By Jessica Harvey
November 7, 2014
This argument has nothing
to do with medical marijuana, the decriminalization of Americans, or the
economic benefits of legalizing illicit drugs. Nor is it concerning the
negative effects of marijuana, the consumption of recreational drugs, or the
exploitation of drugs among minors. Discussing those points hardly brings
about resolution. We have subsequently omitted the most fundamental
argument: liberty. The war isn’t over drugs; it’s over our rights as
citizens of the United States.
Why should the federal
government decide how we should and should not act within the privacy of our
own homes? How are illicit drugs any different than alcohol? All
drugs should be legalized with regulations. For instance, those who
privately consume alcohol are permitted by law to do so. However, if the
consumer harms an individual while intoxicated, they are convicted by the law
as lawbreakers. Drugs should be treated in the same manor. I read
an article called Drugs: Case for Legalizing Marijuana and completely
agree with it. Gore Vidal hit the nail on the head when he stated that,
“The United States was the creation of men who believed that each man has the
right to do what he wants with his own life as long as he does not interfere
with his neighbor’s pursuit of happiness.”
Nowadays, law enforcement
takes advantage of illegal drugs to abuse our constitutional rights and civil
liberties. I’m referring to the fourth amendment. Currently, police
officers can conduct unreasonable searches (without a warrant) simply by
“suspecting” marijuana. After invading the rights to privacy, they may
precede to arrest whomever they please on a whim. Thus, the arrest is
truly—as Geoffrey S. Corn puts it, “a subterfuge to conduct an otherwise
unlawful search.” [Read the rest of the article here: http://goo.gl/x7VYBA]
We must fight for liberty
at all costs. It is the responsibility of the people to defend the
constitution, even if it means conceding elements of safety or conveyance.
Ben Franklin once said, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” As long as the
states continue to stand up against the regulations of the federal government,
freedom will ensue. If you aren’t willing to protect your liberty, who
will? Certainly not the capitol. Welcome to the Hunger Games.
Four score and seven years ago
our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty,
and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great
civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so
dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We
have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for
those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether
fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot
dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men,
living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor
power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we
say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living,
rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here
have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to
the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take
increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of
devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in
vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that
government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from
the earth.
Abraham Lincoln: Gettysburg
Address
November 19, 1863