Questions for Senator Hagel
I am interested in learning more about Senator Hagel. What little I do know about him suggests he has potential. Now, you are saying that he is a social conservative, so the key question for me is does he know the difference between advocating legalization of drugs and advocating the use of drugs?
I believe that drug prohibition is by far and away the worst aspect of our present public policy. The evidence is overwhelming that the illegality of drugs has a plethora of both intended and unintended negative consequences with virtually nothing positive to balance them out. The policy simply does not do what it supposed to do, keep people from using certain kinds of drugs. In addition, the governmental goal of keeping individuals from using the proscribed substances is not nearly as worthy a cause as those who support and very often benefit by prohibition would have you think.
A government that respects the liberty and rights of its people and the prohibition of drugs are totally incompatible. So, if the Senator is not willing to keep an open mind on this issue and learn from people other than self-interested bureaucrats or hysterical parents groups then I can not support him.
A second corollary question concerns whether or not Senator Hagel is intelligent enough to recognize that raising the question of drug policy, making the irresistible case, both practical and moral, that is available to him, and achieving real change will not only make him President but also an American hero.