Donald Trump & The War On Drugs

[KenBrace]

So recently the Trump administration has stated that they will crack down on recreational marijuana and wage a "ruthless drug war" as Trump put it. For any libertarian or anarchist, this should be horrific news. The war against drugs (I mean the war against citizens and sick people) has cost our country billions, has ruined millions of innocent lives, and treats sick people as criminals to be used for profit in the prison system. The war on drugs is outrageous and is not something that we should tolerate as a country.

 

So the guy that many of us here voted for is now amping up this horrific war against the American people. I voted for Trump because I saw him as better than Hillary but his mistakes should not be ignored. Otherwise, we are just as biased as the mainstream media. 

[_LiveFree_]

Not sure why you got a down vote for that so I fixed it. I agree. I don't think the war on drugs was in his platform during the campaign (or if it was, it was a very small part of it). So it is definitely a surprise. We know one thing for certain. Trump is not a moron and is very aware of the effects of the War on Drugs. I was thinking about this last night. If I were Trump, and I was genuine in my desire and drive to "drain the swamp" and actually try to fix America, I'd go after the entrenched "deep state"/pedo rings/globalists who are a direct threat to America and my life. How do they stay funded? Likely through the drug trade. Now a purely Libertarian response to that is, "Well legalize it all and de-fund them through competition!"  The problem with that is it would take years and --and this is the really important part-- you would lose all of your leads and connections. Right now you can take the full force of the United States government and throw it against their funding sources while acquiring lots of evidence against them. If you legalize, that all evaporates. If you legalize, all you do is mildly hurt them temporarily as they retool their distribution models to hide right out in the open. 

 

Do I think the drug war ruins lives? Absolutely. Do I wish there was a better way? Yes. However, I am unable to argue against this position right now. 

 

What do you think?

 

 

 

Edit: The drug war was created to hide the deep state as it funds itself to conduct illegal activities. Now Trump is going to turn this on its head and actually go after the distributors. Seems like a mistake, but it's a massive shot across the bow of the Globalists. 

[Matthew Ed Moran]

So recently the Trump administration has stated that they will crack down on recreational marijuana and wage a "ruthless drug war" as Trump put it. For any libertarian or anarchist, this should be horrific news. The war against drugs (I mean the war against citizens and sick people) has cost our country billions, has ruined millions of innocent lives, and treats sick people as criminals to be used for profit in the prison system. The war on drugs is outrageous and is not something that we should tolerate as a country.

 

So the guy that many of us here voted for is now amping up this horrific war against the American people. I voted for Trump because I saw him as better than Hillary but his mistakes should not be ignored. Otherwise, we are just as biased as the mainstream media. 

 

Not an argument

[Donnadogsoth]

I think Trump's only mistake in reigniting the War on Drugs will be if he doesn't go after the banks that launder the $360 billion annual global proceeds.  Illegal drugs are a modern Opium War designed to pacify the citizenry.

[Iron Horse]

He will midway through his first term, approve of but not make a priority, recreational weed.  Which seems to be the only thing young libertarians/anarchists/snowflakes care about.  You don't care that he is retracting the reach of the Fed, deregulating major industries, lowering the barrier to trade local, national and international or any other issues, it's just your weed. 

[DaVinci]

Guy who said he would enforce the law in enforcing the law shocker.

 

 

Is this the new meme now? I've seen you respond to threads twice now in this same format. 

[WasatchMan]

Guy who said he would enforce the law in enforcing the law shocker.

I agree that President Trump saying he is going to enforce federal drug law is not too surprising given him promoting himself as the "law and order" canidate. However, he has also claimed he is a big proponent of "States Rights". I was personally hoping he would take the "State Rights" perpspective on the drug war because this would at least show he wasn't actively going to be pursuing policies that increase the initiation of force perpetrated by the state on the people.

 

Anyway the jury is still probably out on what he will actually do.

[Mister Mister]

why the downvote and no reply?

[Tyler H]

He will midway through his first term, approve of but not make a priority, recreational weed.  Which seems to be the only thing young libertarians/anarchists/snowflakes care about.  You don't care that he is retracting the reach of the Fed, deregulating major industries, lowering the barrier to trade local, national and international or any other issues, it's just your weed. 

Yeah, actually it's more about not initiating force against peaceful people, not to mention the uninvolved victims that take a bullet to the chest because the SWAT team raided the wrong house. The point of the OP (I inferred) was to express that although Trump has done some things freedom minded people should be happy about doesn't mean we shouldn't criticize the areas in which his actions do not align with philosophical principles. 

 

 

 

 

I don't think the war on drugs was in his platform during the campaign (or if it was, it was a very small part of it). So it is definitely a surprise. 

 

It was on his website during the campaign.  

 

 

 

So recently the Trump administration has stated that they will crack down on recreational marijuana and wage a "ruthless drug war" as Trump put it. For any libertarian or anarchist, this should be horrific news. The war against drugs (I mean the war against citizens and sick people) has cost our country billions, has ruined millions of innocent lives, and treats sick people as criminals to be used for profit in the prison system. The war on drugs is outrageous and is not something that we should tolerate as a country.

 

So the guy that many of us here voted for is now amping up this horrific war against the American people. I voted for Trump because I saw him as better than Hillary but his mistakes should not be ignored. Otherwise, we are just as biased as the mainstream media. 

 

Not an argument

Actually it is.  It may not be deductive, valid, or true, but it is an argument.

 

An argument is constituted of two or more propositions where one proposition, the conclusion, is claimed to follow from the others, the premises, which provide support for the truth of the conclusion.

So recently 1the Trump administration has stated that they will crack down on recreational marijuana and wage a "ruthless drug war" as Trump put it. 2For any libertarian or anarchist, this should be horrific news. 3The war against drugs (I mean the war against citizens and sick people) 4has cost our country billions, 5has ruined millions of innocent lives, and 6treats sick people as criminals to be used for profit in the prison system. 7The war on drugs is outrageous and 8is not something that we should tolerate as a country.

 

So the guy that many of us here voted for is now amping up this horrific war against the American people. I voted for Trump because I saw him as better than Hillary but 9his mistakes should not be ignored. Otherwise, 10we are just as biased as the mainstream media.

To paraphrase the propositions:

 

1. Trump is projected to violently enforce the war on drugs
2. Libertarian and anarchist principles are vehemently opposed to the war on drugs
3. The war on drugs is not a war on inanimate objects but a war on people
4. The war on drugs has cost billions of dollars
5. The war on drugs has ruined the lives of millions of people
6. The war on drugs puts people who are mentally ill due to dopamine deficiencies most likely caused by trauma and abuse in a cage with violent offenders where special interests make money off of their internment
7. The war on drugs is shockingly bad and excessive
8. The people of the United States should not allow the war on drugs

9. Trumps mistakes should be addressed

10. If we do not address Trump's mistakes because he's on our side, then we are no better than the media who ignored Obama's wretched foreign policy for which we criticize them

As you may be able to see more easily here propositions 3, 4, and 6 provide support for proposition 5, which along with the unstated premise that the content of propositions 3-6 are negative (perhaps even immoral) events provides support for proposition 7.  Proposition 7 along with the unstated premise that the people of the United States care for the sick provides support for the first conclusion, proposition 8 - this country should not tolerate the war on drugs. 

 

The second conclusion, proposition 9, is supported by propositions 1, 2, 7, and 10 where 7 is supported again by propositions 3-6

 

It is an inductive argument, but an argument nonetheless.

 

Perhaps I'm wrong and you could show me how it is in fact not an argument.

[Tyler H]

Guy who said he would enforce the law in enforcing the law shocker.

Shouldn't we call things by their proper names? Isn't "the law" just an opinion with a gun?  I'd like to think that anything Trump does to reduce government is a good thing, but not if it only serves to facilitate far more government growth in the future.  Even still, despite what good things Trump does from a freedom perspective, why not criticize the aspects in which he is expanding the size of the state?  So far the only criticism I can recall is the Apple/FBI debacle. I apologize if my memory has failed in recollecting any others.

 

I understand you guys want to go hard into the paint on the left, but is there no room to enlighten the newly acquired listenership on the conclusions reached by using reason and evidence as a methodology?  Maybe I'm too eager to shove that jagged pill down half a million people's throats when we need to prepare them a little more.  And maybe I'm mistaking the world for myself and need to remember the reason and evidence that most people don't listen to reason and evidence - super frustrating  .

 

At risk of being a concern troll, and I'm sure you guys have thought of this, but what if your donator base becomes majority religious right? Would that, consciously or unconsciously, affect what you put out for content?  In the past you consistently "knocked over dominoes" to keep a clean house, but Christians and conservatives are currently getting a pass.  As someone who invests in this show with the goal of spreading truth, philosophy, and principles of non-aggression I think this is a valid concern.  If you see my concern as anything else I would certainly welcome any insights.  I want to help move this conversation along, not hold it back in any way.

[Matthew Ed Moran]

I agree it is definitely an argument in the way you explained it. Thanks for making that more clear (for me at least).

 

I don't know what 'not tolerating' the war on drugs means. I'm not sure why I would to have that conversation with people. When I think what the world most needs to know, the first thing I go to is race and IQ and the effects of multiculturalism. This includes single motherhood and anti white male policies.

 

I talk about that a lot online. The issues of anti white male policies and multiculturalism are really important to me, and it is something that most people are not exposed to in my experience.

 

I don't see the case being made for what it means not to tolerate the war on drugs, and why it is more important to focus on not tolerating it compared to other issues.  Maybe there is a good reason for leaving this real world comparison out, but usually when people say "we shouldn't tolerate "x!" and they don't mention: any potential benefits of "x", any alternatives to talking about "x", any past efforts that have already been made to not tolerate "x" and their results (whether positive or negative on net), I assume it is virtue signaling.

[Tyler H]

I agree it is definitely an argument in the way you explained it. Thanks for making that more clear (for me at least).

 

I don't know what 'not tolerating' the war on drugs means. I'm not sure why I would to have that conversation with people. When I think what the world most needs to know, the first thing I go to is race and IQ and the effects of multiculturalism. This includes single motherhood and anti white male policies.

 

I talk about that a lot online. The issues of anti white male policies and multiculturalism are really important to me, and it is something that most people are not exposed to in my experience.

No problem, I'm just learning this stuff myself and needed to see if I could regurgitate it somewhat clearly.  It still stands that if you find I've made an error I would like to know, or anyone else for that matter.

 

That's probably a question for the OP but to me "not tolerating" the war on drugs means that we denounce it and explain our reasons.  I'm not sure what we can do other than that.  I think race and IQ are certainly important but so are many other topics in relation to the use of force and how we can organize society in a peaceful, moral way.  Some ideas are obviously more important to spread than others, but the ones near the top are not as clear.  I think (and maybe I should take the advice I'm about to give) that if we spend time arguing about which one is the most important by the time we hash that out we could have in the same time made great progress in all fields had we just been spreading what we each thought was the most important idea.

 

 

I don't see the case being made for what it means not to tolerate the war on drugs, and why it is more important to focus on not tolerating it compared to other issues.  Maybe there is a good reason for leaving this real world comparison out, but usually when people say "we shouldn't tolerate "x!" and they don't mention: any potential benefits of "x", any alternatives to talking about "x", any past efforts that have already been made to not tolerate "x" and their results (whether positive or negative on net), I assume it is virtue signaling.

 

I inferred that tolerating it meant saying that millions in jail, the lives ruined or ended, the lack of compassion and help for victims of child abuse, the atrocities done by gangs, cartels, and governments seeking to make profit in a lucrative, illicit business with no recourse for restitution other than brutal violence, the wasted resources, etc, etc, is worth it.  But worth what? The war on drugs has been a massive failure. All that money spent, lives lost, and societies destroyed for a situation worse than when it started.  Is there a potential benefit? Probably; maybe a drug dealer here or there is off the street and a kid here or there isn't introduced to drugs because of it, and maybe their lives are radically different thereby.  But I think the cons far outweigh any pros.  I think those kids would have been better served if there was a campaign for better parenting instead of "just say no" or we'll lock you the fu*k up!  And future children will be better served if we stop the war on drugs now instead of pouring $500 a second into a malevolent initiative empirically destined to fail.  Is this worse than advocating that Apple be forced to violate the privacy of its customers so that more government agencies can have unfettered access to our personal data? I don't know, but it fundamentally doesn't matter to me because they're both bad and should be addressed.  

 

I thought virtue-signaling was mainly in reference to these SJW asshats.... err pussyhats now I guess lol... who say they are such good people for supporting ideas that have already been accepted by society as moral and therefore face no real persecution and in most cases are actually acting immorally.  I think anyone talking about issues that get you ostracized and/or attacked by your family, friends, and/or employer should not be charged with virtue signaling. Sure, most people are cool with marijuana (except politicians loyal to special interests) but try telling someone heroin should be legal and see how they respond.  You're a society destroying piece of dirt.  I reserve the virtue-signaling epithet for the left, I don't think anyone in this forum is deserving of that charge.  Again, if I've misunderstood something I wish to be corrected.

[_LiveFree_]

 

It was on his website during the campaign.  

 

 

Ok, thanks I missed that.