The most interesting exchange was when George Will derided proposed federal regulations against “distracted driving” as the latest installment of the nanny state encroachment on personal rights, saying that individual freedom should trump the government’s concern for public safety except in the most extreme circumstances. One of the good uses of absolutist reasoning is that it raises a very high bar before breaching a valid principle can even be considered, since it has to be considered as an exception if it is to be contemplated at all. Barring unsafe conduct that increases the likelihood of automobile accidents, however, is not the place for absolutism, but for utilitarianism—rational balancing.

Will’s argument makes some sense when applied to mandatory seat belt use: not using a seat belt is a personal risk that does not endanger others (at least directly: more on that shortly.) Talking on a cell phone, texting, reading a Facebook update and other forms of distracted driving do endanger others, and making laws that punish fools who think keeping up with the Kardashians is worth risking the lives of my family is an easy call, ethically speaking. So a driver has to pull off the road and park before answering a call or reading a text…big deal. George needs to get out more: if he was behind the wheel with any frequency, he would know that the number of inattentive drivers weaving in and out of traffic, shifting speeds and missing lights and signals because of the Blackberry in their hands is frighteningly high.

Ethically, the trade-off is minor inconvenience—-in most cases, minor to the point of irrelevance—versus human lives saved. I have listened to the conservative talk-show chorus mocking the proposed ban, and it is an extraordinary example of placing abstract principle over common sense and reality. Ethics, in the end, are determined by rational conclusions, based on observation, experience and analysis, about what kind of conduct and standards most benefit individuals, society and civilization. Doctrinaire elevations of minor infringements of principle to priority over undeniable risks to human life are not ethical. Ideological purity divorced from reality is no friend of ethics.

Barney Frank’s cause was, predictably, legalizing marijuana, which he analogized to gay marriage. I wouldn’t say his argument was worse than Will’s, but like Will, he Will-fully ignored the harm prohibited individual conduct does to others. Pot use is not like gay marriage. Same-sex marriage harms no one; prohibiting it harms the loving couple that is stigmatized and handicapped by laws that prevent them from enjoying the same legitimacy and respect in their union as traditional spouses. Pot advocates like Frank, and I have been listening to them most of my life, pretend that recreational marijuana use consists of single, unencumbered, financially secure and mature individuals with no obligations and no responsibilities to others sitting in their homes or dorm rooms toking away and being blissfully and harmlessly stupid for an hour or three. If pot use was restricted to this, I would agree with him. But it is not, and cannot be.

In society we are all bound to each other by bonds of mutual dependence and trust. A bus driver who smokes pot is risking the lives of young children. A student who smokes pot is sabotaging his education, and making it likely that you and I will have to pay the costs of his progressively unsuccessful life as a result. A husband who smokes pot and makes mistakes at work is jeopardizing the welfare of his children and family. Every hour stoned on a recreational drug is one less hour spent on productive activity that could benefit one’s dependents, colleagues, community and society. Every dollar spent on getting stoned is one less dollar that could be used to start a business, feed a child, pay a debt, or save. It is purely selfish behavior with real social costs and minimal benefits.

Like getting drunk, using marijuana may be relaxing or fun, but there are many, many ways to have fun and relax in America that don’t undermine the rest of society. Once again, the ethical trade-off is an easy one—a society without people wasting their time and money making themselves periodically slow-witted, inarticulate and stupid is undeniably a better society to live in than one that encourages such conduct, and making the conduct legal does encourage it.

Frank’s sneering mockery of those who, unlike him, think responsibly about the unavoidable and almost entirely negative consequences of permitting another alcohol to take permanent root is society, is even more obnoxious that Will’s airy dismissal of thousands of highway deaths as insignificant when compared to losing the freedom to Google “crash” while you are crashing. Barney likes his weed; it poses no danger to him, he can handle it, and he’s annoyed that he has to break the law to get high. And all the less intelligent, less responsible, younger, vulnerable Americans–and those who support or depend on them— whose lives will be diminished by free access to pot? Barney just doesn’t care, so he talks as if they don’t exist.

Sometimes giving up a small amount or personal freedom to promote a more stable society and to protect fellow citizens is the most ethical course. The fact that neither of the ideological opposites in this Great Debate seemed to understand that is troubling.

I think I’ll smoke a joint to calm myself down, and then chat with my sister about my concerns on my cell while I drive to the supermarket.

My position on this infuriating subject hasn’t changed except that I accept the reality that the metaphorical horse is out of the barn and no editorial from the New York Times will bring it back. As a result, people will die who didn’t have to, others will become addicts to other substances. Children will never get the education they could have; businesses will fail because they depend on stoned employees, families will fracture, people who need to spend money on productive and tactical things will spend it instead on cannabis, and, as always, the social maladies will hit the poor like ton of bowling balls while the wealthy and elite shell out money they can afford for group therapy and rehab when things get too bad.

Oh, good job, everyone.

Like Clarence Darrow, I have never been one to hate, but I have to confess that I have a very hard time not hating the selfish, arrogant, condescending people who got us here. It gave me some mordant amusement to read the Times editors still relying on the most idiotic argument that fueled the pro-stoner propaganda from the start. I know I have derided it here before.

“A society that allows adults to use alcohol and tobacco cannot sensibly arrest people for marijuana use,” the editors write. That is and has always been an absurd argument that deliberately ignores history and the lessons of human nature, It was impossible to prohibit tobacco and alcohol because they were already deeply embedded in the culture and society by the time their full harms were understood. Now pot is in the same place, mass societal use acceptance, that those drugs were: once a drug gets there, there is no retreating. (The same has occurred regarding gambling, and for many of the same reasons.) It did not have to be this way with pot. For decades, marijuana was not culturally acceptable, and the prohibitions, legal and societal, worked. It was not until the Sixties that popular culture—music, movies, and TV—made pot references and propaganda standard fare, bombarding teens and adults with the message that pot was cool, being stoned was hilarious and anyone opposing the drug was a Neanderthal killjoy. Under relentless attack, the once effective cultural consensus crumbled.

If there ever was an argument that walked more obliviously into the spinning propeller of the Slippery Slope, I haven’t heard it. “A society that allows adults to use alcohol, tobacco and marijuana cannot sensibly arrest people for [ gambling/ cocaine/heroin/ecstasy/ whatever].

Nope, I don’t care to hear those who ridiculed my principles, reasoning and warnings as they come crawling back with their “How were we to know?” laments. They could and should have known, because this scenario was pre-ordained and predictable.

But they wanted their little tokes, highs, and brownies, and didn’t care about who and what they were putting at risk.

Well, they can live with it. I have no sympathy for them.