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Post by robeiae on Nov 6, 2018 7:55:44 GMT -5
Well, I'm not sure how many times I can say it, that I agree with legalizing pot and that allowing it to be used for medicinal purposes should have been a no-brainer a long time ago. And it's completely fair--in my view--to blame the government for the latter.
But nothing you've said, Don, really impacts my point at all. And again, that point is that if you insist on parceling out blame for all of the deaths and crimes that can be linked to the illegal drug trade and the accompanying war on drugs, you can't unhook all of those recreational users from that blame, whose need to get high largely fueled that drug trade.
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Post by Amadan on Nov 6, 2018 9:20:11 GMT -5
I empathize with your personal situation, Don, and like rob, I have said repeatedly that I agree the situation is fucked up and you and your wife should be able to make use of cannabis, recreationally or medicinally, in peace. And I understand why this is so personal and emotive to you. But even if you and your wife were put in jail for the rest of your lives (which would be terrible and wrong) - even with all the people who have been put in jail (which is terrible and wrong) - it's still not a fucking Holocaust, and painting things in such hyperbolic terms because they affect you deeply and personally does not enhance your persuasiveness.
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Post by Don on Nov 6, 2018 10:23:02 GMT -5
Just to be clear. I never called the War on Cannabis a Holocaust. Here's what I said:
There are still plenty of people who don't recognize slavery or the decimation of indigenous peoples as a crime against humanity on the order of the Holocaust. Decades ago, hardly anybody did. There are plenty of leaders still venerated despite their active promotion of these crimes. I think time has proven them wrong. I think time will win out in this case as well.
ETA: I consider the incarceration of Japanese-Americans during WWII a crime against humanity. I don't, however, think it was on the order of the Holocaust. It takes massive death and destruction to reach those levels.
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Post by robeiae on Nov 7, 2018 14:53:09 GMT -5
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Post by nighttimer on Nov 7, 2018 15:42:50 GMT -5
Yeah, you're missing the point (or more likely purposefully avoiding it). I agree with you--as I've said--that pot should be legalized and that allowing its use for medicinal purposes should have been a no-brainer a long time ago. But it doesn't matter if I'm right, it doesn't matter if you're right, it doesn't matter if the "scofflaws" are right in this regard. Because again, the need to get high is what drives the illegal drug trade, is what ultimately funds all sorts of ancillary criminal activity. Hey, the need to gamble has done the same thing, right? And yes, the need to get drunk did, as well. But gambling, getting drunk, and getting stoned aren't critical elements of existence, in my view. Allowing that they should all--to some extent--be legal doesn't make the people who engaged in such behaviors while they were illegal into World Champions and Martyrs for Freedom. It just makes them people who decided that their desires were more important--in the moment--than following laws they could have easily followed, with no real downside (indeed, there would actually be an upside). So if people are going to be held accountable for all of the bad stuff caused by the illegal drug trade and the war on drugs, it seems fairly obvious to me that those people who participated in one or both are all on the hook. What? Because I choose to smoke cannabis, I'm guilty by association "for all the bad stuff caused by the illegal drug trade AND the war on drugs" to boot? Damn, that's a pretty big rock to put on the shoulders of the casual smoker.
By the same token, if I come back from Kentucky with a box full of bourbon, I've contributed to the chronic alcoholism suffered by dirty drunks panhandling for spare change outside of a 7-11 as well as the suburban mommy who kisses daddy and the kiddies good-bye in the morning and settles in for a nice quiet day of emptying vodka bottles.
Gambling, getting drunk, getting stoned are critical examples of your existence. What makes you so above it all? You're projecting your own supposed virtues onto someone else's vices and that's not a good look. People should be allowed to go to hell the way they choose. Nobody wants a drunk to relieve himself on their sidewalk, but it's silly to even suggest a pot smoker is enabling drug gangs, motivating the DEA and bringing about the fall of Western civilization.
Americans don't question enough the stuff their physicians and pharmacists tell them will make them feel better if they only swallow, ingest, inject, inhale or imbibe today's not-so wonderful Wonder Drug that cures nothing, but allows the patient a certain degree of functionality. Many a patient's addition to opiates started with a pill pusher's legal prescription.
But let's blame all the weak and unprincipled people anyway. It's simpler than drilling down to the factors and causes which drive people to drink too much, take illegal drugs, gamble or otherwise engage in behaviors their mothers would likely disapprove of.
Maybe they do it because they like doing it.
Well, I'm not sure how many times I can say it, that I agree with legalizing pot and that allowing it to be used for medicinal purposes should have been a no-brainer a long time ago. And it's completely fair--in my view--to blame the government for the latter. But nothing you've said, Don, really impacts my point at all. And again, that point is that if you insist on parceling out blame for all of the deaths and crimes that can be linked to the illegal drug trade and the accompanying war on drugs, you can't unhook all of those recreational users from that blame, whose need to get high largely fueled that drug trade. Sure he can. You're the one trying to hook recreational users to all the misery of the drug trade. You're the one trying to blame the consumer because they want a product and moral crusaders and drug companies are keeping it from them.
If illegal drugs are made legal, you'd not only see a decline in drug-related violence, you'd see an end to the unnecessary and largely racist War On Drugs Black People. It's a win-win. Which is why special interests are doing everything to keep things exactly as they are.
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Post by robeiae on Nov 7, 2018 15:56:08 GMT -5
What? Because I choose to smoke cannabis, I'm guilty by association "for all the bad stuff caused by the illegal drug trade AND the war on drugs" to boot? Damn, that's a pretty big rock to put on the shoulders of the casual smoker. It certainly is a "pretty big rock." You're not following, at all. I prefer direct responsibility, as a matter of course. If some drug dealers robbed and killed some other drug dealers, or even robbed and killed some innocent people, that's on them, the drug dealers, in my view. But if one wants to argue that those deaths--and all of the others associated with the illegal drug trade--should be blamed on the government and/or specific people in government for making pot (or other drugs) illegal, then it's perfectly fair to also blame the people buying and using illegal drugs for creating the demand for the same. Clear?
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Post by Don on Nov 7, 2018 19:22:35 GMT -5
Recreational cannabis users are as responsible for damage from the War on Cannabis as draft-card burners are for the damage caused in Vietnam and all the wars that have followed, Blacks (and people who broke Jim Crow laws) are responsible for the deaths caused by the civil rights movement, and I guess women who burned their bras are the reason the ERA didn't pass.
And I guess by the same logic and Bill Clinton, black crack users are eight times as responsible as white coke-sniffers.
I just can't make that leap, myself.
The War on Cannabis was the use of unjust, unscientific law designed to target specific minorities, as Anslinger's story shows, and perpetuated for the same plus political reasons, as shown by the Erlichmann interview.
That's pretty much the definition of crime against humanity in my book. YMMV.
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Post by robeiae on Nov 7, 2018 21:47:10 GMT -5
Lol. Direct responsibility. You accept indirect responsibility only when it works for your argument, but otherwise reject it out of hand (and your additional "examples" are absurd, regardless). Pick a paradigm. Stick with it.
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Post by Don on Nov 8, 2018 6:04:09 GMT -5
What? Because I choose to smoke cannabis, I'm guilty by association "for all the bad stuff caused by the illegal drug trade AND the war on drugs" to boot? Damn, that's a pretty big rock to put on the shoulders of the casual smoker. It certainly is a "pretty big rock." You're not following, at all. I prefer direct responsibility, as a matter of course. If some drug dealers robbed and killed some other drug dealers, or even robbed and killed some innocent people, that's on them, the drug dealers, in my view. But if one wants to argue that those deaths--and all of the others associated with the illegal drug trade--should be blamed on the government and/or specific people in government for making pot (or other drugs) illegal, then it's perfectly fair to also blame the people buying and using illegal drugs for creating the demand for the same. Clear? Not clear at all. Are you really saying that citizens who break anti-scientific, unjust laws, specifically targeting racial minorities and/or political enemies of the state are the ones responsible for the damage done by those laws? How about laws specifically targeting religious beliefs? Because I know members of lots of religions, ethnic groups and political causes that would disagree. If they're not incarcerated or dead.
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Post by robeiae on Nov 8, 2018 9:14:02 GMT -5
I don't agree that a law making a recreational drug illegal is unjust. It may be foolish. It may be pointless. It may be based on faulty reasoning. But none of that makes it unjust, especially in comparison to the examples you're offering. Which I guess brings us full circle: you obviously think a Holocaust comparison is spot on, here. I think it's so ridiculous as to be laughable. And never the twain shall meet...
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Post by markesq on Nov 8, 2018 9:22:30 GMT -5
I don't agree that a law making a recreational drug illegal is unjust. It may be foolish. It may be pointless. It may be based on faulty reasoning. But none of that makes it unjust, especially in comparison to the examples you're offering. Which I guess brings us full circle: you obviously think a Holocaust comparison is spot on, here. I think it's so ridiculous as to be laughable. And never the twain shall meet...
I can see an argument where it might be unjust if, as Don suggests, the law is passed by people who intend the law to adversely affect certain groups of people, and it does in fact do so.
But I agree with you that the comparison to the Holocaust is not well taken. I also agree with you that if indirect harm can be attributed to state actors who passed/enforced/supported those laws, then it can also be attributed (in some small portion) to those who use the illegal drugs, because they are creating the demand.
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Post by michaelw on Nov 8, 2018 10:19:59 GMT -5
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Post by Don on Nov 8, 2018 12:00:25 GMT -5
I don't agree that a law making a recreational drug illegal is unjust. It may be foolish. It may be pointless. It may be based on faulty reasoning. But none of that makes it unjust, especially in comparison to the examples you're offering. Which I guess brings us full circle: you obviously think a Holocaust comparison is spot on, here. I think it's so ridiculous as to be laughable. And never the twain shall meet... I can see an argument where it might be unjust if, as Don suggests, the law is passed by people who intend the law to adversely affect certain groups of people, and it does in fact do so. Does this qualify, markesq ? It does for me. This from the CBS article. Maybe that doesn't work for you, since it's not a straight-up confession. So how about Erlichmann's confession? Is that direct enough? It is for me. Again, from an article posted earlier. Now this isn't news. There were plenty of people who have recognized this reality from the day Nixon doubled down. The only thing new about it is that Erlichman confessed. IMO, he should have been arrested the next day. So they knew that politicians could no longer engage in wholesale destruction based on race, but if they could get "right-thinking" citizens on their side, they could destroy whole communities with impunity, and the blacks and mexicans and the political opposition would get the blame. And then they launched a wholesale War against an otherwise peaceful people. At least the world was able to see Hitler's intentions clearly, and work to end him. People fell, and are still falling for the Anslinger and Nixon lies that let them do what they wanted to do without facing an international tribunal. There it is in clear detail. The law was passed by people who intended the law to adversely affect certain groups of people, and it has in fact done so, and continues to destroy more lives and families every single day.
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Post by markesq on Nov 8, 2018 12:27:09 GMT -5
Thanks, Don, yep, that would seem to qualify. A law directed at harming a minority group, in my book, is an unjust law. I have made my ruling.
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Post by Don on Nov 8, 2018 12:56:03 GMT -5
Thanks, Don, yep, that would seem to qualify. A law directed at harming a minority group, in my book, is an unjust law. I have made my ruling. I guess I rest my case, then. But what are the odds we could get it heard in a real court?
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