Does Banning Drugs Decrease Thoughtless Progressivism?

by Little Miss Attila on June 20, 2010

No. No, no. And yet, there is plenty of truth hidden in here, dwelling alongside the drug prohibitionism. The hapless Ms. Carrie Fisher is used as a jumping-off point to define the intellectual muddle that leads to huge swaths of ignorance out there.

There’s more to the story, though: good, decent Christian women in this country who were stone-cold sober had a lot to do with—

• abolishing slavery;
• promoting temperence as a political force;
• expanding voting rights to women and people of color;
• popularizing eugenics;
• making birth control available, so families could be limited in size;
• disseminating the notion that women are somehow morally superior to men (and therefore should feel free to turn them down for sex, either for family-planning reasons or because the men were drunk, or because they have given up on married life but don’t want to admit it out loud).

One has to use one’s mind to separate the good from the evil. I come from a family of Methodists, and all four of my grandparents were teetotalers. Two of them were also rageaholic sadists.

Some of the worst self-righteous progressive prigs out there have never had a joint in their lives: the problems of society aren’t due to drugs. The problems are due to human nature, which cannot be excised by sobriety.

{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }

Morgan K Freeberg June 20, 2010 at 8:37 am

Thanks for the link!

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John June 20, 2010 at 8:40 am

Carrie Fischer is an idiot, but she is not an argument for drug prohibition. Drugs were illegal, and yet she had ready access to them. How could legalizing drugs have made the situation any worse?

“First do no harm.” And if you paint yourself as society’s doctor, that applies to you.

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DavidL June 20, 2010 at 4:36 pm

I inclined to believe the Greek adage: Moderation is the golden mean.

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Darleen Click June 20, 2010 at 9:42 pm

Drugs should be decriminalized in direct proportion to the elimination of the welfare state.

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Nancy Reagan June 20, 2010 at 10:40 pm

“the problems of society aren’t due to drugs. The problems are due to human nature, which cannot be excised by sobriety. ”

No, but human nature can be worsened by drugs, peoples’ character flaws exacerbated, I have seen it many times. One can argue as to whether prohibition is the solution, but drugs are a problem and a tremendous harm to society. I have never seen a person made better by drugs (as differentiated from medication). At their best they may do no harm. At their worst, they destroy lives. The goal of a wise society is to reduce their effect and influence as much as possible, through whatever method works best. This is not a guns-don’t-kill-people,people-kill-people situation. (the concept that it is human nature to blame not the means by which it is accomplished) Drugs do kill people. When a person is shot, it is the intent of the shooter to kill, thus the responsibility is entirely with the shooter, not the gun. People generally do not take drugs with the express purpose of killing or destroying their own or other lives, but they have that effect anyway, thus drugs do kill.

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