Comments Elsewhere

Robert:

For an individual or minority group which disagrees with those laws to demand that they not be enforced is for that group to de-legitimize the state.

What my argument “de-legitimizes” is the government inflicting injustice upon innocent third parties, even if it should scribble down a permission slip for itself to commit the injustice, and call it a “Law.” If the state can carry out its policies without doing injustice to innocent third parties, then more power to it. If the state cannot do its business without invading the rights of innocent people, however, then its business had jolly well better be left undone. This has nothing to do with whether a faction of one or more people “disagree” with the law; it has to do with whether or not the law violates innocent people’s rights (that is, whether or not it involves pushing around people who aren’t doing any violence themselves).

Robert:

The legislature can point to a big chunk of people who affirmatively chose to give them power; you can’t.

I don’t give a damn. Might does not make right, whether from the force of arms or from the force of numbers. The rights of drug users to be let alone to make their own decisions does not depend on permission from the powerful, or from the majority.