Thread: Pot Legalization Supporter Interviews Pot Prohibitionist - Very Well Done

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

That would have been illegal and taking things a bit too far, but that shows the difference between an anarchist and a libertarian. Kokesh wants to dissolve the federal government completely. Libertarians just want it to stick to what is is supposed to be there to do.

If you want to make a separate thread about that last topic, go for it. I won't discuss it here. There are way too many threads about any subject X that somehow turn into "libertarian this, libertarian that."

To get slightly back on topic, a guy named Austin Petersen staged a "Toy Gun March" in D.C., mocking Kokesh. It was pretty successful from what I saw.

You're the one who started discussing Kokesh instead of the interview. Are you saying you are ready to move on to discussing marijuana legalization and how the interview went? Please do. After discussing things with you in multiple threads lately, I am ready to see you say something supporting libertarianism.

I did discuss the interview, albeit briefly. Kokesh was calm, and the other guy tried his best to give his own reasoned answers. Kudos to both.

But let's be honest, what is there to discuss with regard to pot legalization? You won't find many people here who disagree with it.

Such people are all over the place, and the vast majority of people reading this forum at any time are non-members. What do you think of the points made in the interview? What is your analysis? I am not asking about behaviors or reputations. I haven't seen you make a pro-libertarian point on this site in a very long time. Show that you are passionately still with us. I am questioning whether you ever really were.

MY analysis is that you won't find a rational reason to prohibit pot, as the interviewee exemplifies in this clear case of gotcha journalism by an interviewer I respect mostly because he once put a Guy Fawkes mask on his face, and less because of his actual absolutist views of a more intricate reality than he cares to imagine or comment on.

Even my Mom has finally swung around after reading a post on Yahoo that simplified the marijuana stamp act to one man's pursuit of profitable paper. We know a coalition of an unemployed FBI, and competing industries against hemp created the marijuana stamp act. We know the war against drugs started to promote the prison industrial complex, and that marijuana got attached to it and remained stigmatized with the help of alcohol and tobacco lobbies along with pressure from drug cartels. We know now, as research continues to pile up, that it makes no logical sense and it's a fool's errand, as foolish as the Blackfish clinging to Riverrun--as foolish as defying evolution should be taught in schools, to attempt to stand against it at this point in human history. Ignorance had its reign, it's term is over, long live Barack Obama.

Right on.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Such people are all over the place, and the vast majority of people reading this forum at any time are non-members. What do you think of the points made in the interview? What is your analysis? I am not asking about behaviors or reputations. I haven't seen you make a pro-libertarian point on this site in a very long time. Show that you are passionately still with us. I am questioning whether you ever really were.

I'm not concerned about whether you think my passions are up to snuff or not. Furthermore, you knew very well what I meant when I said you won't find many people here who disagree with pot legalization. There are a handful of people who regularly post in this forum and from what I've seen, either none of them or very few of them are against it.

I agree with Kokesh that pot should be legal. I know of no valid reason for prohibiting its use, sale, or possession. He and many others rightly use the failure of alcohol prohibition as a historical analog. The interviewee had this odd obsession with prohibiting pot for public safety reasons, but he wasn't in favor of alcohol prohibition. It's a position that makes no sense. In the video, his rationalization, which Kokesh correctly noted, was that legal = good, illegal = bad. That is an incredibly naive position.

He said Kokesh was making pot out to be a harmless drug; he wasn't. I don't think it's harmless, but the interviewee clearly recognized the possible health issues with marijuana AND no doubt recognizes the health issues with alcohol. But somehow he isn't for alcohol prohibition.

What I especially liked about this interview is what Kokesh did toward the end. I don't know if he's been listening to more reasoned libertarian writers (well, what I'd consider more reasoned. Steve Horwitz being an example.), but he points out that while the interviewee is concerned about public safety, so are we. That's how you changed minds. We're not all rebellious potheads. We have similar if not the same concerns as people on "the other side," just different ways of going about handling those concerns.

All right, now you're talking.

I want to add that the mass incarcerations for marijuana possession and distribution have been massively tragic and extraordinarily expensive. Plus, nobody deserves to be locked up for having marijuana, using it, or selling it to a consensual buyer. It is sick, evil, and Naziistic to destroy somebody's life over it. The Fourth Amendment has been trampled majorly because of the war on drugs overall and the war on pot alone. Also, the illegal drug (including pot) markets are so big and out of hand that they have created a gangster climate of turf wars and horrible social influence. Illegal drug dealers have lots of power and prestige on the streets, and the big dogs are criminally-minded gangsters. They have nice possessions and hot women because of their street power, and that gives them lots of influence on others. Their negative influence has been rubbing all over society for a long time. The result has been a great deal of violence and other hostility in what amounts to a huge gangster culture in our society. All of this "gangsta" image stuff that has bee extremely popular for the last 20 years has its roots in the war on drugs. The war on pot, just like the overall war on drugs, has been social poison on many levels.