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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.'"
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.
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.
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.
Lets see... You legalize marijuana and you can cut down on the number of arrests made, cut down on the number of cops, when you legalize it you would also allow for new industries to thrive, tax dollars to collect, Assuming even only a moderate increase of marijuana consumption as a part of it being legalized, you open up an entire new industry, more jobs, less spending for the government, more freedom and more revenue.
There is no way you can argue for marijuana to not be legalized by a purely financial standpoint. Plus, legalizing it will cut costs, and spend less time looking at the issue rather than the more time you are foolishly suggesting.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
And, I'm sure if you spent enough time creating moral panic over alcohol, tobacco and easy to find over-the-counter drugs, you would find that the results are the same if not worse.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
The only way to have a truly free government is to have a government that protects only against force and fraud.
If so, then people who ask for a "truly free government" should be careful what they wish for.
That way you have freedom to do whatever you want to while being safe because of the government.
Well, no, not quite. A ban on force and fraud is, itself, a restriction on your freedom: you aren't free to do whatever you want if what you want involves force or fraud. It's a perfectly justified restriction, but it's still a restriction.
More importantly, a government that only protects against force and fraud is a government that doesn't regulate industry. We've seen where that leads, from healing tonics to meat packing to investment banking. There's plenty of deception and destruction that doesn't quite fall under the umbrella of "force and fraud".
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Does it cause the user to submit long rambling posts which include no white space?
The CB App. What's your 20?
Paper. Clothes. Construction materials. Food. Medicines. Fuel. There's a lot that you can do with hemp. End your ignorance.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Ok, if the healing tonics say that they work and they don't you can sue them for fraud. If the meat packing industries claim they are safe to eat (or insinuate it due to advertising or product placement) and they aren't you can sue them for fraud. If the investments aren't as secure as their ratings say they are, you can sue them for fraud. Eventually, businesses will regulate themselves [...]
That's easy to say, but in practice it hasn't worked that way. It took the establishment of the FDA and SEC to actually make food and investments safer, and even now it still isn't perfect (witness the recent banking fiasco).
Think about how much more third-party regulators would do for things that might actually cause illness.
It's nice to imagine things like that, but again, if it's as simple as you make it sound, why haven't third party regulators actually sprung up and done anything? No one stopped third party food and drug regulators from coming into existence before the FDA, so where were they? Where were the independent securities rating agencies during the recent banking fiasco? They were in the pockets of the very institutions they were supposed to be rating.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
I would just like to point out that Narconon runs the web site you pulled this info from. According to Wikipedia:
Narconon is an in-patient rehabilitation program for drug abusers in several dozen treatment centers worldwide, chiefly in the United States and western Europe. Each Narconon center is independently owned and operated under a license from ABLE International, a Scientology-related entity.
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.
The reason why third party regulators didn't step in before the FDA is because people back before The Jungle was published were blissfully ignorant. [...]
For the investment firms, most Americans didn't really care how they were investing. Rather than doing research they decided to hire someone to put their money in a bunch of stocks that they didn't pick out. Thats what carelessness gets you.
So, we should just resign ourselves to endless cycles of "get screwed, pay a little more attention, wait for third-party rating firms to spring up, put your trust in a third party rating firm that seems OK (not that you can tell, because you're not an expert on the subject, which is why you need them in the first place), pray they don't become corrupt, eventually become complacent, get screwed again"?
I, for one, would rather have an organization with a government mandate that's transparent and accountable to the people, not a smorgasbord of private organizations where I'll have no idea which ones to trust and where none of them are really accountable to anyone.
Managed funds serve a vital purpose: it's unreasonable to expect everyone to hand-pick every component of their portfolio, and most of them would do a terrible job anyway, because they aren't professional investors. Likewise, it's unreasonable to expect everyone to be an expert on medicine, auto repair, or any other service they're considering. If you lack the knowledge to be a doctor, you probably also lack the knowledge to recognize whether a doctor knows what he's doing, as well as the knowledge to recognize whether the third party telling you that a doctor knows what he's doing actually knows what they're doing.
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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.
Which is exactly why it WON'T happen.
There are big industries making obscene profits due to hemp being outlawed. You think for one second they'll let it be legalized without a huge fight?
Any politician who so much as suggested it would be committing political suicide.
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!!!
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.
... 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.
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?