Posted on by Nathan Riley

Please Help: Looking For An Organizer

The most urgent need is the search for who will leave their mark on history.

This blog calls for political change, dramatic change on behalf of the millions who do drugs, gamble, watch porn, accept LGBTQ+ people, buy and rent sex, and want to say, “Enough already; stop assuming we are weak, immoral, even sick. In fact, draw no conclusions about our character from the pleasures that we share.” The person who gets this message started will become a player in American politics.

They will be starting a new movement and helping to create a new organized force. This impact is built into the proposal. This blog explains some of the ramifications and this article explains why it’s a near certainty that we can do this.

We build our program from the text of the Declaration of Independence. A foundation of U.S. political history. This justification announces the importance of our ideas.

Freedom Democrats want a dramatic change that should be compared to the new moral truth vividly portrayed in the hymn “Amazing Grace”:

How sweet the sound,
  That saved a wretch; like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
  Was blind, but now I see.

This new force spreads a new truth. All too often people who don’t like our habits damn us, turning us into wretches. The new view—“We are no longer blind.”—tells us we will stand tall and insist we are among the righteous.

“Amazing Grace” is history, a historic moment a gift bequeathed by the Age of Enlightenment: realizing that slavery was a horror and should be abolished. Freedom Democrats want to stop the pointing of fingers and silence the anger surrounding drug use, having sex for money, watching and performing in porn films etc. It will be our historic moment. Once we were blind but now we recognize the truth enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.

It declared that the newly united colonial governments are “instituted” to protect equality and secure the “pursuit of happiness.” It is a core right that cannot be taken away. It is a BIG DEAL.

Insisting on this right for the millions who enjoy “vices” will be an historic event. Winning elections is predictable, influencing elections is a sure thing. This is something the Freedom Democrats can promise. The new force will be players in American politics. Doing politics builds pride, it says I am just a citizen, equal to you. I am no sinner; I am no wretch. Our arguments encourage pride. The very act of speaking to friends and government officials is an act of pride. It is something to boast about. In this way, the new force will change the attitudes of its members. Showing a new world to America will foster pride, it worked for lesbians and gays and it will work for drug users. We are not strangers, we are not moral defectives, we just live different lives. Freedom Democrats will expand the live and let live view.

People who want to stop a habit will be able to do so with the same pride as a person who loses weight. This example is important because the people who condemn addiction, believing the illegal substances have magical powers, ignore this obvious truth. A common addiction is eating too much. Addiction is an all-too-common human condition.

We will have truth on our side and banish prejudice. If the LGBTQ+ community can do this, so can we.

Getting  high makes many feel better and stop pretending that these feelings are false. Professor Carl Hart makes this argument cogent in a few sentences:

Opioids are outstanding pleasure producers; I am now entering my fifth year as a regular heroin user. I do not have a drug-use problem. Never have. Each day, I meet my parental, personal, and professional responsibilities. I pay my taxes, serve as a volunteer in my community on a regular basis, and contribute to the global community as an informed and engaged citizen. I am better for my drug use.

(Hart, Carl. Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear (p. 14))

Drug users are not the only group despised by a moral majority. Sex workers, gamblers, overeaters, the LGBTQ+ community, and porn watchers and performers are scorned. The test proposed by Professor Hart is worth emphasizing, “I do not have a drug-use problem. Never have. Each day, I meet my parental, personal, and professional responsibilities.” Professor Hart stresses that meeting responsibilities is an important test. Freedom comes with responsibilities. If a person meets their responsibilities, they are entitled to the pursuit of happiness. People who aren’t able to be functioning adults need help and are NOT moral defectives.

No judge should be able to tell somebody, “Get off drugs or stop renting your body, and then I will let you go.” Judges should have proof that the cause of their problem is tied to their habits before making that part of their sentence. It should be difficult for a judge to reach that conclusion because it is unlikely that a habit that offers pleasure or income is a bad thing.

This change will promote freedom and move the nation closer to the promises in the Declaration of Independence.

There must be a person who wants to start Freedom Democrats. I am 82, nearly blind, and clearly unable to be that person, but the articles in Legalize.blog explain how to start.

I will help. For example, I think that Stormy Daniels, whose testimony reflected the dignity that should be the right of every sex worker could possibly be an excellent leader. Reaching out to her would be the responsibility of the person I’m seeking.

It is a chance to make history and make the United States a better nation.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Welcome to Freedom Democrats

This blog is about creating a new wing of Democrats, pointing the party in a new direction.

Freedom Democrats support people who party, be they drug users, sex workers, porn watchers, or porn performers. Regardless of their pleasures, everybody should be respected and have their voice heard. We are not alone. DecrimNY and other groups across the United States are working to decriminalize sex work. Freedom Democrats should have an obligation to listen and understand the proposals these specialized groups are making. They have not only the respect of Freedom Democrats, but, more significantly, they have worked on rules to help sex workers do their job with dignity. Working in a brothel is only justified if the sex worker preserves their right to stop work or reject a trick. A person’s right to autonomy over their own body means that they mustn’t be forced to accept every customer.

I believe Freedom Democrats support the right to decide if a person want to practice monogamy. Such arrangements should be made honestly and explicitly between couples. Life would be smoother if a person’s sexual escapades don’t become a source of pain and surprise to another partner. Again, like with sex work, people have understood this, and couples routinely work this out. This is not a radical idea to many Democrats and Republicans.

But life isn’t a free-for-all. The right to say no has received positive attention from the #MeToo movement. It’s one thing to ask; it’s quite another to pursue a person after they have said no. For Freedom Democrats to work well with others, they should be willing to quickly and easily accept refusals. At the same time, people who party, should have spaces where the sexually adventurous can meet, and it is not offensive for a person to make a pass or sneak into a corner for some private time.

None of these issues are new to the Democratic Party, but Freedom Democrats propose to organize by having weekly parties of persons who are comfortable around drugs and sexual activity. This special feature of a Freedom Democrats’ weekly parties holds out hopes that like-minded people can organize and become a new wing of the Democratic party.

At the same time, Freedom Democrats should oppose war because war is about the powerful imposing their will, even if it’s against the wishes of the loser; it is the opposite of freedom. International affairs exist in a state of anarchy; disagreements are all too often settled by violence.

Ending this violence has been the fond hope of thoughtful people for centuries. War is scattered all over the globe and causes sorrow on continent after continent. As President John F. Kennedy said in 1963, “peace—based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions” should be the ambitious goal. Freedom Democrats, I believe, should make it a primary objective.

I believe they should seek to turn the United Nations into a world government. Any nation that has a grievance should be able to appear before the United Nations. Lawyers and diplomats should replace soldiers and weapons. As a world government, the decisions of the United Nations would be enforced. Nations would lose the dubious ability to reject a proposal because the powerful think they can impose their plan using violence and the assets that the richer have against poorer nations.

Freedom Democrats are just taking baby steps. It is our objective to have specialists devise plans for world government. The object is to get the discussion started. World government should be debated on college campuses. It should be the subject of scholarly study. There is no reason to expect that Freedom Democrats will start a world government, but there is a hope that Freedom Democrats will start the debate.