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RE: Win Cannabis Legalization Battle — Lose War for Freedom
the constitution always grants freedom and rights to the people and limits the powers of the government. it's the people's defense from arbitrary rulings of those in power.
hmmm, "the constitution always grants..." what is the constitution? Are you personifying it? Is it a contract and if so, how did it become applicable to me? Is it not simply a written instrument that no one bothered to sign? I'm borrowing lines from Lysander Spooner's No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority.
From the appendix:
"Inasmuch as the Constitution was never signed, nor agreed to, by anybody, as a contract, and therefore never bound anybody, and is now binding upon nobody; and is, moreover, such an one as no people can ever hereafter be expected to consent to, except as they may be forced to do so at the point of the bayonet, it is perhaps of no importance what its true legal meaning, as a contract, is. Nevertheless, the writer thinks it proper to say that, in his opinion, the Constitution is no such instrument as it has generally been assumed to be; but that by false interpretations, and naked usurpations, the government has been made in practice a very widely, and almost wholly, different thing from what the Constitution itself purports to authorize. He has heretofore written much, and could write much more, to prove that such is the truth. But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist. "
The government's arbitrary prohibitions of demonized substances is a perfect example of how the "constitution" has utterly failed to protect one of the most basic and fundamental of human rights i.e., the right to control what we possess and consume. It has not served to defend the people from this arbitrary usurpation.
what i mean is that, in order to assert our rights, we must have a written law -rules that govern us, and protect us and that's our guard against violations- our basis, where all our rights have laid out into text or form- and the state is the embodiment of these written rules while the government is the instrument to execute these rules .
i agree on your statement that we should gain the right to control what we possess and consume. i also agree that when canabis becomes legalized, it should have no string attached such as "sin" tax. "sin" tax will never stop people from using it, make the price higher so that the government can gain more.
On the other side of the coin. we need a government. a state. in order to say that you are sovereign. Don't invalidate the purpose of the constitution, it's the framework, a fundamental and supreme law, in which no one shall deter. you should better revise or amend it to suite your needs.
I can also see that the right to control what to possess and to consume have some drawbacks. for example, what if you grant all the citizens with ownership of guns? it will cause unrest and insecurity right?
Thanks for your interest and feedback John.
My perspective, which is informed by the writings of Frédéric Bastiat and Lysander Spooner (linked in the article above) among others, is that the we must come to terms with the difference between malum prohibitum, "wrong [as or because] prohibited" and malum en se, "wrong or evil in itself". To the extent that the written laws, or malum prohibitum, are merely codifications of what we all acknowledge to be wrong or evil in itself, there is no need for the laws. That is not to say there is no need for enforcement of these basic rules that enable us to live in society, it is just that, as laws, they are redundant.
The trouble comes with the malum en se laws -- the arbitrary rules that governments make that refer to actions that are not wrong in themselves. Not only do these later rules restrict our legitimate freedoms, they assert "rights" that are not derived from the rights of the governed. They go way beyond the rights that you or I possess as individuals. And using a written instrument like a constitution to justify this usurpation of "rights" is wrong, in my opinion, which is based on the observation of the harms it has lead to.
i think we both agree that if the rulings of the government will bypass the basic rights of every citizen, or take advantage of their power to strangle our rights- then there's no purpose of the constitution if it can't protect the lives of the individuals from those who are in power.
I respect your opinion. As long as there is a balance between the branches of the government- as long as they are independent and functioning, the people shall be defended from these malum en se laws.