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Comment by beenBoutIT | Hacker News Reader

The only way to stop our neverending war on drugs is a Constitutional amendment that guarantees every American the right to consume anything they want for any reason. In the next several decades there will be un unprecedented number of elderly Americans living below the poverty line with no pension and medical issues they can't afford to fix - euthanasia will become something of a nuclear option that they'll want available as a last resort. An amendment that guarantees the right to consume any plant/drug/chemical/etc. will have a chance if it's bundled with a 'right to die with dignity', allowing elderly individuals a euthanasia option.

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Good idea. How about:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

That would keep the pesky federal government out of our personal affairs.

Ultimately the flaw with this clause is the flexibility and amenability of the Constitution.

Federal drug laws were upheld on the grounds that they are regulating interstate commerce ("regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;").

The idea that growing plants on your own land for your own consumption would some how fall under this legislative power is ridiculous. It's not "flexibility", it's fraud.

See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich

Sure, but then federal support of state projects gets tied to whatever the federal government wants the state to do. The state isn’t bound, but it’s political suicide to turn down money.

This is a powerful weapon that can be used for both good and bad.

This is why direct taxation (16th Amendment) was a mistake. It allows the federal government to take away the citizens' money first, and then give it back to the states, with conditions.

If the federal government had to collect from the states, then there would be more oversight and power for states to say "wait a minute, why are we giving you money and then begging to get it back".

In theory, the result could be the same. Congress could still pass spending bills and give the money over with conditions. But in practice I think states would be in a more powerful negotiating position.

The real mistake was to make Senators elected rather than appointed by the states as they originally were. Representation of the general population is the purpose of the House, the Senate was meant to represent the states in the federal government.

I’m glad on HN people have opinions like “the direct election of senators was a mistake.” I mean, I agree, but I’m usually the only one in the room.

The biggest flaw when reasoning about government is overestimating how well democracy works as a method of solving problems.

If everyone agrees about the major stuff, and you just need to finally make a decision on what color to paint the bike shed, democracy is great. A decision gets made, enough people are happy, and you move on.

But when you have real differences, you need a way to protect minorities against large coalitions of voters. Even if you aren't in a minority today, shifting politics (and divide-and-conquer politicians) will ensure that you are in a minority soon enough.

And it's even worse when society is polarized, because the coalitions form too quickly and too strongly.

But limiting the power of the majority is hard. The Constituion is genius because they recognized that and divded the power so many different ways. The protection of political minorities is much more important than the small amount of additional abstract fairness you get with direct elections.

Have y'all forgotten the entire reason the 16th amendment was passed? It wasn't because of fairness, it was because the state legislatures couldn't agree on people to elect. And when they could there were concerns about corruption and seats being sold.

So let the seats be empty. That will make the constituents mad and they'll vote out the incumbents and replace them with somebody who will appoint Senators. Or they won't. People get the government they deserve.

And if there are "concerns about corruption" then investigate the corruption and put the perpetrators (if any) in prison.

And in the 4 years where the seats are empty? Or the year where the state can pass no state level legislation? (Both of those actually happened, hence the immense popular support by the states for adopting the 17th amendment)

Not to mention that the holdover/compromise from the original way things worked (replacement appointment by the Governor) resulted in perhaps the most famous recent example of executive misconduct by a Governor: Rod Blagojevich.

> And in the 4 years where the seats are empty? Or the year where the state can pass no state level legislation?

But whose problems are these? The people who elected the state legislators who did them, right? There is a preexisting solution for that problem.

The voters can vote for representatives who are willing to compromise and appoint a moderate, or they can vote for representatives who are willing to engage in brinkmanship and then get nothing, and either way they got what they voted for.

> Not to mention that the holdover/compromise from the original way things worked (replacement appointment by the Governor) resulted in perhaps the most famous recent example of executive misconduct by a Governor: Rod Blagojevich.

...who then went to prison. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

> But whose problems are these? The people who elected the state legislators who did them, right? There is a preexisting solution for that problem.

We see federal representatives rewarded for brinkmanship. What makes you think state level electorates would act differently? (And in fact I expect there's lots of examples of brinkmanship in state electorates as well, I just don't follow them closely).

A representation system that fails to represent is dysfunctional and should be changed. When the same system consistently fails to represent its constituency, for the same reason, across various constituencies at various times, you can no longer fault the people. The constituents should not be punished for being born into a dysfunctional system.

Don't place the founders on a pedestal. They made tons of mistakes. The 3/5ths compromise was terrible, but it was encoded into the constitution. We learned from it and improved. State managed senators, while less overtly awful, were still quite problematic. Celebrate that the constitution can be changed.

> We see federal representatives rewarded for brinkmanship. What makes you think state level electorates would act differently?

So what if they do? It's what their constituents voted for. Who's to say brinkmanship is never an optimal strategy?

> A representation system that fails to represent is dysfunctional and should be changed.

So change it by voting for different state legislators.

> Celebrate that the constitution can be changed.

Just because something can be done doesn't make it a good idea.

> So what if they do? It's what their constituents voted for. Who's to say brinkmanship is never an optimal strategy?

If you're going to argue that "it's what their constituents voted for" you have to apply that evenly: the consituents got so fed up with this issue that they elected legislators who changed the constitution. No easy feat.

> So change it by voting for different state legislators.

They did, they made it such an issue that their legislators ended up ratifying a constitutional amendment.

> Just because something can be done doesn't make it a good idea.

This applies equally in both directions. "It was that way first" isn't a merit, especially when "It was that way first" also applies to slavery.

> If you're going to argue that "it's what their constituents voted for" you have to apply that evenly: the consituents got so fed up with this issue that they elected legislators who changed the constitution. No easy feat.

It's two different questions -- does the system do what the constituents want (possibly yes), and what do we as the present day constituents want? The answer to which is not, from what I can gather, the status quo.

> They did, they made it such an issue that their legislators ended up ratifying a constitutional amendment.

Technically they didn't. It was the then-appointed Senate who approved the amendment (and by and large without having been replaced with different people), and they only did so out of fear of rising populist sentiment and what would happen if there was a constitutional convention in that climate. So they were basically doing their job and moderating populist sentiment, but apparently the anti-populist safeguards weren't strong enough to constrain populist sentiment from weakening them even further in that way.

> This applies equally in both directions. "It was that way first" isn't a merit, especially when "It was that way first" also applies to slavery.

Your argument was "celebrate that the constitution can be changed" as if any change is inherently good. But change can make things worse too. Before there was slavery there was not slavery.

Your main criticism also seems to be that the seats were going vacant, so the solution I would offer would be to hold a popular election but only if there has been no appointment within six months. Then the seat can't go vacant long but you're not, in the common case, taking away the seat of the states in the federal government.

> > They did, they made it such an issue that their legislators ended up ratifying a constitutional amendment.

> Technically they didn't.

Yes, technically—and in every other way—they did.

> It was the then-appointed Senate who approved the amendment

No, it wasn’t. The Senate doesn't approve Constitutional Amendments, state legislatures do.

The Houses of Congress, together, can propose Amendments, but they aren't needed for that, either.

> People get the government they deserve.

It's strange to say this when you are proposing to take away their direct vote on the matter. If anything, the current system is what gives people the government they deserve, by having voted on it.

Moreso, people deserve the government that they have, thus, there's no reason to make this change

Or just have the legislatures vote. The two candidates with the higher number of votes get to represent that state. With some luck, every state will be represented by one Republican and one Democratic senator. That should help to remove some of the party politics out of the senate.

Don't even get me started on voting systems.

TL;DR: Just use range voting and put in the candidate with the highest rating. (Note that Senators' terms are staggered so there aren't two up from the same state at the same time, but if there were you could easily send the two with the highest ratings instead of the one.)

Pssst: 17th.

The 16th is the income tax one.

Whoops. And to think that I went and checked and corrected myself and then still managed to do it wrong :/

I'm not American, but if the Senate is meant to represent the states, then it makes sense to have them appointed by the states, or elected by the state legislatures (this is for example how the Dutch senate (Eerste Kamer) is elected, though it's still proportional to the population of the provinces, unlike the two per state no matter how big or small).

But if you want your country to be democratic and representing the people, then the people's representation (the House) should hold most of the power, and the representation of the states (the Senate) should only really be involved in states-related issues. For example, not being able to create laws, but only deciding whether an issue is a federal issue or a states issue.

Merely making senators appointed by states isn't going to fix all of the problems with the senate.

Used to be that way until the 17th amendment.

You missed the nuance of GP. If senators represent states, they should not be given the power to create laws about people, but instead only about the interactions between states, leaving laws about people up to the House.

This would make the Senate more akin to the Supreme Court, though empowered to craft legislation instead of just rule on existing issues.

For example, nothing the Senate legislated would apply to D.C. or Puerto Rico

Wow, this is the first time I have ever seen anyone other than me express this opinion.

I understand some of the reasons changes were made, look forward to reading the this thread!

My quick thoughts on the matter is that since the changes, people have stopped paying as much attention to local(State politics) and focus more on Federal politics.

Edit to add information to support my thoughts: Look at the disapproval rating for congress, around 64%. But a large majority are incumbents. The feeling I get when talking to people is that the Senator from state X is the worst but my Senator from state Y is perfect/has flaws but brings value to my state.

I am completely incapable of understanding this argument.

The only interests states have are the interests of their constituents. States don't need representation, their people do - because states don't have interests, people who live in them have interests.

It should be noted that the original ideal, at the time the national framework was drafted, was for the Senate to represent the interests of oligarchs, couched in the language of it serving as a representative of the interests of the states. In that respect, it's still doing a rather swell job.

> The only interests states have are the interests of their constituents.

So then it shouldn't matter, right? The constituents elect the state legislatures who represent their interests, one of those interests is having US Senators who represent their interests, so their elected representatives appoint those US Senators. If your theory is correct then this should have the exact same result as directly elected Senators, because the states don't have interests separate from those of their constituents.

But it isn't, because elected officials do have their own interests. So then the question is, which process produces Senators that represent their constituents better?

US Senators have a personal conflict of interest in expanding the scope of the federal government in excess of what's in the interest of their constituents, because the federal government is subject to their control, and they personally want to control more stuff. State legislatures have the opposite conflict -- they want more state control, for the same reasons.

If you have directly elected Senators, there is no check on that conflict of interest and federal scope expands without bound. If you have Senators appointed by the state legislatures, these conflicts more or less cancel out. The US Senator still has the personal incentive to increase the scope of the federal government, but now they're directly accountable to the state legislatures with the opposite interest, and the result is closer to the true interest of the constituents.

Meanwhile the House is still directly elected, which is a countervailing check on the power of "oligarchs" or what have you, because a federal law has to pass both.

Thank you for explaining this point. I disagree with it, but I see your motivation for it.

> The US Senator still has the personal incentive to increase the scope of the federal government, but now they're directly accountable to the state legislatures with the opposite interest

State legislatures are only interested in a decreased scope of federal government when the federal government is not giving them what they want, much like how the States Rights party only cares about states rights when those rights concern themselves with what their base wants.

So, I don't think you're going to get that kind of check and balance. What you're probably going to get is similar to my original thesis - that it shouldn't matter...

Except that it does.

If you have the state legislatures appoint a truly terrible senator, there's no personal blowback against any of the members of the legislature - because responsibility is diffused. The office would become:

1. A perfect reward for connected party insiders, who, compared to the status quo, don't even have to win an election.

2. That would not be accountable to the public.

3. And where the people the public can hold accountable (The people making the appointments) are two steps removed from their behaviour.

Consider, for the sake of argument, supreme court appointments. Consider that a man who turned out, after the fact, to be an absolute monster was appointed. Then consider, what kind of blowback would the senators who made the appointment be subjected to?

They wouldn't be any. Just like how there's currently no blowback against Senate Republicans for the crazy train ride that Mitch McConnell takes them on. Everyone can shrug their shoulders, shirk responsibility, and blame the rest of the collective (preferably the guys holding safe seats) for the disastrous appointment.

Consider, also, all the bellyaching that people on this forum have about overreach by appointed bureaucrats running federal agencies? You'd have this exact problem, except it would be even more difficult to hold them to task, and they'd have even more collective power than executive bureaucrats currently do - where they couldn't even be overruled by the legislature - because they are the legislature.

That idea is frankly, terrifying.

> State legislatures are only interested in a decreased scope of federal government when the federal government is not giving them what they want.

Which is to say that they are interested in it at all other times, which is more than there is otherwise.

Meanwhile, what is it that you expect them to want from them? The federal government taxes their citizens (which they can do themselves) and then sends the money back with strings attached. What value to the state of the strings?

> If you have the state legislatures appoint a truly terrible senator, there's no personal blowback against any of the members of the legislature - because responsibility is diffused.

The vote should be public so there would be blowback against everyone voting in favor of it.

> Consider, for the sake of argument, supreme court appointments. Consider that a man who turned out, after the fact, to be an absolute monster was appointed. Then consider, how will the careers of the senators that approved the appointment would be impacted by such an appointment?

This is exactly the sort of thing that hasn't happened to the Supreme Court in practice.

> You've surely heard all the bellyaching that people on this forum have about overreach by appointed bureaucrats running federal agencies? You'd have this exact problem, except it would be even more difficult to hold them to task, and they'd have even more collective power, and you won't even have anyone to task for their behaviour.

They would be held in check by the House which would have to sign onto every law they want to pass unlike appointed bureaucrats in the executive (which by itself solves nearly the entire problem), and if they're really so bad then most state legislatures are elected every two years rather than every four for the POTUS so the backlash comes quicker, and the problems you're describing don't even sound that serious or different from ordinary politics:

> 1. A perfect reward for connected party inspiders.

Sounds a lot like getting to be the party's candidate in a safe district, and doesn't inherently imply anything good or bad about what kind of Senator they'll be.

> 2. That would not be accountable to the public

This is a feature. It gives a veto to a body that isn't directly subject to populist fervor.

> 3. And where the people the public can hold accountable are a step removed from that behaviour.

In other words they are still ultimately accountable to the public.

> Which is to say that they are interested in it at all other times, which is more than there is otherwise.

Politicians have agendas. Those agendas consist of things they want done. Nobody's agenda, (as we've seen from how the States Rights party actually behaves, when push comes to shove) actually consists of 'reduce federal power'. That's because 'reduce federal power' doesn't accomplish anything in particular. Nobody gets re-elected because they reduced federal power. People get re-elected for getting stuff done. 'Reduced federal power' does not actually tie into getting anything in particular done.

As such, it's occasionally a tool that you can use, for some particular goal, but is not an end in itself. (It may be an end in itself for you, but your viewpoint is not one that politicians do anything but pay lip service to, to get your vote.)

> The vote should be public so there would be blowback against everyone voting in favor of it.

Name one embarrassing senatorial appointment that resulted in serious blowback to the people voting for the appointment.

Just one.

You won't be able to - because political parties aren't ran by fools. They've made laundering unpopular blowback for group failures onto safe-district candidates into an art form.

> This is exactly the sort of thing that hasn't happened to the Supreme Court in practice.

In practice, it has happened to cabinet appointments. And again, in practice, nobody who votes for an appointment actually gets blamed for a disastrous one, for three reasons.

1. The appointee is their own person - the people voted for him can't predict the future, and aren't actually micromanaging his behaviour. When he does something awful, it's not directly their fault.

2. The appointee is everyone's responsibility, which is to say, he's no-one's responsibility.

3. Blowback laundering, see above. Safe-district candidates actively take credit for controversial, or unpopular decisions, to shield the rest of their party.

> They would be held in check by the House which would have to sign onto every law they want to pass unlike appointed bureaucrats in the executive (which by itself solves nearly the entire problem),

The House has just as much way to control the bureaucrats, if it chose to. By doing their job - legislating. If they are shirking this responsibility, considering that, perhaps, it may actually be happy with the job the bureaucrats are doing?

It is mind-boggling that you recognize that the power of appointed, unelected individuals is a problem, but think that the solution is to increase the number of, and power of appointees, and also giving them legislative power.

Note that the best contemporary example of a functioning federal democracy with state-appointed federal legislators is Germany. There, the state premiers and some members of cabinet are members of the Bundesrat, the upper house of federal parliament.

As an empirical matter, it certainly seems as if their interest is in increasing federal power, since that gives them more power against their own state legislature. If they want a bill passed, they can use their federal power to create an obligation on their state parliament to pass a bill.

Consequently, the very clear direction of power shift in Germany has been - much more so than in the English speaking federations - an increase in federal power. (Also, a more recent prohibition on state deficits even accelerated that trend. State governments became enthusiastic about trading a little power for some extra money.)

When, as in the US, state lines run through the middle of metropolitan areas, cities and even small towns, and generally serve more to divide than to unite, it is not at all obvious that an increase of federal power compared to state power is such a bad thing. I think it would be better to redraw the map and then for the states to have powers that make sense. But I think that is about as likely as a Democrat and a Republican to agree on the color of the sky on a clear day.

> As an empirical matter, it certainly seems as if their interest is in increasing federal power, since that gives them more power against their own state legislature. If they want a bill passed, they can use their federal power to create an obligation on their state parliament to pass a bill.

You already explained the reason this happens in Germany:

> the premier has an interest in transferring power from the state governments since their power as a member of the federal upper house is greater than their power as a member of the state lower house.

Solution: Don't put the same person in both houses.

> When, as in the US, state lines run through the middle of metropolitan areas, cities and even small towns, and generally serve more to divide than to unite, it is not at all obvious that an increase of federal power compared to state power is such a bad thing.

State lines that run through the middle of metropolitan areas are the best kind, because they give people the greatest choice. If you don't like your state government and voting hasn't gone your way you don't even have to move across the country to change jurisdictions, only across the street.

Moving things to the federal level does the opposite. Things haven't gone your way? Too bad, there's nowhere to run.

The Premier of a German state is also the head of majority-party in the state legistlature. Also, they are sitting members of the state legistlature.

That being the case, state prime ministers have a huge amount of power and influence, directly through mandates and indirectly through party politics. And usually, they want to to retain the maximum amount independence for their states.

And as far as federal legislation is concerned, one state prime minister is not enough to pass, or trigger, anything by himself. For state legislation, they don't have to pass through the federal goernment anyway, holding the parliamentary majority anyway (minority governments are extremely rare in Germany).

"Democracy" and "the will of the people" are abstractions, and pretty crude ones, at that.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't have democracy, but we should acknowledge that it is far from perfect. As Churchill said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."

Democracy is also not a scale-free process. Very different dynamics play out in a democracy the size of a city versus a state versus the size of a nation.

It's hard to explain briefly, but basically all of these separations of powers are designed to avoid some of the worst aspects of democracy. They happen to look less "fair" in an abstract sense, but it's more important to have some practical safeguards than abstract fairness.

A lot of our most heated political battles are playing out at the federal level (and have been for a long time), and I think that's a consequence of the 16th and 17th Amendments. If some of these battles were playing out in the states, I think our society would be a lot less polarized.

I think that was the inevitable consequence of terms for Senators. It is clear that a person appointed by a red governor cannot represent the blue governor who administers the purple state for several years starting six months later. State-appointed senators with fixed terms have little natural legitimacy; it is not a sustainable model.

If you want the senate to represent the states, you need the German system - there, the Bundesrat (Federal Council) has as its members the premier of the state (and, depending on the state's size, some number of ministers). Its members and balance can change whenever there is a state election (which are not tied, US style, to federal elections).

Now, while they will represent the interests of the state governments quite well, be aware of this - the premier has an interest in transferring power from the state governments since their power as a member of the federal upper house is greater than their power as a member of the state lower house. They can use their federal role to create an obligation for themselves as state ministers, and then tell state parliament "Oh, we have no choice; the federal government has said so. Please fall in line with this policy that I want and you do not want."

The paliamentary system is repugnant to the American sense of the separation of powers. But since American separation of powers prefers to give legislative power to the executive, it's less obvious that making governors members of the Senate is repugnant. This would multiply the problems above.

Perhaps having a recallable delegate who is effectively a member of the state cabinet without portfolio would be palatable; but still, such a delegate would be entirely at the mercy of the state governor (or it would work), and we then would still see the benefits to the state governor of creating legislative obligations that state congress still has to fulfil.

To me, it seems that the Australian senate does a good job of representing the people of each State. Since the interests of States can be said to be the interests of the people of each State (rather than the interests of the State governments) it therefore discharges its responsibilities adequately. The key here is in having many five or members per state elected at once using a proportional method like STV optimised for small electorate magnitudes. Since the majority of any state will be made up of a roughly equal number of blues and reds it encourages them to work together at the expense of the small number of extremists or against each other with centrists and sometimes fringe members. Constantly changing coalitions (per bill) mean negotiation skills become important. But how adaptable it is to a federation of 50 states - I don't know.

Article I, section 3: "The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof...".

> It is clear that a person appointed by a red governor cannot represent the blue governor who administers the purple state for several years starting six months later.

The purpose of the Senate isn't to represent the existing representatives in a state, it's to represent the interests of the state in the abstract. Having a red US Senator in a state with a blue Governor is no more a problem than having a red state legislature in a state with a blue Governor.

> But since American separation of powers prefers to give legislative power to the executive, it's less obvious that making governors members of the Senate is repugnant.

This is largely only true at the federal level and for a very specific reason. The federal government was not structured for the level of responsibility it has taken on as a result of the direct election of Senators removing the state veto on increasing federal scope.

In state governments you have an elected governor and legislature, but also elected school boards, treasurers, sheriffs etc. There are no elected positions in the Federal Department of Education, nor the Federal Reserve, nor the FBI. The constitution didn't contemplate that the federal government would grow to cover so many things, so they all fall under executive control. But the source of the problem isn't pushing too many things to the executive, it's pushing too many things to the federal government to begin with.

> The real mistake was to make Senators elected rather than appointed by the states as they originally were.

This sentence can be corrected by deleting every word after “Senators”.

The only case where elections aren't accurate for this is if the state government is non democratic. The state is just a bunch of people -- representation of the state is covered by how many representatives are sent per state. To my knowledge, the general population of the colonies and so on don't get representation in the Senate, only people that live in states

If you didn't have a fairly strong federal government, the US would become like the EU, basically unable to enact change in any even slightly controversial topic.

This was one of the original anti-federalist arguments that has somehow hundreds of years later become adopted by leftists in the United States.

I didn't know that. I live in the EU and frequently get upset because some country or other vetoes important change.

I'm pretty sure you missed the unwritten /s in the previous post.

Apparently not, OP followed up.

Though I'm not necessarily disagreeing, eliminating direct taxation is more complex than just giving oversight to states. If a state can say, "no, not giving you money unless we get it back", it becomes a lot harder for the country to function. Money from Connecticut helps pay for numerous programs in other states. At a high-level, we like to say that states would make the right decisions, but would they? Or would Connecticut say they'd rather have the money to sustain their state better? Of course, is the federal government making the right decisions?

I don't think the alternative is voluntary donations by states to the federal government vs direct taxation of individuals, but compulsory contributions from the states to the federal government.

The reason it would have a different outcome is because in a debate between 51 people, the chair doesn't have that much more power than the individuals. The federal government might be agree to set contributions according to fixed dollar values that the states can watch inflate down to a more palatable value, or they might agree to ignore certain sources of wealth in their calculations.

Discussions and disagreements will take on a very different flavor compared to the discussions and disagreements between a third of a billion players.

It is not apparent to me why this should result in an end to regulation of drugs as this subthread seems to imply it should. States can be just as interested in preventing drug use as the federal government - even more interested.

The drug regulation question isn't theoretical. There's currently a difference of opinion between more than half of the states, compared to the Federal government, on whether or not to consider cannabis a illicit substance with no legitimate use.

I don't know that an end to regulation of all drugs is in order, but if a majority of states (which make up the Federal government) believe cannabis has legitimate use, why then, is it still Federally illegal?

Is there actually a difference between asking politely for money from the states and "requiring" it?

When a state doesn't pay up, what's the union government going to do?

Think about it this way: collecting taxes from states was a two-party relationship. The states were compelled to pay in this transaction, but it's still two parties on opposite sides of the table, and their are other topics to negotiate later. If the federal government were to play an obvious game of taking money and then giving it back with conditions, then states would have exerted their power in other transactions. For instance, with senators who were chosen by the state legislature (the same body paying the taxes). Additionally, the state is a stronger entity to fight back against this kind of abuse than an individual citizen.

Now, let's change the picture to directly-elected senators and direct taxation. Now, the money is collected directly from the citizens first, and then the government's relationship with the state is entirely different. Now, the state and the federal government are cooperating, and the sucker is the one not in the room: the citizen whose money is being passed around. The state just becomes a node in a hierarchy, rather than a formidable agent with its own powers and responsibilities.

It's actually very similar to negotiations with a public employees' union. The government and the union are "negotiating", but they are really on the same side of the table. The sucker is the citizen who's paying for it all, but isn't even in the room.

> At a high-level, we like to say that states would make the right decisions, but would they?

What magic method does the Federal government have to only make the right decision? The Federal government is just as likely to make the wrong decision as a given State. Probably more so, if a big government makes a mistake it is harder to correct than when a small government makes the mistake. And the effects are more far-reaching.

The Federal Government just makes decisions slower, that is by design. Sort of a brake effect. Look at Prohibition for example, some states enacted laws. Eventually the movement gained national ground and the amendment was passed. It took 13 years for it to be repealed.

I would posit that America has less of a pot culture then it did a drinking culture. The history reads similar. First states took up the banner of morality. >In the West, the first state to include cannabis as a poison was California. The Poison Act was passed in 1907 and amended in 1909 and 1911, and in 1913 an amendatory act was made to make possession of "extracts, tinctures, or other narcotic preparations of hemp, or loco-weed, their preparations and compounds" a misdemeanor.[6] There is no evidence that the law was ever used or intended to restrict pharmaceutical cannabis; instead it was a legislative mistake, and in 1915 another revision placed cannabis under the same restriction as other poisons.[6] In 1914, one of the first cannabis drug raids in the nation occurred in the Mexican-American neighborhood of Sonoratown in Los Angeles, where police raided two "dream gardens" and confiscated a wagonload of cannabis.[19]

Other states followed with marijuana laws including: Wyoming (1915); Texas (1919); Iowa (1923); Nevada (1923); Oregon (1923); Washington (1923); Arkansas (1923); Nebraska (1927);[20] Louisiana (1927); and Colorado (1929).[21] -Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_history_of_marijuana_in_...

Now states are removing their laws and with an eventual push the Federal government will change their laws as well.

The interstate commerce clause made for a fine end run around the spirit of that bit in the end.

If we do ever manage to address the interstate commerce clause, we'll have to account for the fact that our day to day functioning has come to depend on a number of large federal regulatory bodies whose legitimacy is derived from it (ex FDA, FCC, etc).

> we'll have to account for the fact that our day to day functioning has come to depend on a number of large federal regulatory bodies whose legitimacy is derived from it (ex FDA, FCC, etc).

The simplest way to deal with that would be to have those bodies continue to exist and publish "suggested" rules, which all the states could then adopt wholesale if they don't want to be bothered to do anything different.

Or a state could do something different, if they wanted to, which is kind of the point.

That doesn't solve interagency problems. What do you do when someone is drugrunning on two sides of a border? Just run two completely independent investigations and hope that California agents aren't worried about Oklahoma agents getting the credit?

This is how the state health and labor departments work right now.

When the CDC recommends action for workplace safety in light of a strain E. Coli found in a crop grown in one state and sold in many, state health departments and state labor departments have full autonomy on how to handle the issue in their respective states.

I don’t really think that a lot of day to day functioning depends on FDA. FDA definitely has a lot to say about a lot of things, and, arguably, without it, some undesirable things would happen more often, but all in all, we would be mostly fine.

I don't have the time or energy to synthesize an exhaustive list of concerning examples on the spot. If the prospect of an under regulated food supply doesn't concern you I would strongly suggest reading "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair. (Or for a lighthearted example, see: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chemical-infused-watermelons-ex...)

Yeah, imagine having to negotiate the EULA of every single grocery item to check for “fitness for consumption” clauses, what a Libertarian dream would that be! Of course the Market will eventually average out the bad players, thanks to the compound effect of billions of Rational Choices... eventually we’ll also be dead as that John Maynard guy once said. Perhaps sooner rather than later in this scenario ;)

Funny how daring americans were flying planes for almost 20 years, no EULA needed, and planes didn't drop out of the skies at all.

If anything, the problem is that when there are no rules, some people (pilots) themselves were reckless and can endanger others. That is something to be solved by criminal courts, though.

There are few rational choices given the lack of current transparency and future information that hasn't happened yet. There is no Market without immediate consequences. Dole Foods often has salad recalls due to ppl getting sick with e coli... Are they really a bad actor? Or just a poor one that can do better? Do you have time to make your own rating of which company, manufacturing plant, farm it was supplied from? What's a credible dinner alternative given your context and available time and guests? A bad actor can last a long time.

Within reason right? I'm hoping that 'the right to consume anything they want for any reason' wouldn't include those things that cause sudden violent behavior and inability to feel fear and pain.

I forget which particular drug does this, but a search brought me to meth and I found this article which says people feel 'invincible' and 'paranoid' and can't be stopped with non-lethal means.

https://www.cpr.org/2020/02/05/suspects-on-meth-are-hard-to-...

Pretty sure you are thinking of PCP, which was advertised as causing these behaviors in the 70s and 80s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phencyclidine

PCP, dippers(cigarettes dipped in PCP liquid solution), loveboat (powdered PCP sprinkled on a weed blunt) is still a huge issue in urban US city's.

The effects vary per individual but the higher the dosage the more psychoactive effects are felt. I've seen a naked guy take on 8 DC cops....yes 8 police officers, and after being tased 3 times the guy finally went down.(first two attempts didn't take) But he was tossing grown 200-300lbs adult men like they were paper weights. The amount of force it took those officers to over come this one person on PCP was insane. Definitely not something you want to run into.

Let's start by eliminating federal drug laws, and leave it up to the states whether they want to pass laws against it.

Then, have a hard conversation about what freedom means, and whether restrictions on it really lead to better outcomes. Usually not.

You need to have federal drug laws because the one thing the federal government is supposed to do is manage the borders and relationships with other countries. If you don't have federal drug laws then bringing drugs across the border stops being a crime and we could end up with the fiasco of drug lords that Mexico has where journalists get beheaded for even reporting on it.

Mexico only has drug lords because US drug laws fuel their black market.

If you are skeptical of this, there are academic papers on the topic. You could also examine the history books regarding the rise of organized crime there. (For that matter, the rise of organized crime in the US was largely fueled by the prohibition of alcohol as far as I understand it.)

I am confused about what you mean. First, the federal government clearly has authority over international commerce. Second, the price of drugs in legal markets would be much lower, which would likely reduce revenue for criminal gangs in foreign lands. Third, the U.S.-Mexico border is long and it's hard to enforce smuggling laws, anyway. And fourth, Americans are quite capable of producing drugs on their own, and even more so if they were legal.

Cigarette smuggling is a thing because regulated cigarettes are more expensive than unregulated cigarettes. Why would that be any different for other drugs?

The revenue of bootleggers is sharply down since the 21st Amendment, because many people still choose to buy legal alcohol rather than moonshine.

You must be thinking of the devil weed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhQlcMHhF3w

Fortunately there is no drug that has any such innate effect. Care has to be taken when extrapolating meaning from crime statistics, especially when it comes to police. They lie and rely on bad science, like the idea of excited delirium: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excited_delirium

As a long time on-and-off meth addict and dealer, I'll tell you one thing:

Helluva drug!

Not convinced I'd want society to have unrestricted access to that one.

Meth is used to tread ADHD under the trade name Desoxyn. Alternatives include other amphetamines which exhibit substantially similar effects.

A significant portion of the population consumes amphetamines on a daily basis and manages not to go on crime sprees. Perhaps it isn't the drugs which are the problem?

Dosage is a major factor. Smoking meth is way different from eating Desoxyn. Even lots of Desoxyn.

Edit: Dosage and route both matter a lot.

Agreed regarding route - I didn't mean to imply that all patterns of use were equivalent. I was trying to illustrate that it isn't some bogeyman that will swallow you whole. The drug alone simply cannot explain the issues that are often attributed to it.

My point here is that many drugs have been demonized to a wholly unscientific degree and I often witness otherwise well educated and thoughtful people zealously perpetuating such myths without stopping to really think them through. IMO blaming bad behavior and even addiction on drugs is an easy out which avoids addressing the much more complicated underlying issues. Overdoses, abuse, addiction, and crime seem to me to be largely to blame on other systemic societal problems. As always, correlation does not imply causality.

Yes, I entirely agree about drugs being demonized. And I believe that people get to choose what drugs to use, and how to use them. But that also means that they're responsible for consequences.

Indeed, some drugs are so demonized that many who use them do get swallowed whole. Because it's what they expect, and part of the motivation.

You're right to some extend, or even reinforcing my point:

A significant portion of the population is on restricted / controlled / monitored dosage / supply.

Compare my point about unrestricted access.

And yet that significant portion of the population somehow manages not to descend into a life of lawlessness even though meth is incredibly easy to come by almost anywhere in the country.

I'm pointing out that it's absurd to attribute problematic behaviors to the mere consumption of drugs. We severely restrict freedoms in the name of a battle against symptoms rather than address underlying causes. Worse is that our waging of the battle itself is a vicious cycle, serving only to worsen the very same symptoms that it supposedly seeks to address.

It's been the standard military "go pill" for several decades. Maybe now superseded by modafinil. Modafinil is by no means as dramatic, but it's still great fun, and far easier on your teeth ;)

Edit: Actually, the progression in the US military was amphetamine to dextroamphetamine, and now also modafinil.

As someone who has had a modafinil prescription since 2002, you're greatly overselling it. Hardly that fun. It's positively mild in comparison to meth or pretty much all other recreational drugs. Modafinil and recreational drugs aren't even in the same boat.

Yeah, I am. But maybe if one took enough modafinil?

Don't try this at home without a blood pressure monitor.

It's doesn't get more fun with higher dosages. You're just going to end up more on edge. Modafinil works by blocking the neurotransmitter that promotes sleepiness. Most stimulants work by causing your brain to dump tons of the neurotransmitters that promote alertfulness. Different mechanisms.

Thanks, I didn't realize that.

Higher doses do further reduce the need for sleep, however. And while they don't put me on edge, they do increase the risk of saying and doing risky things. But maybe that's because I'm bipolar.

Are you sure? Modafinil isn't much fun. I mean, it's fun the same way antidepressants are if you're depressed, but it's the opposite of habit-forming and if you mix with alcohol or caffeine you only get the bad parts.

Huh? I always mix with caffeine, and have no problems. Also, it is "habit-forming". If I increase the dose to stay alert longer, and then taper down too abruptly, I get dazed. However, I suspect that you're right about alcohol. But that doesn't matter to me, because I've never been much into it. And THC is just fine with modafinil :)

do you want to ban alcohol ?

Seems like you can just require a license or prescription that can be taken away

I don't understand how we don't already have this, in the form of Roe v Wade. That decision revolves around the idea that a medical treatment is a private matter between a woman and her doctor. And if that's the case, I don't understand how the government can interfere with a doctor advising a patient to use, say, marijuana, or any given drug.

It's never made sense to my how the War on Drugs isn't unconstitutional. And your point about Roe v Wade is a good one. Indeed, Roe v Wade is fundamentally about the right to choose what to do with ones body.

We’ve really reached quite the low point if mind altering substances and suicide are considered the way to improve things...

Would you rather be on life support, incoherent, for years, because of the lack of a right to choose... Or be able to choose what quality of life below which you prefer to pass on and not endure constant indignity?

That seems to be a different problem from legalizing personal use of all drugs. Assisted suicide is a thing in countries with much stricter drug policies than "anything goes".

There's a world of difference between dying because your body can't sustain itself and euthanasia. Please don't unify the two.

The parent wasn’t advocating for the use of drugs, they were saying we shouldn’t lock people up for doing drugs. Do you think we should lock up drug addicts?

My body, my choice. It's not about whether or not the substances are mind altering, or whether or not I am suicidal for a legitimate reason (unbearable pain, lack of quality of existence).

What needs to be done is to de criminalize these things. One of the primary causes of the expansion of police power has been the "War on Drugs".

"War on Nouns" is a stupid way to run a society. Using law enforcement as your first line intervention for mental health, substance use and other such problems is a stupid way to use your resources to provide for the common welfare.

> The only way to stop our neverending war on drugs is a Constitutional amendment that guarantees every American the right to consume anything they want for any reason.

I disagree; whilst decriminalization is the way forward for the harmless / "soft" drugs, the hard drugs (e.g. heroin) are dangerous and destroy people and should not be freely accessible to anyone, anywhere.

What some countries do instead is provide heroin (or methadone) to people but only in specific locations, where they're provided with a safe and clean environment and equipment to do their thing, and where they can get help with their addiction if they want.

What I'm saying is that a lot of drugs are genuinely dangerous and should not become generally available.

> I disagree; whilst decriminalization is the way forward for the harmless / "soft" drugs,

What harmless drugs? No drugs, not even the ones that are currently legal (well, especially not some of them, really) are harmless. Prohibition isn't a bad idea because the prohibited substances are harmless, but because prohibition isn't an efficient mechanism of mitigating the harms (in fact, it aggravates them.)

Hahahahahahaha!

"The constitutional right for every American to eat anything they want for any reason"

Come on that's funny because of, you know, that other epidemic that'll be waiting if you come out of this one. The obesity one.

If methamphetamine is widely available, obesity wouldn't be an issue.

What a coincidence - on 19th September 2020 there will two referenda in New Zealand:

- 2020 New Zealand cannabis referendum [1]

- 2020 New Zealand euthanasia referendum [2]

- [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_New_Zealand_cannabis_refe...

- [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_New_Zealand_euthanasia_re...

If the federal government merely abided by the constitution and ended all of its activity in relation to the use and trade of drugs, that would go a long way in reducing the intensity of the War on Drugs and giving states space to legalize it.

Each state can decide its own approach, which I think is the appropriate principle for governance.

That will also require removing seat belt and motorcycle helmet laws and probably many others meant to protect ourselves. The problem is few decisions ever affect only the one making the decision when families and society are involved.

> the right to consume anything they want for any reason

How about human flesh? Nuclear waste? Bombs? Bags of dangerous quantities of hard drugs [a la drug mule]? Endangered species?

Just like with free speech, "do anything you want for any reason" has the potential for abuse (both by a person to themselves and by other persons to other entities), and the majority of society is not comfortable with that. Sometimes we can be indoctrinated into tacitly accepting it after intense special interest lobbying, such as with handguns and cars. But there's probably no "greater good" aspect of being able to eat literally anything.

Nearly everything you've said involves directly harming another person, for which we already have agreed upon laws forbiding. Endangered species may not harm others, but we've agreed as a people that we care about the lives of other species at least enough to stop killing them before we've made them extinct.

In terms of being a drug mule, if drugs were decriminalized, drug mules wouldn't exist, and most drug cartel activity wouldn't either.

People are advocating to decriminalize and allow people to harm themselves if they want, because it's their body and their choice. It's sad that people want to harm themselves, but ultimately, we do a poor job of stopping people, and by attempting to stop them, we've done considerable harm to our society (war on drugs, propping up cartels, etc.)

> Nearly everything you've said involves directly harming another person, for which we already have agreed upon laws forbiding

Which would also eliminate euthanasia as an option. If the law currently forbids euthanasia, then an "eat anything you want" law would still be invalidated when it's used for euthanasia, just like it would be invalidated for the other examples.

> if drugs were decriminalized, drug mules wouldn't exist

Cigarettes are not inherently criminalized, yet illegally selling cigarettes in bulk across state lines continues to be a problem. Illegal gun running also exists here, even for guns that aren't outlawed in any state. If there are cigarette mules and gun mules, there will probably be drug mules.

do you seriously think it makes any sense to make laws that forbid eating nuclear waste or bombs? Thats ridiculous.

What do you think about the right to "Cognitive Liberty?" Freedom of thought, specifically made legal.

Elderly Americans already have Medicare. This scenario doesn’t seem likely.

How is universal healthcare for older people somehow relevant to whether or not they are entitled to consume substances or decide that they have reached a point where they no longer wish to live?

I was responding to this:

> In the next several decades there will be un unprecedented number of elderly Americans living below the poverty line with no pension and medical issues they can't afford to fix

Amen to that

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