nichiyes.com

“Should X be legal?” misses a lot of the options in any discussion, and it hides the brutality of some of the options.

For instance, “Should pot be legal?” sounds like the sort of questions with sane answers on both sides. Maybe it doesn’t, but it seems like it could. “Should we send armed agents of the state to violently remove people from their homes to put them in cages for years if the people possess leaves that make you feel funny when smoked?” has an obvious answer. But “Should we fine people for circumventing the tax structure by acquiring goods from untaxed sources?” goes right back to the realm of reasonable questions. Between these cases, we see that adding this precision lets us see whether there’s even a sane debate to be had.