Subject:
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Re: Birthday in Solitary Confinement
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 10 Oct 2000 21:04:31 GMT
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Viewed:
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168 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Lindsay Frederick Braun writes:
>
> I'd be interested to hear more about your take on this, Larry,
> since we're both reading the same papers at this particular time.
Well, I'm not 100% sure what opinion you're asking for from me.
My basic stance hasn't changed of course, and everyone who reads here much
already knows it, I don't hold much with regulation of behaviours or of
intent, only of ensuring consequences properly get allocated. Hence I think
all victimless crimes aren't.
Specifically, drugs ought not to be a priori regulated because of some sort of
public safety fear. Rather, punish the bad behaviours like brawling and
reckless endangerment, and ensure that people who choose to abuse their bodies
pay more for health insurance.
If you're asking me what i think Labour or the Tories will do, I predict them
to pussyfoot around and try to come up with what ever course of action is the
safest, politically. The UK parties aren't quite as bad as the US big two, of
course, but there's a reason the LP is the "Party of Principle".
The rest of them aren't principled. Not at all. It's that simple. You (in
general) may not agree with the LP on stuff but you can usually predict where
they are going to stand on just about any issue because they operate from
basic premises and use logical derivation.
> I'm in agreement with the logic of decriminalisation, but it always
> seems that there are national policies of vagueness surrounding
> the issue whenever it comes before governments. (The crime in fact
> being testing the limits of a government, not the act of smoking
> a bit of cannabis, regardless of how it's written up.)
I of course want to go further, to full legalization. Decriminalisation seems
wrong to me, it smacks of "well we the government can't stop you, we give up,
but we still think it's wrong and we're going to fine you so we can make money
from it". And it's easier to recriminalise than it is to delegalise.
Maybe that wasn't what you were asking either. I chose the FT every morning so
I'm not getting the more tabloidish slant on the news at all... and one paper
is barely all the time I have to read in the morning.
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Birthday in Solitary Confinement
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| (...) Or an Old part of New Labour? :) I picked up my Evening Standard today, with much blushing about Widdecombe's backtracking and various Tory MPs coming out about having smoked marijuana in their younger years. I'd be surprised if Labour says (...) (24 years ago, 9-Oct-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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