The general decline in standards today

[jamespowers]

Politicians don't run this country, big business does.

Then we need to hire a big business to build the wall and staff it with guards. That actually sounds like a better idea. You can more easily fire a contractor than you could fire a government bureau for inaction.

 

[CaramelSmoothie]

Then we need to hire a big business to build the wall and staff it with guards. That actually sounds like a better idea. You can more easily fire a contractor than you could fire a government bureau for inaction.

Oh, so what you're suggesting here is to hire a big business to build a wall to secure the border that THEIR cheap labor uses to comes across? LOL.

 

[Atticus Finch]

So you don't believe them then?
So what do you have that says the contrary?

Well...I take their research with a shaker of salt. What you linked me to is a formal position statement from the DEA regarding the legalization of drugs. I would be stunned if a large government bureaucracy tasked with the enforcment of drug laws would advocate the repeal of those laws...and thereby advocate the elimination of its primary reason for being. And, frankly, most of what I have to the contrary is personal observation. But I could probably find support of what I'm saying within a few mouse clicks. One can pretty much find anything on the net.

AF

 

[jamespowers]

Well...I take their research with a shaker of salt. What you linked me to is a formal position statement from the DEA regarding the legalization of drugs. I would be stunned if a large government bureaucracy tasked with the enforcment of drug laws would advocate the repeal of those laws...and thereby advocate the elimination of its primary reason for being. And, frankly, most of what I have to the contrary is personal observation. But I could probably find support of what I'm saying within a few mouse clicks. One can pretty much find anything on the net.

AF

Get to it then because I have my salt shaker. lol lol

 

[jamespowers]

Oh, so what you're suggesting here is to hire a big business to build a wall to secure the border that THEIR cheap labor uses to comes across? LOL.

Well, they are getting money to do it and we can fire them and replace them for non-compliance. Try that with any government official or bureau. A government burea is the closest thing to eternal life on this planet.

 

[CaramelSmoothie]

Well, they are getting money to do it and we can fire them and replace them for non-compliance. Try that with any government official or bureau. A government burea is the closest thing to eternal life on this planet.

The government and big business are in bed together. Politicians and taxpayers don't tell Big Business what to do, it's the other way around. Do you really think chicken processing plants like Perdue, chain restaurants and other industries that use illegal immigrants for cheap labor want a closed border? Again, how can the most powerful nation on Earth, that can hunt wanted men with precision around the world claim to be so helpless when it comes to securing its own border? You don't see it for the scam that it really is.

 

[CaramelSmoothie]

I would be stunned if a large government bureaucracy tasked with the enforcment of drug laws would advocate the repeal of those laws...and thereby advocate the elimination of its primary reason for being.

AF

This is what it comes down to in this one sentence. Jamespowers seems to trust the government to police itself. I know I sure don't.

 

[jamespowers]

The government and big business are in bed together. Politicians and taxpayers don't tell Big Business what to do, it's the other way around. Do you really think chicken processing plants like Perdue, chain restaurants and other industries that use illegal immigrants for cheap labor want a closed border? Again, how can the most powerful nation on Earth, that can hunt wanted men with precision around the world claim to be so helpless when it comes to securing its own border? You don't see it for the scam that it really is.

Too bad for them. No more illegals, drugs or otherwise.
Ok, what solution do you have that I can get onboard with?

 

[jamespowers]

This is what it comes down to in this one sentence. Jamespowers seems to trust the government to police itself. I know I sure don't.

Well, no, I actually don't. I would prefer using something other than a Government Bureau.

 

[CaramelSmoothie]

Too bad for them. No more illegals, drugs or otherwise.
Ok, what solution do you have that I can get onboard with?

There's only one of two things that we can do. Continue this EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE war on drugs that has no end in sight or make it legal. The border will not be secured, if it was that would have happened long ago, so preventing the drugs from coming into this country is not going to be an option. Unfortunately, like Billie Holiday's drug dealer said in the article that I posted, high incarceration rates are too lucrative for many businesses. Last I checked drugs coming in from south of the border were a 60 BILLION dollar a year business. That much product cannot move across the border without the higher ups not knowing about it.

 

[CaramelSmoothie]

Well, no, I actually don't. I would prefer using something other than a Government Bureau.

There's only two options, government and business. They are BOTH in bed together.

 

[sheeplady]

I've always found the idea of recreational drugs to be an alien concept. As a youngster I've gotten drunk maybe once or twice in my life and simply can't see what people find so enjoyable about it. Though I don't agree with it, I do realize that there are people out there with emotional or psychological issues for whom alcohol or drug use is their only coping mechanism, but what perplexes me are the ordinary yahoos who don't seem to have any major issues whose idea of a good time is getting drunk or stoned.

This morning I was listening to the radio and there was a news story about two brothers who blew up their house. It seems that they won $75,000 in the lottery and to celebrate got hold of large quantities of pot and meth. One of the brothers suffered 2nd degree burns when the pilot light of their stove ignited butane fumes from the torches they were planning to use to light their bongs. :doh:

I'm not going to pretend that I haven't tried recreational drugs (although most of what I have partaken in was legal in the country I was visiting at the time and benign when compared to opiates) and I'm not a teetotaler. I would totally smoke cigarettes if not for the possible health effects- if I could guarantee smoking would not harm me in any way as far as quality or quantity of life, I'd go out and buy a pack right now.... but the point of each of these substances is that they are only fun in moderation. Having a nice Martini is something that will give me a strong buzz, make me feel warm, and leave me enough incapacitated to not even consider driving or caring for someone. Getting drunk or so high that I pass out or I'm going to feel crummy in the morning is far too much for me.

However, this prescription stuff is absolute madness. While I understand (as you said) some people who use it as coping, there's as many people who get into it "just for fun" and pretty soon they're doing heroin in their living room. These people don't do it to get a slight high or a slight buzz, they do it to plain pass out. And while I can't be a judge of anyone's life, it seems a large degree of people do it because they are *bored.* This is particularly true of a lot of the well-to-do teens in my area. When we looked to buy the house we're living in now we avoided the "best" school district (best funded) mainly because of the prescription drug use (we also could barely afford to live there, but the major reason was the school district).

If you're bored, learn a hobby. Don't take a bunch of pills and pass out.

 

[Foxer55]

jamespowers,

It is from here the U.S. Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration, “Fact 7,” Speaking Out against Drug Legalization, 2 Check it out and read it.

I understand you are passionate about this topic but I ask...

How do you propose dealing with the problem below? One federal judge involved in the prosecution of drug dealing has lamented it is not possible to cope with the corruption caused by such vast amounts of cash available to drug dealers. Politicians, mayors, cops, border patrol, anyone who comes in contact with rooms piled to the cieling with money are corrupted. I defy you to come to a conclusion other than outright war in south america which may end it. Emphasize may.

The idea of legalizing drugs is an attempt to take the money, e.g. power, away from the drug cartels south of the border. If you have a better plan. I'm listening.

Just a bit of the problem.

Seized drug cartel cash.

More drug cartel cash.

Rooms full of drug cartel cash.

Still more.

 

[BladeOfAnduril]

Great. So we legalize it and let them kill themselves. Great idea. We should also legalize murder because people will do it whether it is legal or not. Heck we can legalize everything because it is going to happen whether it is legal or not. We can reduce the crime rate by 100%.

We have MADD and numerous groups that will be glad to tell you how many people die of driving drunk etc. You want to add drugs to it as well. Think about it. You can drink responsibly and not even get drunk. What do you use drugs for? To get the equivalent of drunk fast.

Yes. If they choose to do something that will cause themselves harm and possibly death that is their choice. So long as their behavior doesn't hurt me or anyone but themselves, it makes no difference to me. Legalizing murder is an absurd suggestion. The key difference is that murder harms an innocent person. Drug use harms the user alone. It is not within my purview to force others to live in ways I believe are right or acceptable, nor is it acceptable to me to instigate the use of government force for the same ends. I do not wish to be limited or commanded in the ways in which someone else or some group of other persons believes I should live. As such I cannot attempt to dictate how others choose to live. If they wish to take drugs, drink in excess, or partake of any other self-damaging behavior that is their prerogative. So long as it does not harm the persons or property of others, it is fine by me.

 

[Foxer55]

LizzirMaine,

I think drug dealers, and the institutions that enable them, are leeches on the backside of society, but the only way to get rid of them for real is to educate people to the point where they have sense enough not to use their products. Kill the demand, and the market will die with it. It's fashionable to laugh at people who say "just say no," but do you have a better answer to those who try to push this filth on people?

I'm not sure you know how this works. Educating people to not enage in such behavior requires teaching people they are distinct individuals who do not have to play nice with anyone. I know the way I got involved in drugs was that my peers were all involved - but I didn't know it. These were all well educated, upstanding professionals who would scatter when I walked into a bull session they were having. I am very, very familair with alcohol and drugs even in special work places as described in the book The Falcon and the Snowman. As I became more familiar with the drug culture of the seventies and became a neophyte to drugs, these peers no longer disappeared on my approach, they became my friends. There never was any pressure of any kind or selling of the lifestyle or drugs or anything. It was subtle. I didn't have a clue of what they were into at the time. I was aspiring to be like my pals but the lesson in the end came to be...be who you are in life and screw anybody who doesn't like it. People don't want to hear that and I think a lot of the get-along-go-along educating is going to have less than desired results someday.

 

[LizzieMaine]

All I know is the way I was taught: don't debase your body with alcohol or drugs, because it's the only one you're going to get. You wouldn't pump turpentine thru a fine engine and expect it to run properly, same thing with the human body. It doesn't have to be any more complicated than that.

Of course, I had a a family and a peer group that grew up believing the same things, so we were able to support each other. The people who sniffed glue and smoked pot and drank Boone's Farm and Thunderbird up behind the schoolyard were the "rebels," but we saw them as outcasts and failures, not as people who we would have any interest in emulating. And time has proven us right -- a good many of those "rebels" are in jail or dead.

 

[CaramelSmoothie]

All I know is the way I was taught: don't debase your body with alcohol or drugs, because it's the only one you're going to get. You wouldn't pump turpentine thru a fine engine and expect it to run properly, same thing with the human body. It doesn't have to be any more complicated than that.

Of course, I had a a family and a peer group that grew up believing the same things, so we were able to support each other. The people who sniffed glue and smoked pot and drank Boone's Farm and Thunderbird up behind the schoolyard were the "rebels," but we saw them as outcasts and failures, not as people who we would have any interest in emulating. And time has proven us right -- a good many of those "rebels" are in jail or dead.

During the 80s, when the basketball player Len Bias died of a drug overdose his mother made the rounds at schools all across the US preaching the evils of drugs. That had an effect on me. Also, seeing all the violence around me where the drugs turned our neighborhoods into war zones was more than enough proof I needed to stay away from it. My father would always preach to us that the reason for the sudden influx of drugs was to punish the population for being too uppity and putting the community in our place to suppress any growth and make us stagnant. It worked.

 

[Foxer55]

LizzieMaine,

Of course, I had a a family and a peer group that grew up believing the same things, so we were able to support each other. The people who sniffed glue and smoked pot and drank Boone's Farm and Thunderbird up behind the schoolyard were the "rebels," but we saw them as outcasts and failures, not as people who we would have any interest in emulating. And time has proven us right -- a good many of those "rebels" are in jail or dead.

You must have missed a lot of the seventies. I lived in Washington and remember government officials lamenting how dope was being smoked in almost every building in the city, Pentagon, Capitol, museums, you name it. It was everywhere. To this day I wonder how far it went.

 

[LizzieMaine]

During the 80s, when the basketball player Len Bias died of a drug overdose his mother made the rounds at schools all across the US preaching the evils of drugs. That had an effect on me. Also, seeing all the violence around me where the drugs turned our neighborhoods into war zones was more than enough proof I needed to stay away from it. My father would always preach to us that the reason for the sudden influx of drugs was to punish the population for being too uppity and putting the community in our place to suppress any growth and make us stagnant. It worked.

Exactly. Any community is only as strong as its weakest link. Every child should be brought up not to want to *be* that weak link. If parents aren't teaching their kids that, they're as good as turning them over to the streets.

 

[CaramelSmoothie]

LizzieMaine,



You must have missed a lot of the seventies. I lived in Washington and remember government officials lamenting how dope was being smoked in almost every building in the city, Pentagon, Capitol, museums, you name it. It was everywhere. To this day I wonder how far it went.

This is what I was talking about earlier. These government officials are not the ones being put away for using drugs, they retreat back to their big houses in the suburbs and smoke and snort to their heart's content. It is the poorer residents of inner cities who have no power and didn't even bring the drugs in this country that get prosecuted and sentenced for long prison terms. Where is the justice in that?