I'M OLDER, BUT NOT NECESSARILY WISER

In recent years, inspired by columnist Charlie Reese, I've used a
yearend column to sample some of my political beliefs ... or
heresies, depending on your point of view.

So here goes.

As I've gotten older, I've become more self-contradictory. Maybe that
reflects growing confusion -- or, as I believe, an increasing
appreciation for life's complexity.

So I am at once a small-government libertarian on individual issues,
and a big-government activist on things like environmental regulation.

On the environment, our economic model remains flawed; it still
doesn't factor in the full cost of waste disposal. We allow
industries to discount the cost of their product by not requiring
them to fully clean up, or safely dispose of, their waste stream.

They transfer the cost to us by dumping it into the nearest river or
bay, or into the air.

Or they create products laced with toxic materials that are difficult
to safely dispose of -- and of which we are often unaware -- and
leave it up to us to deal with it.

They shouldn't be able to get away with it.

But my libertarian side says government has no right to prohibit
legal adults from personal, or consensual, activities like drug use
or prostitution (unless it endangers others, such as DUI).

The "War on Drugs" might be the most costly, destructive conflict in
history -- and we're losing.

Keeping drugs illegal has corrupted entire nations (Colombia, Mexico
and Afghanistan, for starters), needlessly destroys lives, shattered
the security of our borders, corrupts police, political and judicial
systems in the United States, spawns crime, fills our prisons with
non-violent "offenders," wastes hundreds of billions of dollars and
created and subsidizes the drug mafias by eliminating their
competition and inflating the price of their goods.

Supporters of drug prohibition say that without it we'd have addicts
and drug crime. Well, we have both -- plus a huge criminal
infrastructure to profit off them.

End the "war" and the money we save on prisons, courts, drug
interdiction, law enforcement and anti-drug foreign aid could go into
education and rehab for the people who will get hooked whether drugs
are legal or illegal.

For me, the "contradictions" in my view of government power always
come down to this: Government's proper role is to protect us from
each other, not from ourselves. Unfortunately, throughout history
political power has been used to enforce the power group's vision of
morality, economics, social mores, you name it.

The philosophical underpinning of the Constitution, and our form of
government, was stated most plainly in the Declaration of
Independence: "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."

According to the founders, governments were instituted "to secure
these rights," which transcend the authority of government (or an
electoral majority). But government has turned into a nanny state
that goes beyond its mission of protecting us from each other, and
now seeks to protect us from ourselves.

Some other views:

. Abortion is wrong. Should it be outlawed? Here my contradictions
clash. The libertarian constitutionalist says you can't tell a woman
what she can do with her body; the moralist says you can in this
case, because a third party is involved.

I remain conflicted.

. Capital punishment is wrong. Being imperfect, we make mistakes, and
innocent people end up on death row. Life in prison without parole is
sufficient punishment for any crime, and allows judicial mistakes to
be corrected.

. Sometimes you have to go to war, but it should be the right war.
Afghanistan was the right war; Iraq is the wrong one.

. The founders intended the Second Amendment to preserve the right of
Americans to bear firearms. (Check back with me when hand-held lasers arrive.)

. I remain behind the Community Maritime Park because, although not
completely what I would do there, I haven't seen a better proposal,
and those behind it are successful, committed people with a track
record for working to better this community.

Finally, I think it's wrong when I ask for a Coke and bourbon and
they give me Pepsi ... without warning me.

There ought to be a law.