This sequence of responses to Will’s pot column confuses me.  The paragraph of note:

As it happens, American drug prohibition and sentencing policies hit poor black men the hardest, devastating already disadvantaged black families and communities—a tragic, mocking contrast to the achievement of Obama’s election. Militarized police departments across the nation month after month kick down the wrong doors, terrify innocent families, shoot lawful citizens, and often kill the family dog.

 Goldberg (whom I’ll label as to the right of Will) basically says: “Why are you libertarians specifically pointing out how the drug war is bad for blacks as a group?” 

But as an argument from proud individualists it seems a bit off. It seems to me that the classical liberal is supposed to see people as autonomous and sovereign moral actors, not identity politics groups. I’m hard pressed to think of another area where libertarians are so willing to talk about racial or ethnic groups as a class.

I think that perhaps just because someone doesn’t list each individual affected by X, but instead refers to them as a group, doesn’t mean they aren’t thinking of them as “autonomous and sovereign moral actors.”  But anyway, the response to Goldberg from the left is the same as mine:

But it is hard to think of a case in which bare recognition of the existence of disadvantaged groups – all Wilkinson is doing in the passage Goldberg critiques – could already be tantamount to betraying commitment to autonomy and moral agency. Yet this is where Goldberg wants to draw the line.

And the final point:

there is no reason why you can’t regard individuals as autonomous moral agents while also recognizing that some individuals are members of systematically disadvantaged groups. 

On one level I can see why these two people are arguing about the point — staking out their left/right turf.  But the entire point of “is the Drug War racist” is kinda secondary to the main issue.  If you accept that the drug war is an unacceptable violation of people’s rights, then you have to want it to end now.  I don’t really think there’s a level of opposition to the drug war that thinks “well, it’s bad, but I wasn’t really opposed to it until I heard it was racist too!”  Well, maybe there is, and maybe that’s the person Goldberg is thinking about, but I’m not sure they’re an important consideration here.

Anyway, I’m getting dragged into this.  The point is that all 3 of these people support marijuana legalization.  Right now.  Who cares if Wilkinson thinks it’s a 7 on the bad-meter because of racism, Goldberg thinks it’s a 6 because he ignores the racial component and Holbo thinks it’s an 8 because combating racism is important to him.  The entire point of political consensus building is that you get people who agree on goals, and the idea that at least 3 left/right/libertarians all agree on the goal of legalization is pretty rare, and pretty great.  Who cares if they disagree about the true impact on various groups, the level of meaning that should grant it, or whether their choice of phrasing betrays or supports past political issues? 

The entire point of Will’s piece was that a major barrier to acceptance is the idea that only loser stoners smoke pot — an argument designed to actually win over people who don’t already agree with us.  Which is actually the stumbling block in getting the goal we all want achieved.  Yeah, yeah, I realize that these are blogs, which were kinda invented to hash over this stuff, but seriously…