Prompted by “Pot Matters: Prohibition and Entrapment”: http://www.hightimes.com/read/pot-matters-prohibition-and-entrapment
If you don’t care about law, then you can’t care about drug policy or liberty. The following is frankly not a fun read, but a fundamentally critical one. When I repeat my points across posts, I do it for emphasis and because my gut tells me to.
The reason Certain Drug Prohibition exists is traditional leftism (i.e. the demonstrable ruse of liberalism and progressivism, while being the fundamentally logically tried and failed solution throughout history basically being socialism) is the essence of drug policy reform. To solidify that failure here, I echo a clip from our Liberty Shield informational roots…
Progressive is defined as “favoring or advocating progress, change, improvement, or reform, as opposed to wishing to maintain things as they are, especially in political matters” (noting that also contains the definition of liberal).
Despite the unfortunately overwhelming consensus to the contrary, current pressures to empower the public sector against private sector abuse are ironically unprogressive.
Intentionally (or otherwise) exploiting youth by persuading them with (at best) superficial partial truths (too often overwhelmingly pressing upon their youthful energy to naturally passionately negate composure necessary for optimal intellectual exercise) and styling expressions often imbued with popular youthful cultural references to form the illusion of progressivism (while passionately and youthfully promoting the same tired and demonstrably failed approach spanning many — if not all — generations) is equal to putting lipstick on a pig (facetiously yet honestly noting I have nothing against pigs); the pig remains a pig regardless of any makeup being applied.
That standard (so not progressive) approach is fundamentally logically flawed by always insisting upon empowering the public sector to the seriously powerful degree necessary to oppose powerful private sector operatives, but instead historically and currently leaving that power to form an alternative elitist class — merely an oligarchical shift — with all of the same problems (favoritism against public safety) prompting that empowerment.
Instead apply scientific constitutionalism (a logical necessity for an objective, so fair, so just rule-of-law), and it’s immediately over for that prohibition by any constitutional rationale (saving uncountable — roughly millions of — non-violent, so logically innocent lives in the process).
For the uninitiated here believing Certain Drug Prohibition’s end is drug abuse’s explosion against humanity, there’s no concrete evidence proving prohibition works at all (we don’t even have a “drug free” prison system). Based upon that evidential absence, the war on some drugs is purely a scam (actually and ironically drug prohibition addiction) against the masses.
Mainstream news outlets suffer from tragic news addiction, and tragic news continuously is supplied by our government (generally on the front lines of tragedy), so don’t expect the mainstream media to righteously ‘expose their dealer’ on behalf of their journalistic code of ethics and the people’s right to know.
When you read my work here, you’re on the frontier of reason, because I spent many years meticulously analyzing, contemplating, and expressing the full logic of the situation with no agenda other than pursuing a logically solid foundation for liberty and law as a responsible entertainer. That’s why there’s a (perhaps serious) discrepancy between my full logic on the matter and terribly politicized “news” sources (e.g. Alternet, Drudge Report, etc.)
In other words, no expertise can defy basics, and there are no concrete basics in humanity these days throughout history, so there are no concrete basics in law (so liberty). The result is a disastrous mess causing the gross uncertainty plaguing at least our nation these days. Complexity without sound basics is really just chaos, so all of our lives are now at terrible risk (like a house off of its foundation) — and the sensible among you realize this clearly with a desire to get involved for public salvation.
Never to be a jerk about it, but it’s critical to publicly expose the tortured “constitutional” view of traditional leftism, because they demonstrably believe in recklessly (wildly subjectively) circumnavigating constitutional limits of government power, which is often (if not purely) historically proven to be seriously dangerous against public safety.
Our Constitution is actual progressivism established by rebels understandably against the abuse of law (logically the worst form of abuse due to its mainly broad scope of destruction, so logically the form of abuse primarily addressed by proponents for civility).
From the prompting piece…
When it comes to arresting people for possession of illegal drugs, prohibition is legally immoral.
That may seem like a strange term to some, but it’s what’s being referred to differences between the letter and the spirit of the law. The letter of the law concerns what is technically legal, or not. The spirit of the law refers to general principles that are at the foundation of our legal system.
The issue here is entrapment—not in terms of individual arrests, but in terms of prohibition in general. It may be technically legal, with respect to constitutional law, but prohibition contradicts the spirit of the law with respect to generally accepted constitutional principles.
What follows is not a legal argument, but a moral one.
What actually followed in my case there was the prompt need to escape the traditional leftist’s highly subjective (and severely misguided) views on legal morality. It may be technically constitutional? No. It’s outright unconstitutional and that should be a major pillar of drug policy reform in the court of public opinion. That’s because the publicly assumed credibility of law enforcement is being powerfully abused by that excessively questionable enforcement to their financial and other forms of powerful benefit. Publicly undermine their precious law, and you quickly publicly undermine that credibility to the likely rapid deterioration of any political support for the ‘drug war’.
Traditional leftists always leave out the Commerce Clause (at least in my reasonably thorough experience). That’s hideously immoral (and devastatingly critical in drug policy reform), because that clause is repeatedly cited in Supreme Court decisions to uphold Certain Drug Prohibition (basically the Controlled Substances Act) “mysteriously” without a similar constitutional amendment necessary for Alcohol Prohibition — noting alcohol is a drug, scientifically speaking.
In short, the Commerce Clause (i.e. “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes”) is the supposed constitutional basis for the war on some drugs, and the prompting author doesn’t even mention that fact.
To leave that fact out of a moral argument about law and Certain Drug Prohibition is fundamentally wrong by any honorable standard, but the Commerce Clause is the “legal” battering ram rippling widespread entrenchment of government power into the private sector (the invasion by socialists to eliminate any solid limits against government power — the baseless and insane dismantling of actual progressivism). Right, Bernie Sanders and company?
This is as close as the prompting author gets to raising the Commerce Clause…
First of all, the Supreme Court has ruled in the case of California v. Robinson (1962) that it is cruel and unusual punishment to make drug addiction a crime. This is why modern drug laws concern economic activity, the manufacture, sale or possession of contraband.
Here is a good example of how the letter of the law enables law enforcement to get past the spirit of the law. It is unconstitutional to criminalize drug use, so the law gets around it by criminalizing drug-related economic activity. In the case of a drug user, the result is the same, but technically redefining the crime as possession of a banned substance is constitutional, while otherwise criminalizing drug abuse is not.
In short, there’s no explicit mention of the Commerce Clause, because traditional leftism is all about the redefining of that clause for ever-increasing private sector control.
The redefined Commerce Clause (from Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal) is a judicial angel for the traditional leftist turning to legal morality, so it’s sacrilege to disparagingly mention it, but definitely necessary for public safety.
There can be no honest doubt that our Supreme Court (solely having the power to interpret law) illegally redefined the Commerce Clause from “regulate commerce” to ‘regulate any activity having a substantial effect on commerce’ — the latter clearly different, so illegal, based upon “smoking gun” evidence called the English language combined with the public record as supplied by our Supreme Court.
What’s the traditional rightist take on this? Hypocritically support that illegal redefining to “justify” the feel-good-only war on some drugs in the “land of the free” (where liberty is supposed to be an unalienable right without exception in accordance with our national declaration — judicially backed by the illegally disarmed amendment nine in our Constitution).
While mentioning the letter and spirit of law, the prompting author left out the intent of law, but a traditional leftist left an explanatory clue in the Wikipedia entry for “Original intent”…
In Canada, the predominant school of thought for legal interpretation is the living tree doctrine, under which interpretations can evolve along with the society, to deal with new conditions that were different or did not exist when the Constitution was framed.
Living tree sounds noble, but it’s actually a living and hideously pulsating weed from wild subjectivity (i.e. the highly politicized, continuous, and terribly complex war to increase judicial leverage for personal power gains — public safety be damned as needed for those gains).
To embrace the intent of law immediately destroys traditional leftism in this country, because the Commerce Clause was intended to merely prevent state favoritism against national economic interests, instead of being the demonstrable gateway law into unlimited government reach.
To understand the critical nature of this situation (which extends literally extremely beyond the issue of Certain Drug Prohibition to cover absolutism), I echo our unfortunately innovative Commerce Clause section from our Liberty Shield informational roots…
Without a federal constitutional amendment to support Certain Drug Prohibition, our judicial branch decided to instead apply the 16 words forming the Commerce Clause (i.e. “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;”) as the sole constitutional basis for the sequel to Alcohol Prohibition.
The following lists relevant points quoted from the Wikipedia entry for the Commerce Clause to confirm extremely serious judicial subjectivity, so demonstrates consequently jarring shifts in law that relatively quickly degrade constitutional protections set against law abuse.
“Dispute exists within the courts as to the range of powers granted to Congress by the Commerce Clause.”
“…the effect of the Commerce Clause has varied significantly depending on the Supreme Court’s interpretation.”
“During the post-1937 era, the use of the Commerce Clause by Congress to authorize federal control of economic matters became effectively unlimited.”
“Since the latter half of the Rehnquist Court era, Congressional use of the Commerce Clause has become slightly restricted again, being limited only to matters of trade or any other form of restricted area (whether interstate or not) and production (whether commercial or not).”
“The outer limits of the Interstate Commerce Clause power has been the subject of long, intense political controversy.”
“As explained in United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995), ‘For nearly a century thereafter (that is, after Gibbons), the Court’s Commerce Clause decisions dealt but rarely with the extent of Congress’ power, and almost entirely with the Commerce Clause as a limit on state legislation that discriminated against interstate commerce.[10] Under this line of precedent, the Court held that certain categories of activity such as ‘production’, ‘manufacturing’, and ‘mining’ were within the province of state governments, and thus were beyond the power of Congress under the Commerce Clause.”
“In Kidd v. Pearson, 128 U.S. 1 (1888), the Court struck a federal law which prohibited the manufacture of liquor for shipment across state lines.”
Moreover, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas opened his dissent in the case of Gonzales v. Raich by stating:
“Respondents Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana. If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything–and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.”
Let us add all applicable definitions of the word commerce, as stated at dictionary.com:
“1. an interchange of goods or commodities, especially on a large scale between different countries (foreign commerce) or between different parts of the same country (domestic commerce) trade; business. 2. social relations, especially the exchange of views, attitudes, etc. 3. sexual intercourse. 4. intellectual or spiritual interchange; communion.”
The bottom line is commerce is not a certainty (to put it mildly). Quite the contrary, saying to regulate commerce can logically mean (at least essentially) anything, at least based upon those dictionary definitions.
The demonstrable result is a risky set of (generally politically motivated) shifts in judicial application exemplifying the aforementioned “mud house” metaphor to the obvious discredit against the rule-of-law.
Those shifts (metaphorically equal to shaking a house made of mud) are obviously dumb, so when that shaking metaphorically occurs at the grandest national level against the rule-of-law (therefore inextricably against national society), serious public concern against that shaking should powerfully press upon national society to properly courageously end that dumbness literally directly threatening our national infrastructure.
Instead, “We the people” have an effectively silent public response simmering along (I assume at least largely unintentionally) apathetically for several decades and counting — apparently like a deer trapped by the gaze into oncoming headlights, or by yet again falling for the Big Lie propaganda to ridiculously (but popularly) scoff at the fully logically proclaimed metaphorical (and vastly more destructive than even the literal form of dangerous) hurricane about to heavily again impress its violent rage upon national land and sentiment — e.g. yet another horribly bloody revolution ignited by the oppressed and fed up masses agonizingly suffering from abusive favoritism severely against public safety.
The Commerce Clause situation has become problematic to literally the utmost degree.
By some ‘judicial legislation’ (i.e. blatantly illegal redefining of constitutional meaning by simply redefining that clause in legal precedence) — the Supreme Court’s judicial attitude these days presses upon allowing Congress to regulate any activity rationally having a substantial effect on commerce (not just “To regulate Commerce”, as our Constitution clearly states).
That vagueness is nothing shy of literally utterly being disastrous against freedom within American society (including ironically logically far more harmful than all drug abuse combined).
Your thought activity, my fellow Americans, which literally determines all of your buying and selling decisions always rationally has a substantial effect on commerce.
In other words, if merely holding a certain plant in your American hand has a substantial effect on commerce (which our judicial branch has publicly ruled in the affirmative multiple times), then under no sane circumstance can judicial interpretation rationally consistently negate Congress having authority to regulate your thought activity.
Before dismissing regulating your thought activity as ridiculous, understand leading science and consequent technology (at least as demonstrated in prominently credible documentaries found on well-known science channels — e.g. “Can Our Minds Be Hacked?” episode of Morgan Freeman’s “Through the Wormhole” series) is rapidly advancing towards reading and manipulating your thoughts.
As such, the limits of government power remain completely obviously inconsistent (mud-like at best) at the serious risk of even extremely unethical favoritism and the likely ignited aforementioned revolutionary “hurricane” to reflect the following passage from our nation’s most famous declaration:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” — United States Declaration of Independence
Anyone understanding our Liberty Shield informational roots also understands that “We the people” shouldn’t need another bloody revolution, but we’re sadly heading towards one. Our nation has been ravaged by wild subjectivity in law with no sign of correction.
The only logical solution is a peaceful but unwavering scientific constitutional revolution against that wild subjectivity now. Any window of opportunity eventually closes, so relevant apathy is risky (if not foolish).
That means working hard to eliminate vagueness in constitutional meaning through public discourse, so there’s no longer a serious vulnerability via politicized (i.e. unfair, so unjust) legal precedence.
That means working hard to encourage linguists to take an active role to gently (very carefully) help shape language itself to improve certainty against misunderstanding, which is obviously something any smart society should do on behalf of better communication regardless of law, so better education and sociality.
Technology obviously relying upon the scientific method is rapidly evolving.
Law relying upon that method is needed for a similar effect and ‘legal morality’ (fairness, so justice).
The necessary change in law comes only from enough public pressure (e.g. us).
Simple steps in the right direction are all we need. Little by little, we can and must succeed now.
Liberty Shield is a healthily flexible logical framework (capable of being adaptively molded without eliminating the true core, which is strictest application of the scientific method), so anyone (from any righteous style of simplistic through complexity) can customize their role in scientific constitutionalism.
Liberty Shield is for the righteous of us all with no discriminatory stance (on the basis of race, gender, sexual preference, recreational drug choice, financial status, employment, etc.) other than opposition against anyone acting on the harmful side of the maximally experimental definition of harm itself (the truest honest boundary determining legitimate law against anti-liberty).
That definition of harm (anti-liberty) contrasts the current weakly scientifically suggested (or outright junk/pseudo science) definition of harm as determined merely by dominant subjectivity.
Liberty Shield is logically the greatest threat against reason abuse and thuggery (running globally rampant), so logically the greatest benefit towards civility.
Liberty Shield must be logically upheld throughout posterity, so feel free to find your appreciated place to help us avoid further (inter)national disgrace.
I am an honest freak (or reasonably responsibly balanced "misfit", if you prefer) of an artist working and resting to best carefully contribute towards helping society. Too many people abuse reasoning (e.g. 'partial truth = whole truth' scam), while I exercise reason to explore and express whole truth without any conflict-of-interest -- all within a sometimes offbeat style of psychedelic artistry.
Spirit Wave Journal 
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