2010:warmest year ever since records began

[Diogenes]

So, according to you, the problem with Needles Park would be solved by making the entire country a needles park?

Are you really this dim? Did I not state in my prior post that needle park was flawed in that it retained the illegality? Why in the WORLD you you think that I would support a whole country of such flawed condition? Are you really that dim or are you just clutching at straws?

From my perspective, the equivalence is axiomatic. The relaxation of drug prohibition nation wide appears to me to be the equivalent of making the entire nation one big "needles park."

We're back to the theory of communism. The reason it doesn't work is because it's not widespread enough. It WOULD work, if freedom( or in this case, prohibition) didn't exist on the other side of the border. Strange that the Swiss couldn't see this simple answer.

Again, straws. I didn't make any such claim. You castigate me for X*infinity and here you do it yourself. Shame.

Excuse me, but I believe you are arguing on behalf of drugs being legal? I assume you believe that this philosophy should be extended to the entire human realm, and not limited to this or that area?

If that be the case, then how is the suggesting your desire to extend drug tolerance to the border and beyond anything like X times infinity?
Again, it seems pretty axiomatic to me.

What I need to do is stop listening to libertarian propaganda. I find it pretty pathetic that many of these conversations inevitably end up on the topic of drug prohibition. It is the equivalent of arguing about the arrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic in terms of importance, yet among those with this topic as a fetish, it is the most important thing in the world.

Just that fact alone is enough to convince me that drugs are bad.

This alone convinces me that you know you lost the argument and want to hide you head in the sand.

I am becoming less interested in your opinion regarding this topic by the day.

But I guess he really means that not-for-profit research groups are "Boeing" and the govm't is pure as the driven snow. Yup, the govm't has succeeded in another snow-job! First hand knowledge? What FIRST hand knowledge do you have. Details please.

I know people who died from drugs. I know people who might as well be dead, from drugs. I know people who did stuff because of drugs. I know people who escaped from drugs. I used to know walking skeletons.

So what you need to ask yourself is how they came to be infected by said drugs, and you will almost certainly find that some "friend" pushed them into it for nefarious purposes. Those purposes are the direct result of the WAR, not the DRUGs. You had all these unfortunate experiences due to the drug WAR. Yet you support it so vigorously. This is really too bad. You seem such an intellegent person otherwise.

The problem with this theory is that it is contradicted by my (and others) observations. I've seen people who could get as many drugs as they wanted. They simply go on an unending sequence of binges, and they do crazy things while they are high. Weird compulsive behavior, like disassembling a dozen bicycles right down to the ball bearings.

The reason there is a "war" is because of lots of similar experience with people using drugs exhibiting this sort of behavior.

Were I discussing this with someone who expressed what I considered to be a serious attitude regarding this topic, I would provide more information privately, but at this point I don't see any purpose to it, but I will tell you one detail that you may or may not know. The Dealers often "ass pack" to transport their merchandise to the junkie. If they get stopped by the police, they have nothing on them. If a dog attempts to sniff their butt, they act frightened of the dog, or claim it's just smelling their butt.

So the junkie ends up smoking or injecting something that came out of a mans butt hole. Sometimes they get sh*t on it. They smoke it anyway. That's nothing compared to what they will do to get it in the first place.

Gee, some people are stupid. And if there were no drug war, would the dealers "ass-pack" it then? Do alchohol importers "ass-pack" chardonney? To the very end you insist on confusing "drug" effects and drug WAR effects.

Yeah, it's like trying to separate Slavery from the civil war.

It wasn't the slavery that was wrong, it was the war. Slavery had nothing to do with the war. Hmmm....

Drugs have ill effects on the user. The drug war immorally spreads those ill effects to the rest of society. Oh whell!

The ill effects to the user are likewise ill effects to society, for society is made up of individuals, of which the user is one.

Rights and responsibilities are reciprocal in society. Some people demand all of the one, but reject all of the other.

[Diogenes]

Diogenes wrote:

You own yourself, but you also have a responsibility to others not to do things detrimental to society, and that includes behaving recklessly.

And here I thought only Progressives talked like that.

Please oh great one tell us who this just arbiter of "detrimental to society" is? As far as I can tell there are only us humans here and I don't trust any of them - not the best and certainly not the worst - to determine what is detrimental to society.

What if we let the Muslims decide that? Will you be happy with the results?

Suppose we let the CAGW fanatics decide? Will you be happy?

What about letting folks who don't like firearms decide?

What about militant vegetarians?

What about letting Christian Scientists have sway over medicine?

I mean seriously - who can fookin decide such a question? About the only thing we are sure of is direct action taken against another. That value is universal. All the rest is subjective.

The Representatives of the Republic who passed laws making such conduct illegal, and the members of each State's legislature that votes on such issues, that's who. Most of the public seems to condone this position, so I don't see much recourse except trying to convince the public that they are wrong about this.

As an unbiased and reasonable member of the public, I gotta say your approach is underwhelming.

I love the righties who decry the social engineering of the left while having grandiose schemes of their own for making things the way they ought to be.

You sure let that strawman come out and play a lot. Preventing irresponsible people from playing with dangerous toys is in the interest of everyone. It is not social engineering, it's social maintenance. We already have a system of which this practice is a component. We are not trying to change it.

I know why you don't see the absurdity of your schemes. Simple really. You have found the truth and can't wait to force it on others at the point of a government gun. Not to worry. When fashions change the guns you put in the government's hand will be turned on you. Just deserts eh comrade Zinoviev?

It's not my scheme, it's not absurd, and it is within the rightful purpose of government.

I'm an equal opportunity hater. I hate the social engineering of the left and the right. And since I can't stop the stupidity from either faction I'm going to do my best to get them grinding on each other. To keep them busy while I go about my business.

Maintenance isn't engineering.

I can say without fear of contradiction given the totality of my life that neither the left nor the right would approve of how I have lived it. And that is just the way I like it.

======

Riding a motorcycle is 10X as dangerous as riding a car. Premature death is detrimental to society. Outlaw motorcycles? How about tobacco? Why not alcohol given the auto fatalities caused? Innocents get killed. How about tanning beds which if overused cause skin cancer. Heck. How about too much time in the sun? No one NEEDS to skydive. Bungee jumping? Skiing? Lots of injuries from that. Bobsledding? People can get killed. Too much food? People die from it all the time.

How about explosives? Strychnine? Dangerous Radioactive isotopes?

You are playing word games with thresholds. A motorcycle might be ten times more dangerous than a car, but the probabilities of a bad outcome are not nearly as bad as that of a crack addict.

Thresholds of danger and detriment to society have been established by society, because they reflect societies learned experiences regarding certain practices. Society has decided that drugs represent a threshold that is too far to be acceptable. Even though Alcohol causes similar damage, Society has decided that it doesn't meet the threshold required to be outlawed, but it is instead regulated and somewhat controlled.

You don't like where society placed the boundaries, and you want them removed completely. I think this would be very bad, and for now, most people agree with me.

This is not about social engineering, it's about refusing to go along with attempts by libertarians to DO social engineering.

Who decides? In a FREE COUNTRY are there limits to "the grater god duvall"?

It is just as I feared. Scratch a conservative and you find a collectivist underneath. Progressive Conservatism indeed. What exactly do we owe to the collective comrade?

And you keep making false comparisons because you want your opponents to all be the same "Other" so you can be the "Us" against "them. As I keep repeating, conservatives want the government to be smaller, but not nonexistent. It has a proper role in regulating the behavior between citizens, and keeping foolish people from playing with dangerous substances is part of it's valid job.

Libertarians - Conservatives- Liberals on Government. None, Normal, and Nothing but.

[Betruger]

There was a time in the USA where Libertarianism was synonymous with Anarchism?

How about explosives? Strychnine? Dangerous Radioactive isotopes?

What recreational use do those have?

Why do you reject the idea that kids would be taught what each drug does as they already are for caffeine and alcohol?

[MSimon]

One does not need to be an engineer to realize that someone chopping at the bridge timbers is liable to damage the bridge. The prevention of damage is not engineering, it's maintenance.

Assumes facts not in evidence.

Also assumes you know what to do to solve the problem.

Under drug prohibition it is easier for children to get illegal drugs than to get a beer. Please explain what problem THAT is solving?

We will assume that you have identified a problem - some people drink too much alcohol - is prohibition the right answer? Well, if you are going to solve "the problem" don't you have to know a lot about the problem in all its dimensions among all Americans to craft a solution? Next we will contact the spirit of Hayek and ask him about the Knowledge Problem.

Back in the bad old days cannabis was PRESCRIBED as a safer alternative to alcohol. I guess that is now off the table. So your tool bag is already one short before you even start.

[IntLibber]

Ok, here's the simple explanation:

a) temperature records have been manipulated. This is what the actual temperature record looked like before the warmists started manipulating the raw data:
before:
http://climateinsiders.files.wordpress. ... =510&h=363

after manipulation:
http://climateinsiders.files.wordpress. ... 99-jpg.gif

b) they have underestimated urban heat island effects: surfacestations.org

c) the areas where the most warming is claimed, the arctic and antarctic, are mostly made up of fabricated data generated via "homogenization":

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/25/s ... more-22526

d) then the warmists give exaggerated weighting to land temperature data over sea surface temps:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/23/b ... ea-ratios/

where, despite land being only 30% of Earth's surface, is overweighted mathematically so that the "world temperature average" thinks that Earth is as much as 70% land and 30% water. They further exacerbate the alleged "warming" by weighting land temps in earlier decades less so that 1900-1920 land temps are weighted properly at 30%. This creates a fictitious "warming" that is actually nothing but Urban Heat Island effects that are homogenized as far as 1200 miles from their urban centers, then overweighted so that these homogenized temps are 2.3 times more heavily weighted than temps at the beginning of the 20th century.

By this method, it is impossible to NOT have a "global warming".

[MSimon]

As I keep repeating, conservatives want the government to be smaller

You say that often. And yet you think that the government has enough resources to make people not only do right to their fellows but to do right (according to your lights) to THEMSELVES.

You realize this opens the door to all kinds of social engineering don't you? Because it is social engineering.

If drug police are a good idea why not fat police? After all overweight kills far more each year than illegal drugs do. And overeating is legal. So far. Well not to worry. I hear there is a bill in Congress that will gather information on your BMI in order to move us down the right road.

You are in luck though. It seems the left hates fat as much as you hate drugs. And since an anti-fat policy fits right in with your idea of what the government should be involved in, (preventing people from hurting themselves) well it will be really good for the country. Except for a few no account cranks who stand against improving the character and health of our citizens.

And for those mopes who claim that some people are self medicating with hard drugs?

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2004/09/heroin.html

They will have to be re-educated. Especially if they provide statistical evidence and not our beloved horror story anecdotes.

And let us hope the whole scheme doesn't devolve into what we have today. One law for the connected and another law for the poor. That would be unfortunate, but fortunately only for those without political pull.

BTW I KNEW you would fail to see your scheme as another Progressive attempt to improve society with government guns. Such thoughts are UNTHINKABLE. For you.

BTW do you think the War On Tobacco - which is slowly devolving into tobacco prohibition - can be won? After all tobacco is a drug (mild anti-depressant) and kills a hell of a lot more people each year than illegal drugs do. We can't have people going around harming themselves with a substance at least as addictive as heroin now can we?

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/29/magaz ... eroin.html

DESPITE OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE that tobacco is destroying their health and shortening their lives, 53 million Americans continue to smoke. Increasingly aware that their addiction is also harmful to their children and co-workers, they continue to puff away on 570 billion cigarettes a year.

Many smokers are highly intelligent people with impressive levels of control over institutions, budgets, employees and political affairs. Yet, after repeated attempts to give up smoking, they find that they cannot control this one, seemingly uncomplicated, aspect of their behavior. Are smokers more weak-willed than nonsmokers or former smokers? Or do millions of people continue to smoke for reasons more powerful than previously imagined? What, for example, could possess a heart attack victim to light up a cigarette the moment he is wheeled out of the coronary care unit?

Interdisciplinary research in pharmacology, psychology, physiology and neurobiology is just beginning to shed light on the incredible hold that tobacco has on people. Scientists have found, for instance, that nicotine is as addictive as heroin, cocaine or amphetamines, and for most people more addictive than alcohol. Its hooks go deep, involving complex physiological and psychological mechanisms that drive and maintain smoking behavior and that even produce some ''good'' effects, such as improved performance on intellectual, computational and stressful tasks.

It is just a matter of time.

====

The myth of second hand smoke:

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/stor ... 237&page=1

Nice bit here excerpted from a report on second hand smoke:

http://www.smokersclubinc.com/modules.p ... e&sid=2224

Take the case of cardiovascular diseases: the four main causes are obesity, high cholesterol, hypertension and diabetes.

Which shows exactly why we need a war on fat. Eh, Comrade?

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_q ... n15876749/

But Nevin- Woods stands firm in her belief that second-hand smoke is the smoking gun behind the decrease in heart attacks. Smoking is the leading cause of death, and it's preventable, Nevin-Woods said.

All we need is a lot of social engineering (government guns) and we can fix this problem.

And if any one objects? Well just tell them it is the conservative small government solution. With America about 40% conservative and something like 55% in favor of smaller government who could stand in the way?

[KitemanSA]

[/quote]

Did I not state in my prior post that needle park was flawed in that it retained the illegality? Why in the WORLD you you think that I would support a whole country of such flawed condition? ...

From my perspective, the equivalence is axiomatic. The relaxation of drug prohibition nation wide appears to me to be the equivalent of making the entire nation one big "needles park."

This tells me you need more study to broaden your perspective. Regulated legality is WAY different that unregulated ILlegality, as drug pushers know and love so well.

We're back to the theory of communism. The reason it doesn't work is because it's not widespread enough. It WOULD work, if freedom( or in this case, prohibition) didn't exist on the other side of the border. Strange that the Swiss couldn't see this simple answer.

Again, straws. I didn't make any such claim. You castigate me for X*infinity and here you do it yourself. Shame.

Excuse me, but I believe you are arguing on behalf of drugs being legal? I assume you believe that this philosophy should be extended to the entire human realm, and not limited to this or that area?

Are you dim or dense, I can't decide. Perhaps just playing the idoit to get a rise. Who knows. Legal, not unregulated illegal. Get it?

If that be the case, then how is the suggesting your desire to extend drug tolerance to the border and beyond anything like X times infinity?
Again, it seems pretty axiomatic to me.

IF the drugs had been legal in the first place, the Swiss wouldn't have had the problems they did. But, they weren't legal, just unregulated. That was an honorable, but stupid, experiment.

... Just that fact alone is enough to convince me that drugs are bad.

This alone convinces me that you know you lost the argument and want to hide you head in the sand.

I am becoming less interested in your opinion regarding this topic by the day.

This is a common occurence when people can't accept that they are wrong. Too much invested to change their mind, too much dissonance to listen further.

I know people who died from drugs. I know people who might as well be dead, from drugs. I know people who did stuff because of drugs. I know people who escaped from drugs. I used to know walking skeletons.

So what you need to ask yourself is how they came to be infected by said drugs, and you will almost certainly find that some "friend" pushed them into it for nefarious purposes. Those purposes are the direct result of the WAR, not the DRUGs. You had all these unfortunate experiences due to the drug WAR. Yet you support it so vigorously. This is really too bad. You seem such an intellegent person otherwise.

The problem with this theory is that it is contradicted by my (and others) observations. I've seen people who could get as many drugs as they wanted. They simply go on an unending sequence of binges, and they do crazy things while they are high. Weird compulsive behavior, like disassembling a dozen bicycles right down to the ball bearings.

The reason there is a "war" is because of lots of similar experience with people using drugs exhibiting this sort of behavior.

Yet again a non-sequitur.
I make the point that the drug war causes the conditions that create addicts through pushing, and you reply that some people do stupid things on drugs. Well DUHH!!
LISTEN. Get it thru your head that I accept that drugs, when used with irresponsible abandon, are bad for the users. But those users are most often CREATED due to the drug war. Not ALWAYS, but by far the greatest percentage. Some people are self destructive. That is NOT a good reason to make the society self destructive too.
Further more, if drug users engage in criminal activity (please remember that I distinguish between criminal and feloneous) prosecute them for that crime. Criminal activity is not acceptable no matter what the source.
For some reason, many who champion the drug war don't seem to think that folks who commit crimes while under the influence are culpable. Silly, but there it is.

... The Dealers often "ass pack" to transport their merchandise to the junkie. If they get stopped by the police, they have nothing on them. If a dog attempts to sniff their butt, they act frightened of the dog, or claim it's just smelling their butt.

So the junkie ends up smoking or injecting something that came out of a mans butt hole. Sometimes they get sh*t on it. They smoke it anyway. That's nothing compared to what they will do to get it in the first place.

Gee, some people are stupid. And if there were no drug war, would the dealers "ass-pack" it then? Do alchohol importers "ass-pack" chardonney? To the very end you insist on confusing "drug" effects and drug WAR effects.

Yeah, it's like trying to separate Slavery from the civil war.

It wasn't the slavery that was wrong, it was the war. Slavery had nothing to do with the war. Hmmm....

Not even you can be that stupid, so I now know you are willfully miss-stating me. Thank you for a semi interesting discussion. Please quit acting like such an idiot, it makes the rest of your views look questionable in other's eyes.

Drugs have ill effects on the user. The drug war immorally spreads those ill effects to the rest of society. Oh whell!

The ill effects to the user are likewise ill effects to society, for society is made up of individuals, of which the user is one.

Only if you subscribe to the notion that we are owned by society. I don't.

Rights and responsibilities are reciprocal in society. Some people demand all of the one, but reject all of the other.

People's responsibility in society is to respect the rights of others. The drug war is a major violation of those rights. It, by definition, makes people irresponsible. That irresposibility is what causes the ill effects on society. Good bye. Have a nice herd-cuddle. Mooo, to you.

[Diogenes]

There was a time in the USA where Libertarianism was synonymous with Anarchism?

How about explosives? Strychnine? Dangerous Radioactive isotopes?

What recreational use do those have?

Why do you reject the idea that kids would be taught what each drug does as they already are for caffeine and alcohol?

You have a tame sense of recreation. I can imagine all sorts of fun to be had with explosives! (and maybe radioactive isotopes!)

Apart from that, what does recreation have to do with whether something is dangerous and needs to be regulated? From my perspective, THAT is the salient issue here.

[Diogenes]

One does not need to be an engineer to realize that someone chopping at the bridge timbers is liable to damage the bridge. The prevention of damage is not engineering, it's maintenance.

Assumes facts not in evidence.

Really? Seems pretty straight forward to me. I suppose you could call it "security" instead of maintenance, but the concept is still the same.

Also assumes you know what to do to solve the problem..

To solve the immediate problem you make them quit chopping the bridge timber. How complicated are you trying to make this?

Under drug prohibition it is easier for children to get illegal drugs than to get a beer. Please explain what problem THAT is solving?

As the problem exists in fantasy land, I suggest we use tinkerbell's magic dust to fix it. The only areas of the country where this might even be possible is ghettos, housing projects, and crime ridden neighborhoods. (but I repeat myself.)

We will assume that you have identified a problem - some people drink too much alcohol - is prohibition the right answer? Well, if you are going to solve "the problem" don't you have to know a lot about the problem in all its dimensions among all Americans to craft a solution?

That hasn't stopped any legislators up till now.

As for drinking too much alcohol, I think i've had this conversation with skipjack regarding a check mark on people's drivers licenses to certify that they are not a known abuser of alcohol. It was just a tentative idea, but it is in the category of trying to think of a different way to craft a solution. After all, if we have to have licenses to use dynamite, what's wrong with a license to use other dangerous substances? The point is, It IS a different approach than wide scale prohibition.

Next we will contact the spirit of Hayek and ask him about the Knowledge Problem.

I thought you liked to keep your economics and morality separate?

Back in the bad old days cannabis was PRESCRIBED as a safer alternative to alcohol. I guess that is now off the table. So your tool bag is already one short before you even start.

Cannabis IS a drug. It is a relatively benign drug, especially when compared to alcohol. (so far as I have determined) However, you are defending the philosophy that ALL drugs should be legal and freely available. That is a bridge too far.

Crack, Meth, Heroine, LSD, PCP, etc. are killers and destroyers.

To agree that a person has a right to do anything to themselves is to agree they have a right to use these substances, and it is simply impossible in my mind to separate the use of these substances from damage to everyone around the user.

These drugs are by their nature, too dangerous and destructive to allow anyone to use, and they need to be treated like the dangerous substances which they are.

[Aero]

A person may have a right to do unto themselves, but children do NOT have that right.

As the problem exists in fantasy land, I suggest we use tinkerbell's magic dust to fix it. The only areas of the country where this might even be possible is ghettos, housing projects, and crime ridden neighborhoods. (but I repeat myself.)

Which now encompasses everywhere but the most upper crust neighborhoods, and even those schools are infected with gangs and drugs. Anyway that's the way it seems to me, having raised my family in one of those "It couldn't happen here" neighborhoods.

[TallDave]

Crack, Meth, Heroine, LSD, PCP, etc. are killers and destroyers.

So are alcohol, nicotine, fireworks, guns... I could go on.

To agree that a person has a right to do anything to themselves is to agree they have a right to use these substances, and it is simply impossible in my mind to separate the use of these substances from damage to everyone around the user.

That's exactly the same as arguing people shouldn't be allowed to own guns because they might hurt someone.

Even leaving aside the fact such notions are inconsistent with personal liberty, there are two major problems with the "drug war" argument you've made. One -- you can't prevent people from buying and using drugs by making it illegal, you can only make it more profitable to sell them. Two -- the act of making drugs illegal has consequences more damaging to society and users than the drugs themselves, including ruining lives with jail and exorbitant addiction costs and making the most violent, ruthless drug dealers billionaires with armies of foot soldiers, often better armed and equipped than their counterparts in law enforcement.

[Diogenes]

As I keep repeating, conservatives want the government to be smaller

You say that often. And yet you think that the government has enough resources to make people not only do right to their fellows but to do right (according to your lights) to THEMSELVES.

In some cases (making oneself into a burden on others) they are the same thing.

You realize this opens the door to all kinds of social engineering don't you? Because it is social engineering.

As drugs being illegal has been the status quo for decades, it is the tampering with it that is the social engineering. Keeping it the way it is is PREVENTING social engineering.

If drug police are a good idea why not fat police? After all overweight kills far more each year than illegal drugs do. And overeating is legal. So far. Well not to worry. I hear there is a bill in Congress that will gather information on your BMI in order to move us down the right road.

Being fat is inadvertent, while being high is intentional. The distinction is that food is necessary for survival, and does not tamper with the mind in such a way as "mind altering substances." Sure, it produces endorphins, etc. as does running, adventure, sex, and a whole host of other activities, but these are not attempts to force the mind to go beyond it's natural state. They do not cause the level of impaired judgment that narcotics do.

Preventing people from screwing up their minds on purpose is reasonable, preventing them from screwing up their bodies inadvertantly is not.

You are in luck though. It seems the left hates fat as much as you hate drugs. And since an anti-fat policy fits right in with your idea of what the government should be involved in, (preventing people from hurting themselves) well it will be really good for the country. Except for a few no account cranks who stand against improving the character and health of our citizens.

There you go again with that ventriloquist dummy sitting on your lap. It's amusing, but it is not me. The anti-fat policy does not fit in with a reasonable governmental purpose. If being fat became a serious threat to other people, (such as flying on a plane, or blocking an exit route) then you might have an argument.

And for those mopes who claim that some people are self medicating with hard drugs?

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2004/09/heroin.html

They will have to be re-educated. Especially if they provide statistical evidence and not our beloved horror story anecdotes.

Yeah, the difference between the two is someone has tabulated the anecdotes according to a procedure. It is very important to get the facts by going through a tabulating and cross referencing process using the latest form of statistical analysis and data collection. The facts simply wouldn't be true unless we write them down on paper.

And let us hope the whole scheme doesn't devolve into what we have today. One law for the connected and another law for the poor. That would be unfortunate, but fortunately only for those without political pull.

I'm sorry to break this news to you, but that is how it has always been, and I see no hope that that will ever change. The rich and connected get better treatment in the legal process than the poor and powerless. You might as well moan that hunger is unfair.

BTW I KNEW you would fail to see your scheme as another Progressive attempt to improve society with government guns. Such thoughts are UNTHINKABLE. For you.

There's a great prediction. That something which is completely different, isn't the same!

I have clearly articulated my reasoning why I support the majority position which has been the norm for decades. The fact that I am unswayed by your weak arguments and false equivalencies does not make me at common cause with the Socialist/Progressive/Liberals, simply because the libertarian sees any government purpose that interferes with their fun (and it IS nothing but fun. No existential threat, no infringement on enumerated rights, no attempts to force one person to labor for another ) as being improper.

Yes, from your perspective, i'm in the same direction as the progressives, but not the same distance.

BTW do you think the War On Tobacco - which is slowly devolving into tobacco prohibition - can be won? After all tobacco is a drug (mild anti-depressant) and kills a hell of a lot more people each year than illegal drugs do. We can't have people going around harming themselves with a substance at least as addictive as heroin now can we?

It is a question that I ask myself from time to time. Currently, it looks like tobacco prohibition will be won, but it is not yet certain. I know lots of people who died from developing cancers as a result of their tobacco consumption, and the stuff is very much a slow poison.

I think that once people get addicted to tobacco, it is extremely difficult for them to give it up. I know lots of people who would remove their oxygen mask routinely to get another smoke before they died of lung cancer. I know a woman whose nose has been mostly eaten off by cancer, and she is still smoking.

It's a nasty substance, and the dangers of it (like AIDS) don't show up for quite awhile after people have exposed themselves to it. It is a question of sad ignorance that people didn't see the folly of smoking till decades after they began. It is, however, ingrained into our culture, and therefore even though it has been discovered to be a monster, it is accepted by society. The only way it might be gotten rid of is the method currently being employed. Regulate it to death, and advertise against it.

As for smokers in general, I defend their right to smoke, even though I think it is bad for them, and bad for society. It is a case where the harm is distributed over such a wide area, that it isn't readily apparent, but the benefits are apparent immediately.

I would like to see smoking die from apathy eventually, but I am not going to interfere with it now.

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/29/magaz ... eroin.html

DESPITE OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE that tobacco is destroying their health and shortening their lives, 53 million Americans continue to smoke. Increasingly aware that their addiction is also harmful to their children and co-workers, they continue to puff away on 570 billion cigarettes a year.

Many smokers are highly intelligent people with impressive levels of control over institutions, budgets, employees and political affairs. Yet, after repeated attempts to give up smoking, they find that they cannot control this one, seemingly uncomplicated, aspect of their behavior. Are smokers more weak-willed than nonsmokers or former smokers? Or do millions of people continue to smoke for reasons more powerful than previously imagined? What, for example, could possess a heart attack victim to light up a cigarette the moment he is wheeled out of the coronary care unit?

Interdisciplinary research in pharmacology, psychology, physiology and neurobiology is just beginning to shed light on the incredible hold that tobacco has on people. Scientists have found, for instance, that nicotine is as addictive as heroin, cocaine or amphetamines, and for most people more addictive than alcohol. Its hooks go deep, involving complex physiological and psychological mechanisms that drive and maintain smoking behavior and that even produce some ''good'' effects, such as improved performance on intellectual, computational and stressful tasks.

It is just a matter of time.

I have asked a lot of people how and why they started smoking. They all say "peer pressure." or "I wanted to look cool." I then ask them how was their first cigarette? They always say "terrible." I ask, why did you have the second? They usually just smile.

One thing I have to say about myself, Peer pressure has not been a powerful influence on me. Sometimes it is to my detriment, but it is difficult to change our nature. I noticed you seem to have a lack of concern about peer pressure as well, so I can see the trait is not all that uncommon.

[Diogenes]

Did I not state in my prior post that needle park was flawed in that it retained the illegality? Why in the WORLD you you think that I would support a whole country of such flawed condition? ...

From my perspective, the equivalence is axiomatic. The relaxation of drug prohibition nation wide appears to me to be the equivalent of making the entire nation one big "needles park."

This tells me you need more study to broaden your perspective. Regulated legality is WAY different that unregulated ILlegality, as drug pushers know and love so well.

I have actually been pondering the notion I proposed regarding alcohol, (a check mark on your drivers license indicating you have not been prohibited from consuming it due to previous abuse.) concerning drugs.

It is obvious that some people cannot handle either Alcohol OR drugs, but it is also obvious that some people have no trouble avoiding alcohol abuse or addiction. Extrapolating, it is quite likely that some people will also have no trouble avoiding drug abuse or addiction, so therefore, perhaps it is possible to allow legal drug usage by some, without the concurrent damage that the current system invokes.

If these assumptions are plausible, the next component would be figuring out how and where to draw the lines, and deciding if the benefits are worth the cost.

Obviously, regulated drug use would have to exclude children or people with mental impairments. Beyond that, figuring out who can handle it and who cannot is more difficult. The down side is it would require more bureaucrats but perhaps not so many as to make the idea completely unworkable. (How many people does it take to maintain a database on chemical/alcohol abusers? They do it now. )


Just thinking out loud.

Again, straws. I didn't make any such claim. You castigate me for X*infinity and here you do it yourself. Shame.

Excuse me, but I believe you are arguing on behalf of drugs being legal? I assume you believe that this philosophy should be extended to the entire human realm, and not limited to this or that area?

Are you dim or dense, I can't decide. Perhaps just playing the idoit to get a rise. Who knows. Legal, not unregulated illegal. Get it?

Not really. It is just a bunch of sophistry.

If that be the case, then how is the suggesting your desire to extend drug tolerance to the border and beyond anything like X times infinity?
Again, it seems pretty axiomatic to me.

IF the drugs had been legal in the first place, the Swiss wouldn't have had the problems they did. But, they weren't legal, just unregulated. That was an honorable, but stupid, experiment.

I agree about the stupid part. A lot of conservative critics predicted that it would be a fiasco. I remember Rush Limbaugh making fun of it when the idea was first proposed, and trumpeting what a failure it was when they finally shut it down. The idea was contrary to what most people regard as common sense.

This alone convinces me that you know you lost the argument and want to hide you head in the sand.

I am becoming less interested in your opinion regarding this topic by the day.

This is a common occurence when people can't accept that they are wrong. Too much invested to change their mind, too much dissonance to listen further.

It is also a common occurrence when people of sufficient aptitude realize that a conversation is pointlessly going in circles punctuated with snide remarks and ad hominem attacks. It is like Godwin's law without the Nazis. (Although I think they may have been invoked too.) Add to that, the fact that this conversation has been ongoing between myself and MSimon for a very long time, and this just represents the nth iteration of it.

So what you need to ask yourself is how they came to be infected by said drugs, and you will almost certainly find that some "friend" pushed them into it for nefarious purposes. Those purposes are the direct result of the WAR, not the DRUGs. You had all these unfortunate experiences due to the drug WAR. Yet you support it so vigorously. This is really too bad. You seem such an intellegent person otherwise.

The problem with this theory is that it is contradicted by my (and others) observations. I've seen people who could get as many drugs as they wanted. They simply go on an unending sequence of binges, and they do crazy things while they are high. Weird compulsive behavior, like disassembling a dozen bicycles right down to the ball bearings.

The reason there is a "war" is because of lots of similar experience with people using drugs exhibiting this sort of behavior.

Yet again a non-sequitur.
I make the point that the drug war causes the conditions that create addicts through pushing, and you reply that some people do stupid things on drugs. Well DUHH!!

You ASSERT the point. You have yet to MAKE the point. It is a "fact" not yet in evidence in the court of my opinion. It appears to me that the "war" is an abstract to the user, who is motivated by his own desire to get high, and like water, follows the easiest course to do it. It is not the war making addicts do stupid things, it is the drugs which are interfering with their neurological processes.

LISTEN. Get it thru your head that I accept that drugs, when used with irresponsible abandon, are bad for the users. But those users are most often CREATED due to the drug war. Not ALWAYS, but by far the greatest percentage.

Again, such an allegation has not been established to the degree that it has any credibility with me. As i've mentioned, i've seen people who could get all the drugs they wanted. They didn't suddenly start behaving sensibly, they went on ever worsening drug binges. They shared their stuff with others, who accompanied them on their binges.

MSimon mentioned tobacco earlier, if your theory is correct, that the drug war causes all the problems, why is it that we have so many problems with tobacco, and why is it's use so widespread when there was an absence of an equivalent war? We SEE what happened with tobacco. How can you allege that something completely different will happen with Crack?

Some people are self destructive. That is NOT a good reason to make the society self destructive too.

Good point. At one time in our nation's history, a huge percentage of people were cigarette smokers. The funny thing was, the more it became common place, the more self destructive people there were. (though they didn't know it at the time. ) One might suggest a causal relation from this.

Further more, if drug users engage in criminal activity (please remember that I distinguish between criminal and feloneous) prosecute them for that crime. Criminal activity is not acceptable no matter what the source.

You mean the criminal behavior other than using drugs which is regarded as criminal behavior, because society has deemed it a crime. If we are fudging the definition of criminal behavior for drug usage, whose to say where the boundary should be fudged for other crimes? Homosexuality used to be a crime. We fudged that. Adultery used to be a crime. We fudged that. There are those even now who try to reduce the age requirement for consent.

What I am saying is, if there is no inherent objective framework for determining when something is a crime and to what degree, then "crime" becomes nothing but the subjective opinion of the uniformed masses. I prefer philosophical boundaries where nature draws them.

For some reason, many who champion the drug war don't seem to think that folks who commit crimes while under the influence are culpable. Silly, but there it is.

Not sure where you got that notion. Driving under the influence is a crime, whether it be alcohol or narcotics. I don't know of anyone who leans toward leniency on the basis of drug usage.

Gee, some people are stupid. And if there were no drug war, would the dealers "ass-pack" it then? Do alchohol importers "ass-pack" chardonney? To the very end you insist on confusing "drug" effects and drug WAR effects.

Yeah, it's like trying to separate Slavery from the civil war.

It wasn't the slavery that was wrong, it was the war. Slavery had nothing to do with the war. Hmmm....

Not even you can be that stupid, so I now know you are willfully miss-stating me.

Not misstating you, providing an example of similar thinking in a different context.

Thank you for a semi interesting discussion. Please quit acting like such an idiot, it makes the rest of your views look questionable in other's eyes.

Yeah, that's a strong argument for making me behave. Most of my life has been spent bucking the trend, and refusing to bow to peer pressure.

Drugs have ill effects on the user. The drug war immorally spreads those ill effects to the rest of society. Oh whell!

The ill effects to the user are likewise ill effects to society, for society is made up of individuals, of which the user is one.

Only if you subscribe to the notion that we are owned by society. I don't.

Obviously. You want the benefits of having a society, but you don't feel the same obligation to maintain it. You don't have to be "owned" to feel obligated. You can root against the home team if you want to.

Rights and responsibilities are reciprocal in society. Some people demand all of the one, but reject all of the other.

People's responsibility in society is to respect the rights of others. The drug war is a major violation of those rights. .

I disagree completely. It is an effort to prevent the irresponsible from spreading misery and pain all over their friends, associates, and neighbors because they get an endorphin release when they tamper with their biology.

It is no more a right than firing a gun up in the air without regard to where the bullets are coming down. You can say "I didn't mean to do that!" all you want, but the behavior engenders bad results by it's nature.

It, by definition, makes people irresponsible. That irresposibility is what causes the ill effects on society. Good bye. Have a nice herd-cuddle. Mooo, to you.

Interesting goodbye you have on your planet.

[Diogenes]

A person may have a right to do unto themselves, but children do NOT have that right.

As the problem exists in fantasy land, I suggest we use tinkerbell's magic dust to fix it. The only areas of the country where this might even be possible is ghettos, housing projects, and crime ridden neighborhoods. (but I repeat myself.)

Which now encompasses everywhere but the most upper crust neighborhoods, and even those schools are infected with gangs and drugs. Anyway that's the way it seems to me, having raised my family in one of those "It couldn't happen here" neighborhoods.

I find it odd that you quote my response without the context of what I was replying to. Here it is:

Under drug prohibition it is easier for children to get illegal drugs than to get a beer. Please explain what problem THAT is solving?

As the problem exists in fantasy land, I suggest we use tinkerbell's magic dust to fix it. The only areas of the country where this might even be possible is ghettos, housing projects, and crime ridden neighborhoods. (but I repeat myself.)

If your reply to my quote is to have any meaning, you must be asserting that it is easier for children to get drugs than beer in your neighborhood.

Is that what you're asserting?

[Diogenes]

Crack, Meth, Heroine, LSD, PCP, etc. are killers and destroyers.

So are alcohol, nicotine, fireworks, guns... I could go on.



And your point is that they are all regulated to varying degree and this is proper?

To agree that a person has a right to do anything to themselves is to agree they have a right to use these substances, and it is simply impossible in my mind to separate the use of these substances from damage to everyone around the user.

That's exactly the same as arguing people shouldn't be allowed to own guns because they might hurt someone.

No it is not. That is sophistry. A Gun has a legitimate purpose, and is not subject to misuse just because someone owns it. It CAN be misused, but that is not inherent in it's nature. I would expect better of you than to try such a fallacy riddled argument.

Even leaving aside the fact such notions are inconsistent with personal liberty, there are two major problems with the "drug war" argument you've made.

I disagree completely, and I will not accept the statement as true simply because you and others say so. If we are going to decide facts by the fallacious thinking of argumentum ad populum then I still win, because my position is the majority.

One -- you can't prevent people from buying and using drugs by making it illegal, you can only make it more profitable to sell them.

A much too broad statement. I can take you to any jail or prison and show you a lot of people prevented from buying and using drugs, at least to the degree they otherwise would. The whole thing hinges on the scope of what you mean in terms of "prevent" and "making it illegal" (passing a law in and of itself has no effect. It is the enforcement of the law that is the effect.)

It certainly puts a dent in it. Contrast tobacco and crack. Illegal Crack usage is inconsequential when compared to Legal tobacco or alcohol usage.

Two -- the act of making drugs illegal has consequences more damaging to society and users than the drugs themselves, including ruining lives with jail and exorbitant addiction costs and making the most violent, ruthless drug dealers billionaires with armies of foot soldiers, often better armed and equipped than their counterparts in law enforcement.

You are making a good case for wiping out the drug dealers, but not for anything else. How can peoples lives be ruined more than DEAD? I have personally known nearly a dozen people who died from using drugs. I know others that are walking skeletons with their teeth rotting out and sores covering their skin, who have abandoned their children to the state.

I cannot fathom the argument that society is damaged by trying to prevent this, or benefited by having more of this.