Lefty liberal demagouges...
. . . hang around long enough to talk about how much of an idiot Rick Santorum is and then disappear when asked to provide principles they believe in. It's not enough any more!
So tell me, my lefty friends, when you have your gay marriage and abortion rights, what do you believe in?I see that this thread has gone pretty far off the original question, so going back to that I would say that when I "have your gay marriage and abortion rights" I believe I would have a good start on creating a society based on true equality and reason.
Gay people are born that way, the same way people of color are born that way. Discriminating against them because of how they were created in as wrong as discriminating against any other group that is born in any way differently from the current 'normal.'
Females are also born that way. Females have the same basic right to have control over their bodies that men have. Discriminating against women by forcing them to carry fetuses they do not want to term is incredibly wrong as well as remarkably stupid.
Religious people may disagree; they have the right to not marry gay people was well as the right to have children they do not want.
I will add that I am from Pennsylvania and know a great deal about Rick Santorum. He is not an idiot, he is an intolerant religious fanatic. That's a lot more dangerous than merely being an idiot.
That's the story this lifetime lefty liberal--and proud of it--has, and I'm sticking to it.Yes, fine. Now I am asking, once you have that, what then? Is the world a utopia?
Well, you know, it's the world, after all, and as I see it (and I'm 59 now, so not a kid anymore) it can never be a utopia, but it could be *better*. It could be fairer. It could mean less pain and hunger and profound sadness and sheer terror for maybe just a few more people today than there was yesterday.
How do we get there, to that point were maybe a handful of humans are better off than they were yesterday?
I think we get there by seeing that we are all equal. Everything that creates improvement starts with that.
Equality. Fairness. Compassion.
That's the starting point. Gay people and even (gasp!) women having basic human rights is a good start in that direction.You must understand you are talking to an anarchist, quite possibly he does believe in a Utopia, and he should be forgiven for that, he is young and idealistic and that is good, for those of us who have been around longer and seen every political system and change and fought for them and against them it's not the same I agree with you, we can work to make the world better but perfection may well be impossible.
I do have to say though innersmiff you always do this, you put up another political system for criticism without outlining your own, remember it is easy to poke holes in things but harder to come up with a better solution. Speaking of which as an anarchist why haven't you moved to Somalia? Its anarchist at the moment... not so pleasant but anarchist.I realise that a utopia is an idealistic notion, and that any movement that attempts to enforce a utopia where 'everybody is equal' is an arrogant movement because it assumes that everybody has the same idea about what equality is. The only moral political system is no system, because every government that has ever existed has only existed through violence. Rather than taking the risk in trusting humanity, the statist will trust the few to steal from the many, and use that property for 'good' ends, despite all evidence that that has not happened in any government in history.
It has wisely been said that it is always easier to say, "no" than "yes."
It is also easier to criticize than create, and much, much easier to destroy than to build.
+1
And to answer on her behalf for the time being, you have to accede that places in which abortion is a legal, safe and professional medical process are infinitely better and healthier than the radical regimes in which it was or is illegal. Watch a couple of documentaries about in-home, no-painkiller abortions in Romania during the Ceauşescu regime, when women were not allowed to use contraception and were forced to have as many babies as possible. It will make you physically sick.I mean, let's pretend you have everything you want concerning abortion and marriage, what next?
That's an extremely broad question; pick an area to start with.
Well your beliefs must go beyond believing in abortion rights. What I want is for you to present me with a belief system. Most lefties I meet tend to want to criticise idiot republicans and then feel like their activism work is done,
Ok, well, an entire belief system is a complicated thing and will vary slightly if not drastically from person to person. I don't think banks and corporations should be running the government. I don't think such a large portion of the taxes everyone pays should be funneled into illegitimate wars in places Westerners don't need to be sticking their noses and wallets in the first place. I do think education and healthcare need to be completely overhauled in the U.S. and should mirror the systems of places like Germany and the Scandinavian countries. I also think most Americans have no concept of the value of advanced and efficient infrastructure and investment in research and technology and that many live by archaic and irrelevant religious beliefs that they've grossly distorted to suit their own opinions.
Cool. More of that, less complaining about Republicans.
Indeed. It might be difficult to understand how necessary it is to complain about Republicans and their shenanigans if you don't live in the U.S., though. My state, for example, just passed a law allowing doctors not to inform women of any and all pregnancy complications they are found to have, in an effort to prevent abortions. Any doctor who does this is obviously unethical and extremely misguided, but should the fetus/baby and/or the mother die or face serious complications, injuries or deformities, the doctor(s) who chose to ignore their well-being cannot be sued for it. The new law protects their right to do what they think would prevent someone from having an abortion if they feel like it, regardless of health consequences. The radical fringe element of the right is becoming its base at this point, and measures such as the one I just described are nothing short of dangerous, insane and medieval.
Honestly, though, I think that fact that America is slowly going backwards and becoming increasingly hostile toward the concept of globalisation is the first signal of its inevitable demise. I hope Obama gets reelected, and I think that would help but wouldn't turn the tide in the long run. My solution is to leave ASAP and eventually settle in Norway or Sweden.Yes that is immoral, but again it's centered around the abortion issue. There is more to liberty than what you can do with your fetus and sexual organs, and there is so much going on that plans to destroy the very concept of liberty that those issues are trivial in comparison. In fact, the things you are taking for granted like globalisation and Barack Obama will eventually destroy the concept of Liberty.
Did you know that congress is now admitted as ceremonial, and Obama now takes orders from the non-democratic United Nations?Trivial, really?
I don't think I can attempt to respond to you with logic anymore.It is trivial in comparison to points I have just raised, and you have ignored.
The points you have raised bear little connection to reality. Here's an example of the kinds of behavior that would soon become rampant under your libertarian "utopia" which would soon become a dystopia.
"At least 78 corporations are under investigation for possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a 35-year-old law that bans American companies from paying bribes to government officials abroad. Among those companies are such well-known names as Alcoa, Avon, Goldman Sachs, Hewlett-Packard, Pfizer and Wal-Mart Stores, although none of these companies have been charged.
And, last week, it emerged that News Corporation, which is controlled by Rupert Murdoch and has been trying to contain the damage from a long-running phone-hacking scandal in Britain, is the subject of an F.B.I. inquiry into possible bribery there and in Russia. A spokesman for the News Corporation, Jack Horner, declined to comment."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/busin … f=business
Source NYTimes
Seriously? Are you so ignorant as not to know what the left stands for? Fundamentally its a movement that places humanity before money and which protects and aids the poor and the helpless.
I won't say "we" because the left is a big movement and like all movements it is not without factions and differences but I am a leftist and I believe that:
That policy must serve the majority not the privileged.
The slave is equal to his master if not better.
That absolute equality is the only way a meritocracy has any value.
That wealth does not dictate the value of a man.
That the past and the present are imperfect and need to be worked on.
Here Kennedy defines it better than I can:
"if by a liberal they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people, their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, their civil liberties, someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicion that grips us. If that is what they mean by liberal, I am proud to be a liberal,”Okay good. In the Josak led government, how would your ideals be implemented?
Freudian slip? Dema=democrat+gouges=gougers
- Peelander Gallyposted 12 years ago
0That what consenting adults do in the privacy of their homes is not the business of the government unless it involves something established as illegal because it does or will potentially hurt someone.
Even if you don't support gay marriage or abortion, (1) no one has the right to take away civil liberties from others and (2) Santorum is still a moron.Would you be in favour of the legalisation of all drugs, polygamy and prostitution?
I do think that marijuana (which I do not smoke or condone smoking, personally) and prostitution (which I also do not partake in, hopefully that's obvious) should be legalised, taxed and regulated, but don't expect that to happen here (in the U.S.) any time in the foreseeable future, if ever. It would just make a lot more sense.
The government would be able to regulate the content of marijuana and keep other potent drugs, chemicals, fillers and whatever else out of it. Have you ever seen someone unknowingly smoke some weed laced with opium subsequently flip out, end up falling onto some tile and breaking their jaw in three places? Your night's pretty much ruined when you have to stop a facial laceration from hemmorhaging and find someone sober enough to be the ER chauffeur while you're hallucinating and screaming. More importantly and seriously, though, the government would make huge amounts of money off a relatively harmless drug that is currently very helpful in funding Mexican and other drug cartels and gangs that are involved in all manner of extreme violence, hard drugs, prostitution, etc. not only in their own narco-state(s) but in our country, which funds it.
Do I think drugs that can kill you and/or make you dangerous should be legalised? No. It is impossible to overdose on marijuana. Inhaling any type of smoke into your lungs is harmful, but whatever, cigarettes are full of dozens of carcinogens and they're legal. In my opinion they shouldn't be; they should be pure tobacco if anything. But once again, I don't condone smoking them or weed. And something like mescaline, for example, can't kill you but will make you trip balls so badly that you might end up killing yourself or someone else while on it.
Moving on to prostitution: half of the counties in Nevada currently have legal brothels, and these brothels are much safer and more sanitary than all of the other goings on of their type in the U.S. Taxing this industry would also be a huge source of revenue, and requiring the men and women who work in providing sex in its many forms to adhere to strict hygienic codes and be subjected to regular testing largely eliminates the spread of disease. Furthermore, child prostitution and sex slavery are huge problems in every country, including the first world ones. The sick people (including the aforementioned drug cartels) who grab runaways off the streets and force them to turn tricks, beat them, intimidate them and often kill them would, one can only hope, eventually be eliminated.
The Netherlands is the perfect example of both of these. When these things are legal, people don't have to resort to shady and desperate means to obtain them, and often don't even want to because the thrill of skirting the law is no longer a factor. Do I condone the existence of brothels? Not really. But that is the world's oldest profession and it's never going to go away, just like people are never going to stop doing drugs. They might as well be as safe and regulated as possible.
Polygamy is a tricky one because it's associated with child rape and unlawful confinement. Of course, those things are horrible. I would say that it isn't any of the government's business if a number of consenting adults in their right minds all wanted to be married, but I don't think it should be allowed because of the fact that people would take advantage of it simply to obtain the legal benefits of marriage without, obviously, taking it seriously. The whole thing would become too complicated and convoluted; legal marriage should be a union between two people.It's all about opinion, isn't it?
Isn't marriage traditionally a message of love and devotion? If so, certainly homosexuals should be allowed to declare their love and devotion. And if so, certainly adults should be able to declare their love and devotion to more than one person.Right, I agree with it on that level, but I personally think that it would become very complicated legally and that some people would use it solely for its potential benefits. But then, regular marriage can be used like that, too. If laws were enacted that legalised polygamy, I myself wouldn't demand that they be repealed even though I wouldn't really like them.
I don't think it would be any more abused than regular marriage. For instance, for tax purposes, it would be no different than the way the IRS currently tracks dependents.
Yeah, you're right. Like I said, while I personally don't really like it, that doesn't mean it should be illegal. My personal opinion isn't grounds for such a decision.
That's really interesting. You condone paid for sex with as many people as one can afford. So is it just the tax loophole/benefits thing that bothers you about polygamy or gay marriage?
I said I don't really condone the existence of brothels; if I was dating or married to someone who turned out to be visiting them, for example, I'd be extremely unhappy about it and terminate the relationship. But the existence of prostitution is just something you have to accept. It would be much better for everyone if the whole kidnapping, disease-spreading, drug-addled abusive portion of it could be eliminated, though, even in part.
And gay marriage doesn't bother me in the slightest; it just seems like it'd be complicated to work out the legalities of a relationship between so many people and so many potential children and to get everyone to recognise them, but I'm sure it could probably be done. Polygamy has so many negative connotations and associations in my mind and in the minds of many others, though, that adding those on top of how complex it would get makes me dislike the concept, and I'm sure lots of other people feel the same way, to the extent that it probably won't ever be legal across the country anyway. But also like I said, that's just my opinion.
Declaring one's love and devotion to more than one person is not the same as marrying more than one person. We are free to love and be devoted to as many other people as we wish. As Peelander observed polygamy is illegal for a number of good and practical reasons.
I think you have kind of contradicted yourself on these points. Firstly, you contradict your own principles. Your main principle is that "what consenting adults do in the privacy of their homes is not the business of the government. . . unless it hurts someone", which is perfectly fine, but you do not seem to take this principle very far. You take it as far as marijuana decriminalization, but heavily regulated - which is not very free at all if the government has to come round to your house and check if you've got the 'right' marijuana, and even in the case of the person who broke their jaw, they took on that risk by themselves and is not hurting anybody else (they probably would have had a better chance of finding a safer substance in a free drug market but we are debating moral principles here, we'll get to the practical stuff in a bit). Regulation seems to me to be only going half-way to what we REALLY want which is freedom, that is, if you actually believe that what we do in our own home is our own business.
You also cannot pick and choose your substance if you're going to make a blanket moral principle. Is it okay or is it not okay for the government to decide what a person should consume? If you support heroin prohibition you're saying that it categorically IS okay for the government to decide what you do in your own home. Unless of course you subscribe to the belief that the voluntary act of consuming a substance stops with certain substances e.g. heroin leads to addiction and death whereas marijuana does not. Then we get into a much larger debate which NOBODY can agree on. But I personally believe it is lazy and arrogant to disregard a human being's free will when it comes to certain drugs over others.
Now a little practical stuff. The government makes a lot of money off the drug war as it stands (it practically runs it) so the argument that 'regulation = more money for government' will probably illicit a nice condescending smile from most politicians. The government is always looking to make money so the question is: why havent they done it already? Probably because they're in the back pockets of the alcohol industry, but anywho . . .
Another problem I have with your support of prohibition of some drugs is that you admit that the drug cartels directly profit from it. Why would you choose just to reduce it? Why not get rid of the drug cartels for good and legalise it all, not just marijuana? If you're going for the humanitarian argument, at least be serious about it.
And again, this regulation business . . . might seem a little esoteric but bear with me: you're arguing against intervention and prohibition but then say "as long as it's safe and REGULATED". How is it safe? Is it safer with more or less intervention? This strikes me as an indirect contradiction. Otherwise , that's a good defense of prostitution legalisation.
Finally, I think there is a contradiction in that you believe a marriage is a 'should be' but are against the definition that it 'should be' between a man and a woman. What about 3 women, 7 men and 4 transexuals? That'd be a fabulously progressive marriage! So, do you believe the government should have any say in your relationship or not? If you think it needs to be defined on anything at all, then it CAN be argued that it can be defined between a man and a woman. The real debate is: should the government be involved or not?Ugh, I was almost done writing a reply and the crappy cursor on this old laptop doesn't work and sometimes goes crazy made me lose it. I'll come back to this.
inner - ...and at what point will they tell everyone, heteros included, that we're not suited to each other and therefore cannot marry or have children. We'll need to be regulated into having the right compatible mate chosen for us.
Right - everything we enjoy about marriage comes from our choice of our mate, or how many mates for that matter, i.e. our freedom.
Society is ready for same sex marriages and legalization of marijuana. It's not ready for polygamy, and legalization of methamphetimine. The fact that drug dealers profit from making and selling something very harmful isn't sufficient reason to make it legal. It's bad enough to have pharmaceutical companies legally selling harmful drugs or food companies selling tainted meat.
Ok, so the only thing I said that might contradict itself is the fact that I personally don't really like the idea of polygamy. But I've also agreed that it's not much different than present available forms of marriage, and that I would not protest it or demand to have the legality of it repealed (if it were made legal) on the basis of my opinions, because that's silly, self-serving and wrong. Many cultures still practise polygamy, and there are even ancient examples of transvestism and gay marriage as well. If many people in my country could say that they don't like the idea of two people of the same gender getting married but accede to the fact that their opinion does not dictate the rights of others, we'd be a lot further along than we are right now.
What I have really contradicted are your beliefs. First and foremost, I believe that things that badly hurt and kill people should be illegal. Honestly I'm not sure how alcohol fits into that argument, because I certainly consume my fair share of liquor and wouldn't support prohibition, but there are also lots of laws in place to try to prevent wanton drunken destruction, such as blood alcohol limits and holding bartenders accountable for allowing people who can't even walk to leave their establishments and drive. Plus, having $5 worth of alcohol isn't nearly as damaging and addictive as smoking $5 worth of heroin. People have been drinking alcohol for many thousands of years; they haven't been making meth in their garages for much more than thirty. Hard drugs and chemical additives are a different ballgame.
Something I've noticed about the arguments presented by people with whom I tend to disagree are that they value their lofty idealistic concepts of pure freedom above what makes sense. If you've ever known people addicted to heroin or meth, etc., and especially people who expose children to those substances and to their actions while on them, then you should be ashamed of yourself for thinking that anything and everything should be allowed. There are reasons for child labour laws and other basic civil rights, just as there are plenty of reasons for making deadly substances illegal. Putting children in extreme danger is right at the top of the list. I can agree that what people choose to do with their own bodies is their business - having an abortion, for example - but at the same time, there are many vulnerable people who cannot be trusted with their own decisions and should not have ready access to every drug known to man, just as mentally ill people should not be able to purchase firearms, as they unfortunately can in my state. We've seen the consequences of that already. One of my own friends was shot and paralysed by a madman with a gun and his boyfriend was killed in front of him, about two weeks after our representative Giffords was shot in the head during a killing spree. The shooters in both cases had been confirmed to be mentally and emotionally disturbed and in need of serious medication. So having an abortion, to go back to that example, is a choice that improves quality of life or even saves a life and protects an unwanted child from being born into a situation that is less than ideal; there's nothing good that comes from shooting up. Ever. Especially if you're a kid and/or emotionally disturbed.
How is there anything even vaguely humanitarian about providing people with unlimited and unregulated access to any substance they wish to abuse? Eliminating drug cartels and dealers is one thing, but putting everyone else in a position of greater danger than they were in when those groups existed kind of defeats the purpose.
Finally, I'm glad you agree about the prostitution legalisation, but can't understand why you think regulations are put to good use in that example but not in the example of drugs. You don't want to get HIV from a hooker but you still want to be able to snort a line of coke off her, is that it?
I know that every government does horrible things on a regular basis and that the U.S. has an especially sordid history of playing puppet master with guerilla fighters, dictatorial regimes and other n'er-do-wells to further their own agendas, but obviously I think that my opinion of what an ideal situation would be is logical in some ways that yours is not, just as you think the opposite. If there were no governments or regulations of any kind, the world would look like the postapocalyptic one in Mad Max. Actually, there are lots of existing examples of places with no centralised governmental control of any kind: Somalia's a good example. Is that the kind of place you'd like to live in, then? More power to you, have a good trip.So basically you're laying out an inconsistent argument and defending it with straw-men about liberty and assumptions about liberty that are not observably true in real life.
A good barometer for deciding which laws are just is thinking about yourself in the theoretical change of law. I assume from your demagoguery that you wouldn't do meth or heroin personally, so why on Earth do YOU need it to be regulated? Do you need the government to save you from yourself? You enjoy your freedom with alcohol, a horrifically dangerous drug, but are responsible with it, but don't want people to enjoy the same freedoms with other drugs and accept the consequences of that themselves.
There is also no evidence to suggest that drug usage goes up when there is decriminalisation. But there is evidence to suggest that addiction goes down, so I don't believe there is any risk associated with legalisation at all (not that it matters, by the way, if you seriously hold the opinion that nobody has the right to tell you what you can do on your own property). There are obviously sane laws that involve shared property, like drink driving laws, but in order to fully believe in a moral principle we have to take it to its full extent or we aren't serious about it. We can hold that slavery is evil but 'accept' that some slaves have to exist otherwise . . . "Who would work the land??? Do you want the country to go hungry like the Congo???? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?". We found a way to eliminate slavery because it was immoral, so we will find a way to deal with drug addicts in a free world, because prohibition is immoral.
And then you list a bunch of straw-men about anarchism that have no basis in reality. Somalia is far from a free country, and Mad Max happens to be a movie. They do not substitute for actual arguments.You know why I want to be protected from that stuff? Have you ever lived on a block with at least four meth labs that were all busted within a couple months of each other? I've literally woken up to SWAT teams - with a team of dogs they had to let loose in one case - and dangerous chemical explosions, sirens and fire trucks. There'a a reason it's illegal. Seriously. What don't you get? If the cops come to your door with a warrant to search your property because they believe you're involved in the illegal manufacture and distribution of substances, you will be charged with the attempted murder of every officer on the property if you intentionally neglect to inform them of the meth lab you're concealing. That's how dangerous it is.
I'm not going going to kill a half dozen people and level a house with alcohol. Could I if I tried hard enough? Probably, but it'd still be murder and arson. When the consequences of your stupid actions spread to other people, that's the issue. Plus, don't try to tell me you think the world should be a hedonistic, balls-walls drug free-for-all but that you yourself don't even drink. You didn't say anything about having any first-hand experience with hard drugs to temper your arguments, either.
Throwing slavery into the argument is kind of asinine and offensive. I don't know what you're trying to prove by likening slavery to prohibition, but I'll assume it's part of that whole illogical-idealistic-view-of-ultimate-freedom thing you have going on. Slavery is evil because it is inhumane, malicious and unnecessary; preventing people from legally being able to consume crack cocaine is the opposite.
Somalia is indeed far from a free country, but you want total government non-involvement, right? Try to imagine what would happen if there were no taxes to fund the construction and repair of vital infrastructure, if there were no schools, no hospitals, etc. I guess you don't dig my sense of humour, but my point is still pretty clear: eliminating government involvement, regulations and laws is dangerous and does result in chaos, as Somalia itself demonstrates.It sounds like you dislike SWAT teams more than you dislike meth. You know what would stop the SWAT teams? Legalisation!
Yeah, there is a reason it's illegal, but have you ever considered that it might be so to propagate a drug war that gives a financial benefit to the corporations the government works for? In the west, there is no correlation between what is legal and what is safe. A man can kill a half dozen people and level a house on a cup of coffee, but he made the choice to do that. It is the act of murder itself which is immoral, not coffee. Meth is not a demon that completely replaces the consciousness of the user, and even if it did, the user chose to use it of their own free will and knew of the consequences beforehand.
But in the end, and this is my main point - all of that doesn't matter because we're arguing the morality of prohibition. I was not making a direct comparison between drug prohibition and slavery - only as far as exposing the moral hypocrisy. Is it okay for people to tell you what you can do to yourself in your own home? Is it okay or not? If you personally believe that meth and heroin should be illegal, that's fine, but you HAVE to admit that it IS okay for people to tell you what you can do in your own home. That is just the way of it.I could list ways in which all of those things could be provided without government but we'd be here forever. Perhaps that is for another time.
Meth is arguably the worst of the illegal drugs. Some heroin addicts have lived long and creative lives (jazz musicians). I don't believe that's true of meth users. I have a relative who has destroyed her life using meth. The "war on" drugs has been a failure because it over-emphasized criminal prosecutions of users and neglected treatment. This failure won't be remedied simply by legalizing all drugs. You sound like a dogmatic libertarian or possibly an anarchist. Arguing about legalizing drugs, except for marijuana, in the United States or most other countries is a waste of time. It won't happen because it's a political non-starter, for good reasons. Your position is analogous to advocating removal of automobile speed limits. My recollection is that Nevada was the last state without highway speed limits and that speed limits have now been imposed.
Yes, meth is bad. That doesn't change the fact you're being a hypocrite if you support prohibition of one drug over another. Treatment is good, yes, but we need to instill a mentality of voluntarism so as to avoid burdening people with the cost. Yes, you can choose to use meth as long as you pay for the consequences. That sounds a lot more responsible than prohibition and then government treatment funded by stolen money.
"You sound like a dogmatic libertarian or possibly an anarchist"
The logical application of a principle I believe in: pacifism, is liberty, in turn the logical extension of liberty is expressed through anarchism. If you can think of a better system that is even less violent than anarchism than please enlighten me.
"Arguing about legalizing drugs, except for marijuana, in the United States or most other countries is a waste of time."
The Portugese didn't think it was a waste of time. In addition, I will win this argument eventually because the drug war is completely unsustainable. I would just like to stop the millions of deaths sooner rather than later.
"Your position is analogous to advocating removal of automobile speed limits."
No it's not. The government does not prosecute you for going over the speed limit on your own land, but it will if you use meth."That doesn't change the fact you're being a hypocrite if you support prohibition of one drug over another."
That's baloney. The public interest (the utilitarian common good, if you will) is served by prohibiting meth and arguably not harmed or served by removing prohibitions on marijuana. For many years DDT was widely used as a pesticide. Now it is banned and less environmentally harmful and possibly less effective pesticides are used instead because our democratically (well, mostly) elected government representatives have decided that DDT should be banned IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST. They could just as well decide to legalize marijuana and ban meth on the same grounds.
"stolen money"
You sound like Evan Rogers who is our longstanding libertarian "true believer" or, as you put it "demagogue." Like Evan, you are well off the beaten track.The reasons for prohibition are kind of irrelevant. We are trying to ascertain whether it is moral or not for the government to decide what substances a human can consume on his own property as a general principle. Is it or not?
If Evan is like me, he is not trying to impose any moral belief system on anyone, but trying to promote moral consistency and expose fallacies like appeal to majority over argument from reason. I bet he finds "you are well off the beaten track" a compliment like me too
.
Actually, meth IS exactly analogous to a demon that completely replaces the consciousness of its user. If there's one thing I dislike most of all, it's large fiery explosions caused by lethal chemicals near where I'm sleeping.
And once again, you're the one advocating complete and unrestricted freedom of everything. While I did say that the government shouldn't be able to tell people what they can and can't do with themselves, you keep ignoring the other half of that first crucial sentence I posted: AS LONG AS what they're doing doesn't hurt or kill or have the potential to hurt/kill others.
Are you seriously equating anarchy with pacifism? Once again, direct your attention to Somalia and most of is neighbours.
And have you ever had any experience with people who abuse hard drugs? You keep ignoring my wanting to know the answer to that. I think you're just an idealistic kid who doesn't know what he's talking about.If you keep putting that caveat in you are contradicting the first sentence. Cooking could harm others. Playing basketball could hurt others . . . you are opening yourself up to far too much ambiguity. Is it okay or not? You're really not being clear!
I think I'm going to cut to the chase and confirm that you believe it is okay for some people to decide what other people do in their own homes. If you HAVE to put that caveat in, the first sentence is just there for dress up. I have no judgment on that, I just want you to be consistent.
Somalia is not anarchist, as we have established.
And I'm not answering your question because I'm trying to get to the point but I shall humour you. No I have not, but I have an imagination. Have you partaken in the drug war and seen the piles of dead bodies after a raid? Does it really matter? Would you not accept cancer treatment from a doctor if he himself had not had cancer?They're called laws, you dolt. They exist for a reason. And no one has established that Somalia is not anarchist. Here, read about it:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publication … os/so.html
They haven't had any kind of centralised government since 1991.
"NO I HAVE NOT". Done. No experience. That's why you just don't get why hard drugs are bad. Go be dirt poor and live in a bad neighbourhood for a while, go to an addicts anonymous meeting, you're totally naive.
I wash my hands of your ridiculous thread. Please educate yourself better.No centralised government but controlled by smaller ones and theocratic factions. Hardly voluntarism.
Hard drugs are bad - this fact does not justify prohibition by itself, you have to explain yourself. Are you seriously suggesting that nobody can have an opinion about anything without experiencing the subject first hand? If that's the case, why let people like me vote? Don't you believe in the vote for everyone?PG - name calling is frowned upon in forums.
"Perhaps you should stop shilling for your cause and filtering everything through liberal utopian lenses to be sure it all fits your talking points before you spout worthless one-sided, prejudicial, politically motivated, nonsensical garbage."
This too?
Meth: a rush of dopamine that can never be replicated.
It can be made from shop-liftable material at any Wal-mart, and can be made inside a 2-liter bottle of cola.
Peelander - Re legalizing marijuana; 'The government would be able to regulate the content of marijuana and keep other potent drugs, chemicals, fillers and whatever else out of it."
The same way they've kept harmful chemicals out of cigarette paper and tobacco. Gotta love the US and their twisted way of regulating things.
And my personal favorite re legalizing prostitution: "The sick people who grab runaways off the streets and force them to turn tricks, beat them, intimidate them and often kill them would...eventually be eliminated."
So every lazy or misguided young girl can hope for a life rich in the loveless filth of paid-for sex knowing that some day she'll have her little cottage in the Cotswalds.
And "It is impossible to overdose on marijuana". Technically probably true. You can't smoke enough to kill you on the spot. Can you smoke enough to get in your car and kill someone else? Either you're playing devil's advocate and simply taking the other side of the debate or you haven't been around serious pot smokers for any length time. I know what i'm talking about and have the experience to back it up.I'm talking about what I think would be an ideal situation. I don't trust the government implicitly just like most people don't, but I also said that putting carcinogens and other harmful chemicals in anything should be illegal, and specifically said that it should be so with cigarettes as well.
And I certainly hope that girls growing up in a privileged first world country wouldn't have to hope for that, but getting a job in the sex industry is the primary ambition of girls in Russia, for example. I don't think that kidnapping people, getting them hooked on heroin or whatever else, forcing them to have sex with as many people as possible and then collecting the money from it will ever be completely gone, but taking many of the people who run those schemes out of the picture would unarguably be good for everyone.
Oh please, I'm a lower middle class kid who's just finished college, I've been around more potheads than I can count for years. That's nothing to be proud of or refer to as "experience". It's funny, because lots of people get behind the wheel after they've been drinking and kill other people. Is that terrible, irresponsible and illegal? Yep. So... what was your point?My point is in allowing little laws that help all this get through, it furthers the cause of degeneracy, something I don't think anyone wants.
We're not always proud of our experience, but it's there nevertheless.I'm just saying it's an experience most people have and it's not really something to tout. Can you elaborate on "furthers the cause of degeneracy"? I'm not sure what you mean.
With each little bit of leeway we give to what are now illegal substances, we further the degradation of our society. When we say rape is not rape if a woman (for example) allows a man to kiss her and is then called a tease after she is raped. When we raise the legal limit on what is considered drunkeness, when we allow people to pee in the streets, when we create laws that, instead of reigning in on substances, we allow more of it, we degrade society. I can't explain it any better and of course it's just my opinion. But having lived through the 60s, I can tell you life is better on the straight and narrow when it comes to any kind of substance high.
Another sensible and persuasive comment with which I agree 100 percent.
"no one has the right to take away civil liberties from others"
Put your vote where your mouth is: Vote Ron Paul.
End the drug wars, end the war against marriage, end the war against prostitution, end taxation, end regulation.
To talk of "consenting adult actions are allowed", but then to vote for anyone but Ron Paul is an act of hypocrisy.
- PrettyPantherposted 12 years ago0
I support the legalization of marijuana, prostitution and polygamy. I do believe regulation is necessary in a large economy, though I understand that we must constantly guard against over-regulation. I personally want to know what is in the food and drugs that I feed myself or my children and that is not possible without some regulation and oversight.
Pretty- have you really thought this through? You want to know what's in the food you eat. Why? There was a time when we didn't need to ask these questions because the food we ate was pure. Now you need to question all of it. The same will happen with legalizing substances. A nation of ignorants who are already addicted to the high of pot will bring their children in on it and others and at some point 'regulation' will allow chemicals into the weed and the paper the same as cigarettes.
Prostitutes run by private enterprise are governed by health laws. So are restaurants but there is still bacteria in the food at restaurants and filth in some kitchens. So now we'll have legal prostitutes with kiosks at the mall, boys over 17 taking disease home to their girlfriends and wives. Disease at a legal brothel? You think it can't happen? The same way e-coli can't get into food because we have the board of health?
So here's the big question. I'd love it if you would share with us the speech you're going to give your daughter when she says. "Mom, get off my back. I'm not going to college. I've decided to buy a Madame X franchise." Or "Mommy, why can't I be a prostitute? Brittany's mom is one and they live in a nicer house than we do."The reason all of those things are 'regulated' poorly is because the government is involved. In the instances where government took a hands off approach, the product has been safer for the consumer because everyone has a financial gain to be made in keeping the food safe. Since the money for state regulation comes from the tax payers and isn;t earned, it's a steady supply and there is no incentive for improvement. It also allows for corruption e.g. the FDA are the ones who allow dangerous substances such as aspartame into our food and drink. Although I do admit we need to boycott these things as ethical consumers
So, although Monsanto has been regulated by certain chemicals being outlawed, they have been otherwise left to their own devices and are poisoning the food supply.
Or Beatrice-Hunt Wesson, who left to their own devices, have seen fit to add sugar to virtually all their products.
Certified Organic is regulated and costs a lot of money on the part of producers but they spend it to maintain the integrity of their product. Corps like Monsanto and BHW spend a lot of money on advertising and little on improving the quality of the food they produce. At least what you and I would call quality.
I could give more examples of non-food consumer products that were not safer before regulations.
My point is that regulation has less to do with quality than one might think.Corps like BHW and Monstanto are subsidised by the government, and in combination with HEAVY regulation of natural food producing methods like raw milk it destroys competition and makes everything decidedly unsafe. These corporations probably wouldn't exist without government.
Excellent point if true. Not saying it's not true just haven't heard it before and thanks for pointing to it. Still, IMO, doesn't justify the quality/regulation argument because both sides of the coin show good and bad products.
This ties back into my point about regulating the dangerous content of anything that is to be consumed. Even Mexico said "no" to Monsanto. MEXICO. There was a thread here about it, actually. And I'm sure everyone has seen the news about the "pink slime" beef filler. Don't even get me started on prescription drugs. In an ideal world, all of these practices would be illegal.
PG - speaking of pink slime, I just bought a bag of frozen wild caught salmon. When I got home, I saw there was STPP added to the fish. It's a neurotoxin added to frozen fish to prevent thaw drip and the FDA says it's relatively harmless but it's banned in other countries. I was so mad I wanted to scream but I had already torn the bag open. Aarrggh!
"The reason all of those things are 'regulated' poorly is because the government is involved. In the instances where government took a hands off approach, the product has been safer for the consumer because everyone has a financial gain to be made in keeping the food safe."
That is a quite naive statement which has been disproven time and again throughout history, most recently in the banking and securities industry which plunged the world into recession, by greedy bureaucratic CEOs who never had an original idea in their career but expect to be paid as if they were Bill Gates, Henry Ford or Steve Jobs and when the profits aren't there back date their options and/or cook the books, by coal mining companies who don't observe safety practices and regulations. Effective regulation is not easy when bankers ask their lawyers: 1. Is this practice legal? 2. What are the chances of getting caught? and 3. If we get caught what is the likelihood of going to jail or can we get off with a billion dollar fine?Never mind the Federal Reserve which creates the exact environment to breed this kind of behaviour, and the government rewarding failed businesses with tax payers' money. You can not absolve the government from any blame to suit your 'bankers are evil' point of view. I agree, bankers are evil, but take away their henchmen and where is their power?
Recessions have not lasted very long when the government left well enough alone, and watch out for the next 'dip' later this year as a result of decades of poor economic policy."You can not absolve the government from any blame to suit your 'bankers are evil' point of view. I agree, bankers are evil, but take away their henchmen and where is their power?"
It's true that business has co-opted to a fairly great extent the federal and state agencies that are supposed to be regulating their activities. However, without the regulations and agencies business would run completely rampant. The notion that the "market" would provide an effective incentive for honest business practices is a complete fiction. Here's an example of more effective recent enforcement by the Justice Department:
At least 78 corporations are under investigation for possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a 35-year-old law that bans American companies from paying bribes to government officials abroad. Among those companies are such well-known names as Alcoa, Avon, Goldman Sachs, Hewlett-Packard, Pfizer and Wal-Mart Stores, although none of these companies have been charged.
And, last week, it emerged that News Corporation, which is controlled by Rupert Murdoch and has been trying to contain the damage from a long-running phone-hacking scandal in Britain, is the subject of an F.B.I. inquiry into possible bribery there and in Russia. A spokesman for the News Corporation, Jack Horner, declined to comment.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/busin … f=business
Moreover, all the big Wall Street banks have paid billions of dollars in fines as a result of SEC fraud charges but have successfully avoided criminal penaties.Your comment about the Federal Reserve is ridiculous. The Fed has been doing a heroic job of keeping the US economy from experiencing a double dip recession.If you had ever taken an economics course you might not have made such an uninformed statement.
[I am your "lefty liberal demagouge."]Oh yes those economics courses funded by the same institution that has a vested interest in keeping the 'heoric' image of the Federal Reserve intact
All of those companies will be fine from all the subsidies the government gives them, I think. I'm not sure what is so effective about giving them a slap on the wrist and then bailing them out with 7 trilion dollars. At least admit that the bail out was a bad idea.The bailout of GM and Chrysler was a good idea originated by George Bush and carried out by Barack Obama. It saved an estimated one million jobs. You are a doctrinaire libertarian apparently with little or no knowledge of economics.
Yes, a million workers honest and good businesses are now unable to hire. It doesn't require a doctorate in economics to come to the obvious conclusion that you don't reward bad businesses with stolen money. The little men suffer most from the crisis, so why not bail them out instead of the rich guys? It does make me laugh at the hypocrisy - It's not okay for businesses to ask to keep more of the money they earn but it is okay to ask the government to give them money if they mess up? It's really mind-blowing.
This coming from a man who is unwilling to verify a number in a financial statement, and insists that the news reporting on financial statements before they are available is more reliable than the actual financial statements...
You are the one peddling bad fish about General Electric's tax bills. Media reports are uniformly critical of GE for using every possible loophole and then some and spending millions on lobbying to preserve its favorable tax treatment. I have been completely straightforward in our discussion of this matter. You are the one who is making unsupportable claims on this topic.
Bad fish?
I posted the SEC FINANCIAL FILINGS for you, told you what page to look on, what chart, and what line of the chart. If you weren't so lazy you could click a link and verify for yourself, but since you can't be bothered, it's easier to say I'm lying.
Unsupportable claims? Yeah, you're right. *begin sarcasm)The SEC financial filings that I cited as my source do nothing to support my claim...(end of sarcasm)
Just because regulation isn't a perfect solution doesn't mean we shouldn't have it. Sure, there is still bacteria in food at restaurants, but I'm sure it would be worse without inspections. Without regulation, then maybe there would be prostitutes with kiosks at the mall, but with land use regulations certain types of businesses would be permitted only in certain areas, just as current regulations do with bars and strip joints.
If I had a daughter (interesting that you mention daughter but not son -- men can also be prostitutes), I expect she would have a mind of her own and be able to decide for herself what she wants to do for a living. I can think of a few currently legal activities that I would be horrified if any of my kids decided to do, including inhumane factory farming or profiting from short-term high-risk loans to desperate people. In my value system, those would be infinitely worse than engaging in a mutual arrangement between two consulting adults that harms no one.I can agree with your first paragraph argument. The second half, ok, can't argue with your opinion.
Legalizing marijuana is one thing, but prostitution presents a whole other problem entirely. In countries where prostitution is legalized, there's a very high incidence of AIDS and other sexually transmitted illnesses. Moreover, they're unable to control the spread of disease.
I see no direct correlation between legalised prostitution and the spread of AIDs.
That suggests that legal prostitutes are somehow more susceptible to the disease than illegal ones which we all know is carp.
It seems to me that legal prostitution could reduce the number of STDs, if the management had some strict rules and health care checks. I've never been a big fan of trying to legislate morality. I'll bet that the legal brothels in Nevada don't have a big AIDS/STD problem.
As for polygamy, I don't really have a problem with it, either. When I was a kid, a man and his two wives lived just outside of our town. They weren't Mormon, by the way. The house had two large wings, with one wife and kids on one side and the other wife and set of kids on the other. They never bothered anyone, and they were never bothered by the cops, either.
I'm not a drug user, but in years past, I smoked my share of pot. I see absolutely no reason why pot should be illegal. In fact, if all drugs were legal for ADULTS, I fully believe drug crime would be greatly reduced. Remember alcohol prohibition and all the crime we had with that?
I've always been against prosecuting victimless crimes. If drug dealers target kids, then they should be prosecuted because there would be a victim. If an adult wants to snort a line or smoke a doobie, he or she should be able to do so without going to jail, as long as he/she doesn't drive under the influence, just as it is with alcohol.+1, though I personally still think that legalising any and all drugs would open a Pandora's Box of insanity even while it was drastically reducing crime before everything would level out.
So the legal limit would be anything short of suicide? When is intervention valid? At what point does a friend or someone say you're an alcoholic or the pot equivalent? I'm pretty much on the fence about this because in theory one should be able to go into a cafe and buy a joint, and just like bars, they do it there, not take it out of the bar. The problem, again, is the line always, without fail, gets stretched until the next argument is where does the law step in and change it again and in whose favor?
Limbaugh the Hutt and Moon President Gingrich should be Futurama characters for sure x'D
Evan - I know, it just did't fit the joke.
Oh yes I know. Apparently everybody against the war is with the terrorists.
None of these arguments will matter soon if the citizens of this country do not stand up and end the ridiculously corrupt government that is in power.With the laws that were passed and hidden from the public eye within the last 6 months we all have seriously diminished constitutional rights.Unfortunately the vote will not correct the situation in which we find ourselves in at present.Only by unified citizen outrage and an undivided voice can we stop the totalitarian state in which we are headed.If anyone that is concerned with any of the issues I've seen within this debate,you will take a look at the NDAA of 2012 and HR 347 and ACTA.If we don't stop arguing among ourselves and join together as a nation within our life time we will not have the right to the opinions that you all have shared.
mr - couldn't agree more except that it's been a lot longer than 6 month. It's only been recently that our eyes are being opened but this crap has been going on for at least 40 years.
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