Why liberals are not hyprocrits - by Ann Coulter

[monkspider]

Conservatism is intrinsically immoral, where as liberalism represents the cosmic force of good in the universe. Even people like Ned will admit to this.

[Odin]

Originally posted by monkspider
Conservatism is intrinsically immoral, where as liberalism represents the cosmic force of good in the universe. Even people like Ned will admit to this.

[Berzerker]

He's not just anti-drug, he wants people punished. And hypocrisy is not based on popularity polls. Now, do you think it's virtuous to gamble away millions of dollars? Many of his supporters don't think so. Yes, he can afford it, but that isn't the standard he uses for other people as I've pointed out. He doesn't care if a pot smoker never drives under the influence, he wants them punished because some other pot smoker did drive under the influence. So, using his standard, Bennett's gambling is a moral offense, not because he hurt others with his gambling, but because other gamblers have hurt others with their gambling. Drug users have been indicted morally by Bennett because they fund the drug industry thereby making it viable, the same is true for porn consumers. Isn't Bennett culpable then since his gambling funded an industry that addicts others ruining their lives? Bennett has said what he did was not proper without going into detail, but I suspect he avoids the details because they just further expose his hypocrisy on other issues.

Btw, what happened to your "complaints to the mods" thread?
It seems to have disappeared...

[Berzerker]

liberalism represents the cosmic force of good in the universe.

Aren't you a communist? Does this mean communism and liberalism are the same or do you fall short of this pinnacle of morality too?

[Fitz]

Liberals are hypocrits. They say they believe in caring about others and helping people and the world they live in, unlike the admittedly self-centered money grubbing conservatives, but we all know that humans can't be completely selfless, right? They must have the occasional urge to look out for themselves.

[GePap]

Anyone who calls an entire side hyprocrites is nothing better than Coulter Lite (the only time Lite is better than the original): Individuals are hypocrites, not general world-views.

Ann Coulter is a childish non-intellectual who somehow through the sheer volume of her screams gets some level of "credibility". I would love to see her attempt to take on your average highschool debater and actually win.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Berzerker


Aren't you a communist? Does this mean communism and liberalism are the same or do you fall short of this pinnacle of morality too?

Communism is a form of Liberalism, dumbass.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Fitz
Liberals are hypocrits. They say they believe in caring about others and helping people and the world they live in, unlike the admittedly self-centered money grubbing conservatives, but we all know that humans can't be completely selfless, right? They must have the occasional urge to look out for themselves.

You can care for others and want to help people while still doing other non-selfless things.

[Berzerker]

Communism is a form of Liberalism, dumbass.

Then why do so many liberals complain when they are called communists? Methinks y'all need a group hug to get this straightened out because your ideology seems

You can care for others and want to help people while still doing other non-selfless things.

Are "non-selfless" things selfish things?

[Ned]

Bezerker, I have seen the same arguments you propose concerning legalizing drugs, for example, being used by conservatives in arguing in favor of legalized guns. Why ban guns for all purposes if the problem we are trying to address is the use of guns in crimes.

Also, stop going on about Limbaugh on drugs. He stopped talking about them when he himself became addicted. Ann Coulter noted in her column that the only thing anyone could find concern Rush and drugs was the often quoted piece from his 1995 TV show. He has been virtually silent on the topic for years. He is not a hypocrite on this issue - yet. We will wait to hear what he has to say when he gets out of rehab.

But Rush's problem does illustrate why we ban certain drugs. They can be uncontrollably addictive. 'Nuf said.

[Jack_www]

This is true of most liberals, that dont hold the morals that the most of the right does. So when they are caugth in an some shot of an affair while married or addicted to drugs it is not a big a deal as when someone who says these things are wrong and is caugth doing it. All though I would not have said it different from how Ann said it. I think she gets too caried away with you line on how all liberals are the evil of the world and trators.

[blackice]

It's an intriguing strategy. By openly admitting to being philanderers, draft dodgers, liars, weasels and cowards, liberals avoid ever being hypocrites.

At least Rush wasn't walking into church carrying a 10-pound Bible before rushing back to the Oval Office for sodomy with Monica Lewinsky. He wasn't enforcing absurd sexual harassment guidelines while dropping his pants in front of a half-dozen subordinates. (Evidently, Clinton wasn't a hypocrite because no one was supposed to take seriously the notion that he respected women or believed in God.)

It's an intriguing strategy. You must admit she has a flare for stating the obvious... Mind you half the brain washed world rips her for stating the things we ignore in general as... normal.

How many of your parents have said, "thats politics" with the casual shrug?

Yup toss her aside heh, burn the books while your at it...

[Berzerker]

Ned -

Bezerker, I have seen the same arguments you propose concerning legalizing drugs, for example, being used by conservatives in arguing in favor of legalized guns. Why ban guns for all purposes if the problem we are trying to address is the use of guns in crimes.

Have you really seen my arguments? I have a couple dozen, I'll post them here and you can offer rebuttals. But that's essentially correct, conservatives argue we shouldn't punish gun owners (by making guns illegal) for the crimes of criminals who employ guns while committing crimes - i.e., we shouldn't punish the innocent because of the guilty. I agree, but after making that argument, many conservatives will turn right around and gleefully argue in favor of punishing millions of drug users because some drug users commit crimes - i.e., punishing millions who are innocent because of those who commit actual crimes... They're

Also, stop going on about Limbaugh on drugs.

Why? You started this thread about Coulter and her "defense" of Limbaugh, not me.

He stopped talking about them when he himself became addicted.

Even IF true, so what? Did he publicly reverse what he had said before he became addicted? No. Did he apologise to all those people who use drugs without becoming addicted? No. Did he apologise to those who were addicted? No. Did he apologise to the millions of people he's been smearing over the years? No... WHEN he apologises, then maybe he will deserve to be left alone...

Ann Coulter noted in her column that the only thing anyone could find concern Rush and drugs was the often quoted piece from his 1995 TV show. He has been virtually silent on the topic for years.

Ned, please don't rely on Coulter for "facts". I use to listen to Limbaugh and I've heard him talk about drugs after 1995. Don't tell me he hasn't waded into the medical pot issue which was much more recent than 1995. I'll see what I can find with google, but Coulter is missing the point. It doesn't matter if he toned down his rhetoric about drugs since he's become addicted. He has NOT remained silent about drugs since 1995, he just may not launch into long diatribes any more.

He is not a hypocrite on this issue - yet. We will wait to hear what he has to say when he gets out of rehab.

Why should we have to wait? He's had YEARS to offer apologies and to offer a change of heart.

But Rush's problem does illustrate why we ban certain drugs. They can be uncontrollably addictive. 'Nuf said.

Ned, in case you haven't noticed , Limbaugh became addicted to illegal drugs. Banning them didn't do anything... Sorry, but these drugs are not "uncontrollably" addictive, they are habit forming inspite of the fact some people, like Limbaugh, cannot control their urges. Many people in pain use painkillers without becoming addicted. Some people can't control their urge to drink booze resulting in alcoholism and even death, that doesn't mean booze is uncontrollably addictive.

Here is the disaster wrought by the drug war pushers:

1) It's immoral - punishing the innocent because of the actions of the guilty is immoral and non-drug users surely don't want to be punished for the crimes of other non-drug users, but "we" are punishing all drug users because some drug users hurt others. Look at the arguments in favor of drug prohibition, they are all based on the immoral proposition that millions of people should be punished because of what others do.

2) It's unconstitutional - on several fronts.

2a) The 1st Amendment guarantees us religious freedom, and the drug war violates our religious freedom. Yes, some people use drugs as part of their religions...

2b) The 2nd Amendment guarantees us the right to keep and bear arms, but not for drug users, or even people who use prescription drugs assigned to others. Yup, if you own a gun and use a prescription painkiller belonging to someone else, you're a criminal subject to a very harsh sentence. And the violence resulting from the massive black market in drugs only fuels the gun banners' arguments in much the same way the violence from alcohol prohibition led to the prohibitive tax on machine guns.

2c) The 3rd Amendment guarantees us that soldiers will not be quartered in our homes during peacetime. That was added to the Bill of Rights because King George sent his troops to stay in the homes of "suspected" dissidents to keep an eye on them - spying. Now, technology allows government to spy on us without actually placing troops in our homes, but the spirit of the 3rd Amendment has been destroyed by the drug war.

2d) The 4th Amendment - no-knock raids. The cops can literally break down your door in the middle of the night. It was a no-knock raid with a deceitfully obtained warrant (based on the allegation of a meth lab) that caused the tragedy at Waco. An elderly couple in Minneapolis was killed in a fire started by cops using a "flash grenade" to break in at night. The number of dead and wounded is enormous, but government won't publish stats on how many they kill and wound in pursuit of the drug war.

2e) The 5th Amendment - no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process. This amendment presumes we had life, liberty, and property after the laws were written. For example, what if Congress decided they didn't like you and wanted you dead? Could they simply write a law saying you can't live and then execute you for violating the law? No, the 5th assumes future laws have not deprived us of our inalienable rights before due process.

2f) The 6th Amendment - you have the right to a speedy trial by a jury of your peers. But the courts have become so clogged with drug trials, drug courts that don't have juries have been set up to deal with these cases. Of course, the accused can opt for this set up, but they are coerced into giving away their right to a jury trial. They are told if they go with a jury trial, they'll face a tougher sentence thereby punishing people for requesting a trial by jury. That's how drug users are coerced into "rehab" only for the drug war pushers to then use the number of people in rehab as proof of some new problem they need our money to fix. Furthermore, jury nullification, one of the checks the Founders believed in has been done away with. In the past, juries could acquit the accused, not because of their innocence, but because the law was either immoral or violated the Constitution. Juries are now told to act as robots computing guilt or innocence, not judging the law/government as well. Also, in some urban areas, drug cases have caused such a backload, civil cases can now take years to be heard. If you need to sue someone and find out the court can't get to your case for a couple years, you'll know why.

2g) The 9th Amendment - we have many rights, and as Madison wrote, the enumeration of certain rights in the preceding amendments shall not be used to deny the other rights we retain. But the 9th has become a dead letter...even some "conservatives" who claim to support the Constitution argue that if a right does not appear in the Bill of Rights, it doesn't exist.

2h) The 10th Amendment - re-states that the Constitution strictly limits what the feds can do and that all other powers are reserved to the states and the people. Congress has the power to regulate commerce with other nations and inter-state commerce, but not intra-state commerce and non-commerce. And the latter power was meant to create a free trade zone within the USA, not to allow Congress to ban or micro-manage trade among Americans. Those are the only powers Congress have concerning drugs or any other product. But Congress has hardly limited itself to these powers. That's the rub of the matter, no supporter of the drug war can point to any power to wage the war.

3) Lost productivity? - C'mon! You think wasting 100's of billions of dollars to catch and house/jail millions of people is a productive use of resources? It may be for all the people getting a paycheck to wage the war, but no "utilitarian" could sanely argue that the drug war is a pragmatic use of resources. And for what? If the drug war actually reduced drug use by an enormous amount, that might offset wasting all that money while taking millions of people out of the economy, but the drug war side will not and cannot show that their war has achieved such a reduction in consumption... because it hasn't. Drug consumption when all drugs were legal was not higher than now, if anything, rates have increased.

4) Asset Forfeiture - makes a mockery of the 4th and 5th Amendments. The cops don't even have to convict you of a "drug crime" to take all your property, they only have to allege that your property was "involved" with drugs. The standard for "convicting" property is much lower than convicting a person, and often, the property owner is not even charged with a crime. Donald Scott lived north of LA on some nice land. The BLM and National Parks administration wanted his property but he rejected their buy out offers. So what happened next? Well, a helicopter cop claimed he saw pot plants hanging upside down in trees on his property. The cops launched a late night no-knock raid, broke in, Scott's girlfriend screamed and he awoke from his slumber to defend her and was shot dead. No pot was found.

Motorists have been stopped and robbed, not by street thieves, but by cops claiming the money was "drug-related". And you, the owner of that money, has to prove the money was yours and not involved with drugs. And even then, there have been people robbed of thousands by cops even though the rightful owners could and did prove the money was "legit", but still can't get their money back even after judges have ordered the release of the money. This happened alot down in the SE USA, especially Florida.

5) A nation of suspects - which is what we've become. Because drug possession has no victim inspite of the tortured rationale from drug war pushers, there is no one to go to the cops to complain about being robbed or to provide a description of the thief. So the cops have to view nearly all of us as suspects, hence the expansion of illegal searches. And to add to that, government officials go into schools to convince children to turn their parents in for using drugs. Ever hear of the "Brownshirts"? Of course, the kids are never told what will really happen to their family because of the induced betrayal of one of the most sacred of trusts - the trust between parent and child. The families are often broken up with the kids sent off to live in foster "care" while the parents are carted off to jail.

6) Hypocrisy - alcohol by far causes more harm to "society" than all the illegal drugs combined, but we keep that one legal - votes. How many people die from alcohol and tobacco every year? Maybe 500,000? How many from ALL the illegal drugs combined? Maybe 30,000 if that? Hell, processed sugar kills far more than all the illegal drugs combined, maybe even more than alcohol and booze. And how do the hypocrites defend this sin? They don't, they can't...

7) Immoral laws create dis-respect for the law - You may not think the drug laws are immoral, but millions of drug and non-drug users do. They know they have the moral authority to live their lives as they choose, it's called freedom. And when laws make such blatant attacks on freedom, millions no longer respect the law or government. What do you think would happen if guns were outlawed? Millions of people would refuse to obey the law and there might even be a rebellion with many gun owners feeling justified in killing government agents trying to enforce the ban.

8) It's for the children - that's what we hear. But is it true? Nope, the black market created to supply adults with drugs has spilled over to supply children too. Pot use among teens in Holland is lower than here, but pot is legal for adults in Holland. In the mid-80's, the Reagan administration and Congress followed by the states enacted much harsher penalties for adults convicted of dealing. What was the result? Any economist worth the title could have told us before the laws went into effect. Many adults, seeking to avoid the harsher penalties, recruited minors into the drug trade. Gang recruitment exploded and so did juvenile crime and it's been climbing ever since. Yeah, it's for the children...

9) Murder - if the drug war is such a blessing, why did the homicide rate over the last 30 years double over the rate from 1945-1965? And if you say liberal policies, then explain why the homicide rate doubled during alcohol prohibition too? And why did homicide rates decrease 13 years in a row once alcohol prohibition was repealed? Take a look for yourself:

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/graphs/10.htm

Is it just a coincidence that homicide rates reached their zenith in the 20th century twice, both during drug wars?
And because of improvements in medicine and paramedics and their response times, murder rates would be even higher now than if we were living back during alcohol prohibition.

10) Crime in general - property crime (theft) has increased greatly, but while drug war supporters call these "drug-related" crimes, I call them drug war related crimes. One goal of the drug war was to dramatically inflate the cost of drugs. Well, what a surprise! Increase the cost of a product in great demand, and the result is more stealing. If a heroin addict could get his fix with only 1-2 dollars a day, he wouldn't need to steal 100-200 dollars a day. Just imagine the crime wave we'd see if basic food staples were banned with a corresponding inflation of cost...

11) The expansion of government - does this need further explanation? We now have government trying to micromanage our economic lives (no, not the corporations, they get a free pass) so it can catch us making money "illegally". Banks are required to spy on customers, and so on...I've already run down some of the abuses of the Constitution, but the drug war is a never ending war which will require an ever expanding government to control more of our lives. A statist's wet dream...

12) Corruption - J. Edgar Hoover rejected repeated requests from Presidents wanting to get the FBI into the drug war. Why? He knew the drug war would eventually corrupt the FBI just as it is doing to so many other police departments.

13) Foreign Affairs - while the government has put out ads blaming drug users for 9/11 (more demonization of drug users), the ads were both hypocritical and dishonest. Only Opium (heroin) comes from Afghanistan, but the ads intentionally made no distinctions among drugs. That's like blaming caffeine users for the behavior of alcohol suppliers during prohibition. And prior to 9/11, Congress was sending our tax dollars to the Taliban because they were actually waging a war on opium. The Taliban were true believers and opium was a big no-no to them. It was their opponents like the Northern Alliance that were involved in the opium trade. But we didn't see any ads blaming tax payers or Congress for 9/11 even though our taxes were supporting the Taliban. And then, of course, there's the oil and diamond money that helped fund OBL. We don't hear politicians accusing us all of supporting terrorism because we buy oil.

14) More foreign affairs - we're pouring money into Latin America to wage our drug war. If drug wars were so good for "society", why has Colombia seen horrific crime rates? Because we blackmailed them into waging our drug war and has created massive crime rates! And since drug producers cannot rely on government to protect their participation in the marketplace, they have to seek out those who will provide protection. And in Colombia and other areas of S America, that happens to be leftist rebels who profit from the drug war.

15) Overdoses - yeah, drug war supporters point to this too, God only knows why. But just as alcohol poisoning deaths increased under alcohol prohibition because of poor quality control, drug overdoses have increased under the drug war for the same reason.

16) What has the drug war solved? That is a question consistently avoided by it's supporters. They cannot identify any problem solved by the drug war and usually ignore all the problems the drug war causes.
All they can do is offer "Chicken Little" predictions about how drug use will sky rocket, but when all drugs were legal in this country, consumption rates were not higher than now. And in those countries where certain drugs are legal, consumption rates are comparable or lower.

17) Pot is a "gateway" drug? Nope, that's another falsehood. People who love playing sports started out with one sport, does that mean the sport they started out playing was a "gateway" sport? People inclined to use one drug or play one sport will obviously be inclined to try other drugs and sports. Even the medical analysis commissioned a few years ago by the federal government concluded that pot is only a "gateway" drug because of it's illegal status, not because pot somehow magically instructs the brain to want other drugs.

18) The drug war has promoted the use of harder drugs. How? Back when Nixon began his war on pot, traffickers were given the incentive to reduce the risk of getting caught with pot which is much harder to conceal. Many switched to more concentrated, more easily concealed drugs like cocaine and heroin. Drugs that also became more profitable because of their illegality. So, many pot users who could no longer get pot from their dealer now had access to the harder drugs. The ban on cocaine led to the introduction of "crack" cocaine - the poor man's cocaine.

19) Freedom - the absence of coercion or constraint in choice or action. If I use pot or cocaine, I've imposed no coercion or constraints on others. But those who ban these products are imposing constraints upon me. Then to add insult to injury, they claim they are doing this because some other drug user might impose a constraint upon them. Hypocrisy and immorality have become virtues under the drug war.

20) Taxes? No, it's called stealing, more accurately, armed robbery. That is how supporters of the drug war pay for their attempt to legislate "morality". Apparently legalised stealing is a moral endeavor, just ask any leftist trying to justify their thievery. Consider the reality: you use pot in your home. I steal money from others to hire people to break into your home and put you in a cage because your personal behavior offends me. Then I accuse you of immorality? Lol. If the weapon called "government" was not there to hide behind, would I (you) risk our necks stealing money from others and breaking into other people's homes to cage the owners for smoking pot? Would we claim the moral authority to commit these acts? Nope, but in the mind of the drug war pusher, government magically transforms immorality into a moral crusade.

21) Communism - yeah, taking the position that the state can decide what we ingest is communistic. Supporters of the drug war are effectively claiming they and the state under their control own us. But when they have to share power and other leftists with a different agenda use the state to exercise "ownership" of those who support the drug war, that is when we hear hypocritical platitudes about freedom.

22) The cost - government seemingly tries to hide the cost so we won't know what is being spent. They do this by speaking only about the cost of federal enforcement, but they ignore what the states spend and the costs for military interdiction, foreign bribes and aid, courts, "education", treatment, and jails, etc. The costs are enormous, roughly a trillion dollars for the last 30 years if not more.

[Berzerker]

See any errors? Flaws in logic? How about a list of drug war successes? I've posted this several times at other political forums and can't get any drug war supporters to offer a rebuttal or a list of successes.

Care to respond, Ned? The only potentially valid argument you have on your side is that legalising drugs might increase drug use. This is not supported by the avaliable evidence. Drug addiction was lower when all drugs were legal. The rate of pot use among teens in Holland is much lower than the US even though pot is legal for adults. And this speculation that drug use will increase must outweigh all the negatives before your position can be "validated". Even then, the one fact you cannot overcome is the immorality of banning drugs - it is simply immoral to punish millions of people because of what a relative handful do to others and the people who don't use drugs would realise that if they were being punished because a relative handful of non-drug users commit crimes.

[Nubclear]

In spirit of the Ann-Bashing: