Pubdate: Tue, 07 Jan 2014
Source: Albuquerque Journal (NM)
Copyright: 2014 Tribune Media Services Inc.
Contact:  http://www.abqjournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/10
Author: Jonah Goldberg

MARIJUANA IS NOT FOR EVERYONE

On Jan. 1, the Centennial State (it hasn't yet changed its nickname to
"The Rocky Mountain High State") became the first place in the country
to legalize marijuana sales for recreational purposes. And Brandon
Harris is stoked. The 24-year-old Harris drove 20 hours from
Cincinnati, along with a smoking buddy, to be the first Ohioans to buy
legal pot in Colorado.

"It's such a big day in history," Harris, told the Washington Times.
"The fact that we don't have to be criminals and can just smoke, and
not be looked down on, or have to mess with the local police."

Well, he's mostly right. Americans are still free - for now, at least
- - to look down on people for whatever reason we want. Simply because
an activity is legal doesn't mean I am barred from judging you
negatively for engaging in it.

Decorating your room from floor to ceiling with Justin Bieber posters
is perfectly legal - so long as you keep the paper a safe distance
from the votive candles on your Bieber shrine.

But if I walked into my doctor's office and saw such a display, I
would search for a new doctor pretty quickly. The same goes if I found
out he was a big pot smoker.

Whether you find that analogy insulting probably depends on whether
you smoke a lot of pot (or if you're a "Belieber").

But that's OK with me. As non-judgmentalism becomes part of the
secular catechism, people lose sight of the fact that the freedom to
do what you want must include the freedom to form your own opinions
about how other people use their freedom.

Which brings us back to Mr. Harris. He and his pal were so jazzed by
the ability to buy pot legally, they decided to remain in Colorado
permanently.

"We're staying," he told the Denver Post. "We're going to become
residents."

Now, if I were an employer interviewing young Mr. Harris, I might ask
him, "What brought you to Colorado?" If he answered, "The legal weed,"
it'd be a pretty major strike against him. Personally, I think letting
dope become so important that you're willing to uproot your whole life
just so you can have it legally all the time doesn't speak well of
you.

But that's me. Others feel differently. And, if I'm going to be
honest, I can't swear that if Washington, D.C., banned alcohol or
caffeine, I wouldn't pull a Harris and ditch the District.

This is the way it's supposed to work. People who want to live one way
vote with their feet and move to places where they can live the way
they want to live.

It's way too soon to know if Colorado's collective experiment will
prove to be a mistake. It's also too soon to know if some Colorado
residents will move to states where weed is illegal as a result. But
it's an experiment worth conducting.

Pot legalization advocates are fond of casting themselves as the
avant-garde of a new libertarian revolution sweeping the nation. I
generally hope they're right. But I also hope we don't lose sight of
the collective right of states and other legally recognized
communities and institutions to have the freedom to organize their
lives the way they want.

I love America's love of individual liberty. But no good thing comes
without a downside. Particularly since the "rights explosion" of the
1960s and 1970s, public-policy debates are too often framed as the
individual versus the government.

Presented with that choice, Americans are going to err on the side of
individual rights. And that's usually a good thing. The problem is
that the rights of a community - a town, a county, a state, a
religious organization, etc. - are left out of that formulation. And
they matter.

Man is a social animal and wants to live in a community. Hippies want
raw milk, evangelicals want codes of decency, Amish want to reject
modern technology, the Sisters of the Poor don't want to pay for birth
control under Obamacare. What's wrong with that?

My objection to both the progressive vision of one-size-fits-all
government and some extreme notions of individual liberty is that they
both lack the imaginative sympathy required to let groups of people
organize their lives in the ways that will let the majority live the
way they want to live.

Why not let a thousand flowers bloom? If Colorado wants to legalize
weed, fine. If Alabama doesn't, that's fine too. Alabamians who
disagree can fight it out democratically, or they can follow Harris'
lead and move.  
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D