To me there are lots of easy and obvious answers. Not sure I have time to type them all up but here are some (and I know that much of this also applies to various Democrats too). Note that I do not think all these reasons apply equally to all Conservatives.
1. religious leaders who do not know the Bible or God and think God put them in charge of bullying and herding the rest of us instead of feeding, healing, and freeing us.
Those same religious leaders seem to have much too much influence over the military as well.
2. They've misread the Bible and/or been mis-taught. They mistake Cain's indignant response to God as a commandment. Cain killed his brother due to jealousy and at some point God goes looking for Abel. God asks Cain, "where is your brother?" Cain replies indignantly, "How should I know? Am I my brother's keeper?"
So due to that, they think they've been appointed — since they think they are so morally superior — to be everyone else's keeper.
3. Many only care about surface appearances and "what others might think." They sense that others either do not have very good critical thinking abilities, or helping them overcome the few logic hurdles are too great, so they cave in to cowardice.
Here are some attitudes they are afraid of addressing: a. not all use is abuse b. (re)legalizing a thing is not the same as advocating for it c. the need to stop shaming addicts; shaming them does not heal them, it does not attract them to places where they can be helped. d. ending the black market must entail significant price reductions to make dealing/pushing drugs unprofitable. Conclusion jumpers who hold to the notion that high prices alone keep people from using drugs, instantly mistake this as somehow encouraging people to use drugs all day long, every day, like one can open a tap and let inexpensive water flow from it. (But as the Zogby poll on the LEAP homepage notes, 99% of people will not suddenly decide to take up cocaine, heroin, etc…)
4. Many journalists have terrorized them about drugs, as though they were radioactive and being near them somehow poisoned a person.
5. Due to #2, there are some "Conservative" "Christians" who have perverted God's word and claim that allowing various behaviors will cause God to destroy them for allowing ______. Thus when there are hurricanes, etc… these false prophets claim that God is punishing those people for allowing ______. This is just patently false; God does not destroy a person because he didn't torture/arrest/imprison/kill another person who did _________.
6. They continue to cling to the evil lie that a person can become unacceptable to God by something he puts in himself. Jesus refuted this and pointed out that it's the other way around. A person becomes dirty/unclean by what comes from his/her own mouth! NOT by anything a person can put in himself.
7. Ironically Jesus said it was the prostitutes and others who would get in heaven before the self-righteous Pharisees. Why? Because as we see in #6, it's the Holier-Than-Thou-Congregation and those they've deceived who open their mouths and say things like we've heard from Paul Chabot (we don't use drugs, we're better than that), and David Mineta (we don't need another vice industry). They make themselves spiritually dirty/unclean even as they mistakenly label people who've tested positive for drugs as dirty.
I think conservatives DO oppose the war on some drugs.
The thing is that, in popular usage, the term "conservative" generally means "social conservative".
Conservatives and social conservatives are different animals. The former I can respect. The latter, comprised of a relative few opportunists leading the malleable herd, do nothing for me.
To me there are lots of easy and obvious answers. Not sure I have time to type them all up but here are some (and I know that much of this also applies to various Democrats too). Note that I do not think all these reasons apply equally to all Conservatives.
ReplyDelete1. religious leaders who do not know the Bible or God and think God put them in charge of bullying and herding the rest of us instead of feeding, healing, and freeing us.
Those same religious leaders seem to have much too much influence over the military as well.
2. They've misread the Bible and/or been mis-taught. They mistake Cain's indignant response to God as a commandment. Cain killed his brother due to jealousy and at some point God goes looking for Abel. God asks Cain, "where is your brother?" Cain replies indignantly, "How should I know? Am I my brother's keeper?"
So due to that, they think they've been appointed — since they think they are so morally superior — to be everyone else's keeper.
3. Many only care about surface appearances and "what others might think." They sense that others either do not have very good critical thinking abilities, or helping them overcome the few logic hurdles are too great, so they cave in to cowardice.
Here are some attitudes they are afraid of addressing:
a. not all use is abuse
b. (re)legalizing a thing is not the same as advocating for it
c. the need to stop shaming addicts; shaming them does not heal them, it does not attract them to places where they can be helped.
d. ending the black market must entail significant price reductions to make dealing/pushing drugs unprofitable. Conclusion jumpers who hold to the notion that high prices alone keep people from using drugs, instantly mistake this as somehow encouraging people to use drugs all day long, every day, like one can open a tap and let inexpensive water flow from it. (But as the Zogby poll on the LEAP homepage notes, 99% of people will not suddenly decide to take up cocaine, heroin, etc…)
4. Many journalists have terrorized them about drugs, as though they were radioactive and being near them somehow poisoned a person.
5. Due to #2, there are some "Conservative" "Christians" who have perverted God's word and claim that allowing various behaviors will cause God to destroy them for allowing ______. Thus when there are hurricanes, etc… these false prophets claim that God is punishing those people for allowing ______. This is just patently false; God does not destroy a person because he didn't torture/arrest/imprison/kill another person who did _________.
6. They continue to cling to the evil lie that a person can become unacceptable to God by something he puts in himself. Jesus refuted this and pointed out that it's the other way around. A person becomes dirty/unclean by what comes from his/her own mouth! NOT by anything a person can put in himself.
7. Ironically Jesus said it was the prostitutes and others who would get in heaven before the self-righteous Pharisees. Why? Because as we see in #6, it's the Holier-Than-Thou-Congregation and those they've deceived who open their mouths and say things like we've heard from Paul Chabot (we don't use drugs, we're better than that), and David Mineta (we don't need another vice industry). They make themselves spiritually dirty/unclean even as they mistakenly label people who've tested positive for drugs as dirty.
The automated Google censor bot is really annoying!
ReplyDeleteMy comment is here: http://ChristiansAgainstProhibition.org/node/499
I think conservatives DO oppose the war on some drugs.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is that, in popular usage, the term "conservative" generally means "social conservative".
Conservatives and social conservatives are different animals. The former I can respect. The latter, comprised of a relative few opportunists leading the malleable herd, do nothing for me.