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America Has a Black-Market Problem, Not a Drug Problem

theatlantic.com

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Re: America Has a Black-Market Problem, Not a Drug Problem

#131

Post by nikatwork »

stbarnes wrote: post #105
Yaa101 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a dream to think that law was enacted to put an end to those kinds of troubles. Law is made by the representatives to keep the problems in tact for various reasons by various people in the chain. Politicians do not want to solve all problems and find out that since they solved the problems, they are not needed anymore. The military and arms industrial complex certainly do not want to solve the problems, if they…

So politicians are in a conspiracy to not stop problems? Sounds unlikely to me, I think it's more like: * Many politicians, like most people, are idiots. Partly because many voters are also idiots. * Politicians don't have strong incentives to stop problems. (But they don't have strong incentives to preserve problems, either. They're only incentivized to be popular.) * Principal-agent problems. Even if a politician c…

Inertia. It seems fairly established that privatized prisons pour lobbying money into political pockets to push for arbitrarily harsher sentencing. You can't just reverse this or you are painted as "soft on crime". Even when the actual social impact of these policies are tremendously negative and only benefit a small number of private investors.

I thought The Wire's "Hamsterdam" episode was a great parable on what would happen in America if an influential politician fought inertia and tried to implement socially responsible drug policies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamsterdam

Re: America Has a Black-Market Problem, Not a Drug Problem

#132

Post by [deleted] »

arg01 wrote: post #127
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd assume you do agree that excessive speeding constitutes a crime as a it raises the chances of inflicting injury on others. That is a poor assumption. The government is incompetent (and corrupt) to choose what course of action best manages risk. The better answer is to make people (and their insurance carriers) liable for the damage they actually cause. If you drive too fast and kill someone, you should be liabl…

How do we estimate a fair market price on what the average person is willing to be paid to be hit? Let's not forget to price in what people would accept for you taking away a loved one through reckless behaviour. I'd hazard in a lot of cases the cost they would settle for given a choice would be your blood. Maybe a fair market value considering this fact is your time in jail.

[deleted]

Re: America Has a Black-Market Problem, Not a Drug Problem

#133

Post by baddox »

gnaritas wrote: post #118
baddox wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theft existed before the constitution, and the constitution didn't change what it means.

Property is a social construct, society decides what is or isn't theft, not you. Taxation is not theft, and I'm not interested in the least in debating this, it's childish. You don't believe in government, I get it, and I don't care.

I believe in government, I just don't approve of it, because I believe it has a net negative impact on society. My primary concern is not whether you or anyone else cares about my option, but rather what sort of societal organization might have the most positive impact on society.

Re: America Has a Black-Market Problem, Not a Drug Problem

#134

Post by philwelch »

eqdw wrote: post #38
gnaritas wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I meant what I said. Victimeless, and no it's not at all hard to define. Drugs, sex, gambling, bigamy, etc; basically laws based on Christian morality that try and tell you it's wrong to do things that only involve consenting adults. Non-violent is another category, but I agree with you on that category, prison should be for the violent.

> No, I meant what I said. Victimeless, and no it's not at all hard to define. Drugs, sex, gambling, bigamy, etc; basically laws based on Christian morality that try and tell you it's wrong to do things that only involve consenting adults. I generally agree with you, and do not at all believe Christian morality is a good basis for laws. That said, I have to play devil's advocate > Drugs In a world where the governmen…

All marriage is historically correlated with misogyny. Yet, the polyamorous folks I know are a lot less misogynistic than the ones who would want to keep polygamy illegal. (Needless to say, a woman should have the right to marry multiple husbands as well!)

Re: America Has a Black-Market Problem, Not a Drug Problem

#135

Post by benched »

thesimpsons1022 wrote: post #116
pstuart wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> extremely addictive and harmful drugs Like alcohol? Should we make it illegal again to protect its victims?

this is an argument against alcohol, not for other drugs. And personally I think society would be better off without it.

Well, sure, if you're pulling assertions out of thin air that agree with your narrow-minded views, and declaring them fact.

Re: America Has a Black-Market Problem, Not a Drug Problem

#136

Post by spacehome »

gamblor956 wrote: post #100
girvo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a tough job? You bet. Are they unfairly vilified? Not a chance: police should be held to a higher moral standard than the general public, as they're the ones enforcing it. The best part of them wearing a GoPro is that everyone wins: civilians get to feel much safer, and police get to show that they're not as bad as they're made out to be. The issue arises when the cops have that introduced, and accusations of e…

The proportion of bad cops to good cops is probably about the same as the proportion of pervert sexist programmers who like to sexually harass their female coworkers to non-perverted programmers. If your only exposure to either profession is what you see online, you'll have a dim view of both professions. It's true that there is a large number of bad cops--but that's simply because there are a lot cops. Most cops hol…

Sorry, but I don't think this is even remotely true. Cops overwhelmingly don't testify against other cops. And, in my book, cops that put up the blue wall of silence are bad cops. Not as bad as the cop they're defending -- I don't mean to equate them -- but still bad.

While something like that may exist in some engineering-heavy workplaces (I've heard stories but never seen it), it's nowhere near as common or institutionalized.

Re: America Has a Black-Market Problem, Not a Drug Problem

#137

Post by eru »

joesmo wrote: post #63
eqdw wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, I meant what I said. Victimeless, and no it's not at all hard to define. Drugs, sex, gambling, bigamy, etc; basically laws based on Christian morality that try and tell you it's wrong to do things that only involve consenting adults. I generally agree with you, and do not at all believe Christian morality is a good basis for laws. That said, I have to play devil's advocate > Drugs In a world where the governmen…

"In a world where the government provides health care as a service" No need to dwell on hypotheticals. We can revisit this when the government starts paying for our healthcare. Regardless, this is a financial issue where the logical punishment is a fine, not prison.

Lots of countries do have public health care.

Re: America Has a Black-Market Problem, Not a Drug Problem

#138

Post by hansjorg »

gnaritas wrote: post #40
eqdw wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, I meant what I said. Victimeless, and no it's not at all hard to define. Drugs, sex, gambling, bigamy, etc; basically laws based on Christian morality that try and tell you it's wrong to do things that only involve consenting adults. I generally agree with you, and do not at all believe Christian morality is a good basis for laws. That said, I have to play devil's advocate > Drugs In a world where the governmen…

> In a world where the government provides health care as a service (which is where we're trending, eventually), abusing your own health does have a victim: the taxpayer. An almost fair point... if and only if we get there, I'm not yet convinced we will, however drug use is not drug abuse. To call it a health issue it'd first have to affect your health negatively. If it does, that can be seen by the doctor and noted…

> I reject the notion that you can be your own victim. If you choose to make decisions that hurt you, you must suffer the consequences; it is not the state's place to protect you from yourself.

Forget the state for a moment and try to scale it down. In a village where everybody knows and depends on each other, what would you do if an outsider came along and tricked one of your fellow villagers out of all their means?

When winter came, would you let that person die? No, you would use your own means to keep them alive.

Now, the next time this trickster came to town, would you just let them prey on the less perceptive of your fellow villagers again?

Re: America Has a Black-Market Problem, Not a Drug Problem

#139

Post by girvo »

btown wrote: post #50
girvo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a tough job? You bet. Are they unfairly vilified? Not a chance: police should be held to a higher moral standard than the general public, as they're the ones enforcing it. The best part of them wearing a GoPro is that everyone wins: civilians get to feel much safer, and police get to show that they're not as bad as they're made out to be. The issue arises when the cops have that introduced, and accusations of e…

I largely agree, but to act as a devil's advocate, what about cases when a police officer needs to resort to more heavy-handed methods when their life is in danger? In a dangerous area, a camera cannot capture the entire environment that a police officer must take in, contextual clues to a possibly dangerous situation drawn from a career of near brushes with disaster. So you might see corner cases where a police offi…

And the current system is deadly, for police officers and civilians. I highly doubt those corner cases you're discussing will create more violence than already exists, in my opinion.

Re: America Has a Black-Market Problem, Not a Drug Problem

#140

Post by saraid216 »

daenz wrote: post #125
Yaa101 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a dream to think that law was enacted to put an end to those kinds of troubles. Law is made by the representatives to keep the problems in tact for various reasons by various people in the chain. Politicians do not want to solve all problems and find out that since they solved the problems, they are not needed anymore. The military and arms industrial complex certainly do not want to solve the problems, if they…

That's a very black and white view of the world. I agree with many of your points though, that many problems are more profitable unsolved. However, many laws indeed have a basis in some (possibly twisted) form of morality (preventative or punitive).

No, GP's comment is a black-and-black view, as it allows for no possibility for improvement.
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