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US Open Government Initiative Enters Phase Three
circletimessquare writes "The Obama administration opened a discussion forum in January of this year which has become an electronic suggestion box. It is now entering stage three, following brainstorm and discussion phases: the draft phase, in which the top subject matter is codified into suggestions for the government. 'Ultimately, the visitors advanced more than 3,900 ideas, which in turn spawned 11,000 comments that received 210,000 thumb votes. The result? Three of the top 10 most popular ideas called for legalizing marijuana, and two featured conspiracy theories about Mr. Obama's true place of birth.'"
Don't knock democracy. It's the most efficient way out from under a tyrannical government.
Health Freedom is almost as popular as Freedom itself.
Not sure if that's a brilliant idea or not, but surely removing it from schedule 1 status is the right thing to do.
That Nixon-era policy makes classifies it as having "no medicinal value" and is considered "highly addictive". Both are jokes.
The status above cocaine gives law enforcement more incentive to go after potheads than Colombian smugglers. Ridiculous.
Ahh, once again, the power of the internet proves that the majority of people are pretty stupid. Of course, we already knew that because of Myspace. Yay glitter!
...and right back in to another one.
Hmm. Our economy is a disaster. We have two wars going on with no real plan to get out of either. We have a health care problem in this country that nobody has proposed a meaningful solution to. The national debt is increased every year with no end in sight. We have multiple states on the verge of financial ruin. Our national infrastructure is falling apart in many ways and places. Our education system is falling behind further every year.
And several critical countries around the world are increasingly unstable; including one that is developing nuclear weapons and ICBMs that could reach our country.
And for some reason marijuana is an important issue? Are you kidding me? I don't see how it could possibly be more relevant than any of the issues I already listed. If we could solve all of them, then I would be comfortable with our national government looking into this "marijuana issue" (whatever the hell the issue is). But until then I don't see why it merits the time of our government.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
The article gets it right in saying it is a "suggestion box." All we can do is suggest to our rulers what we want them to do: they still get to decide. This is still not democracy. It's barely even a democratic republic.
If you want real democracy, please consider joining the Metagovernment project which is a collective of projects working to make governance a truly open system for everyone.
Also, consider attending Participation Camp. The virtual meeting started this morning, and there will be a brainstorm session tomorrow morning (1500GMT, ie 11:00 AM Eastern).
That's a lie. The only connection marijuana has with psychosis is that it irritates schizophrenic symptons, but so does alcohol. The psychiatric community is deathly afraid of marijuana, and make all sorts of claims as to its dangers, without a hint of hard, real research. If a patient smokes marijuana, they claim every single problem the patient is facing stems from the fact he or she smokes marijuana. From psychosis to depression -- it's all caused by marijuana. They claim marijuana's a depressant. The government claims it's a hallucinogen. Science claims it's medicine -- anti-nausea, pro-appetite, anti-depressant qualities. Don't believe me? Believe some real research. "The endocannabinoid system has been involved in the control of several neurophysiological and behavioural responses. Indeed, recent studies have suggested that the cannabinoid system could represent an important substrate for the control of emotional behaviour, and further research would probably help to identify new promising therapeutic targets. This paper reviews the results obtained in different animal models used to investigate emotional states after the manipulation of the endocannabinoid system. Cannabinoid compounds can induce anxiogenic- and anxiolytic-like responses in rodents depending on the experimental conditions. Studies using knockout mice lacking the CB1 cannabinoid receptors have shown the participation of this receptor in several behavioural responses including anxiety- and depressive-like states. Furthermore, the endocannabinoid system regulates the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal axis, which is involved in providing an appropriate response to stressful situations. Recent studies have also demonstrated that the endocannabinoids can function as retrograde messengers, modulating the release of different neurotransmitter, including opioids, GABA and cholecystokinin that have been classically involved in the control of anxiety-like responses. All this recent information has further clarified the role played by the endogenous cannabinoid system in the control of emotional behaviour and provides data to support a new possible therapeutic use of cannabinoid compounds." Valverde, O. "Participation of the cannabinoid system in the regulation of emotional-like behaviour." 26 Nov. 2005. National Center for Biotechnology Information. 5 Jan. 2009. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed...kpos=4&log$=relatedreviews&logdbfrom=pubmed
Health Freedom is almost as popular as Freedom itself.
I think I see a flaw in your cunning plan, Mr. President: The people who voted for you are also online. And dear god, are they stupid. Don't feel bad though; The ones that voted for the other guy aren't any smarter. -_- But then, what did you really expect? Given a choice between democracy and educated civil discourse, or a large smack of porn and screaming matches, 9 out of 10 internet users prefer the latter. And the 10th one was a cat walking over the keyboard.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
It's not surprising people want to get get high.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Does it cause the user to submit long rambling posts which include no white space?
The CB App. What's your 20?
I'm fairly certain they're still ignoring the issue that the most people who participated in this poll and who are in all likelyhood are not representative of the voting publicwere interested in changing, legalization of marijuana.
Fixed that for you.
An online poll conducted like this is going to be ridiculously skewed. Even if no one cheated, voting hundreds of times for their own "legalize pot" suggestions, the demographic here is going to be much MUCH younger than the average voting population. No age restrictions. And half the people who posted on there probably sent a link to all their friends and posted it on like-minded forums. Those people who are really REALLY opposed to legalization are also less likely to participate in this. Likewise, a lot of those people most in favor of legalization don't vote or can't vote yet.
I think it's more likely this was actually a way of getting younger voters interested in government.
No, the leading cause of that is forgetting to set the formatting mode to "plain old text" rather than "HTML formatted".
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Seriously, from all the important topics available for discussion, they care with marijuana legalization and President's birth place?
Of all the important topics available for discussion, yes, the internet users who happened to hear about this and cared enough did choose those. The only people who still care about Obama's place of birth congregate online. This is not a good example of american mentality, unless you define american mentality as what you run into in the dark corners of the net.
I have a few guesses at some of the other items that were high on the list
-What's at area 51 really?
-Who shot JFK really?
-Did we actually land on the moon?
None of which are concerns for most americans.
I'm sure most people don't know that marijuana is the most common cause of acute psychosis in adolescents.
I'm sure I don't care, and I'm also sure that even though I have no desire to see it legalized, that's a terrible reason to keep it illegal for everyone who is not an adolescent.
People always think that the only reason to legalize cannibus is pot. It's not. It's not even the best reason. It barely makes the top ten, and even then, only because it's the most effective anti-nauseant (anti-emetic for pedants) known to modern science. Hemp fiber could replace wood pulp for use in paper tomorrow for a tenth our current cost. It could replace synthetic fibers in textiles and increase the strength, durability, comfort, threadfastness and affordability of the clothing and cloth products that it goes into. As a byproduct of the hemp fiber industry, hemp oil could replace synthetic lubricants at a fraction of the current cost in industrial applications.
Proper crop rotation with hemp and other cash crops can virtually eliminate the need for artificial fertilizers. The list just keeps going on and on. And all you prohibitionists can think about is getting stoned.
And all you prohibitionists can think about is getting stoned.
No, they're thinking about their jobs. Fewer people to arrest, fewer people to jail, fewer people to track once out on parole. Hell, the prison guard's union in california consistently lobbies for harsher sentencing for drug offenders. That's repugnant.
I think it needs to be made clear that the two main supporters of prohibition are bad cops and drug dealers. That really tells you all you need to know.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
The irony of this is, twofold: One, this is the administration that that had added a huge increase to tobacco taxes, and these people think that the government is actually going to legalize marijuana? Hah hah hah! Good one.
Two, it's just sad that our country's main concern is legalizing some drug that's major benefit is to get people high. While marijuana has a lot of medical uses, and banning it is pointless, it's just pathetic that nobody cares about inflation, an overzealous foreign policy, the sick demented system of child "protection" services ruined to scam parents and ruin the family, the court system being a guilty-until-proven-innocent fiasco where the court orders you to prove your innocence and you have to pay for court costs, drugs tests, psych exams, and etc. to prove your innocence, and freedom from censorship. Nope, us Americans gotta have our weed! Gotta get high so we won't have any other problems to worry about, just pretend they don't exist with a nice pipe in front of us.
I guess there is also a third point of irony: Weed stupifies you, you'd think the government would favor deregulating it so they could tax it to the sky's limit and get more money off of you that way, while having a bunch of people too high to care about the other rights the government keeps taking away.
and give rise to revolution or a strong man who throws out all the rights in the republic to reestablish order, leading to autocracy
if you aren't explicit about the whole democracy thing, you wind up with an aristocratic elite with a firm grip on the government. study the history of all republics, this is a natural evolution. for all of its flaws, democracy has a feature which trumps everything else: it manufactures legitimacy. the will of the people is consulted, and the government is chosen from that will. the people are happy they have their say. there is always malcontent, in any system, but it is held at a minimum in democracy
without the explicit consultation democracy provides, the will of the people and the agenda of the ruling class begin to drift apart over time. simple miscommunication and entropy can be the culprit, no real malice, although there's always enough of that around. mistrust and illegtimacy is the result, and social stability decays, eventually leading to outright revolt or an incredibly weak government that gives way to a strong man and autocracy who reestablishes order, but at the cost of all the precious rights you look to a republic to guarantee
so you're stuck with democracy. it provides stability. a republic without democracy isn't stable, it decays
and i really have to wonder what makes you so distrustful of your fellow man. some sort of blind conceit on your part probably, a personal failure of yours
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I hope a drunk hillbilly runs you off the road, you lose some limbs, a kidney, get a pin in your hip, and end up with 200k of medical bills and the inability to ever get out of your chair and do another bit of work to earn your pay for the rest of your life. Then when you get wheeled out of the hospital, I'd love to see the look on your face and reality sets in... that 200k was just for your stay... You have a lifetime of expensive medical needs... you will never have a job to pay for it all... there will never be enough charity to pay it all... and it wasn't your fault. At that moment, I will spit in your face. You deserve no less, sir.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Democracy is a POS form of government. Has been at least as far back as the Greek empire.
There never was a "Greek empire" with democracy. There were separate city states, with varying forms of government. The "empire" you think of is most probably Athens, where democracy did work, but that's not because of the system. It's because everyone knew everyone else, and honor was considered more important than life. If you got caught with a lie, even your grandson would be called a son of a liar.
I'm fairly certain they're still ignoring the issue that the most people were interested in changing, legalization of marijuana.
California already voted on that. Then Washington told them they don't get to choose anymore.
add a few more, real and imagined
and marijuana is still less harmful than alcohol and nicotine. do you really want to stack the health effects of marijuana you list against the health effects of nicotine or alcohol?
and so its not logically coherent to have nicotine and alcohol legal, and thc illegal. ban all three, or legalize all three. that's the only logically coherent position. a sound pharmacological understanding of the relative effects of the three drugs leads to the inevitable conclusion that making one of the three illegal is arbitrary, and really nothing more than a racist historical artifact from when marijuana was a scary loco weed that mexicans used. the frontier judge's daddy meanwhile was a proper german or irish drunk: familiarity. therefore, legality. no other good reason exists for marijuana's illegality than historical xenophobia. certainly not pharmacological science
i can see meth permanently banned and the DEA waging war on that drug forever. same with cocaine, same with heroin. the addictiveness of these drugs is off the charts, combined with long term incapacitation (unlike nicotine, which is extremely addictive, but doesn't incapacitate). you can't work. you can't have a relationship. you can take meth, cocaine, and heroin and turn someone who would otherwise have a productive life into a zombie that forsakes the difficulties of your average relationship and your average job in order to feed a need
but marijuana? its lightweight
please. this isn't about legalization of all drugs, just marijuana. and please don't suggest legalizing marijuana means we have legalize far, far worse substances. that's like saying allowing gay marriage means we will have to legalize bestiality and necrophilia. fear mongering bullshit
just legalize marijuana already. keep the hardcore substances banned. its simple pharmacological common sense
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What BKX didn't mention is there are forms of hemp that do not have the same stoner effects that could be legalized, but aren't because law enforcement can't easily tell the difference. Or at least that's the reason often cited.
.. .that would never happen. Who would vote in something that gave our government less control.....
Imagine giving tobacco farmers a replacement crop that would provide them a great income and not have the same social stigma tobacco has. It might be possible that with such a change, growing tobacco for cigarettes would be reduced, naturally driving up the cost of cigarettes and further reducing usage WITHOUT government intervention, while increasing tax revenues from the sales of all the hemp products.
Nah
For the record, I am for the legalization of marijuana, the stoner kind. I smoked 30 years ago and so did many people who have since stopped. It's obviously not addictive, except for those that can get addicted to anything.
I also have glaucoma, and spend $100/month (even after insurance) for tiny bottles of eye drops to reduce the pressure. The drops sting when I put them in three times a day. I'd much rather sit out on my back patio a couple times a day and enjoy a little toke.....
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
A well armed society is a polite society.
I'm guessing this is why the English have been, for centuries, known around the world for their ignorant, rude, brashness whilst the Americans are recognized far and wide for their dainty manners and eccentric etiquette?
OMG!!! Ponies!!!
Apply Civil Rights Uniformly. Restore Habeas Corpus and eliminate kangaroo courts. Try prisoners as either POWs or in our own criminal courts. End renditions. And for FSM's sake, end the discrimination against gay couples and soldiers.
1) Habeas Corpus is not a "civil" right.
2) Are you really suggesting we afford civil rights to non-Americans? Equal voting rights? Employment?
3) Does ending affirmative action fall under the rubric of "applying civil rights uniformly", or do you have some exception in mind?
4) Do single people get whatever it is your proposing for gay couples, or again is there an exception?
Equality is hard, isn't it?
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
... and a point is made. The United States is NOT a Democracy. We are a Republic. Under a Democracy, the majority forces their opinions on the minority and it eventually turns into an Oligarchy. This is done over years and years of manipulation to grant power to a more specific group each term. We've been boiling down to an ever strong President with lap dog Congressmen and the Federal Reserve who control our country instead of the people it was intended for. You, me, and your neighbor.
In our Republic, laws are set forth through a strict set of procedures to ensure fairness to all parties involved, not just the most popular. This is why we were formed as a Republic and NOT a Democracy. This is why the Constitution does not state that we are a Christian country (even though some people would like that, namely the church because that gives them power over law.)
Recently though, people tend to forget this. They think that if they get enough people behind an idea, they can make other people follow it their way. Instead of petitioning their Congressmen and voting in their preferred representative (in local and federal elections), they think that they can change America by selecting one person to change it all. It's an affront to the Constitution and what it means to stand by Democracy and what it means.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
A well armed society is a polite society.
Yep. That explains the military.
"A congresswoman said Thursday that her "jaw dropped" when military doctors told her that four in 10 women at a veterans hospital reported being sexually assaulted while in the military."
"Twenty-nine percent say they were raped during their military service."
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/31/military.sexabuse/index.html
So, I'm middle class income. I bought health insurance, disability insurance, life insurance, etc. I also buy supplemental insurance to cover anything that the primary health or disability insurance doesn't cover, so I'm fully, 100% covered for any contingency like the one you described above.
Now, I get in the accident and have 200k for hospital stays (fully covered), lifetime income (fully covered), and lifetime health insurance (fully covered). Now my neighbor who never bothered with any of that ends up in the same condition. Are you arguing that despite the fact that he didn't take any of the precautions I did, he should be entitled to it? And who should pay for that? The government? Why then did I bother then to get covered?
If the government is going to cover us all, we might as well do away with private insurance. Yay! I was tired of paying those disability and supplemental insurance premiums anyway! I'm absolutely sure the government would have a better run system that costs less. There's no way this agency could go bad, it would have just one mission: helping the people. The executive branch would always make sure only the best non-partisan people were appointed to head this agency and the money would never be misused. And efficiency? It's logistics and operations would be the envy of every private business out there. And jobs, lots of jobs, this is money that is much better spent here in government, the number of jobs created is far more than all those private insurance businesses employed anyway. Bring it on!
is not empty pronouncements followed with "or else!"
any moron can say "don't conceive a child you didn't mean to!" "don't get addicted to nicotine!" "don't gamble all your money away!" "don't not have health insurance!"
"you did?"
"oh well!"
any idiot can say these things
but this is not morality
a true moral compass is what your policy is about people who cross these thresholds of bad behavior
beware social policies that are more cruel than the the supposed "crime" someone committed. some people actually believe in a "morality" that makes society implicitly more immoral than those who do immoral acts. some supposed vanguard of "morality" proscribe punishments worse than the "crime" they are punishing. a true moral society always punishes people less than the magnitude of their crime. crime feeds crime. so if you are exceptionally harsh relative to the crime someone committed, you are actually pumping more cruelty into the system. thereby breeding more crime
for example: "you don't have health insurance and you broke your arm? oh well! sucks to be you!"
you don't want society to have a common fund for such people? ok
but what your ignorant ass doesn't realize is that not paying to have the uninsured guy have his armed fix costs society a hell of a lot more. if the guy is the sole breadwinner int he family, now you have a family starves, that can't afford to educate its children resulting in people with no marketable skills, that forces people to turn to crime in desperation to feed themselves, to become beggars. this is a hell of a lot more expensive than just fixing the uninsured guys arm
but i know people like you. out of your ignorant blind selfishness for not agreeing to a common fund to fix the guys arms, you'll look down your nose at him as he is forced to therefore beg in the street, unemployable
there's a lot of blind ignorant types like you in the world. and your selfish ignorance costs society a hell of a lot more than the uninsured, that's for sure
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So he was right, plain old text or pot for short.
Of course you're describing exactly the system that the US has already. How clever of you.
Except you've omitted one tiny fact: the US system costs the US government (and thus US taxpayers) approximately 4 TIMES MORE per citizen than socialized systems, and the quality of care is demonstrably lower.
You don't do socialized medicine because it's kinder to poor people (although it is)
You don't do socialized medicine because it creates a healthier and more productive population (although it does)
You don't do socialized medicine because it removes the profit motive (i.e. denial of care) from the healthcare equation (although it helps to do this)
You do socialized medicine because it's cheaper.
Anyone who tells you that socialized medicine is more expensive, and/or will lead to a poorer standard of care, either works for a US insurance company, or is willfully ignoring all the evidence from every other industrialized 1st world country, or, like you I suspect, is just a fsckwit.
1. Like hell it's not.
Has Congress declared War? If not, then Habeas Corpus is in full effect.
2. Where does the Bill of Rights say "This only applies to citizens"?
Where?
3. Yes. End all "X race is more equal than Y race" rules. End all types of discrimination.
4. The ideal marriage law is none at all. Marriage is an institution of the church you belong to. Government should have no bearing in that, nor any tax breaks. Let those who can consent do as they wish.
... and a point is made. The United States is NOT a Democracy. We are a Republic.
You say that as if they're mutually explusive. They're not. Dictatorship and democracy are mutually explusive. Monarchy and republic are mutually exclusive. But all democracies are either a republic or a monarchy, and the US is not a monarchy. It's a democratic federal republic (although you could argue about how democratic it really is, considering how the system is organised to effectively only allow two parties to be represented in Congress, and a president can be elected on a minority vote).
Under a Democracy, the majority forces their opinions on the minority and it eventually turns into an Oligarchy.
Not necessarily, although it is what's hapened in the US. But that's more because of the lack of real democracy in the system.
In our Republic, laws are set forth through a strict set of procedures to ensure fairness to all parties involved, not just the most popular.
In which republic exactly? Definitely not in the US, where only the two biggest parties have any real chance of representation.
In the country where I currently live, a high profile politician tried an online suggestion box, specifically stating they would base their party program on it.
Predictably, the suggestion box was rapidly filled with exactly the populist crap you expect to be posted on an unmoderated, anonymous political forum: insults, trolling, racist and xenophobic rants, spam, flame wars and advertisements.
Politicians: do not go online just for the sake of looking modern, hip and in touch, you just end up showing just how much out of touch you really are.
I don't want my politicians to be modern, hip and in touch, I prefer them to be more mature than I am.
Wow, you're a douche.
Seriously. Douche.
What happens to the guy who spent 20 years paying his insurance costs while working for a single company, never getting sick a day of those 20 years, then you suddenly get laid off due to downsizing? Losing your insurance benefits, you walk out frustrated with your box of crap off your desk and you get hit by a bus. Damn son, you shoulda had insurance.
Or how about that single mother of 2 who works 2 jobs and has to decide between insurance and having a house, getting utilities, and feeding her kids. Too bad her husband died in Iraq and her family passed away from congenital heart disease and cancer. But you know, it's all her fault.
Your incessant whine about how people are stupid for not having insurance or should "have more money" as if cash can just appear out of nowhere is ridiculous. You say people should go to night school to earn more money. Do you realize that night school costs money and, I dunno, some vital resource called sleep?
Jesus. I thought I was an arrogant, selfish son of a bitch and then I read this shit. But hey, let's let the company set their own costs so that a simple checkup costs me $200. Perfectly legit since only people who deserve to be healthy can pay for it.
Parties!=political parties. In this case it means corporations, special interest groups, charities, private citizens. Ideally that list would extend to ecosystems and foreigners, but what can you do.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
First of all, you need to get your terminology straightened out. The terms democracy and republic describe different aspects of government and are not mutually exclusive. The United States is both.
But using your definitions, you seem to be arguing that we have moved from a government with *more* tolerance for minority opinion to a government with *less* tolerance for minority opinion. This is laughably false.
Maybe you would like to rephrase your argument and give specific examples of what you are talking about. You seem to rambling on with the same "things aren't as good as they used to be" rhetoric that reactionaries have spouted for all of recorded history. How are we less republican or democratic now compared to ten, fifty, or a hundred years ago?
I'm absolutely sure the government would have a better run system that costs less.
Actually, the medical systems in countries with socialized medicine or socialized medical insurance do run better and cost less. Steve Jobs wouldn't be able to buy himself a new liver like he just did, but the aggregate health outcomes would be vastly superior. There's a reason that the U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate in the first world.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
So registering on the site isn't https. I know this isn't credit card information but still, I wonder how many people use the same password for this as they do their email. Too easy to snoop such a high profile web server.
Actually if my history teacher serves me right, democracy didn't really work that well. One of the philosophers, I forget who, came up with a republic because of this. He saw a flaw and came up with a solution.
Fuck all of you. You still believe that schoolboy bullshit about how the country is governed? Dream on, sleepers!
Let me spell it out for you: The United States is a "Goldman Sachsocracy" The man with the gold will sack us all over the world.
Freedom? You have more people incarcerated in your borders than any nation in history. Why? It's good for business.
I wish Americans had half the guts of 15-year-old Iranian girls! There'd have been 5 American Revolutions since 1870. Your textbook lies about the accountability of US government to the people have kept you complacent, and made you both arrogant yet ignorant and oppressed.
They just stole over a hundred billion dollars from your earnings and your next two generations, and GAVE it to a firm that prints your money, runs your fiscal policy and just paid out the BIGGEST bonuses in its 140 year history.
You live in the Matrix - and that's not a metaphor. Like George Carlin said; "They call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.
Wake up.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
Jesus. What do they teach you these days?
Plato.
"The Republic" is the Roman derived title of his main surviving work.
It is a series of hypothetical dialogs, as if conducted by his master, Socrates, with his school and visitors to court, on the ideal rule for the City-State. It does NOT outline or advocate a republican form of governance. It's ideal is a Philosopher King - and models this through contrasting forms and their evolutions.
In modern terms, Plato is a prototype for Fascism - with the good of a state being the highest form of Government - above any kind of personal interest or property - provided the state is "just". The nature of this "justness" also provides much of the food for the book's discussions.
In it, he also issues the allegory of the cave. Interestingly, this is the model for The Matrix - which is where most of you are living your lives!
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
That's an absurd overstatement. Or naive. No public policy of any type can ever truly be a "good idea in virtually every imaginable way."
Actually it's quite possible, you see, because Prohibition is such a bad idea in every imaginable way.
I use friend/foe to signal strong [dis]agreement instead of mod points. What else are f/f good for?
Remember it's the burden of proof of those that want legalization not those that view it as being harmful.
Wrong. The burden of proof falls on the accuser, not the accused. That's quite some backwards logic you have there.
The illegalization of marijuana was never based on proof. It was outlawed to protect business. The main supporters of it's illegalization used the public's fear of minorities and anti-marijuana propaganda to accomplish that.
If you'd like you can read up on Harry J. Anslinger for some examples of what kind of "proof" was originally used by the Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics to describe the problem and afford more power to his position. I've posted some of those examples below.
There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.
The primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.
Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men.
You smoke a joint and you're likely to kill your brother.
Your guns just keep you dangerous to each other - while the Bankers rob your unborn grandchildren, and sell your labor into debt-bondage 'til your graves.
Any Iranian is freer, weaponless and ruled by priests, than the average American with all of his guns.
The events of the past week have demonstrated this clearly. Armed with placards and fearlessness, they walk into sniper fire. Florida in 2000 was a cowards paradise, by any comparative measure.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
Remember it's the burden of proof of those that want legalization not those that view it as being harmful.
In terms of the way the system should be working, the default is anarchy and any deviation from that default must be justified, and it must continue to be justified to stay in law.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Having defended myself with a firearm, I disagree about their social utility. I am in physical danger from other citizens, not the government.
Mere paper debt is an inconvenience, not a disaster.
Iranians aren't fighting to be free (or they'd be killing Mullahs and destroying theocracy),they just want a piece of the economic pie.
"Any Iranian is freer, weaponless and ruled by priests, than the average American with all of his guns."
E-rage much? USians have far more personal freedom from religion than the Iranian, and far more economic mobility. No one ruled by priests is free until they reject the belief and kill the priest.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
In our Republic, laws are set forth through a strict set of procedures to ensure fairness to all parties involved, not just the most popular. This is why we were formed as a Republic and NOT a Democracy.
Your country was formed as a Republic because a bunch of slave owning bastards who had massive political and economic power saw it as a way to have even more power and less responsibility for their slaves. It wasn't formed by God and The People because they thought it was fair, it was formed by incumbent powers who thought it was a good deal for themselves.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
"I can't see how a monarchy can be democratic. The monarch has ultimate power and so the people do not."
Honestly, did you even do basic research on various types of monarchies in the world?
No?
Didn't think so.
There are vast differences between types of monarchies just as there are vast different differences between republics.
For example, here's a list of 3 republics:
-the US
- North Korea
- Iran
They are ALL republics(look it up if you don't believe me) yet they ALL have vastly different types of goverment. If you would compare them, they would be put in three totally different categories yet they are ALL republics.
In the same way there are different types of monarchies with three examples:
- Saudi-Arabia
- The Netherlands
- Sweden
These types of monarchies are again vastly different. 1 is an absolute monarchy, 2 are democracies. 2 out of 3 have the monarch as head of goverment yet all 3 have the monarch as head of state. If you do some further research about the topic you will notice that pretty much all sates are different in the way they function and that the words "republic" and "monarchy" can have vastly different meanings in different parts of the world.
But don't let me stop your bashing, please.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Ideally that list would extend to ecosystems and foreigners, but what can you do.
Huh? Seems to me that allowing outsiders a say in your government is a pretty bad idea, seeing as they don't hold a stake in things.
Of course foreigners have a stake in things. That's why there are so many international negotiations over tons of issues. And in the case of the US, that stake is bigger than with most countries.
Oh wait, I forgot. It's only other countries (like the US) that are supposed to let foreigners tell them what to do... your own country is fine and able to handle itself, thankyouverymuch. Silly me...
Get off your high horse. It's true for any country.
So you are saying that your next door neighbor DOESN'T deserve to be covered because he has a Forrest Gump IQ and can only seem to hold down mundane minimum wage jobs?
Fact of the matter is, not everyone has the same opportunities. It isn't about how much "effort" you put into it. If no one informed you, life isn't fair and we all aren't on equal ground. By default no one person is more deserving than another. Measuring who deserves what, based on what opportunities are afforded to them is naive at best.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
I can't see how a monarchy can be democratic. The monarch has ultimate power and so the people do not.
Your medieval world view is tremendously out of date. There are dozens of democratic constitutional monarchies in the world. Much of Europe, for example.
A monarchy can be superficially democratic in order to avoid the monarchs subjects from getting pissed-off and establishing an alternate government but it's never truly a democracy if, when you've voted for something, the monarch can just say "nah, don't like that" and refuse to instigate it.
King Baudouin of Belgium could refuse to sign a law that parliament passed. In order to pass the law anyway, Belgium became a republic for a day. However, most kings don't have that right.
What? What? Am I the only one who can see this? A monarchy is a form of democracy?
Don't think so one-dimensional. Monarchy-republic is orthogonal to democracy-dictatorship.
Let me spell it out for you: The United States is a "Goldman Sachsocracy"
So is the whole world. The communists made a slightly different game of it, but there will always be an elite class.
Freedom? You have more people incarcerated in your borders than any nation in history. Why? It's good for business.
Not quite. People in this country support tough-on-crime politicians and the war on drugs. Combine that with racism and ghettos and you have a recipe for a large prison population. The private prison industry is a symptom, not a cause - though I concede that they are now powerful enough to help sustain the cycle.
They just stole over a hundred billion dollars from your earnings and your next two generations, and GAVE it to a firm that prints your money, runs your fiscal policy and just paid out the BIGGEST bonuses [guardian.co.uk] in its 140 year history.
You're off by an order of magnitude. Goldman got $10 billion in TARP funds and by almost all accounts can't wait to pay it back as soon as the US government lets them. Goldman is being rewarded by the market for making the right moves a year and a half ago in the mortgage market. They are one of the last men standing and in the absence of much competition have been exceedingly profitable. The bonuses are record-breaking because the profits are record-breaking. This is not an AIG example where bonuses are being paid out by a failed firm.
Wake up.
Not gonna happen. Your best bet is to work within the existing system, which can be quite lucrative.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
"I strongly prefer that we tax vices, not necessities."
Agreed, the US alone spends $100 Billion/yr just to enforce pot prohibition, the DEA recieves $10 billion/yr of that directly, again this is just for pot. Pot is the largest cash crop in the US in dollar terms (yes bigger than corn, cotton, wheat, etc). Take that $100 billion/yr plus the tax bonanza on legal pot and fix the health system or something useful. Once the US legalises pot the rest of the western world will follow.
One american is arrested for pot every 18 seconds. And yes, he is getting sick and tired of it!
Citation
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
there is malcontent in any system, but in a democracy it is kept at a minimum because the people's will is explicitly addressed
in any republic that does not do this, an entrenched aristocratic elite develops and the agenda of that elite and the people begin to drift apart
then you have revolution
or a weakened government, allowing for a strong man to come in and dissolve all of your rights so as to reestablish order, autocratic order
so you really need to be a democracy, for the legitimacy and social stability that creates
and i don't know how or why you or anyone thinks the usa isn't a democracy. i believe barack obama was just elected by the people of the usa
for saying that, i am now awaiting of course the typical incoherent rants about media mind control and corporate money controlling everything
no folks, the usa is not an oligarchy, no, its not a corporatocracy. it has plenty of room for improvement and to get financial influence out of the system of course, but it fares no worse in regards to undue financial influence than any other government in the world today or any that has ever existed, or any you could dream up. money is a horrible corrupting influence on all governments, and it takes real hard effort to curb that, not some magical ideological statement you think has occured to no one else before except you
painting a dystopian picture and trying to equate it with what we currently have is some sort of weird desperate attempt on your part to vindicate your failed perceptions
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Although in general people should be responsible for themselves, there are so many problems with your rant I can't begin to cover them all.
1) Are current model is if you get heart disease without insurance, you have the operation anyway, run up hundreds of thousands in debt, then declare bankruptcy, leaving all the paying health care customers to make up the difference. Good luck with passing a law restricting health care to only those who pay fully in advance!
2) Not all diseases are directly caused by behavior. Some people are genetically predisposed to cancer, diabetes, and even obesity, and will contract diseases no matter how healthy their lifestyle. I'm sorry, but "Born with a congenital medical condition? Well, you should have picked better parents, asshole!" doesn't really cut it.
3) Your philosophy of "do whatever it takes to pay for your own health care" seems to encourage armed robbery, murder, kidnapping, drug dealing... whatever it take to afford it. Faced with committing a crime or dying, most people would choose to do the crime. After all, if they fail, they won't live long in jail anyway.
4) It is human nature to not place a high value on preventative care, and only seek treatment when symptoms start to have a tangible effect on their life. It is in the best interests of all of us to subsidize preventative medicine, e.g. vaccinations. I agree that not all procedures should be subsidized. The Oregon Health Plan sorts all procedures by cost/benefit ratio, then draws a cut line based on available funds. A national health plan would need to do the same; we simply cannot afford to take extraordinary measures to prolong the life of everyone. Note that we already have a system that rations scarce donor organs, e.g. one cannot get a liver transplant if they have a history of alcohol use.
5) Demand curves for medical services are the most inelastic imaginable. The free market simply doesn't work to keep medical costs in check. (When was the last time you heard of someone shopping around for an emergency room?) Individuals paying out of their own pocket must pay whatever the supplier demands. The consumer would be better off with a system in which medical goods and services are purchased in bulk by a large enough player to lean on suppliers and drive costs down, the way Walmart does with everything it sells.
6) There is a fine line between being true to libertarian ideals and being an asshole.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Honest question from a skeptic: if hemp is a miracle plant with all these uses, why isn't it being grown all over the world on an industrial scale? We should be seeing cheap hemp paper imports wiping out Weyerhauser and GP, hemp fabric imports wiping out the US cotton industry, and hemp sourced fuel putting ExxonMibil out of business.
Why have these things not happened yet?
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
"It needs to perform actions that might not directly be popular with the people (elections, I'm looking at you)"
this exhibits lack of faith in the common person. this is your failure, not the common people's. an appeal to some sort of elite group who somehow knows better for what the people need than the people themselves is logically false, and exhibits anti-democratic and authoritarian instincts on your part
please cure your self of this woeful ideological failure
no one, absolutely no one, knows what is better for the people than the people themselves. to think some sort of special class of people knows better, is somehow better indoctrinated into a special clique according to arbitrary reasons, is the root cause of most suffering in this world: "we are better than the common people"
fucking evil bullshit, on your part. examine and reflect upon this failure of yours
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
all of human political history, all of the world, not just the west, is defined by malice, trickery, gross incompetence and manipulation
people who are reflexively cynical at the lowest common denominator level are laughable only because they think these tired common thoughts are original, and worse, they think these "revelations" are deep. they speak of feeble minds who actually swallowed weak lies to begin with (my government is noble! dear leader is impervious!). they speak of the somehow dramatic and amazing grand discovery that the truth is **shock** **gasp** not everything in my government is all honey and roses! then of course, it becomes the alternate retarded theme: it's all doom and gloom!
no. how about the world is populated by assholes, AND virtuous people, and our government actually represents some of the best of humanity, and some of its worse
nah, this is impossible, its too balanced a view, right? it has to be all doom and gloom, right? completely mindless negativity is the ultimate deep revelation! pfffffft
the issue is not that you have some sort of grand revelation to tell us about the west (why the west? in the east everything is gold and diamonds? wtf?), the issue is why are you so low iq that you believe your thesis is some sort of amazing original thought that no one else realizes? that an overarchingly cynical view of the government is somehow some unique concept that no one has thought of before?
get this... deep dark secret... bad things happen in our government and we shouldn't trust them completely! corporations act irresponsibly! and... hold on to your socks... they get away with it sometimes! no fucking way!
money corrupts people! oh my gosh! i've been so enlightened!
zzz
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Thanks for an answer to a question I didn't ask. Why is hemp not being grown in OTHER COUNTRIES on an industrial scale?
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson