Freedom Democrats Director

Politically savvy executive sought for a Democratic-leaning libertarian organization

The proposed group is described in Nathan Riley’s blog: https://legalizeforfreedom.substack.com/

An awesome task, possibly historic, faces this executive. The candidate will create an organization against vice laws. I surfaced this proposal in my blog but at 84, nearly blind, I am unable to perform these tasks.

The proposed coalition fuses supporters of personal privacy, sex work, legalized drugs, the porn industry, transgendered into a group demanding the abolition of vice laws. Many people object to the government control of private behavior; they wish to extend freedom to groups like drug users, sex workers, etc. This group moves beyond single issues by uniting everyone who objects to vice laws. This approach will impact millions. For example, all studies place the number of people who watch porn and do marijuana in the millions. This population often rejects the criminalization of private behavior, as do people with libertarian beliefs.

Vice laws are harmful and often expose the penumbra of abuse surrounding  police and criminal justice. Many of the traffic stops that aggressive law enforcement expand into criminal matters bring accusations using vice laws. Even as marijuana legalization spreads, Norml reports in 2025 marijuana-related arrests reached 218,152. The primary target of the drug war remains, as it always has, pot. Overdose deaths hang around 100,000. The vice laws abet these deaths by increasing the dangers of drug use. Abolition offers a rallying cry that will reach everyone, stimulate interest in law schools, and give voice to the tens of million skeptics who have a gut reaction to vice laws and say “It’s a free country isn’t it?”

Abolition offers people the protection of government. It would require that all drugs be made safely with full disclosure of their ingredients.

The rallying cry: abolition has a rich history in the United States. Abolitionists pushed for an end to slavery and repeal of laws preventing women from voting. Abolition draws inspiration from the Declaration of Independence, which rallied the Revolution around human rights, specifically the inalienable ones: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Vice laws criminalize individual liberty and violate the explicit protection in the Declaration of Independence guaranteeing our right to the pursuit of happiness.

As I imagine it, this new group will trigger a coherent and political objection to the restraint on private choices imposed by vice laws.

Abolition appeals to the medical with its support of autonomy. The medical needs of this group would be governed by the standards of the profession, nothing else. It would become possible for doctors to declare that a person uses heroin and has no medical problems. Abolition would stop law and policing from interfering with medical treatment. The heavy hand of government and outside interference would end. This change mirrors the transition in the medical profession as it accepted that homosexuals were not sick. A primary responsibility of the executive would be communicating this benefit to the medical profession.

 The group should debunk the notion that only the mentally ill use drugs, engage with sex workers, wish to create their own gender, or perform sexual acts for the public. Abolition will assert that the range of skills and illnesses within this group mirror the rest of the population. They are just as smart, well-organized, and capable as the rest of us. The executive should use abolition to build pride. A major objective of abolition is ending the contempt and false sympathy offered to people prosecuted by vice laws. Homosexuals used to suffer from this misplaced sympathy with supportive people saying they were sick. This attitude has changed dramatically over the last 50 years.

How will this group accomplish its purpose?

As I imagine it, the executive will start the group by recruiting a national board of directors. It should consist exclusively of people who have lived the life—porn stars, drug users, sex workers, erotic dancers etc. To be eligible, a board members must have lived it. The creation of this board will be news, and the group should build on its fame by organizing a celebrity-exciting fundraiser. Hopefully, this will raise millions. The executive will devise a plan for achieving this end.

A large sum of money would permit the abolitionists to challenge public opinion in Washington DC. The DC office would have responsibilities for lobbying Congress and combating media message on topics like sex trafficking and violence towards women and the exaggerated dangers of drugs. For the purposes of fundraising the executive may explain what kind of staff would allow the DC office to lobby professionally.

Or the executive may believe we are getting ahead of ourselves and worrying about concerns like lobbying is a task for another day. They are in charge and will determine feasibility.

The most arduous task will be fundraising for this novel political approach. I have some seed money available, but it will be a drop in the bucket. The executive for this project must feel comfortable making presentations and requesting funds. Contacting celebrities for a fundraising party that would also make the news. For example, actors like Robert Downey Jr. and Charlie Sheen and people whose lives have been affected by overdoses like Keanu Reeves, Joaquin Phoenix, Ethan Hawke, sports stars sympathetic to these goals will attend and invite people to this big bash. In other words, straight people will help organize the fundraiser.