You're the one that said "you follow your own moral compass" and anything else is a dystopic police state. There's a LOT of middle ground between the outlying case you mention (Nuremberg) and the outlying case I mentioned (lynch mobs). You'll even find that in respect of the regulation etc. of drugs that we share a lot of common ground, actually. It's the "ever hear of civil disobedience?" part of the conversation that drew me into the discussion.
However, likening any state other than one where people are free to just do as they please and claim it's because they object to the morals of certain laws to a dystopic police state is way above the level I'm willing to go (don't try to pretend you didn't imply this, it's where you invoked Godwin's Law). As brownbobby says - not somebody I've found plenty of common ground with on the forum on several issues - civil disobedience extended to that suggests to me an uncomfortable grey area, even as it opens the door to the kind of extreme cases I mention. Among the terrible things that he did, there were a lot of people who could put food on the table that otherwise wouldn't because of growing, processing and contributing to the cocaine trade in Colombia in the 80s. Pablo Escobar set up societies, built villages, and provided a lot of people with jobs. But even if in his heart of hearts he held firm to the conviction that - especially bearing in mind that many people subsisted because of this trade - the illegality of global trading in cocaine was immoral and therefore he was under no obligation to treat it as such... that doesn't make all the other things he did in defence of his inalienable right to sell cocaine for profit any better.
You are effectively taking the line that because we can't prove Bobridge didn't deal ecstasy solely out of the goodness of his heart, to improve the lives of others, we can't make the assumption that he was motivated by profit. I am making the assumption that because he hasn't campaigned publicly for relaxation of drug laws or decriminalization of varying factors, that he isn't motivated by the societal benefits of MDMA, and therefore he does not have the best will of his clientele as sole motivation, and profit will to a large extent be the driver of other factors (I mean, at the barest minimum even the most altruistic dealer has to cover the costs, right?). And to continue to profit, one needs a stable clientele and/or new customers - and that's where the potential harm to third parties comes in, which is why you see a difference in public opinion between the decriminalization of personal use of drugs and the decriminalization of the retail of drugs. A lot of it would indeed, as you argue, be negated by proper regulation, which would require a much more liberal drugs policy than the majority of countries have at present.
In Australia, as with other countries which have nationalized, at least on-the-surface NFP health services, a doctor, or pharmacist, or other medical professional, has on-the-surface no motivation other than the wellbeing of his or her clientele. Introducing the profit motive corrupts this. In most progressive societies where health care is nationalized, this is not a problem at the individual doctor level most of the time. Maybe it's different in the US, where the relation between the cost to the end customer and the sale cost from the drug company is much more intertwined.
However, likening any state other than one where people are free to just do as they please and claim it's because they object to the morals of certain laws to a dystopic police state is way above the level I'm willing to go (don't try to pretend you didn't imply this, it's where you invoked Godwin's Law). As brownbobby says - not somebody I've found plenty of common ground with on the forum on several issues - civil disobedience extended to that suggests to me an uncomfortable grey area, even as it opens the door to the kind of extreme cases I mention. Among the terrible things that he did, there were a lot of people who could put food on the table that otherwise wouldn't because of growing, processing and contributing to the cocaine trade in Colombia in the 80s. Pablo Escobar set up societies, built villages, and provided a lot of people with jobs. But even if in his heart of hearts he held firm to the conviction that - especially bearing in mind that many people subsisted because of this trade - the illegality of global trading in cocaine was immoral and therefore he was under no obligation to treat it as such... that doesn't make all the other things he did in defence of his inalienable right to sell cocaine for profit any better.
You are effectively taking the line that because we can't prove Bobridge didn't deal ecstasy solely out of the goodness of his heart, to improve the lives of others, we can't make the assumption that he was motivated by profit. I am making the assumption that because he hasn't campaigned publicly for relaxation of drug laws or decriminalization of varying factors, that he isn't motivated by the societal benefits of MDMA, and therefore he does not have the best will of his clientele as sole motivation, and profit will to a large extent be the driver of other factors (I mean, at the barest minimum even the most altruistic dealer has to cover the costs, right?). And to continue to profit, one needs a stable clientele and/or new customers - and that's where the potential harm to third parties comes in, which is why you see a difference in public opinion between the decriminalization of personal use of drugs and the decriminalization of the retail of drugs. A lot of it would indeed, as you argue, be negated by proper regulation, which would require a much more liberal drugs policy than the majority of countries have at present.
In Australia, as with other countries which have nationalized, at least on-the-surface NFP health services, a doctor, or pharmacist, or other medical professional, has on-the-surface no motivation other than the wellbeing of his or her clientele. Introducing the profit motive corrupts this. In most progressive societies where health care is nationalized, this is not a problem at the individual doctor level most of the time. Maybe it's different in the US, where the relation between the cost to the end customer and the sale cost from the drug company is much more intertwined.
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