2012 Presidential election thread

Ok, so Perry said he was a young boy at 27. Santorum said people need to be able to take care of their childrens. Newt and Mittens both flipflopping like hell on healthcare. Bachmann doing the worlds best impersonation of a robotic mannequin (including saying nothing relevant). Ron Paul just spitting truth when he manages to get a modicum of airtime.
 
Newt supports the death penalty for drug users??? He tried to classify "cartel leaders", but his original bill was for smugglers. That's a very broadly definable term. And he praised Singapore, look how broadly they define that term:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/...lements-campaigning-yahoo-news-152936251.html

In 1996, you introduced a bill that would have given the death penalty to drug smugglers. Do you still stand by that?

I think if you are, for example, the leader of a cartel, sure. Look at the level of violence they've done to society. You can either be in the Ron Paul tradition and say there's nothing wrong with heroin and cocaine or you can be in the tradition that says, 'These kind of addictive drugs are terrible, they deprive you of full citizenship and they lead you to a dependency which is antithetical to being an American.' If you're serious about the latter view, then we need to think through a strategy that makes it radically less likely that we're going to have drugs in this country.

Places like Singapore have been the most successful at doing that. They've been very draconian. And they have communicated with great intention that they intend to stop drugs from coming into their country.

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/347/singapore.shtml

Under Singapore law, anyone possessing more than a half ounce of heroin or a little more than a pound of marijuana is presumed to be a drug trafficker. The only penalty available for drug trafficking is death by hanging.

Wow.
 
'These kind of addictive drugs are terrible, they deprive you of full citizenship and they lead you to a dependency which is antithetical to being an American.'

I hate this rhetoric; equating drug dependency with being "anti-American." And how the hell do drugs inherently deprive you of full citizenship? That quote frustrates me to no end.
 
Devil's advocate: I know several people, including members of my family, who have lived in Singapore. They have all raved about it being a clean, safe, and beautiful city. Is it possible that Singapore is such a nice place because of their strict laws?
 
I believe the death penalty is dissuasive in all but crimes of "passion". However, the question is "what about recreational drug possession is death worthy"?
 
Devil's advocate: I know several people, including members of my family, who have lived in Singapore. They have all raved about it being a clean, safe, and beautiful city. Is it possible that Singapore is such a nice place because of their strict laws?

It's possible; but then again, the society in Brave New World was peaceful and clean as well.
 
Continuing with being a devil's advocate: isn't insisting upon preserving civil rights and personal freedoms against democracy, assuming a majority of the people want a clean and peaceful society even if it is at the expense of said freedoms? In other words, is democracy actually compatible with a concept such as personal freedom?