Our governmental system needs help. There are systemic problems so deep in the justice industry, law making, health care, environment…. I should just list every governmental service.
We need a change in view point and philosophy. Today we have the Conservatives who want law and order, military might, protection from foreigners, and lower taxes. The only other side is populated by diverse groups of liberals who fear for the safety of everybody and want lower taxes. There is a simple principle that can put these two sides together and that is this:
If a problem can be solved without taking away someone’s rights and freedoms, use that solution.
The Libertarian organizations that rate countries by how free they are (the US ranks in the top 25) and specialize in the statistical analysis of indices, statistics and issues are usually of a Libertarian bent. Organizations listed by the Wiki
Above all Libertarians want access to information, governmental transparency, justice for everybody not just those who can afford it. And justice does not mean free lawyers, it means a dispassionate and fair view of the problem with an eye toward finding a solution that doesn’t further abridge the rights of everyone.
The libertarian fame comes first from the Founding Fathers of the US who were nearly to a man libertarian. Then from opposition to drug laws and the war on drugs. In the US we spend double or triple on illegal drugs and the punishment of those who use illegal drugs, than we do on the entire beer and liquor industry combined. Our prisons are literally filled with non-violent drug offenders and distributors who feed off that industry.
In the Philippines there is a literal drug war where thousands have been killed and over a million drug users have surrendered to the military and police. This has all happened in the last year or so of the war which started in May of 2016.
On the other hand, in Portugal all drugs are legal. If someone is known to use drugs they are referred by law to a psychological counselor, a legal adviser and a health care professional instead of taken to prison. Argentina’s supreme court recently held that its constitution does not support the state telling the people what they cannot put in their bodies. That is not to say selling dangerous drugs is legal or that there should be no controls on drugs. But it is a difficult situation to say that having something is illegal, and that is the legal situation with drugs in America. Possession is the crime.
We all know the problem is not the drugs but rather addiction. So the answer is not to make drugs illegal. If that worked we should make murder illegal as well. If we put a fraction of what we spend on legal system expenses and punishments for drug related problems and instead put it toward addiction prevention programs and education we would all know a lot more about these problems.
Everyone uses drugs, but most of us get a doctor’s approval before using them. Many of us circumvent that approval illegally by buying on the internet, and others just over use and abuse the system that attempts to control drug use.