To me, the point is about personal liberty. Anyone should be allowed to harm themselves, this to me is one of their “basic human rights”. One of the few I view as valid.
so its ok for the kid in the ghetto to take it up until the point that he hacks his mother and siblings to death with a steak-knife?
Yes. Replace “tik” in your sentence with “alcohol” and you’ll see my point. Yes, people should be allowed to drink themselves silly up until they pull out a gun and fire on someone, or smash a beer-bottle over someone’s head, drive drunk, etc. In other words, up to the point that they become a direct danger to OTHER people.
I do however, have had plenty of experience with drug and alcohol addicts to know the absolute devastation it can sow. I've done all my practical and voluteer work at these centres, and its scary, VERY scary.
I have a friend, a good one too, that has lost everything due to an amphetamine/coke addiction. It sucks, it really, really does. I frequently lament his situation. BUT, it is his own doing, and I realise that law or no law, his personality would’ve (and did) lead to this regardless of who was trying to stop him. I’ve pleaded with him, we’ve sat down in a group of close friends and done the “Dude, you’re killing yourself” thing. There’s very little to help it, if there’s any hope for him, it’s rehabilitation (if he’s willing). But it isn’t law enforcement. If anything, getting busted will make his life worse, not better.
without control we'd have anarchy
I don’t believe this is true. There’s a concept called “Spontaneous order”, which I do buy. I saw an example a while back (you’d have to google) about this dude who lowered accident rates and traffic congestion dramatically at key london interchanges by completely removing traffic signals, signs, lines, etc. from them. What followed was a self-regulating, free flowing, courtesy based system of traffic flow that emerged all by itself. Turns out if your remove the controls, people suddenly start being nice to eachother. To see video of this in action is stunning. You suddenly go, why do we have all these controls?
@Faerie, I really do understand what you are saying and can see that you care about other people.
Please allow me to say this, ‘Think of all the christains,muslims,jews and the things they want to protect ourselves and society from’. Where do you draw the line. I am sure that they deem it proper to protect ourselves from quite a number of things.’
PS It does seem that the ‘public good’ is starting to become a religion.
Every infringement of personal liberties are defended for the public good. :’(
Oops now I am going into taxes, sorry off-topic. Please ignore.(edit)
The issue of a ‘common good’ or ‘public interest’ raises questions about the moralty of a society.
Immoral politicians use the illogical and immoral concept that some political policy or strategy is ‘in the interests of the common good’ or ‘in the public or national interest’. They never define what the public interest is or who the ‘public’ is; neither do they specify at whose cost the public interest is served. Underlying this false argument is the notion that the public interest is superior to the interest of the individual. This of course gives these mystics the power to loot the property of the individual including his or her intellectual property ‘in the public interest’. They are nothing more than common thieves and looters. A practical example of this is where mineral- or water rights of private landowners are confiscated by these looters ‘in the common’ interest. The argument naturally resists questioning and intelligent debate because the ‘common good’ is held to be above debate, above the interests of mere individuals; a non sequitur.
The latest evidence of this in SA is the suppression of information bill the ANC is trying to push through “in the interest of the people” By Whose standards at whose costs? The next move will censorship of 'material unsuitable for public consumption" and so it goes on until the next revolution…VIVA!
Good. That’s what libertarians have been saying for a really long time already. The essential trouble is petty minds put in positions of power. Given the opportunity, they invariably are unable and unwilling to resist the pull towards ever more pervasive control through regulation, which is the result of a pungent mixture of innate megalomania, paternalism and superiority complex: We know best what’s best for you.
It’s why politics and religion make dandy bedfellows.