From: Randall Parker 


Judy Folkenberg wrote:
> Randall...you keep missing the point.  Of course there's a difference between
those who recreate with
> drugs and those who take them for pain.  I don't disagree with you.  But Rush
did NOT make that
> difference.  That's the point.

My impression of him is that he says a lot of simplified things but that if
you actually sat down to grill him on at length he'd offer a more nuanced
view on any given subject.

> He lumped all drug abusers together and said they should be thrown in jail.
You and I can draw a
> distinction between those who abuse drugs for fun and those who abuse them
for pain.  Simple
> question:  Why couldn't Rush?  He did not draw the distinction which makes
him a heck of hypocrite.

Why am I suspicious that some liberal media types have gone trolling thru
the hundreds or thousands of hours of all of everything Rush has said and
found the most damaging excerpts on his comments on drugs while ignoring
other situations where he's stated a more nuanced view? Well, because I
just went searching and found him taking all sorts of interesting positions
on drugs:

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n186.a08.html
Excerpts:
** RUSH: The interdiction efforts ( tape ends few seconds loss ) ( don't
work.  They basically address the ) demand side.  That being educate those
who want it and get them not to want it and when nobody wants it then you
won't have to worry about interdiction.  So what your saying is...  and
that hasn't worked by the way.  In the first place interdiction doesn't
work and the effort to convince people not to do it really doesn't work in
fact with young people it may even entice them more.  Uh are you saying
that the same practices are being used on cigarette smoking and that that
will fail as well?

    ........


* RUSH: OK let me ask you a question because this came up yesterday and
I gave an answer that many would call a flippant answer.  I will give you
the same answer you tell me if it's flippant.

** Based on the reality of how we're going after cigarette smokers, The
thing that we cannot do in the drug fight right now is regulate because
it's illegal.  Drugs are against the law and so the manufacturers are
illegal.  They're not even on shore they're down there in Columbia and the
Calli Cartel and they're working to poison the brains and minds of the
future of America.  And so what we do is to try to keep those drugs from
getting in.  And I agree with you that it's a half baked effort.

** But what are we doing with cigarettes.  Well we are punishing the
manufacturers We're suing them left and right we're going to cause them to
settle out of court for $368 billion.  We're gonna let them keep making
them but then we're going to have the price go way way up so that we
ostensibly say by virtue of that we don't want anybody to smoke cigarettes
anymore and we're going to try to price it out of most peoples existence
but we're going to raise those prices and most of that money will be taxes
and we're going to use that money for health care programs for our kids and
so forth.

*** It seems to me that what is missing in the drug fight is
legalization.  If we want to go after drugs with the same fervor and
intensity with which we go after cigarettes let's legalize drugs. Legalize
the manufacture of drugs.  Licence the Calli Cartel make them tax payers
and then sue them.  Sue them left and right and then get control of the
price and generate tax revenue from it.  Raise the price sky high and fund
all sorts of other wonderful social programs.

**** Because it seems to me, flippant as though it may sound to you,
that what gives us the power to do what we're doing, what gives the
government the _power_ to do what it is doing, state and federal, in
cigarettes is that it's a legal substance regulated by uh the federal
government.  And they don't have any such power and control over drugs
because it's illegal.

**** So let's legalize them and then go after them the same way.



>>>>I don't care whether you listen to Rush.
>
>
> You "accused' me of being miffed because of where he stood on the political
spectrum. implying that I
> listened to him  And I don't care where he stands.

We all know he is somewhere on the right side of things and not on the
libertarian area of the right. Surely if we went down a list of ten
political topics with fairly simple answers we'd both probably he right on
9 out of 10 guesses on where we think he stands.

Here we have you admitting that you already do think you know enough about
him to have a low opinion of him (the "But of couse" [sic] is
you):

 >>
 >
 >>>>> >>> I would put it quite differently. The
Clintons never sank to
the level
 >
 >> that Limbaugh has always occupied.


But of couse.

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