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On December 16 2019 06:25 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2019 05:58 BerserkSword wrote:On December 16 2019 05:46 semantics wrote:On December 16 2019 05:06 BerserkSword wrote:On December 16 2019 05:00 Nebuchad wrote:On December 16 2019 04:53 BerserkSword wrote: I, and a significant portion of americans (perhaps majority) dont want a "border judicial system" over a protected border. We want to put an end to the easy access the criminal elements of Mexico currently have into the country.
It won't. And they know it won't (maybe you do too, I don't know you). The wall is good for the far right because 1) it doesn't eliminate the threat, so you still have to vote for them because there is still a threat, and 2) it's a concrete thing that they can point to and pretend is an achievement, just in case someone were to look at their record and see that they have done basically nothing apart from give tax cuts to the rich and fuck over the working class in all of their decisions. A wall prevents criminal elements from waltzing through. I'd rather spend billions on a wall at the mexican border than giving israel billions per year so they can build a wall (which works btw) at their border Why stop at building a wall at the mexcio boarder, the Canadian boarder is larger and less manned. Also at least to our own national security concerns Canada has produced more terrorists crossing the boarder into the US than Mexico, especially when you're talking Islamic terrorists as mexcio isn't really filled with Muslims. The point is that the motivation of the wall is based on a false premise. It's not that there isn't dangers or what have you, it's the the claimed dangers dont match reality as they've been deeply exaggerated making the motivation for the wall questionable. Especially in context to Canada or our other ports of entry. Please tell me youre joking. Canada is not run by mafias that have access to massive amounts of drugs and that are armed to the teeth. America has a drug and gang violence problem. While obviously not all of it is because of the mexican border, a lot of it is. Legalization of those drugs would hurt the criminals a lot more than a wall. It would also generate a shit ton of money, by moving it from the black market economy to the above board economy creating many jobs and billions in tax dollars,(not to mention billions in savings from law enforcement, legal system and imprisonment) instead of costing billions and likely doing very little.
That's entirely unrealistic, though, and awful for a plethora of reasons.
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Northern Ireland23843 Posts
On December 16 2019 08:08 Fleetfeet wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2019 06:25 JimmiC wrote:On December 16 2019 05:58 BerserkSword wrote:On December 16 2019 05:46 semantics wrote:On December 16 2019 05:06 BerserkSword wrote:On December 16 2019 05:00 Nebuchad wrote:On December 16 2019 04:53 BerserkSword wrote: I, and a significant portion of americans (perhaps majority) dont want a "border judicial system" over a protected border. We want to put an end to the easy access the criminal elements of Mexico currently have into the country.
It won't. And they know it won't (maybe you do too, I don't know you). The wall is good for the far right because 1) it doesn't eliminate the threat, so you still have to vote for them because there is still a threat, and 2) it's a concrete thing that they can point to and pretend is an achievement, just in case someone were to look at their record and see that they have done basically nothing apart from give tax cuts to the rich and fuck over the working class in all of their decisions. A wall prevents criminal elements from waltzing through. I'd rather spend billions on a wall at the mexican border than giving israel billions per year so they can build a wall (which works btw) at their border Why stop at building a wall at the mexcio boarder, the Canadian boarder is larger and less manned. Also at least to our own national security concerns Canada has produced more terrorists crossing the boarder into the US than Mexico, especially when you're talking Islamic terrorists as mexcio isn't really filled with Muslims. The point is that the motivation of the wall is based on a false premise. It's not that there isn't dangers or what have you, it's the the claimed dangers dont match reality as they've been deeply exaggerated making the motivation for the wall questionable. Especially in context to Canada or our other ports of entry. Please tell me youre joking. Canada is not run by mafias that have access to massive amounts of drugs and that are armed to the teeth. America has a drug and gang violence problem. While obviously not all of it is because of the mexican border, a lot of it is. Legalization of those drugs would hurt the criminals a lot more than a wall. It would also generate a shit ton of money, by moving it from the black market economy to the above board economy creating many jobs and billions in tax dollars,(not to mention billions in savings from law enforcement, legal system and imprisonment) instead of costing billions and likely doing very little. That's entirely unrealistic, though, and awful for a plethora of reasons. Reasons which are?
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Obligatory reminder that most smuggling and 'dangerous' element crossing in from Mexico comes from valid ports of entry.
This assumption that criminal elements running multi billion dollar underground industries will all of a sudden piss themselves because of an unmanned janky ass wall is so laughable and yet people manage to expel bogus word salads to defend it. Its just... wow...
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On December 16 2019 10:21 Rebs wrote: Obligatory reminder that most smuggling and 'dangerous' element crossing in from Mexico comes from valid ports of entry.
This assumption that criminal elements running multi billion dollar underground industries will all of a sudden piss themselves because of an unmanned janky ass wall is so laughable and yet people manage to expel bogus word salads to defend it. Its just... wow...
You're getting things a bit mixed up here. Nearly all suspected terrorists / asylum seekers / immigrants go through valid ports of entry. Drug runners and human traffickers do not go through valid points of entry at nearly the same rate.
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Northern Ireland23843 Posts
On December 16 2019 10:19 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2019 07:52 Erasme wrote: As much as i'm for the legalization of majiruana, cocain and the likes should never be allowed. But you shouldn't criminalize the users. Prohibition does not work, drug use is rising not falling. By legalizing it you are not encouraging but rather the opposite. You have the opportunity to regulate it (who can buy it and where), tax it, heck you could even make it a public enterprise so all the money goes into the government. With the trillions in savings you would need to invest in rehabilitation and other programs that have shown to greatly reduce drug use. You also have a bunch of legal jobs that can replace those based on fossil fuels and so on. There is no negative to legalizing it, as long as your regulating and using the money properly. Which is of course a risk, but when you consider how horrible it is now it will almost certainly be better. And when you talk about South America you would be taking all the funding from all the gangs. And considering how much terrorism is funded with drug money you would accomplish a hell of a lot more than the "war on terror" which much like the "war on drugs" has created way WAY more problems than it has solved. Which isn't saying much because neither "war" has solved anything they have made the problems worse. I think a potential problem with legalising it is you throw it into the wheelhouse of legitimacy, and that comes with problems too.
In the U.K. there’s been a huge increase in both gambling and also associated gambling problems since smartphones became ubiquitous, partly because gambling companies advertise hardcore around sport, be it advertising in the half time commercial break, sponsor basically every other sport podcast (I religiously listen to about 9 and the only one that doesn’t have gambling advertising is Patreon funded). Also post the 2008 recession people turned to gambling as a way to try and get out of poverty, and you can imagine how successful that was.
America’s attitude towards gambling (at least legislatively) is one of the few cultural things that I think they have over us Euros, it can be very destructive to a certain type of person.
I’m pro-legalisation for the record but I do worry what you’d get with legalisation without restrictions on things like advertising and targeting said drugs to susceptible people.
Studies on drug use that people invoke to refute the idea that legalisation would equal an increase in destructive drug use often refer to Portugal’s decline in use after decriminalising drug use, but that’s a different thing from opening it to free market legitimacy and all that may entail.
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Northern Ireland23843 Posts
Iif you decriminalise you shift the destructive law enforcement of largely harmless drug use away to other problems.
With full legalisation you open it up to capitalistic forces that can operate openly and have an incentive to have people doing more drugs.
Which to me is extremely problematic especially in the specific case of the United States and their problems with prescription opioids, psychiatric medication usage etc.
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On December 16 2019 10:19 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2019 07:52 Erasme wrote: As much as i'm for the legalization of majiruana, cocain and the likes should never be allowed. But you shouldn't criminalize the users. Prohibition does not work, drug use is rising not falling. By legalizing it you are not encouraging but rather the opposite. You have the opportunity to regulate it (who can buy it and where), tax it, heck you could even make it a public enterprise so all the money goes into the government. With the trillions in savings you would need to invest in rehabilitation and other programs that have shown to greatly reduce drug use. You also have a bunch of legal jobs that can replace those based on fossil fuels and so on. There is no negative to legalizing it, as long as your regulating and using the money properly. Which is of course a risk, but when you consider how horrible it is now it will almost certainly be better. And when you talk about South America you would be taking all the funding from all the gangs. And considering how much terrorism is funded with drug money you would accomplish a hell of a lot more than the "war on terror" which much like the "war on drugs" has created way WAY more problems than it has solved. Which isn't saying much because neither "war" has solved anything they have made the problems worse. As you can see, i'd be willing to decriminalize it for the users, but certainly not for the dealer. I do not believe you'd want your government to start selling heroin/cocain. Some drugs are just too addictive. And if you start limiting their potency, then you create a black market so thats back to square one.
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I mean if you want a world where corporations sell designer drugs that are wholly addictive and destructive you could just go out the door and to a pharmacy. If you want these same people to just hand out the drugs without doctors or the FDA involved and to tell me that's a good thing you're going to need to work harder then "think of the tax dollars" and "prohibition doesn't work except when it totally does in this other thing".
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Nice to see no one criticizing the base assumption that through Democracy your fellow human beings have control over how you exercise your own body through victim-less activities, though I suspect John S. Mill would be giddy with glee over the ubiquity of utilitarian argumentation in toto.
You should totally protect strangers from themselves by making them felons and incarcerating them for years and years with no good hope of a decent job after incarceration. That'll do. Oh, by the way, that Prohibition also gave rise to our militaristic police and destruction of the 4th Amendment. Total worth.
(I'd argue even if all the bad things people think would come with legalization of all drugs that's not nearly as bad as militarized police, a destroyed 4th amendment, corrupt and unjust use of asset forfeiture, etc.)
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I'm less interested in legalization than decriminalization.
Legalization is major reason why the Sackler Family are on yachts and private planes while countless others (not responsible for even a fraction of the destruction the Sacklers are) are in prison.
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On December 16 2019 16:47 Wegandi wrote: Nice to see no one criticizing the base assumption that through Democracy your fellow human beings have control over how you exercise your own body through victim-less activities, though I suspect John S. Mill would be giddy with glee over the ubiquity of utilitarian argumentation in toto.
You should totally protect strangers from themselves by making them felons and incarcerating them for years and years with no good hope of a decent job after incarceration. That'll do. Oh, by the way, that Prohibition also gave rise to our militaristic police and destruction of the 4th Amendment. Total worth.
(I'd argue even if all the bad things people think would come with legalization of all drugs that's not nearly as bad as militarized police, a destroyed 4th amendment, corrupt and unjust use of asset forfeiture, etc.) You don't think a populace medically enslaved to corporations is not nearly as bad as what we have now?
I mean even in a fairytale world where heroin coke and meth are legal you're at least still going to need purity standards labeling regulations FDA testing just to bring it to a point where it can become on the level of other consumable substances. Pharmacies are a thing for a reason I hope we can agree
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Legalisation would not end the black market, e.g. alcohol and tobacco are legal but you still have organised crime groups smuggling and producing illegal vodka and cigarettes because people like buying them cheaper.
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I think you're seriously underestimating the legitimacy that legalising cocaine etc would give. It seems very likely that significantly more people would be willing to try them at parties etc if the societal stigma were removed.
I am well on board with legalising anything that's around alcohol tier, but there is no level of cocaine consumption that is not seriously dangerous to the user. I think the law making that clear is a very important signpost and it's naive to believe otherwise.
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Northern Ireland23843 Posts
On December 16 2019 23:59 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2019 19:22 PoulsenB wrote: Legalisation would not end the black market, e.g. alcohol and tobacco are legal but you still have organised crime groups smuggling and producing illegal vodka and cigarettes because people like buying them cheaper. In ultra tiny amount compared to whats made legally. There is a reason Capone was the most powerful man in the US during prohibition. People act like legalizing something means more would use. Didn't happen with booze, won't happen with others. Much of the reason is because we have been fed a bunch of misinformation about drugs our whole life. A lot of it was with good intention because the goal was to scare people from doing it. It didn't work nor has harsher and harsher punishments. Here is a short video explaining some of the misinformation. + Show Spoiler +The money could be used to actually combat addiction, instead of furthering the problem like we do now. Now you would want it heavily regulated, even more than cigarettes, I'm not talking free market. A crucial difference with booze versus other substances is that booze has been an accepted part of cultural life for well, literal millennia.
Prohibition failed because it was pushing against that tide as much as anything else.
To legalise certain drugs now is different because we’re opening the door to things that aren’t just illegal, but not exactly approved by polite society at large.
It’s a complex one, I’m less sure of where I stand on it than I used to be tbh.
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I feel like less people care about weed than don't, and many that do only care because it's illegal than anything else.
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On December 17 2019 04:08 Gahlo wrote: I feel like less people care about weed than don't, and many that do only care because it's illegal than anything else.
Its incredibly frustrating to see how many people allow legality to influence morality. Morality should always be 100% independent of law. The hope is that law will follow from morals, not the other way around.
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Alcohol is an addictive substance that was legal beforehand and was briefly banned. It is a valid case study on trying to ban things. It is irrelevant as a case study on legalising things.
Also, again, there is a difference between decriminalisation and legalisation. Decriminalisation is a no brainier. Legalisation of cocaine, meth etc is not.
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