INCONSISTENT MORALITY IS PROBLEM IN DRUG LAWS

(Gwinnett Opinions recently published readers' comments about the
effects of the illegal drug trade in Gwinnett County. Here, a
Gwinnett resident discusses the pitfalls of society's approach to
combatting drug abuse and the inconsistencies of legislation
controlling how people must treat their bodies.)

The war on drugs is destructive of civil society. Most social and
economic problems are related to the inconsistent application of
moral principles in our laws and government institutions.

Frederic Bastiat [a French economist and politician who lived in the
1800s] said:

"When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the
cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his
respect for the law."

Consider the principle of nonaggression. Aggression is the
initiation, or threat of initiation, of physical violence against the
person or property of anyone else. Every 4-year-old attending
preschool gets basic instruction in recognizing and defending against
aggressive behavior. They are taught that it is wrong to use violence
against another person or their property except in defense of life
and property.

Nonaggression is a long-standing constant moral principle that does
not change year in, year out. It is universally recognized as just,
because it applies equally to everybody.

Think about political laws that pertain to our bodies. Who controls
our bodies? Do we control them or does the state decide what we may
or may not do with our bodies? Is there ever a time or situation when
aggression is appropriate to override what we want to do with our
bodies? Our political leaders think so.

Consider the following:

You are restricted from purchasing nontraditional health care. You
are restricted from putting things into your body such as so-called
illegal drugs from Mexico or Canada whether they are pharmaceutical
or recreational. You are restricted from taking things out of your
body such as an unwanted fetus. You are restricted from consuming
alcoholic beverages on some days and at some times. You are
restricted from selling your body's labor below a minimum wage. You
are restricted from selling your body's labor beyond a fixed number
of hours without penalty to your employer. In times of forced
military conscription, young men better not have declined to fight
and possibly die in a foreign war.

Did you notice that some of these restrictions come from the left and
others from the right? Both sides want to control our bodies based on
their version of morality. Both sides are wrong because they support
law that does not stand on consistent principles.

The moral and just position (the nonaggression principle), is "your
body belongs to you."

Take an honest look at what is happening around you and see if you
think our society has retained its moral sense and respect for the
law. We live in a society that has lost sight of moral principles. If
you look closely, you will see a society that has twisted the golden
rule with Machiavellian logic that says "do unto others before they
get a chance to do unto you."

Peewees to pros, people considered "good sports" bend the rules to
win at all cost. Our society and most of its institutions stand on
immoral principles.

Consider these: All's fair in love and war; the end justifies any
means; might makes right. These immoralities are a recipe for chaos.

We are witnessing the very real effects of long-term voting for the
lesser of two evils. We should not be surprised with the result.
Here's how [economist and philosopher] Hans-Hermann Hoppe describes it.

"Every detail of private life, property, trade, and contract is
regulated by ever-higher mountains of paper laws. Yet the only task
that government was ever supposed to assume -- of protecting our life
and property -- it does not perform.

"To the contrary, the higher the expenditures on social, public, and
national security have risen, the more our private property rights
have been eroded, the more our property has been expropriated,
confiscated, destroyed, and depreciated. The more paper laws have
been produced, the more legal uncertainty and moral hazard has been
created, and lawlessness has displaced law and order.

* Wes Alexander lives in Lilburn.