No one ever died from smoking marijuana, but millions of people have died by believing politicians.
Interpretation
This quote critiques the harmful consequences of misplaced trust in politicians compared to the relatively benign impacts of marijuana.
Harry Browne's quote emphasizes the idea that while the use of marijuana is often demonized, it is not responsible for deaths in the way that misguided trust in politicians can lead to dire consequences. It suggests that the less tangible but more harmful outcomes of political belief can have significant real-world implications, affecting the lives of many people.
In practice
During a discussion on drug policy reform in a public forum.
Asset forfeiture is a mockery of the Bill of Rights. There is no presumption of innocence, no need to prove you guilty (or even charge you with a crime), no right to a jury trial, no right to confront your accuser, no right to a court-appointed attorney (even if the government has just stolen all your money), and no right to compensation for the property that's been taken.
Government seems to operate on the principle that if even one individual is incapable of using his freedom competently, no one can be allowed to be free.
Conservatives say the government can't end poverty by force, but they believe it can use force to make people moral. Liberals say government can't make people be moral, but they believe it can end poverty. Neither group attempts to explain why government is so clumsy and destructive in one area but a paragon of efficiency and benevolence in the other.
When you know that you're capable of dealing with whatever comes, you have the only security the world has to offer.
You can't give the government the power to do good without also giving it the power to do bad - in fact, to do anything it wants.
A great burden was lifted from my shoulders the day I realized that no one owes me anything.
Cats and monkeys; monkeys and cats; all human life is there.
I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die.
The less I have, the freer I am to do whatever I want to do.
And the mind that has conceived a plan of living must never lose sight of the chaos against which that pattern was conceived. That goes for societies as well as for individuals.
We did everything adults would do. What went wrong?
Only in solitude do we find ourselves; and in finding ourselves, we find in ourselves all our brothers in solitude.
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