Ronald Reagan, the Greatest President Of My Lifetime

[Diogenes]

My arguments have always been down-to-earth simple and transparently stated. Same with TallDave's and Tom Ligon's. MSimon's special because he can drop a whole library of facts and astute perspectives at a time, but otherwise his arguments are dead simple too.


E.G. I asked you why people are, according to you, incapable of comprehending and thus be readied for the potential dangers of drug use. What are the fundamental and most-significant (can't think of the right English word) differences here with e.g. Sex Ed?

From my perspective, it is a strange world we live in. I deal routinely with people who simply cannot comprehend the world around them, nor any attempts to explain it to them.

You are suggesting that a person can be "educated" to survive being strapped in a chair and electrocuted. (An Analogy for drug usage.) I am saying that many if not most people can't survive it. Hell, many people nowadays can't even survive Alcohol, and often take a lot of other people with them on the way out.

This is your justification for refusing to replace prohibition with individual legal responsibility when one alters himself with drug use as one does when using alcohol.

I am saying that it is a theory which has DIRE consequences when put into practice. I am also saying those CONSEQUENCES are far worse than any benefit which may occur. 75,000 dead from alcohol per year, many of them innocents. It would get much worse with Cocaine and opium. Why anybody thinks it's a good idea to open another pandora's box, I simply don't understand.

[Diogenes]

So Americans are Chinamen now?

Physiologically? Yup, pretty much.

Do all the differences between the USA and China count as ceteris paribus now?

Oh yes, our Constitution and American character will protect us from the physiological consequences of drugs.

Americans and Chinese are both humans, and are subject to the same chemical interference as other human.

[Betruger]

I answered the rest of your post. That one bit of your post was irrelevant.

Again you selectively answer and sidestep the real arguments. When will you actually address the arguments I and others propose?

From my perspective I am trying to get people to address the salient point by presenting them with a real world example of their theory put into practice.

China was forced to legalize Opium. It f*cked them up! The addicts did not decrease, they INCREASED!


Why would it be different anywhere else?

Because it's somewhere else. Because the medium of the experiment - people, culture, history, political circumstances, etc - are different. Why would you argue that the USA should revise its Constitution to omit the Second Amendment, and all the practical consequences that incurs, because France didn't include one in its own constitution and therefore reaped its own practical consequences which you seek to emulate (by removing the 2A)? The French aren't Americans, and France isn't America. If you think culture has nothing to do with drugs.......... I dunno what to tell you. Most recent evidence to contrary is (IIRC) choff's anecdote. Idem with your assertion in an earlier topic that nothing good came of drugs..... I don't even know where to begin there either. Have you really not measured its catalytic effect for artistic creation, historically? End of tangent.

Even with a same country's population the best experiment you can do is limited by the fundamental reality of physics: we have only one timeline to experiment with at a time, so that testing an iteration of experiments in sequence does not prove each experiment separately but as successors of each other. The only genuine such experiment would be to rewind time and run the experiment again.

If you aim to expose one variable, but each iteration varies it amidst an also-changing medium... It's not a valid comparison anymore. Apples and Oranges, that's what the USA and China are.

"East, West, never the twain shall meet"


How does a nanny state not *** people up? How does it not favor a less-sovereign population? A culture of indifference to giving up liberty for security? See, you're not arguing for America. You're arguing for some new different country that continually finds exceptional excuses to waive its fundamental principles. In effect, and you've explicitly said so yourself, you're accepting that those fundamental principles aren't worthwhile. That they're not practical. That because enough people are having arbitrarily enough difficulty with them, that the principle is made void; a bandwagon argument. Democratic drift. Contrary to the principle of a Constitutional Republic, and to those Founders' principles.

Most people simply don't want the original America, or the weird spartan self-sufficient lifestyle of libertarianism. But that's what the authentic USA is about. Not government for its own sake, not people encouraged to let government be their arbitrary.. My evidence for this is in the Founders' writings. There's a number of them in these scattered threads (which BTW I point to as evidence that the forum is too lax with topic drift and duplicate topics) so I'm not going to repeat them again.

[Tom Ligon]

Here's my question ... was China actually threatened by having the majority of its population corrupted by opium?

I'm not saying the drug is not insidious and evil, and that it does not wreck lives. Heroin dens did exist in China, and were imported here. Lives were wasted away in them. Frankly, I'm not entirely sold on making all such drugs legal, and if any were to be kept illegal, heroin would be on the short list.

But I would contend that only a small portion of the population in China used opium, just as only a minority used them here. Bad business model: layabout customers soon run out of gold. I expect the Emperor was greatly displeased by what he saw ... all those subjects not working diligently for Him. So the result was what totalitarian regimes do ... they passed a law to ban it.

In this country, opium was vilified as well, and part of the reason was to give an excuse to denigrate the Chinese.

Here's the difference between China and the US: we do not bow to an Emperor who believes He is a God. Some of us would like to have The Government be our God and force us to do what is right. But historically we have demanded the right to make our own stupid mistakes and pay the consequences if we are wrong.

The upside of this is we have been willing to take smart risks (starting new industries), instead of stupid ones (such as heroin and dumb mortgage practices), and in the long run we have prospered.

[Diogenes]

Here's my question ... was China actually threatened by having the majority of its population corrupted by opium?

I wasn't there, and can only rely on what I have read concerning China and Opium. The thought simply occurs to me, that if it works on the pleasure center of the brain, and turns one group of users into addicts, what is there to prevent it from turning most others into addicts? From what i've read, the danger was great.

I'm not saying the drug is not insidious and evil, and that it does not wreck lives. Heroin dens did exist in China, and were imported here. Lives were wasted away in them. Frankly, I'm not entirely sold on making all such drugs legal, and if any were to be kept illegal, heroin would be on the short list.

You are getting off the path of philosophical purity, you are in danger of losing your "freedom" theory.

But I would contend that only a small portion of the population in China used opium, just as only a minority used them here. Bad business model: layabout customers soon run out of gold. I expect the Emperor was greatly displeased by what he saw ... all those subjects not working diligently for Him. So the result was what totalitarian regimes do ... they passed a law to ban it.

It is possible that such a thing is true, but i'm thinking that there are far more reports as to the deleterious effects of the drug. From that link I gave, it says the Chinese implored the British to go along with a reduction of Opium imports to China, and the British acquiesced. I like to think the British became aware of the damage the drug was doing, and decided they no longer wanted to participate in promoting mass addiction. (Besides, the Chinese had combated the British imports by growing the drug themselves, thereby blowing a big hole in the British profits. )

In this country, opium was vilified as well, and part of the reason was to give an excuse to denigrate the Chinese.

Here's the difference between China and the US: we do not bow to an Emperor who believes He is a God. Some of us would like to have The Government be our God and force us to do what is right. But historically we have demanded the right to make our own stupid mistakes and pay the consequences if we are wrong.

The upside of this is we have been willing to take smart risks (starting new industries), instead of stupid ones (such as heroin and dumb mortgage practices), and in the long run we have prospered.

I think American Physiology is the same as the Chinese, and I think that it is a rare type of person that can ignore the lure of unlimited pleasure. I think it is a trap for anyone that is exposed to it. The plants secrete the drug to kill and disable predators. I can see how it's good for the plant genome (poppies are more plentiful than ever.) but how is it good for the predator? The simple answer is "it's not."

[Diogenes]

I answered the rest of your post. That one bit of your post was irrelevant.

Again you selectively answer and sidestep the real arguments. When will you actually address the arguments I and others propose?

From my perspective I am trying to get people to address the salient point by presenting them with a real world example of their theory put into practice.

China was forced to legalize Opium. It f*cked them up! The addicts did not decrease, they INCREASED!


Why would it be different anywhere else?

Because it's somewhere else. Because the medium of the experiment - people, culture, history, political circumstances, etc - are different. Why would you argue that the USA should revise its Constitution to omit the Second Amendment, and all the practical consequences that incurs, because France didn't include one in its own constitution and therefore reaped its own practical consequences which you seek to emulate (by removing the 2A)? The French aren't Americans, and France isn't America. If you think culture has nothing to do with drugs.......... I dunno what to tell you. Most recent evidence to contrary is (IIRC) choff's anecdote. Idem with your assertion in an earlier topic that nothing good came of drugs..... I don't even know where to begin there either. Have you really not measured its catalytic effect for artistic creation, historically? End of tangent.

Even with a same country's population the best experiment you can do is limited by the fundamental reality of physics: we have only one timeline to experiment with at a time, so that testing an iteration of experiments in sequence does not prove each experiment separately but as successors of each other. The only genuine such experiment would be to rewind time and run the experiment again.

If you aim to expose one variable, but each iteration varies it amidst an also-changing medium... It's not a valid comparison anymore. Apples and Oranges, that's what the USA and China are.

"East, West, never the twain shall meet"


How does a nanny state not *** people up? How does it not favor a less-sovereign population? A culture of indifference to giving up liberty for security? See, you're not arguing for America. You're arguing for some new different country that continually finds exceptional excuses to waive its fundamental principles. In effect, and you've explicitly said so yourself, you're accepting that those fundamental principles aren't worthwhile. That they're not practical. That because enough people are having arbitrarily enough difficulty with them, that the principle is made void; a bandwagon argument. Democratic drift. Contrary to the principle of a Constitutional Republic, and to those Founders' principles.

Most people simply don't want the original America, or the weird spartan self-sufficient lifestyle of libertarianism. But that's what the authentic USA is about. Not government for its own sake, not people encouraged to let government be their arbitrary.. My evidence for this is in the Founders' writings. There's a number of them in these scattered threads (which BTW I point to as evidence that the forum is too lax with topic drift and duplicate topics) so I'm not going to repeat them again.

I simply cannot understand your assertion that "we are different" and therefore "it won't do bad to us like it did to the Chinese."

To me, this is like saying "We're immuned to bubonic plague, because we're AMERICANS! " I don't see how culture trumps physiology, but I like your spirit!

[icarus]

So you want to ban every dangerous chemical substance underneath the bathroom sink and in the garden shed ... 'because you never know what people might want to do with them to injure themselves'?

If you abandon individual responsibility and freedom, anything goes ... particularly communist dictatorships. A little bit pregnant with socialism is not an option in the long term, it creeps, take a look around.

[Tom Ligon]

The slippery slope here is to protect us from all our capability for stupidity. Like automating cars because so many of us are killed driving them. Never getting our pilots' licenses because some idiot might burn the paint off the White House hitting it with a Cessna. Restricting us to owning 700 square ft condos for a family of 3, because larger homes squander resources. Limiting us to one kid because the population is too large.

Come to think of it, I may be describing China.

I once wrote a story that opens up with a physicist coming down the stairs too fast, triggering the air bags on the fall protection system, and summoning the rescue squad. After that is cleared up she eats her breakfast with a spoon because forks have been outlawed ... too dangerous putting sharp implements in our mouths.

She finally concludes we've become so occupied protecting our lives that we have made our lives meaningless:

"We paralyzed the space program with the attitude that we must never again have another accident because every human life is precious.

"Folks, the more we believe that, the less true it becomes."

[WizWom]

You are suggesting that a person can be "educated" to survive being strapped in a chair and electrocuted. (An Analogy for drug usage.)

Mr., you really, really, have no clue about drug use.

As I've said before, the typical user of drugs is productive. The typical user - even of the REALLY hard stuff, like Heroin, does not destroy their life. The typical drug user supports their habit from their earnings in their gainful employment.

The inner city "junkie" stereotype is a small and pathetic subset.

[Betruger]

I simply cannot understand your assertion that "we are different" and therefore "it won't do bad to us like it did to the Chinese."

To me, this is like saying "We're immuned to bubonic plague, because we're AMERICANS! " I don't see how culture trumps physiology, but I like your spirit!

This is not bubonic plague. The bubonic plague is not episodic or regulated by the user's whims. America isn't some random country but a country founded on minimal government and maximum individual liberty and resourcefulness. The USA isn't China. Legal drugs wouldn't be designed and regulated and used the Chinese way.

[choff]

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.

http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainme ... story.html

I could post a thousand local pictures on the subject, but I don't think we want to go there. Suffice to say if my arguements are kneejerk reactionary its because its impossible for people on either side of the war not to end up that way. Make no mistake, it is a drug war, with casulties on both sides. The pro legalization movement probably hasn't grasped how deep seated resistance goes.

[Diogenes]

So you want to ban every dangerous chemical substance underneath the bathroom sink and in the garden shed ... 'because you never know what people might want to do with them to injure themselves'?

If you abandon individual responsibility and freedom, anything goes ... particularly communist dictatorships. A little bit pregnant with socialism is not an option in the long term, it creeps, take a look around.

Don't exaggerate my position. I want to keep such drugs as have shown themselves to be highly addictive and dangerous to users and other members of society, illegal, just as they now are.

Radical huh?

[Diogenes]

The slippery slope here is to protect us from all our capability for stupidity. Like automating cars because so many of us are killed driving them. Never getting our pilots' licenses because some idiot might burn the paint off the White House hitting it with a Cessna. Restricting us to owning 700 square ft condos for a family of 3, because larger homes squander resources. Limiting us to one kid because the population is too large.

Come to think of it, I may be describing China.

I once wrote a story that opens up with a physicist coming down the stairs too fast, triggering the air bags on the fall protection system, and summoning the rescue squad. After that is cleared up she eats her breakfast with a spoon because forks have been outlawed ... too dangerous putting sharp implements in our mouths.

She finally concludes we've become so occupied protecting our lives that we have made our lives meaningless:

"We paralyzed the space program with the attitude that we must never again have another accident because every human life is precious.

"Folks, the more we believe that, the less true it becomes."

Let me try this argument again. I think it failed to make an impression before, because people didn't understand it.


In a monarchy, the King has a right to prevent his "subjects" from damaging themselves and therefore becoming unusable for his purposes like defending the country. He will ban drugs because drugs are detrimental to his purpose.

In a Republic, the needs are the same, but the rules are different. A Republic has just as much need as a Monarchy to insure that it has a stable corps of citizens to call on should the need arise to defend the nation. In fact, this concept applies to any form of government.

There is a level of self destructive behavior that any society can tolerate. Should the self destructive behavior reach some tipping point, the existence of the Government is forfeit.

Therefore, any Government which intends to exist, must take steps to insure that that tipping point is not reached, or it will be replaced by an authoritarian government which will.


Drugs (such as cocaine and opium) are capable of starting just such a wildfire of social destruction if they are allowed to get into the young tender. China is an example of this.


Summation: Any so called "right" to use drugs, will eradicate itself of necessity when it does sufficient damage.This is probably not a danger for drugs like Marijuana, mushrooms, etc., but it is a very real danger for Crack, Meth and opium. However, the libertarian "purists" are sailing on the "Absolute Drug Freedom!" boat, and cannot brook any rational deviation from their path of philosophical purity, despite what reality will eventually enforce.

Pragmatism is so passe.

[Diogenes]

You are suggesting that a person can be "educated" to survive being strapped in a chair and electrocuted. (An Analogy for drug usage.)

Mr., you really, really, have no clue about drug use.

As I've said before, the typical user of drugs is productive. The typical user - even of the REALLY hard stuff, like Heroin, does not destroy their life. The typical drug user supports their habit from their earnings in their gainful employment.

The inner city "junkie" stereotype is a small and pathetic subset.

If that is so, how do you explain this?

Then, in 1906, the incredible happened. After over a hundred years of steady demoralization, with half her population opium addicts, or worse still, making enormous profits out of the trade, China determined to give up opium.

[Diogenes]

I simply cannot understand your assertion that "we are different" and therefore "it won't do bad to us like it did to the Chinese."

To me, this is like saying "We're immuned to bubonic plague, because we're AMERICANS! " I don't see how culture trumps physiology, but I like your spirit!

This is not bubonic plague. The bubonic plague is not episodic or regulated by the user's whims. America isn't some random country but a country founded on minimal government and maximum individual liberty and resourcefulness. The USA isn't China. Legal drugs wouldn't be designed and regulated and used the Chinese way.

Do you not pay attention to MSimon's posts on this issue? Usage of the above products were creating massive addiction nationwide in the early part of the 20th century. That is the reason such products were BANNED. Apparently the American Character wasn't enough to protect the populace.