What Should Be Legal?

[Bobcat Fraser]

What should be legal in my country or your country? I'm not asking if the choices are moral, and I'm not asking if you're involved in them. I just want to know if you think that free people should be able to engage in the picks without being punished for it. Let's see where you draw the line.

[Bobcat Fraser]

Marijuana should be legal, as it's insane to put someone in a cage for smoking a plant. I go back and forth on drugs like meth, though. As for segregation, I referred to private groups, shops, etc. rather than the State. I would boycott any private establishment that practiced it. I'm not referring to Boys Clubs or Girls Clubs; I'm referring to stores and restaurants. In the *poll*, I'm referring to private groups like the Scouts too. I hope that made sense. I hope that this thread starts some conversations.

[Dacul]

Alcohol - legal in Romania
Tobacco - legal in Romania
Hard Drugs (Meth) - illegal in Romania
Soft Drugs (Pot) - legal in Romania (official laws tells it is illegal,but in fact is legal)
Gambling - legal in Romania
Stripping - legal in Romania
Pornography - legal in Romania
Prostitution - legal in Romania (official laws tells it is illegal,but in fact is legal)
Gay Unions - legal in Romania
Polygamy - illegal in Romania
Not Wearing Helmets, Seat Belts, Etc. - illegal in Romania
Segregating By Gender, Race, Etc. - partially illegal in Romania

[Sikeliot]

The first seven options plus gay unions.

[Xenomorph]

Alcohol - legal in Romania
Tobacco - legal in Romania
Hard Drugs (Meth) - illegal in Romania
Soft Drugs (Pot) - legal in Romania (official laws tells it is illegal,but in fact is legal)
Gambling - legal in Romania
Stripping - legal in Romania
Pornography - legal in Romania
Prostitution - legal in Romania (official laws tells it is illegal,but in fact is legal)
Gay Unions - legal in Romania
Polygamy - illegal in Romania
Not Wearing Helmets, Seat Belts, Etc. - illegal in Romania
Segregating By Gender, Race, Etc. - partially illegal in Romania

This sounds pretty reasonable.

[Óttar]

Everything should be legal. I hesitated a bit on the last one, but I think private groups have freedom of association, so I said gender/racial segregation should be legal too (for private institutions).

[Paluga]

Everything natural and god given should be legal. Magic Mushrooms, Cannabis,Salvia and so on.

Prostitution,pimping,stripping and pornography should be illegal.


Gambling

If people decide to throw their money away it's their decission, if that doesn't harm any other people(like their family) I have nothing against it.


Gay Unions

Of course illegal.


Not Wearing Helmets, Seat Belts, Etc.

Should be punished very hard. I had a accident and gladly I had my belt on, otherwise I wouldn't be alive now.



Segregating By Gender, Race, Etc.

Legal :thumb001:

[Contusion]

16 year old girls

[Bobcat Fraser]

Everything should be legal. I hesitated a bit on the last one, but I think private groups have freedom of association, so I said gender/racial segregation should be legal too (for private institutions).

That's exactly how I reached my conclusion. Gender and racial segregation should be legal in *private* institutions in a free society, and I can choose to boycott establishments that practice their rights in that way. I was stymied by hard drugs, though. My inherent reluctance to legalize them presents a chink in my Libertarian armor.

[Bobcat Fraser]

16 year old girls

You could start a new thread with that one. "Sixteen" might be a reasonable universal age of consent, but *you* should demand two proofs of age before you indulge.:wink

[Bobcat Fraser]

Something tells me that Breeding Variety is a Ron Paul fan. How does this sound? It's all good if you don't harm another individual or their property. This applies only to adult humans, of course.

[Skrondsze]

16 year old girls

Here it is 14 :D

[sturmwalkure]

Here it is 14 :D

http://sharecovers.com/images/609-pedobear-facebook-cover.jpg

[Skrondsze]

http://files.sharenator.com/pedobear_looking_Naughty_Halloween_Costumes-s300x490-252543-580.png

If I were 30 I would agree... I'm only 18 :P

[Breedingvariety]

Something tells me that Breeding Variety is a Ron Paul fan. How does this sound? It's all good if you don't harm another individual or their property. This applies only to adult humans, of course.
My political views are a mix of Libertarianism and National Socialism. That's why I never label myself by any conventional political doctrine.

I would be glad Ron Paul became a president, but "they" would never let him to became.

[safinator]

16 year old girls
Move to Europe.

[Flintlocke]

Sword duels to the death!

[finþaų]

All except Not Wearing Helmets, Seat Belts, Etc. under most circumstances. Segregation should even be encouraged.

[Absinthe]

It's not a question of what should be legal but rather a matter of better education and upbringing for people so that they can make the best choices in life.

Making something illegal is not the most effective strategy. In fact, it can have the opposite effects as many people are drawn to danger and law-breaking.

It should be common sense that if you don't wear a seat-belt/helmet you are endangering your life. Why does the law have to dictate that you protect your own life?

As far as drugs are concerned, it makes no difference if they're legal or not, cause people who want to do drugs will access them anyway. Shouldn't it be common sense that if you do drugs, you are hurting yourself? But if you still want to do it anyway, feel free to throw your life in the garbage?

Well....in the bottom line.......there should be one, universal law against stupidity ;)

Other than that, in an ideal situation, the law should not dictate you what to do. In fact by choosing to take drugs or drive drunk or what not, you are doing the rest of humanity a favour by eliminating your genes from the gene pool. Unless you run over some innocent person, of course :(

[RagnarLodbrok666]

I just can't understand how liberals can complain that hard drugs should be legal but then try to crack down on the right of businesses to choose whether to segregate their consumers or not.

I don't care whether or not prostitution is legal but why do some people complain about crackdowns on this but at the same time want polygamy outlawed.

[Breedingvariety]

It's not a question of what should be legal but rather a matter of better education and upbringing for people so that they can make the best choices in life.
Education should be about positives, not negatives. That is to say- education should teach what should be done instead of what should not be done.

Making something illegal is not the most effective strategy. In fact, it can have the opposite effects as many people are drawn to danger and law-breaking.
Making something illegal is very wasteful strategy and often have different hidden agenda than the arguments used to support a ban officially. Consequences of a ban usually are more harmful than consequences of a vice.

It should be common sense that if you don't wear a seat-belt/helmet you are endangering your life. Why does the law have to dictate that you protect your own life?
- To top up a budget from penalties for not wearing a seat-belt/helmet;
- Treating grown ups as children influences their mentality to be more child- like and accepting of authority, easier to manage.

As far as drugs are concerned, it makes no difference if they're legal or not, cause people who want to do drugs will access them anyway. Shouldn't it be common sense that if you do drugs, you are hurting yourself? But if you still want to do it anyway, feel free to throw your life in the garbage?
Legal drugs would drastically reduce the price of drugs and as consequence- criminality and it would eliminate ant- drug expenses by the state.

[Defiance]

It's complicated. For example, I think that I would be an advocate for the criminalization of alcohol and hard drugs, but only in a progressive and worthwhile society. In the REAL WORLD, however, I'm actually inclined to encourage their use, as I consider them to be effective forms of pest control.

Refusing to take safety measures should be perfectly legal, again in regards to depopulation.

Racial segregation should not only be legal, it should be MANDATORY.

Tobacco with no chemical additives might be fine.

I suppose I could care less regarding things like prostitution; that's simply none of anyone's business.

Lastly, I'm inclined to say that at least most forms of porn should be banished.

[Bobcat Fraser]

Why should we be forced to wear seat belts? I almost never wear one. That's exercising my freedom of choice. I only wear one when the roadways or weather warrant it. I've never been in a situation where it helped me. I've been in two car crashes too. The law is just a way for municipalities to collect money, like Breeding Variety said. I support laws against driving while impaired or texting, though.

What about helmets? They should be voluntary, especially for people who ride ordinary bikes. Only challenged children wore helmets when I was a boy. I feel the same way about some laws about booster seats and car seats. Have you ever seen an older child in one of those things? It looks quite ridiculous, and I feel sorry for the infantilized kid. I'm not talking about babies and toddlers BTW. Don't get me started on laws requiring minors to ride in the back seat.

[Absinthe]

Education should be about positives, not negatives. That is to say- education should teach what should be done instead of what should not be done.

Yeah, that was exactly my point, hence I said "best choices in life".
I believe that a well rounded person who has been properly brought up with positive values will not engage into reckless behaviour as easily as one who is left in his fate.

Hence if I had a child I'd work towards instilling good values and to foster critical thinking, rather than impose all kinds of prohibitions.

Prohibitions never work, the children rebel and become worse than they would actually become if they were altogether neglected.

Parents who spank their children and try to keep them locked up at home most often end up with drug users, delinquents and losers for children. Or worse yet, children who will become abusers themselves when they grow up.

One needs positiveness and calm assertiveness when teaching a young person some values, and it's always preferable to give someone positive values than to prohibit him from doing the wrong things but without explaining why.


Making something illegal is very wasteful strategy and often have different hidden agenda than the arguments used to support a ban officially. Consequences of a ban usually are more harmful than consequences of a vice.

- To top up a budget from penalties for not wearing a seat-belt/helmet;
- Treating grown ups as children influences their mentality to be more child- like and accepting of authority, easier to manage.

Legal drugs would drastically reduce the price of drugs and as consequence- criminality and it would eliminate ant- drug expenses by the state.

Agreed with all of the above!

Athens, right now, has the most junkies I have ever seen in my life. I have a class every day in a very central spot in Athens which is always crowded etc.

So amidst this busy place, in plain sight, you see the junkies buying drugs and shooting right there on the spot!

Often some policemen are sitting a few meters away and just looking at them with a blank stare. I often wonder, do they have orders not to stop this vile behaviour from occurring? Or are they simply indifferent?

The word has always been that the police is in it as well and gets commission from drug deals, also the drug dealers are very powerful people and cannot be touched by the Law. Hence this is a very profitable business, whereas if drugs were made legal and everybody could buy them over the counter, it would become no more profitable than selling groceries in an open market.

God I hate this mess of a society we've made of ourselves. :(

[Bobcat Fraser]

The bad guys and the good guys both get rich from the so-called war on drugs. That's why this so-called war will never end. Drug traffickers are wealthier than Bill Gates while law enforcement has an eternal cash cow. Decriminalizing drugs would stop this symbiotic relationship, and few people wish to part with such sweet deals.

[Óttar]

I was stymied by hard drugs, though. My inherent reluctance to legalize them presents a chink in my Libertarian armor.
Making them legal would cripple the illicit drug trade, many people would be out of prison, everyone has the right to decide for themselves what to ingest, nature will kill-off those who can't handle the consequences of their actions and decisions.

[Kazimiera]

Making them legal would cripple the illicit drug trade, many people would be out of prison, everyone has the right to decide for themselves what to ingest, nature will kill-off those who can't handle the consequences of their actions and decisions.

Addiction is a problem regardless of whether drugs/alcohol is legal or not.

Alcohol is legal and there are enough problems associated with that as it is. There are those who have a glass of wine with their meals, nothing wrong with that. But then there are those who have to drink before work, slip out during lunch for a whiskey and are in the pub until closing time.

Drugs are highly addictive whether they are legal or illegal. They break enough people already. Do we really need to legalise this and make it more accessible to people to fall into the addiction trap?

Its bad enough working with a colleague who is pissed at work all the time, if they manage to drag themselves out of bed and show up at all. There are enough people who arrive at work on Monday morning still on a buzz or semi-comatose from a drug spree over the weekend. Do we need to make this legal?

Alcohol can have some unpredictable effects, whilst drugs are even more unpredictable. Whatever the drug behind it may be, there are enough people out there chewing each other's faces off already. Those are the ones that make it into the papers, but many other things don't.

Drugs can cause various types of mental illness. We have enough of these without a helping hand. The field of mental health is already severely neglected, do we need to put even more pressure on it? Mental illness is extremely stigmatized already. We don't need to create more schizophrenics, more suicides, ruin more lives and marriages, families, children.

[Breedingvariety]

Drugs, alcohol and tobacco use is a cultural issue, not legalization issue.

[Óttar]

Addiction is a problem regardless of whether drugs/alcohol is legal or not[...]
Drugs were never regulated in any society until recent times in human history.

[Hess]

Making something illegal is very wasteful strategy and often have different hidden agenda than the arguments used to support a ban officially. Consequences of a ban usually are more harmful than consequences of a vice.

That is a very true statement that, unfortunately, people both on the left and right don't seem to grasp.

[Bobcat Fraser]

Making them legal would cripple the illicit drug trade, many people would be out of prison, everyone has the right to decide for themselves what to ingest, nature will kill-off those who can't handle the consequences of their actions and decisions.

I agree with most of that. What about drugs that make people insane and/or violent, endangering other people's lives and safety? That's a tough one. The cannizombie drug comes to mind.

[Melina]

Segregation of race should be legal. And if the liberals don't like it, they can join the other race.

[Bobcat Fraser]

Segregation of race should be legal. And if the liberals don't like it, they can join the other race.

It should be up to the individual, but it should not be a policy of the government. A store, with Black owners or White owners, should be allowed to ban people of other races. I would boycott those stores, though. They probably would rightfully go out of business.

[rhiannon]

What should be legal in my country or your country? I'm not asking if the choices are moral, and I'm not asking if you're involved in them. I just want to know if you think that free people should be able to engage in the picks without being punished for it. Let's see where you draw the line.

I did not vote for the last option because segregation by anything other than gender strikes me as somewhat dangerous. I do believe in voluntary segregation, of course....just not the forced variety.

Segregation by gender is the norm. I don't especially want to start using unisex gym locker rooms or bathrooms, for example:)

[Bobcat Fraser]

I did not vote for the last option because segregation by anything other than gender strikes me as somewhat dangerous. I do believe in voluntary segregation, of course....just not the forced variety.

Segregation by gender is the norm. I don't especially want to start using unisex gym locker rooms or bathrooms, for example:)

We might be on the same page. The various governments should not segregate like they did in the past, of course. Individual businessmen should have that right, though. That's not to say that what is legal would be moral or righteous in that particular case.