Going Libertarian

I have noticed, time and again, that a good many bloggers who are all for "liberty" are perfectly willing to go the fascist route on a good many non-gun topics.

Such as drugs.

They don't like people getting high, GOVERNMENT BAN.

Pick something they don't like and it's amazing how much government they'll tolerate to end it.

This pisses me off to no end because I've found yet another world where I don't fit in.

The Libertarians call me a statist because I think anarchy just won't work.

The drug problem is sticky.  Banning drugs clearly does not prevent people from taking them.  The black market for things that make you high is extremely lucrative and every single time such things are banned the people trafficking them begin a charge to the bottom in violence and depravity.

Legalizing drugs now will not end that depravity.  It will not stop the violence.  But letting people who want to get high, do so would have kept the black market from forming!  Look at the money people are willing to spend to get high!  Money that is presently funding the violence and depravity.

And that's just drug cartels.  Look at the other corrosive effects on liberty from the drug wars.  No knock searches at the wrong address where an innocent person is killed by the police who can't do once what Domino's does thousands of times a day.  Cars being destroyed during searches for the tiniest amount of contraband because a sniffer dog cued off the handler and not their nose.

Is that better or worse than just letting someone get stoned?

The drug war is lost.  People are simply willing to pay far too much to get high.  Because of the ban we now will have to fight a real war to break the nation-state level of power we've funded into the narco-cartels.  Strangely, we may end up fighting to keep them in power and eliminate the legitimate governments where they are because it's simply cheaper and easier.  One thing is certain, though, legalizing drugs cuts their funding and it's something they are very afraid of.  They went on a murder spree in Columbia over the issue to keep drugs illegal there.  If legalization didn't matter, why would they?

To put another perspective on it.  If we end up in a real war with the narco's; if drugs remain illegal we will be paying for both sides to fight.  I know how simple and cheap meth is to make if the chemicals are freely available.  The reason it's dangerous to make now is all of the processes in play to make the chemicals to make the chemicals to make the chemicals one needs to start actually making the meth.  Yet more death at the feet of the war on drugs!

It would be a lot better, overall, to let companies like Roche and Smith-Kline make brand name drugs than what we have now.  Yes, some people are going to die from overdoses (this portion of the drug problem is self correcting with hard drugs).  Yes, some people are going to die from what stoned people do while they are high.  I predict that it will be fewer than are dying now.

I tend to be goals oriented.  What is the GOAL of the drug war?  Did the ban on drugs achieve this goal?  If the answer is no and you advocated for this war we can stop listening to your ideas for a solution.

PS: I cynically think that the goal of the war on drugs had nothing at all to do with drugs but is really a vehicle to eliminate that pesky liberty wherever it's taking root in the USA.  If you look at it in that regard, it's working well.  Legalizing drugs cuts this goals nuts off.