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Legalize It All

harpers.org

71–80 of 293 posts

Re: Legalize It All

#71
post #57

Oh the hypocrisy. Drugs legalization being trendy, you play the libertarian card. Yet, when it comes to guns or privacy, the same arguments don't hold true anymore. Cherry picking at its best. Gotta love the HN crowd.

Drugs kill their users. Guns often kill others as well.

Alcohol often kills people other than the drinkers.

Re: Legalize It All

#72

I'm not sure about legalizing it all, but me and the world is pretty sure about decriminalizing it, just watch what happened here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbWpXYOg4OQ TL;DR: Highly successful strategy of not marginalizing (both socially and legally) and actually helping addicts: cuts costs, cuts problems, decreases addicts.

The problem with decriminalization without legalization is that it addresses demand but not supply. Black market supply is where a lot of the harm from prohibition materializes.

I agree, and in fact the author - Dan Baum - made the same point in an interview on NPR a few days ago.

http://www.wnyc.org/story/legalization-best-way-win-war-drug...

Re: Legalize It All

#73

The link seems to be broken for me, ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED.

As a paywalled site, perhaps Harper's rarely gets much traffic? Regardless, if they're going to expose such great content for free, they're going to have to get on the level of an HN front page mention.

Re: Legalize It All

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at how much money CCA spends on lobbying and supporting candidates that are friendly to their business. It is vastly larger per dollar of revenue than Apple (or Walmart). So much so, that it's one of the things people talk about when taking about whether Hillary Clinton (for example) is influenced by the money coming from the prison industrial complex. Nobody is accusing Hillary of being bought by Apple. Though…

Teachers unions spent $20 million on the 2012 election alone, no doubt funding candidates who were friendly to their pensions. I can go down the line and list off several more trade unions and their political spending. http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=l1300 Why is there seemingly not a peep about this from those who oppose the private prison complex?

I'm curious: Do you believe teachers asking for more funding is ethically comparable to prisons demanding more prisoners?

Re: Legalize It All

#75
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whilst I am very liberal (classical sense) on many issues, including guns, you can't compare drugs with guns. Much more meaningful to compare hand guns with explosives and other weapons, and drugs with alcohol and generally self-harm.

There is essentially no difference between drugs and guns. - Guns can be used for self-harm. - Drugs can be used to harm others. Why aren't people ready to accept that people will die?

Can't you use the same argument to equate drugs, guns, cars, sticks, water, and imperialistic wars? I mean, they all can be used to harm people.

Re: Legalize It All

#76
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gotta love the HN crowd. Please don't. The "crowd" includes you, and such generalizations are mostly bias.

Am I wrong to assume that most people here: - Want to legalize drugs. - Want to ban guns. - Want a right to privacy.

Sounds good to me. But go ahead and flame/downvote/hate on my oppinion as a member of the HN community. After all I'm just one person with an opinion.

Re: Legalize It All

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at how much money CCA spends on lobbying and supporting candidates that are friendly to their business. It is vastly larger per dollar of revenue than Apple (or Walmart). So much so, that it's one of the things people talk about when taking about whether Hillary Clinton (for example) is influenced by the money coming from the prison industrial complex. Nobody is accusing Hillary of being bought by Apple. Though…

Teachers unions spent $20 million on the 2012 election alone, no doubt funding candidates who were friendly to their pensions. I can go down the line and list off several more trade unions and their political spending. http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=l1300 Why is there seemingly not a peep about this from those who oppose the private prison complex?

Most people have more ethical qualms about profiting off of incarceration than about possibly paying too much money to people who educate our children. This is not surprising.

Re: Legalize It All

#78
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gotta love the HN crowd. Please don't. The "crowd" includes you, and such generalizations are mostly bias.

Am I wrong to assume that most people here: - Want to legalize drugs. - Want to ban guns. - Want a right to privacy.

Sample size of one (and incredibly oversimplified for such complex topics) but...

- I don't think ingesting chemicals or compounds should be illegal but there's probably a benefit to some level of restriction on their sale and use

- I don't think guns should be made illegal but there's probably a benefit to some level of restriction on their sale and use

- I think there should be certain guarantees in terms of privacy but there's probably an argument to be made that these rights can be restricted in some cases for some individuals (ie: in the course of prosecuting a crime)

Either way, it's hard to make blanket statements about complex issues so you get appropriately wishy-washy responses.

Re: Legalize It All

#79
I'm completely against the war on drugs for most of the reasons stated in this article, but I find it's blaming of Nixon and racial/ideological politics as the worst most unproductive form of cynicism. As if there are no well meaning, well founded reasons to outlaw drugs. People often forget that poor, minority neighborhoods were often instrumental in getting tough drug laws passed. Because they often faced the brunt of the criminal effect of large numbers of drug users. When a working class mom gets her kid's bike stolen by a junkie, she's not too interested in contemplating rehabilitation, she's just mad and wants her bike back and the asshole punished.

Re: Legalize It All

#80
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's rhetorically effective, in that shallow thinkers have been trained for years to reflexively revile Nixon. If we argued merely on the merits, they might worry about LEO jobs or housewives hooked on patent medicines (i.e., stupid arguments we've seen before). It's best to short-circuit all that detailed disputation with a simple "Drug War = Nixon = Bad". Very few thinking people without a personal economic…

Ouch, such a gross way of thinking. And people wonder why things are getting so divisive. No matter who you are, there are lots of people who disagree with you on public policy who aren't morons. Treating them like morons encourages them to hate you and not listen to anything you say.

With all due respect, I'm sure, "things are getting so divisive" because millions of people have had their lives destroyed, for decades, in USA and further south, for the enrichment of lobbyists and for the short-term political advantage of a worthless SOB who is now roasting deservedly in hell. Sure, lots of people haven't "noticed", because the whole farce was calculated to feed and placate their prejudice. Those who know anything about the Drug War, e.g. the dozens of big-city police commissioners who join LEAP the day after they retire, know how awful it is. Those who don't know anything can't be expected to learn overnight.

If that doesn't raise one's blood pressure, nothing on this Earth will.

Let the tone policing commence!

[EDIT/PS:] I never said "morons". I used a literally descriptive term. Those wilting violets (uh-oh, more characterization!) who are upset by such a bland description should just try thinking a bit deeper.

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