Mr. Halfhill has a penchant for taking statements out of context for his own purposes. He responds to my post responding to a question of why the city should not enforce immigration laws when it enforces drug laws. He uses my post to make his points against drug laws while ignoring that my post did attack drug laws as racist and unjust. My post did not take a position about whether drug laws should be enforced or should exist, but did acknowledge more rationale for enforcing drug laws than immigration laws because of public health and safety issues. I personally believe strongly in decriminalization of drugs, but that was not the issue in the thread. Mr. Halfhill does not seem to have respect for complexities or nuances in discussion, but is just concerned with making rhetorical points. At the same time, Halfhill's suggestion that drugs pose NO public safety isssues outside of turf wars caused by drugs being illegal is not realistic. Unless drugs were given away for free, there would be drug addicts committing thefts and robberies to obtain money to support their addictions. Some drugs which are now illegal also lead to violent behavior. As with the unavoidable public health problems of drugs, the question with public safety is whether more criminalization creates more problems than it addresses. I have not seen convincing arguments in the negative. Halfhill would do better to make his arguments without making people into opponents who are not oppenents.
JOrdan Kushner Golden Valley On 29 Apr 2005, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > In reply to Jordan Kushner, the Drug laws are racist in that they impact > racial minorties far more severely than whites and their original banning was > fueled by racist hysteria about Mexicans in the case of marijuana and racist > hysteria about Blacks and Orientals in the case of cocaine. > There are no public safety issues since, if drugs were legal, vendors of > drugs that are now illegal could settle their disputes through the legal > system and would have no more reason for violent turf wars than two liguor > stores now have reason to battle over alcohol territory or two corner gocery > stores to war over tobacco territory. > It is also unethical to enforce drug laws since the only justification for > making anything illegal is whether it hurts uninvolved third parties. The > government has no more right to make the consumption of certain drugs illegal > than it has the right to make adherence to certain religions illegal. > As for public health, experience has shown than more harm than good is > done by making the consumption of even harmful drugs illegal. It was shown > by the failure of prohibition of alcohol, it would be shown by any attempt to > ban tobacco, and it is being shown by the ban on marijuana as well as other > drugs. > Victimless crime laws are unjust laws and all unjust laws should be > disobeyed! > Robert Halfhill Loring Park > > > http://halfhillviews.greatnow.com > > http://www.thepen.us/e-fraud.html > > REMINDERS: 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:mpls@mnforum.org Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
