181–190 of 190 posts
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If your daughter was routinely going over to a friend's house where the friend's parent was visibly high on a regular basis how would you feel about it?
It's either up to you and your daughter to decide if going over is a good thing; however; it is not an argument that says wether that parent should be put in prison.
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More sectarian than a pure race thing it was Nativist Protestant's vs recently immigrant Catholics. the KKK started out as an Anti catholic group
The Irish & Southern Europeans were looked upon as lesser races at the time. It was only later that "white vs black" became the socially accepted racial classification.
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To be fair it's a complete puritan/authoritarian culture thing. Most of the media avoids tackling the issue as well. If it wouldn't be for John Stossel's show, I doubt that there would be any news program talking about the positive outcome of Portugal and the negative aspects of the drug war itself.
And it perfectly matches up with the numerous other authoritarian aspects of American culture that have arisen over the last few decades. - Criminalizing anything and everything they can - SWAT teams abusing and murdering at will, serving warrants with extreme violence - militarization of police forces - the espionage state, from the NSA to the FBI - destruction of justice, through techniques such as parallel constru…
Freedom and equality in America has always been a work in progress, in my estimation.
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This is not true, or is only partly true depending on which KKK you are talking about. The original group formed in the 1960s as an anti-reconstruction organization and used terror tactics to chase politicians and businessmen they didn't like out of certain communities in the South. It didn't last long though and was disbanded in the early 1870's. The 'second' Klan was originally a merchandizing effort surrounding th…
FYI, you have a typo. The first clan started in the 1860's.
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The Irish & Southern Europeans were looked upon as lesser races at the time. It was only later that "white vs black" became the socially accepted racial classification.
I remember reading, quite a while ago, some 19th or 18th Century piece of fiction in which a Caucasian lad with black hair was referred to as a "little black boy".
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It's either up to you and your daughter to decide if going over is a good thing; however; it is not an argument that says wether that parent should be put in prison.
If drugs are legal, and allowed everywhere it takes that choice away from me unless I want to lock my kid up and not let her leave the house.
But "I don't want my daughter to meet X" is something that you need to handle within your family, not by asking armed men to forcibly remove X from the community. In your given example (daughter visits friend whose parent is high) you can punish cases if your underage daughter gets offered drugs, as currently would happen if she'd get offered alcohol or sex; but saying that your neighbor should be imprisoned for what he's doing in his own home simply because "my daughter might visit..." seems a bit ridiculous reason.
It's perfectly okay for your neighbors (and parents of your daughters classmates) to do all kinds of wierd sh*t that you wouldn't allow your underage daughter to do - they can practice crazy religions, have freaky sex including blood and bondage, do near-suicidal acts for thrills, implant horns in their foreheads, whatever. If you don't like that, then that is a valid reason for you to avoid them, but it's not a valid reason for requiring them to stop.
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If drugs are legal, and allowed everywhere it takes that choice away from me unless I want to lock my kid up and not let her leave the house.
Alcohol is legal and allowed everywhere (especially at peoples' homes), but it doesn't in any way preclude you from telling your daughter that she's not allowed to visit mr.X because he's an alcoholic, or he's a pothead, or because you simply distrust him. But "I don't want my daughter to meet X" is something that you need to handle within your family, not by asking armed men to forcibly remove X from the community.…
Even more people feel that way when it comes to other drugs, which is why they are still mostly illegal.
I'm not saying I agree with their position. I actually largely agree with you. I was just trying to explain to proksoup (the commenter who I originally responded to) how others view the world. He was baffled how people could support the drug war. I think it shows a real lack of imagination and empathy to not see other people's point of view. You don't have to agree with it, but I think it's pretty easy to understand where they're coming from.
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And there wouldn't be any justification for seizing people's property before they are even proven guilty, if ever. Not that it ever was justified. The Netherlands closed prisons after it decriminalized drugs. Personally, I think this should be decided at the neighborhood level, like many social issues. If people are ok with it where they live, it should be allowed. If they don't want it around their kids, that should…
> If they don't want it around their kids, that should be possible as well. Restricting other people's rights because "THINK OF MY CHILDREN!" is how we got in to a lot of these messes in the first place. I mean, what if your daughter got high on the marijuanas and dated a Negro? The shame it would bring on the family!
The line must be drawn somewhere. We all draw it at our own front door for example.
I think the problem is that shared spaces are usually created and governed by coercion rather than by mutual agreement governed by a contract.
When you have a contract with your neighbors, the rules are in the contract. To change it requires mutual agreement. The contract can also end. I think this is a more appropriate arrangement than forcing people to live a certain way.
If your neighborhood wants nudity and crack cocaine and bike only trails instead of car traffic, that should be your business. People that want those things can move to these neighborhoods. And those that don't can avoid them.
This seems like more freedom than we currently allow. Freedom to do and freedom to avoid. Good fences make good neighbors and this just seems like a logical extension of that.
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And it perfectly matches up with the numerous other authoritarian aspects of American culture that have arisen over the last few decades. - Criminalizing anything and everything they can - SWAT teams abusing and murdering at will, serving warrants with extreme violence - militarization of police forces - the espionage state, from the NSA to the FBI - destruction of justice, through techniques such as parallel constru…
Not to take away from a valid point, but the McCarthyism of the 1950s was probably equally bad if not worse. And going back further, racial and gender inequality was institutionalized throughout American society. Ask a black man who lived in the 1930s-40s how arbitrarily authoritarian the government was toward him and his neighbors--it was pretty grim. And going back a few decades further, we had slavery, indentured…