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- Date: Tue, 28 Mar 1995 21:18:49 CST
- From: <U58563@uicvm.uic.edu>
- Message-ID: <95087.211849U58563@uicvm.uic.edu>
- Newsgroups: alt.drugs,talk.politics.drugs
- Subject: Golden Field Guide of Drug Ad Hominems
-
- [ANTI]:
- 1) "If you use drugs, and you want them legalized, you are simply trying to
- justify your own immoral behavior. You are putting your own interests before
- those of anyone else! Drugs have distorted your judgment and made it
- impossible for you to see the truth!*"
- 2) "If you don't use drugs, and you want them legalized, then clearly you have
- no idea of what you're talking about! You don't know what it is like to suffer
- the effects of withdrawal, how can you be so cruel!"
- 3) "If you use drugs or have used drugs, and want them to be illegal, clearly
- you have seen the error of your ways! Perhaps you learned from a bad
- experience; perhaps you are still fighting your addiction; perhaps you still
- haven't broken away and are under their spell, but at least you have come to
- understand what a danger they are!"
- 4) "If you have never used drugs, and you think they should be illegal, you are
- a good, moral, upstanding citizen! You have nothing to be ashamed of for
- obeying the law! The fact that you have been able to keep away from drugs is
- proof that others should be able to also!"
-
- [PRO]:
-
- 1) "If you use drugs, and you want them to be legal, this simply indicates that
- you are taking advantage of the rights you know you should have, and having fun
- in the process. You know for yourself that drugs can be used safely and
- responsibly!*"
- 2) "If you don't use drugs, and you want them to be legal, it shows that even
- an impartial observer can recognize the benefits of legalization!"
- 3) "If you use drugs, and you want them to be illegal, this just means that you
- had some bad experience with drugs. You shouldn't try to make it a bad trip
- for everyone! Besides, you're probably just saying that for the parole board
- or because it sounds good at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting.*"
- 4) "If you don't use drugs, and you want them to be illegal, it means that you
- are a hopeless "square" who doesn't think for himself and doesn't know what he
- is missing! No doubt you have been misinformed by media hype.*
-
- * indicates potentially valid arguments:
-
- [ANTI] #1: If a person gets a pleasurable drug and takes it in a setting
- promoting a particular political cause, the potential exists that they could be
- "conditioned" to support that cause, whatever it is. [x-ref: Hassan i Sabbah]
-
- [PRO] #1, #4: If the mass media portrays falsehood as fact (and this is known
- and admitted by all sides), then arguments concerning falsehood of a person's
- references/background are valid. But better directed to specific points.
-
- [PRO] #3: Clearly the most damaging and important. The greatest "crime" a
- person can commit in this country (as measured by length of punishment) is to
- speak his mind openly and honestly before a judge, or to have some word of such
- speech come back to a parole board, etc. The most important thing a convict
- must remember is that from the moment the jury says "guilty" he is GUILTY, no
- matter what he did, even if he was in another state at the time, and that he
- must ACT guilty, or else he will be sent up for ever. The definition of TRUTH
- by the state, rather than by actualities, is the central lesson of the legal
- process.
-
-
-