Cdn Police Need To Lay off Marijuana

[Michael Hardner]

A police force that backed slavery would not get much business. It would certainly run into trouble when it conflicted with the police forces employed by those who didn't advocate slavery, and would have to compromise with them or risk economically destructive violent conflict.

Since the anti-slavery forces would be far larger and stronger (slaves and freemen outnumbered slaveholders in all slaver societies), the almost certain outcome is that the slaver police forces would have to agree not to enslave or allow the enslavement of anybody who was not a client of theirs. Therefore, anybody contracting with a pro-slave police force would be advocating their own slavery, and the pro-slave police force would disappear pretty quickly.

I don't follow this at all.

The US trades with China, doesn't it ?

You ought to also consider that, when slavery is not backed by arbitrary state power, runaway slaves and abolitionists would be able to form their own police force to prevent their recapture and also to liberate other slaves.

Or just escape and forget about it.

Slavery would quickly collapse on economic grounds alone since the rising costs of slaveholding (increased security necessitated by the liberating efforts of abolitionist police, the desire of slaves to flee and join the others in freedom, etc.) would make it less profitable than hiring freemen to do the same jobs.

I've read that argument before, but I don't think that slaves cost more than free men. It seems to me that this idea is used to buttress a 100% free-market philosophy. It's just not realistic.

The private police force is open to the market forces of competition and pricing which ensure that the public demands for justice, law and value for money will be better met than with a monopolistic state police force.

Is that the only difference ?

Any commodity which is used for exchange and not consumed by the recipient but held for further exchange is "money". The word "pecuniary" derives from the Latin word for "cattle", pecus. If the medieval blacksmith pays the baker in horseshoes, but the baker has no horse and trades the horseshoes to the miller for flour, horseshoes are money. Therefore, it is safe to say that the concept of money predates even ancient Sumerian shekels.

Ok then.

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear Hugo,

horseshoes are money. Therefore, it is safe to say that the concept of money predates even ancient Sumerian shekels

No, that is the barter system The currency system developed to enable the miller (and the horseshoe maker)to accept a standard, rather than arbitrary, assessment of worth.

[Hugo]

No, that is the barter system The currency system developed to enable the miller (and the horseshoe maker)to accept a standard, rather than arbitrary, assessment of worth.

I'm sorry, but the economists Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard and the Nobel-award-winning Friedrich Hayek all disagree with you. There's nothing special about gold or silver coins, they're just commodities. Other cultures have used things as diverse as seashells for money.

As regarding your statement that coins are "standard" rather than arbitrary in value, this cannot be true. Nothing has value until somebody has placed a value on it. Consider how worthless Confederate dollars were in the closing years of the Civil War. Most Americans did not value that currency at all.

Perhaps you'd like to share with us which Nobel-prize-winning economists your theories derive from?

The US trades with China, doesn't it ?

You are stating that since the Chinese state exerts absolute and brutal power over its citizens, amounting to slavery, this is a failure of anarcho-capitalist theory? I think it's a failure of statism.

Or just escape and forget about it.

Perhaps, but history proves that at some point, that won't happen. Look at the abolitionist movement in the (relatively) modern USA and Britain, or the slave uprisings in ancient Rome and Greece, such as that led by Spartacus.

I've read that argument before, but I don't think that slaves cost more than free men.

Then study the history of the Northern American states prior to 1860. It's now accepted historical fact that slavery in the North died out because it just wasn't economically viable. It took longer in the South because those states were economically backward compared to the North.

Is that the only difference ?

It's the key difference.

[JWayne625]

To get somewhat back on topic, we started out talking about getting the police to lay off pot-heads, well my post also has to do with drug use, and yes marijuana is a drug. Anything substance that alters motor skills or other bodily functions is a drug. God coffee is a drug, as well as cigarettes, and booze, the difference being they are all legal and the drugs we are talking about here are not.. Vancouver already provides safe injection sites for heroine addicts to shoot up, now that nutty Mayor, Larry Campbell wants permission from Ottawa to allow Crack Cocaine addicts' to also use this site to inhahale crack. How far are we willing to go in the encouragement of drug use? I thought that goal of society was to somehow break these addictions, but instead we have the Mayor of one of Canada's largest city's promoting drug use. What will he want next, for Canadian tax-payer's to collectively pay these useless individual's income assistance and pay for their drugs as well so they won't have to rob that corner store to support their habit? How far do we go in coddling drug addicts? After all it is they themselves who decided to start getting high in the first place, not society.

Maybe we should adopt a cure some countries have for drug trafficking and use. Simple beheading is a sure and permanent cure. I'm not advocating anything that drastic, but certaining we can't go the route of actually encouraging drug use by providing them a place to ingest their drug of choice, and this includes marijuana. Once you open that door to one drug, it stands to reason that some people like the Mayor of Vancouver are going to want to open it all the way. After all if the police aren't enforcing one law, why inforce any laws? And if his police force isn't enforcing law, then the logical conclusion is to just lay them all off, and save the taxpayer's the money spent on their salaries. The affluent could then just make sure they and their children stay away from those throw-away areas of the city where drug use is allowed, and they could pretend those types don't exist, just like they do now with the poor and homeless who must rely on food banks and soup kitchens to survive. Politician's made a committment 14 years ago to eliminate child poverty, and it hais growing steadily, ever since.

[Michael Hardner]

You are stating that since the Chinese state exerts absolute and brutal power over its citizens, amounting to slavery, this is a failure of anarcho-capitalist theory? I think it's a failure of statism.

But why haven't other police forces liberated the Chinese people from slavery as you theorize ?

Perhaps, but history proves that at some point, that won't happen. Look at the abolitionist movement in the (relatively) modern USA and Britain, or the slave uprisings in ancient Rome and Greece, such as that led by Spartacus.

The assumption is that there is another free state nearby that has the means to assist. If this isn't the case, then the slaves of the policed state remain slaves.

And your point about the South is tied to that place and time. If the south had factories manned by slaves, then they would have had all of the advantages over the north.

[Hugo]

Michael, I have replied to you in my "defence of anarchism" thread as it is more relevant there.

What will he want next, for Canadian tax-payer's to collectively pay these useless individual's income assistance and pay for their drugs as well so they won't have to rob that corner store to support their habit? How far do we go in coddling drug addicts? After all it is they themselves who decided to start getting high in the first place, not society.

Both the outlawing of drugs and the use of tax money to assist addicts are cases of using state funds and resources to interfere in the strictly private affairs of individuals.

Maybe we should adopt a cure some countries have for drug trafficking and use. Simple beheading is a sure and permanent cure.

This is quite an extreme punishment for somebody who simply wants to use his own body and his own money in a way he desires to. I'm sure you're about to tell me that drug addicts steal, so that's not their own money, however, theft is not all about drug use, and drug use is not all about theft, and theft would be a crime whether it was to fund drug use or not.

I also posit that, were drugs legal, they would be far cheaper and safer than they are now. People generally don't commit theft in order to afford cigarettes, so it would also be with legal marijuana, heroin or cocaine.

The period of prohibition in the US accompained a marked increase in the crime rate (even excluding the "crime" of drinking or possessing alcohol) and a marked increase in the incidence of alcohol abuse. If drugs are legalised we will have far fewer problems with crime, violence and substance abuse than we do now, not to mention billions of dollars back into our pockets that were being used to fund this ineffectual and wrongheaded "War on Drugs".

Politician's made a committment 14 years ago to eliminate child poverty, and it hais growing steadily, ever since.

That's because state-generated "solutions" don't actually solve anything. The most a government can hope for is to clean up a mess it originally made, but usually they end up creating a new one as they do so.

[Black Dog]

Vancouver already provides safe injection sites for heroine addicts to shoot up, now that nutty Mayor, Larry Campbell wants permission from Ottawa to allow Crack Cocaine addicts' to also use this site to inhahale crack. How far are we willing to go in the encouragement of drug use

As Hugo pointed out earlier, there's a world of differnce between advocating for a sensebile and permissive drug policy and encouraging drug use:

To advocate freedom to use drugs is not to advocate their use. I think you should be free to use drugs. I don't think you ought to use them, though. I also don't think you should buy a domestic car, because imports are much better. I'm not going to interfere if you want to buy a domestic, though. That's the difference.

I thought that goal of society was to somehow break these addictions, but instead we have the Mayor of one of Canada's largest city's promoting drug use

The purpose of safe injection sites is not to facilitate drug use. Safer injection rooms are legally sanctioned, supervised facilities designed to reduce the health and public order problems associated with illegal injection drug use. Safe injection rooms typically provide sterile injection equipment, information about drugs and health care, treatment referrals, and access to medical staff. The Vancouver site will likely include a room where addicts can inject drugs under the supervision of medical staff and with clean needles, spoons and water. It will also have a medical clinic for treatment of addiction-related health problems like abscesses and other infections, a counseling department for referrals to detox and treatment programs, and other associated services.

After all if the police aren't enforcing one law, why inforce any laws?

Because some laws are better than others.