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Legalize It All

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Re: Legalize It All

#141

Post by charonn0 »

cooper12 wrote: post #118
charonn0 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to disagree in the most strenuous possible terms. > do I really need a degree to talk to people, to appreciate literature or art, to vote? No, you don't need a college degree, but you do need an elementary education, which is what I'm talking about since that's what's compulsory and free. There is no technology industry without an educated workforce. There is no effective democracy where the electorate is igno…

Yeah but my argument is that you don't need a state for that. There are tons of self-taught people in IT and many people on HN can testify to that. And people can be ignorant in spite of education, just look at America itself which has groups that believe vaccines cause autism or that the moon landings were faked, among other strange beliefs perpetuated by the media. (which is really where people get their political…

> There are tons of self-taught people in IT

What I'm getting at is that they still needed to be taught reading, math, etc. just to get to the point where they could teach themselves how to use technology. I don't think that piecemeal homeschooling can prepare most people to do that sort of thing. A quick glance at historic literacy rates in the US[1], particularly the meteoric rise in all demographics starting in the late 1800s, speaks volumes about the effectiveness of formal schooling. Illiteracy dropped from 20% to 7.7% in one generation (and even more dramatically within unprivileged demographics.)

This doesn't imply that only state-run systems can work, but I think it's clear that state-run systems do work (which is my original point: contrasting state-operated free schools to the war on drugs.)

> I honestly don't believe any of it couldn't be done with different methods or groups.

Absolutely it could, no argument there. The Prussian-style classroom is not the only one, even if it's the only one in widespread use, and there are some legitimate problems with it. That being said I don't see how 90%+ literacy could be accomplished without state involvement. It certainly hadn't happened before, and writing has been around for a long time.

Sorry if I took us way off-topic (war on drugs). My point isn't really about what sorts of schooling we should have, but rather to point out that the schooling we do have provides an interesting counterpoint to the harm caused by the state in pursuing the war on drugs, and is something for anarchists to chew on when railing against the depredations of the state.

[1]: https://nces.ed.gov/naal/lit_history.asp#illiteracy

Re: Legalize It All

#142

Post by agumonkey »

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…

I find this a very descriptive trait of the western world. We rationalize, and diffuse through indirect means and ways. It feels a lot less barbaric than just cutting someone's hand for a bad article or what you said. The root desires are the same, the way to express them not.

Re: Legalize It All

#144

Post by hartpuff »

hyperpape wrote: post #112
gardano wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's something I never understood (and admittedly never researched either). Isn't there something in the constitution about freedom of association?

Yes. However judges cannot preemptively strike down laws, even if they are blatantly unconstitutional. Someone with "standing" must bring a case, which typically(?) means that the law has been applied to them. So unconstitutional laws often stay on the books without being enforced, until either someone overreaches and tries to enforce them, or the legislature formally repeals them. I believe anti-miscegenation statue…

I just read about something like that recently, a couple being thrown into jail in the US in the 1960s, for the 'crime' of being married and of being different races.

Edit: My mistake, it was 1958, but they took legal action in the 1960s (Loving vs Virginia, 1967), and despite the Supreme Court's ruling, some states kept such laws on the books as late as 2000 (Alabama), which is actually probably what you were referring to.

The comment by the judge in 1958 is (almost) unbelievable:

    Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow,
    malay and red, and he placed them on separate 
    continents. The fact that he separated the races shows 
    that he did not intend for the races to mix.
Presumably God wasn't as fussy about non-red races in the legal profession in North America.

Re: Legalize It All

#145

Post by WalterBright »

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…

Laying it all on Nixon does not explain "Reefer Madness" (1936) nor every other country that criminalizes drugs with zeal.

Re: Legalize It All

#147

Post by Pyxl101 »

oldmanjay wrote: post #93
winter_blue wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legalized, this industry will collapse, as drugs would be very cheap. The real production costs of most drugs are minuscule. Their high market prices are entirely due to their illegality.

Are you subject to the misapprehension that production cost is the primary factor in pricing?

Production cost is a primary factor in pricing in industries having the characteristic of "perfect competition". For example, in the farming industry, the price of wheat is primarily determined by production cost, while influenced by other factors. You can read about characteristics associated with perfect competition on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_competition#Basic_stru...

If drug use and drug-making were both made fully legal, or comparable legal as alcohol-making and alcohol-using, then the industry would rapidly approach perfect competition for certain classes of categories (e.g., pharmaceutical recreational drugs).

Re: Legalize It All

#149

Post by humanrebar »

munificent wrote: post #125
charonn0 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a counterpoint to the drug war: a durable, decades-long intrusion on personal autonomy by the state that produces tangible benefits and improves the quality of life for society and the individual.

Free mass education is a requirement in a democratic society. It would be national suicide for a government to give people the vote without giving them any competence to go with it.

I wonder if the American electorate has that level of competence given the quality of elected leadership in the US.

Re: Legalize It All

#150

Post by rayiner »

md224 wrote: post #132
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…

Does anyone else get almost irrationally angry about this? I HATE that the freedom to modulate our own minds was taken away from us by these awful politicians for such terrible reasons. Not only has the War on Drugs ruined countless lives through incarceration and overdosing, but so many potentially helpful chemicals have been hidden away from society. It isn't just about getting "high"... it's about unleashing our f…

The ability to "modulate [your] . . . mind" is why so many people (80-90% when it comes to drugs besides marijuana), oppose drug legalization. Human society has barely learned to cope with the range of neurological behavior naturally present in the population. It's not unreasonable to be afraid of what might happen when you throw new chemicals into the mix.

It's important to remember that most people think the opposite way as those on HN. They do not assume that new things will automatically make society better. They have a strong "don't fix what isn't broken" tendency. And as long as we live in a democracy, they're entitled to structure their society as they see fit.

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