I see you, Brian, and no, I do not agree that I’m being pushed off principle, here. [1]
I reject the premise that the guy was innocent on several levels, but the most important of them is that I reject and dismiss the premise that the law is not legit in a free society, which was the underlying argument all along.
Look, most of these people when they talk of ‘principle’ are talking about the ivory tower. That way lies Marxism, for example. Works great on paper, but never in real life, as Marx himself later acknowledged. Think about it; Can a principle be wrong? I would consider the Nazis to be very principled people, as I would Stalinists. Yet from an objective POV, can they and their principles be labeled anything but wrong?
And whose judgment is that? It is that of history. History judges such matters over many years, looking at the results of the practical application of the stated principle, and labels each of those extremes to be dead wrong, and things to be avoided. Alternately, when we find that a principle works, it generally gets used in the long term.
For myself, I judge principle in the way that history has always done; By observing the result of the actual application of said principle. That’s what I meant when I put “Politics from the real world” in the Bitsblog Sub-head. That’s not going wobbly on principle, that’s acknowledging that there is a concept known as reality which needs be attended, and which over-rides the artificial constructs of man including things he calls ‘principles’. Without it, principle can march in a very principled way to it’s own destruction and that of it’s mindless adherents.
That criteria is exactly what drives me to reject the call for the legalization of so-called ‘recreational drugs’. I reject outright as patent nonsense, the argument that such use only harms the user. I’ve been there; I know better. I’ve seen first hand the damage it causes to the people around the user, both on a financial and quality of life standpoint, not to mention the emotional aspects involved. I’ve seen it multiplied to the local level and the changes on families, which are the very basis of any society.
It’s from that experience that I understand more fully how such laws came about. While I agree that the laws tend to be abused, I defy you to name for me any law that has not been so abused. Therefore, that it gets abused does not, of itself, negate it’s legitimacy.
‘But what about a free society?’ I hear you screaming… Well, yes, let’s approach that issue. We do not exist in a vacuum, my friend. Everything we do has consequences. Those need be considered at every turn. Even the ones screaming that way generally acknowledge that what we have here in the US is the best example of freedom the world has ever known. Or as someone put it to me last week:
This country is the only one in all of human history where individual rights were set out –
Correct.
But how did that come about?
I submit that that is so because of the cultural values that the country was, in reality, founded upon. There is no doubt in my mind, based on my personal experiences, and that of others I know, and have spoken with, that the kind of stresses that legalized ‘recreational’ drug use puts on any culture, much less one based on responsibility as ours is, will irrevocably change that culture. And what happens to the rights that were recognized in that culture, once the culture goes away? It’s a level of damage which can only work against the cause of freedom, regardless that the wrong headed principle in question is ostensibly flying the flag of freedom. And that’s what I mean when I say a practical application of a principle. The principle, in the abstract may even be correct. But the real world… reality, you know… has a tendency to screw up the purest of intentions. I view the legalization of so-called recreational drugs in that fashion; Possibly correct in the abstract, but the reality is too gruesome, from both a personal and from a cultural aspect, to consider it.
Which, in the end is why I finally spoke up about the Franks thing the other day.