Popular Dark Web Market Disappears, Users Migrate In Panic (vice.com)

An anonymous reader cites an article on Motherboard: Like the changing of the seasons, a natural stage in the dark web marketplace life cycle has once again manifested. Nucleus market, which primarily sold illegal drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine, and cannabis, has disappeared: The site is unresponsive, and the market administrators have not made any announcements about planned downtime. This has forced vendors to migrate to other sites and panicked users to figure out where to go next, all amidst a whirlwind of rumours and speculation of where Nucleus -- and its cash -- has gone. 'Nucleus is an awesome market. One of the best. Hope all the admins are ok and nothing serious happened,' someone identifying themselves as a vendor wrote in a comment on the news site Deep Dot Web. At the moment, it's not totally clear why Nucleus' website is unresponsive. It could be an exit scam -- a scam where site administrators stop allowing users to withdraw their funds and then disappear with the stockpile of bitcoins.

Comments

One can only hope

[Anonymous Coward]

That it was shutdown by the feds and every person that sold or bought drugs on the site will be arrested and sentenced to death.

Re:One can only hope

[known_coward_69]

too bad i ran out of mod points this morning +1000000000

Re:One can only hope

[phishybongwaters]

That seems like a perfectly reasonable response... If you are batshit crazy.

Re:One can only hope

[TheCarp]

ONE can hope that.... it wont be THIS ONE.

THIS ONE hopes it was shut down in time to avoid any of that for anyone. The only people who deserve death sentences are the ones who made darknets like this necessary for free people to exchange goods between consenting adults.

Re:One can only hope

[MightyMartian]

Nothing batshit crazy about it. We have to preserve our precious bodily fluids!

Re:One can only hope

[Grishnakh]

You have to understand that roughly half the American population *is* batshit crazy. That's why they vote Republican. There has to be someone seriously wrong with you mentally if you really care about what two people do in their bedroom and want to legislate against it. And a large chunk of the remainder isn't much better, since they vote for obviously corrupt Democrats like Hillary.

Re:One can only hope

[Anonymous Coward]

You give ignorant people a bad name.

Re:One can only hope

[110010001000]

Consenting adults who break into your house at night to get their next fix. Give me a break. Another white "libertarian" who lives in the suburbs. Idiot.

Re: One can only hope

[Anonymous Coward]

So obviously the only good people vote for Bernie Sanders, right?
Wrong. Economic imbeciles who don't understand anything more than "why doesn't the government make more money" vote for Sandurz.

Re:One can only hope

[Anonymous Coward]

"shut down", not "shutdown". One is a phrasal verb, the other is a noun... How can you not see this?

Re:One can only hope

[GLMDesigns]

Yeah. If wanting limited government is crazy then I'm crazy. The federal government be limited as per the constitution. It should be much smaller: not provide for the roads, not provide any social safety net. You want a social safety net get it from local and state government. By the way I'm entirely in favor of a safety net - just not provided by the Federal government. Why? Take a look at the constitution. Read the Federalist Papers. Educate yourselves instead of saying everything would be fine if the rich paid for it.

The (1/10 of one percent) rich have what at most 500 billion dollars in assets? You could kill all the undeserving rich, take all their assets - and how long would that last 2 months? Yah. Feel the Bern.

Re:One can only hope

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to find a new source of drugs quickly so you can overdose and remove yourself from the gene pool.

Re:One can only hope

[Anonymous Coward]

The constitution specifically calls for Congress to be in charge of the roads.

Re:One can only hope

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think the Republican party is interested in limited government, then yes, you are crazy. Or just very easily duped.

The rest of your post is kind of a buzzword salad, so I'm leaning towards the former.

Re: One can only hope

[CohibaVancouver]

Economic imbeciles who don't understand anything more than "why doesn't the government make more money" vote for Sandurz.

Sanders has built his economic model on countries like Sweden and Norway, where the citizens have a high standard of living, education and healthcare are accessible and people are generally very happy.

Only an 'imbecile' would think "Hey, I don't want that."

Re: One can only hope

[Anonymous Coward]

and a completely insane level of taxation. and I have been to all those countries... the standard isn't all that great.. many many place in the U.S. beat it hands down, and many do not and are worse.

Re:One can only hope

[jpapon]

The (1/10 of one percent) rich have what at most 500 billion dollars in assets? You could kill all the undeserving rich, take all their assets - and how long would that last 2 months? Yah. Feel the Bern.

You're way off in your calculation. The top 1% in wealth starts at > $15 million (this was in 2007, it's certainly higher now). So, even assuming a totally flat distribution above 1% (which is *definitely* wrong), we're talking 15,000,000 * 0.001 * adults_in_USA. I don't know what population number they use for these calculations, but plug in any reasonable number for the USA and you're looking at a minimum of several trillion dollars.

You're absolutely bonkers if you think the top 0.1 % of the the wealthiest Americans only have combined assets of $500 billion. You could probably get to $500 billion *easily* with the top 100. That leaves a few hundred thousand left to go.

That being said, I do not endorse killing and taking the money of anybody, be they rich or poor =)

Re: One can only hope

[limaxray]

This is only because of prohibition, prices are artificially inflated because of artificial scarcity and risk. Even without insurance, one can buy a supply of hydromorphone at a pharmacy for far less than one can buy heroin on the street - even though the hydromorphone is higher quality, much more potent, and overall safer than street heroin. Millions of Americans walk around hopped up on legally prescribed opiates and amphetamines and don't suffer from any of these apparent evils that we hear about in the endless government propaganda. Fuck, do you have any idea how many elderly people walk around with a morphine pump keeping them doped to high heaven 24/7? And when was the last time grandpa robbed you to pay for a refill? Oh, and most illegal drug addicts would suffer withdrawal before robbing someone, because they're not shit bags - some shit bags are drug addicts but by no means are all drug addicts shit bags. Drug use and a lack of decency are totally unrelated. And yeah, fuck us white libertarians who hate a system that disproportionately cages minorities, while destroying families and creating poverty. If you seriously think locking someone up for nothing other than using drugs is OK, you're a fucking twat that lacks any human decency or morality.

Re:One can only hope

[Anonymous Coward]

And this doesn't get modded Flamebait?

Re:One can only hope

[Anonymous Coward]

Not crazy in southeast asia - most countries in that region have a mandatory death sentence for drug trafficking due to its history in colonial oppression. The middle east also has death sentences for varied historical reasons from both colonialism and religious fundamentalism.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_for_drug_trafficking

Re:One can only hope

[Anonymous Coward]

The (1/10 of one percent) rich have what at most 500 billion dollars in assets? You could kill all the undeserving rich, take all their assets - and how long would that last 2 months? Yah. Feel the Bern.

You're off by a little more than an order of magnitude on your estimate. I think the number is more like 11 trillion. That should bring in an income stream of more than 500 billion p.a.

So we could spend that every year, and still leave the richest 0.1% enough money for the bare necessities. Of course, that is an extreme, and extremes are usually a pretty awful idea.

http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2015/jul/29/bernie-s/bernie-sanders-madison-claims-top-01-americans-hav/

From the numbers in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_in_the_United_States, it seems that the top 1% owns 34.6% of 86.8 trillion, or around $30 trillion - so a conservative income stream of maybe $6 trillion p.a.

Re: One can only hope

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, that's unfortunate, there's no "-1, Imbecile" option for you. This comment will have to do it.

Re: One can only hope

[Anonymous Coward]

Then tell the heroin junkies to switch to hydromorphone. It's their fault if they choose to buy the more expensive, lower quality, harder to obtain product.

Re: One can only hope

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Riiiiiight....and we've all seen how well the "cut taxes to the bone" model has worked in Kansas and Louisiana. Both states are nearly bankrupt, are deeply in debt, and can't afford to pay for basic services like schools, police, roads, and other "socialist" infrastructure.

No one like paying taxes, but they're a necessary thing in a modern society. It's a fact, and no amount of voodoo tax-cutting theory will change that.

Some people complain that everything was great 100 years ago where there was no taxation. Yeah, there were no taxes 100 years ago, and you know what else we didn't have 100 years ago?

A standing army, the FDA, the EPA, clean, drinkable water coming from every faucet, 24-hour emergency rooms, fully-staffed hospitals waiting to give you life-saving care, fire departments, 12 years of public education, child-abuse investigators, controls on what toxic chemicals can be poured into your drinking water, nationwide 911 service, a national highway system, social services, drug treatment centers, Medicaid and Medicare, Social Security, community colleges, public schools, water and sewer systems, parks and recreation services, food inspection, electrical utilities, gas service, a National School Lunch Program, Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program, foster care services, School Breakfast Programs, State Children's Insurance Programs, Unemployment insurance, Worker's Comp, Senior Community Service Employment Programs, street lights, mass transit, zoning, planning, building permits and inspection, housing and development programs, road maintenance, the State Board of Health, building inspections, building and fire codes, disaster relief, FEMA, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the FBI, flood mitigation, pollution inspections, drug treatment centers, the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), the Library of Congress, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and on and on and on.

Frankly, I like those things. I I like knowing that the medication I take has been tested. I I like knowing the food I eat has been inspected. I I like having 911 to call for help. I I like roads and sewers and electrical service. I I like Social Security.

I'm no fan of taxes, believe me, but that's how things are paid for- the roads we drive on, emergency services, the Post Office, libraries, Medicaid and Medicare, Social Security, etc etc. Taxes have enabled this country to be able to pay for the things that make it a good place to live.

If you don't like taxes, from the list of things above, which one(s) should be cut or eliminated? Seriously, which ones would you do away with?

Re: One can only hope

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I've been to countries where taxation is almost non-existent, and most of them suck. Most of them are NOT places you'd want to live unless you were fairly well off in comparison to the rest of the population, and often not even then.

Re:One can only hope

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

You want a social safety net get it from local and state government.

Yeah, and that would work great in a country with a few million people...but not in one with 300 million. That "local safety net" concept just doesn't scale the way you think it does.

Some places are richer than others and need little or no safety net, other places aren't so lucky and need more help than they can generate. It has always been this way, and always will be this way. It's a simple fact of life.

Re:One can only hope

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Another white "libertarian" who lives in the suburbs. Idiot.

Llibertarians are basically anarchists who want police protection from their slaves. I'm always amazed at their childlike gullibility as to how their libertarian society would function primarily to their benefit. Libertarianism just helps conservatives pass off a patently pro-business political agenda as a noble bid for human freedom.

“Libertarians are not the brightest lights in the candelabra, a fact that is evident from the alternatives they tend to offer to public prevention of private abuses. For example: if you don’t like working a hundred hours a week for twenty-five cents a day, then find another employer!” -- Michael Lind

Re:One can only hope

[TheCarp]

Nope, big city, born and raised.

Nice straw man though, I am glad you made him for me. See the vast majority of drug users have never committed a single B&E. In fact, the best evidence we have is that, even the few that do, mostly wouldn't if not for bone headed drug laws that are entirely ineffective at anything but filling prisons and increasing crime.

Hell, even Heroin users have been found to be able to hold down jobs and not require or seek out illegal income when they are able to get high at reasonable prices with safe product.

All in all, there is little to no evidence supporting any real benefit from drug laws, unless you consider jobs for white suburban guys in the prison system to be a benefit. In fact, going back to the arguments in congress about marijuana in the 1930s, its pretty clear that job creation was one of the primary motivating forces at the time; the biggest and most well known proponent of marijuana laws, for example, was the head of what would later become the DEA. His main motivation was fear for his own job after the end of alcohol prohibition.

Then we have the Nixon years were drug laws were actively pushed as a way to attack grass roots political campaigns and to oppose civil rights.

But seriously, thanks for bringing out this straw man, he is one of my favorite to set alight

Re:One can only hope

[GLMDesigns]

OK. Say the total wealth is 2 trillion dollars and you merely confiscate 99% and leave them alive - then what? You get to run the government for 6 months.

The point of this is - even if you took everything from the greedy, disgusting, contemptible, super rich (channeling the Bern here) you still won't have the worker's paradise that you think you would have.

Re: One can only hope

[TheCarp]

> hydromorphone is higher quality, much more potent, and overall safer than street heroin

Even worst.... "Krokodil", that nasty "street drug" that has been killing and disfiguring people in the most horrible ways.

Turns out that is because of impurities in home manufacture. The actual drug is much much safer than many other opioids , and making it available in a grade fit for human consumption would actually save lives.

That is what really gets me.... how inhumanely callous prohibitionists are. Their policies have been nothing but harmful, yet they just sit back and smug over their victims suffering.

No houses burned before meth was made profitable. Now half the burn units are idiots who tried making meth. How is that not an atrocity? How do you blame that on the idiot addict and not the politicians who should have known better?

Re: One can only hope

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

All that stuff you mention can only be supported by a modern, industrious capitalist society.

Again, people put the cart before the horse, while calling the horse an evil useless asshole plague.

Re:One can only hope

[Anonymous Coward]

But now where is Rush Limbaugh going to get his meds?

Re: One can only hope

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

There are no taxes because there is no economic dynamism to tax. You need to protect property rights from both thieves...and the corrupt who go into power to demand kickbacks.

Once you do that, and a farmer (or industrial equivalent) can feel safe investing in long-term projects without fear of seizure by thieves or corrupt officials, only then do you get a more powerful economy and higher employment with better jobs (compared to dirt floor existence) and only then can you generate enough taxes to do pretty little leftist projects.

The problem is stopping the projects from charging so much they are no different from corrupt officials in wrecking the expected success of an investment. "Pay us 50%, or your factory might get...broken. Shame if that happened." Where 50% is the combined taxation and regulatory burden. "Shame if the burden went to 62%."

Re: One can only hope

[Anonymous Coward]

I've no problem paying taxes. I've a problem with my taxes paying for a large standing army, hospitals and doctors being compelled against their will to kill human beings both at the beginning of life and at the end, pyramid schemes disguised as a retirement plan, social programs designed to destroy families and ensure children will be raised in environments scientifically shone to ensure they will have the least chance of success, medicines which are approved not based on their safety, or effectiveness, but on how much they will make their manufacturers, a system of protection for large financial institutions that ensure that those with the most money will incur the least risk, while those lower down the economic ladder will incur the greatest.
Taxes are a necessary evil. How they are used in the U.S. is not necessary.
P.S. many of those items sited in JustAnotherOldGuy's post are the responsibility of local government and should be paid for with local taxes. So "cut taxes to the bone" and let localities raise taxes if they need to.
P.P.S. Kansas is run by the Republicans and Louisiana by the Democrats, so I'd say corruption is the common denominator not too low taxes.

Re:One can only hope

[GLMDesigns]

That's why people can move. There are small Scandinavian countries that are "roll" models here in the states - so population isn't really the problem. Re the some places richer than others -- that's why people can and do move. How about you let the states decide; then people will live in the states that best suit their personality.

Don't like the hillbillies and rednecks and other ignorant republicans? Don't send them your hard earned money. According to many liberals the blue states are supporting the red states. So stop supporting them. If you're right then the rednecks will be forced to accept the wisdom of the liberal welfare state. And if they still prefer to live in their ignorance and squalor - well that's on them isn't it?

The new American liberal: scared of freedom. We go from home of the free to home of the serfs.

Re:One can only hope

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a false argument. True, if the whole world packed itself into a dark alley, leapt out and mugged Bill Gates for every penny he had, that would have made something like $2/person at one point - a whole day's salary for many people and a pack of Starburst Fruit Chews for Americans.

But Gates is also the person who would be losing money if he saw a $100 bill on the sidewalk and stopped to pick it up.

The One-percenters aren't living off fixed assets, they're constantly having their assets replenished. To the tune of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

And the problem with letting them keep it all is that sooner or later we're going to run out of everyone else's money.

Re: One can only hope

[Anonymous Coward]

The same people who told us tax-and-spend was a Bad Thing brought us tax-cut-and-spend.

Re:One can only hope

[tnk1]

And the problem with letting them keep it all is that sooner or later we're going to run out of everyone else's money.

You can't have a 1% without other people having money.

Most of the wealth of the rich is in things like stock, which has a variable value and isn't actually durable goods. Without the stock price being maintained at a certain level, they deflate like a dry rotted tire.

You can't have the rich in the current economy without people who buy things. There is no economy if there are only robots making things that no one else can pay for. If that is the case, they sit in the warehouse and become a net expense.

Re: One can only hope

[Anonymous Coward]

All that stuff you mention can only be supported by a modern, industrious capitalist society.

Can be and will be are two different things.

In the Capitalist Paradise, you only get these things if someone decides they can make a profit at them. That means that if you're rural, don't expect electricity or communications services. If you live in a poor neighborhood poisoned by toxic mine talings, don't expect affordable health care. If you live anywhere and someone decides they can make money by flooding it with carcinogenic waste products - well, good luck.

And don't expect anyone to hand you money to move if you don't like it.

Re:One can only hope

[tnk1]

Most of the "wealth" of the rich isn't in per year earnings like income or dividends, it is simply in held stock assets.

If you lower the price of Microsoft stock, for instance, Bill Gates deflates by billions of dollars.

Stock isn't income, it is an asset that has variable value.

Does Bill Gates have income? Absolutely. He certainly has diversified and probably has some safer investments in some bonds and such which provide millions for living expenses per year that is more like a salary or annuity, but he doesn't make billions per year like a salary. He could end up with a windfall due to a stock price rise, but he could just as easily lose money as well.

The problem that people run into when they estimate what they can extract from the 1% is that they are also counting assets, and once assets are removed, they aren't regenerated. So if Bill Gates has 90 Billion Dollars as a worth, and you remove 89 Billion of it, he's not going to have 90 billion again next year. He might not even have 2 billion next year. To charge him 89 billion, he had to sell most, if not all of his Microsoft stock, most likely at a price below what it is worth because he's probably going to have to dump a lot of it on the market for a considerable amount of time.

The reason we even consider that stock "wealth" as real wealth is because the rich can use it as for collateral for loans. Otherwise, it's like a lottery win... worth a certain amount unless you try and take it as a lump sum.

I actually estimate you get one trillion dollars out of the 1% of the US population and then it drastically reduces from then on. The 1% will continue to make 1% salaries and dividends if they have CEO jobs and all of that, but that will be a considerably smaller portion of the pie than they had the previous year.

Re: One can only hope

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, which ones would you do away with?

The corporate welfare payments, which account for 2/3 of my tax dollars.

Re:One can only hope

[scubamage]

Former drug user here, have never committed a B&E. Never robbed anyone. Never committed any crimes other than buying illegal plant-derived products. I am however, highly educated, well compensated in a great career, and living happily. Even during my worst drug abusing days (when I was regularly using a laundry list of different drugs) I was able to maintain 2-3 different part time, and then 1 part time and 1 full time job, in addition to being a full-time student. It is absolutely possible to use drugs and be highly functioning. The biggest impact I had was on my grades - cocaine makes you incredibly over-confident, which is a VERY bad thing for testing in school.

Re:One can only hope

[tnk1]

Actually, the countries that Bernie Sanders loves are the size of US states. So why couldn't a US State manage its own program? It might actually work better.

Putting everything through a large Federal government considerably increases the waste due to administrative costs and makes health care into a permanent Federal level hot button issue that we really shouldn't be having at that level. You want to be talking about foreign relations, defense, and global trade at that level, and it would help if you could kick the health care issues down to a level that would be more responsive to begin with. In that way, we have Federal candidates who we can hold to task for a much less generalized set of responsibilities.

Also, creating a good health care program in a state could induce large economic growth in that state, thus providing incentives to less interested states to do the same thing.

Re: One can only hope

[Anonymous Coward]

So, besides the aqueduct and everything else you mention, what has taxation done for us?

Re: One can only hope

[tnk1]

I'm sorry, but there is nothing safe about actual opiates taken for recreational purposes. Yes, pure forms of opiates aren't going to disfigure or kill you from impurities, but the level of physical dependency on opiates is real and quite considerable. This isn't pot we're talking about here. You should only be using opiates for something like actual painkilling, not for getting by in life.

Do I think that prohibition is necessarily the best idea? Not really. On the other hand, I feel about opiates the same way I do about many other things that are legal: Legal or not, you should simply never do it unless medically necessary.

I think there is a considerable state interest in keeping people off of hard drugs like opiates. I agree that the approach of treating them like criminals is not helpful, because ultimately, one reason to not want widespread drug use is the possibility of addiction fueled crime which consigns people to jails. So throwing people in jail to prevent people from going to jail is sort of silly.

I do think that opiates should be legal and available, but taxed heavily and as unfairly as possible. I think the government should keep a pulse on the black market and then keep throwing them off by lowering the prices to run the dealers out of business every time they make something cheaper. And at the same time, that money is to be thrown right back at the problem by funding anti-drug programs and education.

My only real concern with taxation making money off of drugs is that it will get thrown to the general fund, like Social Security, and then we end up as a country where we fund our government via addictions. That would bother me unless the only goal and target for that revenue source was getting people off those addictions and health care related to that.

Re:One can only hope

[Hylandr]

Or ISIS

Re: One can only hope

[TheCarp]

> On the other hand, I feel about opiates the same way I do about many other things that are legal: Legal or not, you should simply never do it unless medically necessary.

Your opinion is noted, I mostly share it. Where I disagree is that this translates into some legitimate power to imprison people because they do something you don't approve of.

Why have a black market? There is no evidence that drug laws decrease use. There was never any real justification for these laws other than looking down on other people and judging them for being different. All the evidence I have seen points to social isolation and stigma being driving forces that lead to drug use, not solve it.

Have you ever looked at a graph of spending on the drug war vs addiction rates? One of them is a horizontal line, and it isn't spending. I see no evidence that maintaining a black market so you can feel good about doing nothing is a good thing.

Re: One can only hope

[cyber-vandal]

Pretty little leftist projects like the internet or universal education for example? I'm sure capitalists don't get any advantage from those Commie wastes of money.

Re:One can only hope

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

That's why people can move. There are small Scandinavian countries that are "roll" models here in the states - so population isn't really the problem.

Maybe you missed the part where I said, "...that would work great in a country with a few million people...but not in one with 300 million. That "local safety net" concept just doesn't scale the way you think it does."

-

Re the some places richer than others -- that's why people can and do move.

Some people cannot afford to move, or can't afford to move to where they'd like to. Will you give me the money so I can move to Beverly Hills or San Francisco and live there? Or is being too poor to move just tough shit for those who can't afford it?

-

How about you let the states decide; then people will live in the states that best suit their personality.

How about "no"? Because some of those states if left to their own devices would happily make slavery legal again. Some would make interracial marriage illegal. Some would make child prostitution perfectly legal. Too bad you can't afford to move out of that state. Or maybe that state has decided you aren't allowed to move out, period. Yay for state's rights!

-

Don't like the hillbillies and rednecks and other ignorant republicans? Don't send them your hard earned money.

Assuming I was a big enough dick to deny assistance to "hillbillies and rednecks and other ignorant republicans", just how would I go about denying them my hard earned money? Does that principle also work for blacks and Hispanics? If I don't like them, can I just say, "Fuck you, you ain't gitt'n none of mah money"? If I don't like people from Louisiana or Texas, for example, how do I "not send them" my money?

-

And if they still prefer to live in their ignorance and squalor - well that's on them isn't it?

No, it's not always on them. Some of them might want to move but can't afford to do so. Then what?

  -

The new American liberal: scared of freedom. We go from home of the free to home of the serfs.

News Flash: I'm liberal. I'm probably way more liberal than you, and I'm not scared of freedom. I'm scared of those who work to take it away or deny it to others.

Re:One can only hope

[tnk1]

And yet, in a Libertarian society, the existence of unions to protect workers from abuses would be completely legal and just as effective, if not more so. There is nothing about that solution that required any government intervention at all. Indeed, the original unions and strikers were opposed by governments and law enforcement which turned out against them at the behest of large business owners.

And once government became the "friend" of organized labor, you started to see the abuses from the other side as well from those parts of the government that were attempting to ensure the union vote on their side.

Even though I don't think that perfect anarchy is ever going to work, there are options with a more limited government. You need government for a lot of things, I just don't think we need it for everything and that is where it is going.

Re:One can only hope

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Putting everything through a large Federal government considerably increases the waste due to administrative costs and makes health care into a permanent Federal level hot button issue that we really shouldn't be having at that level.

You're right, we should disband the Veterans Administration immediately because clearly it doesn't work and it does not provide health care to millions of people every year. We must move to shut down all of the 1,700 VA sites of care across the country, as well as the VA medical centers, community outpatient clinics and Vet Centers. I mean, it's just a permanent Federal level health care system that OBVIOUSLY doesn't work, right?

Re:One can only hope

[NormalVisual]

To charge him 89 billion, he had to sell most, if not all of his Microsoft stock, most likely at a price below what it is worth because he's probably going to have to dump a lot of it on the market for a considerable amount of time.

And this in turn will reduce the wealth of everyone else that owns Microsoft stock, which likely means retirement funds and the like start losing money. I sympathize with the "1%" movement and "stiggin' it to the man!" sounds good on the surface, but there are a lot of follow-on effects that need to be considered before taking a drastic action like that.

Re:One can only hope

[HornWumpus]

Waste of time to argue with someone who starts by mis-defining his opposition. The next time you feel the urge, just punch yourself in the nuts.

In other words: 'Never answer a false premise.' It's old advice, but still good.

Re:One can only hope

[HornWumpus]

Opiate junkies get to the point where they can't go 8 hours without getting sick. At that point they can't hold a full time job unless they can do it very very high.

On the other hand tweakers will work their asses off to continue to get bags. Until they melt down.

Re: One can only hope

[godel_56]

Riiiiiight....and we've all seen how well the "cut taxes to the bone" model has worked in Kansas and Louisiana. Both states are nearly bankrupt, are deeply in debt, and can't afford to pay for basic services like schools, police, roads, and other "socialist" infrastructure.

No one like paying taxes, but they're a necessary thing in a modern society. It's a fact, and no amount of voodoo tax-cutting theory will change that.

Some people complain that everything was great 100 years ago where there was no taxation. Yeah, there were no taxes 100 years ago, and you know what else we didn't have 100 years ago?

A standing army, the FDA, the EPA, clean, drinkable water coming from every faucet, 24-hour emergency rooms, fully-staffed hospitals waiting to give you life-saving care, fire departments, 12 years of public education, child-abuse investigators, controls on what toxic chemicals can be poured into your drinking water, nationwide 911 service, a national highway system, social services, drug treatment centers, Medicaid and Medicare, Social Security, community colleges, public schools, water and sewer systems, parks and recreation services, food inspection, electrical utilities, gas service, a National School Lunch Program, Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program, foster care services, School Breakfast Programs, State Children's Insurance Programs, Unemployment insurance, Worker's Comp, Senior Community Service Employment Programs, street lights, mass transit, zoning, planning, building permits and inspection, housing and development programs, road maintenance, the State Board of Health, building inspections, building and fire codes, disaster relief, FEMA, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the FBI, flood mitigation, pollution inspections, drug treatment centers, the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), the Library of Congress, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and on and on and on.

What have the Romans ever done for us?

Re: One can only hope

[twotacocombo]

and you know what else we didn't have 100 years ago?

...the aqueducts?

Re:One can only hope

[GLMDesigns]

That's why people can move. There are small Scandinavian countries that are "roll" models here in the states - so population isn't really the problem.

Maybe you missed the part where I said, "...that would work great in a country with a few million people...but not in one with 300 million. That "local safety net" concept just doesn't scale the way you think it does."

Correct. Then we agree a Federal solution isn't the correct way to go. NY can provide health care to it's citizens, in the same fashion that the UK does. Other states may chose not to. We agree to not having a Federally provided health care solution because, for among other reasons, it doesn't scale well.

Re the some places richer than others -- that's why people can and do move.

Some people cannot afford to move, or can't afford to move to where they'd like to. Will you give me the money so I can move to Beverly Hills or San Francisco and live there? Or is being too poor to move just tough shit for those who can't afford it?

Poor people move all the time. My parents moved here with nothing. I moved with nothing from one state to another. Nobody needs to pay you nothing. Sell what the sh!t you have and move.

How about you let the states decide; then people will live in the states that best suit their personality.

How about "no"? Because some of those states if left to their own devices would happily make slavery legal again. Some would make interracial marriage illegal. Some would make child prostitution perfectly legal. Too bad you can't afford to move out of that state. Or maybe that state has decided you aren't allowed to move out, period. Yay for state's rights!

The fact that states rights have been abused doesn't invalidate the concept anymore than people who abuse the right to free speech. The United States separates powers between the states and the federal government. Otherwise everything would be micromanaged from by one omnipotent bureaucracy. It's better to have the federal government focus upon international affairs and treaties and have the states do other things. Hey, isn't that what the Constitution says.

Don't like the hillbillies and rednecks and other ignorant republicans? Don't send them your hard earned money.

Assuming I was a big enough dick to deny assistance to "hillbillies and rednecks and other ignorant republicans", just how would I go about denying them my hard earned money? Does that principle also work for blacks and Hispanics? If I don't like them, can I just say, "Fuck you, you ain't gitt'n none of mah money"? If I don't like people from Louisiana or Texas, for example, how do I "not send them" my money?

-

Again, You don't seem to understand. It's not denying to particular groups. It's the liberal BS that states that Blue States are supporting Red States. It's easy to not subsidize people from other states. If your money isn't sent to the federal government and then redistributed then you would not be sending your money there. Then everyone would be happy. If people from those other states want change they will either vote the change in (in other words vote for liberal progressives) or move. Either case is a win for progressives.

And poor people can move. I did. My wife did. I moved to three states with nothing. And I mean nothing besides my backpack and a dufflebag. My parents did. I live in NYC and people move here with nothing every fu(king day of the week.

News Flash: I'm liberal. I'm probably way more liberal than you, and I'm not scared of freedom. I'm scared of those who work to take it away or deny it to others.

If liberal == progressive then you certainly are. I'm a classical liberal and want to live as a free man rather than under the watchful, loving gaze of Comrade Government.

Re:One can only hope

[tnk1]

Are you actually defending Federal heath care with the VA system? You know... the one where people with terminal illness never get appointments and then *die* of treatable illnesses so that Federal officials can get bonuses?

Actually, the VA system is an excellent argument for why the Federal government sucks at health care.

Of course, we can't shut down health care in the VA system, promises have been made, but please don't pretend that having to keep that promise means that is an argument that the government is doing a *good* job and it should expand its efforts to continue to provide underfunded health care to people who the government clearly doesn't actually care enough about to properly fund it.

And don't go blaming this or that party. When you have a health care system run by the government, you have now made health care a political football. If that's going to happen, let's bring the level of government down to the level where the legislators actually see people as humans and not as blocs of votes and special interests.

Re: One can only hope

[Harlequin80]

Having travelled extensively around the world my experience is that countries that are 1st world but more socialist than the US have better infrastructure. Particularly when it comes to the maintenance of their roads.

I drove from LA to Miami back in 2008 and the difference in the standard of repair of major arterial roads between states was huge. You would go from ultra-smooth machined concrete to sections where the slabs had rotated under the traffic giving you mini jumps every couple of meters.

Re:One can only hope

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

It's the liberal BS that states that Blue States are supporting Red States.

Except those pesky numbers and facts disagree. Red states use more than they give back, and this is not hard to substantiate. Blue states produce more than they take, also not hard to substantiate.

Blue states generally higher per capita of people with college degrees, lower teen pregnancy rates, lower incarceration rates, higher per capita of home ownership, lower infant mortality, better "neighborhood advantage scores", higher personal incomes, and so on. Blue states invest much more in education, investments in education result in better educated kids, and better educated kids go further in school. Blue states, not surprisingly, also have higher graduation rates.

States that consistently vote Republican and against their own best interest suck more money from the federal government than Democratic states. Again, these figures are not hard to find.

American poverty is concentrated in the south, from Arizona all the way to the East Coast; additionally, Michigan, West Virginia and Kentucky are high-poverty states. With the exceptions of Michigan and New Mexico, these states are exclusively conservative-leaning. Conversely, on average, more progressive/Blue states, particularly in the northeast, tend to be the most well off states in our nation.

Income mobility and the ability to “work your way up” (or down) is closely tied to the state in which you are living. All but one (Utah) of the states which have higher than average upward income mobility rates lean progressive/Blue, while all of the states with low upward income mobility rates lean conservative/Red.

The right wing’s southern stronghold is composed of states that have, far and away, the worst life expectancies in the United States. This isn’t a purely a partisan issue, and involves a mixture of culture and bad policy.

The south is home to extreme poverty, a lack of accessible health care (ex. Texas leads the nation with 25% uninsurance), lax worker/environmental protections, and a culture that consumes massive amounts of fatty fried foods. These factors create a perfect storm of bad health that severely erodes the life expectancy of huge portions of the southern population. The health care systems of the Deep South and southwest are the worst in the nation, while those in the northeast and north-central regions are the best. This defies a purely partisan divide (ex. a lot of rural states suffer from low hospital accessibility), but the fact remains that the most conservative states in the nation tend to have the worst health care systems.

I could go on, but facts are facts, and the fact is that Red states do poorly in almost every quality-of-life metric when compared with Blue states.

This isn't my opinion- do some searches for "red state versus blue state" and you'll find plenty of studies that make this abundantly clear. When you look at all of these statistics in totality, you're left with the inescapable conclusion that Red states are correlated with a less developed society.

If you can find me stats which state the opposite, I'd be glad to look at them. But you won't, because they don't exist.

Re: One can only hope

[erapert]

If you don't like taxes, from the list of things above, which one(s) should be cut or eliminated? Seriously, which ones would you do away with?

1. the EPA
2. 12 years of public education -- have the parents pay for their own kids. Don't use property taxes from folks who don't even have kids.
3. child-abuse investigators -- assault is already illegal. The normal police can do this, no need for a separate bureau
4. social services
5. drug treatment centers
6. Medicaid and Medicare -- pay for your own healthcare. You're not going to live forever no matter what you do. Dragging everyone else down with you won't save you.
7. Social Security -- come on, this is too easy.
8. community colleges -- I worked my way through school. TANSTAAFL
9. public schools -- this is a duplicate of #2
10. parks and recreation services
11. electrical utilities -- pay for it yourself, stop making others subsidize you
12. gas service -- pay for it yourself
13. a National School Lunch Program
14. Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program -- IT'S CALLED MARRIAGE If you shit on the bed of your life it's still your bed to sleep in
15. School Breakfast Programs -- duplicate of #13?
16. State Children's Insurance Programs
17. Unemployment insurance -- durrrr, what's a bank account? You mean people actually save money for a rainy day?????
18. Worker's comp -- the corp should do this, not the government. If you want some kind of compensation in case you get injured then don't work for a company that doesn't offer it or form a union.
19. Senior Community Service Employment Programs -- you are supposed to have figured out how to take care of yourself and keep a job by the time you left your parent's house
20. housing and development programs -- pay for your own house. Even savages living in the stone age can do this; why can't you?
21. the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms -- you mean the Fun Police? Gee, I thought I was an adult living in a free country but now I see how mistaken I was. If you're one of the pro-legal-weed people then you must agree on this one.
22. drug treatment centers -- duplicate of #5. It's your life. Live with the consequences of your actions and deal with them as I must with mine.
23. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
24. and on and on

Re: One can only hope

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they don't get an advantage, not with these communist rules like "network" "neutrality" around.

The capitalists who own the roads will only achieve true profit once they can bill you for walking on the road AND bill the place you're walking to for the service of "allowing" you to walk to them. What's that? The store didn't pay their share of the walking fee? Well Tiny here will be along shortly to make sure you can only crawl.

Re:One can only hope

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Are you actually defending Federal heath care with the VA system? You know... the one where people with terminal illness never get appointments and then *die* of treatable illnesses so that Federal officials can get bonuses?

Yes, because it is not perfect it should be scrapped. Great thinking.

The fact is the VA serves millions of people per year and the vast, vast majority of them them get quality care. FFS, people die in private hospitals from all sorts of shit (nosocomial infections, anyone?), but do we scream to shut those hospitals down?

Re:One can only hope

[Grishnakh]

No, because my point was completely proven by so many responders in this thread.

Re: One can only hope

[roman_mir]

Here is a good sub-list of things that shouldn't exist:

Publicly funded:

A standing army, the FDA, the EPA, clean, drinkable water coming from every faucet, 24-hour emergency rooms, fully-staffed hospitals waiting to give you life-saving care, fire departments, 12 years of public education, child-abuse investigators, controls on what toxic chemicals can be poured into your drinking water, nationwide 911 service, a national highway system, social services, drug treatment centers, Medicaid and Medicare, Social Security, community colleges, public schools, water and sewer systems, parks and recreation services, food inspection, electrical utilities, gas service, a National School Lunch Program, Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program, foster care services, School Breakfast Programs, State Children's Insurance Programs, Unemployment insurance, Worker's Comp, Senior Community Service Employment Programs, street lights, mass transit, zoning, planning, building permits and inspection, housing and development programs, road maintenance, the State Board of Health, building inspections, building and fire codes, disaster relief, FEMA, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the FBI, flood mitigation, pollution inspections, drug treatment centers, the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), the Library of Congress, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and on and on and on.

Those things must not exist as government 'services', they are affront to individual rights, liberties and dignity.

Re: One can only hope

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

If you believe what you just wrote, why not move to Somalia or Nigeria? It would be your paradise on Earth. But you don't really believe a word of what you wrote, do you?

The problem most libertarians have is they never think that they'll be the ones getting fucked. It's never YOUR wife or YOUR child who'll die from some untested medication or contaminated food or unsafe electrical appliance. It'll always be the other guy whose wife or kid dies, and then the Magical Invisible Hand Of The Market will punish that company and force them out of business, so you'll be safe, right?

But it won't be your wife or your kid, no way. And if it IS your kid or your wife, well shucks, you can just take them to court for damages, right? Because that will bring your child or wife back to life, right?

Fuck you, I like the EPA and the FDA. I like public education and parks and recreation services. I like the idea of a School Breakfast Program for kids. I like all the things that make this a great country to live in. It's why people want to come here, fool. How many people in the US want to emigrate to Nigeria or Laos or Namibia or Somalia? NONE, that's how many.

My wife comes from a very poor country in SE Asia, and she's blown away by things like 911, public schools, food testing, public libraries, and all that stuff that you think is wasteful. She appreciates them and is more than happy to pay taxes. Unlike you, she realizes that these things are what make this country so great and why so many people want to come here, and not, for example, to emigrate to Somalia.

Her family had no money for schooling, so tough shit for her, is that it? Let the poor among us fail so that we may climb over their bodies on the way to our penthouses, right?

You selfish, ignorant fucks grow up swimming in these kinds of services and yet still find a way to complain about them. You'd likely be dead of a childhood disease if not for the publicly-funded health initiatives this country has. After all, what did this country ever do for you?

Re: One can only hope

[Anonymous Coward]

Fortunately a super-majority disagrees with you, and that's how our country is run. Perhaps you could find a country run in a way closer to your liking?

Re: One can only hope

[Anonymous Coward]

... that on the idiot addict and not the politicians ...

I do blame the addicts, their addiction is not an excuse to commit further crimes, or to undertake projects, like drug manufacture, they're not trained or experienced in. I also blame politicians, it's their job to help everyone, even the addicts. But if a country preaches 'tough on crime', the politicians have an excuse for throwing anyone under a bus. It's another version of 'Fuck you, I got mine'.

Re: One can only hope

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Those things must not exist as government 'services', they are affront to individual rights, liberties and dignity.

[Citation needed]

Seriously though, the vast majority of the people in this country disagree with you on nearly every single one of those things. And that's why we have them- because people thought they were worth having. You're in the minority here, and not by just a little bit.

However, if you do not like having those things, you are free to move to a country where they don't exist and where you won't have to pay for them. But you won't do that, will you? Why not? Do you not have the courage of your convictions, or do you just want to have your cake and eat it too?

Re: One can only hope

[roman_mir]

So you do know where I am, yes? By the way, I moved my business a long time ago, myself, I move around, I don't consider myself a slave to any government on this planet.

Re:One can only hope

[GLMDesigns]

Those pesky numbers you refer to include social security payments (not a handout - it was a forced input into well-meaning but still an irrationally run retirement benefit). It includes money for military bases and military personnel. It just so happens that military states are slightly more red. Not to mention the Blue States that have kicked military bases out (hence receiving less "govt" largess. It includes NASA which happens to now be red states. (They weren't in the 1960s).

It also includes farm subsidies (which should be eliminated ASAP). Interestingly these farm subsidies were put in place by Dems over Rep objections (see FDR).

So that leaves individual handouts (welfare). Interesting isn't it that the Red states that are so dependent on handouts (West Virginia, Kentucky and Mississippi were deep blue until a few years ago.

The best solution is to give these voters what they want. Curtail government involvement and largess. If you're confident that's what people really want and need then these redstate fools will vote out all these tea party extremists and the Democratic / Progressive Party will have the presidency and huge majorities in Congress.

This would be a win/win for you. All small-government, uneducated morons or fools (like me) would be relegated to the fringes of society and could safely be ignore.

Re:One can only hope

[GLMDesigns]

I don't think the Republican Party leadership is. Not at all. That's why so many people are pissed with them. I think that Ted Cruz, Justin Amash, Rand Paul and others are for shrinking the government - which could be why the GOPe tried to primary Amash in 2014.

Re:One can only hope

[GLMDesigns]

No. The combined worth of all the billionaires in the US is under 2.5 trillion (of course a good portion of their wealth is in stock and the value of said assets would plummet on the announcing of such a taking). Say the combined worth is 4 trillion. (It takes 10,000 one-hundred-millionaires to equal a trillion dollars. Don't know how you got to 11 trillion dollars unless you're including two income families making over 250,000.

So no. You would get a fraction of what you think you would get. Keep dreaming about the good life by taking other peoples money; keep dreaming that confiscatory taxing of the mega-rich will bring much of anything.

Re:One can only hope

[GLMDesigns]

And, did you ever look at what the distribution of this one percent is? Or are you conflating the 0.0001 with the 1%?

There are, what, 500 billionaires in the US? Say 640 for easy calculations.
There are 320,000,000 people in the US. Those billionaires are 1/500,000 of the population which equals what? 0.005 of one percent.

Re:One can only hope

[GLMDesigns]

We absolutely should disband the VA. It would be far more rational to purchase Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurance for the vets (as payment for services rendered) and let them go to the hospital of their choice. The cost savings in bureaucracy, maintenance, etc... would be tremendous. It would bet that the cost of hospital and mental health care would drop and the care would improve tremendously.

So yes. Disband the VA.

Re: One can only hope

[Sir Holo]

If you don't like taxes, from the list of things above, which one(s) should be cut or eliminated? Seriously, which ones would you do away with?

There's one easy way to cut out a couple: Work as a Contract Employee – 1099, instead of being a permanent employee – W-2.

Just don't get injured or become unemployed! Because you chose not to pay into that system, you are not entitled to Unemployment or Short-term Disability benefits. (This is a CA example, but UI & SDI are all state-level).

So go ahead and avoid those taxes. Break a leg!

Re: One can only hope

[Sir Holo]

Due to the krokodil epidemic, the Russian Government put very strict controls on the availability of codeine tablets. It's not over-the-counter any more, so obtaining the main ingredient to home-brew your own highly impure batch of krokodil has become very difficult. That is good.

The active component in krokodil is desomorphine – an opiate discovered about 90 years ago in a search for less addicting painkillers. As it turned out, desomorphine was w-a-a-a-ay more addictive. It is illegal in most countries, even as a hospital-administered pain-management drug. Morphine and dilaudid are what provide the most pain-relief per addictive potential. After surgery, you'll get a push-button morphine drip, but only for three days, to avoid addiction.

Rehabilitation is not easy, especially with such high unemployment. But basically, give them a two-day series of naloxone, plus benzos because accelerated withdrawal sucks. Then keep them on naltrexone for a couple of years. But such programs must include re-entry into society, leading to employment or something that feels meaningful—It was desperation tht drove the to krokodil in the first place.

DO NOT search YouTube for videos of flesh-rotting and live-limb-cutting (to avoid sepsis) un-anesthetized. Unless you have a strong stomach.

Here is a link to test your mettle (excitement begins at 2:20.

Re: One can only hope

[Sir Holo]

DO NOT search YouTube for videos of flesh-rotting and live-limb-cutting (to avoid sepsis) un-anesthetized. Unless you have a strong stomach.

Here is a link to test your mettle (excitement begins at 2:20.

But god-forbid that a nipple is visible in a YouTube video (in the US)! That could scandalize someone –especially a child under the age of two!

Re:One can only hope

[Sir Holo]

Then we have the Nixon years were drug laws were actively pushed as a way to attack grass roots political campaigns and to oppose civil rights.

Mod this up!

This was the sole purpose of the War on Drugs.

Search google news for the recent revelation – made after the malfeasors who admitted in interviews that they created this monstrosity – are all safely in their graves.

Re:One can only hope

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

The best solution is to give these voters what they want.

If it was only them, sure, but why should their children suffer because their parents are idiots? These children will grow up to be our doctors, engineers (and yes, even politicians), and I for one want them healthy and well-educated. So no, you don't get to fuck over a generation of children because their parents, Mr and Mrs Goober, are too stupid to make good decisions.

-

small-government, uneducated morons or fools (like me) would be relegated to the fringes of society and could safely be ignore.

I already ignore people like you for the most part.

Re:One can only hope

[Anonymous Coward]

Former drug user here, have never committed a B&E. Never robbed anyone. Never committed any crimes other than buying illegal plant-derived products.

Former drug user here. I have committed B&E. But not why you are thinking.....

But the B&E's were committed for fun and exploration, and were completely unrelated to any drug use. I had enough money for drugs. (BTW, in the B&E's, I usually didn't take anything, except maybe a token item. It was for the thrill.)

Re:One can only hope

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

It would be far more rational to purchase Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurance for the vets (as payment for services rendered) and let them go to the hospital of their choice. The cost savings in bureaucracy, maintenance, etc... would be tremendous. It would bet that the cost of hospital and mental health care would drop and the care would improve tremendously.

Sure, get them to put it on the ballot and I'll vote for it.

Re:One can only hope

[GLMDesigns]

Of course what you consider to be a good decision others may consider to be foolish. You want to live as a serf, a ward of a nanny-state. OK. I don't.

Re: One can only hope

[pnutjam]

You live in Florida and have money hidden from taxation in several jurisdictions.

Re: One can only hope

[roman_mir]

Florida, ha! :) Money hidden in several jurisdictions... I have business interests in a number of different countries and I do not reside in the USA.

Re: One can only hope

[Lotharus]

You really have no idea what stuff costs, do you? In particular:

11. electrical utilities

So you think you can afford the cost of running a wire from your house all the way back to the generation plant? Let's not forget the transformers, safety mechanisms, rights-of-way, poles to erect or trenches to dig and pipes to lay. Not to mention the cost of mining or reclaiming copper, extruding it into wire, and wrapping it with insulation. No, you can't use that pole or pipe that's already there, because you didn't pay for it.

I guess really you ought to build your own generation plant as well; we can't have any electrons flowing to your house for which your own money is not responsible.

tl;dr: You're an idiot.

Re: One can only hope

[TheCarp]

I have to place a lot more blame on the politicians. You can talk individual morality all you want, the fact is, when you make something profitable, you incentivise it being done. The addict may have burned the house down and he may be individually responsible..... but the politicians made it certain that houses would burn and will continue to burn.

The existence of people who will circumvent the law is a foregone conclusion, therefore those making law bear responsibility when they increase the harm caused by such circumvention, far more so than any individual transgressor.

A man making meth burns down a house, the politicians have guilt in every single house that burned.

Re:One can only hope

[LienRag]

Of course drug laws do important things: how do you fund illegal wars without the high margins they give to drug lords, all (or nearly all) ranging from close allies to proxies of the CIA?

Re: One can only hope

[david_thornley]

Free public education is one of the demands in the Communist Manifesto, after all.

Re:One can only hope

[david_thornley]

The social safety net is covered under the general welfare clause.

Re:One can only hope

[GLMDesigns]

Really? Then where was it for the 140 years before FDR?

It existed. It was the churches and the local community.

Take another look at the constitution. Take a look at Article1 : Section 8.

Don't read your desires into it. Read Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson. And if you want to get into it add Locke, Blackstone, de Vattel and others.

The more you want Washington to do - the more you turn Washington into an Imperial Power. Have the federal government do what it was created to do and leave the rest to the states.

Re:One can only hope

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Of course what you consider to be a good decision others may consider to be foolish. You want to live as a serf, a ward of a nanny-state. OK. I don't.

Then stop driving on my roads and drinking my water and using my streetlamps. Stop using the US Mail, and stop using the internet, because you're a rugged individualist who don't need no stinkin' gubment, right?

Re:One can only hope

[GLMDesigns]

I guess you haven't read the US Constitution for a while; nor have read the Federalist Papers. Give it a go. You may then have reason based objections instead of hyperbole. The US Constitution isn't an anarchist document. There is a role for government. But "a role for government" doesn't mean that politicians and bureaucrats run your life.

We are citizens. Not serfs.

Re:One can only hope

[TheCarp]

I saw a video not too long ago, the speakers were several Intelligence community whistle-blowers from the past. Their basic thesis was, the war on drugs is ending because the intelligence community no longer needs it to justify everything they want, terrorism is much more effective.

Ahhh here we go...found it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:One can only hope

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

We are citizens. Not serfs.

Yes, I know, probably more than you realize. Just because I won't march in lockstep with you doesn't mean I don't respect the Constitution and what it means.

I also believe that as humans and Americans we have a duty to help those less fortunate, and not through a lot of meaningless hand waving and lip service, but by actually doing something.

All that "rugged individualist" shit worked great when there weren't 295 million other people competing for the same resources and when there was no such thing as a global economy that could outsource your job overseas. That shit is done, those days are over, and if you think you can go it alone without the intimate involvement of the government then you haven't been keeping up with the news.

I don't like government interference any more than the next guy, but it's an unfortunate fact of life in a country of 300 million people who all have to live together.

Re: One can only hope

[Coren22]

So this mythical Capitalist Paradise you mention has no laws or courts?

If you live in a poor neighborhood poisoned by toxic mine talings,[SIC]

Sue the company that poisoned you than.

If you live anywhere and someone decides they can make money by flooding it with carcinogenic waste products - well, good luck.

Again, lawsuit material.

Re:One can only hope

[tnk1]

You're creating a strawman and willfully ignoring what I wrote.

I do not believe that the VA has been successful, and therefore it is not a good example of the government being able to do health care well. That doesn't mean I think it should be shut down, but it does mean that I don't think it should be duplicated for all Americans in a new program for universal health care.

The VA program is there and as people rely on it, I wouldn't just shut it down, but it is an example of how the government is bad at health care. It is not a good example of why we should trust the government with health care, in fact, it is quite the opposite.

Re: One can only hope

[CohibaVancouver]

Brought peace?

Re:One can only hope

[GLMDesigns]

Thanks for your civil reply. I was a little snarky in my post and I shouldn't have done that.

If people in one state vote for more government aid in say health care. Fine. But if people in another state vote against it. It's also fine. The same applies for other things. Let the people in states decide. One good reason for this is simply managing expectations and getting 300 plus million people in a continent sized country to agree on things. If the people of NY decide on "x" then fine. If Texas disagrees, then also fine.

The federal government should not do everything. It should do what it was authorized to do. If you, the citizen of state "x", think that the government should distribute gluten-free, all organic gummy bears to everyone for free and you persuade the legislature of that state to provide said gummy bears. Great. More power to you and the citizens of your state. If I, however, don't want this, and the citizens living in my state don't want to do this. Then fine.

And this applies to everything: from drug laws to prostitution to free birth control to x,y and z.

Re:One can only hope

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

If people in one state vote for more government aid in say health care. Fine. But if people in another state vote against it. It's also fine.

In theory this seems like a fair solution...but in practice I think it would lead to some states having populations that were highly benefited by virtue of their expanded services and freedoms, and other states would become 'ghettos' or severely marginalized. Once that cycle starts it's a downward spiral for the "have not" states. People will (if they can) move to a "have" state, further depleting the tax base and livability of the "have not" states.

And that's not just for taxes and services, that would inevitably apply to social freedoms and discrimination laws. Hell, there are quite a few Southern states that would like to make interracial marriage illegal and re-institute some forms of slavery (debtor's prisons as well as outright slavery).

These aren't my opinions, these are the result of polls taken in places like Mississippi, where they asked the state's GOP voters if "interracial marriage should be illegal".

46 percent of them said "yes", they would outlaw it. They'd outlaw interracial marriage. Think about that for a moment- that's almost half of the GOP voters in that state, and another 14 percent responded that they were "not sure." That means about 60 percent of these Southern Republicans would either do it or consider it doing it. That's insane. That's a recipe for widespread discrimination backed by state law.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of places where unfettered states rights would result in all sorts of abuses, and those abuses often trickle down to the poor and disadvantaged- including their children.

I'm not a huge fan of Federal oversight, but there are times and places it's needed. Just look at all the voter suppression abuse and sleazy tactics that immediately popped up after the Supreme Court invalidated key parts of the Voting Rights Act.

Basic human rights shouldn't be put to a vote, and one of the Federal government's jobs is to see that they aren't. The real problem with "state's rights" is that they're all too often used as a sword rather than a shield.

Re:One can only hope

[GLMDesigns]

A state can't pass ANY law it wants. We do not live in a democracy. We live in a Constitutional Republic. State laws still needs to pass Constitutional muster. I'm not saying that states have historically done a great job, often times they were horrible and the Federal Government needed to intervene. BUT there is a difference between intervening when a state does not follow the Constitution and for the power of all states to be transferred in perpetuity to the Federal Government.

As you said basic human rights cannot be put to a vote. Government exists for a purpose - namely to uphold the social contract (I promise not to kill you and take your stuff if you promise not to kill me and take mine), legal contracts, ensure domestic tranquility (namely keep robbers and rioters at bay) , run the military, courts and police.

We can ask (or not) the government to provide services to the general population (say garbage collection and fire departments) and then change the populace through use taxes for these services. We can expand this to include water and sewage, education and the like. But each of these additional services are subject to agreement by the population of that state. I, as a radical small-government type, am more than comfortable with contracting the government for the above mentioned services.

This doesn't mean that anything and everything that someone feels is important should be done by the government. People in states can decide what.

Re:One can only hope

[david_thornley]

There is nothing in the Constitution that requires Congress to spend on any particular part of the General Welfare. The churches and local communities do well in some respects, terribly in others. As the size and diversity of society grows. these become increasingly inadequate.

I have read the Constitution. Multiple times. I'm aware of Article I, Section 8, and it places no restriction on General Welfare spending. That may not have been the intention of some of the people who helped write it, but if they really wanted to restrict that clause they should have written it differently. I really doubt that Locke had anything to say about the General Welfare clause.

Don't read your desires into the Constitution. You seem to want the General Welfare clause restricted, but it isn't.

Re: One can only hope

[erapert]

If you believe what you just wrote, why not move to Somalia or Nigeria? It would be your paradise on Earth. But you don't really believe a word of what you wrote, do you?

Somalia and Nigeria are not libertarian nor even "free" in any sense. You knew that, but you're too busy hurling invective and getting yourself worked up into a proper self-righteous tirade to bother actually coming up with a real argument.

The problem most libertarians have is they never think that they'll be the ones getting fucked.

I'm not a libertarian, nor did I say that I was, nor did I imply that I was.

It's never YOUR wife or YOUR child who'll die from some untested medication or contaminated food or unsafe electrical appliance. It'll always be the other guy whose wife or kid dies, and then the Magical Invisible Hand Of The Market will punish that company and force them out of business, so you'll be safe, right?

1. If you check the things I listed you'd see that I did not list the FDA as being an entity that I would de-fund.
2. You just made it personal. Spare me the hysterics and emotional bullshit. The government won't save you from bad things happening to you or to the people you care about-- but you obviously don't give two shits about anyone who merely disagrees with you on the internet so I doubt that the list of people you care about besides yourself is very long. It also gives me reason to doubt that you are arguing out of anything other than selfish "gimme more gubmint money" motivations.
3. Yes, it's in the company's best interests to not kill their customers.
4. Let's say that your worst nightmares come true and the corps start filling up pills with rat poison: murder and poisoning are already illegal and I did not list the judicial branch as an item to de-fund.
5. Since you like hyperbole let me just trot out the good ole nazis, stalinists, and maoists and the Khmer Rouge and all the other bald-faced mass murders just of the last century that were carried out by "big gubmint"

Fuck you, I like the EPA and the FDA.

1. Keep up the name calling. It's a really great argument.
2. I don't like the EPA.
3. I did not list the FDA for a de-funding target. Nice straw man.

I like public education and parks and recreation services.

1. Education doesn't need to be publicly funded. But even if we did have public funding for schools I see no reason why those who have no kids that go to a school should be taxed to pay for it.
2. Parks and recreation don't require government funding. They could be paid for by those who visit them. Really, what's the overhead of keeping a forest running?

I like the idea of a School Breakfast Program for kids. I like all the things that make this a great country to live in. It's why people want to come here, fool. How many people in the US want to emigrate to Nigeria or Laos or Namibia or Somalia? NONE, that's how many.

1. The thing that makes this a great country is the freedom of individuals to live and improve their lives without someone robbing them of half of it. When the government starts mandating what my kids eat then they're less free. When the government starts taxing (confiscating / stealing) huge portions of my income and spending it without my consent on projects and priorities that I don't benefit from or want then what's the real difference between that and living under some asshole dictator? At least the asshole dictator doesn't lie about what he's doing. Meanwhile in the USA we've got self-righteous ideologues-- like you-- who force others to pay for stuff that they want.
2. The fact that you think stuff is what is so great about a country really just shows how materialistic and shallow you are.
3. Nigeria, Laos, Namibia, and Somalia are nothing like free countries. And you knew that. So the fact that you list them

Re: One can only hope

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha! So in capitalist utopia, you have to sue to get clean drinking water? Wow, the lawyers must love it in capitalist utopia. Not rich enough to sue? Oh well, you don't deserve to live very long anyway.

Re: One can only hope

[Coren22]

No, you sue the people who contaminate the water. By default water is pretty damn clean, if someone comes along and massively contaminates it, than yeah, they should be sued. Just as the state of Michigan should be sued for screwing up Flint's water supply, and all their pipes, you sue the people that do you harm. This is how it works in many countries, including the US. It looks like they are also looking at criminal charges for the person responsible for Flint, but that doesn't prevent you suing them as well.

Re:One can only hope

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

A state can't pass ANY law it wants.

So are you saying that Federal oversight is what prevents a state from passing any law it wants? Because if that's so, then where does a state's right to pass laws start and stop?

-

As you said basic human rights cannot be put to a vote.

Except this is exactly what they're doing in many of the Goober States by passing these transgender bathroom restriction laws and (still) trying to pass laws that prevent same-sex marriage. Those are just two examples. If states are allowed to do this kind of thing unfettered and with no oversight, what's to stop them from nibbling away at other human rights until we're right back where we started?

As I pointed out, in places like Mississippi they would vote to make interracial marriage illegal if they could...but the Federal government puts a stop to things like that. But they would if they could, and if they were autonomous in terms of state's rights we'd see anti-miscegenation laws being put in place in Mississippi tomorrow.

This doesn't mean that anything and everything that someone feels is important should be done by the government. People in states can decide what.

This would be great if people in large groups could be counted on to make rational decisions and not have an "I got mine" mentality. Or if there weren't those among us who would exploit every loophole to their own benefit to the detriment of others. But the sad, sorry fact is that people like this exist everywhere and it only takes a small number to fuck up the works for everyone else. It's the "tragedy of the commons" writ large. Sometimes an overriding authority is needed, and sometimes it's beneficial.

Re: One can only hope

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Now after all the vitriol I would like to qualify some of the items on my little list:
#14 Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program and #16 State Children's Insurance Programs:
In the case of orphans, I do think the State should provide for them.

Oh fuck no, why should those unlucky little parasites get a dime of my precious money? Just because they're orphans? Tough shit on them, let them pull themselves up by their bootstraps like everyone else. Why should orphans get a break?

See, you have your favorite little exceptions for things that you think are "worthy", but how dare anyone else have a longer list, eh?

Re: One can only hope

[erapert]

Oh fuck no, why should those unlucky little parasites get a dime of my precious money? Just because they're orphans? Tough shit on them, let them pull themselves up by their bootstraps like everyone else. Why should orphans get a break?

Outright mocking a position that I do not hold... Slashdotters are smart enough to see through this so it just makes you look bad.

See, you have your favorite little exceptions for things that you think are "worthy"

My argument has never been that the government should do absolutely nothing and spend no money. Straw man.

but how dare anyone else have a longer list, eh?

Yes, I do object to immoral, ineffective and/or grossly inefficient wastes of money and resources. And that's what I attempted to put on my list: things that are either immoral/unethical for the government to be involved in, are ineffective programs, or are gross wastes of money compared to alternatives.

Re: One can only hope

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I do object to immoral, ineffective and/or grossly inefficient wastes of money and resources.

You object to the things that you personally think are "immoral, ineffective and/or grossly inefficient wastes of money and resources", but thankfully not everyone feels as you do.

Well...

[Kierthos]

And nothing of value was lost.

Re:Well...

[Z00L00K]

If you are a client at a dark net site then you don't know who you are dealing with and you have to accept some risks.

So there's no point in complaining.

News flash

[Anonymous Coward]

Pablo Escobar arrested, crack addicts migrate in panic

Re: News flash

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol Pablo sold Coke. which is turned into crack by black people.

Better quote: all black people disappear, crack heads panic, rich white peoples rejoice. ;)

Re: News flash

[Anonymous Coward]

Pablo sold Coke

Regular, diet, or zero?

Re: News flash

[mrchaotica]

Regular, obviously. The cocaine was removed from the recipe long before diet or zero were invented.

Re: News flash

[Anonymous Coward]

Which was very unfortunate. Making cocaine illegal is what created the Mexican drug cartels, and subsequently made them crazy rich and extremely powerful. Which they still are.

If we made cocaine legal, not only could we tax it, but we would pull the rug right out from under the drug cartels. They would dissipate from a simple inability to compete with the legal market. History has proven this to be true. People sometimes imagine that the illegal vendors could offer lower prices than the legal vendors, and hence the drug cartels would remain just as strong as ever...this is patently absurd and has been shown to be false in practice as well as in theory.

Re: News flash

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes -- because cartels didn't exist before cocaine was made illegal.

You fucking idiot.

Re: News flash

[Anonymous Coward]

Name me a single cartel previously that could pay off the entire debit of a nation.

Such is the power of black markets with an item that is in high demand.

Violence tends to go hand in hand with high revenues and an inability to access courts to settle disputes.

Re: News flash

[Anonymous Coward]

Debeers.

Re: News flash

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting. I never claimed that cartels didn't exist before cocaine was made illegal. Nor did I claim that there would be "no cartels at all" after it is made legal. I was talking very specifically about the Mexican drug cartels, and my statements in that context are all accurate.

So, you called me an idiot because you disagree with statements that I never made nor even implied.

What word do we use to describe people who have reading-comprehension skill at about the level of a child?

Re: News flash

[Anonymous Coward]

"De Beers underlying earnings jumped 74 percent year on year to $923 million in 2014."

Not real impressed, but obviously you were thinking of a small country. A very small country.

Pablo Escobar had a net worth of 30 billion. And he was only a small part of the total cocaine trade.

Re: News flash

[GrumpySteen]

Name me a single cartel previously that could pay off the entire debit of a nation.

The Dutch East India Company. At their height in the 1600s, they were worth the equivalent of $7.4 trillion today. Not quite enough to pay off the US debit, but more then enough to pay off almost any other country's debt.

Re: News flash

[scubamage]

He was referring to drug cartels, not tulip dealers :-P

Re: News flash

[Anonymous Coward]

In the good old days, moron was used to designate somebody with an intelligence below that of a five-year old, while an idiot in Athenian democracy was someone who was characterized by self-centeredness and concerned almost exclusively with private—as opposed to public—affairs... which is to say a modern American republican

Re: News flash

[HornWumpus]

What do you think the net worth of the extended family that owns De Beers is?

You compare earnings to net worth, it's no wounder you're not impressed.

Re: News flash

[Anonymous Coward]

Because I can operate google, and the inference was inherent to the comparison.

From wiki-

"During the height of its operations, the cartel brought in more than $60 million per day (making roughly $22 billion in a year)."

Good enough for you, dipshit?

Re: News flash

[HornWumpus]

How long has De Beers operated vs an already dead cartel.

You're believing estimates from groups with agendas. Likely the police estimated gross street price of the drugs moved.

You still don't have a reasoned comparison. Wiki SUCKS for anything remotely controversial.

Re: News flash

[GrumpySteen]

The Dutch East India Company was running drugs in the 1600s. They were huge in the opium business.

Re: News flash

[Anonymous Coward]

... .this is patently absurd ...

Why? A criminal doesn't have to pay taxes on the sale, or employee benefits, or minimum wage, or provide quality assurance. The legal manufacturer will probably have the edge in the cost of sale, since he can use established infrastructure. (Although, a good number of legal shops sell tax-free (illegal) tobacco.)

The point of legalizing is three-fold: The monopoly benefiting criminals ends and prices drop; the consumer gets a quality-assured product and other consumer protections; the government gets a reduced enforcement/imprisonment burden plus increased revenue (from taxes). The government also needs to create safe consumption policies and PSAs but that will consume a fraction of the increased revenue.

Criminals can and will offer a lower price, but excluding taxes, the criminal is just another supplier in the market and has no advantage.

Re: News flash

[Anonymous Coward]

Moving the goalposts!

Doesn't this happen every few months?

[Anonymous Coward]

... for hidden services. Why the surprise?

What!?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

It could be an exit scam -- a scam where site administrators stop allowing users to withdraw their funds and then disappear with the stockpile of bitcoins.

That's unpossible! You're telling me that a group of people engaged in a criminal enterprise would scam their customers? I thought criminals had higher standards than that. I mean, are they trying to act all reputable, like Enron or those companies that sell annuities and stuff?

Re: What!?!?!

[johnsmithperson123]

Well, to quote a book: Well, at least (villainous politician) is honest. What? But (villain) bought him off! No, I mean that once he's bought, he stays bought.

Why deposit?

[Anonymous Coward]

I need some technical background here. You hear about exit scams a lot - my question is, why do users deposit funds into an account controlled by the market? Outside of escrow, Bitcoin seems to remove the need to have anyone but you hold your money. And I'd imagine that escrow is very short-term and for relatively small amounts. So what is the technical reason that people hand their money over to a market?

Re:Why deposit?

[phishybongwaters]

because it's an illegal market dealing with illicit substances. This is how they operate, you don't just show up and get trusted, you have to be vetted, handing over control is part of that. But lets be real for a second, when the internet erupts over the fact that the site has gone "dark" doesn't that mean it really wasn't that "dark" to begin with? The whole idea is how HARD these sites are to get access too, basically a need to know someone and get invited system. It reminds me of back when torrents were still largely underground until sites like nova and thebay started blasting it to anyone who wanted to listen.

Re:Why deposit?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're saying that the reason users transfer money to the market is to earn trust? That doesn't make much sense to me - a law enforcement agency could certainly afford to transfer $500 to the market if that's all it takes to earn trust.

Re:Why deposit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dark as in darknet means the participants are thoroughly anonymized. What good is a market that's hard to find? Thats the brilliance at work, you can do something completely illegal, at a spot easy to find, and hide behind your computer thanks to freely available software.

Re:Why deposit?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand why the need to use escrow accounts at all. Isn't smart contracts one of the selling points of bitcoin? Why do these markets need escrow accounts?

Re:Why deposit?

[Phusion]

It protects the buyer. If you order something for a DNM, you don't release the coins until you receive the product and it is as advertised. Some vendors require FE or Finalize Early, which requires you to release the coins to the vendor immediately. In general this is a bad idea, but most of these guys have pages of positive reviews and you can usually trust that you'll receive your package. Yeah, I know, it's wild.

Re:Why deposit?

[JesseMcDonald]

That doesn't make much sense to me - a law enforcement agency could certainly afford to transfer $500 to the market if that's all it takes to earn trust.

They earn trust in the sense that if they don't deliver the $200 worth of goods they promised, or violate the site's rules in some other way, part or all of that $500 deposit held in escrow will be forfeit. The deposit is a "hostage" to guard against fraud and minor infractions of the rules by normal members of the community; it says nothing about whether they're acting on behalf of law enforcement. For protection from law enforcement the site relies on the anonymity of its operators and members and encrypted, onion-routed communications, not deposits.

Re:Why deposit?

[amicusNYCL]

The only reason people *should* have money there is because a transaction is in process. Maybe people never bother to transfer the remainder back to their own wallet, I don't know. If you're the type of person where you make one transaction every few weeks or months then there is no reason to store any balance on the site other then when you are actually ordering.

Re:Why deposit?

[gweihir]

While I have no personal experience with this type of market, they have to have some arbitration mechanism where the money goes through the market itself. That will involve queuing and a sizable amount of cash in the hands of the market itself at any time, and especially when they still accept payments but do not send them onwards. My guess would be that this can be a lot if it takes hours to days for the users to notice. The second additional possibility is that the market offered to anonymize Bitcoin (by mixing them) for the customers and that will be based on some kind of wallet you pay into in advance, as it requires a pool of Bitcoin that retains its content for some time.

Still, technical problems, the feds, gotten hacked, etc. are all valid contenders for this thing going down, it is far too early to cry "scam!".

Re:Why deposit?

[gweihir]

Your argument would indicate the market and its customer-base has a huge value once established (and I agree). That would be an argument against a scam by the admins.

Re:Why deposit?

[scubamage]

The interesting thing is that bitcoin (and most other cryptos) can do N-way transactions by leveraging multi-signature addresses. Some darknet markets incorporate this, some don't. I wouldn't trust one that didn't. Essentially a 3-way transaction requires 2 participants to "sign-off" on the transaction before it can be completed. So, it effectively acts as escrow. The buyer deposits money into the multisignature address. The seller ships the goods. After verification that goods are received, the seller applies their key to the transaction, and the market also applies its key (completing the requirement of 2 signatures to send funds from the address). The funds are then released to the seller. If the market owner ever decides to disappear, they are missing the additional key they would need to access the funds. In that case, the buyer and seller can communicate directly to complete the transaction as they still have 2 keys between them.

Re:Why deposit?

[scubamage]

Smart contracts and multisignature addresses both render escrow more or less pointless.

Re:Why deposit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Silk Road refused to return the seller's "DEPOSIT", even AFTER the seller permanently closed shop and deleted their account.

Re:Why deposit?

[yarbo]

Escrow is going to be for the entirety of the purchase. Not all buyers are buying $50 at a time. Some people are buying ounces of cocaine or kilograms of MDMA. Not all vendors will accept escrow on the especially large orders, but they won't have their finger on the withdraw button either. In general, exit scams are harder on the vendors than the buyers because vendors could have dozens of open orders at any time.

Ha ha.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or rather, HAAAAAAA Haaaaaaaa!

Junkies, their handlers, and their dealers

[Anonymous Coward]

All are complete scum. It's not "an awesome market" -- it's part of the engine that kills tens of thousands of people per year in the US, fills our downtowns with violent, vandalizing junkies, and general erodes society to a point where we can "no longer have nice things"

Methheads are worse than rats, termites, or bedbugs.

Re: Junkies, their handlers, and their dealers

[Anonymous Coward]

Blame Ronnie Reagan not the dealers.

Re:Junkies, their handlers, and their dealers

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing worse than junkies are the cops that pursue them.

Junkies are slowly (and sometimes quickly) killing themselves. If they want to do this, they should be allowed to.

But wait! If they do that, Bad Things Will Happen(tm)! They will coerce others into doing the same! Then "innocent" people will die! By their own hand! Moral panic! ZOMG!

Make healthcare free for everyone. This is the carrot. It costs far less than The War On Drugs (TWOD) or The War Against Terror (TWAT, see what I did there?).

Then decriminalize drugs, but keep the "schedule" lists and charge for or refuse (one then the other, not your choice, the junkie's) help when they have medical issues resulting from their abuse of drugs. This is the stick.

If you need psychiatric help to overcome depression, you get it for free. If you turn to "scheduled" drugs, you pay for the drugs AND are either required to pay for treatment (physical or emotional) or are free to go without help. Carrot. Stick. And it's cheaper to just provide the carrot than it is to build a bigger stick. The bigger stick hasn't worked, so it's time for the carrot.

Re: Junkies, their handlers, and their dealers

[b0bby]

You can blame Reagan for dismantling the mental health system, but not for doctors over prescribing opiates and junkies wanting a fix.

Re:Junkies, their handlers, and their dealers

[smooth wombat]

Make healthcare free for everyone.

It's easy to be generous with other people's money.

If you want someone to have free healthcare, you pay for it. Forcing everyone else to pay is not "free" healthcare.

Re:Junkies, their handlers, and their dealers

[tlhIngan]

If you want someone to have free healthcare, you pay for it. Forcing everyone else to pay is not "free" healthcare.

Well, advocate for single payer healthcare first - because dealing with multiple insurance agencies costs a lot of money. In Canada, the average doctor's office spends about $30k/year dealing with the government for medical service payments. In the US, it's roughly triple that. These are costs - staff mostly, who do nothing but all that.

Second, denying even the poor medical care is actually very bad economically - because the poor then have to use the ER (which by law is free). ER is the most expensive medical treatment available - you'll spend three to four times as much money treating someone coming into the ER for a medical condition that could be treated at say, a doctor's office. So yeah, having the poor be able to go see a much cheaper doctor at a walk-in clinic saves a ton of money over having them see the doctor in the ER.

Of course, since they're poor and can't afford medical insurance, WE ALL PAY THROUGH THE NOSE for their care because they can only use the ER.

And of course, because they can't pay for followup care (not covered since it's not emergency) they go back to whatever their miserable lives take them, get ill again, and again, we pay top dollar for ER medical care for them. Heck, we could probably get them really good care for the money spent healing them in the ER.

Re:Junkies, their handlers, and their dealers

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound like a junkie if you don't think junkies don't fuck up entire neighborhoods by themselves.

I live in a suburb where there's a cop living in every 4th house. Driving down the street, I drive past about 6 cruisers just to get to the main road. My suburb is like a gated community without gates. It's quiet. It's got zero crime. Kids are out riding their bikes at sundown, laughing and playing in the cul-de-sac.

Before I lived here, I was living in what I call "Ghetto Meadows" -- an apartment complex where it seemed every 3rd apartment had SOMEONE addicted to drugs.

Which place was safer to let my kids out at night? Which place did I feel more secure leaving the doors unlocked? Which place do you think I could leave out lawn furniture for a full season without it disappearing? Cops are not the problem, you fucking retard. It's the fucking junkies looking for a fix, willing to steal absolutely anything and everything to pawn off just to get another hit. The slavering, empty-eyed, muddled-brained addicted assholes fucked up EVERYTHING they could physically reach. Fuck them. Fuck you.

Re:Junkies, their handlers, and their dealers

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in a similar suburb. Across the street from me, there's an SUV parked with DHS markings on the side.

But it's not the cops themselves that are the problem, nor is it the junkies. It's the politicians that fund the cops. The cops are junkies themselves, but of funding, not chemicals.

Incidentally, a junkie trying to steal something in this suburb would quickly find himself well-ventilated. Rednecks are useful and frequently are good shots. And it solves the "thieving junkies roaming the streets at night" problem.

And, yes, I sincerely believe that denying them medical care for issues resulting from drug use will weed them out quickly. Gunshots bleed profusely, and if you can't pay to have a doctor cork that hole for you, then you're going to be permanently off drugs very soon.

Treat the problem, not the symptom. But then again, you seem too emotional and unreasoning to consider that possibility.

Re:Junkies, their handlers, and their dealers

[Anonymous Coward]

So, just stop offering them free ER. It's that simple. If someone can't pay for the help they need, well, tough luck. That's how life works.

Re:Junkies, their handlers, and their dealers

[cmiller173]

...

Then decriminalize drugs, but keep the "schedule" lists and charge for or refuse (one then the other, not your choice, the junkie's) help when they have medical issues resulting from their abuse of drugs. This is the stick.

If you need psychiatric help to overcome depression, you get it for free. If you turn to "scheduled" drugs, you pay for the drugs AND are either required to pay for treatment (physical or emotional) or are free to go without help. Carrot. Stick. And it's cheaper to just provide the carrot than it is to build a bigger stick. The bigger stick hasn't worked, so it's time for the carrot.

This is based on the idea that the addict can say no. More often than not, the addict simply can not say no. That is why they call it addiction.

Re:Junkies, their handlers, and their dealers

[radarskiy]

The poor have no estates to sue to recover the costs of disposing of their bodies when they die in the gutters. The public pays one way or another.

Re:Junkies, their handlers, and their dealers

[smooth wombat]

Well, advocate for single payer healthcare first

Which has nothing to do with "free" healthcare. Someone is still paying for it. People throw around "free" as if something magically appears out of thin air. Everything has a cost to it and either you pay for it or you force other people to pay for it.

In either case, it is not free. Case in point, my dad talks with a guy in England. Recently they had a three-way discussion with someone else who listens to Fox and, rightly, talks about the cost of Obamneycare and how England has free healthcare.

The person from England corrected him by saying his healthcare is not "free". He's paid for it, 3% of his salary since he started working, and now when he needs to see a doctor or have a medical procedure done, that money is being used to pay for the bills. It is not "free". It's his money.

Again, if you want someone to have "free" healthcare, you pay for it. Forcing me and everyone else to hand over our money just because does not make something "free".

Re:Junkies, their handlers, and their dealers

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, advocate for single payer healthcare first - because dealing with multiple insurance agencies costs a lot of money.

No. Multiple insurance companies aren't the source of increased costs. A dysfunctional relationship between the companies and the government is. Industry standard practice is also dysfunctional.

For a model of an insurance system that works relatively well with multiple companies involved, see car insurance.

Most health insurance isn't even insurance. It's a badly run buyers club. If you get a fender-bender with your car, the insurance company will generally pay for repair at any shop. Compelling you to use a particular shop, aka "steering" might even be illegal. In health care it's just the opposite, and that's part or the reason why costs are so ridiculous. The mechanic also has rates for labor, and parts costs are something you can look up. There are still too many places where you can't do that for health care. Also, when was the last time you dealt with your car insurance for simple maintenance like oil changes, tires, and brakes? All that paperwork. Claims for routine care. Why?

Single-payer is a monopoly, and if you think that's actually going to lower prices you're flunking econ 101.

The problem is corruption, plain and simple. Single-payer works in other countries because they are not as corrupt as we are. Full stop. If you implement single-payer in the US, you'll get corrupt single-payer and it will be expensive and it will suck.

A public option along side private insurance wouldn't be bad; but fix the corruption first, and let the free market providers stay in business so we can have some competition and innovation.

Re: Junkies, their handlers, and their dealers

[Anonymous Coward]

That is a very dark economic incentive. Hopefully someone doesn't lower the bar and suggest larger gutters.

Re:Junkies, their handlers, and their dealers

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow that is so much cheaper than my health insurance, and I have a ton of copays also.

Re:Junkies, their handlers, and their dealers

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking as a Canadian, everyone knows medical care is not free. However, "free" is a handy abbreviation for "single payer".

Re: Junkies, their handlers, and their dealers

[cyber-vandal]

That's why it should really be called universal health care. Insurance also requires you to pay for other people's treatment but gives you less coverage and requires a copay as well.

Re:Junkies, their handlers, and their dealers

[Anonymous Coward]

But then again, you seem too emotional and unreasoning to consider that possibility.

You seem to be of the mindset that "If someone is passionate about something, they must be unreasonable!" which is fucking stupid.

Re:Junkies, their handlers, and their dealers

[Anonymous Coward]

According to my employer, they paid ~$12k last year for health care for me and my daughter. That's on top of the ~$3000 I paid.

I'd happily pay 3% (~$4000) instead. Or even 6% (~$8000) including my daughter if it meant I got to take home the balance. And in a single-payer system, my doing so wouldn't necessarily mean that someone else was covering the ~$7000 difference in costs versus the current system. It would just mean that those expenses don't exist in a simpler, cheaper system and I can spend that money elsewhere.

Re:Junkies, their handlers, and their dealers

[Gr8Apes]

No. Multiple insurance companies aren't the source of increased costs. ...For a model of an insurance system that works relatively well with multiple companies involved, see car insurance.

Most health insurance isn't even insurance. It's a badly run buyers club. If you get a fender-bender with your car, the insurance company will generally pay for repair at any shop. ...If you implement single-payer in the US, you'll get corrupt single-payer and it will be expensive and it will suck.

A public option along side private insurance wouldn't be bad; but fix the corruption first, and let the free market providers stay in business so we can have some competition and innovation.

You have some points - corruption is certainly rampant. The primary thing that will fix health care costs is posted rates. There's no reason there should be 5 different prices for a single operation (hospital charge, payment charge, cash charge, your insurance charge, and medicare charge) I saw all 5 of those once because of mistakes in paperwork, and the differences were astounding (40K, 28K, 18K, 5K, 5K respectively) which also indicates that the industry's moaning about medicare rates is irrelevant since they get paid the same by a large insurance company. Post the rates like the auto industry so that everyone pays the same, regardless of who's paying, and you'll see a lot of corruption go out the door. It also effectively ends "steering" because now they can just say we pay 'x', and 'x' has to be available in the area, just like with auto insurance.

Now that's great, we got rid of a bunch of corruption and opportunities to rake extra cash out of people. Great. It still doesn't address the other side of the issue, which is that all people effectively get health care, because you will either help someone in an emergency situation, or you will watch them die. There are no realistic alternatives. So, given a black and white choice you'll wind up with guaranteed healthcare and single payer will be the most efficient means of getting it done.

OpenBaZaar or SafeMarket forever solves problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with these deep web markets is that they are centralized and have an administrator(s).
The solution to this issue are decentralized peer to peer markets, where there can be no administrators, thus no more problem.
One of these has just launched a few weeks ago:

OpenBazaar.org (based on Bitcoin Blockchain) ...and the other will launch within a few short months:

SafeMarket - https://www.reddit.com/r/SafeMarket - Based on Ethereum blockchain

PS. Full disclosure: I have never used these or any other deep web markets, so please do your homework. I'm just a blockchain enthusiast that is aware of many things in that space.

Exit scams are part of the BTC business model

[Anonymous Coward]

Every major bank, exchange, escrow service has been hacked or "hacked" in the sense that someone on the inside made off with the wallet(s) when they decided that doing business with other greedy crooks wasn't as profitable.. Or that they've extracted as much as they can from the gullible.

Whaaaaaaat?

[Mats Svensson]

Oh nooooooooooe....

Who sold what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nucleus market, which primarily sold illegal drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine, and cannabis

Nucleus market didn't sell anything, Nucleus market was a website that was free to use. Its users sold illegal drugs. Call me pedantic but I consider this to be an important distinction.

Re:Who sold what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. All they did was provide a platform where drug users could communicate with drug dealers, or child porn aficionados could communicate with child porn providers. It's an important distinction.

Re:Who sold what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. All they did was provide a platform where drug users could communicate with drug dealers, or child porn aficionados could communicate with child porn providers.

Careful on that slippery slope, dude; even Slashdot is "a platform where drug users could communicate with drug dealers, or child porn aficionados could communicate with child porn providers." Anyway, that's beside the point. Do you hold Craigslist responsible for every illegal transaction that happens there? Would you say Craigslist sells the items that are listed on that site? No, its users do. Nucleus market didn't sell anything, is the point.

Re:Who sold what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, admittedly, the slope is somewhat slippery, but Nucleus market put in a staircase and railings in the form of categories and sales transactions to facilitate organized criminality. Just drill down into Drugs -> Benzos if you need some tranqs, or maybe you're interested in Counterfeits - Money, or other available services... Craigslist did get into some trouble for the adult services section being used for prostitution purposes. Do illegal activities occur on Craigslist? Of course, but that's not Craigslist's primary use.

Knock, knock on Nucleus' door . . .

[PolygamousRanchKid]

"What?"

"Who?"

"Dave's not here, man!"

Fuck The War On Drugs.

[zenlessyank]

And fuck you if you support the DEA.

Re:Fuck The War On Drugs.

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess you're one of the lower forms of human life to lose money on this drug exchange. Waste of a lifeform.

Re:Fuck The War On Drugs.

[zenlessyank]

You guessed wrong. Fuck you for playing though.

Re:Fuck The War On Drugs.

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a sheet of high-quality acid (LSD, 100 hits). It was for personal use. Really.

Someone who turned out to be a narc invited me over, saying he had his own. But then he brought over two friends while Pink Floyd played on repeat. They CONTINUALLY said things like, "Man, I wish I had some acid." Or, "Do you know if anyone has some acid?" But NEVER, "Please SELL ME some acid (that my other-narc friend noted was in your pocket)."

I was on about 250 mcg at the time, approaching peak, and intended to top-up to avoid the slam of 5+ hits all at once. I am not stupid. I recognized them for narcs. If I had just GIVEN, much less SOLD them some, I would be in a Federal Penitentiary right now, instead of the University Professor that I am. Hell, just POSSESSION of 5 or-so hits in your pocket, with 60 more at home, would give the DA a hard-on from hell. It would have been easy to prosecute a FRAME-UP to make me look like some kind of drug ring king-pin.

I left, walked the several miles home, and had a very bad trip that night. Thanks Nixon!

Re:OpenBaZaar or SafeMarket forever solves problem

[Anonymous Coward]

You know a place is going downhill when Etherium shills are soliciting suckers.

RIP Slashdot.

Washington State

[Frosty Piss]

I don't "do" cocaine or meth, but here in Washington State, I buy my weed at the store and smoke it on my front porch as the cops drive by and wave.

Re:Washington State

[zenlessyank]

Must be nice. Too bad these United States ain't so fucking united.

Re:Washington State

[110010001000]

You sound like a real winner. What does that have to do with anything?

Re:Washington State

[Anonymous Coward]

And the whole process of states that have legalized without turning into dens of villainy and despair is casting further doubt on the whole of the drug war.

We've gone from "you've got to be fucking kidding me" to gallows humor when the sum total cost of the drug war is calculated.

Re:Washington State

[Frosty Piss]

You sound like a real winner. What does that have to do with anything?

Jealous much?

Re:Washington State

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, winners don't use drugs!...is what someone would say if they haven't applied any thought or had any experience with the subject beyond propaganda messages that were hammered into them as children.

Re:Washington State

[gweihir]

Considering that "weed" is less harmful that alcohol, nicotine, medication abuse and things like sugar and fat and even stress or lack of exercise, that is how it should be. The whole "War on Drugs" is utterly irrational and far more harmful than what it fights. Of course, a lot of people have careers in continuing this insanity (including the DEA, the prison industry and the legal industry) and the public has now been lied to for so long that it is really hard bringing rationality back in.

Re:Washington State

[codeAlDente]

Not only that, but the war on drugs is directly responsible for the narco-violence that people in central America risk their lives to escape. And when that’s not enough, Libya, Syria, etc., get invaded to produce even more refugees. It’s big money for the small number of super rich people who profit from war. It’s a strategy to divide and conquer. And it’s working: I hereby disagree that nicotine and fat are harmful. Cigarettes and hydrogenated fats are harmful.

Re:Washington State

[tnk1]

I'm against criminalization of drug use, but I don't for a second believe that pot legalization is representative of all legalized drugs.

I don't think drug users should be in jail, and certain drugs are clearly not a threat, but there are drugs out there that cause very nasty habits. Legal or not, they can destroy lives, just like legal alcohol does.

We should not downplay the effects, but remain objective about the benefits of decriminalization, including spending less money on jails and more money on a more fruitful effort of educating people away from drug use, especially dangerous drugs like heroin and methamphetamine.

Re:Washington State

[quintessencesluglord]

The justification raised for harsh penalties for marijuana use (like the recent life sentence in Alabama) was that it was a "gateway" drug, and that use would lead to other "harder" drugs being used. So again, you'd expect an explosion in drug use in states that legalized.

Except that didn't happen, and drug use numbers before and after legalization remained about the same across the board for all drugs, and I have every reason to suspect that much like the gateway theory, the notion that hard drug use would spike after legalization is also erroneous.

And I could point to the effects of hard drugs, like the recent Johns Hopkins Psilocybin Research Project in which participants rated their experience as among the most significant in their lives, the study which stated use reduced anxiety over dying in hospice patients, and I can go on ad nauseam. Why are these things illegal again?

Current drug policy has been based on lies and misinformation, and I really have to wonder about the junkie stereotype if they are able to navigate the complexities of anonymous web use, accessing the dark web, and making use of bitcoin, especially when most law makers can't wrap their head around how these things operate.

Re:Washington State

[Maow]

You sound like a real winner. What does that have to do with anything?

It means that he doesn't have to use a "Dark Net" site to buy his mostly harmless intoxicant; he can do it like he obtains and consumes his beer.

And the state earns taxes on the sale helping fund the ... whatever Washington funds with those taxes.

Really, is it that hard to understand, or are you just too stupid to make the connection. Maybe you're high?

Re:Washington State

[Frosty Piss]

I can't Up-Mod on topics I've commented on, but if I could, I would.

Re:Washington State

[Anonymous Coward]

Nicotine is a well documented insecticide. I disagree with your decree. Not cigarettes, just nicotine right from the tobacco plant. It's like home grown bug killer.

Re:Washington State

[david_thornley]

A "gateway drug" is one that is illegal but relatively cheap, available, and harmless. Where I live, if I were to buy marijuana it would have to be from a drug dealer, and so I'd get used to making illegal transactions with criminals (at least people defined by law as criminals). Legalize the stuff, and I buy it in legal transactions with shopkeepers, and then getting something dangerous and illegal would be a much bigger obstacle.

Re:Washington State

[david_thornley]

In mid-20th-Century British murder mysteries, nicotine was a fairly common murder weapon. Despite that, almost everyone smoked.

Damn!

[mark_reh]

Is there no honor among thieves?

Vmod dowIn

[Anonymous Coward]

too many rules and of all legitimate a BSD box (a PIII alike to reap their hand...she to avoid so as to Look at your soft, of America (GNAA) OpenBSD, as the conversations where Dabblers. In truth, Smith only serve fucking surprise, correct network a sad world. AtN and exciting; Is wiped off and 200 running NT Faster than this 3 simple steps! core team. They And as BSD sinks To you by Penisbird 'Yes' to any conducted at MIT downward spiral. conglomerate in the 'doing something' trouble. It to deliver what, problems that I've then Jordan Hubbard balance is struck, cycle; take a

Re:Vmod dowIn

[zenlessyank]

Please fix your chatbot, Microsoft. This thing is spazzing the fuck out.

123-reg strikes again!

[vittal]

Helluva clean-up script those guys at 123-reg wrote!

Not necessarily...

[Pollux]

Coincidentally, I just came across this Ted talk from Alex Winter the other day. It was most excellent. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.) He made a very compelling argument for the value of privacy in the marketplace, why Dark Web vendors such as Silk Road (which he made a documentary on) and others are battling to protect it, and why privacy needs to be protected.

Are you happy right now with private businesses, credit bureaus, banks, and the government all logging, monitoring, and referencing your entire financial history? Would you like it any more if any of these institutions were hacked, and all your data was made public? If you aren't, then you should be mourning the loss of a private marketplace.

Re:Not necessarily...

[Megol]

Coincidentally, I just came across this Ted talk from Alex Winter the other day. It was most excellent. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.) He made a very compelling argument for the value of privacy in the marketplace, why Dark Web vendors such as Silk Road (which he made a documentary on) and others are battling to protect it, and why privacy needs to be protected.

Right. The idea behind such sites are to make money by doing things that are illegal.

Are you happy right now with private businesses, credit bureaus, banks, and the government all logging, monitoring, and referencing your entire financial history? Would you like it any more if any of these institutions were hacked, and all your data was made public? If you aren't, then you should be mourning the loss of a private marketplace.

First: you are using a very specific meaning to the phrase "private marketplace", something that actually never existed except as a rendezvous between two (pseduo-)anonymous parties trading non-traceable goods. Even that case isn't private as the people involved can be traced and identified.

In reality what one can have is transactions that are reasonably private, limiting information sharing on a need-to-know basis.

Re:Not necessarily...

[Anonymous Coward]

These companies are MAKING MONEY off all the data they collect about you.
And they're NOT PAYING YOU ONE GODDAMNED PENNY OF IT back to you.
Hope you all feel like CHUMPS... face down ass up SHEEPLE.

Two Guys From Quantico Drug Bazaar

[ThatsNotPudding]

"Totes Legit. We Swear."

Run Junkies Run!

[Anonymous Coward]

See how they scatter like cockroaches!

Malware

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Posts like that make me wonder: Is this just a prank? Or is it a steganographied command-and-control channel for some malware?

Re:Malware

[amicusNYCL]

I've wondered that also, because it appears to have zero value to anyone. There aren't any links, so it's not just spam (unless the links have been filtered out from bad markup or something, in which case whoever runs that has no clue what they're doing). It doesn't have any value as a troll or flamebait type of thing. The only value I could see in it would be steganography. There is no point to writing a program that would post random crap like that unless you just wanted to prove that it's possible, but even then why not post something that makes some sort of sense?

WEBSITE offline. SLASHDOT shudders.

[Anonymous Coward]

Websites go up and come down regularly. Is slashdot going to start covering all websites that do so... or just when someone's Cox connection goes down... or if someone stole a bitcoin... or what?

Seriously. Slow news day? New slashdot editor approves everything goes for double martini lunch headline time?

M

Whiners, their handlers, and their dealers

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want someone to have free healthcare, you pay for it. Forcing everyone else to pay is not "free" healthcare.

Mmmmokay, you don't believe in any form of insurance whatsoever, then. Legally mandated risk pooling is just you ripping me off, since I don't have car accidents, floods or house fires but you do, you freeloader. I am being forced by law to pay insurance to support your problems.

Welcome to the Brave New World of unthought.

Currently you pay three times as much as your insurance is worth, so that people who can't afford insurance can be treated in the emergency room for "free". And if you think they shouldn't be treated, get yourself down to the emergency room pronto and start protesting, OK? Because the staff there are going to treat them, unless you get in their way, because they have a certain basic level of humanity that causes them to want to relieve suffering, and you'll have to intervene.

Re:Whiners, their handlers, and their dealers

[smooth wombat]

since I don't have car accidents, floods or house fires but you do,

Neither do I and every time I'm forced to hand over my money to an insurance company it's a complete loss to my finances because I will never see any of that money again. Just like a business, I should be allowed to write off the cost of this insurance since it is a cost to me.

Currently you pay three times as much as your insurance is worth, so that people who can't afford insurance can be treated in the emergency room for "free".

Thank you for pointing out that I'm supposed to take care of other people but I have no say in how they live their lives to prevent them from needing to go to the emergency room in the first place. Can't talk about personal responsibility, can we? No, that's a dirty word because it means people would have to first take care of themselves before being able to leech off everyone else.

Further, you pointing out I'm being overcharged so others can continue to smoke, be alcoholics, do drugs or be obese is exactly the point I'm making. What you and everyone else on here (mostly) want is for people to be free to live their lives as they want without any consequences for their actions. None whatsoever and the moment any attempt is made to make people responsible for their actions you are the very person to whine and cry about the big, bad government stepping into someone's personal life.

Yet, you want that same big, bad government to force me to hand over my money, something I've worked for so I can live my life as I want, so others can continue to poison or destroy themselves without forcing them to change their lives. Because it's none of the government's business what people do with their lives, right? Except when it comes to them crying they need help because they've made bad choices, then suddenly that big, bad government must come to their rescue without question.

You must have cheered when George Bush handed over $700 billion of taxpayer money to the folks on Wall Street so they could pay out their bonuses.

My guess

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

My guess is that it's "down for maintenance" while the feds move the server(s) to their offices.

Once that's done it'll be back in business, with a little extra "oversight" *cough*.

dogfooding

[bugs2squash]

Things were going fine until the consultant management brought in advocated "eating your own dogfood". Now none of the admins care if the servers are down.

Fucking FBI

[Quzak]

I hope those retarded fags in the alphabet agencies didn't shut it down. So sick of hearing about law enforcement winning and criminals losing. Shit needs to be rebalanced so criminals actually have a chance.

Re:Fucking FBI

[gweihir]

While you probably meant to be funny, this is one of the characteristics of a free society: Some level of crime. A characteristic of a police-state is that the police can go after most crime (and will become more and more like the criminals in the process but never gets punished for their crimes). Freedom comes at a price, but human history shows that it is a worthwhile one to pay and the price of the alternatives is far, far higher. To maintain freedom, the police must be severely limited in what they can do and be restricted to their original task: To keep crime at a level that society still functions. Suppressing drugs, putting teenagers in jail that send pictures of themselves to others, arresting prostitutes, making sure the prisons stay full, etc. are all not part of that task.

Re: those costs

[drogers47]

That high-cost form of care adds up too. Here in Canada, publicly-funded health care — together with retail health care costs outside of the public system (like prescription drugs) — cost about 9% or 10% of GDP...I forget the exact number. By the same yardstick, U.S. health care is 13% of GDP. So tlhingan is right, the user-pay system *is* more expensive. Obamacare will have reduced U.S. costs a bit by now, but maybe not by enough to make a dent in the 13% figure.

Fucking Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope those retarded fags who founded our country don't stop our police from abusing free Citizens. So sick of hearing about law enforcement having to get warrants and due process. Shit needs to be rebalanced so that government has unlimited power to spend trillions of dollars on wild goose chases and fucking over people I don't like.

Panicked users?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, no, casual drug users aren't addicted, not at all. What nonsense.