Matthias,
I can't resist posting again. I guess whatever this thread has proved, it has proved I don't know when to quit.
Let me understand you correctly, you are seriously posting that the reason for having restrictive drug laws is so that children will not use them? Think about that for a minute and ask if you really mean that. When on the face of God's green earth in the course of human history has a law or the words of a parent ever kept a child or teenager from doing something they wanted to do? In many cases kids are drawn to things simply because they are forbidden. You know this, yet you propose to limit someones freedom because of what might happen to the children.
Well, Matthias, you know and I know that there are more alcoholics out there than there are drug addicts. You and I know that there are children out there who will become alcoholics after the first beer. Their addiction will result in deaths, broken homes, and all kinds of mischief, yet I don't see you advocating a return to Prohibition. My guess is that you like to have a beer or two yourself. Therefore, it is better to regulate your neighbor who likes a little cocaine every now and then. Remember you advocate a total ban, not age limits or any other restrictions, a total ban because your evil cocaine using neighbor might hook some children in the neighborhood on the drug. I personally don't drink, smoke, or use drugs. I think they are all bad and I would personally not like my children to be exposed to them. I should be in favor of banning them all, and were to use your logic, I would be. However, I feel that whatever someone does to themselves or in the privacy of their home is none of my business. My children, like anyone else, will have to take their chances. Some will make good decisions and some will make bad decisions.
Your argument is flawed because it can be used to support the banning of anything that is potentially harmful. I am not saying that is your position, I am just saying that the same logic can be used to ban almost anything. If someone takes your position using your logic, then he really can't object to someone else using the same logic for banning something else. It is all a matter of degree, not a matter of philosophy, since you readily assert that banning some things is good and should be done to protect others from themselves.
When someone says some restrictive action is for the children, hold on to your hat. Like many in America today you hold human life above all else when you wish to regulate certain behavior on the chance that it might be harmful to some. I, on the other hand, know with certainty that there are more important things than human life and that liberty is one of them. Freedom has ever been sacrificed in the name of security and human life.
