Cruis.In Posted August 4, 2005 Author Report Share Posted August 4, 2005 quote:Since you fail to grasp the concept of spending money on rehabilitating non-violent drug users instead of imprisoning them for 20 years while child molestors who rape two month olds get out in 10.are you so confused that this has come up now? where in anything I've said anything is contrary to imprisoning a rapist for life. The laws are there tell the judges to use them, for example in my country the maximum penalty for rape is life. But no one has ever been given it, not even a serial rapist. And there is no millions of me in his bay area, there is one of me, and he is where I am. Pleas do not think to compare me to the sections of your american community who you feel are ignorant, I have only to look at Jay Leno jay walking and I would feel insulted. Drug use is not a victimless crime, it is tied into many other things to be, indirectly related to the funding of terrorism, remember your ads on t.v when you're buying drugs your giving the enemy money... since they run drug trafficking organizations... that creates victims else where... so not totally victimless. So far ya'll have thrown more insults and half insults and implied insults at me personally, than be interested in the topic at hand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soback Posted August 4, 2005 Report Share Posted August 4, 2005 By the same token Cruis.In. You can say that you, when you buy a diamond, is responsible for thousands of murders in Africa. By the same token, when you buy your clothes, you are responsible for chineese child labor. By the same token you are responsible for most any evil in this world. How about you hold the REAL criminals responsible. Not the person who buys the diamond, but a person who killed the miner for it. Not the person who buys jeans, but the person who works children 16 hours a day. Not the person who buys drugs, but the person who uses that money to kill. Who is responsible Cruis.In? That's why Nomad is arguing that Chechens killing innocent civilians are not responsible and are partially wrong, because those civilians are a part of Russia. So you as a consumer, commiting no crime against anyone, is responsible for the crime that someone else commits? How about this, the guy takes out a loan from the bank, buys an Uzi, and proceeds to mow dow dozens of people at the movie theater before killing himself, is the bank responsible? Was he a victim or a criminal? By your arguments, all those people were victims, including that guy, and only the bank is responsible. How about, the people were victims, and the guy a criminal. Name things by what they really are, don't avoid, or delute their meanings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cruis.In Posted August 4, 2005 Author Report Share Posted August 4, 2005 quote:How about you hold the REAL criminals responsible. Not the person who buys the diamond, but a person who killed the miner for it. Not the person who buys jeans, but the person who works children 16 hours a day. Not the person who buys drugs, but the person who uses that money to kill. Who is responsible Cruis.In?Shouldn't you be telling the law makers that? I think you're getting ahead of yourself spurred on my Jaguar. LOANING someone MONEY from a BANK is LEGAL. SELLING DRUGS is ILLEGAL. So that analogy CANNOT compare to mine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soback Posted August 5, 2005 Report Share Posted August 5, 2005 Telling the lawmakers? Telling them that the ones responsible for crimes are actually the ones who have commited them? They need to be told that? If they need to be told that, then they have ceased to be of any use to me a long time ago. Which as you can see they have. As far as sale of drugs being illegal, that's exactly the discussion here. Illegal by who, who told you that, who is forcing that assumption down your throat. They did, the same lawmakers who hold you responsible for crimes that someone elses comits. The only reason drugs are illegal is because THEY SAID SO. No other reason than that. Ever asked yourself why alcohol is not? Ever asked yourself why tobaco is not? Because they SAID IT'S NOT. No other reason than that. Some people here argue that drugs are illegal because the lawmakers know better than you do what's best for you. They refuse to accept the irrevocable. The fact that your life depends upon YOUR MIND. By you discarding that responsibility you will live in two states of chronic emotions, fear and guilt. And you will deserve them. Those emotions will come from the real and basic threat to your existence: Fear because you have abandoned your weapon of survival, your mind, you gave that away, having others make decissions for you. And guilt, guilt because you know you have done it volitionally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Remo Williams Posted August 5, 2005 Report Share Posted August 5, 2005 quote:So far ya'll have thrown more insults and half insults and implied insults at me personally, than be interested in the topic at hand. I have been following this topic closely I have yet to see anything insulting or belittling as is the par for some here when debating. This has been very clean considering the topic. If IÔÇÖve missed something feel free to PM me Cruis.in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Prezioso Posted August 5, 2005 Report Share Posted August 5, 2005 I have to say, I still am torn on this issue. One of the distinct differences between a libertarian stance (VERY different from a Liberal stance, by the way) and a conservative stance is that the libertarian view takes into account the individual alone, while the conservative stance encompasses the individual AND society. I usually err on the side of individual rights. Like a libertarian, I usually think that the rights of the individual take precedence. In the interest of consistency, I SHOULD be in favor of drug legalization. The trouble spot for me is two-fold. 1) I feel that the backbone of any society is the family unit. Nothing I have ever seen has the pontential to destroy a family the way drugs do. In essence the drug problem, in being destructive of families, is detrimental to society as a whole. The job of our legal system is to keep society reasonably capable of providing the opportunity to all Americans to pursue happiness. A society with a rampant drug problem significantly inhibits this. 2) As a conservative, I believe everyone is ultimately accountable for their actions. Having said that, I find it disturbing that some drugs are so powerful that they impair one's judgement so badly that, in many cases, they are compelled to do things that they NEVER would do normally. When I was a kid, I lived in a HUGE apartment complex in New York. My neighbors down the hall were pretty nice people, as I remember. One day, I saw the police milling about their apartment. To make a long story short, the woman who lived there had become a drug addict and got high one day and decided to boil her baby on the stove. To say that this left a mark on me is an understatement. Would she have done this if not influenced by cocaine and LSD? I can't know for sure, but I doubt it. Understand, I don't think that these reasons are definitive proof that drugs should remain illegal. But I think they illustrate the issue is more complex than it might seem at first. Well, for me anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joel Schultz Posted August 5, 2005 Report Share Posted August 5, 2005 I am not convinced that either assumption is ultimately beneficial to the individual. My big problem with philosophical debates is that everyone pretends humans are rational. We're not. We do stupid things. (Recall the second most abundantly occurring resource in the universe after hydrogen). Given that irrationality and stupidity are a factor, it is not clear to me that an individual will always make the right decision for themselves. If people could do that, they would never have anything to regret or need to second guess themselves, "Should I have done this differently?" Such occur. Its why the battered wife sticks with the husband. An emotional factor is involved which may override all rational reasons to leave, even if it ends up resulting in her death. She fully knows the risks, yet at the same time wholeheartedly does not want to die. Her desires are in conflict. Does that make me know better than her what's best? No (although I think it is better to live). Does she really know what is "best" for her? I'm not sure of that either. She may regret leaving. She may also regret dying (if she could somehow regret after such an incident). If either choice leads to future regrets -- was there really a "best" choice even in her mind? It is likewise unclear to me that such factors vanish when a group is in charge. If anything, stupidity seems to be more prevalent in groups ("herd mentality"). I don't think either assumption can be defended successfully under *all* scenarios. I feel it more reasonable to conclude neither individual nor group can adequately determine "best" for all circumstances. If such were possible, I would think that somewhere there'd be Utopia. There isn't. As for what I meant by "deal with it": feel free to try to escape all groups' rules. Unless you can get to Mars, you are stuck in a group, and they are stuck with you. Does that mean some people live lives of relative slavery? Yes, since they can not escape. I do not think this is a good thing either, and is an example of the evil group-centric thinking can lead to. However, individuals don't exist in a vacuum either. If the rule is "freedom to do whatever I want so long as I don't hurt others" -- "others" is present in the equation. As is "hurt". Who determines what "hurt" is? You have your concept. "Others" -- including other individuals -- have their concept. The two are not necessarily coincident or reconcilable. The self-centric point of view would probably define "hurt" from the self's perspective. Group-centric would define "hurt" from the other's perspective. It is not clear why one side's definition of "hurt" ought to be given preference over the other. For one to be given preference implies one of the two, self or other, is the more important. It is not clear to me why self should be given preference over other, or vice versa. Where does this "rule" come from? Why should a whole group bend for a single individual? Why should an individual submit to every demand of a group? Besides, we are all "self" to ourselves and "other" to someone else. In that sense, we all occupy the same space in either way of thinking, self- or group-centric. If all individuals/groups are equal, my claim "your smoking pot is affecting me negatively" is as admissable as your claim that "my smoking pot does not affect you at all". You are not in my head, my mind. And I am not in yours. We have a difference of opinion. Not being completely rational creatures, such differences may not be resolveable (as anyone who reads this forum area knows). I don't see how such a question is ultimately resolveable without appealing to the origin of human authority. And the only answers that I have for that are either a deity or "might makes right." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soback Posted August 5, 2005 Report Share Posted August 5, 2005 If an individual makes an error in his decission, it doesn't mean that that error was not made in his own best interest. When a child burns his hand touching the stove, you as an adult know that the decission to touch that stove is wrong one, the child doesn't, once he touches the stove and learns that it's not good for him, he learns, and therefore that first decission to touch the stove was in his best interest. He made it!!! That's what makes you an individual, you can learn from experience, personal, physical, by reading, looking, hearing etc...If however someone just makes the decission for you, and says it is so, and you have no choice about it because THEY KNOW WHATS BEST FOR YOU, then your mind has just been raped, that person is making you a zombie, a mindless drone, taking away your freedom of free will. Do not be afraid to trust your mind because you think you might know so little. Are you safer surrendering your mind to someone else, and discarding the little that you know? Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life. Redeem your mind from the hockshops of authority. Accept the fact that you are not omniscient, but playing a zombie will not give you omniscience - that your mind is fallible, but becoming mindless will not make you infallible - that an error made on your own is safer then ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it, but the second destroyes your capacity to distinguish truth from error. In place of your dream of an omniscient automation, accept the fact that any knowledge man acquires is acquired by his own will and effort, and that THAT is his distinction in the universe, THAT is his nature, his morality. The things you say Joel, is how social orders get established. Social orders based on the following tenets: that you're incompetent to run your own life, but competent to run the lives of others - that you're unfit to exist in freedom, but fit to become an omnipotent ruler, - that you're unable to earn your living by the use of your own intelligence, but able to judge politicians and to vote them into jobs of total power over arts you have never seen, over sciences you have never studied, over achievements of which you have no knowledge, over gigantic industries where you, by your own definition of your capacity, would be unable succesfully to fill the job of assistant greaser. Think for YOURSELF Joel. Do not force your mind onto others, and do not allow others to FORCE their mind upon YOURS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest $iLk Posted August 5, 2005 Report Share Posted August 5, 2005 The reason ads are run to say that 'drug use funds terrorism' is just another excuse to continue the failing policies of the War on Drugs. Same reason why they've said that 'downloading MP3's funds terrorism' or 'pirating movies funds terrorism'. Terrorism is used as an excuse by the government to encroach on civil liberties. We are spending $$$billions$$$ and are accomplishing nothing even after doing so for nearly 30 years - the problem has actually gotten worse. Pardon me for not mincing words, but if you support the way the War on Drugs is being run you are shilling for the government and you are a moron. I've called for rehab instead of imprisonment. I've called for paying for said rehab with tax money collected off legal drugs. Organized crime along the Mexican border and in LA would all but cease considering it is organized to push drugs for profit. If we legalized everything, every crack dealer in America would be out of a job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolferz Posted August 5, 2005 Report Share Posted August 5, 2005 quote:Originally posted by Prez: With all due respect, Wolferz, that is an overly cynical theory that I can't subscribe to. No need to subscribe to my view my friend. It's nothing more than my own perception. The only view that counts is your own. Mine is overly cynical for good reason. Too many people on this planet have a problem seeing past their own nose and they handle everything that they are told is bad with no common sense or logic or even research whatsoever. For your own edification I recommend a search on one name... William H Russell. Let me know what you find. Have a great day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Prezioso Posted August 5, 2005 Report Share Posted August 5, 2005 quote:posted by Wolferz: For your own edification I recommend a search on one name... William H Russell. Let me know what you find. I did a search but didn't find anything of any relevance - do you have a link? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolferz Posted August 5, 2005 Report Share Posted August 5, 2005 Try " target="_blank">http://www.freedomdomain.com/skullbones.html It should get you started. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joel Schultz Posted August 5, 2005 Report Share Posted August 5, 2005 I make a mistaken decision w.r.t. what is best for myself, and come to regret it later. The decision I made results to serious harm to myself (I lose all my money, ruin my health, whatever) and I deeply regret it. Even if I learn from it, I don't think that the idea that I learned from it and that "I made the decision myself" consitute any sort of compensation that my original decision was in my own best interest. Say the decision was on financial matters, and someone more knowledgeable than I strongly advised against it and I went ahead and made an informed decision to disagree and go ahead with my plan -- perhaps I even had rational basis for the disagreement -- and I still get burned in the end. To my mind, it would have been my friend who knew what was better for myself than I in this particular case. Had my friend restrained me, it would be arguable that I would be better off -- in fact, if it later comes to light what *would* have happened had I made the decision I would undoubtely agree that I am better off. I would have learned he was right, and I would not suffer harm to myself. I would have suffered a temporary loss of that freedom. Except here's the part in such a scenario dislike quite strongly. I do not think that friend has the right to take away my right to make a decision, even if I'm wrong about my decision. I have free will, and the right to exercise it for good or ill. He has no right to take that away from me, nor I from him. I have free will, and must endure the consequences of it. To my way of thinking, that the friend (ulitimately) knew better what would come of my course of action than I would indicate that he knew better than I what was good for me. I do not see having made the decision entirely myself and the learning experience resulting from what I consider extreme harm to myself to have been "in my best interests". In retrospect, I would consider "in my best interests" to not have made the original decision. (And if one persists in the argument that I *still* know my own best interests anyway even in making the wrong decision -- in that case, I can certainly change my viewpoint on what my best interests are and then disagree that the first choice I made was in my best interests. To argue I am wrong to do so would negate the premise that I know my own best interests). So although I have a right to make a choice, it does not follow that right automatically translates into the choice being "right" or "best" for my own interests. I trust my mind that I will make what *seems* to be the best decision for myself at a given time. I do not trust that such a decision ultimately *is* the best decision for myself. I think it *is* important that *I* be the one to make a decision. I think it is questionable whether the decision will always turn out *right* even in my own eyes. And this is why group-centric thinking is equally bound to fail to discover what is "best" for an individual. If an individual can not reliably determine 100% of the time what is in their own best interest, how on earth are they going to figure out what is in someone else's? Maybe an individual has a better idea of their own best interests some of the time. By extension, perhaps a group may likewise know what the best interests of a person are *some of the time*. To say one or the other ALWAYS knows what is BEST seems to fly in the face of experience. Since this thread seems to be swinging back to cocaine/drugs again and out of the philosophical, I think I'll conclude my part in this... [ 08-05-2005, 08:15 AM: Message edited by: Joel Schultz ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest $iLk Posted August 5, 2005 Report Share Posted August 5, 2005 No one ever said that what you have the 'right' to do is good for you. Else we should make Fast food, alcohol, tobacco and everything else illegal. Not disagreeing with you Joel (I quite agree) I'm just adding that thought to it. Decriminalization would be a start. Imprisoning a father with a family who works hard in his job and the community just because he decides to smoke a joint in his backyard does not solve the drug problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Prezioso Posted August 5, 2005 Report Share Posted August 5, 2005 Another issue I liken to the drug issue is cell phones. In New York, the government made it illegal to talk and drive at the same time. An encroachment on civil liberties, right? Well, SO many idiots proved themselves incapable of making the right decision to not distract themselves while driving, that accidents and injuries rose sharply. What is the government supposed to do? They are responsible for legislating as necessary to maintain as safe an environment as possible, so this is what they did. I almost NEVER agree with government intrusion into our personal lives. But sometimes, people prove themselves too stupid to be trusted on their own. I think this is a similar case to the drug issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest $iLk Posted August 5, 2005 Report Share Posted August 5, 2005 Talking on a cell phone can be said to endanger other drivers on the road needlessly. Smoking a joint in your back yard cannot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cruis.In Posted August 5, 2005 Author Report Share Posted August 5, 2005 The point is drugs is illegal, if you sell, and are caught you will be arrested, if you smoke it you will be arrested. So go smoke something probably more harmful than cannabis, like cigarettes... haha. the fact that the drug fight is a lost cause, is because, ya'll have sent messages like this to people telling them it's ok to smoke it isn't as harmful as alcohol...you don't do crime when your high... so sure it's lost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest $iLk Posted August 5, 2005 Report Share Posted August 5, 2005 It's a lost cause because the 'drug war' is wasting billions of dollars with 0 effect while nothing is spent on rehab. We could fix the deficit by changing tactics from this pointless war. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest $iLk Posted August 5, 2005 Report Share Posted August 5, 2005 And today an HIV positive gay male was given 90 days in jail for soliciting and forcing sex on a 14 year old boy. Thank goodness we'll have plenty of room in jail for pot-heads when he gets out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Prezioso Posted August 5, 2005 Report Share Posted August 5, 2005 quote:Talking on a cell phone can be said to endanger other drivers on the road needlessly. Smoking a joint in your back yard cannot. Silk - Bear in mind, I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I don't think you recognized the parallel I was trying to draw. Talking on a cell phone in your back yard is not hazardous either. The trouble is, smoking pot and driving can be. It's the historical dispaly of rotten judgement on the part of society that is the common thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest $iLk Posted August 5, 2005 Report Share Posted August 5, 2005 I think anyone smoking pot and driving should be treated the same as someone drinking alcohol and driving. I never have argued that. By 'legalizing' drugs I don't mean allowing complete stupidity. I don't care if someone gets drunk as shit at home so long as they don't drive. But arresting someone for smoking pot in their back yard is retarded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Prezioso Posted August 5, 2005 Report Share Posted August 5, 2005 quote: But arresting someone for smoking pot in their back yard is retarded. Agreed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matchoo Posted August 5, 2005 Report Share Posted August 5, 2005 quote:Originally posted by Soback: If an individual makes an error in his decission, it doesn't mean that that error was not made in his own best interest. When a child burns his hand touching the stove, you as an adult know that the decission to touch that stove is wrong one, the child doesn't, once he touches the stove and learns that it's not good for him, he learns, and therefore that first decission to touch the stove was in his best interest. He made it!!! That's what makes you an individual, you can learn from experience, personal, physical, by reading, looking, hearing etc...If however someone just makes the decission for you, and says it is so, and you have no choice about it because THEY KNOW WHATS BEST FOR YOU, then your mind has just been raped, that person is making you a zombie, a mindless drone, taking away your freedom of free will.I can't remember how the quote goes, but basically is says something to the effect of 'a smart man learns from his mistakes. A smarter man learns from the mistakes of others.' At some point in history someone burned their hand on the stove and realized that it hurt. That knowledge got passed down through the generations and we now know that if you touch a hot stove, it's going to hurt. Now if you don't believe this or think that your mind will be 'raped' if you don't listen, then by all means touch the stove and prove it to yourself. (I'm guessing afterwards you will say 'wow, what a dumb thing to do. I should have known better' rather than 'I am glad I did that. I am a better person even though my hand hurts like he||.') Sometimes making a decision for someone IS in their best interest, even if they don't know it then. I think many laws exist for the reason of protecting the many from the actions of the few rather than protecting the few from the actions of themselves, even though some laws may go overboard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cruis.In Posted August 5, 2005 Author Report Share Posted August 5, 2005 I agree that arresting someone for smoking pot in their backyard is "retarded". In fact I quite agree on all the benefits legalising would have, my argument is , that it is not victimless. and that we are giving up because everyone is doing it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Prezioso Posted August 5, 2005 Report Share Posted August 5, 2005 I agree Cruis. in. It is not so victimless, imo. But again, the war on drugs is a failure. Better to do nothing than to continue down this path. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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