5,580
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Line 213:
Line 213: + + + + + + + + + + + +
User talk:HelpJazz (view source)
Revision as of 21:56, September 23, 2008
, 21:56, September 23, 2008→Politics
::Lastly, somewhere else Bugler says something about mental illness and marijuana. It may be well-documented, but it's not well-documented as being any more significant than a host of other activities that are considered perfectly legal. If we're going to embrace conservative ideals here let's start with allowing people real freedom; if the argument against marijuana is self harm, as opposed to harm to others, that's their tough luck if they want to smoke it. [[User:Aziraphale|Aziraphale]] 16:58, 23 September 2008 (EDT)
::Lastly, somewhere else Bugler says something about mental illness and marijuana. It may be well-documented, but it's not well-documented as being any more significant than a host of other activities that are considered perfectly legal. If we're going to embrace conservative ideals here let's start with allowing people real freedom; if the argument against marijuana is self harm, as opposed to harm to others, that's their tough luck if they want to smoke it. [[User:Aziraphale|Aziraphale]] 16:58, 23 September 2008 (EDT)
First, responses to Philip:
*Foreign policy: I agree, in today's world you can't have strict isolationism. However, I think the utmost care must be taken when deciding to take action; far too often, it seems, actions are only taken if they have an immediate, personal benefit, and long term consequences are shoved under the rug. Though I would like to point out with your example that it was partially due to British expansionism that there was a slave trade anyway.
*Drugs: I can't say I've ever read anything about prisons being closed. I do know that prohibition helped cement organized crime organizations, though, and they did their fair share of filling up the prisons. The "banning" vs "regulating" argument is really semantics. Banning isn't the same thing as regulating and doesn't have the same effects. I'm not against banning for banning's sake, I'm against it for the many reasons I've stated before. Also I don't agree that (a) drugs were necessarily banned because they were dangerous and (b) that something being dangerous is reason enough to ban something. As Az said, if someone wants to harm themselves, more power to them.
Then Aziraphale: as usual, if I didn't know that you couldn't be me, I would accuse you of being me :)
And now to Philip and Tim: this is probably going to end badly, so I hope you can agree to disagree on this point here. By "no right or wrong answer" I mean that the lines in the sand are drawn by where you believe "human life" starts. If person A says that human life begins at conception, and person A says that human life begins at the time at which the fetus could support itself outside of the womb, how can you prove who is right? "What is human life" is a philosophical or religious question, not a scientific one.
Compare to free trade: you can argue "free trade works because of the invisible hand" and someone else can argue "free trade doesn't work because of the greed of comanies". Then you can go and look at examples of free trade and determine through study "did the invisible hand work?" It either did or didn't work.
I agree with both of you that sometime between conception and birth it is considered murder, but I don't know where to draw the line. As such, I don't have a strong conviction either way, certainly not strong enough to impose my desires on others through coercive force (in this case, the law). [[User:HelpJazz|Help]][[User talk:HelpJazz|Jazz]] 17:56, 23 September 2008 (EDT)
==Drugs==
==Drugs==