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Legalize It All

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Re: Legalize It All

#41

Post by EliRivers »

Delmania wrote: post #10
krylon wrote: post #3

We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course…

> Can we now, please, get that behind us and move on? What, and disrupt the massively profitable prison industry?

It is but a tiny shadow of the profitability of the drug industry. Legalised, the wealthy can own it and funnel money to themselves, and Uncle Sam can have a nice big bite. Here comes the money.

Re: Legalize It All

#42

Post by hjhgjtyhgdfi »

SwellJoe wrote: post #20
hjhgjtyhgdfi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The largest private for-profit prison (CCA) has $1.7 billion in revenue. Apple makes $233 billion in revenue. Exxon has $268 billion in revenue. Walmart makes $482 billion in revenue.

Look at how much money CCA spends on lobbying and supporting candidates that are friendly to their business. It is vastly larger per dollar of revenue than Apple (or Walmart). So much so, that it's one of the things people talk about when taking about whether Hillary Clinton (for example) is influenced by the money coming from the prison industrial complex. Nobody is accusing Hillary of being bought by Apple. Though…

Teachers unions spent $20 million on the 2012 election alone, no doubt funding candidates who were friendly to their pensions. I can go down the line and list off several more trade unions and their political spending.

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=l1300

Why is there seemingly not a peep about this from those who oppose the private prison complex?

Re: Legalize It All

#43

Post by miguelrochefort »

exprI wrote: post #33
miguelrochefort wrote: post #23

Oh the hypocrisy. Drugs legalization being trendy, you play the libertarian card. Yet, when it comes to guns or privacy, the same arguments don't hold true anymore. Cherry picking at its best. Gotta love the HN crowd.

Whilst I am very liberal (classical sense) on many issues, including guns, you can't compare drugs with guns. Much more meaningful to compare hand guns with explosives and other weapons, and drugs with alcohol and generally self-harm.

There is essentially no difference between drugs and guns.

- Guns can be used for self-harm.

- Drugs can be used to harm others.

Why aren't people ready to accept that people will die?

Re: Legalize It All

#44

Post by callinyouin »

miguelrochefort wrote: post #23

Oh the hypocrisy. Drugs legalization being trendy, you play the libertarian card. Yet, when it comes to guns or privacy, the same arguments don't hold true anymore. Cherry picking at its best. Gotta love the HN crowd.

I don't think it's cherry picking or hypocrisy at all. The topics you mentioned are complex and largely unrelated. Just because a "legalize it" attitude towards drugs might be considered libertarian doesn't mean one needs to take the libertarian view on guns or privacy.

Life is not black and white. A rational person thinks critically about their choices and opinions, and does not decide on something simply because it fits in with some category.

Re: Legalize It All

#45

Post by hjhgjtyhgdfi »

knodi123 wrote: post #16
hjhgjtyhgdfi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The largest private for-profit prison (CCA) has $1.7 billion in revenue. Apple makes $233 billion in revenue. Exxon has $268 billion in revenue. Walmart makes $482 billion in revenue.

So it makes as much money as Uber instead of Walmart? Just because it's not the biggest doesn't mean it's not big.

Uber is a a high-growth startup as you may be aware, and will far eclipse its 2015 revenue this year. Even so, comparing the revenues of the "massively profitable" prison company that's been around since 1983 with a single Silicon Valley startup that just got off the ground a few years ago is quite a stretch and a false equivalence.

Re: Legalize It All

#46

Post by shmerl »

narrator wrote: post #22
krylon wrote: post #3

We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course…

The thing I find interesting (INTERESTING, not necessarily moral or otherwise) about China is that when they want to do something controversial they are open and straight forward about it. They openly attack and arrest groups that they find disruptive to the social order. In America, the leadership has to invent all sorts of crafty subterfuge to accomplish their goals of persecuting and imprisoning groups that they c…

Why is that interesting that dictatorship doesn't hesitate to openly attack dissent? That's actually expected from it.

Re: Legalize It All

#47

Post by delecti »

hjhgjtyhgdfi wrote: post #13
Delmania wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can we now, please, get that behind us and move on? What, and disrupt the massively profitable prison industry?

The largest private for-profit prison (CCA) has $1.7 billion in revenue. Apple makes $233 billion in revenue. Exxon has $268 billion in revenue. Walmart makes $482 billion in revenue.

But where do government run prisons get their food, clothes, guard outfits, toilets, toiletries, etc?

Is it really accurate to exclude all of those from the calculation?

Re: Legalize It All

#48

Post by DanBC »

hjhgjtyhgdfi wrote: post #42
SwellJoe wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at how much money CCA spends on lobbying and supporting candidates that are friendly to their business. It is vastly larger per dollar of revenue than Apple (or Walmart). So much so, that it's one of the things people talk about when taking about whether Hillary Clinton (for example) is influenced by the money coming from the prison industrial complex. Nobody is accusing Hillary of being bought by Apple. Though…

Teachers unions spent $20 million on the 2012 election alone, no doubt funding candidates who were friendly to their pensions. I can go down the line and list off several more trade unions and their political spending. http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=l1300 Why is there seemingly not a peep about this from those who oppose the private prison complex?

Be fair: teachers unions often get talked in very negative terms on HN.

Re: Legalize It All

#49

Post by [deleted] »

narrator wrote: post #22
krylon wrote: post #3

We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course…

The thing I find interesting (INTERESTING, not necessarily moral or otherwise) about China is that when they want to do something controversial they are open and straight forward about it. They openly attack and arrest groups that they find disruptive to the social order. In America, the leadership has to invent all sorts of crafty subterfuge to accomplish their goals of persecuting and imprisoning groups that they c…

[deleted]

Re: Legalize It All

#50

Post by [deleted] »

ewzimm wrote: post #39
dangerlibrary wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00002194... https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000021754&c... Their revenue is less than 1% of Apple's, but their lobbying budget is 25%-75% of Apple's year to year.

Those statistics are really interesting. And that's compounded by the fact that investors don't really care about the total value of a company. They're concerned about the growth potential of companies like Apple while the private prison industry is showing impressive and reliable growth. This creates a powerful incentive to bolster the industry. There's something obscene about people's retirement funds depending on…

[deleted]
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