Drug Use Decriminalization is Only a Small, Albeit Positive, Step in the Right Direction

It’s not often I agree with a far Leftist. But in the case of a bill before Congress sponsored by New Jersey Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, this is such an instance.

Coleman introduced Federal legislation that would decriminalize drug use at the federal level. As Jonathan D. Salant reports for NJ Advance Media for NJ.com:

New Jersey Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman on Tuesday announced legislation to remove federal criminal penalties for all drug use — including marijuana and other drugs such as heroin and cocaine.

At a time when lawmakers in both houses are seeking to end the federal ban on cannabis, Watson Coleman, D-12th Dist., would go even farther.

Watson Coleman and her co-sponsor, Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo. announced their bill two days before the 50th anniversary of Richard Nixon’s announcement of a “war on drugs.”

Begun “as a cynical political tactic of the Nixon administration, the War on Drugs destroyed the lives of countless Americans and their families,” Watson Coleman said. “As we work to address the opioid epidemic, it is essential that we change tactics in how we address drug use, away from the failed punitive approach to a health-based and evidence-based approach.”

Several Republicans, including Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla. and Rep. Chris Smith, R-NJ, oppose the bill on the grounds that it “basically tells people we think this is OK or relatively  harmless. It’s not. And there’s a whole criminal enterprise associated with the delivery of many of these drugs.”

This last is true. But that’s not a reason to keep sending people to prison for non-violent drug use. It’s a reason to decriminalize the manufacture and delivery of the drugs, and bring the drug business out of the criminal underworld into the transparency of the free market.

Smith asserts that “keeping such drugs illegal can dissuade people from using them.” It is important, he said, that “the law act out of an abundance of concern to protect people from hurting themselves and others. Having punitive measures against those kinds of drugs will save lives.”

But it is not the job of the law to protect us from ourselves. And legalization does not mean the government sanctions drug use or declares it’s “OK or relatively  harmless.” Legalization merely removes government from the decision making, which in the case of drug use is up to the individual. Many things are self-harmful. But it is up to each of us to balance risks with personal desires, not the government’s. The law should protect our rights to live by our own judgement. And the law would continue to protect us from harm by others, including drug-related violence. Coleman’s bill decriminalizes only nonviolent drug users. “The War on Drugs destroyed the lives of countless Americans and their families,” Coleman notes. And she’s right. Even President Donald Trump understood that. One of his signature accomplishments was that he signed legislation in December 2018, co-sponsored by [NJ Democrat Senator Corey] Booker, that allowed federal judges to hand out lighter sentences to those convicted of nonviolent drug crimes.”

Prohibition didn’t work with alcohol, and it never worked with drugs. Prohibition only leads to less safe drugs and the creation of vast violent criminal underworlds. It fills the jails with innocent people who harmed no one and violated no one’s rights. Forcing drug business underground also leads to a flood of more dangerous drugs. My only “complaint” about this bill is that it doesn’t go far enough. Nonetheless, kudos to Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman.

Related Reading:

Bill to Legalize Pot in New Jersey is the Right Step

The War on Drugs Is a War on People: All victimless crimes are an attack on liberty.

Can Wealthy Candidates Actually ‘Buy Their Way into Office?' No, and Yes

QUORA: ‘Did the Founding Fathers ever intend for the People to elect the President? Is there anything in the U.S. Constitution that requires an election for President to be held?’

In his otherwise relatively accurate answer to this Electoral College question, John Cates wrote:

The only fly in the ointment in modern politics is when extraordinarily wealthy people without merit manage to buy their way into office.  It doesn’t always work, but too often, it does. 

Here is my comment to John Cates:

Constitutionally, I think this answer is well explained, and based on that I upvoted it despite certain misgivings. E.G. I completely disagree that the Georgia election law is “horrendously discriminatory.” 

I also believe that the following statement needs clarification: 

“The only fly in the ointment in modern politics is when extraordinarily wealthy people without merit manage to buy their way into office.  It doesn’t always work, but too often, it does.”

Taken literally, it almost never happens that any politician buys his way into office. There was a recent case in New Jersey in which a City of Hoboken city council candidate was convicted of trying to buy his way into office by paying voters $50 bribes for their mail-in ballots. Vote buying does happen. But this is not a “fly in the ointment” of our political system. Electoral bribery has always been illegal. And it is very rare.

Much more common, and more insidious in this welfare state era of massive redistributive government, is a different form of politicians “buying their way into office” -- or buying their way to reelection -- and its all legal. Again in New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy, who is up for reelection in 2021, conspired with Democrats in the legislature to, in effect, buy his and legislative Democrats reelection—with taxpayer money.  In 2020, they passed a budget bill that would send $500 rebate checks to most NJ voters right before the 2021 election. One Republican justifiably accused Murphy of “looking to buy his reelection with your money.” It wasn’t only Republicans. Tom Moran, editorial page editor for the Star-Ledger, NJ’s largest newspaper and generally Left-leaning, called the gimmick a bribe masquerading as a tax credit.

But the charge that “extraordinarily wealthy people without merit [can] manage to buy their way into office” is usually used to rationalize restrictions on private spending on political campaigns and causes. Such restrictions are unconstitutional violations of free speech. No matter how much money a candidate has to spend on his own campaign, he must still persuade enough voters to support him. In the 53 voting years since my first vote in 1968, I’ve never encountered anyone who justified his/her vote based on a candidate’s net worth or campaign spending account. When people fill out their ballots, I doubt very many have the amount the candidates spent on their campaigns on their minds. If a wealthy candidate manages to win, no guarantee, it is because voters were persuaded—not an easy task, even for deep-pocketed individuals. For every Donald Trump who manages to get elected, there are many more Michael Bloombergs or Tom Steyers who flop. Yes, buying their way into office happens. But it’s not wealthy individuals merely exercising their free speech rights. It’s corrupt politicians literally bribing people, in both lawful and unlawful ways. 

It’s true that modern campaigns require lots of money. Candidates, after all, have to reach a mass audience. But there is little substance or evidence to the charge that wealthy individuals have any special advantage in elections. Candidates have myriad ways to raise money. Even if they did, so what? It’s still up to voters to decide. There is no credibility to the charge that political spending constitutes buying into office.

Related Reading:

QUORA: ‘Why does the Electoral College of the United States of America exist?’

Voting laws: How Georgia compares to other states -- By David Wickert forThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution

QUORA: 'I haven't heard any valid reason to restrict other than felony crimes. Why are so many state legislatures trying to put restrictions?'

QUORA: “Is the For the People Act of 2021 (HR. 1) constitutional or not?

 QUORA: “Is the For the People Act of 2021 (HR. 1) constitutional or not? Can any modified version of the bill pass Congress and be held up by SCOTUS if lawsuits happen?”

I posted this answer, focussing oin the first part of the question. Walter Olson addresses the second part:

In many respects, it most certainly is unconstitutional, if The Constitution has any substance. 

The most egregious parts of the bill add up to a  broad-based attack on intellectual freedom--those rights enumerated in the First Amendment--as well as privacy rights. If we value our freedom, we’d better hope the Supreme Court strikes them down (should they pass into law).  The First Amendment reads

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. 

HR-1 [S-1 in the Senate version] is hyped as a “Voting Rights Act.” But beneath that slogan are provisions that threaten more fundamental rights to freedom of speech, association, conscience, privacy, and petition. HR-1/S-1 . . . 

• severely restricts independent political spending by so-called “Super Pacs”--associations of individual activists--by redefining and expanding what constitutes “coordination” between politicians’ campaigns and independent groups. Spending being the means of exercising free speech, restrictions on spending violates donors’ free speech rights.  A major supporter of HR-1/S-1, the Brennan Center, makes plain the bill’s target: These restrictions are a gimmick to make an end run around Citizens United, the 2010 Supreme Court case that stands as the biggest victory for freedom of speech in recent history.

• provides for “public” funding of elections, violating freedom of conscience by forcing the taxpayer to fund politicians’ campaigns without their consent and/or even if the politician’s policies violate the taxpayers conscientious beliefs. [Note: The Founders used freedom of religion and freedom of conscience interchangeably. Despite the wording, the First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom has always been understood, from the Founders to the present, to extend beyond religion to all matters of personal conscience].

• forces disclosure of anonymous contributions to political action organizations. Demonized as “dark money” by HR-1/S-1’s Orwellian proponents, forced disclosure violates the donors’ privacy rights by outlawing the confidentiality of donors, a move that discourages donations and thus restricts freedom of speech and association. Laws forcing disclosure are already being challenged (California) and/or have been defeated (New Jersey) in the courts. Groups from across the ideological and cultural landscape are united in opposition to forced disclosure. Americans for Prosperity, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Illinois Opportunity Project, and the Liberty Justice Center helped defeat the NJ law. In asking the Supreme Court to overturn the California law, The Americans for Prosperity Foundation and Thomas More Law Center are backed by the ACLU, Alliance Defending Freedom, Americans United for Life, Animal Legal Defense Fund, Becket Fund, Cato, Council on American‐​Islamic Relations, Human Rights Campaign, Institute for Justice, NAACP, NARAL of North Carolina, PETA, Young Americans for Freedom, Young Americans for Liberty, Southern Poverty Law Center, Zionist Organization of American, various religious orders and missionary groups, universities, and more.

• sharply increases requirements on lobbying, making it much harder for private citizens to peaceably assemble to petition the government, violating freedoms of association and petition.

Taken together, HR-1/S-1 is a broad-based rollback of the First Amendment, and then some. As Constitutional scholar Walter Olson observes, it’s hard to keep up with the many potentially unconstitutional provisions of HR-1/S-1. 

It is shocking that an act of Congress that opens with “To expand Americans’ access to the ballot box” contains an assault on the First Amendment. HR-1/S-1 violates the very inalienable rights which give substance, meaning, and effectiveness to elections, and substantially reduces the ability of voters to hold their elected political leaders accountable. This so-called “Voting Rights Act”—officially labeled, with a straight face, the “For the People Act”—is an insult to actual people who take their actual right to vote seriously.

Despite all of the Left’s hand-wringing over supposedly “restrictive” new state voting laws in places like Georgia, Florida, and Texas, the Democrats’ alleged answer to these laws greatly restricts the rights that give energy and meaning to elections. The democratic process means nothing without the unfettered freedom of ordinary citizens to publicly express, persuade, argue, rebut, scrutinize, criticize, and dissent without fear or restriction so long as you don’t libel or incite imminent violence. “To expand Americans’ access to the ballot box” while simultaneously shrinking access to public debate is an insulting absurdity. This, in the name of “anti-corruption measures for the purpose of fortifying our democracy.” The only people that the “For the People Act” is actually for is the political class.

Related Reading:

‘Partly Constitutional’ Isn’t Enough: Senate Should Reject the ‘For the People Act’ by Walter Olson for CATO

In other forms, parts of the Democrats’ election bill have already been struck down in the courts. But Democrats are proceeding anyway.

HR-1 is An Assault on Free Speech, Property Rights, Freedom of Conscience, and Privacy

Free Speech Wins in NJ

Democracy Doesn’t ‘Win’ When Free Speech is Suppressed, Voting Rights or No Voting Rights.

How Many of H.R. 1’s Provisions Are Unconstitutional? By Walter Olson for CATO

‘Dark Money’ is Free Speech. Protect It

Yes, ‘Big Money’ in Politics Fosters Ideological Debate—and That’s a Good Thing

Why Free Speech and Spending on Speech are Inextricably Linked

The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech--by Kimberley Strassel

Democracy for All: The "Drown Out the Voice of Average Americans" Amendment

Beware the Tactic of Political Activism Based on ‘Science’

I present the following two excerpts, courtesy of The Climate Discussion Nexus:

For God’s sake, do not platform climate denialists. We understand as well as anyone that opinion pages occasionally need to push the envelope with unpopular takes. But there is no longer any good faith argument against climate science—and if one accepts the science, one also accepts the imperative for rapid, forceful action. Op-eds that detract from the scientific consensus, or ridicule climate activism, don’t belong in a serious news outlet.

--Covering Climate Now

The question for CCN and all Climate Crisis-mongers is: Who are these “climate denialists” and what are they saying that the “climate activists” don’t want us to hear? 

There’s an assumption out there that if you “accept” the science of climate change, you are obliged to support drastic measures to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This is not true. The one does not follow from the other. Mainstream science and economics do not support much of the current climate policy agenda and certainly not the radical extremes demanded by activist groups.

--Ross McKitrick for The Financial Post

Tyrants have a history of using science to justify their totalitarian designs. The “science” of race was used to justify the enslavement of black Africans, and millions were unjustly enslaved, often brutally. Marxism was justified as “scientific socialism” and 100 million+ died. Nazism was justified by the “science” of eugenics, and tens of millions died. Today, “climate science” is being used to justify a totalitarian agenda, which if developed to its full logical conclusion will result in economic paralysis and collapse, an end to freedom and capitalism, and unlimited unprecedented genicide on a global scale. We should always be vigilant and skeptical against anyone who justifies a political agenda based on science

See below for a brief list of books by so-called “denialists,” which is nowhere near exhaustive.

Related Reading:

Lukewarming: The New Climate Science that Changes Everything by Patrick J. Michaels and Paul C. Knappenberger

Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom by Patrick Moore 

Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters by Steven E. Koonin 

False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet by Bjorn Lomborg 

Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All Hardcover by Michael Shellenberger 

The End of Doom Hardcover by Ronald Bailey 

The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels Hardcover by Alex Epstein 

The Rightful Place of Science: Disasters & Climate Change by Roger Pielke Jr. 

‘Climate Denier’: The Leitmotif of the Climate Propagandist

It’s Time to Listen to the ‘Climate Denialists’

Think Globally, Shame Constantly: The Rise of Greta Thunberg Environmentalism--NICK GILLESPIE

‘Climate Crisis’: The Dem’s Path to Totalitarian Socialism

If Not for the Fourth of July, We’d Have No Juneteenth.

Today, June 19th, 2021, we celebrate Juneteenth for the first time as a nation (49 states already do), having been passed into law as a National Holiday by Congress and the President. This is the day that, in 1865, Union soldiers reached the last enslaved Americans in Galveston, Texas, with the news that slavery had been abolished and that they were now free.

The abolition of slavery in America is a major cause for celebration. The day the last slaves were liberated certainly rises to the level of deserving of a national holiday. But it must be remembered that the principles of the American Founding made possible the end of slavery. If not for the Fourth of July, we’d have no Juneteenth. Professor Jason D. Hill, author of We Have Overcome, aptly calls the abolition of slavery America’s Second Founding.  

By all means, celebrate Juneteenth, also known as Emancipation Day. But put it on a par with Constitution Day, which celebrates the document that Frederick Douglass called “a glorious liberty document.” Like The U.S. Constitution, Juneteenth owes its existence to the Declaration of Independence and the philosophy behind it. 

It’s a damn shame that it took almost a Century for the promises of the Declaration of Independence to reach all Americans of African descent. But it did, finally erasing America’s most glaring birth defect.

Happy Juneteenth.

SUPPLEMENTAL:

On June 19th, 2021 - the first Juneteenth - The History Channel will air Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's documentory "Fight the Power: Movements That Changed America" at 8:00pm 

Based on an LA Times review, this film could be a welcome relief from the modern reactionary "Anti-racism" movement which is marked by revenge racism, egalitarianism, socialism, the return of racial discrimination in law (Jim Crow laws), "justified" violence and looting, collectivized "justice," a war on inalienable equal individual rights, and historical revisionism as part of a general war on the American Founding. 

The movie is about how "protest is part of the American DNA." Encouragingly, Jabbar's hero is Martin Luther King Jr. Hence,

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” Abdul-Jabbar quotes the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the documentary. “I cannot call myself a champion of civil rights unless I champion everyone’s civil rights.”

Jabbar observes that if "Any marginalized group . . . is allowed to be brutalized and ostracized," then "at one time or another, we’ll all end up in that box, . . . so we have to be willing to stand up for the rights of all people, especially marginalized people." 

Jabbar's understanding of the fundamentals sounds a lot like Ayn Rand's observations that "if you violate the rights of one, you violated the rights of all" and "The smallest minority is the individual. If you violate individual rights, you can't claim to be a defender of minorities."

Sounds good. But there are danger signs. Jabbar first aligned with Malcolm X, who "talked about not going and letting our demonstrators being beaten," meaning to physically fight back. After listening to King's message of non-violence to show that "the real power" is that non-violent resistance “really embarrasses and totally takes the face away from oppressors when they’re shown to be the bullies that they are,” Jabbar aligned with King against Malcolm X. But Jabbar also finds room to admire Malcom X because "militancy also as its place" -- whatever that means.

Nonetheless, Jabbar is firmly in the camp of MLK. Which means, he advocates for equal individual rights for all. The historical protest movements highlighted in the review seem to confirm this view.

“Fight the Power” flows fluidly through American history as women protested for the right to vote, the Black community protested for equal treatment under the law and the LGBTQ+ community protested for freedom of expression.

Those were movements primarily focussed on equal political rights. How Jabbar relates those protest movements to the current protests, marked as they are with collectivistic group warfare and obliteration of individual rights, will be the real test of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's loyalty to his espoused hero, Martin Luther king Jr. The trailer is inconclusive.

Related Reading:

The ‘1619 Project’ Fraud Begins its Poisonous Infiltration into American Politics

A New Textbook of Americanism — edited by Jonathan Hoenig

QUORA: ‘Why do law schools teach constitutional law but not the Declaration of Independence as an animating principle?’

The 'New American Socialists' Dilemma: The Declaration is as much anti-Socialist as anti-Slavery

Juneteenth is for Everyone By Kenneth C. Davis for The New York Times

QUORA: ‘Do you believe in the saying "when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns"?’

 QUORA: ‘Do you believe in the saying "when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns"?’

This may be my shortest post ever. But I couldn’t resist, because the question answers itself. Or so you would think. Apparently, some people can’t see the most obvious.

I posted this answer, expanded for clarity:

Of  course. It’s indisputable and self-explanatory. I have friends who legally own guns. If guns are outlawed, they will immediately become outlaws, even though they’ve committed no crime, unless and until they turn in their previously legally purchased guns. Of course, actual criminals who own guns would still have guns. But then, they’re already outlaws. 

Laws that outlaw all guns are targeted at law abiding citizens, not criminals. All that would be accomplished if guns are outlawed would be to strip Americans of a critical means of personal self-defense, and immediately turn law-abiding citizens into criminals. Dr. Floyd Ferris would be proud.

Related Reading:

Reisman: We Need Gun Control--for Our Government

Gun Control Should focus On Principles, Not Guns

It's NOT the Guns, it's the Rights

Banning Guns Punishes the Innocent and Violates Rights

Armed Self-Defense Saves Lives

Media Underplays Successful Defensive Gun Use, by Paul Hsieh

Whose 'Gun Violence' Research Should We Trust?

Human Volition, not Guns, is the Source of Gun Aggression

Memo to the S-L: Gun Makers' Profits are Not the Issue