candid ([info]candid) wrote,
@ 2008-08-31 21:15:00
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biden, drugs, abortion, and ALL CAPS
I am hearing lots of complaints about Palin's positions on gay marriage and abortion. The first one I have a lot of trouble getting worked up about, as "should gay people be allowed to get married?" is not in my list of "top 100 crucial public policy issues". The second is indeed an unfortunate position.

HOWEVER, Joe Biden is SO BAD ON DRUGS. And while I'm sure I'm going to lose some LJ-friends for saying so, ANTI-DRUG LAWS ARE (MOSTLY) ISOMORPHIC TO ANTI-ABORTION LAWS. Both are attempts to criminalize voluntary transactions.

In fact, anti-abortion laws are marginally more defendable, as at least it's POSSIBLE to argue that there is a victim being looked out for. (Although it's not an argument that will go anywhere beyond angry shouting and offensive sign-waving.) Whereas when marijuana is grown and bought and sold, THERE ARE NO CONCEIVABLE VICTIMS. NONE.

Furthermore, the sheer scale of the "war on drugs", with its literally MILLIONS of victims, makes any possible "war on abortion" pale in comparison.

Just so I make myself clear, I will repeat. THE WAR ON DRUGS (of which Joe Biden is one of the largest supporters) represents INJUSTICE on a COLOSSAL SCALE. The sequence of events that would lead to a war on abortion characterized by similar levels of injustice is possible in theory (I guess) but AMAZINGLY far from the status quo.

THEREFORE, I must insist that whenever we critically discuss Palin's pro-life credentials and policies, we counterbalance them with an accounting of the MILLIONS OF LIVES THAT HAVE ALREADY BEEN OR ARE CURRENTLY BEING RUINED by Joe Biden's WAR ON DRUGS.

That is all.

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(Anonymous)
2008-09-01 04:53 am UTC (link)
whatever, druggie.

-the late, unlamented fidelity_astro, who follows you on google reader and is totally voting for obama

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[info]ikilled007
2008-09-01 05:48 am UTC (link)
Truth.

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[info]rinku
2008-09-01 05:56 am UTC (link)
three things i thought of:

- millions of people die of abortion each year if you believe fetuses are people (I don't), and millions of people were prevented from having abortions when abortion was outlawed, causing them to have to raise children they would not otherwise had to raise, so millions of lives are affected for both issues, not just the war on drug issue. in other words, if one is pro-choice, the ruin from abortion being outlawed is on the scale of the ruin of the war on drugs.

- palin doesn't actually want to legalize drugs, the difference between biden's war on drugs and palin's war on drugs is minimal. bidin just talks about it more, but it came up to vote palin would probably vote exactly the same way biden and everyone else in politics would vote (to keep them illegal).

- the vice president has very little power anyway, cheney is kind of an exception. on the other hand, possibly the more inept and mushy-minded the president is, the more powerful the vice president is, which probably means palin would be more powerful than biden. obama might be wrong on many things, but he doesn't seem mushy-minded the way mccain seems to be.

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[info]evilegg
2008-09-01 12:46 pm UTC (link)
Aborted babies will never smoke pot, so they should just learn to embrace that fact and count aborted fetuses as a win in the War on Drugs.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]malathion
2008-09-01 05:56 am UTC (link)
I know next to nothing about Biden's political positions, and don't care either because Obama will not die in office.

Critics of the drug war should be falling over themselves to vote for Obama.

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[info]phanatic
2008-09-01 06:18 am UTC (link)
I'm sorry, has Obama indicated that he'll be seeking to end the War on Drugs? What steps has he announced that he'll be taking to reform our drug laws and end neo-prohibition?

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[info]malathion
2008-09-01 06:35 am UTC (link)
You are a google search away from the truth. If you genuinely gave a shit and weren't just arguing because you like to, you would already know.

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[info]ikilled007
2008-09-01 07:17 am UTC (link)
Apparently, being a little less violent toward pot users constitutes ending the war on drugs in Ryan's eyes.

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[info]perich
2008-09-01 11:54 am UTC (link)
Would it have killed you to link to whichever URL you think ends the argument? Because here's the most recent and relevant entry I found for "obama war on drugs" (March 2008):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kurt-schmoke/obama-not-completely-sile_b_103122.html

Obama: "I think it's time we also took a hard look at the wisdom of locking up some first-time, non-violent drug users for decades. Someone once said that '...long minimum sentences for first-time users may not be the best way to occupy jail space and/or heal people from their disease.' That someone was George W. Bush - six years ago. I don't say this very often, but I agree with the president. The difference is, he hasn't done anything about it. When I'm president, I will."

That's an almost comical obliviousness to irony on Obama's part. Or the audience's, for not laughing him off the stage.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]phanatic
2008-09-01 03:27 pm UTC (link)
In other words, he's not seeking to end the War on Drugs. Thanks.

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[info]the_xtina
2008-09-01 06:21 am UTC (link)
http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/pressroom/pressrelease/pr082708.cfm

?

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[info]candid
2008-09-01 03:17 pm UTC (link)
see comment below

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[info]rosefox
2008-09-01 06:27 am UTC (link)
Biden isn't all bad and might be getting better, according to the Drug Policy Alliance. And Obama is hardly anti-Drug War, but he's also admitted to using drugs and is big on treatment. That's probably the best we can hope for from any major party candidate right now.

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[info]candid
2008-09-01 03:16 pm UTC (link)
The examples in that press release indicate that

(1) Biden thinks that black people and white people should suffer the SAME draconian penalties for using cocaine, and
(2) Biden co-sponsored a bill that makes it legal for doctors to prescribe Buprenorphine outside of traditional "methadone clinic" settings, just as long as they first take an 8-hour course and then apply for a special waiver, at which point they are "allowed" to "treat" up to 30 addicts (and if they beg for permission, up to 100).

The fact that these were the best two examples that the DPA could come up with just reinforces my point.

--

My point was not so much that the other three candidates are pro-legalization, but that PUNISHING PEOPLE WHO USE DRUGS is and has been one of Joe Biden's pet causes for the last several decades, and (your linked press release aside) I see no indication of any change in his sentiments, and THIS MAKES HIM A DISGUSTING, REPREHENSIBLE HUMAN BEING.

(And then there's his views on IP.)

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]commonreader
2008-09-01 06:56 am UTC (link)
I will have more babies if I can smoke pot during my pregnancy so I don't spend the entire thing vomiting. Therefore being anti-marijuana is being anti-life!

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[info]lupoleboucher
2008-09-01 07:03 am UTC (link)
Why do people complain about her gay marriage position? It's the same as Obama's.

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[info]commonreader
2008-09-01 07:04 am UTC (link)
Because they want her and her daughter to marry hot lesbians, obviously, while no one wants to think about Obama and sodomy. Ever.

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[info]ikilled007
2008-09-01 07:29 am UTC (link)
Any news about your coworker who went nuts?

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[info]candid
2008-09-01 03:19 pm UTC (link)
She showed up back at work 2 weeks later, apologized, and seems pretty normal ever since.

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[info]ikilled007
2008-09-01 03:20 pm UTC (link)
I assume no explanation was given?

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[info]patrissimo
2008-09-01 04:19 pm UTC (link)
fascinating. Schizophrenia seems most likely.

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[info]boffo
2008-09-01 06:44 pm UTC (link)
Not to mention that the President, and by extension, the Vice-President, has a hell of a lot more influence on drug policy than abortion policy.

Liberals have been insisting for the last 35 years that electing Republicans would result in abortion getting outlawed, with zero percent accuracy.

(Reply to this)


[info]malathion
2008-09-01 08:29 pm UTC (link)
P.S. vote republican if you want the drug war to escalate to nuclear levels.

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[info]phanatic
2008-09-01 09:40 pm UTC (link)
P.S. I like making random assertions without backing them up because it makes me seem condescendingly clever. I'm also a moron.

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[info]evilegg
2008-09-01 10:13 pm UTC (link)
You just made my heart skip a beat.

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[info]doteatop
2008-09-02 03:53 pm UTC (link)
Agreed. But is Palin any better on drugs than Biden? I expect not. She may have done less damage but Biden's had more time to work.

It's hard to find any politician who is good on drugs. I would have been thrilled to see Bill Richardson as the VP choice but I didn't have my hopes up.

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[info]gager
2008-09-03 03:37 am UTC (link)
Actually, I think the argument goes that if you make prison sentences the same between races, the overall sentences would come down drastically from their current draconian state.

However, drugs don't constitute the only libertarian issue. You should also look at Palin's record on Civil Liberties. According to Time, she investigated how to get books banned from the Library when Mayor of Wasilla. http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1837918,00.html

If true, I think that shows a complete misunderstanding of what the First Amendment and freedom of expression is about. I'm definitely sure I don't want a person that wants to ban books based on language in line to pick the next Supreme Court judges.

But I have deeper issues as I just don't understand this pick. Romney I would have hated, but understood. Hutchinson would have been a great pick and would have created a formidable ticket. But why a 2-year governor of Alaska (total population 13x less than New York City) in picking someone that might lead the country? There are just too many questions for me to see the wisdom in this pick beyond the fact that she is a woman.

But, hey, that's just me.

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[info]doteatop
2008-09-03 03:48 am UTC (link)
To remain true to the theme of the original post, I now must point out that the current human toll of the drug war exceeds by orders of magnitude the human cost of book-banning in libraries, or any other anti-free-speech issue.

Arguably also the drug war is where the battle for free speech is really being fought (and not in libraries). Without descending into the murky depths of parallels between the popular image of "mind-altering drugs" and the proposition of that image's intrinsic categoricity, there is no practical way to prevent american citizens from using all of the manifold of illegal substances without substantial limitations on our free speech (see http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2000/06/methupdate.html ).

To tether in some other libertarian issues, the drug war is also the front line for privacy, and illegal search and seizure.

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[info]commonreader
2008-09-06 06:20 am UTC (link)
It's hard to find any politician who is good on drugs.

I knew a hooker in Sacramento who said otherwise.

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[info]dogofjustice
2008-09-02 11:53 pm UTC (link)
I am kind of surprised that you haven't verbalized a problem with Palin's Down's Syndrome baby. They're like instant old people, except with less political clout... as long as conceiving and keeping the baby is seen as something to be very proud of, reducing unconditional benefits to old people looks like a hopeless cause to me.

(That said, I have to accept that erring in the direction of too much "compassion" is probably better than erring an equal amount in the other direction.)

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