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More than anything the War on Drugs, which Civil Asset Forfeiture is a part of, has lead to the direct destruction of the bill of rights. This is one of the p

by syshum 6y ago

More than anything the War on Drugs, which Civil Asset Forfeiture is a part of, has lead to the direct destruction of the bill of rights. This is one of the primary things that lead me to be a political and philosophical libertarian, and why I oppose prohibition completely (even for so called hard drugs) Most people think anyone that oppose prohibition on weed or other drugs simply wants to use them, but for me it is recognition that the War on Drugs has lead to the complete subversion of every single right protected by the US Bill of rights, every single one. Not just the 4th, 2nd, and 10th, but all of them

t-writescode 6y ago
The War on Drugs is the mechanism through which an enormous amount of the bad laws and precedents have been created and permitted. Add Mandatory Minimums and Three-Strike Laws to your list of reasons to hate it.
- nobody9999 6y ago
  >The War on Drugs is the mechanism through which an enormous amount of the bad laws and precedents have been created and permitted. >Add Mandatory Minimums and Three-Strike Laws to your list of reasons to hate it. But don't forget the economic impact either: 1. We spend Billions on "interdiction" and "enforcement", even though the vast majority of folks who do use drugs that are currently illegal don't have a dependency problem, and treatment on demand for the small number that do would be significantly less expensive; 2. Putting someone in prison costs tens of thousands of dollars a year, and that person isn't contributing to the local economy where they lived, a double negative impact on the economy; 3. The stigma of a felony conviction usually makes most better paying jobs unavailable to folks convicted, further reducing economic output; 4. Building ever larger prisons and hiring more and more prison guards, administrators, etc. takes money away from other, more productive endeavors, often limiting economic growth due to lack of infrastructure, better quality of education and a host of other factors.
  - labster 6y ago
    The goal isn’t prevention or increasing economic output, it’s to punish people for breaking social norms. And that goes triple for people of color. It promotes the power of the powerful, who can always make an exception for their friends while claiming with certitude that all other addicts are morally deficient. So people can make arguments all day long that the War on Drugs is expensive and ineffective and unwinnable, but some people aren’t going to care, because it’s a long-running culture war that empowers the powerful.
opinion-is-bad 6y ago
I agree with your position and wish to add this quote: "The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." (H.L. Mencken)

by syshum 6y ago

t-writescode 6y ago

The War on Drugs is the mechanism through which an enormous amount of the bad laws and precedents have been created and permitted. Add Mandatory Minimums and Three-Strike Laws to your list of reasons to hate it.

nobody9999 6y ago
>The War on Drugs is the mechanism through which an enormous amount of the bad laws and precedents have been created and permitted. >Add Mandatory Minimums and Three-Strike Laws to your list of reasons to hate it. But don't forget the economic impact either: 1. We spend Billions on "interdiction" and "enforcement", even though the vast majority of folks who do use drugs that are currently illegal don't have a dependency problem, and treatment on demand for the small number that do would be significantly less expensive; 2. Putting someone in prison costs tens of thousands of dollars a year, and that person isn't contributing to the local economy where they lived, a double negative impact on the economy; 3. The stigma of a felony conviction usually makes most better paying jobs unavailable to folks convicted, further reducing economic output; 4. Building ever larger prisons and hiring more and more prison guards, administrators, etc. takes money away from other, more productive endeavors, often limiting economic growth due to lack of infrastructure, better quality of education and a host of other factors.
- labster 6y ago
  The goal isn’t prevention or increasing economic output, it’s to punish people for breaking social norms. And that goes triple for people of color. It promotes the power of the powerful, who can always make an exception for their friends while claiming with certitude that all other addicts are morally deficient. So people can make arguments all day long that the War on Drugs is expensive and ineffective and unwinnable, but some people aren’t going to care, because it’s a long-running culture war that empowers the powerful.

opinion-is-bad 6y ago

I agree with your position and wish to add this quote: "The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." (H.L. Mencken)