171–180 of 343 posts
Can someone explain this part to me. Was he previously convicted of a crime that precluded ownership? Or are the police able to take legal behaviour and change it to illegal behaviour later on?
The amount of resources that the US federal government will use to pursue ridiculously long sentences (that frequently involve torture[1]) against people who did not victimize a single person is absolutely insane to me. The prohibition on the possession and sale of drugs must come to an end, and weapons charges should never, ever be brought against anyone who didn't use weapons to commit a crime or otherwise perpetra…
I personally want drug-dealing gun-wielding ex-felons to be put in prison. Plus he only got 5 years, which isn't a long sentence in the US.
If you want to spend $5+ million USD in tax money (which is approximately what would have happened in the event of his refusing the plea agreement) on investigating and charging and prosecuting and caging and feeding and medicating someone for their entire lifetime for engaging in activities that victimized no one, then I don't really know what to tell you other than that seems like an extreme emotional/nationalistic bias to me, because I know what $5mm USD can do when wielded instead to benefit people versus caging them like animals.
> Plus he only got 5 years, which isn't a long sentence in the US.
Five years is a long time in jail no matter what the country, but it's an exceptionally long time in the US given that people are commonly and routinely tortured[1] whilst imprisoned there.
Being pro-incarceration in the US, given the present abusive system and widespread, well-documented prison conditions, is congruent and coterminous with being pro-torture, which is an unconscionable viewpoint to promote, in my view.
I really, really hope that it's an opinion from ignorance of these systems, because I can't personally fathom a world where reasonable human beings want other human beings (who have not caused anyone to come to harm in this case, but really any human being) to be tortured.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solitary_confinement_in_the_Un... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solitary_confinement#Torture
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The motivation for fictitious wars against bogeymen is to empower and bankroll law enforcement while diminishing the civil rights of citizens. Like the war on terror, the decades long war on drugs has been a roaring success.
> The motivation for fictitious wars against bogeymen is to empower and bankroll law enforcement while diminishing the civil rights of citizens. Thank you. This trend where people recast everything in the 20th century to be racially motivated (but can't provide any proof, because it's like complicated) is exhausting.
And when people 'recast' things it's sometimes because new evidence emerges, or becomes more well known.
An example of that is in these comments, the interview by former Nixon aide John Ehrlichman made only in 1994, but probably still not that well known until this article from 2016:
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The war on terror and war on drugs are closely related enough (through expansion of powers and economic policies such as allowing police to purchase old military equipment) that I wonder if it’s worth even treating them as separate things.
The war on drugs has a lot more raids in the own territory while the war on terror has more bombings in foreign territory, so for now there are some major differences. However once using predator and reaper drones against citizens without any judicial oversight is normalized, that difference will be gone.
> Porras also admitted possessing a Model A uzi-style pistol; a MAK 90; and an S&W .44 caliber revolver. Although all weapons in Porras’ possession were legal firearms (the uzi-style pistol used post ban parts), a felony conviction for possession with intent precluded firearm ownership. Can someone explain this part to me. Was he previously convicted of a crime that precluded ownership? Or are the police able to take…
> Porras also admitted possessing a Model A uzi-style pistol; a MAK 90; and an S&W .44 caliber revolver. Although all weapons in Porras’ possession were legal firearms (the uzi-style pistol used post ban parts), a felony conviction for possession with intent precluded firearm ownership. Can someone explain this part to me. Was he previously convicted of a crime that precluded ownership? Or are the police able to take…
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There's no victim. Literally nobody was harmed here. "Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed." - Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States
Well, the supply chain for illegal drugs hurts a LOT of people, but that’s because of the illegally. In a world with legal drugs, you’d still want to prosecute someone for giving money to cartels, but there would be much less incentive for people to do so in the first place.
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That's not "considerable information", that's a known fact. Adam Conove made a whole episode in his show, "Adam ruins everything", about the true reasons why weed is illegal. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXPOw2unxy0 Spoiler: it's about giving the government of the US a tool to discriminate black people and mexicans.
I'll have to watch Adam's episode, but I watched a Netflix documentary five years ago (don't recall the name) that presented the argument that it was primarily the (cotton?) industry that lobbied to classify weed as illegal, because they wanted to destroy the hemp industry (and succeeded) as they were producing clothing. So it sounds like original bad intent (destroy competition) led to it being abused for further ba…
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Stop it with the hyperbole, as you clearly have no clue what you’re talking about. Methamphetamine is routinely prescribed for the treatment ADHD (also obesity and narcolepsy, amongst other off-label uses), and is sold under the brand name of Desoxyn (in the US). Meth IS medication! On that note, maybe don’t believe everything you read about drugs online.
I may need to clear up a misconception of mine, so here goes. Isn't it Dexamphetamine that is the routine treatment for ADHD? As far as I understood, methamphetamine has much stronger effects than dexamphetamine, also meth been prone to cause more adverse effects and have more neurotoxicity than the dex counterpart? Maybe I'm completely off base here.
A lot of the information about methamphetamine is, bluntly, propaganda. For example, there seems to be nothing about methamphetamine that is uniquely harmful to teeth, but "meth mouth" is a common trope. When taken orally at therapeutic doses it's not clear methamphetamine is any more harmful than dextroamphetamine, but it's certainly possibly it has more scope for abuse. It's certainly dangerous at high doses! Unfortunately it's hard to find hard data and not drug war propaganda.
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No. We live in a society. If I'm expected to help pick up the pieces when you self-destruct, it's absolutely my business.
You're doing that right now, with your tax dollars. It cost $81,203 _per year_ to house just one inmate in California[0]. I understand punishing sellers, but I think the punishments for drug charges (and most charges in the US), are so draconian. 1 Year in prison for this guy should be enough. From what I've heard, prison is terrible, people do not want to spend 1 day in prison. There is absolutely nothing he will le…
More time in prison, more people in prison, more lobbying dollars to encourage the use of the prison system. We have 2.5 million people in jail/prison.