decline reported in Afghan poppy crop

[Ramo]

I'm not saying it's politically practical, just identifying the problem.

[Ramo]

Another half-solution is if the developed cut our freakin agrisubsidies, so other crops would be more viable in the third world. But that ain't going to happen while the Midwest is in the US, Poland is in the EU, etc.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ramo
Another half-solution is if the developed cut our freakin agrisubsidies, so other crops would be more viable in the third world. But that ain't going to happen while the Midwest is in the US, Poland is in the EU, etc.

"All Things Considered, February 7, 2005 · Subsidies for U.S. farmers and ranchers are among the targets in President Bush's plan to slash spending in his 2006 budget proposal. The administration has proposed some $587 million in cuts to a variety of farm programs"

[Ramo]

Yep, heard about that too. There's my "sorta agree with Bush" issue for this year.

Not that it's very likely to happen. 'Specially when he's blowing all the political capital that he has on SS privatization. He said that in 2002, and farm subsidies substantially increased.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Boris, were you here some months ago, when the successful presidential election took place in Afghanistan? The naysayers response then was, well, you've had the election, but its STILL a failure cause of the growth in poppy cultivation. Afghanistans growing ability to regain control of its own territory seems to me to be a good thing, regardless of where you stand on drug wars.

I'm not intellectually dishonest to that point, so yes I agree with you.

[Berzerker]

Kid

Producing, selling, and taxing drugs is immoral. I never said taking them was, although it's a bad thing to do to yourself.

Is buying or growing the drug yourself immoral? See a problem with your argument yet? I see two, the point I just made and the fact you haven't supported your accusation of immorality (except with an immoral argument). If it isn't immoral for you to use a drug, how can it be immoral for you to produce or buy a drug, and that calls into doubt your claim that selling a drug is immoral.

They cause harm to society. They are immoral people.

That is the immoral argument I referenced above which not surprisingly is made by racists as well. It is a generalisation that demonises people based on the actions of others and you'd understand that if you broke your argument down to the devil in the details.

If you sell me a bag of pot, what "harm" have you caused to society? None... But how do you define "society"? The members of society? So its immoral to harm members of society? How do you plan on punishing the seller without harming both him and the buyers who want his product? By your definition of immorality it is you who is immoral.

[Kidlicious]

Say we legalized drugs. Save for you crackheads, we all know that the result would be more drug addicion - more crackheads who don't feed their children - more people who don't show up for work, get fired and become homeless - more people stoned out of their mind 24/7, etc. How can that not be immoral? You want to do it for your freedom. So you want something for it. You want others to suffer for what you call freedom. How can that not be immoral?

[Berzerker]

Kid, are you going to answer or keep changing the subject? You accused lots of people of immorality and you won't even try to support your slander. That isn't nice.

Say we legalized drugs. Save for you crackheads, we all know that the result would be more drug addicion

You keep saying that and when we disagree you ask for proof. So we give you historical and contemporary examples as our proof and you dismiss the proof by saying those people are different. So where's your proof to support your arguments? You're treating your speculation or dogma as more valuable than the evidence we've offered.

more crackheads who don't feed their children - more people who don't show up for work, get fired and become homeless - more people stoned out of their mind 24/7, etc. How can that not be immoral?

Maybe it is, but you just said drug use is not immoral so are you backtracking? And you didn't explain why it is immoral for you to sell me a bag of pot. You're changing the issue AGAIN by doing what I just said was immoral - blaming one group of people for the actions of another group. White racists employ the same tactic always pointing to the worst members of a very large group of people to demonise the entire group. You want to punish millions of people because a crackhead did something bad. And you advocate this in the name of morality?

You want to do it for your freedom.

I don't use crack.

You want others to suffer for what you call freedom. How can that not be immoral?

They suffer by their own hand, Kid. I could just as easily argue that using cars is immoral by pointing to people who use them for car bombs. That's the essence of your argument, blame millions for the actions of a few and ignore the fact that the pathologies we see are not just a result of drug use but ILLEGAL drugs.

My "utilitarian" argument is that banning drugs has proven worse than the drugs (users who harm others) themselves and the drug war hasn't solved any problems, it has just added more, many more problems...

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Berzerker
My "utilitarian" argument is that banning drugs has proven worse than the drugs (users who harm others) themselves and the drug war hasn't solved any problems, it has just added more, many more problems...

You can not be free from the cost of others using drugs. You pay one way or the other. Freedom is only one factor in the overall equation. If you legalize drugs there will be more drug addicts, and that imposes a cost on all of us. For example, our economy will do more poorly, because drug addicts will miss work. If you maintain the criminal status of drugs there will be a cost too, but it will be less. And saying that we should allow people to harm themselves just doesn't make any sense. There is no benefit in that for them. Drug addicts can't even decide what's best for themselves because they are sick. Freedom is not the only thing that they want. It isn't the only thing most people want. Libertarians are alone in that regard.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Legalizing drugs .

YES, by banning drugs, you decrease the use of the drug (shift to the left in supply, which results in a dramatic increase in price and less quantity consumed... kind of like a monopoly situation), but at what cost? I'd say the externalities of banning drug use outweighs the lesser use.

[Berzerker]

Kid

You can not be free from the cost of others using drugs. You pay one way or the other.

Kid, listen (read ) this very closely because your argument is immoral. You are using a generalisation to "justify" hurting people. We don't say murder is immoral because we pay for it one way or another. It is immoral because there is a victim and a perpetrator and that perpetrator committed an immoral act, not the guy down the street who smokes pot. We don't say he is immoral because someone else committed murder. But that is the essence of your argument, you say I should be punished for using or selling a drug because somebody else did something bad to another person.

The moral response is to outlaw doing this bad thing to another person, not punish millions of people who did nothing to the victim. Imagine if we punished people who dont use drugs because some people who dont use drugs commit murder. Hey, lets punish all black people because some black people commit murder. Uh oh, some white people commit murder too, we'll have to punish white people now. Follow your "logic" to its conclusion if you cannot see the immorality of your argument.

As for the costs, do you realize we've squandered over a trillion dollars fighting the current drug war? What did we get for our money? About 3 million people jamming the legal system because you're mad at a crackhead. Higher homicide rates that would have been even higher than under alcohol prohibition if not for modern medicine (check the average over the last 35 years). We're not just throwing wads of money at the government, its being used to expand control over us in all sorts of ways, albeit the new war on terrorism has supplanted drugs as a reason to increase control.

Ever hear of early release programs? This is an attempt to alleviate the jampacked legal system by releasing people before they serve their time. Why? To make room for all the drug "dealers". Plea bargains have also been expanded so we are literally releasing real criminals out onto the streets to make room for pot smokers.

Then there'e the "fact" that prior to 9/11 we were expending a huge chunk of our law enforcement resources chasing drug users when we could have been using those resources to find missing children, stop terrorists, catch rapists and murderers, etc.

Freedom is only one factor in the overall equation. If you legalize drugs there will be more drug addicts, and that imposes a cost on all of us.

You keep saying that but you don't back it up with anything even in the face of evidence to the contrary.

For example, our economy will do more poorly, because drug addicts will miss work.

No Kid, they'll be fired and replaced with people who aren't addicted just like now. That's how the marketplace restricts certain behaviors. But I see you would rather sacrifice freedom and morality for state production too... Is that fascism or communism, I keep getting them mixed up.

If you maintain the criminal status of drugs there will be a cost too, but it will be less.

The Kid of unsupported assertions.

And saying that we should allow people to harm themselves just doesn't make any sense. There is no benefit in that for them. Drug addicts can't even decide what's best for themselves because they are sick.

But most drug users are not addicts, Kid. They are innocent of this "crime" you see in addiction and they will be punished anyway. And you don't speak for others, you don't get to decide what I value or what benefits me. Freedom means I get to decide that, not you. Totalitarianism means you get to decide for the rest of us.

Freedom is not the only thing that they want. It isn't the only thing most people want. Libertarians are alone in that regard.

Its true many people, even most possibly, want to decide how others live. Just don't complain when the freedoms you cherish are taken away, adding hypocrisy to the injuries you want to inflict on others is like pouring salt in their wounds.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Say we legalized drugs. Save for you crackheads, we all know that the result would be more drug addicion -

Who's that we we're talking about? You're blind to all arguments brought to the table.

Why aren't Portugal and the Netherlands in complete decrepitude right now?

Oh and if you want more stats - there was a study done on about 1000 American soldiers who were regular heroine users in Vietnam.

How many of them came back to America addicted? 4%.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Legalizing drugs .

YES, by banning drugs, you decrease the use of the drug (shift to the left in supply, which results in a dramatic increase in price and less quantity consumed... kind of like a monopoly situation), but at what cost? I'd say the externalities of banning drug use outweighs the lesser use.

As to the first part of your argument... I suppose that the total quantity consumed might rise, but the percentage of people who are drug users doesn't.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Kid

Kid, listen (read ) this very closely because your argument is immoral.

Of course it's immoral according to you, because we don't use the same code. In fact, I don't use one code like you do. I use all of them.

You are using a generalisation to "justify" hurting people. We don't say murder is immoral because we pay for it one way or another. It is immoral because there is a victim and a perpetrator and that perpetrator committed an immoral act, not the guy down the street who smokes pot. We don't say he is immoral because someone else committed murder. But that is the essence of your argument, you say I should be punished for using or selling a drug because somebody else did something bad to another person.

You fail to see the connection between the two. When you take drugs you contribute to the problem.

The moral response is to outlaw doing this bad thing to another person, not punish millions of people who did nothing to the victim. Imagine if we punished people who dont use drugs because some people who dont use drugs commit murder. Hey, lets punish all black people because some black people commit murder. Uh oh, some white people commit murder too, we'll have to punish white people now. Follow your "logic" to its conclusion if you cannot see the immorality of your argument.

It's not just senseless punishment. That's what you want to make it out to be. It's because of drug users that drugs are on the street and drug users do all kinds of horrible things.

As for the costs, do you realize we've squandered over a trillion dollars fighting the current drug war? What did we get for our money? About 3 million people jamming the legal system because you're mad at a crackhead. Higher homicide rates that would have been even higher than under alcohol prohibition if not for modern medicine (check the average over the last 35 years). We're not just throwing wads of money at the government, its being used to expand control over us in all sorts of ways, albeit the new war on terrorism has supplanted drugs as a reason to increase control.

Ever hear of early release programs? This is an attempt to alleviate the jampacked legal system by releasing people before they serve their time. Why? To make room for all the drug "dealers". Plea bargains have also been expanded so we are literally releasing real criminals out onto the streets to make room for pot smokers.

Then there'e the "fact" that prior to 9/11 we were expending a huge chunk of our law enforcement resources chasing drug users when we could have been using those resources to find missing children, stop terrorists, catch rapists and murderers, etc.

It's just your opinion that the money was squandered.

No Kid, they'll be fired and replaced with people who aren't addicted just like now. That's how the marketplace restricts certain behaviors. But I see you would rather sacrifice freedom and morality for state production too... Is that fascism or communism, I keep getting them mixed up.

Ever hear of scarce resources? You seem to think that no matter how many people get thrown in prison there will always be someone to sell drugs, and no matter how many people get hooked on drugs there will always be another worker to take their place.

But most drug users are not addicts, Kid. They are innocent of this "crime" you see in addiction and they will be punished anyway. And you don't speak for others, you don't get to decide what I value or what benefits me. Freedom means I get to decide that, not you. Totalitarianism means you get to decide for the rest of us.

I disagree that most users are not addicts. It's very easy to become addicted to drugs, especially to a degree. And you don't know what Totalitarianism is. You call everyone that.

Its true many people, even most possibly, want to decide how others live. Just don't complain when the freedoms you cherish are taken away, adding hypocrisy to the injuries you want to inflict on others is like pouring salt in their wounds.

So if we aren't Libertarians we can't complain about losing our freedoms.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris


As to the first part of your argument... I suppose that the total quantity consumed might rise, but the percentage of people who are drug users doesn't.

I disagree.