Metaltastic, things like microwaving babies or stabbing old ladies is illegal whether drugs are involved or not. If you harm someone, whether you're on drugs or not, you should be kept away from other people for a while. If the drugs aren't themselves a guaranteed cause of stabwounds in other people (and last I checked *they're not*) then making them illegal is punishing the wrong goddamned thing. It's funny people mention that, too, since so many *violent criminals* can't be locked up for as long as they need because drug offense penalties are so high.
Roy, your first assumption is wrong - the price will go down, and the motivation to traffic illegally will vanish, leaving far fewer innocent victims to things like gang wars fought over distributing over a certain area. We'll also see fewer violent criminals let out early to make more room for the kid who automatically has to spend the next 20 years in prison because he had a flare gun in his trunk and a bag of weed in his glove compartment.
Later implied assumptions have faults, too - namely, that I have any support at all for even the *concept* of an 'illegal drug' (an unfair assumption unfounded in any statement I recall making ) and (even better!) that 'pot is legal' necessarily implies 'pot is only purchased from the government'. Granted, that last one is a bit hazy since I can't quite determine if I'm interpreting your phrasing right, but the fact that a drug is legal has ABSOLUTELY NO CORRELATION to its status as a government monopoly! (Please refer to post 62.)
Your first statement after my first quote is *exactly* the point I was trying to make. Your second, however, is an abomination against logic. Keep in mind that you're talking to a math nerd who bases his worldview around the assumption that everyone has the rights to live, speak, possess property, and act in any way that doesn't infringe on the rights of others. (Call it 'post-Rand objectivism' or whatever, I just consider it morality by induction.) There's plenty of black and white, and if the world seems grey you just need to tweak your focus.
Your first statement after my second quote is wrong.
The difference in opinion you point out is problematic on both counts.
First, I don't think that people should have responsibility and accountability *taken away*. If someone makes a mistake, I want to see them fucking *learn from it*. I don't care if you think that people can't handle themselves - they need to fucking learn, and we need to stop pretending that the world needs a goddamned babysitter.
Second, I don't think that hard drug abusers rarely have influence on others - but that's not the point I was making! The point is that we, as reasonable individuals, control who and what is part of our lives. (Those of us who are not reasonable individuals deserve whatever hell comes as a result of failure to exercise that control.) The point is that if someone you know is changing in a negative way and somehow turning into a fuckup who you can't help, it is your right, as a person with only a few decades to live and six billion other potential playmates, to cut them out of your lives. Exceptional cases (like the elderly, parents with children, or families with disabled members who need to be taken care of), are already handled by existing standards and have no impact here; if you don't tear these leeches off your skin you can't complain when you're sucked dry.
As usual, I intend no hostility here - but I do think you should read more carefully.
Jeff
Roy, your first assumption is wrong - the price will go down, and the motivation to traffic illegally will vanish, leaving far fewer innocent victims to things like gang wars fought over distributing over a certain area. We'll also see fewer violent criminals let out early to make more room for the kid who automatically has to spend the next 20 years in prison because he had a flare gun in his trunk and a bag of weed in his glove compartment.
Later implied assumptions have faults, too - namely, that I have any support at all for even the *concept* of an 'illegal drug' (an unfair assumption unfounded in any statement I recall making ) and (even better!) that 'pot is legal' necessarily implies 'pot is only purchased from the government'. Granted, that last one is a bit hazy since I can't quite determine if I'm interpreting your phrasing right, but the fact that a drug is legal has ABSOLUTELY NO CORRELATION to its status as a government monopoly! (Please refer to post 62.)
Your first statement after my first quote is *exactly* the point I was trying to make. Your second, however, is an abomination against logic. Keep in mind that you're talking to a math nerd who bases his worldview around the assumption that everyone has the rights to live, speak, possess property, and act in any way that doesn't infringe on the rights of others. (Call it 'post-Rand objectivism' or whatever, I just consider it morality by induction.) There's plenty of black and white, and if the world seems grey you just need to tweak your focus.
Your first statement after my second quote is wrong.
The difference in opinion you point out is problematic on both counts.
First, I don't think that people should have responsibility and accountability *taken away*. If someone makes a mistake, I want to see them fucking *learn from it*. I don't care if you think that people can't handle themselves - they need to fucking learn, and we need to stop pretending that the world needs a goddamned babysitter.
Second, I don't think that hard drug abusers rarely have influence on others - but that's not the point I was making! The point is that we, as reasonable individuals, control who and what is part of our lives. (Those of us who are not reasonable individuals deserve whatever hell comes as a result of failure to exercise that control.) The point is that if someone you know is changing in a negative way and somehow turning into a fuckup who you can't help, it is your right, as a person with only a few decades to live and six billion other potential playmates, to cut them out of your lives. Exceptional cases (like the elderly, parents with children, or families with disabled members who need to be taken care of), are already handled by existing standards and have no impact here; if you don't tear these leeches off your skin you can't complain when you're sucked dry.
As usual, I intend no hostility here - but I do think you should read more carefully.
Jeff
And it doesn't matter if legalizing it tomorrow would make everyone start doing it, that's irrelevant to the point, which is that it WOULD make it easier to access so more people would be tempted (a big way to avoid temptation is to have the thing tempting you be more of a hassle to get)
