Ann Coulter Cosying Up to Liberals?
Here's Ann Coulter on why we need a war on drugs at the recent International Students For Liberty conference:

"[T]his is why people think libertarians are pussies…We're living in a country that is 70-percent socialist. The government takes 60 percent of your money. They are taking care of your health care, of your pensions. They're telling you who you can hire, what the regulations will be. And you want to suck up to your little liberal friends and say, 'Oh, but we want to legalize pot.'…
"[I]t is my business when we are living in a welfare state. You get rid of the welfare state, then we'll talk about drug legalization but right now I have to pay for — oh it turns out coming down the pike, your health care. I've got to pay your unemployment when you can't hold a job. I have to pay for your food, for your housing. Yeah, it's my business."
Here's Jonathan Alter of Bloomberg View on why we need a war on soda on The Ed Show this week:
What I don't think the debate is focused enough on are the costs. Everybody pays when somebody is overweight, obese and goes to the hospital with diabetes. This is the major cost that we face as a society: it's at the root of the entitlements debate. It's all about rising healthcare costs, and rising healthcare costs – a big chunk of that – is about one commodity, sugar. And the sugar industry is hugely powerful. They work with these Republicans who are against the so-called nanny-state and they make it very hard for progressive social policy to move forward.
If proximity to the liberal position is what makes one a pussy, then who's the pussy here, Ms. Coulter?
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Ann Coulter Cosying Up to Liberals?
No, she's just highlighting the fact that there isn't any difference between the Coke and Pepsi parties worth mentioning.
They're both for the Big Daddy state, being all things to the ruling class at the moment. Full stop.
Ann who?
Feck! Drink! Arse! Girls!
If proximity to the liberal position is what makes one a pussy, then who's the pussy here, Ms. Coulter?
She's not a pussy. She's a cunt.
If Tom Sizemore was a truck driver, he'd pick her up and ask her to split him open like a coconut.
Yeah, she could easily be mistaken for a lot lizard.
I'm imagining Shikha Dalmia saying this out loud, ever so politely. Priceless.
I love when girls talk about pussy.
But what do you think when Ann Coulter talks about it?
(insert Austin Powers quote here)
It's a man, baby!
I'm not clicking on that, no way.
Jesus Christ boy, what did you eat?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUPVtnIFkBU
Yeah the Ann Coulter is a man theme has been around for as long as she's been pissing off liberals. She's tall and bony which make her hands look bigger and her adams apple slightly protrude. But it also gives her a lean body and nice long legs. She looks like a chick to me and I'd bone her in a heartbeat.
NTTAWWT
Actually I think she looks more like a horse than a man.
NTTAWWT
Yeah, well we all can't be fuckin' swimsuit models all the time like so many of the commenters here.
First off: fake tits. They are abomination against Jesus H. God and therefore He is against SatANN Coulter.
Second: Coulter is about 63 years old and maintains her facial integrity via a combo of Botox and a deal with The Devil?.
Third: She clearly has razor-sharp teeth insider vag.
Finally: dye-job. Also against nature. See point #1. Curtains do not match shades.
Yes, health care costs are too high so when people retire at 65 we should shoot them like an old horse. Also we should kill any baby born with medical problems. This "cost" argument is just another boghs rationalization to tell other people what to do.
Could I ask to be shot like a horse at a certain age?
Cuz family history means that I don't really want to stick around too long after 80 and see my brain go to mush.
Grandma died of a heart attack at 94 while picking out produce at the farmer's market. Still able of mind and body on her last day. I hope I got those genes from her and not from the old man who died of rectal cancer at 66.
This generation of senior citizens who are living forever grew up eating butter on everything and eggs fried in bacon fat. I have some recipe books from the 1950s and 60s. You should see the amount of fat on those hams and roasts and chops they ate.
Yet here they are, clogging up the left lane, eating all the lobsters on the cruise ships and, right now, occupying the pull out couch at my house.
Spent most of her life in Algiers, LA, her diet was strictly Creole.
I rode my motorcycle through Algiers in order to catch the ferry. Not the best neighborhood to say the least.
She was actually from a fairly well off family, but she married a mariachi. Dad joined the army to get away from the life of poverty that decision she made implies.
All of my great grandparents on my paternal side lived into their late 90s still living at their house. Hell my Aunt Frankie is 104 or so and still plays a mean game of 42. Those are the genes I'm banking on.
It's the booze in your family that cuases that .. sorry
Since dope and sugar -- as well as trans-fats, salt, etc., etc. -- are so unhealthy and AlmightJB's plan will product a vast quantity of protein, the obvious solution is to mandate a diet of soylent green.
We know from Elena Kagan's testimony that such a mandate would pass Constitutional muster.
We've created a welfare state so all-encompassing that Everybody pays when somebody is overweight, therefore we need an all-encompassing welfare state. Circular logic is circular. Oh, and KORPORASHUNS ! and REPUBLICANS !
also fried chicken
Hear, hear!
I mean the fried chicken part.
Also, fuck California.
God, I am going to have to go get bbq for lunch.
Fuck Michigan!
Almanian! does CA
You'll probably need to start huffing cocaine now if you're going to fill Debbie's shoes.
The "when someone gets fat it costs everyone money" argument so quickly and so seamlessly leads to an apologia for totalitarianism, you'd think it'd be a lot less popular.
That line of argument is absolute madness. Right to privacy, right to free speech, right to bear arms, right to a jury trial, right to property, right to be secure in your person? All gone via the same argument.
If in some ways the costs of everything we do can be borne by others, that means everything we do is the business of others and vice versa. No thanks.
"All gone via the same argument."
Feature, not a bug.
But, but...they meant well!
I suggest we start auditing the homes and lifestyles of the advocates of such arguments and send them the bill directly, for the societal cost of their decedent choices.
I got on the CNN comment board about Bloomberg's soda the other night. This argument was, of course, the prevalent one. If you can just get them to take that next step.
"what are you doing right now, this moment, that's costing me money?"
This is the one argument that absolutely must be taken to the logical conclusion, because it will be taken there eventually.
The same argument (in a different context) is made on here regularly by those who oppose freedom of movement because of the welfare state.
"When we eliminate the welfare state, then we can have looser immigration policies."
The nice thing about being a moral libertarian is that I dont have to do those calculations, I just have to figure out what the right thing to do is. And then do it.
Yes, you leave the calculations up to others.
The thing is, who's making the argument is more important than the argument itself. Tony often argues from libertarian principles while 5 minutes later discarding those principles as senseless.
If you're using the welfare state as an excuse to keep Mexicans out because they're not white enough for you, you're being disingenuous and your argument has no merit. If it really is because you think blocking Mexican immigration into a welfare state is the lesser of two evils, your argument has merit.
So, for instance, in this case, Coulter doesn't like pot, and she wants to use the state to press that on everybody else.
That's all that fucking matters, whatever other bullshit comes out of her mouth.
I guess Ann would be happy to limit cars to a 1/2 ton because we all pay for roads and bigger cars wear out asphalt faster. And guns will have to be banned because people get shot with guns and require medical attention, which Mr. Coulter has to pay for.
And red meat, don't get me started on the ill-effects we have to pay for because red meat is legal. It must be banned because taxes, or something.
"You get rid of the welfare state, then we'll talk about drug legalization"
Because we can't even talk about addressing drug laws until we fix every other problem.
No. She thinks that ending the welfare state is more important than ending the drug war. Maybe she is wrong in that. But it hardly makes her a liberal.
Wrong, she thinks that the drug war is correct if there is a welfare state. A difference in kind, not degree.
No. she is saying it is okay for people sucking on the government tit. I know a lot of people who would agree with her. I am as pro drug as anyone. But it bugs the shit out of me that I pay taxes to support degenerate drug addicts to get "treatment" or whatever.
"treatment" humanely forced on many people as part of the drug war, so they don't have to go to jail.
That is true. And that bugs me too. Fuck that. Why the hell should I have to pay money to save you from yourself?
Which is why her argument falls apart. The drug war is a big part of the welfare state.
I'm all for ending the welfare. I USED to be absolutely for "if you're taking tax money, then 'we' get to tell you what you can and can't do."
Not so absolute on that any more. I'm OK with PRIVATE charity putting on any conditions they damn well please (you want my money? I decide what you can do with it, how you have to act, etc) but am much less sanguine about the gummint at any level acting in the same way. Cause the gummint ultimately has the power to kill, which my church charities, for example do not...
More interested now in crushing the welfare state than worrying if teen mom is using her foodstamps for pot, although I realize that's probably a pipe dream.
I think Coulter is wrong about this. But I think Dalmia doesn't understand what she is saying.
^^ I see what you did there.
That "^^ I see what you did there" was for Almanian! and the "pipe dream" quip.
"Cause the gummint ultimately has the power to kill, which my church charities, for example do not..."
You simply need to belong to the right "church"
/Follower of Kali
"if you're taking tax money, then 'we' get to tell you what you can and can't do."
That always sounds fair to people because they assume that this acts as a deterrent to taking tax money - and that the government would prefer not to have a dependent population that needs constant supervision.
When you realize that a large chunk of people (I think someone somewhere one time used the figure of 47%) would happily trade their birthright for a mess of pottage and that the sorts of people who get into government administration do so precisely because they lust after the power to boss people around you start to see the problem with that idea.
If you can't make a comment without making shit up about what is in plain text above, I'm just gonna piss all over the place:
Nobody gives a shit what you don't like your fucking taxes paying for. Hell, most people probably would get more pissed at government employees getting paid to post on Reason all day over some druggie getting treatment.
I am not making anything up. I am telling you the argument that Coulter is making.
She is saying that you have no moral case for ending the drug war when most of the population is on the government tit. And that is true. The welfare state and socialism is what reenforces and justifies the drug war.
Then there's obviously no moral case against transfat bans, soda size-limits and mandatory exercise.
In fact, we should be working FOR those things until the welfare state is dismantled.
My god, John. Are you really this dense? Coulter is a fucking moron.
CN,
Are you so dense, you can't see how the moral case for personal autonomy is undercut by everyone being on the dole?
Are you being deliberately disingenuous, John? You're the one arguing that Coulter both does and does not say what she is plainly saying, depending on the point you're trying to make.
You're the one arguing that Coulter both does and does not say what she is plainly saying
It's a penalty and a tax.
Are you so dense, you can't see how the moral case for personal autonomy is undercut by everyone being on the dole?
No, the moral case for personal autonomy is undercut by things free people should be able to do being against the law. I am not on the public dole, and yet it is illegal for me to smoke weed, or order a large soda (temporarily stayed) in New York, etc.
You won't hear people here complain that we can't get rid of the welfare state; we would all love for it to go away. But to say you can't even talk about ending the WoD without getting rid of welfare is childish. And you get awfully butthurt when someone insults a statist Republican.
Then there's obviously no moral case against transfat bans, soda size-limits and mandatory exercise.
Sure there is a moral case. It is just that that case is undercut by the welfare state. That is one of the reasons why liberals love both.
If I am taking money from your paycheck to support myself, do I really have moral standing to complain when you tell me how to spend the money?
But you just said your babe Coulter is arguing there is "no moral case" against ending the War on Drugs.
And if there is no moral case against ending the War on Drugs, given the welfare state, how could there be a moral case against a war on Big Gulp sodas?
And that is true.
No it isnt.
The moral argument for ending the drug war is independent of every other issue.
It stands alone.
I'm kinda confused here.
You are saying that Coulter is making the same argument the liberals are making: 'As long as I have to pay for your actions, I get a say in what your actions may be."
That's the whole point of this article.
I don't think she's a liberal either, but she's not merely ranking ending the welfare state as more important. She's saying she won't even talk about the drug war until the welfare state is gone.
It probably is more important.
But you do what you can do when you can do it. Drug legalization is just about low hanging fruit at this point. No reason not to do the easy stuff first.
And red meat, don't get me started on the ill-effects we have to pay for because red meat is legal. It must be banned because taxes, or something.
I realize you're not actually saying this, but...ahem...RED MEAT DOES NOT CAUSE HEART DISEASE. RED MEAT DOES NOT CAUSE OBESTIY. RED MEAT DOES NOT CAUSE ANYTHING EXCEPT AWESOMENESS.
Yeah, it's the GREEN meat you have to worry about. If you're colorblind, don't worry. Normal meat isn't fuzzy.
It's ok honey, we know you've got a terrible case of the manliness.
what a dumb cunt. Does she really think that libertarians oppose prohibition to cozy up to liberals? The libertarian argument for legalization is rather different from that of most liberals, most of whom seem to want to legalize pot because it's "not so bad", and not for reasons of personal liberty and self ownership.
No, liberals are in favor of MJ because the hottest chicks in high school smoked pot, and they'd finally like to get the respect they deserve from those girls.
Um, what? I think that's just you.
Man - not at my high school. The hot chicks all drank. Pot smokers were the skanks.
Guess it differs across locations...
I was in high school during the time the movie "Dazed and Confused" was set. I can't speak for what it's been like since then. But the hottest girls then were definitely hanging with the pot smokers, usually wearing a tank top and no bra -- which was quite the look in the mid-70s -- and the student council types who wouldn't touch the stuff could always be observed drooling over them, thinking they weren't obvious. Those same guys all became uberliberals, if facebook is any indication.
Dazed and Confused is a documentary in my opinion.
I loaned my copy to a friend who was "of the era" and his response was "Been there, done that."
Yeah, still the best period piece for hairdos, clothing and cars. They NAILED the look!
Also, keggers in farmer's fields...ans smoking a LOT of pot constantly.
Uberliberals don't really tend to favor legalization do they? They'd be more for decriminalization and forced treatment or something like that.
My high school days were in the mid eighties. You're observations are spot on. Student council types had the nerdiest reps in school. Pot smokers actually coded, played D&D, holed up for days learning Satriani riffs, but never did a single one of them run for office.
Ditto, except, as noted, the pot smokers were skanks at my HS. The hotties were all drinkers.
[I]t is my business when we are living in a welfare state. You get rid of the welfare state, then we'll talk about drug legalization but right now I have to pay for ? oh it turns out coming down the pike, your health care. I've got to pay your unemployment when you can't hold a job. I have to pay for your food, for your housing. Yeah, it's my business."
All she is saying there is we need to get rid of the welfare state because as long as we have it is going to provide people an excuse to meddle in other people's lives. I would not call saying "fuck you if you want me to pay for your healthcare I get to tell you whether you can use drugs" exactly cozying up to liberals.
Coulter was making a rhetorical point. I don't think she meant her language literally.
Perhaps, but she uses a shitty argument. I've never seen a stoner in the ER. I've seen every other kind of person there and for every reason, but not a stoner.
I think she did mean it, because she's that big a giraffe-necked, Adam's Apple brandishing fucktard.
Heard her spew some more stoopid along the same lines on RedEye earlier this week. Just when I think, "aahhh, maybe she's not SO bad..."
No - she's a fucking right wing Obamaberg. Fuck her.
So when a liberal speaks of soda bans we should take him at his word, but when Coulter speaks of the drug war in the same manner we should give him the benefit of the doubt?
Fuck that, her speech is that of a petty tyrant and should be condemned as such.
Also, if she's merely using a rhetorical technique, and agrees with libertarians on both the drug war and the welfare state, why the insults?
Why doesn't she have a point? Seems to me the free shit brigade doesn't have much of a moral case for freedom. With freedom comes responsibility.
How about this, drugs are legal as long as you are not getting a government check, including government employees. Those who can pay for it, can use them. Those who can't, tough shit. Oh have some kind of a licensing system whereby, you get to use drugs, but in return you opt out of the social welfare system. That way everyone gets to choose, responsibility and freedom or nanny state and control.
I bet Coulter would go for that. Would you?
That might be slightly better, but it would probably lead to a big database of drug users.
Here's the biggest problem: there are tons of currently legal things that people do which put a far bigger burden on the health care system than drug use. Drug use is hardly a uniquely risky behavior. If she thinks that the fact of the welfare state means that drugs should be prohibited, then to be consistent, she should be in favor of regulating or prohibiting all unnecessary risky behaviors. When she comes out for prohibition of skiing, motorcycles, rock climbing, driving sports cars, eating unhealthy foods and fireworks, then maybe I'll reconsider my position that she is a nasty cunt who just wants to score points and get attention.
I think she fully understands that. Her point is that as long as we have socialism, the people who want to control everything have an argument. You can't kill the drug war and have freedom until you kill socialism. That is what no one on this thread is getting. They think she is saying the government should control everything like that is a good thing. No. What she is saying is, as long as the government is handing out checks, the people who want to control everything are going to have a pretty compelling argument for doing so.
I bet Coulter would go for that. Would you?
Of course she'd go for it, because she's an idiot that wouldn't be able to see that it wouldn't work in the slightest and would increase government. She'd also go for pegging your ass for white knighting her all over here, so at least you've got that.
As long as the government is handing out checks to people, the people who want to control everyone's lives are going to have one hell of a compelling argument for doing so. That is all Coulter is saying.
I had high hopes that you'd continue to refer to Coulter as "him" for the duration of your comment.
Why wouldn't you think that she meant it?
Fuck her. If you care one bit about individual liberty, I don't see how you can be against drug legalization. Locking people up for no good reason is far worse, on an individual level, than making someone subsidize others' medical care.
If you're going to be using the roads I paid for, I have a right to concern myself with how much weight you're putting on them. Your body belongs to me, because social contract.
Conservative!
Also, insurance companies make money from fat people over their lifetime. So having them in the pool does what to healtg care premiums? Anyone. Anyone. It brings them down. So you pay less money because they are in the pool. Not as much lower as if they were healthy, but lower none the less. And if a skinny person gets in an accident or breaks there leg playing flag football. What does that do to the fat persons premium? It makes it go up. So while we're banning trans fats. Lets ban any activity that may cause someone to get sick or hurt.
Also, insurance companies make money from fat people over their lifetime.
Even when considering the higher costs for health problems associated with being fat? Don't know, just asking.
Allegedly (and I've seen conflicting numbers), it's true if you look over a lifetime. Fat people incur more medical costs on a per-year basis, but they die sooner, before the expensive end-of-life medical issues show up.
That's a myth. Fatties, because they don't live as long, rack up less total medical expenses over their shorter life span. Same with smokers and heavy drinkers. End of life care is where the expenses are really at. When a fatty dies in his 60s, that's twenty years worth or more of expenses that no one has to pay for.
So you're saying health foods should be banned because they make people live longer? That is a fantastic rebuttal of all this statist bullshit if true!
Obesity increases the risk of certain complications but does not guarantee them. A fat person may have a greater risk of heart disease but only a small percentage of them will actually develope it. Other than looking at genetics you don't know which percentage will and which won't. Any many skinny people will develop heart disease and again barring genetics we don't know which one's. That's why we have insuranc we pooling.
Of course genetics are thee best indicator of your medical future and therefore your future cost to the collective. If 1984 was a handbook for politicians of today. Gattica will inform tomorrows leaders.
Risk based rating should be the rule. Then the "I'm paying for it!!!1!!111" argument goes away entirely.
The most efficient way to spread cost via risk would be to do away with insurance altogether.
Insurance serves a purpose. It is about spreading your payment over time for a small fee. You shouldn't have to use it but you shouldn't be restricted either.
COSMOTARIANS!!!
All hail Ann Coulter, queen of the trolls.
The woman has more straw men and ad hominems that Tony and Tulpa combined.
Also a bigger Adam's Apple.
And probably a bigger dick.
By this logic, shouldn't we as a society be able to force women to carry their babies to term, on the idea that these future workers are necessary to prop up the welfare state?
Or, at least, those who can financially support children. If you want the government to get pro-life quick, the best way to do it is to start having rich and middle class women be the primary consumers of abortion.
The flip-side to that is mandating abortions because poor kids will cost the taxpayers too much money.
The progressives insist on the welfare state AND oversight of individual choices. The positions are not the same.
The argument is that the socialization of the costs of life choices justifies oversight of those life choices.
Except for things that involve sex. That's off limits.
But everything else is game.
"Except for things that involve sex. That's off limits."
Since when? Aren't there states and counties where owning more than one sex toy (or any at all) is illegal?
I don't own any sex toys, so I've never given it any thought or done any research. I was thinking of garden variety sex. Bumping uglies and the consequences thereof.
True, but saying "garden variety" leaves a lot out.
And saying using the term "off limits" is somewhat erroneous. There are plenty of Socons who'd love to ban anything to do with not only homosexuality but sales of pornography and contraception (and I'm not alluding to that bullshit ACA mandate - but referring to any sales)BDSM or even premarital sex. In fact BDSM - no matter how "consensual" it may be - can pretty much automatically land you in jail.
And it's worth noting that the Socons are coming around to the "it's because we care about your health" stuff with regards to LGBT issues. "It's not just a 5000 year-old middle eastern superstition but the fact that, gosh darnit it's that we're worried about your health!"
It's also quite amusing that Coulter used to be a Deadhead, touring with the band during summer break like so many other trustafarians from schools like her alma mater Cornell. Because of that, you can pretty much guarantee that she has smoked plenty of dope, and done mushrooms and/or acid. What made her change? She's like the ex-smoker who crusades against smoking in public.
I don't think her problem is with drugs. It is with paying for other people's drug use. Thanks to the welfare state, personal responsibility is now impossible.
She discovered she could make buttloads of money shamelessly pandering to neoconservatards?
Ugh. I went to see The Who at Alpine Valley in September 1988. The Grateful Dead had played there a few days earlier, and many deadheads were still camping in the parking lot. It was fucking disgusting. There was feces (human and dog) and urine everywhere. Every filthy hippie we passed was trying to sell us LSD. The chicks were filthy and looked like Granny from The Beverly Hillbillies. On top of that, The Grateful Dead sucks musically. You have to be on drugs just to avoid the pain of listening to them.
"camping in the parking lot"
Drink!...almost
When Levon Helm died, I somehow got into on Facebook with a bunch of Deadheads about the Dead. My opinion is that the best music the dead could do was all done better by The Band. The Band was basically doing everything Garcia was trying to only a lot better. They all just called me hater but couldn't really argue the point.
"My opinion is that the best music the dead could do was all done better by The Band"
I think the Band was awesome, and I really don't get into the Dead, but they don't really compare that well to one another. I never listened to either and thought "wow that sounds just like the Dead...or vice versa"
They totally compare to each other. The entire country rock Americana music sound that the Dead tried to do in American Beauty and Workingman's Dead was invented by The Band. The whole idea that you could take elements of all American music, jazz, blues, country, bluegrass, rock, and fuse it into a new form of music, which is what the Dead spent their entire career doing, was already done in the first two Band albums.
I don't know Coulter's heart, but her business model is based on getting conservatives riled up at her opponents, inducing them to buy her books. Whether she would be open to contradicting her supporters on the War on (some) Drugs I don't know, but by going along with those supporters, she sure seems to cash in.
With her focus being on saying "look what liberals believe!" and mocking that, dope legalization is a tempting target, because many (but by no means all) liberals are for it. It's more about team loyalty than principle - or to be precise, team loyalty *is* the principle.
If liberals were unified against dope and a faction of conservatives wanted to legalize it, maybe Coulter would be for legalization.
She is a professional contrarian in many ways. She likes goring people's sacred cows and pissing them off. But she is utterly fearless about it. She has balls someone like the Jacket can only dream about. I wish someone at Reason had the ability and courage to raise as much hell as she does.
But raising hell alone isn't enough. You have to have the logic to back up your opinions, which Coulter doesn't. As someone above already said, she is just that good of a troll. She can piss off all the right people, she collects her paycheck, and then she bolts. She doesn't have any actual solutions; just flaming rhetoric.
But, as you say, it generates a paycheck - that is what she is all about, and why I pay her no mind.
Coulter is a fairly talented polemicist when she skewers leftists in writing. She understands the left pretty well, and delivers some pretty witty barbs.
However, she is a conservative statist and does not appear to understand libertarianism at all. Her critique of the libertarian opposition to the WOD is particularly stupid.
She doesn't have a critique of the libertarian opposition to the WOD. She has a critique of a straw man and many ad hominems. Thing is, as a trained lawyer she knows she's engaging in fallacious arguments. She has to. That makes her totally disingenuous and without principles.
Please describe what you think Coulter's strawman argument is. What is she saying libertarians believe that they actually don't?
She mocks libertarians for just wanting to get high, or for caring only about drugs, or for being so focused on drugs, seeing how many times she can use the word "drugs" in one sentence, while completely ignoring the argument that as long as you're not harming the life, liberty, or property of anther person, what you do should be nobody's business but your own.
Her criticism of libertarians is that they consider ending the drug war to be just as important if not more important than ending the welfare state. She disagrees with that. Her view is that the welfare state is what gives the moral justification to the drug war. If you end the drug war without ending the welfare state, you are just arguing for everyone else to pay for your drug use.
I think she is wrong about that because the drug war has some uniquely horrible elements that go beyond the immorality of making taxpayers subsidize drug use. But she is wrong not because she doesn't get libertarians. She is wrong because she understand or acknowledge how horrible the drug war is. In an ideal world, they both should go. But in reality, the drug war needs to go more than welfare because it is so much worse. But that is my opinion. Coulter looks at it differently.
The one place where she insults rather than debates Libertarians is when she claims they only concentrate on the drug war instead of welfare because they want to suck up to liberals. That is an unfair generalization. But there is some truth to it with some Libertarians, which is why it stung so badly and why Reason is so angry about it. Truthful insults, even if they are unfair and exaggerated, always hurt the worst.
I don't know who is trying to suck up to liberals. Maybe the "libertarians" who think government force should be used to redefine marriage. But with regards to drugs? I don't see it. It's an ad hominem argument designed to switch the subject and put libertarians on the defensive.
I will admit I have done it myself. If you are in a room full of outright progtards and you don't feel like starting the jihad but you are stuck in a political conversation, moving the conversation over the legalizing drugs is always an easy way to keep them from going insane and causing an incident.
Coulter's mythical "libertarian" is one giant straw man.
Yeah. She's good with the zingers, and they can be funny and hit the mark. She has no scruples about how she makes her point and just ignores self-contradictions. I think she does not understand libertarians, though it could be feigned ignorance. But probably not, because otherwise her shots at libertarians would hit closer to home.
I bet she's a lousy poker player.
You can tell when she's going into disingenuous mode because the pitch of her voice goes right up.
Shrill, baby! Shrill!
What I don't think the debate is focused enough on are the costs. Everybody pays when somebody is overweight, obese and goes to the hospital with diabetes. This is the major cost that we face as a society: it's at the root of the entitlements debate.
Ah, such deep concern for the cost to society! So cost to society is the problem, huh? Speaking of cost to society, we pay people who have babies and can't afford it. We pay people who lose their jobs and are too lazy to find another one. We pay people to buy overpriced, inefficient cars, and trash ones that work perfectly well. We pay farmers to not grow crops, or grow crops that otherwise wouldn't be profitable.
Now that I think about it, why don't progressives support paying people for being fat? The cost to society seems to be the least of their actual concerns, considering everything else they support.
OT:
"Chelsea Clinton Buying $10 Million NYC Apartment"
"Chelsea Clinton is buying a $10.5 million spread right across the street from Madison Square Park, reports NyPo. The apartment is 5,000 square feet and is located in the Whitman.
The unit at 21 E. 26th St. is four bedrooms, with 6 1/2 bathrooms, and the family room has a full view of the park."
http://www.economicpolicyjourn.....n-nyc.html
Politics: The quickest path to being a 1 percenter.
Doesn't that just prove that marrying a rich man is even quicker?
Yeah, he's worth 15 million and she's only worth 5 million so I guess it helps
Speaking of jobs, maybe Anne Coulter should consider getting one sometime. . .
Everybody pays when somebody is overweight, obese and goes to the hospital with diabetes.
This is the double edged sword of the liberal conception of 'caring for others' - first they demand everyone kick in to 'help' everyone else. (i.e. 'force money out of you under threat with the pretence that these funds are going to the "greater good")
But then suddenly now "everyone" has a say in what anyone else does = because they're *paying for you*, see?
Yeah, you didn't ask for the general population to shoulder your own responsibilities... but that don't matter. Now that everyone is being forced to *pay*, well now they all have a *say*. Ergo - they have a right to CONTROL your behaviors. Which is really what it all comes down to. Its not about anything to do with 'equality' or 'social justice' - its about Justifying State Control over every single individual. The whole Tax+Spend context behind the justification for this control is largely irrelevant. Its simply a means to an end.
You are exactly right. And that is what Coulter is saying. Until you get rid of the idea that the society at large is responsible for everyone in it's fate, you can never end the drug war. How can you? If you end the drug war but don't kill socialism, you are basically saying that you can do whatever you want and the rest of us must bear the consequences.
Control is the dark side of bright sunny change the world liberalism. It is no coincidence that the drug war started right after we had the new deal. No one cared about drugs in the 19th century, because they weren't paying for them.
It is no coincidence that the drug war started right after we had the new deal
Er, cocaine was made illegal in the 19teens. Same with non-medicinal opiates I believe.
No one cared about drugs in the 19th century
Er, um, google "opium wars."
Yeah. I thought about that as soon as I hit send. Fair enough. But we didn't have anything approaching the kind of drug war we have now until really after the 1930s. And then it got really big in the late 60s and 70s. It does seem that every time we expanded welfare, the drug war got more intense shortly thereafter.
But we didn't have anything approaching the kind of drug war we have now until really after the 1930s.
Well, yeah. You had this massive new law enforcement mechanism created during Prohibition, and they wanted to keep doing what they were doing. So they switched to going after druggies. The late 60s and 70s was when law enforcement became a blatant tool for revenue. That's when traffic laws ceased to be about public safety and more about revenue, and the same went for drugs.
Opium Wars were about the British forcing market access and the Chinese regime not wanting the stuff sold to their people....so I think, on balance, you are correct.
That's collectivism in a nutshell.
Well put. The whole "Oh my, we have to do something, look at the cost to society" pearl clutching spiel is bullshit. They don't care about the cost to society, they WANT that cost to society. That's what allows them to tell everybody else what to do.
Damn squirrels.
on the flip side Annie, if you support the war on drugs, you don't have a principled reason to cry about the government being big enough to prosecute that war and do other things unconstitutional.
Pot turns people into morons which is what the Progressive State needs to thrive.
I'm not in favor of drug wars and could care less what people do to themselves, but this constant focus of "libertarians" on drugs is itself mind-numbingly stupid. Coulter is right.
Sounds like someone has been hitting the ol' bottle...
Pot doesn't turn anyone into anything. You are falling for Voodoo Pharmacology. And the fallacy that anyone who disagrees with you must be stupid.
Drug legalization is libertarianism 101. If you don't own your own self, you don't have any rights at all. Coulter is both wrong and a cunt.
As a practicing doc, I can assure you that I did not fail pharmacology.
Coulter is talking about focus. That is the problem with many libertarians. Not that you aren't right about drugs, but get with the big picture. You play kissey face with liberals to get your pot while losing the rest of your liberty. So great, you'll be stoned when Janet Fucking Reno comes to the door to take your AR-15 or hits you with a drone. What's that get you?
Libertarians and Republicans are natural allies if they can focus together on liberty. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz are leading the way. Let's deal with the welfare state and restoring Constitutional government. Protect the Bill of Rights now and worry about your bong rights later.
Libertarians and Republicans are natural allies
[citation needed]
are natural allies...
...if only libertarians would give up their childish obsession with liberty.
I'm worried about all of my rights all of the time. And I'll take what I can get. Republicans might be for a slower expansion of the welfare state, but they sure as hell aren't getting rid of it.
And why do you think that any of this has anything to do with liberals? Most of them are for some form of statist, squishy legalization of drugs they personally approve (or more likely just decriminalization of possession) of and I am not shy about telling them why that is nearly as bad as the current situation. Which is a situation in which thousands of people are murdered every year because of prohibition and many more are locked up or deprived of their property. That is a pretty fucking big deal for liberty and has to do with a whole lot more than my personal preferences for intoxicants. This is not about pot and it is not about me.
Libertarians and Republicans are natural allies if they can focus together on liberty.
And if my uncle had tits, I could call him my aunt.
Pot turns people into morons
[citation needed]
Here you are!
Maybe morons just like pot (though I'm not entirely convinced Obama is a moron).
I spend quite a bit of time around potheads, and their "moron" quotient is WAAAAAAAAY lower than in the general public.
Citation - Anecdote, ya'll
You have two sets of publicly funded bureaucrats.
Drug warriors and social workers.
Both are morally reprehensible parasites.
You take a look at the political calculus. You have far more votes to end the drug war than you do the welfare state. Taking stock of that, Coulter's position is a damn foolish waste of time unworthy of serious consideration.
Success in one area gives momentum and political capital to accomplish the next goal. If you treat both task as equivalent, than your efforts are going to prove futile in both.
You take a look at the political calculus. You have far more votes to end the drug war than you do the welfare state.
Outside of maybe pot, I don't see how that is true at all.
Pot is something like 95% of the drug war.
It's only a gateway drug because it's a gateway to the black market. If it was legal, I think hard drug use would drop dramatically. Simply because it would be difficult to gain access to the black market.
95% of drug use I meant.
Of the 1.5 million of drug related arrest in the latest year given for stats in the FBI report, 2011 (758,000), more than half were marijuana related. That's a huge chunk of man hours that would be gutted if marijuana was legalized at the federal level.
2011 (758,000), more than half were marijuana related (758,000).
Who the fuck invited that bitch? Or did she just crash it with her own presentation and booth? That has been a problem at trade conferences before.
But, but, but, everybody would take libertarians seriously if they just weren't in favor of drugs!!!!!
Everyone woudl take libertarians seriously if they would just stop being so libertarian all the time.
Yeah! I mean, they've got this total fetish for liberty! WTF? People need to be controlled! When will those stupid libertarians realize this?
Liberty (and cunt) is why nobody takes libertarians seriously.
I don't generally go around using the C word too much, but Ann Coulter just demands to be called a cunt.
I've heard both Thom Hartman and Ann Coulter define Libertarians as being just 'conservatives who want to smoke pot.' How do you like making the same argument at that pussy Thom Hartman, Ann? How do you like it!?
I'd still fuck her.