He only presents one premise, that laws facilitate the segregation between smokers and nonsmokers, and consequently allow organized crimes harassing smokers to occur. The grounds for his premises are weak, as he does not provide concrete and reliable information to support his cause. Scott’s basic premise is that laws encourage the violation of smokers’ rights. He begins his argument with, “The Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and a host of anti-discrimination laws notwithstanding...” With that commencement, Scott proves that he does not understand the concept of discrimination. He continues by claiming that denying housing and employment for smokers is a form of public hostility.
He dismisses this argument by listing other activities that could be harmful to an individual such as smoking tobacco, riding motorcycles, and having unprotected sex. This comparison makes the idea of prohibiting these activities because they are harmful to the individual participating in them seem rather ridiculous. Basically, illegal drugs CAN be harmful to a user; at the same time, smoking tobacco IS harmful to a user, yet smoking cigarettes is perfectly legal. I think Huemer’s argument effectively defeats the prohibitionists’ standpoint that drugs should be outlawed because they are harmful to the user. Second, the author addresses the prohibitionist argument that illegal drugs cause harm to people around the user as well.
Severe laws against marijuana do not discourage use of marijuana, but rather breed this contempt not only for drug laws, but for laws in general. Therefore sever laws against marijuana are more dangerous to society than the activity which they are designed to prevent” (p.45). The first premiss would have to be “Encouragement of contempt for laws is more dangerous to society than occasional use of marijuana. “ This certain premiss is important because it makes one of the claims for the argument. Another premiss is “Severe laws against marijuana do not discourage use of marijuana, but rather breed this contempt not only for drug laws but for laws in general.” This ties in with the first premiss, but can stand alone as its’ own as well.
Most agree that gun-related injury or death of innocent citizens should never be tolerated, but there are opinions on the course to take in an effort to discover a solution. This paper will offer problems and solutions associated with past and present efforts to manage the issue of gun-related injuries/death. This paper will also render the discoveries and opinions of the above-mentioned group members as it relates to this controversial topic. Stricter gun-control laws do not help prevent gun-related injuries/deaths One method to prevent gun-related injuries/deaths is to make serious efforts to treat depression, mental health issues, and drug abuse in society. A large number of gun-related injuries/deaths are committed by members of society that have untreated disorders and others that simply neglect firearm safety rules and existing gun-control laws.
Labeling a particular crime as special or different does not deter criminals from their true intention. If we place a "special" label on certain types of murder, rape or vandalism we are not preventing the hate that is the motive for such crimes. This is not the true goal of society. Helen Dodge makes a compelling argument to shun the members of such hateful communities in her article "Special Crimes Need Special Laws", when she says that the public should band together against such forces (Dodge 140). However, even she had to admit that these special laws won't deter the criminals who practice these violent acts.
Critical Analysis on “The Missing Piece to the Gang-Violence Debate.” Dan Gardner’s publish, “The Missing Piece to the Gang-Violence Debate”, is strongly controversial in his position against increasing enforcement of drug laws, and boosting penalties for violators. He believes that you should actually limit enforcement and hardship of sentencing when it comes to drugs. Was his argument persuasive enough in the essay to actually influence his wishes into society? Personally, I don’t think so. Gardner’s ideas are too drastic and I believe he didn’t have enough support in his argument that his plans would actually decrease the murders in gang violence.
Likening such statements to fraud, defamation, or lies to government agencies, all of which can be prohibited consistent with the First Amendment, the dissenters argued that the government should have a free hand to prosecute those who lie about having earned military honors. The dissenters recognized that false statements may be protected when laws restricting them might chill otherwise protected speech, but argued that the Stolen Valor Act does not implicate that concern because the subject matter of the lies does not relate to any protected
Ethical statements, Ayer said, cannot be verified analytically or synthetically so the truth of such phrases is unknowable and the language used is non-cognitive. Instead, ethical propositions can be no more that the expression of an emotion which will always be personal or subjective. For example to say “Abortion is good” is to express a subjective opinion about the moral issue of Abortion. For Ayer such statements can be no more than an expression of subjective emotion – leading some to label this approach to ethical language as the “boo hooray” theory. But does this strictly subjective understanding of ethical language and statements accurately reflect what is going on when we use such language?
Answer: In the passage “Legal Drugs Unlikely to Foster Nation of Zombies” (Cederblom and Paulsen, 332-334), author Stephen Chapman provides a series of reasons to support his conclusion that drugs should be legalized. Chapman’s conclusion is essentially based on the premises that humans are capable of restraint when it comes to mind-altering drugs and that there is more harm done by prohibition of drugs then there would be if drugs were legalized. The author presents a series of arguments that suggest legalization of drugs would not lead to increased use or addiction. To support his arguments, the author attempts to discredit the opposing view by presenting poll results suggesting only a small number of people would try drugs if legalized. Further, the author provides statistics that indicate
But, is pornography really that harmful? There are many reasons why the government is having trouble putting restrictions on pornography. As Cynthia Stark states in Social Theory and Practice," just because some find certain materials offensive is not a sufficient reason for restricting those materials." There has to be proper grounds for making such laws to prevent pornography distribution because either way you look at it, it goes against the free speech laws of the first amendment. Nadine Strossen of the ACLU had a good point when she said "the First Amendment contains no exception for sexual speech.