitarianism alongside pockets of ideal liberty and natural order. We can walk around the streets freely while possibly being guilty of one of tens of thousands of obscure federal crimes that no one has ever heard of, until the unfortunate day that the government finds a reason to look. We can quietly work and pay taxes to fund activities that none of us would ever morally approve of and some of which we find horrifying. We can get by, because no matter how bad “it” gets, “it” can’t happen here – right?

Believe that if you like. But don’t talk about the law as if it as anything other than violent coercion. In order to secure our rights, I’m willing to say that some violent coercion is necessary. Beyond that, there had better be a darned good reason. Saving people from themselves (and punishing moderate users indiscriminately), bringing “democracy” to people who never asked for it (with drones and depleted uranium), and achieving “social justice” (i.e. radical egalitarianism) are not good reasons. That’s why I’ll always vote for the most libertarian candidate in the field.

So I’ll get this out of the way too: Rand Paul 2016!

PLEASE NOTE: Let’s try to keep it civil below. Snark is unavoidable I suppose, but insults will simply be thrown in the trash.

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Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Sunday, December 2, AD 2012 6:25am

As I understand it, the terms of the social contract are simply that “Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole.”

From this it follows that the people are sovereign and law is an expression of the general will. The laws are made by those who are to obey them, not by the government, which is to enforce them.

Thus, by the social contract, each individual gives up only so much of his powers, goods and liberty as it is important for the community to control, but, then, the people is the sole judge of what is important. This must be so, for the people have no master and no judge and decide all questions finally and alone.

It also follows that the government is the appointee and agent of the people, holding power under an imperative and revocable mandate and accountable to the people for its acts. No one may exercise any power over another that does not proceed from the people.

Jonathan
Jonathan
Sunday, December 2, AD 2012 6:45am

“I think it is rather uncontroversial to assert that America was basically founded upon the Lockean social contract theory. ”

I am not sure that Lockean social contract theory was the basis of America’s founding. Russell Kirk, among others, makes the convincing case that the Founders were more influenced by Burke, Blackstone, Montesquieu, Hume, and Hooker than by Locke in their design of the Constitution and government. Essays such as this – http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=176&Itemid=259 – while not explicitly agreeing with Kirk’s thesis, at least provide that the Founders read and were influenced by a much wider selection of thinkers than Locke.

Dante alighieri
Admin
Sunday, December 2, AD 2012 6:54am

I think it is rather uncontroversial to assert that America was basically founded upon the Lockean social contract theory.

Agreed with Jonathan above. Read Kirk, Bailyn, and others who rebut the notion that our founding was all about putting in place Locke’s Second Treatise. If anything, historians of all ideological stripes overrate the importance of political theory at the time of the creation of the new government and overlook how much of it was based simply upon pragmatic principles.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Sunday, December 2, AD 2012 7:06am

“and overlook how much of it was based simply upon pragmatic principles.”

Agreed. This was the saving grace of the American Revolution as opposed to the disastrous attempt by the French revolutionaries to make the most hare-brained theories a reality. The Founding Fathers were veterans of the political systems of their colonies and were not about to confuse theory and reality.

Paul W Primavera
Sunday, December 2, AD 2012 7:31am

“Saving people from themselves (and punishing moderate users indiscriminately), bringing ‘democracy’ to people who never asked for it (with drones and depleted uranium), and achieving ‘social justice’ (i.e. radical egalitarianism) are not good reasons.”

I agree. However, it is important to note that lead ammunition is as deadly as depleted uranium ammunition. When one wants to know about the hazards of rocket fuel, one asks a rocket scientist. When one wants to know the hazards of the chemicals used in the petro-chemical industry, one asks a chemist. And when one wants to know the hazards of depleted uranium, one asks a nuclear engineer / scientist. Anti-nuclear energy groups like WISE or NIRS, having a devout interest in smashing all things nuclear, are not repositories of the facts. But the US NRC, NEI, etc., are.

Now what is depleted uranium? Natural uranium is 99.3% U-238 and 0.7% U-235 (the number of neutrons is different between the isotopes, but the number of protons – 92 which determines chemistry – stays the same). U-235 is fissile with thermal neutrons. U-238 is not, but can be used in fast neutron fission or can be used to produced thermal fissile Pu-239 by resonance absorption of neutrons. To get uranium to the point when it can be used in thermal neutron, light water reactors such as what the US uses, it is enriched slightly to about 3 to 5 % U-235. You can’t use natural uranium in a light water reactor because the macroscopic absorption cross-section in hydrgen in the water coolant over-rides the low concentration of U-235, so the fission chain reaction is not self-sustaining. (Candu reactors in our neighbor to the north use heavy water and natural uranium – same physics and math, just different results – the deuterium in heavy water doesn’t absorb neutrons as well as the hydrogen in light water, but heavy water is way more expensive). Thus, in US reactors uranium has to be enriched by gas centrifuges (which is what iran is doing to get a bomb) or other means. (NOTE: a bomb requires 93+ % U-235; nuclear reactors require 3 to 5%. We know Iran is going for a bomb because they are enriching way beyond 3 to 5%). Now what is left over from the enrichment process is uranium whose U-235 is basically gone (because it has been concentrated elsewhere) and only the U-238 is left. We say this is depleted because the thermal fissile material is depleted. But U-238 could still be used in fast neutron reactors. Furthermore, it has even less radioctivity than U-235. In fact, it has less radioactivity than the bananas you ate this morning which has radioactive potassium in them, and you would get less radiation exposure from being next to a depleted uranium artillery piece than you would from the radium in the concrete and brick that make up Grand Central Station in NYC. Of course uranium dust is a hazard – it’s a heavy metal just like lead. The hazard comes not from its radiation which is miniscule but from its chemistry.

Now more facts on depleted uranium can be obtained here – please go to the nuclear engineers and scientists for the facts, NOT WISE and NIRS:

http://www.nrc.gov/materials/fuel-cycle-fac/ur-deconversion/faq-depleted-ur-decon.html

Please remember that more radioactivity is emitted into the environment by coal-fired power plants in the form of naturally occurring uranium, thorium and radium in the coal (that is burned and becomes ash dumped in ash ponds or released willy-nilly into the air) than by the use of any depleted uranium artillery.

Now the reason why depleted uranium is used in artillery is because it is very, very dense, more so than lead. So that old KE = (1/2) M V^2 law takes effect: more mass, more kinetic energy. Personally, I think that when we are fighting the enemy, we should use the best materials available and that includes depleted uranium. Now should we have wars of foreign adventurism in lands of Islamic fascism for oil when the depleted uranium can be better used as fuel in fast neutron nuclear reactors to generate low cost, cheap, pollution-free electricity? Of course not.

I hope this clarification helps.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Sunday, December 2, AD 2012 7:37am

I think it is rather uncontroversial to assert that America was basically founded upon the Lockean social contract theory.

The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut antedated the Two Treatises on Government by fifty years.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Sunday, December 2, AD 2012 7:43am

Jonathan

In 1984, Donald S Lutz published his findings that, in American polemical writings, published between 1760 and 1805, Montesquieu accounts for 8.3%. He is followed closely by Blackstone, with 7.9%. Locke comes in at 2.9%, closely followed by David Hume with 2.7. No one else achieves more than 1.5%.

Moreover, Locke was scarcely cited at all, before 1780, Blackstone seldom before 1770 and Hume very little before 1790. Montesquieu leads in every decade from 1760 and 1800.

Now, Montesquieu’s leading idea, in contrast to Locke, is that different laws and institutions suit different societies; he also attached great importance to situation, race and, especially, climate. In this, he was a far less prescriptive than Locke; the difference, perhaps, between a jurist and a philosopher.

This accords with Paul Zummo’s and Donald M McClarey’s assessment of the Founders’ pragmatism.

Jonathan
Jonathan
Sunday, December 2, AD 2012 7:55am

Michael,

If I understand you, that is not to say that those writers with later dates couldn’t impact the Constitution (of 1787), but only to say that Montesquieu was more influential?

I have used a list based upon Lutz’s writings, which is here – http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?Itemid=259&id=438&option=com_content&task=view.

I also think that Kirk argues correctly that the Founders had in their minds the rights of Englishmen, combined with a governmental form based upon Montesquieu and ideas he used from the Roman republic.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Sunday, December 2, AD 2012 8:29am

Jonathan

I imagine the big idea from Montesquieu was the separation of powers

G-Veg
G-Veg
Sunday, December 2, AD 2012 8:31am

The specific influences of the Framers is an interesting topic but it is on the margins of Bonchamps’ thesis and of marginal value in answering the question posed.

It is my view that Chief Justic John Marshall significntly altered the Constitution, defining it in exclusively Federalist terms rather than acknowledging the widespread and honest disagreement on form and substance of the debate. That is as it may be. We live under a Constitution defined as much by successive Statist courts from FDR’s administration through the first Clinton Administration.

Bonchamps’ post digs deeper to ask what the role of government SHOULD be, not what it has become, and I am in general agreement with his central thesis. Of course, one challenge of the thesis is that it is disconnected from reality by a giant chasm.

Man is generally unwilling to accept collateral damage in the exercise of liberty. This opens a hole through which Statism seeps.

I am willing to accept the proposition that men live with the consequences of their bad behavior. If a child is harmed by it, even without intention, we want laws to prevent the cause. This is a natural reaction and comes from a good impulse. Unfortunately, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Our system of government, in reality rather than theory, is a dance between Statism and Libertarianism; between those who refuse to accept collateral damage and those who believe that collateral damage is inevitable and choose only to alleviate or mitigate he harm caused by their own behavior.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Sunday, December 2, AD 2012 9:40am

G-Veg

I believe there is a further question.

A society that values equality as well as liberty will be on its guard against the growth of privilege inimical to liberty.

Jefferson was certainly alive to this; it was his motive in introducing into the Virginia legislature his law against entails and primogeniture, which he feared would create a landed aristocracy. He warned against “perpetual monopolies in commerce, the arts or sciences, with a long train of et ceteras,” such as the trade guilds of Europe enjoyed and he was suspicious of corporations with perpetual endowments. Hence, his insistence that the earth belongs always to the living, who cannot be restrained by the actions of the dead and he supported the French in their desire “to change the appropriation of lands given anciently to the church, to hospitals, colleges, orders of chivalry, and otherwise in perpetuity.”

Such concerns will lead men to support a strong central government. As Lord Acton says, “Government must not be arbitrary, but it must be powerful enough to repress arbitrary action in others. If the supreme power is needlessly limited, the secondary powers will run riot and oppress. Its supremacy will bear no check.” The power of the state is necessary to guard the individual from oppression by privileged groups; that is from regulation in an interest not his own.

G-Veg
G-Veg
Sunday, December 2, AD 2012 11:23am

You articulate your point well MPS and I concede that there may be other justifications for Statism. Are these shared by Americans though? I’m not sure that they are.

Jefferson had an affection for the theoretical underpinnings of the French Revolution that seem fairly unique for his time. I don’t recall reading anywhere that Rousseau’s writings had much currency with the Framers, Federalist or Anti-Federalist. Nor do I recall mention of French revolutionary ideas at the Ratification Debates.

So, while I think you articulate a point we shoul seriously consider in answering Bonchamps’ query, I don’t think it accurate to ascribe it much currency among the founders of our republic.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Sunday, December 2, AD 2012 12:08pm

G-Veg

Franklin, writing in 1736, 26 years before Rousseau’s Social Contract and 53 years before the French Revolution, voices very similar ideas to Rousseau’s on popular sovereignty: “The judgment of a whole people, especially of a free people, is looked upon to be infallible. And this is universally true, while they remain in their proper sphere, unbiassed by faction, undeluded by the tricks of designing men. A body of people thus circumstanced cannot be supposed to judge amiss on any essential points; for if they decide in favour of themselves, which is extremely natural, their decision is just, inasmuch as whatever contributes to their benefit is a general benefit, and advances the real public good.”

Such ideas were the common currency of the age.

Jonathan
Jonathan
Sunday, December 2, AD 2012 12:31pm

“Our system of government, in reality rather than theory, is a dance between Statism and Libertarianism; between those who refuse to accept collateral damage and those who believe that collateral damage is inevitable and choose only to alleviate or mitigate he harm caused by their own behavior.”

I think you’re correct, G-Veg. The only distinction which I would draw is that the choice to alleviate or mitigate will almost always be the one which impinges least upon the ability to exercise the behavior as freely as possible. If one examines carefully the laws surrounding Religion and Sexuality (a.k.a. Family Law), one sees your idea borne out. It is without doubt that quick and easy divorce is ruinous to our country, yet we choose to employ armies of counselors, lawyers, judges, etc. to pick up the pieces rather than enact laws that make it more difficult to become divorced.

G-Veg
G-Veg
Sunday, December 2, AD 2012 12:32pm

That is fascinating. I am embarrassed to say that I have not read any of Franklin’s writing. Perhaps there is a proviso though? The quote states something that I would not hold to be true. Take Sparta’ norms or Western culture’s abortion on demand theories, for example: how does the principle apply to the dastardly, self serving norms of fallen peoples? Perhaps there is more to the argument.

Perhaps i can coax you into exploing these ideas more fully. Whether the Framers of our constitution accepted Statisn ideas such as were proposed in France in the 1780s or not, the ideas are relevnt o this discussion since Bonchamps is exploing idels, not merely pragmatic realities.

I am curious, for example, how these ideas can be reconciled with the predominant wories of the Framers: tyranny of the few or the many.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Sunday, December 2, AD 2012 2:17pm

G-Veg,

You constantly make excellent “points.”

I recently re-read my freshman Ancient History text chapters on Greece to refresh on the Persian Wars. An interesting factor in Sparta’s political development was that the polis’ council usurped the Spartan/Greek fathers’ traditional discretion to slay, or not slay, infant children. Interesting that we have government sponsordd abortion and soon Obamacare euthanasia/death panels.

Your most recent comment raises the issue of “tyranny of the few or the many.”

Over the years (I have a six in front of my age), I have seen the liberals (perennial bed-wetters and eternal whiners), call it “dictatorship of the majority” whenever their plots were legislatively dismissed.

Whenever I heard/read that pabululm, these words: “consent of the governed” would fly around inside my cranium.

Two thing: The Framers specifically denied the government the authority to impose taxes on citizens’ income or property; and they never intended the government to have power to take property from some citizens and transfer it to other citizens to buy political power.

“Consent of the governed” and as St. Augustine wrote, “Government without justice is organized brigandage.” We have duly elected “organized brigandage.”

Art Deco
Art Deco
Sunday, December 2, AD 2012 4:50pm

The Framers specifically denied the government the authority to impose taxes on citizens’ income or property; and they never intended the government to have power to take property from some citizens and transfer it to other citizens to buy political power.

The federal government was debarred from levying direct taxes unless such taxes were apportioned among the states. State governments retained a power to tax as specified in each state constitution. The 16th Amendment extended the power to levy taxes on the income of individual households.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Monday, December 3, AD 2012 3:10am

G-Veg

Franklin, writing in 1736, was not considering a Federal constitution, but the government of a state.

Under any system of government, sovereignty must be lodged somewhere, by which I mean the power to make and unmake all laws whatsoever.

In an interview with the Catholic News Service (June 14, 1996) Scalia J explained, “The whole theory of democracy, my dear fellow, is that the majority rules, that is the whole theory of it. You protect minorities only because the majority determines that there are certain minorities or certain minority positions that deserve protection. Thus in the United States Constitution we have removed from the majoritarian system of democracy the freedom of speech, the freedom of religion, and a few other freedoms that are named in the Bill of Rights. The whole purpose of that is that the people themselves, that is to say the majority, agree to the rights of the minority on those subjects — but not on other subjects. If you want minority rights on other subjects, you must persuade the majority that you desire those minority rights. Or else you take up arms and conquer the majority. I mean you may always do that, of course.”

The ultimate guarantee of freedom is that the laws are made by those who are to obey them; that they are the same for all, whether they protect of punish and, thus, no one can restrict the freedom ofothers, without restricting his own to the same degree. This was well known to the Greeks, who spoke of ???????? [Isonomia = Equal law]

G-Veg
G-Veg
Monday, December 3, AD 2012 5:14am

I think I better understand your point. How do we reconcile it with Natural Law?

Abortion on Demand is a good vehicle for exploring this point, to my mind, because, in much of Europe, it is generally accepted as rightly and properly an individual concern, beyond the powers of the State to regulate; hence my Spartan reference eariier. Now, as a Christian, I know, with absolute certainty, that murdering children is inherently evil. In order for a law to be morally and ethically valid, it cannot directly contradict Natural Law.

So, is your point merely a practical one: that a minority, however righteous, has no power to make the majority do the Good? If so, it is an obvious point and I concede it unequivocally. However, if you are tying ethical and moral laws to majoritarianism, I am afraid you will have to explain yourself more fully since I am do not see the connection.

Don Curry
Don Curry
Monday, December 3, AD 2012 5:58am

You have it wrong. Drugs are illegal because the people, through their governmental representatives, have said that they need to prevent those who use drugs from , in many ways, harming themselves and others. Now..some doper may ruin his life and never cost society anything (like whenTHE USER needs help in government-provided services like rehab and counselling-which cost you and me!). But often he hurts his family or co-workers or the public, and causes certian problems for which certain action is needed. You talk about this problem in a way that totally misconstruees the REASON drugs are illegal. It is NOT about what the user does to himself. I don’t want druggies free to use in public or without some criminal sanction.
How much government do you want to eliminate? Should we eliminate the following?
1. laws prohibiting prostitution?
2. any governmental agency that examines and protects the manufacture and distribution of food we eat and legal drugs ? Should ANYONE be able to make and package meat and then sell it without inspection?
3. laws that require testing of people before they get a license to drive?
4. allow doctors to practice medicine without a license?
5. legalize heroin?….meth??..
6. should I be able to demand,” I want 3 oxycontin a day and not the amount that the doctor says he can legally give me?” I mean…my” freedom” to reduce my pain should allow me to do that??
I love “liberty,””freedom,” and I like to use those words to make whatever I am discussing more palatable, but Mr Catholic, people who don’t use drugs, it has been proven, need some civil protection, from many, many dopers who decide to violate the laws and do things known by everyone from publicized stories from the last 40 years. Dopers do things that harm NOT ONLY themdelves, but others….just like the person who is not tested and licensed to drive. Why shouldn’t I be able to mary without a governmentally-required marriage license??
I would never vote for Rand Paul….unless he ran against this Catholic-hating doofus we have as President now….

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Monday, December 3, AD 2012 9:40am

G-Veg

The contradiction at the heart of liberalism lies in its simultaneous assertion of popular sovereignty and universal human rights. In the brief interlude between the absolutist state of the Ancien Régime and modern mass democracies, this was achieved by the separation of the public sphere of state activity and the private sphere of civil society. The state provided a legally codified order within which social customs, economic competition, religious beliefs, and so on, could be pursued without interference.

But, when the social consensus on which the distinction rested breaks down, as it did with the rise of organised labour and of mass political parties, liberalism has no way of defining or defending the boundaries of this sphere; everything becomes potentially political.

Rousseau saw this very well. “Each man alienates, I admit, by the social compact, only such part of his powers, goods and liberty as it is important for the community to control; but it must also be granted that the Sovereign is sole judge of what is important,” for “ if the individuals retained certain rights, as there would be no common superior to decide between them and the public, each, being on one point his own judge, would ask to be so on all; the state of nature would thus continue, and the association would necessarily become inoperative or tyrannical.”

His solution is well known: “whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free; [« ce qui ne signifie autre chose sinon qu’on le forcera d’être libre »] for this is the condition which, by giving each citizen to his country, secures him against all personal dependence.”

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Monday, December 3, AD 2012 10:45am

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Dante alighieri
Admin
Monday, December 3, AD 2012 4:03pm

Anyone who votes for the use for force to save me from my own decisions is a moral fraud and my enemy.

Curious as to how you’d vote if abortion were ever on the ballot.

For that matter, what about legislation regarding rape, murder, arson and all other “decisions” you may make?

Now I know that you will retort that these are all actions that are much more serious than marijuana use, and you would be correct. Of course then you would be making a distinction – almost saying something akin to “No, that’s different,” which as we learned the other day would be hypocritical.

Paul Primavera
Monday, December 3, AD 2012 4:11pm

“I am opposed to laws that serve virtually no other purpose but to punish people for indulging in a substance that may or may not cause them to do something else.”

Has the writer used drugs, and if yes, then is he being being honest about the effect that the use of mind-altering substances has on his behavior? The question is rhetorical. I have the answer for myself. I did, and I became a lying, thieving, conniving reprobate deserving of incarceration, or worse. I have known of no exceptions, though I suppose there may be a few here and there.

I have often wondered how one can be so very brilliant in some areas, so miss the mark in other areas, and be completely (some would say even pridefully) unwilling to countenance a possible error in judgement. No offense intended. I simply know from first hand experience what drugs do.

Don Curry
Don Curry
Monday, December 3, AD 2012 4:17pm

Unrealistic expectations about how the individual is going to be responsible. When the individual screws up, it is the victim of his drug use who suffers and the govermnent who pays…since the family has kicked the doper out, and he has no more money because he has sucked it into his nose.Yes freedom!!…liberty !! womnan’s freedom…woman’s liberty.. and so I guess you are for abortion rights. As a Catholic, you must have alot to explain. ..and by the way…why do you think they call it “dope?”

Dante alighieri
Admin
Monday, December 3, AD 2012 4:23pm

Bonchamps,

Just trying to follow the logic of your absolutism, is all. I am not sure that your explanation really distinguishes drug laws from the other matters sufficiently, but unfortunately I’m not going to have time to pursue the matter for now. But your pro-life bona fides are unquestioned – again, I was just pointing out the difficulties with that statement.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Monday, December 3, AD 2012 4:26pm

The only thing they half-rght (for the wrong reasons) is opposition to the Fed. Bank of England’s Andy Haldane, “. . . the crisis started by the banks was as damaging as a “world war.” It will be central bank policies’ fault that the world will long-term suffer in abysmal economic growth and raging unemployment.

And, becuz on the list of evils that are destroying America weed is just above “Don’t shoot bigfoot or the aliens will become enraged!”

Paul Primavera
Monday, December 3, AD 2012 4:28pm

When talking about legalizing marijuana, we need to get the facts from reputable medical sources (e.g., the National Institute of Health, the Center for Disease Control, or the US Surgeon General) just as when we are talking about new nuclear power plants or Fukushima Daiichi we need to get the facts from reputable engineering sources (e.g., the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the US Nuclear Energy Institute, or the International Atomic Energy Agency). The following web sites provide information that indicates that the use of marijuana is hardly harmless or relegated to impacting only the user (which of course confirms my own personal experience):

http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/marijuana

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00001143.htm

https://www.ncjrs.gov/ondcppubs/publications/pdf/marijuana_myths_facts.pdf

Paul Primavera
Monday, December 3, AD 2012 4:34pm

“Not that it matters, but yes I have, and yes I am.”

Someone who is using marijuana should stop driving or otherwise using heavy machinery until one month after ceasing the use of marijuana since the THC molecule remains in the myelin sheath of the neurons for up to a month after the last use of marijuana and can precipitate out, resulting in an unintentional state of intoxication at any time. People who are currently using it are a danger to themselves and otehrs.

Paul Primavera
Monday, December 3, AD 2012 4:54pm

Bonchamps, thanks for the clarification. In my line of work, I would be relieved of duty immediately if marijuana were detected in my blood, however minute the quantity. And you would want me relieved of duty.

I am glad you stopped using, as did I. Sadly, I required the baseball bat of the Lord’s grace aisde the head to get me to stop. As for alcohol, it’s not like marijuana and in moderation is harmless while for me it is a poison. But that’s different.

No, I don’t like the war on drugs and I think the solution is the 12 Steps. But society has to protect itself from the scourge of drug use. So I disagree with your supposition that private use of marijuana harms no one except the user. That’s not true because the behavior it causes almost always harms others. And comparing that to alcohol is like comparing apples and oranges.

Paul W Primavera
Monday, December 3, AD 2012 5:45pm

Darn, I am not going to win this argument. Oh well! As long as there are no reactor operators at the panel using marijuana, or airplane pilots, or surgeons, or train engineers, or navigators of LNG or petroleum tankers, or any of a host of other occupations affecting public health and safety.

Dante alighieri
Admin
Monday, December 3, AD 2012 5:51pm

Having principles is now “absolutism”?

Sigh. Just forget it.

Jonathan
Jonathan
Monday, December 3, AD 2012 6:32pm

“Alcohol, on the other hand, causes people to get loud, obnoxious, sexually promiscuous and physically violent.”

That may be (in part) a societal reaction – see here, for instance: http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/Controversies/1048596839.html or here: http://www.sirc.org/publik/drinking4.html.

At any rate, congratulations, Bonchamps – this blog post has produced the most diverse (verbose) reactions I have seen to any post on this site in a great while.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Monday, December 3, AD 2012 7:44pm

Alcohol, on the other hand, causes people to get loud, obnoxious, sexually promiscuous and physically violent.

No, people are inclined to be loud, obnoxious, sexually promiscuous, or physically violent; alcohol lowers inhibitions. It is quite unremarkable to imbibe quite a bit over one’s lifetime and imbibe to intoxication and be none of these things.

G-Veg
G-Veg
Monday, December 3, AD 2012 7:54pm

Bonchamps, With respect to all, you aren’t tinkering at the edge of government an everyone else is. Therein lies the problem.

Unless I am greatly mistaken, you aren’t asking how to change the existing laws and government to allow particular principles to operate. You are proposing a Libertarian answer to the question “what is the origin and role of government?” and inviting us to offer an alternative view. If I have that right, MPS is the only one to have done so and his championing of Statism as the indispensible instrument of freedom through majoritarianism seems to me to be the polar opposite of your proposition.

I have nothing so clever to say as either of you and, so, am egging you on from the outside of the ring. I should very much like to see a back and forth between ye.

H. Bunce
H. Bunce
Monday, December 3, AD 2012 8:20pm

Bonchamps…Terrific, just terrific. Your clear, concise, direct responses to the “arguments” of Paul P., Paul Z., Don C. in this comments section have been a real pleasure to read.

Your defense of the natural law and the principle of non-aggression is heartening and sorely needed among my fellow Catholics. I check this blog for your posts often and then look forward to the comments following them.

I have to think that your response to Don C. @ 3:57pm would cause any thinking person to sit back and at least begin to question their position on these issues.

Well done! Please keep it up.

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