: SDF: I see, and if automobile drivers kill when they have road rage, would you illegalize that too? It's an awfully naive perspective, to assume that YOU have the power to deny OTHERS rights, that is, unless you really ARE the guy behind global US enforcement of the War on Drugs. And I kind of doubt that. You are a college student? Or is that your "cover" for the greater power you in fact hold? Come on, Cynic. Power relations in the real world don't give you the power to deny others rights, not unless you really have that power.
C: What people have deemed "inalienable rights" is really nothing more than a code of behavior the public agrees to maintain while relating to the individual. Rights are a human fabrication. There is no part of the natural order that maintains you or I have any right to freedom, free speech, not be killed and eaten or smoke plant leaves. If the consenus of the entire rest of the world maintained I did not have the "right" to life and conspired to take it from me, explain exactly what is this "right" that condemns their behavior? It is some otherworldly thing, not observed or seen but felt? No. Rights are an idea, a human idea, and popular opinion determines which rights someone or something has at any given time.
Even the Bill of Rights that so many good, hard-working citizens of the Americas love so dearly is nothing more than words on a piece of paper. A document is the source of my rights. Pretty shallow and unassuring.
But it is empowering in a way -- that as a member of the public I have a small voice in deciding what others should and shouldn't have a "right" to do. I could lobby, as you said, or write letters to government officials, or just be seen on street corners preaching "Just Say No." if I wanted to extend my small influence. Other people will see it and agree or disagree accordingly. The opinion of the day will win over and become either written law or an unspoken standard of appropriate behavior.
And since all rights are derivative of accepted standards of behavior anyway, I don't find my position to be at all problematic.
That rights are tiny things we carry around in our pockets is an idea I find drastically unreasonable. That notion seems to be at the head of your attack on me and my simple "A few ruin it for the many" argument against drugs. Call me naive, if it seems to help serve you in criticising my position...
...but your concept of rights is equally naive and simple-minded.
Naively yours,
Cynic.
None.
