Pretty soon there won't be any crime in Colorado at all.

[Diogenes]

After only Six months, Marijuana has calmed the Oceans and created world peace, but only in Colorado. It is truly a wonder drug to have eliminated crime and traffic fatalities in such a short period of time.



And who would have thought that making the drug more easily available would reduce teen usage? What a concept! We know this happened because high school kids filled out a survey! Now i'm pretty sure this was mostly just the nerds and preppies, but just because the stoners probably didn't bother, it's still totes accurate.



Obviously teen usage must be down because before it used to be easier for them to get weed than a beer, but now that it's legal, it will obviously be harder for them to get it than it was before.



I look forward to the future when all our problems get fixed because people can smoke as much weed as they like whenever they want. Why it's like a "Brave New World" or something.

[Betruger]

Man, MSimon has serious strawman competition now!

[MSimon]

Man, MSimon has serious strawman competition now! :lol:

Well only from imaginary straw men. I prefer real straw. It adds verisimilitude.

I note that our friend "D" is uncomfortable that the results I (the fool) have predicted have come to pass.

‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’ — Lord Melbourne —

What irks him I suppose is that I have only predicted better and so he wishes to hold me to the standard of perfect.

Which might make D's position something like - "If your policy does not bring perfection I would prefer a worse policy."

OK. But that proposition is not selling well. Because most people can tell the difference between better and worse. And given the option they prefer better to worse.

In fact D's position is similar to the position Republicans held towards Alcohol Prohibition in 1932. And we know how that turned out.

[Betruger]

The bottom line is still culture. And what policy other than mind control will fix culture? The best we could hope for is very indirect; e.g. more $$ into education fundamentals. IE cultivating knowledge + critical thought: think for yourself, inform your decisions empirically, look before crossing, keep drug use under healthy thresholds, etc.
The buffers/obstacles in domain of education (teacher politics) are also dependent on culture, although delayed by at least one generation - as the saying goes, that change only comes once taken from the old guard's cold dead hands.

Maybe the adversity of legalized soft drugs is a fire that needs to stay lit under people's asses to keep them from wandering off into the hard drug of state nannyism.

[MSimon]

The bottom line is still culture. And what policy other than mind control will fix culture? The best we could hope for is very indirect; e.g. more $$ into education fundamentals. IE cultivating knowledge + critical thought: think for yourself, inform your decisions empirically, look before crossing, keep drug use under healthy thresholds, etc.
The buffers/obstacles in domain of education (teacher politics) are also dependent on culture, although delayed by at least one generation - as the saying goes, that change only comes once taken from the old guard's cold dead hands.

Maybe the adversity of legalized soft drugs is a fire that needs to stay lit under people's asses to keep them from wandering off into the hard drug of state nannyism.

The war is never over. But we have had 40 years of prohibition. As the kids brought up in this police state environment move through the culture we should get - at some point - 40 years of reduced nannyism. I think that is about the best you can expect.

[williatw]

Man, MSimon has serious strawman competition now!

Well only from imaginary straw men. I prefer real straw. It adds verisimilitude.

I note that our friend "D" is uncomfortable that the results I (the fool) have predicted have come to pass.

‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’ — Lord Melbourne —

I am little puzzled by his choice of Huxley quote...seemed to me it would more logically apply to the current legal prescription drug pharmaceutical industry's Prozac, Valium, anti-anxiety meds etc., than to the recent trend toward legalizing pot, which (pot) would have been presumably known to Huxley at the time; and was obviously no more new potentially radical or ominous to him than alcohol was. Diagnosing public school kids with ADD and medicating them to a Zombie like stupor all with legally doctor prescribed, societally sanctioned meds would be more to Huxley’s point than legalizing pot is.

[ladajo]

That makes no sense in context.

In any event, the trouble with drug users is that they no longer think for themselves. The drugs think for them.
This eliminates any possibility of critical thinking since the machine itself is corrupted in its ability to process information.

[mvanwink5]

Ladajo, that is nearly a rant. I would call it complete BS, but it is clear in itself. I am staunchly against drug use from a personal use standpoint (recreational use), but it is because it reduced my ability to think, it did not eliminate it. Others seem to do fine with less mental ability, some have trouble with more.

I just don't believe in treating people like farm animals by trying to run their lives by police action.

G-23 Paxilon Hydrochlorate is the true solution.

[Diogenes]

The bottom line is still culture. And what policy other than mind control will fix culture? The best we could hope for is very indirect; e.g. more $$ into education fundamentals. IE cultivating knowledge + critical thought: think for yourself, inform your decisions empirically, look before crossing, keep drug use under healthy thresholds, etc.

Dollars for education? Does every problem get solved by raiding the coffers of the state? I'm thinking it has a poor track record so far.



But you won't be able to solve this problem with dollars. You can only make it worse.


You are right, the problem is culture. And where and why has the culture gone bad? If you track it all the way back, you will find Dollars at the bottom of the problem. Too many of them, and going into the wrong hands, and then used recklessly and irrationally.

Simon will say "the drug war", but I will say "Social programs asserted to improve the lot of the poor." We've spent a trillion dollars on these failed social programs, and they have simply caused more disconnect from reality, not less.


The solution is not dollars, the solution is to stop funneling dollars and let real world consequences cull the herd of the irreparably stupid and pathological. The survivors will embrace a better culture.

[Diogenes]

I am little puzzled by his choice of Huxley quote...seemed to me it would more logically apply to the current legal prescription drug pharmaceutical industry's Prozac, Valium, anti-anxiety meds etc., than to the recent trend toward legalizing pot, which (pot) would have been presumably known to Huxley at the time; and was obviously no more new potentially radical or ominous to him than alcohol was. Diagnosing public school kids with ADD and medicating them to a Zombie like stupor all with legally doctor prescribed, societally sanctioned meds would be more to Huxley’s point than legalizing pot is.

It's not what chemical is involved, it's the notion that using them is a good idea. The meme is more significant than is the flavor.

[hanelyp]

the trouble with drug users is that they no longer think for themselves. The drugs think for them.

I've heard first hand accounts from former drug users that tend to support that position.

One, a former pot head, relates that he didn't know how badly messed up he was or how bad his situation.

Another, into some very hard drugs at the bottom, describes H E double hockey sticks on Earth until, very literally at rock bottom and ready to kill himself, he encountered divine intervention.

[Diogenes]

Man, MSimon has serious strawman competition now!

I note that our friend "D" is uncomfortable that the results I (the fool) have predicted have come to pass.

From my perspective, that is not a fact in evidence. There is so much propaganda flung by Libertarians, it gets difficult to determine what is actually true, and what is not.

‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’ — Lord Melbourne —

What irks him I suppose is that I have only predicted better and so he wishes to hold me to the standard of perfect.

Just like Jeane Dixon. All her predictions were accurate too. If you don't believe it, just ask her.

Which might make D's position something like - "If your policy does not bring perfection I would prefer a worse policy."

OK. But that proposition is not selling well. Because most people can tell the difference between better and worse. And given the option they prefer better to worse.

In fact D's position is similar to the position Republicans held towards Alcohol Prohibition in 1932. And we know how that turned out.

And Here is that strawman with More Verisimilitude!




Oh, and while we're talking about the law of unintended consequences, I wonder if there is anything to this story?



Legal Weed Blamed For Rise Of Young Homeless In Colorado

Officials say more young people are living on the streets in Denver because of the legalization of marijuana, the Denver Post reports.

“Of the new kids we’re seeing, the majority are saying they’re here because of the weed,” Kendall Rames, the deputy director of Urban Peak, which provides help to homeless young people in Denver and Colorado Springs, told the Post. “They’re traveling through. It is very unfortunate.”

http://www.buzzfeed.com/rachelzarrell/l ... n-colorado


Well obviously this story is nonsense. Weed is now harder to get than beer. We know this because when it was illegal, it was easier to get than beer.


Besides that, we know Pot is a miracle drug, and any alleged problems caused by it are just evil propaganda by those wascally whight whinged whepubwican phwohibitionists.

[Betruger]

If you track it all the way back, you will find Dollars at the bottom of the problem.

That's too much like blaming guns for their trigger being pulled.

It is human nature, or culture, or whatever the exact delimitation of that nebula, that's at the root. And it'll only get worse, with technology increasingly potent.

The solution is not dollars, the solution is to stop funneling dollars and let real world consequences cull the herd of the irreparably stupid and pathological. The survivors will embrace a better culture.

Why does that sound like MSimon's argument...

Simon will say "the drug war", but I will say "Social programs asserted to improve the lot of the poor." We've spent a trillion dollars on these failed social programs, and they have simply caused more disconnect from reality, not less.

Condition people to expect nannyism, and they'll sit on ass waiting for handouts. Condition people to drink up MSM koolaid and they'll see everything in koolaid tints. People care too little beyond their extra soft toilet paper and what they can splurge on by credit card, etc, to care about weird geek things like what the Constitution is and what's actually written there, etc. People who go into politics are (or at least end up) too corrupt to care about serving people and nothing more AKA small government.

It's a vicious circle and politics isn't the solution. Where there's no popular will, there's no way but further down the spiral. As comfortable as the ride is, double quilted and hypnotizingly red white and blue. Culture leads, not politics. Buffered as it might be by profit margins (eg "quality of life"), the mutual spite of cliques within a population (eg "bottom feeding pathological addicts", "gays", "lefties", "righties", "blacks", etc - remember I'm part black before pulling racist card) is just a festering obstacle from healthy, balanced, well oiled social mechanics.

Look at the middle east. Refusal to see and treat others (neighbours as one mystic hermit said) like human beings is the momentum in that merry go round. The status quo of loathing between political cliques in the USA is just ... I'm not sure what the word is. Somewhere between discouraging and cynically funny. But apparently that's not enough impetus for a challenger, from either or any party TBH, to this latest ... buffoon in chief.

[Diogenes]

If you track it all the way back, you will find Dollars at the bottom of the problem.

That's too much like blaming guns for their trigger being pulled.

That comment tells me you simply didn't understand mine. I doubt I can make it clearer, but I will point out that the Cities of New York, Boston, Charleston, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Fransisco all formed where they did because of the conducive geography.


These cities were destined to be wealthy. It was an inevitable aspect of them being dominant ports for their regions.


Now what has that got to do with anything? Well I hope you might ponder it for a bit and see if you can figure that out. Here's a hint. "Systemic."

[Betruger]

I don't see how that's not corruption.