Obviously you are trying to provoke a "collective rights vs. individual rights" discussion, rather than a discussion about the pitfalls of legalized marijuana. So, I'll give you your wish ...
It's not a separate discussion, it's at the heart of it. When the government bans books, or censors material or writers, everyone immediately recognizes the authors freedom of speech is being violated. What gets lost is the fact that the consumer's free will, his right to choose, is being violated too. It's not individual rights vs. Collective rights, it's me pointing out the fact that we do not have equal rights as individuals within our collectivist society.
No one disputes your individual rights ... AND no one takes them away
Our rights are inalienable, but they do get violated and ignored at the whim of the collective. Smoking bans... Good example. Perhaps you believe that interferes with your box to have smokers in public places. So you use government's monopoly on the legal use of force to violate the rights of business owners into becoming non smoking buildings. You also violate the right to choose of every consumer and patron, wherever they choose to go will automatically be non smoking. You made that choice for them.
My point being, your box is much smaller than you seem to think it is. Rights can only be violated by physical force, or fraud. Someone choosing to take drugs is not violating the rights of others by that choice. Now, choosing to steal from you in order to buy those drugs would be a violation of your rights. You seem to lump these two things together, one that isn't a violation and one that is, and use the real violation of your rights as justification to pre-emptively violate the right of free will.
You speak of 'common defense', and things like law enforcement, traffic control, etc. as an impingement on your individual rights.
Then you need to read it again. Individuals have the right of self defense. That is the right by which individuals utilize government to express that right on a larger scale, by the creation of police, military, and courts. It is not the existence of these institutions that violates our rights, it is the way their purpose has been flipped on it's head and their power abused that violates our rights. These institution need to be reformed to restore them to their original purpose, the defense of individual rights, and limited to their original power - self defense. That means, just as each individual is barred from doing so, government cannot be allowed to legally initiate the use of force against others.
There is no such thing as 'collective rights' - only the collection of individual responsibility in order to more efficiently perform that action. (You will note that 'responsibilities' are all active voice, while 'rights' are all passive.)
You're right, collective rights do not exist yet that is what people scream for... rights for their group. Gay rights, women, men, senior citizens, it's the rights of the collective groups they belong to that individuals concern themselves with, not the equal rights of all individuals.
Responsibility - the state or fact of being responsible, answerable, or accountable for something within one's power, control, or management.
Each of us is responsible for our own volitional actions. Our actions require free will, the freedom to choose, before we can be said to be responsible for those actions. Legislating away free will is an attempt to program human beings like robots, and turn us into mindless slaves. Many of the decisions made by voters long since dead have eliminated my free will on a variety of subjects. I do not consider myself responsible for the actions of others. Holding me financially responsible for choices I did not make, and actions I did not take, is a violation of my rights.
it is the interference of other individuals that create the impingement on your individual rights.
Yes it is. But if there's something that violates my rights you agree with, you may see it as my responsibility to accept the violation. You may only notice the responsibilities you disagree with as being wrong. Forced responsibility requires the abolition of volitional consent, and that is slavery.
As the original post clearly illustrates, the legalization of marijuana here in Colorado has significantly interfered with MY box ... and you can expect the same when it comes to your town, as it most assuredly will.
Again, I think you're lumping separate actions together. Some pothead getting high isn't a violation of your rights. He's not using force or fraud against you while H.R. Puffin Stuff. If he steals from you to pay for his pot, then it's his act of theft that is the violation of your rights, not the act of smoking pot. Whether legal or not, the drugs would still be available. It's going to take time for all those resources that were being used to enforce the ban, be re allocated to protecting your rights, because the wheels of government move slow, and now have to play catch up.
It's interesting to note that, based on that limited exposure, there is not a single intelligent person in Colorado who smokes marijuana. There are some real idiots - there are some socially disconnected - there are some mentally defective - but not a single person I would hire to cut my lawn - much less my grass. Apparently, the real requirement here is that you must be 21, have poor personal hygiene, not be able to put together three words to make a sentence, and totally incapable of coherent thought)
Sounds like the spotlight fallacy. Makes the news more interesting but isn't a good reflection of reality.
