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| Thread: The Liberal Club |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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DagothGares
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posted April 08, 2009 11:32 PM |
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You give people the choice themselves. You alleviate crime and you can gain extra tax from taxation on the revenues.
I also believe people are idiots and I prefer not giving them the responsibility, but I am not an omnipotent and omniscient being that dictates what's right and wrong. I have no right to decide whether it's unethical or immoral. I am not the parent of the people. Some people also consider video games to be a bad influence, that it gives us red eyes, degrades our spelling and kills our culture and the world would be better off without them.
Those people would call us pathetic, perhaps?
If we ban drugs, then I'd say we need to be consequent and ban all intoxicating substances that might create addicts. Now, we are being hypocrites, in my humble opinion. 
Rationally it's justifiable, I think...
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Lexxan
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posted April 08, 2009 11:42 PM |
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You give people the choice themselves. You alleviate crime and you can gain extra tax from taxation on the revenues.
The problem is that with legalizing it, you may take a big risk. It may turn out to have no significant or a little effect on Drug use, or drug use might explode. Is the Extra Revenue Worth it? Is the Ideological Zeal of Pure Legalization worth it? Imo it is not, thus I am against the Legalization of drugs. I've seen drug users when they were stoned. It was not a pretty sight tbh.
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I also believe people are idiots and I prefer not giving them the responsibility, but I am not an omnipotent and omniscient being that dictates what's right and wrong. I have no right to decide whether it's unethical or immoral.
I vehemently disagree. Every person has his/her own idea of Morality and Ethics, and of Right and Wrong. Those idividual opinions make a difference, and define what is generallty known as Right, wrong, Moral, Immoral, Unethical or Ethical. It's the Person's own ideas of thses that make the difference.
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I am not the parent of the people. Some people also consider video games to be a bad influence, that it gives us red eyes, degrades our spelling and kills our culture and the world would be better off without them
If we were to keep Society completely harmless, we indeed should forbid evething that is harmfull. That's truly a bridge to far. Potentially harmfull stuff like Alcohol, Tobacco and the like should not be banned because they, if used wisely, are not harmfull at all. Drugs however, even in a small amount are pretty harmfull on their own, and ought not to be legalized imo.
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TheDeath
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posted April 08, 2009 11:58 PM |
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Every person has his/her own idea of Morality and Ethics, and of Right and Wrong. Those idividual opinions make a difference, and define what is generallty known as Right, wrong, Moral, Immoral, Unethical or Ethical. It's the Person's own ideas of thses that make the difference.
Does that make Ted Bundy innocent? 
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DagothGares
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posted April 09, 2009 12:01 AM |
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By legalizing it, you take it from the hands of dealers (and drug cartels and the mob behind drugs, in fact, you remove a big part of the black market) and this will happen in a controlled environment with less taboo and less risks. This goes by the premise that people can get their hands on drugs anyway. If you want to reinstate heavy border controls, then what I just said has no case.
I am, by no means, trying to sell my soul to the devil or something, nor do I take drugs and I don't like the idea of some of my friends doing drugs either. It is a reality, nonetheless. My point about extra revenue is that you might as well gain something from an unpleasant situation, rather than trying to (metaphorically) crucify it.
about your third point: what if drugs are used wisely? Or not wisely at all? Can you use tabacco wisely? People can learn from their mistakes and just learn to take life into their own hands. Everyone is capable of doing it, but they usually don't realise it (including me).
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Every person has his/her own idea of Morality and Ethics, and of Right and Wrong.
Yes
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It's the Person's own ideas of thses that make the difference.
I disagree...
And I really want to point at nazi germany to give an example of where the majority of the people reach an unethical conclusion. Godwin's law + people would just love to derail this into a debate about a certain world war I'm sure.
90% of everything is ****. This includes people and I don't believe that people are inherently good or nice, so I'd state that laws should be formed to protect the people from eachother. We don't need people to protect them from themselves, since I'd think that would be an invasion of personal rights.
I don't think that what society says is right and wrong is right and wrong. I think that everything that harms people from a society is wrong and everything that benefits it or keeps it is right. Now, again, I don't want to force this opinion on people, but you know what I mean...
EDIT: thank you, death, for illustrating, mine point.
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Corribus
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posted April 09, 2009 12:01 AM |
bonus applied by pandora on 09 Apr 2009. |
Edited by Corribus at 00:02, 09 Apr 2009.
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@Lexxan
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The problem is that it hasn't been proven that [same-sex adoptions] is beneficial or negligable or malficial for the child. As long as it isn't proven that is Beneficial or that it makes no difference, I will not be in favour (though I am not really opposed either). Can you guarantee me that it makes no difference?
Well, perhaps this belongs in another thread, but I can argue this from several directions.
(1) A right shouldn't be granted to a heterosexual that isn't granted to a homosexual. The Equal Protection clause in the US Constitution is supposed to ensure this, but a lot of social conservatives seem to like to ignore the US Constitution when it serves their moral code.
(2) I think the burden of proof is on you to show that a person's sexuality is correlated with "parental quality". Of course, this term will need to be defined. Nevertheless, if you can't demonstrate such a correlation, then your judgement is based solely on prejudice. See point (1).
(3) Certainly, I feel (although, by all means, feel free to provide a convincing argument to the contrary) a child in the hands of a loving parent is better off than a child in the hands of no parent at all. There is probably not a consensus of whether homosexual parents are better or worse parents than heterosexual ones, if only because, again, these terms are not easily defined. But ignore statistics for a moment. There are two facts that I'll provide that might sway you: numerous heterosexual parents are horrible parents and at least two homosexual parents that I happen to know are great parents. Thus, to me, your position is untenable. If even a single homosexual out there is a good, loving parent, then to forbid homosexual adoption means there is going to be at least one child who would otherwise be a great, supportive home who now faces the small but nonzero chance of being put in a horrible, unloving, abusive home.
Ergo, I can find no convincing argument against forbidding homosexual adoption. At the very least, the jury is still out on the issue, and until a rational, scientific consensus can be reached (likely impossible) on the comparative wellfares of adopted children from homosexual vs. heterosexual homes, then I see no reason to outlaw the former preemptively based on nothing but intollerance and subjective notions of morality.
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Alcohol and Tobacco have, as you undoubtably know, a less horrible effect than other drugs have.
Really? Do you know how many lives alcohol ruins every year? [note, I'm not in favor of Prohibition]. How many lives are lost due to alcohol-related accidents? And smoking - do you know what the health-care cost is yearly of smoking-related disease?? [again, note, I'm not in favor of criminalizing private tobacco use]
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Alcoholists and Chain-smokers are less of a problem that Durg-users are, relatively speaking, taking 1 vs 1.
And even if we take your claims at face-value and agree for the sake of argument that alcohol is somehow less "dangerous" than, say, cannabis, your rules are arbitrary. At what level of drug "safeness" do you draw the line? How many lives does a drug have to take yearly in order to be bad enough to be illegal? How much financial loss has to be incurred to be "OK"? Your criteria are necessarily arbitrary, and if they're arbitrary, why not put the line higher or lower, if some added benefit can be gained?
Another thing you can say is that people are going to do drugs whether they are outlawed or not. Frankly, I'd rather see the government at least be able to collect taxes from the habit and do something positive, rather than letting the money go to support drug violence.
Certainly, it is unclear whether legalizing drugs will cause drug use to increase. Failing an experiment, we will probably never know. So, given that there is some potential gain (safety-wise and economics-wise, which I can elaborate on if you wish) to be had by legalizing drugs, and because the decision to legalize some drugs and not legalize others is arbitrary anyway, AND because we KNOW what happens if you completely outlaw drugs (e.g., Prohibition), it seems to me a rational options to try legalizing them and see what happens. You can always criminalize them again later if it ends up being a disaster.
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Lexxan
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posted April 09, 2009 12:02 AM |
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Quote:
Quote:
Every person has his/her own idea of Morality and Ethics, and of Right and Wrong. Those idividual opinions make a difference, and define what is generallty known as Right, wrong, Moral, Immoral, Unethical or Ethical. It's the Person's own ideas of these that make the difference.
Does that make Ted Bundy innocent?
No, does it state that? I should have specified that the Individual ideas of Ethics, etc are the building blocks of the Social ideas of Ethics, etc... Does it make guilty people innocent? Of course it does not.
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Coincidence? I think not!!!!
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DagothGares
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posted April 09, 2009 12:06 AM |
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So, given that there is some potential gain (safety-wise and economics-wise, which I can elaborate on if you wish)
Please, I am very much intrigued.
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I should have specified that the Individual ideas of Ethics, etc are the building blocks of the Social ideas of Ethics, etc...
Now, I am confused. Care to elaborate please?
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TheDeath
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posted April 09, 2009 12:07 AM |
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You can always criminalize them again later if it ends up being a disaster.
I'm afraid it's not so easy, because if let's say 90% of the population starts to use it (just an example for a disaster), prohibiting is going to cause a LOT of trouble when they are addicted already -- not so if they wouldn't have taken them at all otherwise (in this example, remember I tried to pick a 'disaster' scenario).
My opinion is: alcohol is much more dangerous to OTHERS than drugs, therefore banning is not so far-fetched were it not for the traditions and whatever we have grown "used" to it (as a whole). My opinion is to legalize drugs that only harm oneself, and criminalize alcohol. Sure there'll be people smuggling it illegally, but it will decrease your 'average joe' from getting drunk, beating up / killing someone (probably with something sharp), or more especially, at the wheel. Punishment is futile, since these accidents (at the wheel) endanger one's life and the individual doesn't seem to care either.
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DagothGares
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posted April 09, 2009 12:09 AM |
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Actually, alcohol itself is not so dangerous to persons around you, unlike smoking. You can harm your children that way. Should we allow that? Is it okay to harm the people around you for sating your own habit?
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Lexxan
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posted April 09, 2009 12:12 AM |
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C:
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Really? Do you know how many lives alcohol ruins every year? [note, I'm not in favor of Prohibition]. How many lives are lost due to alcohol-related accidents? And smoking - do you know what the health-care cost is yearly of smoking-related disease?? [again, note, I'm not in favor of criminalizing private tobacco use]
And yet, Smoking and Drinking are less usefull than Taking drugs. Imagine how many accidents would happen because of Stoned-Drivers, or how much Healthcare it will cost to heal the Drug-addicts. Tax Revenue well spent!
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TheDeath
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posted April 09, 2009 12:30 AM |
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Actually, alcohol itself is not so dangerous to persons around you, unlike smoking. You can harm your children that way. Should we allow that? Is it okay to harm the people around you for sating your own habit?
Added smoking to ban list
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mvassilev
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posted April 09, 2009 12:50 AM |
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It makes sense to have limits on smoking - at least in public places - because secondhand smoke affects others. But I don't see how it bothers anybody if you drink alcohol or smoke marijuana in your home. As for the crime - we tried prohibition and it didn't work. Same with marijuana. If we legalized it, then all those seedy drug dealers would have to compete with, say, pharmacies, and would have to offer much cleaner stuff (especially considering that they often put worse stuff in there). Plus, we should criminalize the action that is bad, not various peripheral stuff. For example, killing should be illegal. But alcohol? No, banning alcohol makes as much sense as banning anger.
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DagothGares
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posted April 09, 2009 01:23 AM |
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You know this club reminds me of something, but I can't put my finger on it...
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Corribus
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posted April 09, 2009 01:50 AM |
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@DG
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So, given that there is some potential gain (safety-wise and economics-wise, which I can elaborate on if you wish)
Please, I am very much intrigued.
We had a thread dedicated to this topic some time ago, in which I posted various pros and cons of legalizing drugs. Here is my list.
http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=25468&pagenumber=1
Cons of Legalizing Drugs:
(1) Some illegal drugs are truly dangerous and highly addictive. People under the influence of some drugs (such as PCP) can become unpredictable and a menace to people and property around them. My general political philosophy is that the government has no business passing legislation that essentially protects people from themselves. If people want to do things that are unhealthy and ultimately may lead to their own shortened lifespans, then so be it. The gov't shouldn't try to pass laws that regulate how many grams of fat a person consumes in a day, or whether or not motorcyclists wear helmets. People have the right to be idiots. However, when it comes to actions that affect the health and wellbeing of OTHER people or OTHER PEOPLE'S property, that's where legal barriers should be erected. For that reason, I'm all for banning public cigarette smoking, because when you light up a cigarette on an airplane or in a public restaurant, you are violating my right to clean air (and more importantly, my safety). I have no problem with you smoking in the privacy of your own home. For the same reason, people under the influence of PCP or LSD can be destructive to public property and can harm other people - even though it's usually unintentionally. So for these types of drugs, there are many good reasons to keep them illegal.
(2) The legalization of drugs will make them more accessible to the general public. You may say, "Well if I want drugs, I can get them whether they are legal or not." True, to some extent. However, while now I *could* technically get any drug I want if I wanted it bad enough, the "illegal factor" still imposes an energetic barrier to procuring them. It's not unreasonable to conclude that if, for example, heroin was legalized and available at your local CVS, more people would probably be heroin users. I am not a drug user and most likely never will be, mostly because I am aware of the health risks. But I'm also very unlikely to ever even try them "just to see", because I'm not interested enough in trying such a substance to subject myself to the risks (legal or otherwise) that are necessarily involved in procuring them. However, if I could go to CVS and buy a little heroin (exaggerating, I know), I would be much more likely to pick up a little while I'm shopping for shampoo and soap. Since such drugs ARE addictive, more casual "trial" use will lead to more addicts, which I think anyone - for or against drug legalization - would agree is a bad thing. In essence, by making drugs more accessible, you increase the likelihood that the average person will become exposed to them. And this doesn't just mean people going to the store to buy them - I'm also referring to the fact that they are more likely to show up at, for example, high school football games and other social gatherings where young adults, already susceptible to peer pressure, would be much more likely to be talked into trying them. So there's something to be said about using legislation to limit the circulation of such substances. However, while this argument DOES make sense, a more philosophical question is whether the government should get in the way of a person's right to make their own decisions concerning what they do to their own bodies. Of course, these things are never in black and white - even "benign" drugs have indirect effects on the health of a society beyond acute vanalism and violent crime, so it's not so easy to draw the line between PCP and, say, heroin. While heroin is not likely to make a person go nutso and murder his next door neighbor, a population doped up on heroin is not likely to be good for the economic health of society as a whole. There's also the general public health cost (dollar-wise), and so for these reasons, drug use, even drugs that are "benign", by person A MAY adversely affect person B, which would, according to my political philosophy, necessitate legislation. It's a very complicated issue.
Pros of Legalizing drugs:
(1) Less violent crime. If drugs are more accessible, and more available, you will have less drug lords, less shootings, less stealing, and less risk involved with procuring them. You may also destroy some of the connections between drugs and theft, drugs and prostitution, drugs and gambling, and etc. Insofar as drug-related crime is a major reason for the continued depression of poverty-stricken areas, legalization of drugs may actually help to bring the ghettos out of the gutter, so to speak.
(2) Legalization of drugs will free up a lot of government tax dollars that go towards the (inefficient) enforcement of drug laws. Such money could go instead into programs geared towards education about drugs, and treatment programs.
(3) Increase of tax revenues. While no longer illegal, drugs could be subjected to heavy taxes (like alcohol or tobacco now), a good source of revenue for the government, and perhaps (though most likely not) a more effective deterrant for potential drug users than the "illegal factor" discussed above. How much cheaper legalized drugs would be than they are currently as illegal substances is unclear, but at least those dollars would be going to the government rather than to criminal organizations.
(4) It's arguable that once legalized, some of the allure of using drugs may disappear. I'm not sure how salient this argument is, but I know for myself, drinking alcohol was much less thrilling (in a "defying the authorities" sort of way) once I hit the legal drinking age.
(5) Aside from the expected drop in violent crime associated with drug use, legalized drugs would be safer from a chemical perspective. Because they are uncontrolled at present, drug manufacturers are obviously not subjected to any sort of quality control or regulation. Manufacturers, often criminal operating in dirty chemical laboratories in their own basements, can cut their drugs with anything they want in order to "dilute" the product. For those who synthesize their own designer drugs, they may use starting materials of questionable purity that contain many latent toxins (heavy metals, etc.) that have long-term health consequences that are far worse than those associated with the drugs themselves. This is because currently, not only are the drugs themselves illegal, but the most common synthetic precursors are also flagged by the FBI and the DEA, which means if I purchase such chemicals from a chemical company, I am very likely to be investigated. So, at present I have to get those precursers also from disreputable sources, or try to make them myself under uncontrolled conditions using inexperienced chemists. If drugs were legalized, they would then be subjected to regulations dealing the means of production, and clean starting materials produced in controlled environments could be used. Thus, if I were to buy a legalized drug, I could do so from a reputable source that I would know was producing a product that was produced in a controlled facility and of standardized purity. If you think that's all a bit farfetched, considering the alcohol distilling business; if you criminalize alcohol consumption, people will begin distilling it in their own backyards, and such home-brewed moonshine is often loaded with methanol and quite toxic. If you're going to drink, it's much better that your spirits are produced by professionals with the knowledge and facilities to do so safely. Same goes for hard drugs.
Anyway, those are just a few examples of arguments I would use if I was to defend one side or the other. Truthfully, my knee jerk reaction would be to give a thumbs down to the legalization of drugs. This is for somewhat selfish reasons, I admit. I live now in local environment where I don't have to deal with the drug problem on a day to day basis, and I recognize that the legalization of drugs could potentially make drugs more generally accessible and thus more likely to appear on my local horizen, so to speak. For my child's sake, I would prefer that drugs stay where they are now (i.e., away from me). So, on a personal level, I hope drugs are never legalized. But... if I dissociate myself from my own selfish needs and desires, on a more global levels, I can see the sense of it, to some extent.
Basically, I'm fine with the status quo on this issue, but it is still somewhat arbitrary, and I wouldn't be totally against legalization. There are a number of argument in favor of it.
@Deathman
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I'm afraid it's not so easy, because if let's say 90% of the population starts to use it (just an example for a disaster), prohibiting is going to cause a LOT of trouble when they are addicted already -- not so if they wouldn't have taken them at all otherwise (in this example, remember I tried to pick a 'disaster' scenario).
Certainly possible. But, I suspect that you overinflate the number of "new users" that would try such drugs if they were legalized. I suspect that, by and large, most people who are going to use drugs, are already using them, so recriminalizing them won't really make that much different. Nevertheless, it's a valid argument.
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My opinion is: alcohol is much more dangerous to OTHERS than drugs, therefore banning is not so far-fetched were it not for the traditions and whatever we have grown "used" to it (as a whole). My opinion is to legalize drugs that only harm oneself, and criminalize alcohol.
No way. First, beer and wine are HUGE industries, AND state tax revenues from alcohol are ENORMOUS. From an economic standpoint, it would absolutely kill the states and everyone's state taxes would skyrocket as a result. No thanks.
Also, too many people happen to actually enjoy spirits. There's no reason to punish ordinary people with government intervention.
You'd also be introducing an enormous new crime element. Look what happened during the LAST time people tried to criminalize alcohol. Are you not familiar Al Capone? It was an absolute disaster.
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Sure there'll be people smuggling it illegally, but it will decrease your 'average joe' from getting drunk, beating up / killing someone (probably with something sharp), or more especially, at the wheel.
So, you'd trade accidental deaths due to DUIs for purposeful crime due to bootlegging? AND you'd still have people drinking and driving if alcohol would be criminalized. The only people who you'd be hurting are normal folks who like an ale with their burger.
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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DagothGares
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posted April 09, 2009 02:04 AM |
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Thank you very much, corribus, I personally would love my friends and relatives never to touch it, but since the ones that will, do so, I have no objection against a legislation.
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Corribus
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posted April 09, 2009 05:21 AM |
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Edited by Corribus at 05:21, 09 Apr 2009.
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Funny, a timely article this week in Time Magazine by Joel Klein discusses legalization of Marijuana. You can read the whole article here, but I thought I'd highlight this little fragment:
...the U.S. is, by far, the most "criminal" country in the world, with 5% of the world's population and 25% of its prisoners. We spend $68 billion per year on corrections, and one-third of those being corrected are serving time for nonviolent drug crimes. We spend about $150 billion on policing and courts, and 47.5% of all arrests are marijuana-related. That is an awful lot of money, most of it nonfederal, that could be spent on better schools or infrastructure — or simply returned to the public. (See the top 10 ballot measures.)
At the same time, there is an enormous potential windfall in the taxation of marijuana. It is estimated that pot is the largest cash crop in California, with annual revenues approaching $14 billion. A 10% pot tax would yield $1.4 billion in California alone. And that's probably a fraction of the revenues that would be available — and of the economic impact, with thousands of new jobs in agriculture, packaging, marketing and advertising. A veritable marijuana economic-stimulus package!
Just some food for thought.
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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phoenixreborn
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posted April 09, 2009 05:44 AM |
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Of course, people (non-members) wishing to learn about these things may post, but must do so without firm conclusions that they will completely disagree with the answer.
You should explain what "in the European sense" of liberal means. I'm also suspicious of a thread on a public forum that intentionally tries to exclude a specific group. Are you suggesting that "socialists" are unable to post on-topic?
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mvassilev
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posted April 09, 2009 06:08 AM |
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Corribus:
Joe Klein =/= Joel Klein.
PR:
American liberals are social democrats. European liberals are classical liberals and conservative liberals along with a few social liberals.
And socialists can post here. They just can't advocate socialism.
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baklava
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posted April 09, 2009 08:57 AM |
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And socialists can post here. They just can't advocate socialism.
Watch us 
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you got the blues."
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RedSoxFan3
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posted April 09, 2009 03:09 PM |
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I really don't understand socialism in its exactness. Does this mean no one can own a business, not even a small one. Or are big businesses just put under strict regulations?
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Go Red Sox!
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