,,, Has been run, and as everyone who has kids warned for years, making a false idol of freedom has been a disaster.
There are fewer people in the court system for possession charges now, but no reasonable person doubted that claim. If we stopped arresting people for murder, the courts would see a drop in murder cases. The argument for or against legalizing drugs was never about courts of prisons. It is about the overall quality of life. If a big robust criminal justice system is what we need in order to have a high quality of life, only crazy people will complain about that trade-off. Life is nothing but trade-offs.
When you look at what has been happening in the country in total since states began to experiment with drug legalization, a pattern emerges. We have seen a sharp rise in taxes at the state level, some owing to taxes on drug sales, but also a sharp decline in the rule of law. The Western states, where marijuana legalization first started, has seen a collapse in civil order. You have massive homeless camps in Los Angeles, anarchy in Seattle and Portland. Anarcho-tyranny is the rule out west now.
Another point worth mentioning is that the states rushing to legalize drugs have also been some of the worst offenders of Covid lockdowns. California is operating under a bizarre form of martial law. Criminals and bums can run wild in the streets, but normal businesses are being shuttered over Covid. Maine has wrecked their tourist industry over Covid, despite few cases. Massachusetts is operating under a curfew. Maybe these states did not legalize weed for libertarian reasons.
The numbers don’t lie. In the past year, the number of murders in Portland rose by 51.5%. Minneapolis saw a 72% rise in the murder rate, and Seattle had a 74% explosion in murders.
It is important to underscore that the collapse of civil order in drug legalizing states is not caused by drug fiends running the streets. The bums, drug fiends, petty criminals and bourgeois revolutionaries are symptoms of a larger decline in civil order. The image that is beginning to emerge is that drug legalization efforts correspond with a collapse in the willingness of state government to maintain order. The Covid hysteria is probably just another indicator of this collapse in civil order.
The decadent, incestuous ruling class that closed down the churches didn’t legalize weed because they love liberty. First and foremost, they’ve renounced any duty to protect us and now seek to actively harm us. Just look at how they let the opioid crisis run rampant.
Second, our rulers see the cracks forming in the current order and need bread and circuses to keep the masses distracted.
Third, the elites want anyone who might object to their tyranny kept dull-witted and weak.
Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.
And take this sad state of affairs as another lesson in the hierarchy of cultural warfare. For decades now, Libertarian and Conservative opposition to Leftist totalitarianism has relied on appeals to freedom. The result: They lost their liberty and conserved nothing. It was a foregone conclusion that anti-lockdown protests based on the same appeals would be utter failures.
Freedom is moral currency. Its worth wholly depends on the intrinsic value of the goods you can get with it.
To win, it will be absolutely necessary to abandon transactive relativism, stop pushing negatives, and champion the common good.
And Disney, Netflix, and AAA gaming are the circuses half of the equation, so it’s also necessary to stop giving money to people who hate you.
