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[Cyberpawz hat]
The point is that Mexico is a hypocracy that treats foreigners bad. And now everyone wants them over here for free, going on bike rides, making cornholes. Everyone’s laughing and riding and cornholing except for foreigners in Mexico. And I know they are not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but they are sensitive, you know, and you could pretend to be interested in America for once.
[/Cyberpawz hat]

kb5zhh wrote:

Steyr AUG wrote:

And how is "everyone else here" using the term?

Roughly, large scale criminal organization.  Not five kids playing hooky.

Mexican kids playing hooky.  In America.  And using spray paint to create art/vandalize property.

:: attempts to further muddy the topic ::

JakeTheTall wrote:

kb5zhh wrote:

Steyr AUG wrote:

And how is "everyone else here" using the term?

Roughly, large scale criminal organization.  Not five kids playing hooky.

Mexican kids playing hooky.  In America.  And using spray paint to create art/vandalize property.

:: attempts to further muddy the topic ::

I have heard that the pot laws were inacted largely in order to help keep the Mexicans down.

Again--why were the mafia so powerful during the twenties? They had control of an illicit substance that everybody wanted.

Gosh! No one had a comment on my post and I thought there would be howls of 'moralistic' comment. Not a single negative comment. res, where are you? Steyr, No comment? Is no one reading my posts?

Anyway, I'll post it again. I thought it a radical commentary. Guess, I'm not as 'hip' as I thought.

Sassy wrote:

In this argument, I fall to the side of what some would call the Libertarian view: People should have the right to do to their bodies as they please because one's body is one's personal property.

To bring substance abuse down I would elect to have treatment centers available to any who checked themselves in -- free of charge. For those who did not, they would given any amount of the drug of choice so long as they did so in an environment and place where others would not be affected -- free of charge. Some people have a death wish.

Why? Because if one does not value one's life or future, the consequences of poor behavior will exact the price to be paid. It is a choice. It's a case of "I am not my brother's keeper." I cannot make that choice for him, he must make it for himself because it is the only way the choice will stick and he will recover. My concern and love for him will not affect his behavior one iota. He must have concern and love for himself before mine can have any influence.

That solution won't ever be considered because there is too much money to be made in making substance abuse illegal and it would require universal health insurance. Both alternatives are held as anti-liberty and immoral by most people.

Substance abuse is a chronic behavior in all societies that have the means. Ignorance is not an excuse in this country, and with communications shrinking the world by the moment, knowledge about addiction can be commonplace. There is probably a physical basis for it and it should be a priority endeavor to find the source and treat it or cure it. But, that won't happen until we first take the profit out of it.

Recreational use is a different matter. Current laws are sufficient to curb or punish the behavior when it harms others. Once it becomes an addiction is the time it becomes a problem for social concern.

The discussion concerning gangs is interesting because gang violence and growth is becoming a global problem. Steyr's list is not new information. But, having a stable family relationship is not the answer by any stretch of the imagination. Young people from so called 'normal' families will turn to drugs or join a gang for reasons they themselves will not acknowledge or fully understand. Until someone finds a cure or treatment for 'unhappiness' those who have it or think they do will find a way to alleviate the pain whether physical or mental.

There is no doubt in my mind or within the enforcement community that illegal drugs, hard and soft, are a major, booming business everywhere. How does one bankrupt a business? Take the profit out of it! Make the product cheap and accessible. There will still be the need for prescription drugs, so regulation will continue and while regulation will not stop all criminal behavior, it will be reasonably enforceable and controlled. There is no perfect solution for this problem or for the gang problem.

It's the 'moral' aspect of the use of drugs that is the 'sticky' point for those who think it is in their best interest to set moral standards for everyone else and enforce those standards through laws of prohibition. Laws are made for the protection of the community. Most do so. Most are good. But, when it becomes a prohibition on 'individual' liberty in this country, it flies in the face of the Bill of Rights. That's a 'sticky' point for our Constitution or any document that sets up a roster of rules that says one size fits all.

kb5zhh wrote:

Steyr AUG wrote:

And how is "everyone else here" using the term?

Not five kids playing hooky.

Oh please, if you actually read the article you would know that statement isnt true.

bratboy wrote:

Steyr AUG wrote:

There are plenty of other illegal ways to finance a gang, he lists those.

That's not the point, though.  The illegal drug trade is a business.  A full-time profit generating machine.

Thats not the point either, Pariah said gangs in compton would go away without drug profit. Obviously that is not the case.

Steyr,
Why do you need to be such a pedantic prick?
You are smart enough to be able to grok the topic at hand yet you insist on focusing on minutia. Semantic quibbling is boring as smurf.
Seriously, you are tedious as hell to debate. Do you even have any original ideas?
Look at this thread, all you have contributed is some academics words pasted in.
Speak for yourself for once. Offer an opinion and use your own logic to back it up.

user wrote:

Steyr AUG wrote:

Rehab is tough stuff, giving people whose rational thought abilities are corrupted by addicition the choice of either the pain and hard work of rehab and the easy path of staying addicited and not many will choose rehab. Government sponsored suicide isnt my idea of a good plan.

Steyr, don't you think you've overstated that by just a tad? "Government sponsored suicide"?

How do you get there from the idea that incarceration isn't the best way to help an addict?

Steyr has swallowed whole the neo-puritan message that drugs are universally bad and practically everyone who uses is an addict.
It really is the only way you can justify laws that destroy hundreds of thousands of lives every year. You have to assume that everyone who is busted for drugs has already ruined their lives so imprisoning them is no loss. Because without the basic premise that people who use drugs are sub-human one would have to actually acknowledge that having over one million people rotting in prison on drug charges represented a truly massive waste of human potential.
Its buying the BIG LIE of drug use, that all users have but one path: Jails, institutions or death.

Pariah wrote:

Steyr,
Why do you need to be such a pedantic prick?
You are smart enough to be able to grok the topic at hand yet you insist on focusing on minutia. Semantic quibbling is boring as smurf.
Seriously, you are tedious as hell to debate. Do you even have any original ideas?
Look at this thread, all you have contributed is some academics words pasted in.
Speak for yourself for once. Offer an opinion and use your own logic to back it up.

Maybe someone hijacked his account...I've never seen this many, or so long, responses from him.

JakeTheTall wrote:

Pariah wrote:

Steyr,
Why do you need to be such a pedantic prick?
You are smart enough to be able to grok the topic at hand yet you insist on focusing on minutia. Semantic quibbling is boring as smurf.
Seriously, you are tedious as hell to debate. Do you even have any original ideas?
Look at this thread, all you have contributed is some academics words pasted in.
Speak for yourself for once. Offer an opinion and use your own logic to back it up.

Maybe someone hijacked his account...I've never seen this many, or so long, responses from him.

No, his style has changed over time, but not his approach. Actually he gains great satisfaction from pissing people off online. I suspect that's his main motivation for coming here.

Sassy wrote:

Farmerkev wrote:

Sassy, drop the free drugs and a crash pad for anyone that wants them and I generally go along. If you want to help those with a death wish using my taxes I have cheaper options.

It's a matter of choice = deciding to go into rehab and and rebuilding one's life or putting the determined addict out of misery; and, taking the profit out of the drug business. A twofer. Those people who opt for either choice will take the profit out of the drug business. Making the choice a 'free' of charge one, will cost the taxpayers much less than 'a war on drugs' (an asinine label if ever I've seen one).

It may also help to take the stigma out of being an addict because in either choice, it is the addict who decides what to do with his/her life. IOW, a self-determined, voluntary act of free will to help one's self rather than prey on the community for sustenance with an illegal act. Most addicts are capable of making such a choice even under the influence or there would be none who recover.

I think allowing an addict the privilege to choose rehab or death, if he chooses, is as humane as expecting the soldier to give his life to do so if the Commander in Chief says so simply because s/he 'volunteered' to serve.

Yeag, wooo...if its dollars you're worried about what we are doing now is really bad. Think of it this way: Sure treatment is costly and you may say "why should I pay for an addicts treatment". But one would do well to think there is this: Why should we all be paying $35,000+ a year to warehouse non-violent drug offenders?
The bottom line is we, as a people are going to bear some costs. non-incarceration and volentary treatment could hardly be anything but much cheaper.

ShnickyShnack wrote:

JakeTheTall wrote:

Pariah wrote:

Steyr,
Why do you need to be such a pedantic prick?
You are smart enough to be able to grok the topic at hand yet you insist on focusing on minutia. Semantic quibbling is boring as smurf.
Seriously, you are tedious as hell to debate. Do you even have any original ideas?
Look at this thread, all you have contributed is some academics words pasted in.
Speak for yourself for once. Offer an opinion and use your own logic to back it up.

Maybe someone hijacked his account...I've never seen this many, or so long, responses from him.

No, his style has changed over time, but not his approach. Actually he gains great satisfaction from pissing people off online. I suspect that's his main motivation for coming here.

Actually I come here to experience your indepth analysis of current world events.