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Conservative and Liberal. Nature or Nurture?

Dr. Jones said:
A war on drugs may be an unwinnable one, but it's hard to suggest it isn't a noble one.

If one's most damning bit of rep is that of a failed yet noble attempt, I consider that person a champ.
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it wasn't noble because it was racist.
 
I dont think it was racist in terms of hating black people, but I think it was something done to keep poor people in check and create money for certain groups of people. It just happened to really hit black people the worst. I think it was done more out of greed than racism or "nobility".
 
King Cy said:
I dont think it was racist in terms of hating black people, but I think it was something done to keep poor people in check and create money for certain groups of people. It just happened to really hit black people the worst. I think it was done more out of greed than racism or "nobility".
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I've heard this narrative plenty.
Explain what was done, specifically, to target blacks.
 
Most credit Reagan with what should really be shifted to Nixon.

Still, regardless of rumored intent, drugs were/are illegal and enforcing the law shouldn't be viewed as being villainous.

If you don't want to be arrested for the activity don't do it. Doesn't work for me to hear you whine the victim.

And, if anything, the target wasn't race, it was anti-war activists. Hippies.
Blacks more just got caught up in the fray.
 
Dr. Jones said:
Most credit Reagan with what should really be shifted to Nixon.

Still, regardless of rumored intent, drugs were/are illegal and enforcing the law shouldn't be viewed as being villainous.

If you don't want to be arrested for the activity don't do it. Doesn't work for me to hear you whine the victim.

And, if anything, the target wasn't race, it was anti-war activists. Hippies.
Blacks more just got caught up in the fray.
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Then explain the penalties for crack vs cocaine?
 
Joe Bagadonuts said:
At first I thought, this is not necessarily a right vs. wrong issue, but then I realized that US Constitution was specifically written to define the duties and obligations of our government. I just read it as a result of your post. (Not nearly as big an undertaking as if I had decided I needed to read the Obamacare legislation.) The answer to whether or not it is our government's job to parent the citizens should be found within it.

The only references I found in the entire document were the bolded section in the preamble:

And the bolded portion in Section 8:

So the question becomes, is a parenting, nurturing government what is meant by "promote the general welfare?" I don't think it is, but maybe I'm wrong. My reading of the Constitution left me with the strong feeling that our form of government is meant to be as a facilitator of rights, not an administrator of social justice.

Dr. Jones made some recent posts about how people in trouble used to be cared for more by their neighbors, churches, etc. I think that's true. He said that era might be permanently behind us, and I think that might be partially true as well. There are still individual neighbors, charitable organizations and churches that do a good job of this sort of stuff, but some people clearly fall through the cracks. This is especially a problem in impoverished neighborhoods where large percentages of the population are in trouble. I doubt the founding fathers could ever have envisioned such a situation. There is no question in my mind that the general welfare is at stake in these situations and therefore our government has a constitutional obligation to help.

I believe that in the long term the only viable solution is for the government to facilitate economic opportunity. It's the old give a man a fish/teach a man to fish argument. I'm pretty sure that most people would prefer to fish for themselves. If not we ultimately have an unsolvable problem.

I was surprised recently when a few members of this forum said that the constitution was held too sacrosanct, and ought to just be thrown out. To me that makes no sense. I believe in the importance of the constitution not because I see it as some sort of sacred document, but because I can't see how our government has any validity without a defining document. Every successful business that I know of has something similar, even if it is nothing more than a Mission Statement. It makes no sense to run any organization without defining its purpose, and that's exactly what the Constitution does.

If people want to throw out the current constitution that can be done, but only by agreeing to a new constitution. If someone wants to modify the constitution that can be done as well. There are currently 27 amendments and more can be added by following the process established within the document itself.

I encouraged the creation of this thread because I really do want to understand the differences in thinking between left and right. I agree with Dr. Jones and others that we are not really far apart at all, but it feels that way because we are defining ourselves by our differences rather than our similarities. Not until responding to this post did it occur to me that the answers to these questions would involve reading the Constitution, and if I've ever read it in its entirety before today I don't recall doing so. If nothing else, it has already aided me in better understanding my own thinking.
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I really appreciate you putting in so much time and effort here. I've been really struggling to reply, basically writing and discarding draft after draft, in an effort to find my own bearings and respond to your own thoughts. And I'm still falling short. I was a history instructor for a number of years, but I can't tell you the last time I read our own Constitution. You do sound like a strict constructionist. I'm struggling here. I'd hate to think I have to check the Constitution first to be sure the government helping it's citizens is OK. It's almost like checking the document to see if it's OK to show compassion to the far less fortunate among us. All too confusing to me at the moment. Eventually, I'll find my bearings and reply properly.
 
Red said:
I really appreciate you putting in so much time and effort here. I've been really struggling to reply, basically writing and discarding draft after draft, in an effort to find my own bearings and respond to your own thoughts. And I'm still falling short. I was a history instructor for a number of years, but I can't tell you the last time I read our own Constitution. You do sound like a strict constructionist. I'm struggling here. I'd hate to think I have to check the Constitution first to be sure the government helping it's citizens is OK. It's almost like checking the document to see if it's OK to show compassion to the far less fortunate among us. All too confusing to me at the moment. Eventually, I'll find my bearings and reply properly.
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I think the term helping is way to broad. Better defining "helping" in lies the answer.
 
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