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Legalize It All

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Re: Legalize It All

#281

Post by hutzlibu »

zeemonkee3 wrote: post #240
hutzlibu wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy fails when the demos fails. If you have a lot of stupid people, then you have a lot of stupid laws. So I don't see the problem with democracy, just with stupid people.

Intelligent, well-educated people are capable of appalling stupidity and herd-mentality. Or as Agent K said in Men in Black , "A person is smart. People are stupid."

And the very same person did this, to justify to lie to the whole humanity about the existence of aliens ... to keep them as stupid sheeps.

So I don't agree. It might be, that intelligent people give in to group pressure of a all in all much more stupid group. But even if you have too much stupid people, their collective intelligence still pays off.

Re: Legalize It All

#283

Post by [deleted] »

pessimizer wrote: post #109
ska wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think focusing on Nixon on at this point is actively problematic. Literally every administration since then has been complicit in this, and made it worse.

I think it's important to know that this was explicitly designed to target black people, not an accidental overreaction of well-meaning but not-modern, not-PC white people to a terrible problem. If you take Nixon out, you don't have that. A terrible fact is that elites still love Nixon. They don't want him brought up because he undermines them morally: they supported him at the time, and they still share his politica…

[deleted]

Re: Legalize It All

#284

Post by michaelbuddy »

mbrock wrote: post #186
rayiner wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not making any argument why drug use should be illegal. I'm making an argument for why the public should be entitled to decide whether drug use is legal or illegal. I also think, given your examples, the public should also be entitled to decide whether alcohol should be illegal.

Such an argument should mention the likelihood of a ban actually being enforced in a functional and just way. "The public" may wish to eliminate all mind-altering substances, but the allure of altering the mind is strong, and the enormous contingent of people who desire to consume is going to have to be repressed. The argument about family and relations, for example, is not so straightforward. What's preferrable, a d…

I know some people who would have been better off if their dad smoking cannibis wans't there. Not saying prison, but they were a terrible influence.

Re: Legalize It All

#285

Post by samstave »

tptacek wrote: post #278
samstave wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then give me a mechanism to PM a user and call them out on their bullshit. It's pretty easy. And I openly disagree with your perception: HN is. Core of this industry, do not censor it. Thanks

Stop it. Patrick, Erin and I had dinner with Rayiner last year. He's a good guy, and also FOUR things HN can use a lot more of : * A lawyer, ie, someone with real domain knowledge of how the law works, which is a topic that comes up a lot on HN and which generates about as much misinformed commentary here as crypto does, * A compiler hacker --- in fact, he's part of a weird cabal of "people who graduated from law sch…

Thomas,

I really took this comment to heart:

Someone who doesn't hold the modal political perspective of the vocal HN userbase, which means there's a point to discussing politically-tinged topics with him --- you might learn something surprising,

A relentlessly, reliably civil commenter, despite being the routine target of a hailstorm of comments like yours upthread.

So for that I thank you and I shall lighten up.

Honestly, as we have disagreed in the past about several political/security/gov issues -- I appreciate you saying this. Mainly because I am always open to learning, and when you say I may learn more from Rayiner WRT politically-tinged topics - I will not shy away from that.

So based on this, I apologize to Rayiner for calling HIM a shill.

Re: Legalize It All

#286

Post by neverknowsbest »

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…

Extremely angry, to the point that I can't actually have persuasive conversations about it with the pro-DARE crowd because their perspective boggles me so.

This quote sticks out as to the why of the dissenters, but doesn't levy them much sympathy:

"the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy"

Re: Legalize It All

#287

Post by neverknowsbest »

mbubb wrote: post #143

Why stop with drugs? I would include pointless war on sex workers.

Exactly. If somebody wants to sell their physical sexual skills, it should be just as easy to find a place of employment as somebody wanting to sell their mental deductive skills.

Re: Legalize It All

#288

Post by neverknowsbest »

mirimir wrote: post #235

> The risks are tremendous. Deaths from heroin overdose in the United States rose 500 percent from 2001 to 2014, a staggering increase, and deaths from prescription drugs — which are already legal and regulated — shot up almost 300 percent, proving that where opioids are concerned, we seem to be inept not only when we prohibit but also when we regulate. For heroin, the major risk is variation in potency. Heroin is hi…

A lot of overdoses also stem from folks who were forced or coerced into rehab before being fully prepared, then relapse, taking their old dose without realizing that their tolerance has already gone down during treatment. Hopefully those cases would decrease with legalization and the removal of the "hard drug" stigma.

Regarding the increase in RX deaths, I'd like to see those stats too-- though it's probably too hairy to really break down, I'd also like to see that expanded which prescription opiate, as well as circumstance (fully recreational/no clear injury, minor injury, during hospitalization, or continuing/long term care).

Re: Legalize It All

#289

Post by tptacek »

samstave wrote: post #285
tptacek wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop it. Patrick, Erin and I had dinner with Rayiner last year. He's a good guy, and also FOUR things HN can use a lot more of : * A lawyer, ie, someone with real domain knowledge of how the law works, which is a topic that comes up a lot on HN and which generates about as much misinformed commentary here as crypto does, * A compiler hacker --- in fact, he's part of a weird cabal of "people who graduated from law sch…

Thomas, I really took this comment to heart: Someone who doesn't hold the modal political perspective of the vocal HN userbase, which means there's a point to discussing politically-tinged topics with him --- you might learn something surprising, A relentlessly, reliably civil commenter, despite being the routine target of a hailstorm of comments like yours upthread. So for that I thank you and I shall lighten up. Ho…

I don't know what this freaky message board power I seem to have acquired is but I promise only to wield it for good, and not evil.

Re: Legalize It All

#290

Post by mbrock »

michaelbuddy wrote: post #284
mbrock wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such an argument should mention the likelihood of a ban actually being enforced in a functional and just way. "The public" may wish to eliminate all mind-altering substances, but the allure of altering the mind is strong, and the enormous contingent of people who desire to consume is going to have to be repressed. The argument about family and relations, for example, is not so straightforward. What's preferrable, a d…

I know some people who would have been better off if their dad smoking cannibis wans't there. Not saying prison, but they were a terrible influence.

That some people are bad parents doesn't seem to justify making cannabis consumption criminal.
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