Posted on by Nathan Riley

Why We Need Freedom Democrats

A big issue in the presidential election is abortion. Democrats, quite correctly, want to keep the government from interfering with the patient. It’s up to the woman to reach the decision with her doctor. Should she choose, she can invite other persons to participate.

In this country, by custom and law, the mother must raise the child, and it is only fair that she also has the responsibility to weigh the pros and cons of motherhood.

This is a radical principle. It makes the individual consult a doctor before reaching a final decision. Before making that decision, the woman has sex, and we think it common sense that this decision doesn’t require a visit with the doctor. We don’t have to justify this privacy principle.

The problem is the Democratic Party doesn’t go far enough, and Democrats who believe in freedom need to stick together and persuade other Democrats that freedom works. If a guy or a gal says, “You want to fuck? That will cost you.” This contract should be private and legal. If you’re making love to your hand, it is only your decision about what pictures to watch. Don’t let false sympathy for the performers in porn allow you to bring government regulation into the pictures that get you hot when you masturbate.

Condoms prevent the spread of venereal disease, but history has shown that many men and women don’t use them; they are willing to take their chances about catching venereal disease. 20th century medicine stopped syphilis from being a lifetime ailment. Cures are available for other V.D.’s. However well intended, a requirement that sex workers use condoms is false sympathy because in truth going bareback almost never results in V.D. This is not the recommended health message, but it is factually accurate.

We can’t get rid of government, and we shouldn’t. Properly done, government does good things. In the case of condoms, a performer must have the right to say, “I want a raincoat.”  The maker of the porn must say, “Sure thing, no problem.” Once again, we are dealing with questions of freedom, privacy, and the right to choose. The X-rated industry is huge and poorly measured; $10 billion is a common guess for the total spending in a year.

These jobs don’t require a college diploma, a drug test, or a check of your police record. From this perspective, they are some of the most desirable jobs. Taking off your clothes and doing sex that a director selects is work that most people will not do. That is one of the undesirable parts of this job.

Freedom Democrats support porn and worry that diehard opponents of dirty pictures will be out to get porn. They will be endlessly creative in their efforts to make us suspicious and hostile toward pictures that the Romans put on their walls for decoration. Not everybody likes porn, but enough people do that they should be supporters.

Prostitution allows fat, old men to have sex with fine looking people. There is something perverse in saying, “This is wrong.” Shouldn’t older men, even widowers, be allowed to enjoy this pleasure? In a free society, the answer would be obvious. It seems reasonable to concede that turning this most intimate of acts into a business should provoke societal concern.

But it is difficult for sex workers to get good advice about separating their work from their love life. A sex worker or a john is going down a rocky road if he or she thinks that love is developing. A sex worker who had a hard life growing up can easily believe that life would be much easier if this person made him or her a partner. The benefit that a sex worker gains from going into another person’s fine home can include tidbits of knowledge. In fact it is fair to say the more willing the john is to talk, the greater the benefit from the visit.  The relationship doesn’t have to be full-time, and indeed it is more than likely that the sex worker and the john would be unhappy living together.

The right to choose should be guarded zealously in a free society. On this issue, the Democrats are likely to be on the side of the angels.  But when we move to sex work, porn, and drug use and apply similar principles, the Democrats need convincing.

This is the principal justification for creating the Freedom Democrats; they must convince other Democrats to respect private choice and freedom.

Posted on by Nathan Riley · 1 Comment

Strategy

Abraham Lincoln, at 33 and on his way to becoming a leader of the Whig Party in Illinois offered this caution to a local temperance society about helping people give up drink. His advice was simple: offer friendship. If you don’t do this but choose “to dictate to his judgment… or to mark him as one to be shunned and despised, he will retreat within himself, close all the avenues to his head and his heart; and though your cause be naked truth itself…you shall be no more be able to pierce him, than to penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise.” Be gentle, caring, and friendly was Lincoln’s advice.

Freedom Democrats are trying to start a movement by cultivating friendship. The key organizing tool is weekly parties. In my opinion, it should be an opportunity for sex workers, persons who are not highly educated, and those who want to reform government to dance, talk, and become friends.

United in their belief that freedom includes the right to take the currently illegal drugs, trade sex for money, watch and make porn, these people can unite in a common cause. One main hope is that these parties can bring the college professor together with the high school dropout. To be a success, black, brown, and white people must be welcomed and have fun.

The objective is to become players in the Democratic Party, and from this base, to have an impact on government.

Everybody goes to parties and has good times. The key to success is that everybody feels welcome at these weekly events. No special skills are required to throw a party, but since Freedom Democrats are political, the hosts should establish ties with lawyers. It can be expected that while we are enjoying ourselves other people will badmouth us and some will call the cops.

In this way, from the very beginning, the host will establish ties with people knowledgeable about the law. A major objective of Freedom Democrats is to get activists and people with little interest in politics to become acquainted. In this way, Freedom Democrats can grow until they have an impact.

People who party should become friends with coat-and-tie people.

For years, congress has talked endlessly about making marijuana legal, but in the end fear of change has limited progress to baby steps. The same hesitation slows progress among state and local officials. Freedom Democrats are numerous, and the strategy is to create unity so that politicians take notice.

By throwing parties we develop local bases in communities all over the state.

In my opinion, Freedom Democrats should push for new attitudes. Drug users should be able to go to their doctors without interference from government agencies like the DEA. Some people want to give up their habit; others want to be left alone. It is a private matter between the doctor and the drug user. Drug users, like everyone else, should get substances prepared by doctors and scientists that minimize side-effects.

Currently, drug users must buy their drugs from underground suppliers without any of the safeguards that a person has when they take a prescription to a drugstore. Overdose deaths rocketed higher after politicians made the disastrous mistake of telling Oxycontin users that they could no longer get pharmaceutical drugs. It made no more sense than telling overweight people they can no longer buy food. The chance of an Oxycontin user overdosing is limited, while illegal drugs are killing thousands every month. The Oxycontin users should have had the right to go to their doctor and develop a course of treatment. It is obnoxious and stupid for government to simply tell people, “Stop,” denounce the drug, and then expect people to give it up. Some do, but many don’t and buy their drugs from dealers. Government, in its stupidity, created a large market for criminals. Some Freedom Democrats can make it clear that this stupid policy subsidized criminals.

In recent months, wars in Palestine and Ukraine have added to the list of armed conflicts that are a constant feature of this century. Since the German philosopher Immanuel Kant and the United States’ Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delanor Roosevelt have recognized that the best way to hinder war is to start a world government that controls national states.

For this reason, I proposed that the United Nations become such a world government. It is a change that is familiar to American history. The Confederation of 13 colonies that beat the British couldn’t last. The Confederacy was too weak to collect taxes, make it easy to do business between states. Thus, in 1787, after the peace treaty was signed with Great Britain, a group of patriots drafted the Constitution, and the Confederation became history.

I propose that similar agreements be drafted that would control Israel, Russia, China, the United States, and all the other countries in the world. If a dispute develops, these nations would hire lawyers, not troops. I have no idea if this proposal would prove popular in the United States or with Freedom Democrats, but it is a major reason why I want the Freedom Democrats to get organized.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

FDR’s Four Freedoms

It’s June and time to step back and ask what are the Freedom Democrats trying to do? The plan is that Freedom Democrats throw weekly parties to give people the opportunity to meet, become friends, and help people confront the difficulties of life. By throwing a party it doesn’t matter what people believe, just that they like to have a good time together.

This is what I propose to get the Freedom Democrats started.

  1. End illegal drug hysteria. Some people do drugs that are currently banned. It shouldn’t surprise or shock us. Drug users aren’t criminals, any more than gay men are child molesters or blacks are robbers. Drug users include Miles Davis and Billie Holiday, two users whose genius have brought beauty and goodness to the world. Other drug users are bankers, plumbers and schoolteachers whose jobs are endangered if their private habits become public. Many are unhappy and use drugs to ease depression. They all should have the right to medical care without supervision by the Drug Enforcement Agency or the criminal justice system.  A drug user should have the same access to doctors as everyone else. If that includes prescriptions for opium-based medications that is a private decision between the doctor and the patient. There should be no need for drug users to buy drugs in the illegal market.
  2. Society, which currently forces people to buy drugs illegally, should provide 24hr safer use sites allowing users to take their drugs within the sight of people who know how to stop accidental overdoses. Safe drug facilities are in place all over the world and recognize that people have always used drugs and that their lives should be protected is a fundamental belief of the Freedom Democrats.
  3. Freedom Democrats want its members to demand world peace by turning the United Nations into a world government, compelling nations to obey international laws.
  4. Franklin Delano Roosevelt rallied public support against the dictator in World War II by calling for world government. His fourth freedom—freedom from fear—called for “a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor—anywhere in the world.” His other freedoms—freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and freedom from want—added up to a program that Roosevelt believed would receive world-wide support. This program became a foundation for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly.
  5. Undoubtedly, the U.N. as world government should give equal importance to the dangers from climate change. That is one new task that wasn’t on the agenda in 1941. Supporting the rights of women and the LGBTQ+ community are equally important and deserve the support of world government.

Developing the foundations of international human rights law was a major task of the U.N. in its early days in 1946 and 1947. The preamble to the universal declaration of human rights includes FDR’s Four Freedoms.

The world is not governed by human rights laws. War in Ukraine and Palestine are particularly egregious examples of violations of basic human right to be free of fear. Undoubtedly women in Iran and a sizable part of the population in Afghanistan have seen their human rights stymied.

Prisoners, drug users, and homeless persons in the United States have valid claims that their rights are violated.

The idea behind the Freedom Democrats is that supporting the rights of sex workers, porn watchers, and drug users would prove popular. The people who party become a new group advancing U.S. democracy, just as gays and lesbians did.

People who didn’t do well in school and idealists who want to change the world would find common ground by joining the Freedom Democrats. So far, this idea is a tiny infant. That is where we stand in June 2024.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Fentanyl Doesn’t Kill, Bad Laws Do

Fentanyl keeps cropping up on the edge of the presidential election campaigns. Some Republicans claim Biden’s permissiveness has flooded the nation by allowing immigrants to bring this deadly drug across our borders.

This is nonsense peppered with half-truths. Each year over a hundred thousand drug users die an accidental death from a drug overdose. A major cause of these fatal events is tied to fentanyl. One reason people keep using it is that they don’t drop dead after getting high. This is always true. The deadly drugs that newscasters and politicians use to justify authoritarian laws kill some people while others survive.

The law and law enforcement give users a small choice of drugs. Then, in an extraordinarily vicious act of social ostracism, the drug users get damned for using the drugs. They are dangerous because they are potent, in other words, a little bit goes a long way. When trying to avoid the cops, a drug that gets many people high but is easily hidden becomes advantageous. This is the exact opposite of what doctors and public health officials would want from a drug.  The notion that illegal immigrants supply U.S. drug users would be silly if people weren’t dying. There are thousands and thousands of people who don’t want to get high from alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine and therefore are pushed into the illegal market. Americans were using opium during our revolution. And guess what? They are still using it.

Fentanyl is an extremely potent form of opium that is manufactured, whereas opium and heroin are plant based. As the newspapers have reported, the fentanyl epidemic started when the United States cut off legal supplies of oxycontin.

Drug companies and pharmacies, responding to new laws, vastly reduced the supply of this relatively safe pharmaceutical painkiller. These companies are law abiding, and when the law restricts supply they comply. Their business is legal, and they want to keep it that way.

It will come as no surprise to students of U.S. drug enforcement that no provision was made for the thousands who made oxy part of their lives. Some bit the bullet, obeyed the law, and stopped using. Others, as always happens, went to the illegal market. Evading the law makes potent drugs like fentanyl a good idea.

The notion that illegal immigrants victimized innocent Americans by supplying them with fentanyl is absurd. Drug users were looking for an alternative to oxy. Fentanyl could be purchased by mail from China. Drug syndicates in Latin America avoiding U.S. law enforcement by smuggling fentanyl into the United States. Immigrants crossing the border are no significant suppliers.

Congress and state legislators could have simply accepted the fact that some users didn’t feel able to give up oxy. It would take longer but would put fewer people in jail and drastically reduce the number of overdose deaths if the law showed some patience and worked with users, even those who kept using oxy.

It requires no special act of genius. This is what we do with people who want to give up drinking or become dangerous when they drink. The problems are similar. Drunk driving laws give law enforcement an entry point without authorizing the harsh and intrusive drug laws.

Drinking is controlled. Younger people have developed the habit of drinking water. At parties, they and their friends who do drink can hang out together without a problem. The same thing can happen with drugs that we label dangerous. What makes them dangerous is the bad laws governing their use. The control is exercised voluntarily, which is the way it should be in a democracy that is governed by the consent of the governed.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Diversity

Diversity is more than a left-wing buzz word meaning respect everyone, no matter how different they are from your family and friends.

Diversity is no panacea: political differences, war and peace, and horrible crimes will spark retaliation.  Being nice has its limits.

Diversity has its serious side; ignoring the need for it has caused gut-wrenching catastrophes. World War II and Hitler’s death camps attempted to banish diversity from Germany with genocide. American soldiers liberating concentration camps were stunned by the ovens mass producing thousands of executions and the ghastly sight of prisoners reduced to skin and bone because their keepers starved them. The ghastly pictures were convincing evidence that World War II was a battle against evil.

Hitler was exterminating Jews, communists, homosexuals and others on his list of undesirables. It was an extensive list including Gypsies and Jehovah’s Witnesses. A catch-all group was accused of “asocial” or socially deviant behavior. There was no judicial review.

This prodigious campaign in Germany to produce political and racial purity abandoned diversity and substituted hate. After the war, for example, it was no longer possible to think that antisemitism was harmless. Diversity demanded that ethical people recognize that we are all different but as humans we have common frailties and strength. This view was embodied in the United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights. Rights no longer had a nationality; every human being should be protected.

If Hitler’s deadly campaign to create uniformity was crushed by the Allied victory in 1945, it has an idealistic cousin that is harder to recognize. The international principle of self-determination often promoted homogeneity rather than diversity. Dressed up in democratic principles, many thoughtful people tried to create new nations with minimal diversity, especially in the years following World War I. All too often, national boundaries were determined by a common language, even if neighboring peoples had spoken different languages for centuries. German speakers and Slavic speakers had lived cheek-to-jowl. Each preserved their separate identity but satisfied the pragmatic justification for diversity by living and working peaceably.

When Woodrow Wilson and the Treaty of Versailles insisted that these language groups form separate nations, they were creating problems. Differences that should have been resolved peacefully were manipulated to create political differences. Manufactured conflicts allowed Germany before World War II to justify annexing territory because people spoke German.

Diversity is the way people learn to live with each other and avoid hate and terror. It is part of the larger problem of protecting minority rights from majority tyranny.

Freedom Democrats seek to protect people who party, including sex workers and drug users. Groups that face government hostility especially from the criminal law and its agents. They are trying to banish behaviors that have existed for centuries. It is not complicated. These groups should live with others in the U.S. on a peaceful basis. A person who earns his/her living by charging for sexual favors can be just as good a neighbor as a person who leads a more conventional life.

Freedom Democrats believe a person has the right to chose how they get high. A morning pick-me-up from a cup of coffee is a close cousin to a person who uses the currently illegal drugs to get high. Diversity is advanced when people who use substances like opiates and amphetamines receive the same medical care as everyone else. Most significantly, working with healthcare professionals reduces the chance of overdose deaths and related infections.

Currently the law gives the formulations of these medications to criminals. The users have the same right as everyone else to medicine prepared by pharmacists in uniform doses. Do this and the health issues surrounding drug use decline precipitously. With respect for diversity, the drug problem becomes solvable and the health and well-being of persons in this nation will improve. Freedom Democrats offer policy choices while futile attempts to banish drug provide funds to criminals and magnify health problems.

By respecting diversity, we improve the life of people who party and increase the number who make positive contributions, making it easier for kind people to offer a helping hand. Diversity means we come to terms with the idea that some people party and others don’t. We can all live together.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Freedom Democrats Must Keep Their Eye on Washington

Big changes in Washington can mean trouble for people who party.

The Speaker is the top Republican honcho in the House of Representatives.

Every member has an election every two years, so they think about raising money and winning elections all the time.  The Speaker must help the members of his political party win a majority every two years.

Mike Johnson of Louisiana is the new Speaker; it’s an important job. If there is a catastrophe where President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris both die, then the law makes Mr. Johnson President. In other words, he is a big deal, under the law and in politics.

But Mike Johnson is a devout Christian evangelist. He is against gay marriage, abortion and strip clubs.  In his new job, he may change his positions and stop insisting that everyone obey his religious beliefs. Much as I distrust him, he may prove me wrong and modify his views with his new responsibilities.

But we can’t be certain, so it makes sense for people who party to get organized and protect their rights.

Johnson’s opposition to abortion reflects a simple fact. When he was born his mom was 17.  People who support a women’s right to choose would probably tell his mom to stop the pregnancy and wait a few years.  If the Speaker’s mom had followed this advice, Mr. Johnson would never have been born. His family history makes him a foe of abortion. People who party should allow women to consult their doctors and make up their own mind. If you live in a free country, then you have a right to choose.

Mike Johnson’s history has to make people who party nervous. Louisiana is a party state. Bourbon Street in New Orleans is famous worldwide. Shreveport, where Johnson started his political career, is a casino city. Riverboats have casinos to attract tourists. It should come as no surprise that people who gamble for fun also visit strip joints.

At the start of his career, Mr. Johnson tried to shut a strip tease bar. According to the Washington Post, Johnson claimed, “I have done an exhaustive legal research.” It was the start of his career and “he told municipal lawmakers in April 2002.” The arrival of another “‘sexually oriented business,’ or “SOB” as he called it, would spread sexually transmitted diseases and other social ills,” the Washington Post reported.

As might be expected, Louisiana permitted “gentleman’s clubs” and Mr. Johnson’s campaign failed as the State’s courts rejected his arguments.

Clearly, Mr. Johnson’s history suggests he might attack the pleasures enjoyed by people who don’t share his strict religious beliefs. Even though the law permitted strip clubs with few restrictions, Mr. Johnson tried to shut down the Déjà Vu club in Shreveport, and failed.

The Post concluded that this “enhanced the power of religious conservatives and propelled his political career.”

In other words, Mr. Johnson needs to be closely watched if we are to protect people who party.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Drug Reformers Declare Solutions Must Be Sweeping

This article originally appeared in Gay City News.

http://gaycitynews.nyc/drug-reformers-declare-solutions-must-sweeping/

Added by paul on October 26, 2017.Saved under Nathan Riley
Tags: Ethan Nadelmann, Jerry Brown, Drug Policy Alliance, medical marijuana, Donald Trump, opioid crisis, “The New Jim Crow”, Michelle Alexander, crack epidemic, mandatory sentences, mass incarceration, drug legalization, Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno
Share This Post

Michelle Alexander delivering the plenary address in Atlanta. | DOUG McVAY/ INTERNATIONAL DRUG POLICY REFORM CONFERENCE

BY NATHAN RILEY | Activists from across the globe gathered in Atlanta October 11-14 to plot strategy for defanging drug prohibition in the United States. The conference, called by the Drug Policy Alliance, scrambled to balance recognition of the limited possibility for gains and the conviction that justice demands sweeping reforms.

Michelle Alexander, whose 2010 book “The New Jim Crow” laid out in damning detail the harsh penalties imposed on black and brown communities under the guise of fighting drugs, gave the plenary address, which took on the puzzle of President Donald Trump’s election.

In a fierce display of racial solidarity, she said, voters in 30 states supported Trump’s “deliberate appeal to white racial resentment and anxieties” while at the same time voters legalized pot in four states and led four more states to enable medical marijuana programs. A greater turnout by black and brown voters would have defeated Trump in states like Florida, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.

PERSPECTIVE: The Long View

The results don’t represent a paradox, insisted Alexander, but fit the longstanding pattern of Jim Crow justice. Last year, 64,000 Americans died from drug overdoses, she said in a fiery speech, a number greater than the total of all the soldiers killed in Vietnam.

“Yes there is an outcry, but it is relatively muted compared to the crack epidemic,” she said.

Crack “killed just a tiny fraction of those dying of opioid overdoses and yet a literal war was declared on poor people of color — a militaristic war” during the height of crack use, she argued. There were “round-ups of people herded into courtrooms.

“Things are very different this time around. The white face of medical marijuana and the white male face of drug heroes such as those in ‘Breaking Bad’ make it possible for white folk to feel a kind of empathy that was utterly impossible 20 years ago in the midst of the crack epidemic.”

Alexander warned that the contrast between white people’s ability to sympathize with Caucasian users and their indifference to the suffering in black and brown communities is more than a weakness in drug policy. As Trump’s election demonstrates, she said, that disparity in attitudes threatens democratic government.

A racially mixed crowd of 1,500 gathered in Atlanta as Alexander insisted that whites must break out of the cocoon that shields them from appreciating the suffering of other communities.

Citing sentencing reformer Marc Mauer’s book, “Race to Incarcerate,” she explained, “The most punitive nations in the world are the most diverse; the nations with the most compassionate, or the most lenient criminal justice policies, are the most homogenous. You know, we like to say that diversity is our strength when it may actually be our Achilles heel.” Jim Crow justice, Alexander said, threatens civil liberties in the US and it fosters a failed government that could undermine “the future of the globe.”

The argument that whites must check their privilege and make common cause with immigrants, blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans was a constant conference theme. A true interracial majority coalition is a key objective of the Drug Policy Alliance.

There are hopeful signs. Harm reduction programs are spreading in the South, and in California a new law reduced mandatory sentences, with Governor Jerry Brown signing the RISE Act just as the conference convened. The measure ends sentencing enhancements that have added three years to drug convictions for every prior conviction. Long sentences are cruel and cause the pernicious pattern of mass incarceration.

Other good news: in Atlanta, the mayor signed a bill decriminalizing marijuana possession, and there are rumors that communities across New York State are prepared to move toward experimental safe consumption spaces where drug users are in the presence of an overdose prevention worker who can intervene immediately if things go wrong.

This conference was the first hosted by Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno, who has replaced Ethan Nadelmann as the Drug Policy Alliance’s executive director. McFarland Sánchez-Moreno has done human right work in drug war battlefields in Peru and Columbia, and during her tenure as co-director of US Programs at Human Rights Watch, her team pushed against racial discrimination in policing, excessive sentencing, and unfair deportation policies that tear families apart.

The Drug Policy Alliance first championed medical marijuana as a first step in unwinding prohibition, but the organization’s program has expanded and now calls for decriminalization of all drugs. Essentially, the group wants the police to arrest no one for drug possession, but instead steer a drug user to a harm reduction program. This is the policy in Portugal and is being tested in Seattle.

The unhappy truth, however, is that this approach would have only a tangential impact on harsh Jim Crow justice.

Possession seldom brings long sentences; these sentences are imposed on sellers. The opioid crisis has brought a new wave of arbitrary penalties. Sellers are seen as murderers because their product includes fentanyl. Yet they don’t make the product, and in the northeast US virtually 100 percent of the street product is fentanyl or laced with it.

Dealers have no control over the ingredients, but they are sentenced as though they created the system.

A sweeping opposition to the criminalization of poverty and drug use forms the radical core of the Drug Policy Alliance, and Atlanta made that ultimate objective abundantly clear.