The_Dunedan

Oh bloody hell, I'm talking root issues here. The issue is not that uncompliant bar-owners get shot, it is that, on a fundamental level, every action of the State is backed up by the express threat of lethal violence. Whatever it is, however it occurs, it is reinforced by the simple fact that the State can summon every variety of destruction from 9mm sidearms on up the scale to, on a State-to-State level, the potential sterilisation of the surface area of the planet Earth. [Edited to add; this is why I personally believe that the State should only be involved in those activities which justly and precisely demand this type of capability: warfighting, if needed the defensive sealing of borders, and the pursuit of those who aggress against the persons, posessions, or rights of others.] Individuals, on the other hand, have a -very- difficult time summoning either enough voluntary followers or conscripts to even approach the destructive power of the State. Even the Aum Shinrikyo, the only terrorist organisation known to have deployed a Weapon of Mass Destruction, only managed to kill fewer than twenty people. Five thousand more were sickened, but such would have been considered a relatively light gas-attack casualty figure among green troops in WWI. Bar owners almost never get shot by the cops, but the simple fact is that in every interaction with the State one is coming face-to-face with naked lethal force backing up any number of invasive, intrusive, non-sensical and frequently contradictory demands. Individual assholes can act this way too, but random individuals don't have the luxury of being investigated by their friends* for acts which nobody involved believes were crimes against people who, let's face it, nobody likes anyway. "24" was popular for a reason, and if made during the Clinton (or maybe yet Obama) years, Jack Bauer would have been torturing mid-western militiamen instead of al-Qaida sleeper agents. The mere existence of such is equally frightening in any case.

On the contrary, IMO you have it backwards. In our system, it is the Federal Gov't which is the subject of carefully enumerated and constrained rights, not the people. IMO the 9th and 10th Amendment both establish the existence of Rights to be recognised in the future, and put those Rights correctly in the hands of the States (the least level of remove I consider tolerable for the development of free people) or the People. Specifically speaking, the BoR is a list of ways in which individuals are to be left alone. Their religion, speech, associations, lawful commerce, homes, privacy, persons, papers, posessions, means of discrete self-defense and rights of acting in their own interest at trial: these things were meant IMO to be sacrosanct and immovable except by significant majorities. As you said and as I have always said, amend the Constitution of you want to try these kinds of bans; that's what it took to take a crack at alcohol, and look what a mess that was. Lotsa dead bodies, lotsa rich crooks, and loads of people who had never previously been drinkers suddenly turning up blind/crippled/crazy from every variety of bad booze imaginable. Skirting this in the War On Some Drugs has been an even bigger disaster. What's your new plan, skirt the Constitution again and use all manner of further intrusion to drive the use of tobacco, a chemical more addictive that Heroin, underground? After -everything- Prohibition and the WOSD showed us?

If the definition of insanity truly -is- doing the same thing repeatedly while expecting different results, this sort of socio-chemical engineering has got to be the looniest idea since Lysenko was popular.

But as you say, is it not violence which one finds at the bottom of that long, deep, dark, ridiculously bumpy well? And the above has yet to establish that the above intrusion of the State into the personal conduct of consenting parties has any rational justification beyond "do what we say or we will destroy you."

If you don't mind, imagine an inverse of some of the things which have been suggested. Suppose a pub or sports-bar or pizza-joint or steakhouse opened up which featured a prominent sign on the door, and a reminder in the menu, that smoking, the open carry of sidearms, openly affectionate gay couples, and dogs were allowed. Suppose further that, before signing on, prospective employees read and signed a contract stating that they understood they would be working around such and expected to conduct themselves as professionals in all such regards. How would such a place sit with you? I and (I think) many of my friends and family would dearly love to patronise such an establishment; would you care to join us?