Quote:
Originally Posted by Etbauer
Sorry if I missed you, either I didn’t see you, or I thought I was lumping my responses to you in with all the rest.
The reason you not only can separate the two, but HAVE to is that you have to realize what it is you are talking about. You can’t ignore the effects of a choice you make just because the alternative is worse. The point is that this isn’t a ‘progressive’ decision, rather you have to realize that we are picking one evil over the other.
|
No, we're not. There's nothing "evil" about getting a little high on weed. And if it were evil, then the law is a non-solution since it hasn't stopped jack shit. All it does is waste money put people in prison. Yeah, you succeeded in getting a handful of people from having a little fun with weed...and threw them in prison for it. No, nothing "evil" about that huh?
Quote:
|
The time may come one day when you can effectively prohibit the use of marijuana due to technology or something we haven’t thought of yet. But right now we realize that pot is bad for society period. We are simply accepting that the effects of banning it are worse at this time.
|
No, we don't. YOU have accepted that due to what probably amounts to WOD commercials and other bullshit about weed that you saw on TV.
Quote:
At that point, it just becomes a debate about which is worse, weed, or the prohibition, but they both have consequences. To say “We can’t control it, so there’s no other side to the debate” is about as closed minded as it gets.
|
Huh? It's closed-minded to avoid debating impossible scenarios? If we can't control weed, WTF is the point of discussing how great it would be (and it really wouldn't be that great) if we got rid of it?
Quote:
|
I just happen to believe the costs of prohibition outweigh the benefits, that doesn’t mean I don’t see that there as another side to the argument or that I won’t think about it.
|
I think you're assuming that prohibition actually does much good to begin with. Even if you got rid of all of the weed, assuming 100% prohibition effectiveness, guess what? People would get high on other stuff, like rubber and cement and whatnot. All you have done is wasted a lot of money, royally raped personal liberty, and got people to turn to meth and more harmful substances.
Quote:
If there wasn’t another side, it wouldn’t be an issue.
And then the discussion has to occur where you have to decide what the effects of that decision are on other people as well.
|
Hmmm...liberty, safe drugs, monetary conservation...or oppression, overdoses and the deepest hole of debt ever dug. What to pick, what to pick...
Quote:
|
Is this really something that only affects the users? I argued that it wasn’t for many reasons. And the fact that the consequences of heroin and other drugs are absolutely not restricted to the user means that we are now just arguing over where the line is.
|
Everything in our universe has some effect on something else. If I say something mean to someone, I will hurt their feelings and then their kids will be neglected or whatever. You can draw out these possibilities until you're blue in the face. However, it's really pointless, since making drugs illegal just ensures that addicts go from functioning addicts to murderers and thiefs.
Quote:
|
As for SLON I suppose everyone has some ideas that would be seen as fairly extreme, and he honestly probably isn’t too much more closed minded than the majority here, but he has an idea in his head set in stone, and anything that wavers from that black and white picture is seen as inadmissible to consideration… probably most people aren’t too much different.
|
Like I said, your idea has been considered, and it is total bullshit that completely ignores reality and is based on conjecture and baseless generalization.