New type of trailhead theft

[mattp]

Hey Fairweather: I see you are back on line now. TO you or anyone else who supports expanding the drug war on its present terms, I say:

 

Take a look at the little history lesson I posted above and tell me how the law enforcement model in place in this country during the 1960's, 70's and 80's was "treatment only" and enforcement was not attempted. I think the truth is that we've been attempting to control American citizens' private behavior through heavy handed government intervention for 35 years.

 

And then I'd like to know by what standard anybody thinks the war on drugs is working. It looks to me as if even those who support an expanded war on drugs, with their arguments in this thread about how meth heads are a serious problem, and their reading the alarming things we see in the newspapers every day about the drug epidemic threatening our kids or the rise of opium warlords in countries like Afghanistan, must conclude the war is not working out so well.

 

And then there is the cost. Pot Prisoners Cost Americans $1 Billion a Year

and this:

"The most recent figures available from the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) indicate that, in 1999, federal expenditures on control of illegal drugs surpassed $17 billion; combined expenditures by federal, state, and local governments exceeded $30 billion. What is more, the nation's so-called 'drug war' is a protracted one. The country has spent roughly this amount annually throughout the 1990s."

 

Source: National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, "Informing America's Policy on Illegal Drugs: What We Don't Know Keeps Hurting Us" (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2001), p. 1.

 

[archenemy]

Everyone knows that when the gov't really puts its focus on something, taxes get raised and nothing gets fixed.

 

Anyway, I called my mechanic and asked about the tack weld. He said most all of the cc's are taken with a hacksaw (like someone posted here) and that it really doesn't do any good.

 

I think I'll just get an alarm for my Toyota. I love that truck and don't want it circumsized. Such a bummer

[mattp]

Everyone knows that when the gov't really puts its focus on something, taxes get raised and nothing gets fixed.

 

Psst Arch: the government organized our winning of WW II, our effort to wipe out diseases like Polio, and the building of the best highway system in the world. I don't think it is right to suggest that government can't do anything right and we shouldn't have to pay taxes to support such incompetence.

 

At the same time, though, lots of folks who hate "big government" sure want them hiding outside our windows, watching to see that we don't use drugs. You are least, may not be one of those.

[Fairweather]

Did I say I supported expansion current drug enforcement laws? I did not. In fact, I think certain aspects of the WOD are an outrage, and I stated as much. What I did say, is that drug users ought to face the consequences of their actions and that drug use should not ever be considered a mitigating factor as Feck suggested. The bold print is for the benefit of the bipolar neurons that seem unable to properly transmit what you are reading from your eyes to your brain. Calm down. No one is gonna take your pot away.

[mattp]

Fairweather, you argued derisively that "my" side had failed, and you asserted facts that were completely wrong yet you said I am prone to pulling facts out of my a@@. You complain about my reading comprehension and insist that you never advocated for expanded drug enforcement efforts and you may be righit about that but you refuse to answer any of my questions about whether you think the drug war is either working or worth the cost.

 

And as to pulling facts out one's a**: I don't smoke pot.

 

Now: if you want to stop the name calling, I'd be interested in hearing what aspects of the drug war you think are bad.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

 

tweakers are lame

meth is aid

[archenemy]

Everyone knows that when the gov't really puts its focus on something, taxes get raised and nothing gets fixed.

 

Psst Arch: the government organized our winning of WW II, our effort to wipe out diseases like Polio, and the building of the best highway system in the world. I don't think it is right to suggest that government can't do anything right and we shouldn't have to pay taxes to support such incompetence.

 

Hitler's overstretched fighting force was losing the war anyway. We sped that up, but we are pretty arrogant for taking all the credit for "winning WW2".

Our hwy was made to transport war equipment. That is sad. The autobahn was made for driving and I'd say is way better and more fun than any hwy I been on here. Plus, other countries don't need hwys like we do b/c they were smart enough to plan for public transit.

And lastly, I'd bet the individual scientists and doctors probably feel like they had more to do with curing polio than the gov't; but I don't know anything about the history of this so I can't say. But I do know that the gov't will take 100% credit for something they only did half-assed.

[JayB]

Fairweather, you argued derisively that "my" side had failed, and you asserted facts that were completely wrong yet you said I am prone to pulling facts out of my a@@. You complain about my reading comprehension and insist that you never advocated for expanded drug enforcement efforts and you may be righit about that but you refuse to answer any of my questions about whether you think the drug war is either working or worth the cost.

 

And as to pulling facts out one's a**: I don't smoke pot.

 

Now: if you want to stop the name calling, I'd be interested in hearing what aspects of the drug war you think are bad.

 

I may be reading this wrong, but from my angle it sounded like FW was talking about a more general approach to law-enforcement, and law and order. Dinkins vs Giuliani, etc.

 

I'm all for legalizing every drug under the sun, but I'm not for ceding control of public spaces to lawlessness and decay.

 

 

 

 

 

[mattp]

c'mon, Arch. I agree that almost everything European is better -- especially French -- but their highways are NOT better than ours, dammit. We're the best.

 

And the war? Maybe you are right that the Russians were going to crush or the French resistance was just about to break the occupying German forces, but certainly we did SOMETHING right -- didn't we?

 

And polio? Yes I think a guy named Salk invented the vaccine but public health efforts are what have made us so damn healthy.

 

These were government-run operations. We could think of all kinds of things government does well if we spent some time thinking about it.

 

Long live the government!

[mattp]

I may be reading this wrong, but from my angle it sounded like FW was talking about a more general approach to law-enforcement, and law and order. Dinkins vs Giuliani, etc.

 

I'm all for legalizing every drug under the sun, but I'm not for ceding control of public spaces to lawlessness and decay.

 

Go back to page one. FW was clearly arguing that legalization was the wrong approach.

 

I don't think ANYBODY was arguing that we should cede control of public spaces to lawlessness and decay. Not even Feck. He said that if a druggie was caught committing a crime, they should be punished for the crime and treated for the drugs.

 

I agree with what I think may be part of your thinking that there could be LESS lawlessness and decay if we legalized drug possession and took other appropriate action.

[Fairweather]

Fairweather, you argued derisively that "my" side had failed, and you asserted facts that were completely wrong yet you said I am prone to pulling facts out of my a@@. You complain about my reading comprehension and insist that you never advocated for expanded drug enforcement efforts and you may be righit about that but you refuse to answer any of my questions about whether you think the drug war is either working or worth the cost.

 

And as to pulling facts out one's a**: I don't smoke pot.

 

Now: if you want to stop the name calling, I'd be interested in hearing what aspects of the drug war you think are bad.

 

You pulled up an obscure website that attaches a new definition and period to the modern "War on Drugs". By your logic, the War on Drugs began with passage of The Pure Food and Drugs Act in 1906. Strange approach to an argument.

 

As far as the latest incarnation of the WOD, I've said twice now that police agencies have too much power to seize private property. I think that marijuana possession in small amounts should be decriminalized. Meth is a special case. Its production represents a public health hazard and its use is accompanied by unacceptable and irreversible deterioration of the user.

 

Tell you what--I'll agree that drug use shouldn't be an aggravating factor in a crime if you'll agree the same should be true regarding "hate crimes". Do you think drug use should ever be a mitigating factor in any crime?

[mattp]

Tell you what--I'll agree that drug use shouldn't be an aggravating factor in a crime if you'll agree the same should be true regarding "hate crimes". Do you think drug use should ever be a mitigating factor in any crime?

 

I don't understand your proposal that either of us "agree" on something we don't agree upon. I also disagree with both of your proposed statements here.

 

In my opinion, drug use may well be an aggravating factor that should be considered during sentencing (that is the stage in the prosecution at which mitigation and aggravating factors are normally applied). If someone commits a murder, for example, we might conclude that their being on drugs at the time means they are more or less likely to repeat the offense or somehow more or less responsible for their actions.

 

In my opinion, hate crimes, on the other hand, should not be crimes at all. Assault, kidnapping, murder, and vandalism are already crimes and I don't see the need for an extra charge to be added if the victim was a minority or homosexual. However, the fact that the victim was a minority or homosexual should be considered an aggravating factor in many cases because we as a society have in fact concluded that these groups of people are actively targeted simply because of such status and thus they require extra protection. And, even if you think minorities or gays do not deserve such extra protection you might still decide that the fact that someone targets these people indicates they are more likely to re-offend.

 

Meth? Nobody is arguing that it is a good thing or that it should be encouraged. The question is whether making simple use and possession a crime causes more problems on top of the devastating effects the drug has on its users.

 

Oh, and by the way: Wikipedia agrees that the term "war on drugs" was coined by President Nixon. It also says that the first recorded instance of the United States enacting a ban on the domestic distribution of drugs was the Harrison Narcotic Act of 1914.

 

 

[mattp]

Since the United States stepped up efforts to crack down on drugs—with Nixon's war on drugs, declared in 1971, and the creation of the Drug Enforcement Administration two years later—jail cells have been the landing pad for addicts. Between 2000 and 2006, the number of drug offenders in federal prison jumped 26 percent, to 93,751. An additional 250,000 are incarcerated in state facilities and thousands more sit in local jail cells. This year the government has budgeted close to $13 billion for drug control, treatment and prevention. The DEA—whose mission is to stop drug trafficking—is certainly not going soft. But when it comes to the individual user, the addict who just can't quit, law-enforcement officials acknowledge that the old lock-'em-up approach is not only burdensome and expensive, it doesn't solve the problem. Addiction, says John P. Walters, director of the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy, "is not fundamentally about a moral failing, it's about something that really changes the way the brain functions."

[mattp]

So: other than spewing incorrect assertions and and calling names, or saying "drugs are bad," does anybody have any arguments in SUPPORT of continuing the drug war as we have been conducting it?

 

A conservative should evaluate the practicality of a legal constriction, as for instance in those states whose statute books continue to outlaw sodomy, which interdiction is unenforceable, making the law nothing more than print-on-paper. I came to the conclusion that the so-called war against drugs was not working...

 

He continues to ramble on but says, among other things, that we'd see a decrease in crime and greater respect for the law, that more people are killed as a result of the drug war than the drugs, that ending the drug war and setting up national drugstores would free up 400,000 policemen to pursue other crime, and that treatment costs 1/7 as much as incarceration yet we blindly continue to build more prisons.

 

National Review

[STP]

I've read numerous stories where the SWAT team storms a drug house only to find that they've raided grandma...oops, wrong address...sorry grandma for busting your door off its frame and scaring the crap out of you. That said, I also see a need for SWAT in certain situations but, damn it, get your intelligence correct if you're gonna take these extraordinary steps in the fight against lawlessness...

 

There definitely seems to be a common thread running through many contemporary events (leading up to the Iraq War, warrantless surveilance, weakening of habeas corpus, etc.) and it's this: expediency over due process. (Maybe the large numbers of lawyers are on their way out, ie instead of fighting for your rights they'll work for gov't to curtail them.)

 

Anyway, even with a shift in the WAR on Drugs it seems, short of adopting JayB's approach, free distribution that there'll still be the problem of theft. I suggest in this case setting up something called a honeypot.

 

A honeypot is an intentional trap used to capture criminals. It won't take care of the problem by itself but it has to serve a deterrent effect if criminals realize that they could be walking into a trap where they will be tracked down back to their fence.

[mattp]

Buckley, in the article I link above, says that crime will go down if we legalized drugs because, among other things, the cost of pharmaceutical cocaine is 2 percent that of the street drug.

 

another writer on that National Review pages writes:

 

I am often baffled by the resistance of conservatives to drug-policy reform, but encouraged by the willingness of many to reassess their views once they have heard the evidence. Conservatives who oppose the expansion of federal power cannot look approvingly on the growth of the federal drug-enforcement bureaucracy and federal efforts to coerce states into adopting federally formulated drug policies. Those who focus on the victimization of Americans by predatory criminals can hardly support our massive diversion of law-enforcement resources to apprehending and imprisoning nonviolent vice merchants and consumers. Those concerned with overregulation can hardly countenance our current handling of methadone, our refusal to allow over-the-counter sale of sterile syringes, our prohibition of medical marijuana. And conservatives who turn to the Bible for guidance on current affairs can find little justification there for our war on drugs and the people who use and sell them.

[counterfeitfake]

God, can't you guys get your own thread?