A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling 'Stop!'
William F. Buckley, Jr.Read
Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.
Interpretation
The harms of marijuana prohibition outweigh the potential risks of marijuana itself.
William F. Buckley, Jr. argues that the detrimental effects caused by the enforcement of marijuana prohibition are more severe than the effects that marijuana might have on individuals and society. This perspective highlights the unintended consequences of strict laws against marijuana use and suggests that these regulations do more damage than good.
In practice
In a discussion about drug policies, one might say this quote to emphasize the downsides of prohibition.
A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling 'Stop!'
I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.
One must bear in mind that the expansion of federal activity is a form of eating for politicians.
I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would affront your intelligence.
You cannot paint the Mona Lisa by assigning one dab each to a thousand painters.
Government can't do anything for you except in proportion as it can do something to you.
Tradition is the living faith of dead people to which we must add our chapter while we have the gift of life. Traditionalism is the dead faith of living people who fear that if anything changes, the whole enterprise will crumble.
To revolt is a natural tendency of life. Even a worm turns against the foot that crushes it. In general, the vitality and relative dignity of an animal can be measured by the intensity of its instinct to revolt.
For the world is movement, and you cannot be stationary in your attitude toward something that is moving.
Slave camps under the flag of freedom, massacres justified by philanthropy or the taste of the superhuman, cripple judgment. On the day when crime puts on the apparel of innocence, through a curious reversal peculiar to our age, it is innocence that is called on to justify itself. The purpose of this essay is to accept and study that strange challenge.
Our histories cling to us. We are shaped by where we come from.
The world is a sacred vessel. It should not be meddled with. It should not be owned. If you try to meddle with it you will ruin it. If you try to own it you will lose it
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