civilized societies have laws and restrictions on self-destructive behavior. this is a good thing. a permissive society is a society in chaos. it denies that moral absolutes exist.it cannot successfully function when individual rights always supercede those of the community as a whole. i’m not talking about property rights or the 2nd amendment. you should have the right to own property without worrying about government giving it to private developers to build a strip mall. guns are ok for law-abiding citizens to have. (although i would have to think about why a law-abiding citizen would need an UZI, but i digress…)
i’ve said all this to make this point — we shouldn’t encourage people in self-destructive behavior. this is what we would be doing if drugs and prostitution were legalized. in communities where there is drug dealing and prostitution, those communities are negatively affected. what we are talking about is not simply some misguided individual making bad choices for himself/herself. others are affected by those bad choices.
prostitution exists because men think they can’t control themselves. more often than not, they are cheating on their wives or girlfriends. and what about the women that are paid to perform this “service”? let’s not kid ourselves. most of the time, it doesn’t end like “pretty woman”. doesn’t anybody care about these women? i’m guessing that most prostitutes would rather be in a different career track, but they convince themselves that they could never succeed in any other profession. that’s very sad. the women deserve better and the men should be ashamed that they use women this way.
in the same way, legalizing drugs would be just as detrimental to society. what happened when abortion was legalized? more abortions happened. are abortions totally safe? no. complications happen sometimes. you can’t make the case that legalizing drugs makes them safer. it just makes them easier to buy and sell.
think about the implications of allowing people to wander around in a drug-induced haze. there is no good reason to take illegal drugs. none. if they’re lucky, they will only end up getting fired from their jobs. in a worst case scenario, these people will end up driving motor vehicles and causing accidents. as far as controlling drugs and prostitution by legalizing it, how is Amsterdam doing with that anyway?
Technorati : drugs, libertarians, prostitution