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User talk:HelpJazz (view source)
Revision as of 02:07, September 22, 2008
, 02:07, September 22, 2008→Politics
:*Other: the War on Drugs is probably my pet issue right now. Prohibition has never worked, and the War on Drugs is being used as an excuse for a lot of things that people would otherwise find inexcusable. Last summer a Swat team (see "gun control" above) raided a house in which there were 4 or 5 children, one an infant, in search for a man wanted on drug crimes. The man's wife was killed, a dog was killed, and one of the children was injured; the man they were looking for wasn't even there. I saw another story of a mother of two who was arrested and convicted based on the word of a known junkie trying to reduce his sentence. Her daughters had to raise themselves. A man was pulled over by the police and found out that he had something like $29,000 cash in his car. They (legally) confiscated his money, the premise being that he was buying drugs (the man claimed he was going to buy cell phones to resell). He was never brought up on charges, but he never got his money back. <br /><br /> Then there are the increase of crime rates: when drugs are illegal anyways it lowers the rational barrier towards using violence in relation to drugs. Especially when you rachet up the penalties and have mandatory sentencing. Then there's the fact that drug money goes to fund things like gangs and terrorist organizations. If Pfizer sold marijuana, the profits would be used to research a cure for cancer. And safety: if Pfizer sold <insert drug here>, and it had a "bad batch" it would be sued. It could be better regulated to keep it away from kids; it could be taxed so it would put money into government coffers instead of taking money away. It would lower the "stigma", and people would better be able to deal with addiction (now to deal with addiction the 0th step of the 12 step program is addmitting you regularly break the law). <br /><br /> Oh yeah, and then there's the whole argument that if you want to slowly kill yourself, who the heck am I to stop you. Lastly, there may or may not be medical benefits to drugs; so long as they are illegal, we can never really know the truth. The FDA poo-poos any study on marijuana regardless of merit, and all studying has to be done with government-grown marijuana. Sorry if you've heard all these arguments before, I had to get it off my chest :)
:*Other: the War on Drugs is probably my pet issue right now. Prohibition has never worked, and the War on Drugs is being used as an excuse for a lot of things that people would otherwise find inexcusable. Last summer a Swat team (see "gun control" above) raided a house in which there were 4 or 5 children, one an infant, in search for a man wanted on drug crimes. The man's wife was killed, a dog was killed, and one of the children was injured; the man they were looking for wasn't even there. I saw another story of a mother of two who was arrested and convicted based on the word of a known junkie trying to reduce his sentence. Her daughters had to raise themselves. A man was pulled over by the police and found out that he had something like $29,000 cash in his car. They (legally) confiscated his money, the premise being that he was buying drugs (the man claimed he was going to buy cell phones to resell). He was never brought up on charges, but he never got his money back. <br /><br /> Then there are the increase of crime rates: when drugs are illegal anyways it lowers the rational barrier towards using violence in relation to drugs. Especially when you rachet up the penalties and have mandatory sentencing. Then there's the fact that drug money goes to fund things like gangs and terrorist organizations. If Pfizer sold marijuana, the profits would be used to research a cure for cancer. And safety: if Pfizer sold <insert drug here>, and it had a "bad batch" it would be sued. It could be better regulated to keep it away from kids; it could be taxed so it would put money into government coffers instead of taking money away. It would lower the "stigma", and people would better be able to deal with addiction (now to deal with addiction the 0th step of the 12 step program is addmitting you regularly break the law). <br /><br /> Oh yeah, and then there's the whole argument that if you want to slowly kill yourself, who the heck am I to stop you. Lastly, there may or may not be medical benefits to drugs; so long as they are illegal, we can never really know the truth. The FDA poo-poos any study on marijuana regardless of merit, and all studying has to be done with government-grown marijuana. Sorry if you've heard all these arguments before, I had to get it off my chest :)
:I guess that's about it. I think prostitution should be legalized, for many the same reasons as drugs. It should be noted that I've never been to so much as a strip club, and I don't do drugs, and never plan on doing either. Just in case someone decides to use the "you're just for legalization because you do it yourself" argument. :) [[User:HelpJazz|Help]][[User talk:HelpJazz|Jazz]] 21:25, 21 September 2008 (EDT)
:I guess that's about it. I think prostitution should be legalized, for many the same reasons as drugs. It should be noted that I've never been to so much as a strip club, and I don't do drugs, and never plan on doing either. Just in case someone decides to use the "you're just for legalization because you do it yourself" argument. :) [[User:HelpJazz|Help]][[User talk:HelpJazz|Jazz]] 21:25, 21 September 2008 (EDT)
::Okay, I just have a few things for you. I agree with you on the majority of those issues, but here goes.
::*'''Economics''': I agree with privatization of ''most'' businesses, though I think we see that in the current American economic system. I don't think it's a great example of the privatizing the FDA for the simple fact that I don't see a potential for profit. The only scenario I can think of off the top of my head is something like a certification, i.e. drug companies being required to pay for a certification of a certain drug in the hopes of maximizing profits, though I don't think that would be feasible. Capital tends to suck the morality out of a person, and I wouldn't want a new pharmaceutical fast-tracked into the market (Vioxx rings a bell) because some big-wig for the FDA got a few extra bucks. A few other examples of government agencies unable to be privatized would be the CDC and IRS. Same rationale as above.
:::As far as the negative income tax is concerned, I don't see a desire to raise one's financial situation. Sure, nobody wants to live at poverty level, but if you're guaranteed a stipend check to keep you at a certain income level, what's the motivation? I live in West Virginia, and currently our welfare system requires one to have a job while receiving assistance, plus you only receive it for a certain period of time except in special circumstances such as HUD and ...I can't think of the acronym, but it's for kids (you get milk, cheese, stuff like that ... WICC I think—that's why people here keep on popping out kids to keep their welfare).
::*'''Foreign policy''' :Nothing here. I agree with you on every point. However, our military actions in the middle east (against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, not so much in Iraq) are justified. They didn't attack us because we were "meddling," they attacked us because they despise our way of life in regards to capitalism and world trade.
::*'''Abortion''': I wouldn't say that this would "make or break" an election for me, though I think how a person feels regarding abortion shows a lot about his character. The only time I think abortion is justified is when a choice must be made between the life of the mother and the fetus, in which case the decision should be left to the affected parties (mother and father). This is actually the main reason I'm not voting for Obama: his views on the "borderline baby act" (I think that's the name of the legislation). If a baby, who is supposed to be aborted, is born alive, that doctor ''should'' be required to do everything possible to make sure that baby survives. Obama feels like this "undermines the decision of the mother," which is morally despicable. I would have no problem with a federal referendum against abortion.
::*'''Gun Control''': This is a real hot-button topic for me. I'm not too sure what you mean by militarization of our police force, though. In a country that allows for open ownership of firearms, our police officers have to make sure they are properly armed to deal with the most severe threats. I do not see a reason why an everyday American citizen needs to own a semi-automatic assault rifle. Handguns, hunting rifles, sporting guns ... all okay in my book. Assault rifles should be banned.
::*'''War on Drugs''': So what? Legalize all of them? Sure, you show me a few select instances where drug raids went bad, but this is plaguing our country. It's not just the illegality of the drugs that causes crime, it's the fact that these low-life junkies spend all of the their money on drugs and therefore don't have money for anything else. That causes them to steal money for basic human necessities. Even if drugs were legalized, regulated, and taxed, we would still have this problem unless some sort of "quota" was instituted. However, with privatized business, who would institute and enforce the quota? Then we have an entirely different can of worms, and all that capital that came from stopping the war on drugs now goes to medical assistance to junkies who have no job and no health insurance. I know one of the main arguments against drugs is all the "money it would save," but in my opinion it's really revenue-neutral.
::As far as Pfizer marketing drugs, I know where you're coming from, but chew on this. A guy synthesizing heroin makes a bad batch and a few dozen people die from it. If that same drug was regulated by Pfizer and they release a bad batch and was purchased ''legally'' in ''mass quantities'', how many people would die? This isn't lead-laced tylenol, this is the most addictive drug known to man being sold in mass quantities. So you sue Pfizer ... after 1,000 people have died. Doesn't seem to rectify the situation.
::I think that's about all I have for now. I'm anxiously awaiting your reply! Sorry I wasn't as articulate as I was at the beginning, but I'm getting really tired and this is ''really'' long.
::[[User:JLauttamus|Jeffrey W. Lauttamus]][[User_talk:JLauttamus|<sub>Discussion</sub>]] 22:07, 21 September 2008 (EDT)