A week ago, I posted about the case of Marc Emery, the Vancouver-based marijuana seed entrepreneur who was facing an extradition hearing on the 21st of this month. I planned to follow the hearings pretty closely, but it looks like there might not be much to follow. Emery appears to be taking a plea bargain:
Marc Emery, Vancouver’s self-styled Prince of Pot, has tentatively agreed to a five-year prison term in a plea bargain over U.S. money laundering and marijuana seed-selling charges.
Facing an extradition hearing Jan. 21 and the all-but-certain prospect of delivery to American authorities, Emery has cut a deal with U.S. prosecutors to serve his sentence in Canada.
I was a little surprised to see Emery do this, as he seemed to be really looking forward to the publicity that would’ve surrounded his trial in a U.S. court. But the deal was apparently done in the interest of sparing his two co-defendants, one of whom is a medical marijuana patient who fears she will die in an American prison. Still, Emery is clearly ticked off by what happened:
“I’m going to do more time than many violent, repeat offenders,” he complained. “There isn’t a single victim in my case, no one who can stand up and say, ‘I was hurt by Marc Emery.’ No one.”
Of course, there are some out there who would argue that this isn’t true. A number of people think that flouting our drug laws to the extent that Emery has hurts everyone, and “sends the wrong message to children.” And many of these people, unfortunately, still have prominent jobs in our government. Only recently have we started to see them as the radical extremists that they really are.
In Canada, Emery’s business was technically illegal, but ultimately tolerated. He paid his taxes and forged good relations with the Canadian government. But in the end, America’s zealousness in fighting the drug war has always been able to trump such trivialities. Marc Emery, a man who hasn’t even visited in the United States in many years, will be sent to a Canadian prison for 5 years solely for being the supply that matched up to the American demand for the seeds of a plant that humans have used recreationally for thousands of years.
In other news out of Canada, Glenn Greenwald posts about another set of unjust laws, hate speech laws. Unlike the laws that are sending Emery away to jail, these laws don’t come out of pressure from the American government. Instead, they come from those who take an extreme view of multiculturalism and protecting minorities. Greenwald writes:
Ezra Levant is a right-wing Canadian neoconservative who publishes Western Standard, a typical warmongering, pro-Likud journal — a poor man’s Weekly Standard for Canadian neocons. In February, 2006, he published the Danish Mohammed cartoons, which prompted an Islamic group’s imam to file a complaint (.pdf) against Levant with the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission, charging Levant with “advocating hatemongering cartoons in the media,” and the imam specifically accused Levant of “defaming me and my family because we follow and are related to Prophet Mohammed.”
Rather than dismiss the complaint as a blatant attempt to punish free thought and free speech, the Alberta Human Rights Commission announced that it would investigate. To do so, they compelled Levant to appear before a government agent and be interrogated about the cartoons he published, his thoughts and intent in publishing them, and the other circumstances surrounding his “behavior.” Under the law, the Commission has the power to impose substantial fines and other penalties on Levant.
As much as I would probably find Levant’s politics to be a mixture of hysterical and terrifying, his actions should never, ever be considered a crime for any reason. This is one thing that nearly all of us in this country tend to get right. We understand the value of free speech and that restricting it will always unleash unintended consequences. However, as Greenwald points out, these laws are more common in both Canada and Europe.
Whether we’re talking about U.S. drug laws or the hate speech laws in Canada, any time you make laws which aim to protect the public’s peace of mind by restricting the liberty of others, you start down the path of totalitarianism. You chase an unattainable utopia that eventually alienates the public it aims to protect. Both the United States and Canada can look across our common border to take the first steps towards backing away from our extremist tendencies.
just seeing this in print will keep me laughing for a long time.
“marijuana seed entrepreneur”
it’s just such a funny line….kinda like when the bio tech co’s patent human genes. it’s just so wrong it’s funny…..
The word you’re looking for is not flaunt, but flout.
OH, CANADA! [shame shame shame]
“Rather than dismiss the complaint as a blatant attempt to punish free thought and free speech, the Alberta Human Rights Commission announced that it would investigate. ”
yes…those enlightened canadians. whew……if the liberal progressives in this country get their way we will be joining this party………
didn’t they also allow sharia law to be enacted in BC?
@2
Thanks! Fixed. This is probably not the first place I’ve done that. :)
Lee, I love you and want to bear your children.
Unfortunately, I have a penis.
Call me.
Chris,
I can assure you, he doesn’t swing that way.
And you forgot to leave your number.
Lee, I agree with you on both points. You should look at the you tube regarding Ezra Levent’s opening statement to the Canadian Kangaroo Court. Everyone should look at regardless of your political affiliations. It is what America and what used to be Canada is all about.
“I don’t answer to the state”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6n3SdV2cwn4
I love free speech, to bad Canada is turning into a liberal facist state.
That’s nothing that a turkey baster and several expensive surgeries can’t solve!
Six twelve, two oh eight, fifty-three ninety-nine, or thereabouts.
@1 Yes, euphemisms can be hilarious — e.g., calling hired murderers “security contractors” comes to mind.
@5 Just what this blog needs — another Republican pervert.
@7 Canada bears no resemblance to a “liberal facist [sic] state” but looks a whole lot like a conservative fascist state — complete with conservative politicians, damn-the-environment attitudes, and thought police. And yes, you go to jail in Canada for denying the Holocaust. If Canada were a liberal fascist state, you would go to jail for denying global warming, but instead they’re polluting the North Country as fast as they can in the name of digging up tar sands to slake the American thirst for oil.
Mona Lisa ID’d
A recently discovered contemporary manuscript confirms the subject of the famous painting is who we thought all along she was — Lisa Giocondo. Now all she needs to vote in Indiana is a driver’s license.
“Cheap-labor conservatives are defenders of corporate America, whose fortunes depend on labor.”
“The more desperately you need a job, the cheaper you’ll work.”
“Cheap-labor conservatives don’t like social spending or our ‘safety net’ … [b]ecause when you’re … desperate, [they] can pay you … next to nothing.”
— Conceptual Guerrilla
It turns out Republicans aren’t cheap labor conservatives, they’re NO LABOR CONSERVATIVES. According to Barron’s, the conservative investors’ weekly, 89% of the jobs “created” in 2007 are a statistical adjustment — not real people working in actual jobs. When you subtract these phantom jobs from the statistics, the economy lost jobs last year, preserving intact George W. Bush’s unbroken string of job losses since taking office.
So, fellow Democrats, don’t worry about CHEAP LABOR CONSERVATIVES taking advantage of you, because America’s conservative employers don’t want your labor at any price! As far as they’re concerned, you can just fucking starve.
And they’re not about to give you food stamps, because they would be, you know, “communism.”
that would be
And don’t look for a middle class tax-cut stimulus to pull the economy out of recession, either. That’s because Republicans are holding it hostage for making permanent Bush’s tax cuts for the rich PLUS more tax cuts for the rich including elimination of estate taxes. If they can’t wring their own tax breaks out of the Democratic Congress, than as far as they’re concerned the economy and middle class consumers can go to hell!
According to the pie chart in the 1040A instruction booklet, revenues from the estate tax are almost equal to the deficit and/or the interest paid on the national debt, so eliminating this tax would double the deficit and require the government to borrow money to pay interest on the money it has already borrowed.
I can’t think of a more disgusting case of “sending the wrong message to children” than to see a dim-witted, egocentric, amoral upper-class twit whose family bought his way through an Ivy League college and has never done an honest day’s work in his life, elevated to “leader of the free world”.
And they want people to believe they’re the “party of fiscal responsibility”??! More like the “party of fiscal insanity”!!! If you like the idea of burning money in the furnace as heating fuel, like they did in Weimar Germany, then go ahead and vote Republican.
@17 Fortunately, he used his allowance to fry his brain with cocaine, otherwise the damage might have been even worse.
I’m very saddened by what’s happening to Marc Emery and I think it’s outrageous! I’ve been a decriminalization advocate from the age of 16, 32 years ago, but I feel like I haven’t done enough and let this courageous man down. My letter of protest to the feds goes out with the morning mail…
Roy Harrold
Surreality Times
13: Remember almost half of Clinton’s 22+ Million jobs were the $7 variety. – John Schwarz
Keep that thought as you pelletize the blog today.
So Artfart: You wanted an even more “dim-witted, egocentric, amoral upper-class twit” in 2004?
Or you really wanted a “dim-witted, egocentric, amoral upper-class twit” in 2000 who flunked out of college the first time?
Please regale to all of us your consciousness. This ought to be good. My popcorn is popped. Oh… Terrill Owens bad joke hehehe.
@8
Haha, the comment at #6 really was from my wife. She heard me laughing out loud at your comment.
Marijuanna should never have been illegal in the first place. Time to end the prohibition and come up with a sensible legalization of this recreational drug, just like we did with the biggest drug of them all, alcohol.
22 Hell, putting a big fat horse flop from my friend’s farm in the Oval Office would be an improvement.
ANYTHING would be an improvement….well, except maybe Mitt Romney.
Marijuana busts are more about money than actually protecting the public.
Users who buy in bulk are often charged as dealers, have their possessions confiscated and sold at auction funding law enforcement.
Most users of hard core drugs don’t have either a life or assets that amount to more than squat. These types are dangerous but are not able to support law enforcement through unconstitutional confiscation.
Roger Rabbit says:
“According to the pie chart in the 1040A instruction booklet, revenues from the estate tax are almost equal to the deficit and/or the interest paid on the national debt, so eliminating this tax would double the deficit and require the government to borrow money to pay interest on the money it has already borrowed.”
So I guess you’ll be leaving all your assets to the federal government then, Roger?? Thanks! I’ll be leaving my assets to my heirs, and your contribution will certainly take the burden off of people like me who choose to leave their wealth to whomever they want rather than to the feds. Thanks again!
ArtFart: Oh… you were writing about future POTUS engagements. I mistook your comment as previous POTUS competition.
My baaaaaaaaaaaaad!
Silly Rabbit! I’m talking about drug confiscations not Estate Taxes.
Reading is fundamental
Opps.
Did I say that?
There is no such thing as a “victimless crime.” When society decides, through its lawmaking process, that something is offensive enough to be criminalized, then the breach of that decision makes society the victim.
If I discharge a firearm in an area where I’m the only one within a mile but where it’s illegal, I’ve still broken the law and I can be prosecuted. In that scenario, there’s less “victimhood” than in a drug case where, it can be argued, every act of sale or use harms someone.
The criminal law isn’t private, it’s public. I’ve said this before. We caption the cases not with the victim’s name, but effectively with the name of “We the people…”
People of the State of Washington v. Smith, or U.S. v. Jones.
What makes an act criminal isn’t damage to the victim – the victim has a private right of action for damages with a substantially lower burden of proof in such a case – but damage to and disruption of the overall peace of the state.
To contend that the law shouldn’t intervene in so-called “victimless crime” situations because no one is “hurt,” misses the point of the law. We are hurt in those situations. Our collective conscience is shocked and the sanctity and peace of the community are wounded. For that, the legislature has determined, a violater of the law must be punished.
The Piper
Piper:
I am torn here. If you have had a relative die a slow painful death and marijuana (tetrahydrocannabinol) would help them in their pain, then why not give it to them. Somethimes we are too anal as a society. Unfortunately tetrahydrocannabinol shots don’t work like marijuana in many cases. I know you’ll be shocked by my view, but the government takes a legalistic view over it’s citizens health at times when laissez-faire is just kool enough for Puddy. I can see the mission here.
And Lee, we’ve been prosecuting these cases over many different administrations.
@32…Puddy…
Goldy and others are all the time making the case that “We the people” have no business making law, that it’s something best left to elected representatives. Those same representatives, on both the state and federal level, have decided that marijuana use is a criminal act. For any of us, irrespective of our own personal feelings or circumstances, to break that law means that we subject ourselves to the laws sanction.
Yes, sometimes we are too anal, and much of the time the law’s delay in focusing on the minute ends up perverting the larger picture. Still, unless and until the law is changed, it is what it is, and it’s our responsibility as citizens to either obey it or, if we think it unjust, openly defy it to force its fullest consequences in order to show it up.
The other option is to work to have the law changed. In this case, whatever change is to come about will have to come at the federal level since it’s the doctrine of federal supremacy that’s at work. Constitutionally, a state cannot challenge the primacy of federal law in those areas where the federal government has jurisdiction.
Nobody ever said these questions are easy. Still, as long as the law is what it is, then to not enforce it makes a mockery of all law. If we wish to experience the benefits of living under the social compact, than we have a responsibility to uphold out part of it even when it becomes personally painful to us.
BTW…while not on this particulary factual setting, you’d be surprised how close this overall issue hits home to me.
The Piper
Piper: That’s why I responded as I did in 32. This does hit home.
@35…Puddy…
I suspected as much. And I am sorry for whatever struggle you’re going through. My mother died of cancer, and I know there’s nothing worse.
Prayers go to for your situation. While I don’t know the details, He does, and His grace is sufficient. Do lean on it.
The Piper
Piper,
I bet in a previous life you had something to do with the Spanish Inquisition. Were you chief torturer, forcing Sephardic Jews to accept Jesus as thier personal savior?
Marijuanna should be legalized and legalized now!!
@37…PI…
That’s a pretty nasty thing to say, including essentially accusing me of being anti-semitic.
I don’t make the law, but I have a responsibility to respect it, as do you. While I can’t endorse someone breaking the law, I can have compassion for that person in a difficult situation and provide what support I can. All you have to offer is judgment and condemnation.
The Piper
@38
Piper, I don’t think you’re anti-semitic, but I do believe that with the outlook you described in comment #31, you could very easily find a way to tolerate the extermination of Jews.
In essense, with that comment, you are arguing in support of prosecuting Ezra Levant, correct?
@34
Goldy and others are all the time making the case that “We the people” have no business making law, that it’s something best left to elected representatives.
When elected representatives make laws, that’s an extension of “We the people”. Please try a little harder to keep up around here. I know how much value you place on intellectual laziness, but it does get annoying after a while for us to continually have to explain basic concepts to you over and over and over again.
@39…Lee…
My post @31 is a restatement of what Ill call Legal Theory 101. It’s nothing more complex than the essence of the Anglo-American theory of jurisprudence that dates back hundreds of years before the founding of the Republic.
It’s irrelevent whether I favor the prosecution of anyone; it’s not up to me. Whether anyone is to be prosecuted for allegedly violating the law is a matter for state or federal authorities and then only after following very specific guidelines and meeting extremely high thresholds.
Comparing American drug laws with Canada’s clearly Draconian laws allowing prior restraint and limitations on free speech is another apples/oranges dichotomy.
In the U.S., Canada’s speech codes would fall flat quicker than you know what; they just don’t pass First Amendment muster. Although any number of publicly supported campuses in the U.S. seet to foist “conduct codes” with the same net effect. I remember reading about one where you could get into trouble for “lookism,” or looking at someone in a manner that made the person feel uncomfortable.
It’s usually all about “feelings,” these stupid restrictions.
The law looks at and regards behavior differently than it does speech. Drug use is a behavior, writing an article critical of favorable treatment toward gays and lesbians is speech; the two don’t equate.
On a scale of 1 to 10, angst over drug possession and use laws doesn’t register for me. In a sense, I could care less; there are bigger fish to fry, and as a general proposition, I regard drugs and their use to be toxic to the culture, so what’s in it for me to make their sale or use easier or without some degree of sanction?
Speech, on the other hand, is different. Call me one of these “disagree with what you say…defend to the death your right…” types with the caveatts that (1) I remain unconvinced that any of the Founders envisioned the First Amendment to encompass porn, and (2) just because you have the right to speak neither obligates me or anyone else to listen; there is no Constitutional right to a platform.
If you want broad public distribution of your thoughts and sentiments, do what others do – write letters, submit articles and op-eds, blog, or whatever. If that’s not enough, pony up for a bigger voice. As Ronaldus Magnus Reaganus noted in the 1980 New Hampshire primary debates, “I paid for this microphone!”
I also don’t regard all opinions as equivalent. Simply because it’s said doesn’t mean it’s entitled to respect, a tautology of blogging.
Under your reasoning, what’s the justification for laws against public graffiti, sex acts, self-immolation, and fist fights? The law proscribes each, but why? Why shouldn’t two consenting adults who feel like it be allowed to go at – fists or fornication – at high noon down at Westlake Center? And why should a tagger be prosecuted if his “art” has “merit” (cf the logic behind calling Ballard’s Googie Denny’s “historic”).
Equating the two Canadian situations as you do fails. Furthermore, it’s quite common to charge a defendant who hasn’t visited the U.S. with a violation of U.S. criminal law. If it was’t possible to to it, then all of the criminal indictments against terrorist suspects like ObL would have to be dismissed.
If your offshore act has criminal consequences in the United States, you are liable. That’s been the law since forever and enforced through what are known as “long arm statutes.” If you stand across the border in B.C. and fire a weapon resulting in injury or death to someone in the U.S., you can be prosecuted in a U.S. court even though you’ve never set foot in the U.S. All that’s required for jurisdiction to attach is a reasonable connection to the consequences of your behavior.
This principle is equally applicable in civil law as it is in criminal.
So, your drug defendent, in messing with U.S. laws, suffers U.S. consequences, albeit in a Canadian jail. No offense, but sucks to be him!
The Piper
@40…Lee…
Then explain his fulminations against the initiative process and all the comments from any number of the HA Happy Hooligans in favor of removing the people’s right to initiative and referendum from the State Constitution because they’re antithetical to “representative government.”
The Piper
@41
It’s irrelevent whether I favor the prosecution of anyone; it’s not up to me. Whether anyone is to be prosecuted for allegedly violating the law is a matter for state or federal authorities and then only after following very specific guidelines and meeting extremely high thresholds.
What are the guidelines and threshholds?
Comparing American drug laws with Canada’s clearly Draconian laws allowing prior restraint and limitations on free speech is another apples/oranges dichotomy.
Baloney. It’s the same exact thing. It’s an attempt by government to enforce a particular morality in order to protect the peace of mind of its citizens. Apples to apples. Even Puddybud and PI understand this. Why can’t you?
In the U.S., Canada’s speech codes would fall flat quicker than you know what; they just don’t pass First Amendment muster.
Of course they don’t, but neither should our drug laws, and most people know that. In fact, when drug laws were first enacted in this country at the turn of the 20th century, there was a huge uproar that they were unconstitutional, but that was steamrolled by the same paranoia that eventually gave us alcohol prohibition too. At least for that, they actually followed the Constitution and passed an amendment. If they had to do it for alcohol, why don’t they have to do for other substances? The answer is that they did have to, they didn’t do it, and therefore our drug laws remain just as unconstitutional as Canada’s free speech laws would be here.
Although any number of publicly supported campuses in the U.S. seet to foist “conduct codes” with the same net effect. I remember reading about one where you could get into trouble for “lookism,” or looking at someone in a manner that made the person feel uncomfortable.
Yes, and I think that’s wrong and shouldn’t be allowed. But because I understand the parallels between that and our drug laws, I’m not the hypocrite here.
The law looks at and regards behavior differently than it does speech. Drug use is a behavior, writing an article critical of favorable treatment toward gays and lesbians is speech; the two don’t equate.
Sorry, apples to apples, again. Speech is a form of behavior. A person’s right to protest is a behavior. Praying to Mecca is a behavior. They’re all self-contained behaviors and the First Amendment should be treating them all equally. I’m not here to argue that this is how the law has been interpreted, it hasn’t. I’m here to argue that our paranoia over drugs has led much of our legal system down a twisted road of hypocrisy and double-standards that you’re eager to defend.
On a scale of 1 to 10, angst over drug possession and use laws doesn’t register for me. In a sense, I could care less; there are bigger fish to fry, and as a general proposition, I regard drugs and their use to be toxic to the culture, so what’s in it for me to make their sale or use easier or without some degree of sanction?
And this is precisely why you would be the kind of person who could shrug your shoulders at the extermination of Jews. For you, as soon as you can convince yourself that the presence of a particular group is toxic to the culture, any remedy is ok.
Under your reasoning, what’s the justification for laws against public graffiti, sex acts, self-immolation, and fist fights?
Public graffiti – defaces someone’s property
Sex acts – no justification
Self-immolation – no justification
Fist fights – if a person feels he was assaulted, a crime was committed
Why shouldn’t two consenting adults who feel like it be allowed to go at – fists or fornication – at high noon down at Westlake Center?
Because the people do have the right to make laws about what kind of behaviors are allowed in public. I don’t have a problem at all with laws that say you can’t drink alcohol while walking down the street. C’mon, man. You’re smarter than this.
Equating the two Canadian situations as you do fails. Furthermore, it’s quite common to charge a defendant who hasn’t visited the U.S. with a violation of U.S. criminal law. If it was’t possible to to it, then all of the criminal indictments against terrorist suspects like ObL would have to be dismissed.
Osama Bin Laden has harmed many Americans. Marc Emery has not harmed a single one. That’s the apples to oranges comparison you’re missing that’s sending you down the road to hypocrisy here.
Once again, I will ask you: Do you support the prosecution of Ezra Levant? Let me rewrite what you wrote in comment #31:
In the case of Ezra Levant, there’s no question that by publishing the Mohammad cartoon’s, he disrupted the overall peace of the state. No question. Muslim groups were furious at him. Please explain to me why you agree or disagree with his prosecution.
@42
Then explain his fulminations against the initiative process and all the comments from any number of the HA Happy Hooligans in favor of removing the people’s right to initiative and referendum from the State Constitution because they’re antithetical to “representative government.”
I’ve never heard Goldy argue it like that. He has concerns over how the initiative process in this state works, but the concerns are not rooted in a desire to prevent “We the people” from making laws. They are rooted in a desire to prevent “We the people” from wasting our tax dollars.
@44…Lee…
Whatever…
That’s sure not how he sounds when he rants over that nasty people going against his personal POV and how Tim Eyman is the devil incarnate.
To clarify, however, I would appreciate hearing exactly what his POV is on the initiative and referendum process and whether he supports Ken Jacobson’s on-going efforts to have them removed from the State Constitution.
The Piper
@45
That’s sure not how he sounds when he rants over that nasty people going against his personal POV and how Tim Eyman is the devil incarnate.
I’m not gonna argue this for him. I understand his POV and it has nothing to do with keeping people from exercising their democratic rights.
To clarify, however, I would appreciate hearing exactly what his POV is on the initiative and referendum process and whether he supports Ken Jacobson’s on-going efforts to have them removed from the State Constitution.
Maybe if you buy him some pizza, he’ll write about it.
Still waiting for you to defend Canada’s prosecution of Ezra Levant. I’m obviously making an exception to my New Year’s resolution today because your comment at #31 was just spectacular. Thank you.
@43 & 46…Lee…
Pretty obvious you haven’t read much law or studied the theory or history of jurisprudence in Common Law-based countries.
My @31 post is a fair re-statement of the theory of criminal law and how it’s different from civil law. That theory has been the operative model in this country since long before this country became a country. Before that, it traces its roots back to Henry II and the Common Law. It’s even older than Magna Charta since it was Henry’s son, John, who was forced by his barons to sign it.
While we as a society give deference to and the law recognizes injury done to victims, the whole idea of criminal law isn’t “victim” oriented. Again, criminal offenses are offenses against the peace and sovereignty of the state.
Some criminal prosecutions pay great deference to the needs and interests of a victim, especially since the victim’s cooperation is often essential to a successful prosecution. But such is not always the case. If 10-people see a mugging and clearly ID the perp, that the victim doesn’t wish to prosecute won’t control since society has a strong interest in getting the perp off the street and locked up in jail.
The guidelines and thresholds are statutory and Constitutional. There has to be evidence to prove every element of a crime before a crime can be charged. Years ago, I sat on a jury in NE District Court in a DUI case. One of the elements of the crime, because it was a City of Kirkland Municipal Code violation, was that it had to have taken place within the City of Kirkland. The prosecution didn’t specifically ask the arresting offier, or anyone else for that matter, whether the defendent – clearly soused – was stopped and arrested within the City Limits. Nevertheless, everyone on the jury knew that the address where the arrest took place was within city limits.
The defence that the fellow spilled a pitcher of beer in his lap and then got into his buddy’s Vet with a chick he picked up in the tavern and proceeded to tool around town was hollow and not credible.
The Constitution, state and federal, also set out procedural guidelines that must be met before a criminal prosecution can be successful. Standards of probable cause and due process are pretty severe with even the slightest of deviation therefrom fraught with negative consequences.
The criminal law in toto is the ultimate example of the enforcement of a particular morality. It’s not a utilitarian expression of uber-cost/benefit analysis, but a codification of right and wrong, moral versus immoral.
It’s immoral to steal or assault or murder or engage in insider trading.
In your post about Boeing, you argue in favor of regulation of safety issues, which is effectively arguing in favor of the morality of governmental intervention to protect those who ride on airplanes.
Usually, those who desparately rail against the imposition of the morality of another fail to recognize it in themselves when they do it. Kind of a sliver/log in the eye analysis.
You seem to claim that U.S. drug laws don’t pass First Amendment muster in the same way speech codes do, and that’s simply baffling. And you blythely claim “most people know” without citing authority or a basis for your claim. Ditto with the “huge uproar” against early 20th-Century drug laws. Are you referring to the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, or what?
Where are the court cases in support of your opinion?
The 18th Amendment, enforced by the Volstead Act, was the result of much pressure from prohibition forces. Ultimately ratified by 44-states, it augmented the existing efforts of many states that had already gone dry.
Washington, BTW, ratified the 18th Amendment.
It’s fascinating to me that an undercurrent argument of yours is the same one used by opponents of mid-60’s Civil Rights Legislation: the federal government has no authority. By use of the Commerce Clause and a flexible understanding of the definition of “interstate commerce,” Congress passed and federal courts enforced laws on public accommodation, transportation, and other areas.
“Yes, and I think that’s wrong and shouldn’t be allowed,” is an expression of morality coupled with a desire to enact it into law.
Speech and behavior are different. The Constitution specifically protects speech, even speech that occassionally morphs into behavior. Flag burning, for example, is protected, and you have Antonin Scalia to thank for that. But using heroin or meth or marijuana isn’t.
The courts have been pretty consistent in upholding the right of federal and state governments to regulate to the point of outlawing drug use. A Constitutional argument that such regulation is, dare I use the word, “wrong” is a judicial non-starter. Your remedy, if any, is exclusively in the legislative branch, and more specifically in this instance, in Congress. So, until and unless you have majorities in the House and Senate in support of your cause, you’re SOL.
The federal Constitution specifrically protects religion and speech, which you equate with “behavior.” While some aspects of both can include “behavior” (see the discussion of flag burning, above), neither are inherently behavior as much as they are expressions of conscience and the freedom and liberty of thought. The history of English Common Law, from which our own Constitution springs, is replete with examples of the growth of these notions.
To contend that the First Amendment protects so-called “self-contained behaviors” including drug use is a novel legal theory. Do you have substantive case law to support it? Some judge somewhere who authored a precedent setting opinion? THAT’S what law is.
It really was low of you – though not unusual – to again resurrect the anti-semitic canard, which, in this instance, as bass ackwards violation of Godwin’s Law. Drug sellers and users have common cause only in their law breaking. Jewish people have common cause through a faith dating back thousands of years, shared cultural experiences, and lots more.
Your public/private dichotomy also fails. Under your theory of the right of expression, opinion, and behavior, how can government proscribe sex acts in public? If the two people consent, consider it important and necessary to them, whose business is it?
How can you have no problem with laws prohibiting drinking while walking down the street? Isn’t that an imposition of your morality upon someone who has no problem with it? And isn’t also a relic of Prohibition Era social taboos against alcohol generally? After all, there’s no “victim.”
If two adults engage in a voluntary fistfight at Westlake Center, who’s business is it? As long as they don’t hurt anyone else – say they staked out a “ring” and confined their activities to within it – who has a right to interfere or complain? Ditto a sex act between consenting adults in public.
The whole free speech thing clearly demonstrates how little you understand law and Consitutional history. Remember the conversation we had where you were in error about the application of the Bill of Rights to the states prior to the 14th Amendment? Similar application here.
In trying to distinguish ObL and Marc Emery on the basis of “victims” you again miss the point that there doesn’t have to be a human “victim” per se in order for a crime to be committed. If I trespass upon your property but harm no person or property, is there no crime? If I engage in insider trading and no one is injured by losing money, is there no crime? You need to ditch this fixation that the criminal law rises and falls on whether there’s a “victim.”
There is no Constitutional right in America to not be offended, but there is a Constitutional right in America to say something that offends. If there was a Constitutional right not to be offended, you’d be in jail and bankrupted long ere this! The case of Mohammad cartoons is a classic example.
In this country, Levant’s publication of Mohammad cartons is absolutely protected free speech no matter how many people he pisses off. The founders made the value judgement – a variation of imposing one’s morality – that the value of the free expression of ideas is more important than any distress it might cause others. Obviously, the Canadians have missed that boat, and a massive diminution of liberty has resulted.
Repeatedly, your “theory” of law seems grounded in your subjective notions of right and wrong. Irrespective of whether the legislature has determined a certain act should be proscribed and subject to criminal penalties, if you disagree then what the legislature has done is “wrong” (there’s that morality again) and a violation of it is somehow protected by the Constitution, though in an as yet completely unarticulated theory supported by legal analysis, legal reasoning, and case law.
If you want your position to prevail, go to the federal legislature, the Congress of the United States, and lobby there. The courts won’t give you relief, nor should they.
And quite suggesting that my belief system somehow washes in favor of exterminating anyone.
The Piper
@47
Pretty obvious you haven’t read much law or studied the theory or history of jurisprudence in Common Law-based countries.
Irrelevant to what we’re talking about. I pointed out how you’re being a hypocrite and you’re still avoiding that question.
My @31 post is a fair re-statement of the theory of criminal law and how it’s different from civil law.
Again, that’s irrelevant to how you’re being a hypocrite.
That theory has been the operative model in this country since long before this country became a country.
Again, that’s irrelevant to your hypocrisy over what you said in comment #31 and the Levant case
Before that, it traces its roots back to Henry II and the Common Law. It’s even older than Magna Charta since it was Henry’s son, John, who was forced by his barons to sign it.
Also irrelevant.
While we as a society give deference to and the law recognizes injury done to victims, the whole idea of criminal law isn’t “victim” oriented. Again, criminal offenses are offenses against the peace and sovereignty of the state.
And by your own formulations, the Canadians should be prosecuting Levant.
Some criminal prosecutions pay great deference to the needs and interests of a victim, especially since the victim’s cooperation is often essential to a successful prosecution. But such is not always the case. If 10-people see a mugging and clearly ID the perp, that the victim doesn’t wish to prosecute won’t control since society has a strong interest in getting the perp off the street and locked up in jail.
True, but we’re still dealing with crimes that have real victims. Again, this is irrelevant to why you support the prosecution of Levant.
The guidelines and thresholds are statutory and Constitutional. There has to be evidence to prove every element of a crime before a crime can be charged. Years ago, I sat on a jury in NE District Court in a DUI case. One of the elements of the crime, because it was a City of Kirkland Municipal Code violation, was that it had to have taken place within the City of Kirkland. The prosecution didn’t specifically ask the arresting offier, or anyone else for that matter, whether the defendent – clearly soused – was stopped and arrested within the City Limits. Nevertheless, everyone on the jury knew that the address where the arrest took place was within city limits.
Once again, this is completely irrelevant to what we’re discussing here, which is how your line of thinking in comment #31 clearly means that the Canadian government is correct in going after Ezra Levant.
The criminal law in toto is the ultimate example of the enforcement of a particular morality. It’s not a utilitarian expression of uber-cost/benefit analysis, but a codification of right and wrong, moral versus immoral.
Exactly, and this is why you support the prosecution of Mr. Levant.
It’s immoral to steal or assault or murder or engage in insider trading.
But the fact that those things are “immoral” is not the reason to put people in jail. The reason to put people in jail is to provide justice for the victims of those real crimes. Neither drug use nor Levant’s publishing of those cartoons had actual victims. This is why it is a mistake to use our justice system to enforce morality. It will inevitably violate our basic freedoms.
In your post about Boeing, you argue in favor of regulation of safety issues, which is effectively arguing in favor of the morality of governmental intervention to protect those who ride on airplanes.
Sure, of course it is. But it doesn’t impose any form of morality on an individual. That’s the difference. Regulating air travel is not the same as locking people up because they make personal moral choices that offend greater society.
Usually, those who desparately rail against the imposition of the morality of another fail to recognize it in themselves when they do it. Kind of a sliver/log in the eye analysis.
Point out where I’ve been a hypocrite and we’ll talk. You can’t do it. But I’ve already clearly pointed out where you’re being a hypocrite here and you’re avoiding it (I will restate the hypocrisy at the end of this comment for your convenience).
You seem to claim that U.S. drug laws don’t pass First Amendment muster in the same way speech codes do, and that’s simply baffling. And you blythely claim “most people know” without citing authority or a basis for your claim. Ditto with the “huge uproar” against early 20th-Century drug laws. Are you referring to the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, or what?
As I said, I’m not arguing how these laws are rights have been interpreted. I’m arguing how they should be interpreted in order to avoid inconsistencies. Even many conservative legal experts fret about how our drug laws have led to serious bastardizations in terms of how our basic rights need to be zealously protected.
Where are the court cases in support of your opinion?
Again, it’s irrelevant. I’ve already said that much of what’s been decided in the courts on this is wrong and contradictory. I’d be willing to bet that a lot of it comes from the difficulties that you’re having right now in squaring away your approach to justice and how you’re either a strong supporter of Levant’s prosecution or a massive hypocrite.
The 18th Amendment, enforced by the Volstead Act, was the result of much pressure from prohibition forces. Ultimately ratified by 44-states, it augmented the existing efforts of many states that had already gone dry.
But as I said, even that required a Constitutional amendment. Why? Because at that time people understood that simply banning a particular behavior would be unconstitutional without it. Otherwise, why not just pass a law? Why did they need to amend the Constitution? You still can’t answer this.
It’s fascinating to me that an undercurrent argument of yours is the same one used by opponents of mid-60’s Civil Rights Legislation: the federal government has no authority. By use of the Commerce Clause and a flexible understanding of the definition of “interstate commerce,” Congress passed and federal courts enforced laws on public accommodation, transportation, and other areas.
Absolutely not. What I’m arguing is that the most important function of our Constitution is that it provides a significant amount of protection for the individual. The Civil Rights Act follows along in that tradition.
Speech and behavior are different.
Speech is a subset of behavior. So is religious expression. Both are protected by the Constitution. One can easily make the argument that drug use is equivalent to religious expression in terms of the effect it has on greater society.
The Constitution specifically protects speech, even speech that occassionally morphs into behavior. Flag burning, for example, is protected, and you have Antonin Scalia to thank for that. But using heroin or meth or marijuana isn’t.
Why not? What’s the rationale? Why can one burn a flag but not a plant? What’s the difference?
The courts have been pretty consistent in upholding the right of federal and state governments to regulate to the point of outlawing drug use. A Constitutional argument that such regulation is, dare I use the word, “wrong” is a judicial non-starter. Your remedy, if any, is exclusively in the legislative branch, and more specifically in this instance, in Congress. So, until and unless you have majorities in the House and Senate in support of your cause, you’re SOL.
But the main point I’m making is that by believing in this longstanding fallacy, you’ve opened yourself up to logic that clearly makes you a hypocrite, as I’ve demonstrated with the Ezra Levant case.
The federal Constitution specifrically protects religion and speech, which you equate with “behavior.” While some aspects of both can include “behavior” (see the discussion of flag burning, above), neither are inherently behavior as much as they are expressions of conscience and the freedom and liberty of thought. The history of English Common Law, from which our own Constitution springs, is replete with examples of the growth of these notions.
And drug use is without question in that same category. If the ability to use mind altering drugs isn’t part of having freedom of thought, then what is?
To contend that the First Amendment protects so-called “self-contained behaviors” including drug use is a novel legal theory. Do you have substantive case law to support it? Some judge somewhere who authored a precedent setting opinion? THAT’S what law is.
I don’t need case law to support it. What I have to support it is the fact that by opposing that notion, you become a major hypocrite (as I will explain again at the end of this comment and again in the next Crackpiper Chronicles).
It really was low of you – though not unusual – to again resurrect the anti-semitic canard, which, in this instance, as bass ackwards violation of Godwin’s Law. Drug sellers and users have common cause only in their law breaking. Jewish people have common cause through a faith dating back thousands of years, shared cultural experiences, and lots more.
But again, your rationale opens the door for the extermination of either group. All that’s required is for a majority of people to believe that the customs or culture of a subset of the population are toxic to greater society. Believing that Judaism would somehow be spared because it’s a religion doesn’t matter in the end. Marijuana users could all get together and say they’re practicing a particular religion and that using marijuana is a religious ritual. In fact, courts have ruled that they can’t do this (which is a great example of how our understanding of the first amendment is skewed). But in your world, it’s fine to invalidate a religious belief on the basis that it’s offensive. If you believe that, then you could easily tolerate a ruling which doesn’t regard Judaism as a proper religion because circumcision is barbaric.
Your public/private dichotomy also fails. Under your theory of the right of expression, opinion, and behavior, how can government proscribe sex acts in public? If the two people consent, consider it important and necessary to them, whose business is it?
Simple. It’s because what happens in public is the public’s business, but what happens in private places is not unless it directly affects others. Does my public/private dichotomy fail simply because it exists? Does logic mean anything to you?
How can you have no problem with laws prohibiting drinking while walking down the street? Isn’t that an imposition of your morality upon someone who has no problem with it? And isn’t also a relic of Prohibition Era social taboos against alcohol generally? After all, there’s no “victim.”
When it comes to issues such as sex or drug use in public, there’s an extra consideration that the public is right to expect. And that’s the right for children to be shielded from certain adult behaviors. That’s why it’s not the same and why you’re incorrect that there are no potential victims to that behavior. I find it reasonable to enact laws that prevent children in a community from seeing a man getting a blowjob on a street corner while drinking a beer.
If two adults engage in a voluntary fistfight at Westlake Center, who’s business is it? As long as they don’t hurt anyone else – say they staked out a “ring” and confined their activities to within it – who has a right to interfere or complain? Ditto a sex act between consenting adults in public.
For me, concern for children is the overriding factor.
The whole free speech thing clearly demonstrates how little you understand law and Consitutional history. Remember the conversation we had where you were in error about the application of the Bill of Rights to the states prior to the 14th Amendment? Similar application here.
Once again, irrelevant to the larger discussion. We eventually got in right in that the bill of rights should not be abridged by any state. This is why my views do not lead to hypocrisies, as yours clearly do. Are you finally going to talk about Levant?
In trying to distinguish ObL and Marc Emery on the basis of “victims” you again miss the point that there doesn’t have to be a human “victim” per se in order for a crime to be committed. If I trespass upon your property but harm no person or property, is there no crime?
If you don’t want people on your private property, and someone violates that wish, I certainly believe that qualifies you as a victim in some sense. Stalking has a victim, even if the stalker does nothing more than stare.
If I engage in insider trading and no one is injured by losing money, is there no crime?
All crimes where a person illegally enriches themselves have victims.
You need to ditch this fixation that the criminal law rises and falls on whether there’s a “victim.”
Sorry, but it’s the most effective way to keep from being a hypocrite, which obviously you don’t care about.
There is no Constitutional right in America to not be offended, but there is a Constitutional right in America to say something that offends. If there was a Constitutional right not to be offended, you’d be in jail and bankrupted long ere this! The case of Mohammad cartoons is a classic example.
Exactly! And this is precisely where you’ve become a hypocrite, because in comment #31, you wrote:
If you believe that there’s no Constitutional right not to be offended, then you can’t also believe that we can criminalize behavior simply because it offends us (although, as I explained, things can and should change when children are involved).
In this country, Levant’s publication of Mohammad cartons is absolutely protected free speech no matter how many people he pisses off. The founders made the value judgement – a variation of imposing one’s morality – that the value of the free expression of ideas is more important than any distress it might cause others. Obviously, the Canadians have missed that boat, and a massive diminution of liberty has resulted.
And the point of my post is that while Canada’s legal system has failed on this point, ours has failed when it comes to drugs. And your clearly hypocritical reasoning is a good demonstration why. Your rationale for banning drugs is the same faulty rationale the Canadians have used to end up with their clearly unjust outcome.
Let me try to rephrase my question in a way that you can hopefully understand. In comment #31, you wrote:
Canada’s law that has resulted in the prosecution of Ezra Levant is based entirely on the logical construct you’ve built right there. Yet, apparently you disagree with his prosecution because you recognize that it’s clearly unjust. You’re arguing that Canada’s system is unjust, while at the same time are using precisely the same faulty logic that has made Canada’s system unjust in order to counter my arguments about how the American system is unjust. I guess my question is, do you really not understand how retarded you are?
@48…Lee…
Really, you’re getting boring.
As a legal analyst and scholar…don’t quite your day job!
You can engage in sophistry all you wish and support it with circular, bay-at-the-moon reasoning, but that doesn’t make whatever it is you want it to be so.
I restated the theory of the criminal law. You quibble with that saying that’s not what it ought to be. Nothing I said at any time supports what the Canadians are doing with speech codes, which I find anathema.
You can find nothing in law or legal theory to support your contention that drug use equates to religious belief or worship and speech. When I ask you for supporting authority – statutes, court cases, etc. – I’m asking you what any judge would ask.
Maybe among your circle of friends your POV passes for sound reasoning, but it sure doesn’t among those who make, enforce and administer the law. Tell it to the judge!
You’re going against the accumulated wisdom, history, experience, knowledge, and successful experience of almost one-thousand years of Anglo-American legal thought.
Whether drug laws are wrong-headed is a policy matter, not a legal one. The courts are not in the business of second guessing the legislature. Unless a law is un-Constitutional on its face, a court is obliged to enforce it irrespective of its wisdom or the opinion of the judge.
Your beef is with politicians, not the courts.
In the meantime, go grab a treatise on legal reasoning and analysis so you can at least get a rudimentary understanding of matters you clearly are in a dense fog about now. May I suggest Perkins on Criminal Law?
In the meantime, consider that yours isn’t a controlling POV in any save your own head.
The Piper
@49
This has nothing to do with law, shit-for-brains. It has to do with logic and intellectual consistency.
You’re making the following claims:
1. The prosecution of Marc Emery is right because (posted from above):
2. The prosecution of Ezra Levant is wrong because (posted from above):
In the first case, you’re making the argument that the prosecution of Marc Emery is just because we’re correctly following our justice system. But in the second case, you’re making the argument that the prosecution of Ezra Levant is unjust, even though the Canadians are correctly following the parameters of their justice system. Yet when I question the long-standing parameters of our justice system, that somehow becomes out of bounds.
Not only that, but the Canadians are following the exact same rationale that you described in comment #31 in order to justify their prosecution of Levant.
Again, I ask you, do you really not understand how retarded you are?
@50…Lee…
You’re blinded by your hubris and total ignorance of the subject matter.
The argument has everything to do with law, because it’s the law you’re attacking and the process by which it’s created. As for foolish consistency? You already know my thinking on that.
You’re an engineer, and, as a rule engineers are limited by their need to have one and one equal two every time.
While what the Canadians do is offensive, it has no bearing on what’s done with drug laws in America.
My comment: “When society decides, through its lawmaking process, that something is offensive enough to be criminalized, then the breach of that decision makes society the victim,” is a statement of how criminal law is derived in a Common Law country. Face it, Lee, that’s how the system works. The process by itself is ammoral even as the variables themselves have a moral component.
My comment: “In this country, Levant’s publication of Mohammad cartons is absolutely protected free speech no matter how many people he pisses off. The founders made the value judgement – a variation of imposing one’s morality – that the value of the free expression of ideas is more important than any distress it might cause others. Obviously, the Canadians have missed that boat, and a massive diminution of liberty has resulted,” is an accurate statement of Constitutional law. That’s how we’ve applied the system in the U.S. In this context, we’ve made the value judgment – the correct one, in my opinion – that the higher value is freedom of speech over suppression of some that might be harmful.
While I think Mr. Emery probably deserves all the grief coming his way, I never contended it was “right” or “just,” I said it was lawful. If you want me to say that prosecuting him was the “right” thing to do, then, under the law as it exists today, then, yes it was the “right” thing to do. But before the issue of whether it was “right” or “wrong” (your notions of morality, something you seem eager to impose upon society), the fundamental issue of whether what Mr. Emery did was lawful or unlawful is at issue.
You have an amorphous and undefined sense of “justice,” which isn’t at all what courts are about. They’re about law, not feelings. It’s a court’s responsibility to determine what the law is, then follow it.
If, God forbid, you were ever to sit on the bench and a drug case came before you, your duty as an officer of the court would be to uphold the law irrespective of your “logic” or feelings on the matter. As a federal judge hearing U.S. v. Emery, your Constititional duty would be to see to it that he receives a fair trial before a jury of his peers and, if found guilty, sentence him to whatever the law declares.
It’s obvious your notion of morality comports with mine on Canadian speech codes. If so, what’s your point? The Canadians have lost their way in an effort to appease pressure groups, and, in the process, freedom and liberty are hindered. That they used a process to come to a lousy outcome means what?
As for “long standing parameters?” What’s that mean? The Common Law? Are you looking to replace it and statutory law that codifies it? If so, with what?
Somewhere at the bottom of your argument is the contention that drug use should be regarded as speech or worship as a form of expression and receive Consitutional protection as such. You do know that SCOTUS has rejected that when it allowed states to criminalize peyote used in Native American religious ceremonies along the same lines of reasoning it has used to forbid Appalachin snake handlers to use poisonous serpants in religious ceremonies or to order medical treatment for the children of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Your so-called “logic” and “consistency” aren’t the standards by which we govern ourselves. That Canada has outlawed speech that we protect means what? It doesn’t mean Canada’s decision was “right,” and we both agree on that. It simply means that’s what Canada did.
Mr. Emery’s plea bargain is an implicit acknowledgment that he knew what he was doing was a violation of U.S. law, that his behavior was criminal in nature, and that a term of imprisonmnet is appropriate.
You seem to be interested only in what you think the process ought to be. If that’s your POV, then you should run for the legislature with that as your platform. But before you go into the business of “reform” of the justice system, you should first understand how it operates, which you don’t.
My interest is in understanding what the law is today, applying that standard to a fact pattern of behavior, and determining what the law considers that behavior to be: legal or illegal.
That some laws need to be changed or modified or repealed is an entirely different subject.
You continually slam me without offering a system, rationale, theoretical model in return. Oh, you have some vague notions of “justice” (who defines that?) grounded, it seems, in what you think is the country’s crazy drug laws. What, then is your Utopia? Before you respond, remember that whatever it is will be regarded by some, if not many, as tyrannical to the enth degree.
Your “logic” and “consistency” with factual and legal context are a collective Will o’ the Wisp. Human beings don’t live in “logical” and “consistent” vacuums.
Equating drug use with free speech is like equating getting drunk with free speech.
Get real…BTW, I haven’t called you names. You must think it enhances your argument, but, in this case it only diminishes it.
The Piper
@51…
Near the bottom it should read, “Your ‘logic’ and ‘consistency’ without factual and legal context are a collective Will o’ the Wisp. Human beings don’t live in ‘logical’ and ‘consistent’ vacuums.”
The Piper
@51
While I think Mr. Emery probably deserves all the grief coming his way, I never contended it was “right” or “just,” I said it was lawful.
If you think Mr. Emery deservers the grief coming his way, then you DO contend it’s right or just, numbnuts.
You have an amorphous and undefined sense of “justice,” which isn’t at all what courts are about. They’re about law, not feelings. It’s a court’s responsibility to determine what the law is, then follow it.
And this is precisely what’s happening with Levant in Canada. Why don’t you support it?
If, God forbid, you were ever to sit on the bench and a drug case came before you, your duty as an officer of the court would be to uphold the law irrespective of your “logic” or feelings on the matter. As a federal judge hearing U.S. v. Emery, your Constititional duty would be to see to it that he receives a fair trial before a jury of his peers and, if found guilty, sentence him to whatever the law declares.
Again, in Canada, the same thing would be said about Levant, and he’d be guilty. While also in Canada, judges have repeatedly ruled that marijuana prohibition is unconstitutional
http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/5115.html
Your so-called “logic” and “consistency” aren’t the standards by which we govern ourselves. That Canada has outlawed speech that we protect means what? It doesn’t mean Canada’s decision was “right,” and we both agree on that. It simply means that’s what Canada did.
Exactly, but on the other hand, you’re saying that the reverse, the fact that America deems something (marijuana laws) constitutional while Canada does not, does not mean that America’s decision was “right”. That’s the point here. There’s no logical difference between banning people from printing offensive material in a magazine and banning people from taking mind-altering drugs, yet you’re making a number of logical distinctions here (NOT legal ones) out of thin air to say that it’s ok to question the legal foundation in Canada, but not ok to question the legal foundation in America.
You keep arguing that Emery should go to jail because that’s the law here and that’s the way the law should always be. Yet, for Levant, one could easily make the same argument about Canada’s law.
Once again I ask you, do you really not understand how retarded you are?
@53…Lee…
Well, it seems as though you equate drug use with free speech, which is patently absurd on its face.
I’m completely indifferent to the plight of drug defendents since what they do is harmful to the culture. I also have zero sympathy for DUI defendants, and I’m of a mind to include multiple convictions as a “strike” under Three Strikes, You’re Out.
There’s simply no way you can put on par a stoner and I.F. Stone. And there’s not a credible legal authority that considers the use of mind-altering drugs constitutionally protected in the way we protect even Wicca or porn.
Your contention that logically drug use and speech/religion are the same can only be attributed to excessive drug use on your part.
I’m not questioning the legal foundation in Canada, I’m saying that Canada made a horrendous mistake in acting to suppress free speech. Efforts will continue up there to show it up for what it is, and eventually Canadians will realize the extent to which their liberties have been infringed upon and use the system to restore their rights.
If you question the legal foundation – the structure and process by which law is made, enforced, and administered – then with what would you replace it? The consensus wisdom of dopers, meth heads, junkies, and crack users?
Let’s hear it for the wisdom of the drug culture! Brad Renfro, how’s that workin’ out for you?
Dopers, tokers, and smokers need to get a life and quite thinking that theirs is the logical cultural and intellectual extension of Jonathon Edwards, Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Horace Greely, Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Lloyd Garrison, Charles Hadden Spurgeon, D.L. Moody, Susan B. Anthony, Oliver Wendall Holmes, Jr., Upton Sinclair, Aimee Semple MacPherson, Billy Sunday, Edward R. Murrow, Phillip Jones Applebaum, William Safire, T.D. Jakes, Bernard Goldberg, or even Soupy Sales!
Somehow I can’t envision dope den denizens ripped out of their minds contemplating Schopenhauer or even the deeper meanings of Larry Flynt.
While Hunter S. Thompson’s gonzo journalism was constitutionally protected, downing dope like he did wasn’t.
Mind-altering drugs are on par with performance-enhancing steroids. Try that logical pair of shoes on for size. Ask Marion Jones what they’ve done for her lately. Are Barry Bonds’ calves Constitutionally protected?
While I’m thinking of it…You need to actually study the history of the Temperance Movement and Prohibition before making wild Constitutional assumptions about why the 18th Amendment was so popular at the time.
Come to think of it, you might try actually studying the Constitution since out of your own mouth you evidence an appalling level of ignorance about it, how it’s interpreted and understood judicially, and what it takes for something to pass Constitutional muster.
Yours is the logic used by a lot of the so-called “Tax Resistors” who “find” all kinds of “rights” and use them to justify not paying taxes. Society has another term it uses to describe them: inmates.
Wesley Snipes, call your lawyer then back your bag! Lewisburg awaits.
And you can continue to name-call in lieu of posing legitimate questions with cogent and sane analysis. One has to wonder how much you ingest yourself when you come across in such a delusional manner.
The Piper
And by the way, the reason I like to be vulgar is because I’ve found that it’s a good way to get someone to be even more strident in defending their own hypocrisy. It’s works the same way that it does when a catcher does it to a batter in baseball, or a cornerback on a wide receiever in order to get someone off their game.
You’re not the first person I’ve been able to do this to and you won’t be the last. I’m actually pretty impressed that you’ve taken it this far. Hopefully, by now, you understand that the matter at heart here is a logical one, not a legal one, as you’re making the same exact criticism of Canadian jurisprudence that I’m making of American jurisprudence. Until you figure this out, I’ll dance in a circle around your hypocrisy all day long.
@54
Well, it seems as though you equate drug use with free speech, which is patently absurd on its face.
Why? Free speech is about having freedom of thought. How is taking a mind-altering drug not part of that?
I’m completely indifferent to the plight of drug defendents since what they do is harmful to the culture.
A Canadian could very easily say that they’re indifferent to the plight of Ezra Levant because what he did was harmful to the culture.
I also have zero sympathy for DUI defendants, and I’m of a mind to include multiple convictions as a “strike” under Three Strikes, You’re Out.
Good for you. That’s irrelevant to your hypocrisy here.
There’s simply no way you can put on par a stoner and I.F. Stone.
Why not? Again, freedom of thought is freedom of thought, whether we’re talking about speech or the generation of ideas.
And there’s not a credible legal authority that considers the use of mind-altering drugs constitutionally protected in the way we protect even Wicca or porn.
In America. As I mentioned above, Canadian judges have repeatedly found that the use of marijuana is constitutionally protected. My whole point here is that just as America’s legal foundation is more just when it comes to Ezra Levant’s case, Canada’s legal foundation is more just when it comes to Marc Emery’s.
Your contention that logically drug use and speech/religion are the same can only be attributed to excessive drug use on your part.
Many religions in this world actually focus on the use of mind-altering drugs (Native American cultures have used peyote and other hallucinogens in their rituals), not to mention that a recent study showed that a majority of subjects who were given psilocybin (psychedelic mushrooms) in a test claimed that it was the most intense religious experience of their lives. The mind-altering aspects of hallucinogenic drugs are often closely intertwined with the spirituality of various religions. Trying to separate the two is foolishness.
I’m not questioning the legal foundation in Canada, I’m saying that Canada made a horrendous mistake in acting to suppress free speech.
And I’m saying that America has made a horrendous mistake in acting to suppress marijuana use.
Efforts will continue up there to show it up for what it is, and eventually Canadians will realize the extent to which their liberties have been infringed upon and use the system to restore their rights.
And down here, the same thing is happening with marijuana. Eventually, we’ll realize the extent to which our liberties have been infringed upon (I’d be happy to list out all of the 4th Amendment protections that have been eroded away in the name of fighting the drug war).
If you question the legal foundation – the structure and process by which law is made, enforced, and administered – then with what would you replace it?
I’d look to how Canadians are coming to the correct conclusions and make the proper adjustments. I don’t think our justice system is terrible, in fact I think it’s one of the greatest achievements of mankind. But it’s not perfect (and obviously neither is Canada’s). And the way the drug war is exposing enormous cracks in our justice system right now (our prison population is a national disgrace) is evidence enough to re-think some of the assumptions that have been made.
The consensus wisdom of dopers, meth heads, junkies, and crack users?
Exactly why should I (or anyone else) take you seriously when you say things this ridiculous? The overwhelming majority of people who use illegal drugs in this country are people who smoke pot after work and on weekends. Think back to alcohol prohibition. Would it have been fair for people to characterize those who wanted to end it as alcoholics?
Let’s hear it for the wisdom of the drug culture! Brad Renfro, how’s that workin’ out for you?
So, if a person dies from being an alcoholic, should we go back to alcohol prohibition? Man, you really struggle with basic logic sometimes. Do you really think that a troubled addict like Brad Renfro was typical of all drug users? Really?
Somehow I can’t envision dope den denizens ripped out of their minds contemplating Schopenhauer or even the deeper meanings of Larry Flynt.
And that’s your problem, not mine. One of the heros of my childhood, Carl Sagan, was a avid pot smoker throughout his entire adult life. He said that marijuana gave him the insight for many of his scientific endeavors. I find much of the same thing myself. It gives you insight and a certain clarity of thought that’s somewhat mysterious but often very enlightening. Many famous writers throughout time have been known to generate their ideas from mind-altering drugs (Lewis Carroll and Norman Mailer to name just two). It’s even been alleged (but not proven) that Shakespeare was a recreational drug user.
While Hunter S. Thompson’s gonzo journalism was constitutionally protected, downing dope like he did wasn’t.
But if the dope was what fueled his writing, then by trying to limit that, you are, in reality, limiting his freedom of thought in the same way. That’s the logical connection that you’re either unable or unwilling to make.
Mind-altering drugs are on par with performance-enhancing steroids. Try that logical pair of shoes on for size. Ask Marion Jones what they’ve done for her lately. Are Barry Bonds’ calves Constitutionally protected?
That’s true. Are you saying that the publishing industry should drug test the authors they work with so that there are no unfair advantages? While I think steroids in sports is bad for it from a marketing standpoint, I don’t think it’s the place of government to tell MLB what to do about it. This is a case where I think regulation is unnecessary.
While I’m thinking of it…You need to actually study the history of the Temperance Movement and Prohibition before making wild Constitutional assumptions about why the 18th Amendment was so popular at the time.
I have. And I’m pretty sure you’re not going to be dumb enough to argue with me over the fact that the 18th Amendment came to be because Congress was convinced that it required an Amendment to the Constitution to ban an intoxicating substance at the federal level.
Come to think of it, you might try actually studying the Constitution since out of your own mouth you evidence an appalling level of ignorance about it, how it’s interpreted and understood judicially, and what it takes for something to pass Constitutional muster.
Again, all of that is irrelevant to the hypocrisy you’ve been displaying. I’ve made it no secret that I don’t have a legal background. I will slowly learn more and more about the basis for why our drug laws ended up the way they have. I have, however, read fairly extensively about how and why the 18th Amendment came about.
Yours is the logic used by a lot of the so-called “Tax Resistors” who “find” all kinds of “rights” and use them to justify not paying taxes. Society has another term it uses to describe them: inmates.
I’ve long known how to separate myself from them and have actually explained it to you before. Whether you care or understand is obviously a different story.
And you can continue to name-call in lieu of posing legitimate questions with cogent and sane analysis. One has to wonder how much you ingest yourself when you come across in such a delusional manner.
Well, I was able to get you to finally understand that we’re not dealing with a legal question here but a logical one. I’ve explained why the cases of Levant and Emery are clearly in parallel. Now, I guess I can wait for you to once again try your hardest to spin your hypocrisy.