71–80 of 88 posts
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Stalin, who caused death to hundreds of thousands of people, would probably be not be a communist if he entered politics after the fall of communism. Doesn't make communists apologising for him a bad thing; doesn't make communists being stubborn about him a good thing.
I'm sorry that the Dixiecrats were a bunch of racist assholes, and I'm glad they switched to the Republican party. Does that help?
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Since when is Tobacco in Australia sold in plain packaging? AFAIK (it's been a while since I lived in Australia) the health messages have to be very prominent, and they can't advertise on TV, radio, or near schools, but they can still advertise in some places (print) and package as they like modulo "Smoking Kills Babies" type messages. (It's funny, my smoker friends used to identify their packets of cigarettes by the…
Tobacco cannot be advertised at all in Australia except for I think at the Grand Prix car racing. http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Conten...
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If you smoked weed, you probably wouldn't. If you did before, you would be so used to the black market, you'd stick with it, because. Weed is already expensive, so you are in luck if you could afford the shop prices on a regular basis, which we are talking about at 14k/day. Also, the negative side-effects are ignorance, for lack of a better word, so your reasons likely wouldn't even come up. For (most of) the occasio…
That really needs to be qualified. If a person smokes very regularly, yes. Your argument has merit, particularly among people with modest to low financial means. However, people with average and above financial means, who also really are recreational users are likely to buy. (weekend, social, specific event users) They know doing so contributes to the acceptance and normalization of the activity, and that's worth a l…
That's the hypocracy. It's not their behaviour that leads to acceptance, it's the state deciding what's acceptable or not . That is to incure tax and decrease spending, for all I care, and maybe a twisted social experiment of sorts, but not in first line for the well being of the people. Supporting that with the rhetorical finger pointing at The Terrorist is so utterly hypocritical, I'm at loss of words. Surely, the argument is not immoral, but it's completely missing the point. Us against The Terrorist is too simple a frame of mind, it's agrevating, but not to a calmed down stoner of course.
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That really needs to be qualified. If a person smokes very regularly, yes. Your argument has merit, particularly among people with modest to low financial means. However, people with average and above financial means, who also really are recreational users are likely to buy. (weekend, social, specific event users) They know doing so contributes to the acceptance and normalization of the activity, and that's worth a l…
>They know doing so contributes to the acceptance and normalization of the activity, and that's worth a lot to everyone involved, save the black market dealers. That's the hypocracy. It's not their behaviour that leads to acceptance, it's the state deciding what's acceptable or not . That is to incure tax and decrease spending, for all I care, and maybe a twisted social experiment of sorts, but not in first line for…
Those "calmed down" stoners may well be politically active. In the past, they were. The classic stereotype paints the stoner as living on the couch, munching, doing nothing.
Lots of those out there for sure. However, there are a lot of people who use lightly, or for creative reasons. Those people tend to be politically active. They also generally abhor bull shit.
Right now, I'm not sure our system can operate without some degree of hypocrisy. But, it is the system we have. There isn't going to be another one, so we've got to work with and sometimes hack the one we've got. Maybe it can be made better.
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That really needs to be qualified. If a person smokes very regularly, yes. Your argument has merit, particularly among people with modest to low financial means. However, people with average and above financial means, who also really are recreational users are likely to buy. (weekend, social, specific event users) They know doing so contributes to the acceptance and normalization of the activity, and that's worth a l…
>They know doing so contributes to the acceptance and normalization of the activity, and that's worth a lot to everyone involved, save the black market dealers. That's the hypocracy. It's not their behaviour that leads to acceptance, it's the state deciding what's acceptable or not . That is to incure tax and decrease spending, for all I care, and maybe a twisted social experiment of sorts, but not in first line for…
Also, the story I linked to previously was a finalist for a Pulitzer prize. I think that qualifies as being slightly more substantiated than "rhetorical finger pointing".
Finally, I'm disappointed that you felt compelled to resort to an ad hominem attack to try to make your point.
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Cannabis prohibition, on the other hand, has historically been targeted explicitly at minorities Do you have a "when" in mind there? Cannabis has a colorful history in the USA, and it does not seem like its entire history has been centered on "suppressing the Other". To my knowledge it was originally regulated as a part of the opium/narcotics laws that swept the world in the early 1900's.
Opium laws were targeted at the Chinese.
The U.S. has done the prohibition experiment twice now, and it was an unmitigated disaster both times. The data are unambiguous: prohibition doesn't work, never has, never will. And yet we're still arguing about it. Funny thing, though, we've done a similar experiment with tax cuts for the wealthy three times now: once in the 1920's, once starting in the 1980s, and most recently in Kansas. The results have been simil…
> The data are unambiguous: prohibition doesn't work, never has, never will Does it mean that all drugs should be freely sold? I have no doubt that cannabis should be legal: not only is it relatively harmless, but it's very easy to grow. But what about other more addictive and dangerous drugs?
If the argument is that everyone would just become drug addicts, I would argue that a hell of a lot of us already are drug addicts, just addicts to more socially acceptable drugs. And if reality can't compete with drugs, reality should step up its game.
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I still don't see why an organization should not apologise for its own policy. Post-communist states did apologise for things they did decades before while being very different regimes. And that was a good thing; stubborness would be a disaster there, you can't move forward unless you repent. If you think of it, Marujuana criminalization took a toll of human lives comparable to GULAG.
To paraphrase OED, an apology is an expression of regret for something one has done wrong. An organization cannot experience regret, so demanding an apology from the organization is guaranteed to be empty. An apology from members of the organization may well be meaningful, but the current members of the organization have not done wrong (at least, no wrong that caused the initial passing of the 1937 act). Basing your…
In that sense, speeches in senate are exactly that, even before laws are put in action. Sadly, my opinion about the credibility can't be written here in good faith.
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To paraphrase OED, an apology is an expression of regret for something one has done wrong. An organization cannot experience regret, so demanding an apology from the organization is guaranteed to be empty. An apology from members of the organization may well be meaningful, but the current members of the organization have not done wrong (at least, no wrong that caused the initial passing of the 1937 act). Basing your…
I can regret, i.e. feel sorry for, what I didn't cause. I can also apologize in defense of someone else. You English shouldn't constantly use Greek words if you don't understand them * ;) In that sense, speeches in senate are exactly that, even before laws are put in action. Sadly, my opinion about the credibility can't be written here in good faith. *) https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/apology#Etymology
You can certainly regret what you did not cause. You can express sympathy for what you did not cause. I think an apology is necessarily an expression of regret for something you had a role in, however. The word "sorry" expresses regret, but that regret is only part of an apology when there is some level of culpability. Apologizing on behalf of someone you've been associating with for a long while is regret that your impact did not lead to better behavior from them. Apologizing on behalf of someone you've just met seems weird to me. Apologizing for things done before you were born, even weirder.
As I've said elsewhere, that doesn't mean I have a strong opposition to people doing or saying weird things - I just think we should try and be clear in our thinking.
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>They know doing so contributes to the acceptance and normalization of the activity, and that's worth a lot to everyone involved, save the black market dealers. That's the hypocracy. It's not their behaviour that leads to acceptance, it's the state deciding what's acceptable or not . That is to incure tax and decrease spending, for all I care, and maybe a twisted social experiment of sorts, but not in first line for…
I'm not a stoner. I've smoked pot once this year. In January. The state has accepted the de facto status quo and made it the de jure status quo by way of a popular vote (which won with an 11.4% margin). People are going to smoke pot, or they're not. The legalization of marijuana is unlikely to meaningfully change users' and potential users' relationship to it. Also, the story I linked to previously was a finalist for…
Meanwhile, you use an argument of authority. Keep your disappointment. I could point to a couple sources about the Terrorist strawman, but I'm sure you know the context.