Jesus Christ, Andrew Sullivan Shut the Fuck Up
I love this idea [Mark Kleiman: "it would be legal to grow, possess, and use cannabis and to give it away, but illegal to sell it"] - because it is rooted in individual freedom, private property and the obvious point that making a plant you can grow in your garden illegal is a monstrosity.
The state telling you what you can and cannot sell is rooted in individual freedom?
The state telling you what you can and cannot sell is rooted in private property?
The state telling you what you can and cannot sell is rooted in...fuck it, I give up.
Andrew Sullivan is a gawddamn moron who simply cannot integrate moral concepts with their political counterparts. I'm sick of him talking as if he's a defender of liberty when he fails to see the glaring contradictions in his own words. I'm sure he'd be fine with commercial weed sales, but does he have to go and piss all over honorable words by associating them with their opposites?
What if, decades ago, the state legalized gay sex but banned gay people from performing in pornography for money? It's the exact same principle: being allowed to utilize your legitimate property for peaceful economic transactions.
Marijuana - like alcohol, like blowjobs, like unfiltered cigarettes, like computers, like clothing, like SUVs, like greasy fucking triple bacon cheddar burgers with BBQ sauce on shitty white buns - is just another example of private property a free individual may decide to buy, sell, or rent according to his or her values. They are variables in a fixed ethical equation. Object to one at that level and at the worst you are calling the whole equation into question.
Of course, I've known for some time that Sullivan's a fraud on liberty. But sometimes it just blows my mind just how wrong alleged defenders of freedom get it.