Chaosvuistje but see what happened here with the conspiracy thing. I don't know who started this idea, if u ask me, could be some crazy people, could be some smart people at the top. But anyways the basic idea is that a lot of truths are being repeled because they fell in the "conspiracy" category while they were stated initially. Kind of "conspiracy theory"( in a classical way) view of the world is most probably an over simplification of the world . But still there are things that happen, and will happen that fall in conspiracy are and they are being denied from the main point of view of our society just because that.\
Are you gonna tell me the TV isn't a form of mass manipulation when they suggested that saying "People who are in power want to stay in power" is a conspiracy theory view ? I'm not suggesting that anyone has control of the world, I mean, my God, wouldn't that be a complete suicidal... But people try, allways try to be in power, and some of them actually want to gain control of the world(I think it's pretty obvious by now, that kind of power destroys your view of the world), and now the owners of the corporations, the banks, the big industries..... they want to stay in power, they conspire to stay in power... Can you say otherwise ?
Ron Paul getting screwed by media again ... Ok this is... you won't see green flahses on the tv...you'll see the respect.
+1 Edit = + this video , conspiracy much ? I don't think so.
On January 24 2012 19:33 bOneSeven wrote: Chaosvuistje but see what happened here with the conspiracy thing. I don't know who started this idea, if u ask me, could be some crazy people, could be some smart people at the top. But anyways the basic idea is that a lot of truths are being repeled because they fell in the "conspiracy" category while they were stated initially. Kind of "conspiracy theory"( in a classical way) view of the world is most probably an over simplification of the world . But still there are things that happen, and will happen that fall in conspiracy are and they are being denied from the main point of view of our society just because that.\
Are you gonna tell me the TV isn't a form of mass manipulation when they suggested that saying "People who are in power want to stay in power" is a conspiracy theory view ? I'm not suggesting that anyone has control of the world, I mean, my God, wouldn't that be a complete suicidal... But people try, allways try to be in power, and some of them actually want to gain control of the world(I think it's pretty obvious by now, that kind of power destroys your view of the world), and now the owners of the corporations, the banks, the big industries..... they want to stay in power, they conspire to stay in power... Can you say otherwise ?
Ron Paul getting screwed by media again ... Ok this is... you won't see green flahses on the tv...you'll see the respect.
Oh no dear heavens not, TV and traditional media have always been used for mass manipulation and persuasion because the source was a single entity. Either the producer of pamphlets, the radio host or the television broadcasting board. Those media that can be controlled by single entities have been used to justify things such as racism, apartheid, wars against certain people or nations and malicious acts.
I'm not stating that the conspiracy theorists are wrong or that politicians are right at all. I'm stating that because the ways stereotypical conspiracy theorists act, they appear uncredible to the public. I could paint anybody with a certain stereotype to take away credibility, and thats how politicians have dealt with Obama. The media has portrayed him as a terrorist because he is a muslim, and doubted his place of birth, they have portrayed people that act against the media saying these things to just 'playing the race card'. All of these acts amount to losing credibility of those particular people or candidates in the eyes or 'regular joes'.
Right now in Europe people are painted to be evil all around us. Greece is portrayed to be scamming us and we don't trust any promises that come from that country. Iran is being portrayed as a terrorist-funding state and thus can never be trusted as allies. Nobody trusts anybody but their friends, its only obvious. But the only friend that the people of a country have is the leader of that particular country because he can simply claim his word to be most credible and all other sources to be false.
If the priests had no credibility that they were talking in the name of god, nobody would listen to them. Conspiracy theorists don't have any credibility 'because they are crazy' and as such nobody will listen to them. That is all I am saying.
On January 24 2012 16:30 Raambo11 wrote: I'm always so amazed at how many young people support Ron Paul, so for any of you more ambitious posters why do so many people like him so much? When I watch him in debates he is much less articulate than any of the other candidates, and he goes off on tangents about the federal reserve, sound money etc.
Just as a viewer its hard to think that even a minority of viewers understand what hes talking about when he says stuff like that. I guess I can understand why people like him slashing the budget so much as we are the generation who will have to bear the burden of staggering debt, but other than that please enlighten me as to why hes so popular.
(Not for or against Ron Paul just curious)
It's all a question about trust, and right now, young people trust Ron Paul more.
Paul has had the same kind of views over the world as the young generation has, war is bad, the economy is going to shit more if we don't do anything about it and getting into jail for possessing an illegal but fairly harmless drug is bad from the get go. If you take into consideration these shared views, it does not matter whether or not the candidate is articulate about them. The audience isn't expected to neccesarily understand the issues at hand, just to trust the candidate that he does know and can fix them.
People in the general sense know very little about how a state is run, pretty much everywhere on the world. Everyone in one way or another has the view that the country is going in the wrong direction. But if you make the listeners understand that he or she knows about the issues at hand very well, and his information has been proven to be non-hypocritical and non-deceptive, people give that guy a certain amount of support.
This is how people like Napoleon have risen to power. He showed that a democratic state for the people could work in America, so it must work in France as well. This way he gathered up a lot of followers to run rampant over the monarchy and make a democratic state for the people. Modern day politics works just like that, with politicians gaining trust from the people that he is on their side and as such will act according to how they would act. And this is how politics will continiue to work unless a lot of information is leaked to the public and they no longer believe in the omnipotency of these candidates.
Because the state in terms of economics, education and whatever field is not transparent, we are forced to wait for 'leaks' of credible information to give us a second or third perspective on how things are actually done. This is the exact reason why 'Conspiracy Theorists' exist. They have lost ALL trust in the state and therefore have to rely on information that has been given to them through credible sources from either their fellow conspiracy theorist or a free news agency. If you are even mentioned in the same sentence as the word state those people will no longer believe you, simple as that.
People have been steadily losing trust in how America has run a long time since a long time ago, helped by the freedom of information sharing on the internet. With the 'credible' information leaked by sources such as Wikileaks and others, people have to look for vastly different views of how to run America. And as it turns out, Ron Paul has stood the test of time for being the most credible. Whether he is right or wrong does not matter, credibility is all that matters in politics and power over the people.
I think that's a little off. Conspiracies exist because people don't want to believe that things are so out of control. They believe that if they had the same power, they could pull off the things they believe in.
Let's get us some definitions what conspiracy entails, taken from thefreedictionary.com:
conspiracy [kənˈspɪrəsɪ] n pl -cies 1. a secret plan or agreement to carry out an illegal or harmful act, esp with political motivation; plot 2. the act of making such plans in secret
and the same for conspiracy theory:
conspiracy theory n the belief that the government or a covert organization is responsible for an event that is unusual or unexplained, esp when any such involvement is denied.
Those that believe conspiracy theories believe that the organization ( aka the U.S. in this case ) is responsible for creating certain situations. This essentially means that those that believe in conspiracy theories inheritly do not believe a thing that organization is saying because they believe it is all staged anyway. Ergo, the organization cannot, in any way shape or form, persuade the conspiracy theorist to be false. This argument is strengthened by the fact that according to the definition by thefreedictionary, if involvements in those actions are denied, it strengthens the conspiracy theorists' belief that they are lying.
This is the very reason why conspiracy theorists seem so stubborn and crazy, because they de facto believe that the organization is lying, even if a truth is presented to them through the organization. Which is why they are easy to be made uncredible through saying that they are crazy.
Let's get into an example: the Roswell incident. Many people believe that the goverment is holding back aliens in a hidden militairy base. They have believed for ages that the government is lying about the alien situation, so even when they were presented with the documents that entailed exactly what happened by the government, because it didn't click to their truths of the reality, they resorted to going back to saying that the government is STILL lying and holding back information. This situation is unstoppable by default, because the people want information that only the government has have no smidge of trust in the government. Even if they were presented with all the evidence that the government has, they would still resort to the 'they're lying card'. This is why they believe eye-witnesses that aren't part of the government anymore but tell the tale of aliens crashing there, because they aren't under control of the government. Roswell, Loch Ness, Sasquatch or the Chupa Cabra, these will always be conspiracy theories because there is no way to debunk them in the face of radical believers in such myths.
Conspiracy theorists don't necessarily believe that they would do better, by definition they simply don't believe the words of the organization in question. That is all there is to it.
On January 24 2012 17:09 aksfjh wrote: For Paul, he hitches a ride on the human nature of all other politicians. His clear stances and unwavering from a set of ideals is attractive to those who believe the best person to take control of the nation if somebody we can trust. Even if we can only trust him to lead us down a path everybody else warns us about, at least he knows where he's going. That aspect is so enticing that it leads to other doors being opened. These young people learn about foreign and monetary policy for the first time through him. They attach those ideas to the obvious moral steadiness of Paul, and are persuaded that, even if some of it doesn't make sense, certainly he's not lying or misleading us.
I fail to see how this doesn't correlate to my view of trust. Ron Paul's views coincide with what most of the young people believe, while Napoleon's views coincided with those that the french people believed back then. Ron Paul tells the young people about things they had no idea about: Foreign policy in other countries/empires , Monetary policies and Austrian economics, I mean there are tons of video's out there that show how Ron Paul knew about major crashes long before they were happening. Right now he has only been right, this gives him an ENORMOUS credibility in this field to young people that do not know other candidates stances on economy much.
To give you a sense of what predictions I am talking about, here's a video among them:
People can relate to these predictions and simply note that 'gasp! he was right all along!'. As such, they will believe what he says about the future.
Napoleon told the people of France that democracy, a state run by the people and not by kings, was working in another part of the world. People hated the monarchs rule for quite a while and naturally assumed Napoleon's views that the people can run a state to be true. As such, this gave him enormous credibility to stand by the views of the people and was able to promote such a following that he overthrew those monarchs that symbolised the oppression by the people.
The Ron Paul situation is as such: The longer the country goes downhill and the more often his predictions are right, the more support he will get. As long as he stays consistant in his views for a long time and stays right, eventually his following will be enough that he could run for the US precidency. Unfortunately for Paul, this process takes a very long time. Fortunately for Paul, his predictions are such that if we don't act now, America will be done for. This means that by default, his followers are more prone to promote his ideas and views. They fear that if Ron Paul isn't elected soon, the end will be nigh. This manifests itself in the form of people that radically try to convert you to the cause of Ron Paul, which manifests itself in the thoughts that all Ron Paul followers must be as crazy and radical as him. And because he is labeled as Crazy Ron, and his followers are crazy, people will not listen to him nor his followers because nobody trusts crazy people.
To be fair though, this process of manipulating people into fear and being a credible source so people have flocked to your cause is as old as society itself, so I could probably direct this notion to any of the candidates in any country given enough data about the candidate and his followers. What I'm saying is that everybody does it, Obama, Romney, Gingrich, Bush, the list goes on. Not just Ron Paul.
I didn't say conspiracy theorists thought they could do better. I mentioned that they believe that if they were in the same position of power, they would have the same amount of control. Not better or worse, but they believe the power bestowed through money and/or politics is enough to make these conspiracies possible.
And nobody trusts Paul and his supporters (outside of his supporters) because many of those who have a solid foundation in political oriented subjects are aware of the long and short-term negative effects of his ideals. Without properly addressing them and continuing to believe in "common sense" axioms, they further alienate themselves from reasonable discussion (which would be the gradual direction changes that take place in our modern government).
An analogy would be attempting a discussion about cars with somebody who believes that BMWs are what every other car is modeled after. They think the discussion centers around BMWs, when, in fact, they are just a small part.
On January 24 2012 16:30 Raambo11 wrote: I'm always so amazed at how many young people support Ron Paul, so for any of you more ambitious posters why do so many people like him so much? When I watch him in debates he is much less articulate than any of the other candidates, and he goes off on tangents about the federal reserve, sound money etc.
Just as a viewer its hard to think that even a minority of viewers understand what hes talking about when he says stuff like that. I guess I can understand why people like him slashing the budget so much as we are the generation who will have to bear the burden of staggering debt, but other than that please enlighten me as to why hes so popular.
(Not for or against Ron Paul just curious)
It's all a question about trust, and right now, young people trust Ron Paul more.
Paul has had the same kind of views over the world as the young generation has, war is bad, the economy is going to shit more if we don't do anything about it and getting into jail for possessing an illegal but fairly harmless drug is bad from the get go. If you take into consideration these shared views, it does not matter whether or not the candidate is articulate about them. The audience isn't expected to neccesarily understand the issues at hand, just to trust the candidate that he does know and can fix them.
People in the general sense know very little about how a state is run, pretty much everywhere on the world. Everyone in one way or another has the view that the country is going in the wrong direction. But if you make the listeners understand that he or she knows about the issues at hand very well, and his information has been proven to be non-hypocritical and non-deceptive, people give that guy a certain amount of support.
This is how people like Napoleon have risen to power. He showed that a democratic state for the people could work in America, so it must work in France as well. This way he gathered up a lot of followers to run rampant over the monarchy and make a democratic state for the people. Modern day politics works just like that, with politicians gaining trust from the people that he is on their side and as such will act according to how they would act. And this is how politics will continiue to work unless a lot of information is leaked to the public and they no longer believe in the omnipotency of these candidates.
Because the state in terms of economics, education and whatever field is not transparent, we are forced to wait for 'leaks' of credible information to give us a second or third perspective on how things are actually done. This is the exact reason why 'Conspiracy Theorists' exist. They have lost ALL trust in the state and therefore have to rely on information that has been given to them through credible sources from either their fellow conspiracy theorist or a free news agency. If you are even mentioned in the same sentence as the word state those people will no longer believe you, simple as that.
People have been steadily losing trust in how America has run a long time since a long time ago, helped by the freedom of information sharing on the internet. With the 'credible' information leaked by sources such as Wikileaks and others, people have to look for vastly different views of how to run America. And as it turns out, Ron Paul has stood the test of time for being the most credible. Whether he is right or wrong does not matter, credibility is all that matters in politics and power over the people.
I think that's a little off. Conspiracies exist because people don't want to believe that things are so out of control. They believe that if they had the same power, they could pull off the things they believe in.
Let's get us some definitions what conspiracy entails, taken from thefreedictionary.com:
conspiracy [kənˈspɪrəsɪ] n pl -cies 1. a secret plan or agreement to carry out an illegal or harmful act, esp with political motivation; plot 2. the act of making such plans in secret
and the same for conspiracy theory:
conspiracy theory n the belief that the government or a covert organization is responsible for an event that is unusual or unexplained, esp when any such involvement is denied.
Those that believe conspiracy theories believe that the organization ( aka the U.S. in this case ) is responsible for creating certain situations. This essentially means that those that believe in conspiracy theories inheritly do not believe a thing that organization is saying because they believe it is all staged anyway. Ergo, the organization cannot, in any way shape or form, persuade the conspiracy theorist to be false. This argument is strengthened by the fact that according to the definition by thefreedictionary, if involvements in those actions are denied, it strengthens the conspiracy theorists' belief that they are lying.
This is the very reason why conspiracy theorists seem so stubborn and crazy, because they de facto believe that the organization is lying, even if a truth is presented to them through the organization. Which is why they are easy to be made uncredible through saying that they are crazy.
Let's get into an example: the Roswell incident. Many people believe that the goverment is holding back aliens in a hidden militairy base. They have believed for ages that the government is lying about the alien situation, so even when they were presented with the documents that entailed exactly what happened by the government, because it didn't click to their truths of the reality, they resorted to going back to saying that the government is STILL lying and holding back information. This situation is unstoppable by default, because the people want information that only the government has have no smidge of trust in the government. Even if they were presented with all the evidence that the government has, they would still resort to the 'they're lying card'. This is why they believe eye-witnesses that aren't part of the government anymore but tell the tale of aliens crashing there, because they aren't under control of the government. Roswell, Loch Ness, Sasquatch or the Chupa Cabra, these will always be conspiracy theories because there is no way to debunk them in the face of radical believers in such myths.
Conspiracy theorists don't necessarily believe that they would do better, by definition they simply don't believe the words of the organization in question. That is all there is to it.
On January 24 2012 17:09 aksfjh wrote: For Paul, he hitches a ride on the human nature of all other politicians. His clear stances and unwavering from a set of ideals is attractive to those who believe the best person to take control of the nation if somebody we can trust. Even if we can only trust him to lead us down a path everybody else warns us about, at least he knows where he's going. That aspect is so enticing that it leads to other doors being opened. These young people learn about foreign and monetary policy for the first time through him. They attach those ideas to the obvious moral steadiness of Paul, and are persuaded that, even if some of it doesn't make sense, certainly he's not lying or misleading us.
I fail to see how this doesn't correlate to my view of trust. Ron Paul's views coincide with what most of the young people believe, while Napoleon's views coincided with those that the french people believed back then. Ron Paul tells the young people about things they had no idea about: Foreign policy in other countries/empires , Monetary policies and Austrian economics, I mean there are tons of video's out there that show how Ron Paul knew about major crashes long before they were happening. Right now he has only been right, this gives him an ENORMOUS credibility in this field to young people that do not know other candidates stances on economy much.
To give you a sense of what predictions I am talking about, here's a video among them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvlUx5ECD2w People can relate to these predictions and simply note that 'gasp! he was right all along!'. As such, they will believe what he says about the future.
Napoleon told the people of France that democracy, a state run by the people and not by kings, was working in another part of the world. People hated the monarchs rule for quite a while and naturally assumed Napoleon's views that the people can run a state to be true. As such, this gave him enormous credibility to stand by the views of the people and was able to promote such a following that he overthrew those monarchs that symbolised the oppression by the people.
The Ron Paul situation is as such: The longer the country goes downhill and the more often his predictions are right, the more support he will get. As long as he stays consistant in his views for a long time and stays right, eventually his following will be enough that he could run for the US precidency. Unfortunately for Paul, this process takes a very long time. Fortunately for Paul, his predictions are such that if we don't act now, America will be done for. This means that by default, his followers are more prone to promote his ideas and views. They fear that if Ron Paul isn't elected soon, the end will be nigh. This manifests itself in the form of people that radically try to convert you to the cause of Ron Paul, which manifests itself in the thoughts that all Ron Paul followers must be as crazy and radical as him. And because he is labeled as Crazy Ron, and his followers are crazy, people will not listen to him nor his followers because nobody trusts crazy people.
To be fair though, this process of manipulating people into fear and being a credible source so people have flocked to your cause is as old as society itself, so I could probably direct this notion to any of the candidates in any country given enough data about the candidate and his followers. What I'm saying is that everybody does it, Obama, Romney, Gingrich, Bush, the list goes on. Not just Ron Paul.
I didn't say conspiracy theorists thought they could do better. I mentioned that they believe that if they were in the same position of power, they would have the same amount of control. Not better or worse, but they believe the power bestowed through money and/or politics is enough to make these conspiracies possible.
And nobody trusts Paul and his supporters (outside of his supporters) because many of those who have a solid foundation in political oriented subjects are aware of the long and short-term negative effects of his ideals. Without properly addressing them and continuing to believe in "common sense" axioms, they further alienate themselves from reasonable discussion (which would be the gradual direction changes that take place in our modern government).
This is a response to the second paragraph.
What I am saying: Nobody trusts a crazy or insane person. Giving some more definitions of what insane entails: Adj. 1. insane - afflicted with or characteristic of mental derangement; "was declared insane"; "insane laughter" irrational - not consistent with or using reason; "irrational fears"; "irrational animals" unreasonable - not reasonable; not showing good judgment
Your views and views of people that are involved in politics know how it would badly it would affect the system. And as such view Ron Paul as to be irrational or void of logic to your beliefs. As his supporters excert no reasonable discussion or common sense, you stop listening to them because they have lost all credibility to you; ergo they are crazy so I will not listen to them. Infact, this view of irrational people blurting incomplete information can be correlated to your following analogy:
On January 24 2012 20:12 aksfjh wrote: An analogy would be attempting a discussion about cars with somebody who believes that BMWs are what every other car is modeled after. They think the discussion centers around BMWs, when, in fact, they are just a small part.
Where the discussion by the sane people is clearly about cars, while the insane/uneducated believes cars = BMW's. Because the insane BMW person keeps showing time and time again that he does not know what the discussion is about, he is deemed to be insane and his information to be not-correlating to what the discussion is actually about.
I am not judging anyone based on the terms I am using. I am not judging you that you think ron paul supporters are insane. I am merely using these terms to explain that Ron Paul and his supporters lack any credibility because ( fill in the blank, lack common sense/can't use rational debate/are uneducated-stupid about how stuff works ). Some of us believe that Christians or Religious people are insane and stupid because they believe that a God has created the universe and as such will not listen to their reasoning about that topic at all, because they're wrong/ignorant/insane. They believe that scientists are right about evolution/the big bang because they have used reason, real debate and common sense, ergo they are not insane and I could alter my view based on their credibility.
Raambo11 United States. January 24 2012 16:30. Posts 376
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I'm always so amazed at how many young people support Ron Paul, so for any of you more ambitious posters why do so many people like him so much? When I watch him in debates he is much less articulate than any of the other candidates, and he goes off on tangents about the federal reserve, sound money etc.
Its not so much that i like ron paul, its more that i strongly dislike all the other candidates wich are part of the "establishment" Ron paul comes across as someone who has no hidden agenda and who does not say one thing to then do the other thing, he comes across as an honest man who says what he thinks,contrary to near all other candidates. He feels a bit like independant candidate,a rebel. Beside that ,in some of his intervieuws and debates i have seen he was pretty good. There is a huge collection of ron paul material on yt, lots of it is quiet funny and refreshing.
On January 24 2012 17:31 RebirthOfLeGenD wrote: Well, to expand on the Ron Paul sentiments, I am not sure if this is commonly held but some of my biggest issues with any politician is a shitty foreign policy and unrealistic goals that seem to pander to public opinion.
To talk about foreign policy, the USA having such a ridiculous presence in other countries and being aggressive towards other countries such as Iran is unnecessary. We don't need to have an aggressive front to dissuade enemy hostilities, and in fact, I would say this is what causes most of our problems with other countries. That being our need to feel like the world police. Ron Paul is the only candidate who has a good foreign policy (in my opinion) and realizes that we don't need to have this "the best defense is a good offense" mentality that keeps us oversees wasting retarded amounts of money. When you look at the other candidates just see how they talk about Iran, hell, I believe Santorum was quoted as saying he would straight up bomb Iran's nuclear facilities.
Onto unrealistic expectations. Another worthless expenditure is the war on drugs. It's a complete waste of money, and I literally agree with every one of Ron Paul's arguments about it. We as people should be free to make our own choices assuming they don't harm anyone else. Taking drugs should be a public health issue not a criminal issue. The truth is legalizing drugs would probably stabilize Mexico's actual war with drug cartels while reducing our prison population and create more revenue.
There is literally so many reasons why the war on drugs is bullshit I could write an essay on it off the top of my head.
The same kind of stuff is with issues like immigration, gay rights, etc. If something is fair and more efficient then why would we choose a less fair, less efficient way of doing it? While I disagree with Paul putting something like gay rights in states hands, and I disagree with him being pro life I think those are lesser issues, and I believe he articulates his point of view rationally enough, I just think he draws an emotional conclusion on abortion due to his experience as a doctor.
As for the war on drugs, there are other social arguments which deal with a perpetuality in poor communities in which drug abuse is a problem. Of course, this doesn't justify locking up people for decades due to infractions, but the solution isn't necessarily a complete disregard for drug use and abuse. Drug law reform should be a priority, but just that, a reform, much like what happened to welfare in the 90s. A serious look should be given to drugs, their legality, and penalties associated with them, but a universal legalization would likely hurt everybody more than you think.
Actually, Portugal decriminalize *all* drugs about 10 years ago, and it was a massive success. Drug rates plummeted by 50%, crime fell, HIV transmission through shared needles fell, and people voluntarily checked themselves into rehab. Portugal now has some of the lowest drug use rates in Europe.
Personally I would have never advocated legalizing some of the harder drugs, though I very much think marijuana should be legal. But the results are pretty clear, and Portugal's story paints a very successful picture.
I just remembered that there might be some money spent on my state for the primaries. We moved the primary to late February, so its a week or so before super Tuesday. We might actually have an effect!
On January 24 2012 17:31 RebirthOfLeGenD wrote: Well, to expand on the Ron Paul sentiments, I am not sure if this is commonly held but some of my biggest issues with any politician is a shitty foreign policy and unrealistic goals that seem to pander to public opinion.
To talk about foreign policy, the USA having such a ridiculous presence in other countries and being aggressive towards other countries such as Iran is unnecessary. We don't need to have an aggressive front to dissuade enemy hostilities, and in fact, I would say this is what causes most of our problems with other countries. That being our need to feel like the world police. Ron Paul is the only candidate who has a good foreign policy (in my opinion) and realizes that we don't need to have this "the best defense is a good offense" mentality that keeps us oversees wasting retarded amounts of money. When you look at the other candidates just see how they talk about Iran, hell, I believe Santorum was quoted as saying he would straight up bomb Iran's nuclear facilities.
Onto unrealistic expectations. Another worthless expenditure is the war on drugs. It's a complete waste of money, and I literally agree with every one of Ron Paul's arguments about it. We as people should be free to make our own choices assuming they don't harm anyone else. Taking drugs should be a public health issue not a criminal issue. The truth is legalizing drugs would probably stabilize Mexico's actual war with drug cartels while reducing our prison population and create more revenue.
There is literally so many reasons why the war on drugs is bullshit I could write an essay on it off the top of my head.
The same kind of stuff is with issues like immigration, gay rights, etc. If something is fair and more efficient then why would we choose a less fair, less efficient way of doing it? While I disagree with Paul putting something like gay rights in states hands, and I disagree with him being pro life I think those are lesser issues, and I believe he articulates his point of view rationally enough, I just think he draws an emotional conclusion on abortion due to his experience as a doctor.
As for the war on drugs, there are other social arguments which deal with a perpetuality in poor communities in which drug abuse is a problem. Of course, this doesn't justify locking up people for decades due to infractions, but the solution isn't necessarily a complete disregard for drug use and abuse. Drug law reform should be a priority, but just that, a reform, much like what happened to welfare in the 90s. A serious look should be given to drugs, their legality, and penalties associated with them, but a universal legalization would likely hurt everybody more than you think.
Actually, Portugal decriminalize *all* drugs about 10 years ago, and it was a massive success. Drug rates plummeted by 50%, crime fell, HIV transmission through shared needles fell, and people voluntarily checked themselves into rehab. Portugal now has some of the lowest drug use rates in Europe.
Personally I would have never advocated legalizing some of the harder drugs, though I very much think marijuana should be legal. But the results are pretty clear, and Portugal's story paints a very successful picture.
What happens to society of everything is legalized ? Minors can't get drugs, and informed adults actually get good dooses of what they desire instead of buying it from some1 who you know nothing about him. Plus it also helps for responsibility of the individual... if you choose to do heroin, you die, that's it..the state shouldn't forbid you from harming yourself if you are an idiot.
Recent studies show psilocybin mushroom help improve personality in clinical trials ( they are a schedule 1 drugs ) . Marijuana is 100 times better than alchool. LSD is a strong self psycho-analitical substance, which if taken under strict control it can help you a bit to understand more about yourself .... Eh ... Try to sell Coca-Cola and McDonalds to people who at least once a year take mushrooms or LSD and see where your corporotions go down the drain and politicians loose all credibility because people are more aware to their environment after healthy psychadelic experiences.
Everyone who is against legalizing drugs is : 1. Never had a psychedelic experience ( getting high on shrooms in a shitty students party is not a psychadelic experience, read Jung and Huxley at least before taking hard psychadelics ). 2. You are extreemly missinformed/unintelligent. Crime would drop a ton, deaths related to drugs reduce as well.
Romney, in another move of astounding political acuity, has decided to release his tax returns showing $3 million in income taxes (yeah, the amount Santorum raised from CUM-ing) on income of $20 million the same day Obama gives his State of the Union, which will undoubtedly include some comments about really rich people.
On January 24 2012 23:22 bOneSeven wrote: Plus it also helps for responsibility of the individual... if you choose to do heroin, you die, that's it..the state shouldn't forbid you from harming yourself if you are an idiot. if you choose to do heroin, you die, that's it..the state shouldn't forbid you from harming yourself if you are an idiot.
Relying on "responsibility of an individual" is never a good idea. Humans are not rational beings, and they will not always make rational choices in life - we see examples of that every day. Just because somebody makes a wrong choice at some point in his life (which everyone does to an extent) doesn't mean he deserves to suffer the worst kinds of consequences, and possibly make other people's lives a nightmare as well.
That "idiot" has family, he might even have friends. When somebody is fucking himself over, he's not only hurting himself, but people close to him as well. He could very well be a parent getting hooked up on something, and where does that leave his children exactly? He might have neighbours who do not want a heroin addict next door. There is always more than one person that is affected and needs to be considered.
The state is an organized society, and an organized society has an obligation to minimize both the number of "idiots" and safety and health risks for everyone as much as possible. Society as a whole always benefits from having healthy individuals - it reduces health risks, medical care costs, it generally improves quality of life for everyone and their environment.
On January 24 2012 23:22 bOneSeven wrote: Plus it also helps for responsibility of the individual... if you choose to do heroin, you die, that's it..the state shouldn't forbid you from harming yourself if you are an idiot. if you choose to do heroin, you die, that's it..the state shouldn't forbid you from harming yourself if you are an idiot.
Relying on "responsibility of an individual" is never a good idea. Humans are not rational beings, and they will not always make rational choices in life - we see examples of that every day. Just because somebody makes a wrong choice at some point in his life (which everyone does to an extent) doesn't mean he deserves to suffer the worst kinds of consequences, and possibly make other people's lives a nightmare as well.
That "idiot" has family, he might even have friends. When somebody is fucking himself over, he's not only hurting himself, but people close to him as well. He could very well be a parent getting hooked up on something, and where does that leave his children exactly? He might have neighbours who do not want a heroin addict next door. There is always more than one person that is affected and needs to be considered.
The state is an organized society, and an organized society has an obligation to minimize both the number of "idiots" and safety and health risks as much as possible.
The point is that criminalization doesn't work. Kids can still buy drugs in middle school, and all we end up doing is imprisoning hundreds of thousands of people for non-violent crimes.
When faced with evidence that in fact the complete opposite approach works better, (seriously, google Portugal's drug war and you'll be amazed at how much change happened in less than a decade of decriminalization), we still for some reason cling to our failed war on drugs. It makes no sense at all.
On January 24 2012 23:22 bOneSeven wrote: Plus it also helps for responsibility of the individual... if you choose to do heroin, you die, that's it..the state shouldn't forbid you from harming yourself if you are an idiot. if you choose to do heroin, you die, that's it..the state shouldn't forbid you from harming yourself if you are an idiot.
Relying on "responsibility of an individual" is never a good idea. Humans are not rational beings, and they will not always make rational choices in life - we see examples of that every day. Just because somebody makes a wrong choice at some point in his life (which everyone does to an extent) doesn't mean he deserves to suffer the worst kinds of consequences, and possibly make other people's lives a nightmare as well.
That "idiot" has family, he might even have friends. When somebody is fucking himself over, he's not only hurting himself, but people close to him as well. He could very well be a parent getting hooked up on something, and where does that leave his children exactly? He might have neighbours who do not want a heroin addict next door. There is always more than one person that is affected and needs to be considered.
The state is an organized society, and an organized society has an obligation to minimize both the number of "idiots" and safety and health risks as much as possible.
The point is that criminalization doesn't work. Kids can still buy drugs in middle school, and all we end up doing is imprisoning hundreds of thousands of people for non-violent crimes.
When faced with evidence that in fact the complete opposite approach works better, (seriously, google Portugal's drug war and you'll be amazed at how much change happened in less than a decade of decriminalization), we still for some reason cling to our failed war on drugs. It makes no sense at all.
I'm not arguing against that point, I'm more so arguing against the point that people who make wrong choices in life deserve to suffer the consequences. And this is a point that often comes up in many different topics.
If it has indeed been proven that drug legalization yields better overall results, then that is not something that anybody can argue against.
However, if these drugs do become legal, the state must also take responsibility for people who end up as addicts because of it. You can't just declare a potentially lethal substance (that has no other practical use) legal, allow it onto the market, have people exposed to it, and then hide behind "responsibility of an individual" when it comes to the (mis)use of it and the consequences people can suffer from it.
On January 24 2012 17:31 RebirthOfLeGenD wrote: Well, to expand on the Ron Paul sentiments, I am not sure if this is commonly held but some of my biggest issues with any politician is a shitty foreign policy and unrealistic goals that seem to pander to public opinion.
To talk about foreign policy, the USA having such a ridiculous presence in other countries and being aggressive towards other countries such as Iran is unnecessary. We don't need to have an aggressive front to dissuade enemy hostilities, and in fact, I would say this is what causes most of our problems with other countries. That being our need to feel like the world police. Ron Paul is the only candidate who has a good foreign policy (in my opinion) and realizes that we don't need to have this "the best defense is a good offense" mentality that keeps us oversees wasting retarded amounts of money. When you look at the other candidates just see how they talk about Iran, hell, I believe Santorum was quoted as saying he would straight up bomb Iran's nuclear facilities.
Onto unrealistic expectations. Another worthless expenditure is the war on drugs. It's a complete waste of money, and I literally agree with every one of Ron Paul's arguments about it. We as people should be free to make our own choices assuming they don't harm anyone else. Taking drugs should be a public health issue not a criminal issue. The truth is legalizing drugs would probably stabilize Mexico's actual war with drug cartels while reducing our prison population and create more revenue.
There is literally so many reasons why the war on drugs is bullshit I could write an essay on it off the top of my head.
The same kind of stuff is with issues like immigration, gay rights, etc. If something is fair and more efficient then why would we choose a less fair, less efficient way of doing it? While I disagree with Paul putting something like gay rights in states hands, and I disagree with him being pro life I think those are lesser issues, and I believe he articulates his point of view rationally enough, I just think he draws an emotional conclusion on abortion due to his experience as a doctor.
Here's the problem. You buy into the BS that's been fed to you time after time by supporters and propaganda machines. He has a foreign policy that is easy to understand and sell. "Keep us out of it!" It makes sense at an initial glance. If you were a country and born yesterday, you would understandably want to keep to yourself in most situations. The problem occurs when you enter the dynamics the U.S. is already involved in. There are countries and regions that rely on the U.S. heavily as a local, deterrent force. So much so that even the threat of a quick withdrawal could cause instability in the region, hurting U.S. trade and other, seemingly disjointed, regions.
As for the war on drugs, there are other social arguments which deal with a perpetuality in poor communities in which drug abuse is a problem. Of course, this doesn't justify locking up people for decades due to infractions, but the solution isn't necessarily a complete disregard for drug use and abuse. Drug law reform should be a priority, but just that, a reform, much like what happened to welfare in the 90s. A serious look should be given to drugs, their legality, and penalties associated with them, but a universal legalization would likely hurt everybody more than you think.
These are complex subjects that Ron Paul goes at with a sledge hammer. Seemingly devoid of a compromising nature, he would likely cause great distress in the pursuit of these ideals. At the very least, his supporters should understand that policies should come in shades of grey, and in the long run, policies should lean in directions and not swerve.
I have the belief that we should look out for ourselves 100x before others. As a president your job is to our people, you aren't some sort of worldly humanitarian. So in a scenario a president should value 1 of our lives to a 100 of theirs. That being said. I simply don't care if it causes instability, hell I don't even care if we are the cause of the instability in the first place. The point being it's way too expensive to have yourself entangled in overseas affairs and to what ends? It creates more enemies and builds more hate against us. It's straight arrogance. Anyway, I am open to being wrong and change. If you can show me how it would cause more harm than good to the USA, then I will concede you are right.
Ron Paul put it best, Marijuana ain't going to kill you, and those who use Heroin would probably use it regardless of its legal status. I have never used Heroin/Cocaine and could never see myself using it regardless of legal status for the same reason I don't drink and I don't smoke. Will you have more people using these things if they are legal? Probably, but I doubt it would be a significant number and when you treat them as a health issue as opposed to a criminal issue they are less likely to become recidivist douches. Either way, no one was talking full legalization, but restrictions such that alcohol has. I found when I was younger it was easier to get weed then it was alcohol.
In certain regards maybe you need a gray area, but any time you create a gray area it opens room for abuse towards some wrongful public opinion that disenfranchises an idea. An example I would use is harsher restrictions on the death penalty. Making it tougher to kill someone would never work because people don't look at how guilty someone is, but how heinous the crime is and its perceived need for punishment. I think with any controversial policy that you include too much of a gray area in is open to abuse. But if you give me more precise examples of what laws/policies need gray areas that you are thinking of it might make more sense.
On January 24 2012 23:22 bOneSeven wrote: Plus it also helps for responsibility of the individual... if you choose to do heroin, you die, that's it..the state shouldn't forbid you from harming yourself if you are an idiot. if you choose to do heroin, you die, that's it..the state shouldn't forbid you from harming yourself if you are an idiot.
Relying on "responsibility of an individual" is never a good idea. Humans are not rational beings, and they will not always make rational choices in life - we see examples of that every day. Just because somebody makes a wrong choice at some point in his life (which everyone does to an extent) doesn't mean he deserves to suffer the worst kinds of consequences, and possibly make other people's lives a nightmare as well.
That "idiot" has family, he might even have friends. When somebody is fucking himself over, he's not only hurting himself, but people close to him as well. He could very well be a parent getting hooked up on something, and where does that leave his children exactly? He might have neighbours who do not want a heroin addict next door. There is always more than one person that is affected and needs to be considered.
The state is an organized society, and an organized society has an obligation to minimize both the number of "idiots" and safety and health risks for everyone as much as possible. Society as a whole always benefits from having healthy individuals - it reduces health risks, medical care costs, it generally improves quality of life for everyone and their environment.
That is some bullshit premise conservatives start on. The man is not rational, he is weak and a slave to his passions. No. There is a reason why people are irational, and that is the lack of happiness, and the lack of his family or his institutions who educated him to make him understand which path in life you should take to achieve a state of happiness. People who do stupid mistakes are usually people who are in a really bad shape, mentally, physically, emotionally, financially.
What you have here is a society built on bullshit, hypocrisy and nonsense education system. Of course that leads to irrational human beings. Human nature, as I observe it, everything....everything.... You get raised in a society, you either borrow it's values or you develop counter-values to the ones of the society.
And anyway saying that he has a family and so and so is kind of an argument of a false sentimental estetic ...
On January 24 2012 23:22 bOneSeven wrote: Plus it also helps for responsibility of the individual... if you choose to do heroin, you die, that's it..the state shouldn't forbid you from harming yourself if you are an idiot. if you choose to do heroin, you die, that's it..the state shouldn't forbid you from harming yourself if you are an idiot.
Relying on "responsibility of an individual" is never a good idea. Humans are not rational beings, and they will not always make rational choices in life - we see examples of that every day. Just because somebody makes a wrong choice at some point in his life (which everyone does to an extent) doesn't mean he deserves to suffer the worst kinds of consequences, and possibly make other people's lives a nightmare as well.
That "idiot" has family, he might even have friends. When somebody is fucking himself over, he's not only hurting himself, but people close to him as well. He could very well be a parent getting hooked up on something, and where does that leave his children exactly? He might have neighbours who do not want a heroin addict next door. There is always more than one person that is affected and needs to be considered.
The state is an organized society, and an organized society has an obligation to minimize both the number of "idiots" and safety and health risks as much as possible.
The point is that criminalization doesn't work. Kids can still buy drugs in middle school, and all we end up doing is imprisoning hundreds of thousands of people for non-violent crimes.
When faced with evidence that in fact the complete opposite approach works better, (seriously, google Portugal's drug war and you'll be amazed at how much change happened in less than a decade of decriminalization), we still for some reason cling to our failed war on drugs. It makes no sense at all.
Oh it makes perfect sense from the point of view of the State. Criminalize large portions of the population and use that for justification of escalations of power and violence. The Patriot Act has been used for drugs something like 100x as much as for terrorism. Even thinks like DUI checkpoints are small escalations towards total control. This is what the State wants: control. And by that, I mean that our wise overlords like Obama and Bush want control. It's all about power to them.
On January 24 2012 17:31 RebirthOfLeGenD wrote: Well, to expand on the Ron Paul sentiments, I am not sure if this is commonly held but some of my biggest issues with any politician is a shitty foreign policy and unrealistic goals that seem to pander to public opinion.
To talk about foreign policy, the USA having such a ridiculous presence in other countries and being aggressive towards other countries such as Iran is unnecessary. We don't need to have an aggressive front to dissuade enemy hostilities, and in fact, I would say this is what causes most of our problems with other countries. That being our need to feel like the world police. Ron Paul is the only candidate who has a good foreign policy (in my opinion) and realizes that we don't need to have this "the best defense is a good offense" mentality that keeps us oversees wasting retarded amounts of money. When you look at the other candidates just see how they talk about Iran, hell, I believe Santorum was quoted as saying he would straight up bomb Iran's nuclear facilities.
Onto unrealistic expectations. Another worthless expenditure is the war on drugs. It's a complete waste of money, and I literally agree with every one of Ron Paul's arguments about it. We as people should be free to make our own choices assuming they don't harm anyone else. Taking drugs should be a public health issue not a criminal issue. The truth is legalizing drugs would probably stabilize Mexico's actual war with drug cartels while reducing our prison population and create more revenue.
There is literally so many reasons why the war on drugs is bullshit I could write an essay on it off the top of my head.
The same kind of stuff is with issues like immigration, gay rights, etc. If something is fair and more efficient then why would we choose a less fair, less efficient way of doing it? While I disagree with Paul putting something like gay rights in states hands, and I disagree with him being pro life I think those are lesser issues, and I believe he articulates his point of view rationally enough, I just think he draws an emotional conclusion on abortion due to his experience as a doctor.
As for the war on drugs, there are other social arguments which deal with a perpetuality in poor communities in which drug abuse is a problem. Of course, this doesn't justify locking up people for decades due to infractions, but the solution isn't necessarily a complete disregard for drug use and abuse. Drug law reform should be a priority, but just that, a reform, much like what happened to welfare in the 90s. A serious look should be given to drugs, their legality, and penalties associated with them, but a universal legalization would likely hurt everybody more than you think.
Actually, Portugal decriminalize *all* drugs about 10 years ago, and it was a massive success. Drug rates plummeted by 50%, crime fell, HIV transmission through shared needles fell, and people voluntarily checked themselves into rehab. Portugal now has some of the lowest drug use rates in Europe.
Personally I would have never advocated legalizing some of the harder drugs, though I very much think marijuana should be legal. But the results are pretty clear, and Portugal's story paints a very successful picture.
Do you have a source for that? My support for legalization doesn't eliminate my skepticism.
Personally I do like paul's idea that drugs is a medical issue, not a criminal one.
On January 24 2012 17:31 RebirthOfLeGenD wrote: Well, to expand on the Ron Paul sentiments, I am not sure if this is commonly held but some of my biggest issues with any politician is a shitty foreign policy and unrealistic goals that seem to pander to public opinion.
To talk about foreign policy, the USA having such a ridiculous presence in other countries and being aggressive towards other countries such as Iran is unnecessary. We don't need to have an aggressive front to dissuade enemy hostilities, and in fact, I would say this is what causes most of our problems with other countries. That being our need to feel like the world police. Ron Paul is the only candidate who has a good foreign policy (in my opinion) and realizes that we don't need to have this "the best defense is a good offense" mentality that keeps us oversees wasting retarded amounts of money. When you look at the other candidates just see how they talk about Iran, hell, I believe Santorum was quoted as saying he would straight up bomb Iran's nuclear facilities.
Onto unrealistic expectations. Another worthless expenditure is the war on drugs. It's a complete waste of money, and I literally agree with every one of Ron Paul's arguments about it. We as people should be free to make our own choices assuming they don't harm anyone else. Taking drugs should be a public health issue not a criminal issue. The truth is legalizing drugs would probably stabilize Mexico's actual war with drug cartels while reducing our prison population and create more revenue.
There is literally so many reasons why the war on drugs is bullshit I could write an essay on it off the top of my head.
The same kind of stuff is with issues like immigration, gay rights, etc. If something is fair and more efficient then why would we choose a less fair, less efficient way of doing it? While I disagree with Paul putting something like gay rights in states hands, and I disagree with him being pro life I think those are lesser issues, and I believe he articulates his point of view rationally enough, I just think he draws an emotional conclusion on abortion due to his experience as a doctor.
As for the war on drugs, there are other social arguments which deal with a perpetuality in poor communities in which drug abuse is a problem. Of course, this doesn't justify locking up people for decades due to infractions, but the solution isn't necessarily a complete disregard for drug use and abuse. Drug law reform should be a priority, but just that, a reform, much like what happened to welfare in the 90s. A serious look should be given to drugs, their legality, and penalties associated with them, but a universal legalization would likely hurt everybody more than you think.
Actually, Portugal decriminalize *all* drugs about 10 years ago, and it was a massive success. Drug rates plummeted by 50%, crime fell, HIV transmission through shared needles fell, and people voluntarily checked themselves into rehab. Portugal now has some of the lowest drug use rates in Europe.
Personally I would have never advocated legalizing some of the harder drugs, though I very much think marijuana should be legal. But the results are pretty clear, and Portugal's story paints a very successful picture.
Do you have a source for that? My support for legalization doesn't eliminate my skepticism.
Personally I do like paul's idea that drugs is a medical issue, not a criminal one.
Cato's Publishings on Portugal's drug decriminalization. It's very long and filled with loads of graphs and charts. If you can't sit through the whole thing, just check out the executive summary, (first several pages). Very detailed, and pretty definitive.
On January 23 2012 07:42 nam nam wrote: Haven't you already had this discussion or is it just me having a strong case of deja vu?
Yeh but a lot of people dont understand economics. No big deal.
You don't. At all.
Good try troll.
I'm not trolling. By your own admission, the only academic exposure you've had to economics is "one course you took some time ago". All your posts are based on dismissing empirical and historical evidence and pushing forward supposedly "common-sense" arguments that would get you laughed out of Economics 101.
Eh. Your wrong about everything. First I never said I only had taken a microeconomic course. I said I have taken a microeconomic course. But education is completely irrelevant. You dont learn to understand economics by being able to do math equations, and you dont proof anything by empirical results. You can only find historical correlations between 2 factors where you most likely has a lot of assumptions included. This isn't evidence.
You're a poster child for the importance of education. Any economic textbook, or even economic history textbook, would suffice to destroy the mountain of assumptions and pseudo-common-sense fallacies every post of yours is based on.
What assumptions?
For example that an employer, if given the choice between paying an employee less than what he's worth and exactly what he's worth, will choose the latter. Or that everyone always has a choice about where to work.
EPT
