Either pot is ok for any informed consenting person to ingest, or the state has it wrong. The feds most assuredly have it wrong.
This is a matter of personal liberty. Some bureaucrat sitting in a room looking at my personal list of disease processes has not, in any way, shape or form, gained any legitimate power to tell me what I can ingest.
I didn't mean to gloss over it -- it's a separate issue. I've no problem at all with criminalizing operating equipment in a public venue under the influence of any substance that impairs your skills significantly. Like ten cups of coffee. That's a separate insult to society though.
What I have a problem with is criminalizing being under the influence by itself, or pretending that running over someone is *worse* because you were under the influence. Charge 'em with driving under the influence if they were; charge 'em with running over someone if they did; that's all appropriate.
Saying you can't ingest something because you might operate equipment... that's gone way too far.
Yes, I've seen Idiocracy. In fact, I keep the intro on my iPad.:)
But I rather expect that when you can specify you want a smart child, you're going to want to, and then you're going to get one with critical thinking abilities, a decent grasp on reality, and superstition will die out within a few generations.
I think the way it'll most likely go is that if you don't see to it that your child is well gifted intellectually, society will treat you (and probably your kid) as a pariah.
Just as those who don't see to it that their kids get decent nutrition are looked down upon today. Only more so -- because the competitive advantage for everything from mates to jobs will be enormous.
It's just speculation, of course, but I'm pretty comfortable with it.
It's more complicated that just "legalise it and the problems will go away".
That's not what I'm saying at all.
There are two classes of problems with this (and just about everything else, for that matter): First, problems I cause for myself such as physical and mental debilitation, failure to manage my finances and so on. Second, problems I cause others such as breaking into their homes and stealing, mugging them, and the like.
The former is a matter of personal liberty, and my position is that the only legitimate input you and the government have in this regard is educational; put the information out there, and if I choose to, I may utilize it. You need to make sure the information is right, though, the misinformation spread by the drug warriors often falls into the agitprop category and any average person can read it and know it's purest nonsense -- and that leads to the assumption that everything said in such service is agitprop, and defangs any attempt to educate with laughter and derision.
The latter -- acts where I interfere with you and others -- are a matter for law enforcement. Now, the problem with the drug war is that it does, in fact, create the entire basis for these acts by making drugs illegal and so too natural precursors to other illegal acts, and by making the drugs themselves expensive, and by making taking the drugs an act of rebellion against a lying, unfair, anti-liberty system. Were the drugs legal, they'd be inexpensive, theft and other fuckery would not be required to fund drug use, drugs themselves would not stand so profoundly as markers for rebellion, and they would not bring people into the criminal world simply because they'd like to enjoy themselves without bothering anyone else.
The drug war is unjustifiable in light of the true facts and in the context of any regard for personal liberty at all. Some people may well have the urge to nanny the next person over and tell them what they may and may not do with their own bodies, but such people are completely out of line and should be shunned -- at the very least.
Are you trying to pigeonhole me? Don't — honestly, I'm just winging it. If you raise a big flap over some flighty assumption that I'm Canadian, I'll just quietly give you the bird, see? And no one wants that.
...is that I'm still using Windows XP (within an OSX/VMWARE VM) and that's what I expect to be using forever, because (a) I have all the Windows software I need, and (b) XP is sandboxed from the Intertubes so it can't fall and hurt itself. As well as keeping it in a fully backed up state, and only home to software and configurations, rather than my most important data, which lives under OSX, an OS which has yet to truly jump the shark.
I imagine there might in fact be a lot of people out there that want an OS that is essentially a surface clone of an XBox. But I don't. I want a computer that starts out right at the top with tools I can use to manipulate and examine the system -- not just a hotlink to twitter. Here on slashdot, I'm thinking I probably have a fair bit of company in that outlook, although I have no doubt many of you use something later than XP, but still not Windows 8.
It looks like this is a sea change, and that it might be inevitable. But I'm digging in my heels and will resist the dumbification of the desktop by MIcrosoft (and Ubuntu, for that matter) as long as I can.
I sure am glad I really went for broke last time I bought a computer. I think I'm safe from them trapping me with a new machine that an older OS can't boot on.
I'd like to see software covered under copyright as well; the kind of thing where you can't copy my binary or my source code, but you're perfectly free to write your own code that does something similar or the same. But that's because I'm a small operation, and I don't have to justify X dollars of investment.
Unfortunately, just like hardware, companies put a lot of money into developing things, and they're looking for some protection for that investment. Copyright doesn't really cut it; and I think that's why patents ended up filling in, as it were.
It's not good for the little guy (nor is hardware patenting, for that matter... as soon as you say "lawyer", I say, "goodbye, little guy") but it works for corporations, and they're running the show, have been for a while.
To resolve that larger problem will take a lot more than unhappy inventors. Frankly, I don't think it can be done -- I see us as so far down the slope of corporate oligarchy, complete with a happy and couch-bound bread-and-circuses entertained populace, that it's now impossible to fix the system.
I'd love to be proved wrong, but there isn't even a hint of it that I can see.
I don't think it's great system either; but it is the system and it's working as designed. So you're not going to get it changed, or at least much, by low-level bitching or simplistic protests. The only thing I really "like" about it is that the government is operating within the limits it is authorized to; I actually find that rare and precious, these days.
Anyway, if you want to change it, you need to get after a constitutional amendment, because that's the source of the mechanism.
Success stories aren't the issue. If someone wants to go down that path, that's success -- for them. Or not. Not our problem either way. Freedom. Liberty. Etc. Want to jump off a cliff? jump. I'll cheer, eat popcorn. Good. More power to ya.
Our problem is when they rob and steal and etc. And THAT is a problem created by our government. Not by drugs.
Article 1, Section 8:..."To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"
You'll note the intent is to create an exclusive right. It is obvious that during the period of that right, the inventor has control, which in turn encourages invention. It is also obvious that should party B attempt to use party A's invention during this period without in turn securing that right from the inventor, the phrase "securing... to authors and inventors" means the government is authorized to intervene.
You'll note the authors didn't say they were encouraging taking other's ideas without recompense, either.
If you don't like it, feel free to cobble up a constitutional amendment and see if you can make it fly. It's worked before.
I can't say I much appreciate the present length of the terms of patents or copyrights (although I make part of my living from them), or the muddle that's been made out of fair use and so on, but complaining about patents limiting distribution of an idea is to completely miss the point and intent of the system as envisioned by the founders. It's working at least vaguely like it was intended to, which is more than we can say for the rest of the constitution.
Running out of heroin in an environment where heroin is difficult and expensive to obtain will cause acts of desperation.
Running out of it in an environment where it costs what it's worth, which is about a penny a hit, won't cause anything but reaching into a pocket and taking another hit.
The problems with these drugs are caused by the drug war. They're not inherent to the drug.
No such discussion is required. It is already illegal to hurt, kill, or force others, as well as a whole list of similarly nasty actions, and that's exactly correct. No need for laws that arbitrarily criminalize externalities. If you hurt someone else through a lack of responsible action on your part, you broke the law. Punishment should be in proportion to that harm.
What you had for lunch or took to relax or whatever should have nothing whatsoever to do with it.
You don't get a magic pass of no responsibility because you're high, that's all. Poor control while driving? Reckless, goodbye license. Don't care if you were sleepy, answering the phone, solving the fusion problem, or drugged out of your mind. Kill someone in the process? Manslaughter. Unless, of course, we can prove intent. Then it's murder. Etc.
You wanna drink, drug, meditate, or spin in one place till you're dizzy? I'm entirely good with that. But you're still responsible for your actions. You hurt my family in that state, I'd be all over you. But I'd be all over you if you were straight as an arrow, too. The problem isn't drugs, or drinking. The problem is the harmful act, and the direction of response should be mediated by responsibility, and nothing else.
As a person who cluelessly implies "addiction" in a post about marijuana, you may rest assured that the vast majority of readers with a decent education are completely ignoring you.
Unfortunately, it isn't. Google up some knife massacres, check out mass poisonings, study up on some of the mass killings in countries like Japan where guns are outlawed. Enlighten yourself, you're in serious need of it. The problem isn't guns. You can't fix or ameliorate the problem by restricting guns. The problem is batshit crazy fucktards that we cannot identify. And the only solution is arranging for a way to stop them when they finally fall off the edge.
Unless your plan is to have everyone live in a padded room, your "removing guns" idea is utterly worthless. Knives, sharpened broomsticks, hammers, copper sulphate, vehicles, construction equipment, chainsaws, rotary hand saws, nail guns, screwdrivers, a sharpened fingernail and and a little bit of any of a vast array of toxins... there is not, and never will be, a shortage of tools with which to massacre people. And it'll be a long time before there's a shortage of crazies. So if you want to solve this instead of indulging in worthless feel-good activities like banning firearms, start thinking in terms of stopping the problem at execution time.
Me, I'm a good deal more concerned with highway deaths, but I've always been fond of dealing with reality. Makes me an outlier, but I can deal.
Hell they didn't even have cartridge loaded weapons when the second amendment was written.
In 1791 (when the bill of rights were ratified), “arms” included all manner of pistols, rifles, muskets, cannons, explosive and solid cannonballs, cannonballs filled with shards, frigates with multiple decks of cannon, wagons with explosives and multiple guns rigged to fire in unison, chain shot, flaming missiles soaked with pitch and other inflammable, easily spread and hard to extinguish compounds, swords, knives, bayonets, fighting canes, brass knuckles, battering rams, catapults, siege towers, glass bottles, garrotes, whips, chains, both fused and mechanically triggered explosives, striking weapons like sticks and poles and quarterstaffs and maces and war-hammers, spears, bows, axes, arrows and crossbows, caltrops... I could go on for quite a while. All of these arms, and more, were in common use in warfare and self-defense at the time, and all of them were in private ownership and possession. Yet, knowing all these things, all they put in the 2nd amendment was “arms.” So clearly, that’s what they meant. Arms of any kind. They didn’t say “muskets and pistols.” They said arms.
Just as a point of reference, paper cartridge loaded weapons had been around since the 1500's.
Furthermore, those same people had watched arms technology advance, and of course they were aware of its long history of advances, and still they said arms. They meant for the populace to be armed, and they were serious about it. When the copper cartridge and rimfire primer were introduced (about 1845), any of them still living would probably have just rubbed their hands together in glee and congratulated each other on their choice of the word "arms."
So don't get too excited about cartridges. A face full of chain shot will do you in just fine.
There was an anti-sodomy law in Texas until as recently as 2003!
And there are still multiple states with statutes that say atheists cannot serve in various political offices.
That's just the tip of the iceberg. A great deal of state and federal law (and court decisions) are really, really wrongheaded. Some of it is straight up unauthorized. There are ex post facto laws. The constitution has been relegated to the "who cares" zone. And very little of it will ever get straightened out. That's not what congress or scotus or the executive wants to do, and we have almost zero control over any of them. And the public not only doesn't care, they don't even faintly grasp the problem.
Slashdot Mirror
Obviously, AC, you're a spammer and a sockpuppet. Fuck thee off.
You couldn't possibly have a legit reason to be AC.
Interesting math?
Either pot is ok for any informed consenting person to ingest, or the state has it wrong. The feds most assuredly have it wrong.
This is a matter of personal liberty. Some bureaucrat sitting in a room looking at my personal list of disease processes has not, in any way, shape or form, gained any legitimate power to tell me what I can ingest.
I didn't mean to gloss over it -- it's a separate issue. I've no problem at all with criminalizing operating equipment in a public venue under the influence of any substance that impairs your skills significantly. Like ten cups of coffee. That's a separate insult to society though.
What I have a problem with is criminalizing being under the influence by itself, or pretending that running over someone is *worse* because you were under the influence. Charge 'em with driving under the influence if they were; charge 'em with running over someone if they did; that's all appropriate.
Saying you can't ingest something because you might operate equipment... that's gone way too far.
Perch? You're trying to buy me off with fish?
(mmm, fish...)
Yes, I've seen Idiocracy. In fact, I keep the intro on my iPad. :)
But I rather expect that when you can specify you want a smart child, you're going to want to, and then you're going to get one with critical thinking abilities, a decent grasp on reality, and superstition will die out within a few generations.
I think the way it'll most likely go is that if you don't see to it that your child is well gifted intellectually, society will treat you (and probably your kid) as a pariah.
Just as those who don't see to it that their kids get decent nutrition are looked down upon today. Only more so -- because the competitive advantage for everything from mates to jobs will be enormous.
It's just speculation, of course, but I'm pretty comfortable with it.
...you can't fix stupid.
At least, not yet. Science, genetics specifically, still offers us a little hope of finally leaving superstition behind us.
But it sure is difficult to watch the deluded go about their hand waving, crystal gazing, and ancient calendar worshiping.
That's not what I'm saying at all.
There are two classes of problems with this (and just about everything else, for that matter): First, problems I cause for myself such as physical and mental debilitation, failure to manage my finances and so on. Second, problems I cause others such as breaking into their homes and stealing, mugging them, and the like.
The former is a matter of personal liberty, and my position is that the only legitimate input you and the government have in this regard is educational; put the information out there, and if I choose to, I may utilize it. You need to make sure the information is right, though, the misinformation spread by the drug warriors often falls into the agitprop category and any average person can read it and know it's purest nonsense -- and that leads to the assumption that everything said in such service is agitprop, and defangs any attempt to educate with laughter and derision.
The latter -- acts where I interfere with you and others -- are a matter for law enforcement. Now, the problem with the drug war is that it does, in fact, create the entire basis for these acts by making drugs illegal and so too natural precursors to other illegal acts, and by making the drugs themselves expensive, and by making taking the drugs an act of rebellion against a lying, unfair, anti-liberty system. Were the drugs legal, they'd be inexpensive, theft and other fuckery would not be required to fund drug use, drugs themselves would not stand so profoundly as markers for rebellion, and they would not bring people into the criminal world simply because they'd like to enjoy themselves without bothering anyone else.
The drug war is unjustifiable in light of the true facts and in the context of any regard for personal liberty at all. Some people may well have the urge to nanny the next person over and tell them what they may and may not do with their own bodies, but such people are completely out of line and should be shunned -- at the very least.
Are you trying to pigeonhole me? Don't — honestly, I'm just winging it. If you raise a big flap over some flighty assumption that I'm Canadian, I'll just quietly give you the bird, see? And no one wants that.
...is that I'm still using Windows XP (within an OSX/VMWARE VM) and that's what I expect to be using forever, because (a) I have all the Windows software I need, and (b) XP is sandboxed from the Intertubes so it can't fall and hurt itself. As well as keeping it in a fully backed up state, and only home to software and configurations, rather than my most important data, which lives under OSX, an OS which has yet to truly jump the shark.
I imagine there might in fact be a lot of people out there that want an OS that is essentially a surface clone of an XBox. But I don't. I want a computer that starts out right at the top with tools I can use to manipulate and examine the system -- not just a hotlink to twitter. Here on slashdot, I'm thinking I probably have a fair bit of company in that outlook, although I have no doubt many of you use something later than XP, but still not Windows 8.
It looks like this is a sea change, and that it might be inevitable. But I'm digging in my heels and will resist the dumbification of the desktop by MIcrosoft (and Ubuntu, for that matter) as long as I can.
I sure am glad I really went for broke last time I bought a computer. I think I'm safe from them trapping me with a new machine that an older OS can't boot on.
Ah, change. It isn't always pleasant!
flamebait.... squab... lol
First time since I joined I thought a mod was funny. :)
...squabbling about this.
I'd like to see software covered under copyright as well; the kind of thing where you can't copy my binary or my source code, but you're perfectly free to write your own code that does something similar or the same. But that's because I'm a small operation, and I don't have to justify X dollars of investment.
Unfortunately, just like hardware, companies put a lot of money into developing things, and they're looking for some protection for that investment. Copyright doesn't really cut it; and I think that's why patents ended up filling in, as it were.
It's not good for the little guy (nor is hardware patenting, for that matter... as soon as you say "lawyer", I say, "goodbye, little guy") but it works for corporations, and they're running the show, have been for a while.
To resolve that larger problem will take a lot more than unhappy inventors. Frankly, I don't think it can be done -- I see us as so far down the slope of corporate oligarchy, complete with a happy and couch-bound bread-and-circuses entertained populace, that it's now impossible to fix the system.
I'd love to be proved wrong, but there isn't even a hint of it that I can see.
I don't think it's great system either; but it is the system and it's working as designed. So you're not going to get it changed, or at least much, by low-level bitching or simplistic protests. The only thing I really "like" about it is that the government is operating within the limits it is authorized to; I actually find that rare and precious, these days.
Anyway, if you want to change it, you need to get after a constitutional amendment, because that's the source of the mechanism.
Success stories aren't the issue. If someone wants to go down that path, that's success -- for them. Or not. Not our problem either way. Freedom. Liberty. Etc. Want to jump off a cliff? jump. I'll cheer, eat popcorn. Good. More power to ya.
Our problem is when they rob and steal and etc. And THAT is a problem created by our government. Not by drugs.
Article 1, Section 8: ..."To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"
You'll note the intent is to create an exclusive right. It is obvious that during the period of that right, the inventor has control, which in turn encourages invention. It is also obvious that should party B attempt to use party A's invention during this period without in turn securing that right from the inventor, the phrase "securing... to authors and inventors" means the government is authorized to intervene.
You'll note the authors didn't say they were encouraging taking other's ideas without recompense, either.
If you don't like it, feel free to cobble up a constitutional amendment and see if you can make it fly. It's worked before.
I can't say I much appreciate the present length of the terms of patents or copyrights (although I make part of my living from them), or the muddle that's been made out of fair use and so on, but complaining about patents limiting distribution of an idea is to completely miss the point and intent of the system as envisioned by the founders. It's working at least vaguely like it was intended to, which is more than we can say for the rest of the constitution.
Note quite.
Running out of heroin in an environment where heroin is difficult and expensive to obtain will cause acts of desperation.
Running out of it in an environment where it costs what it's worth, which is about a penny a hit, won't cause anything but reaching into a pocket and taking another hit.
The problems with these drugs are caused by the drug war. They're not inherent to the drug.
No such discussion is required. It is already illegal to hurt, kill, or force others, as well as a whole list of similarly nasty actions, and that's exactly correct. No need for laws that arbitrarily criminalize externalities. If you hurt someone else through a lack of responsible action on your part, you broke the law. Punishment should be in proportion to that harm.
What you had for lunch or took to relax or whatever should have nothing whatsoever to do with it.
You don't get a magic pass of no responsibility because you're high, that's all. Poor control while driving? Reckless, goodbye license. Don't care if you were sleepy, answering the phone, solving the fusion problem, or drugged out of your mind. Kill someone in the process? Manslaughter. Unless, of course, we can prove intent. Then it's murder. Etc.
You wanna drink, drug, meditate, or spin in one place till you're dizzy? I'm entirely good with that. But you're still responsible for your actions. You hurt my family in that state, I'd be all over you. But I'd be all over you if you were straight as an arrow, too. The problem isn't drugs, or drinking. The problem is the harmful act, and the direction of response should be mediated by responsibility, and nothing else.
Don't even try it.
Here's a missile-armed drone. Flying over your house. Auto-profiling you. No, don't thank us. Our pleasure.
As a person who cluelessly implies "addiction" in a post about marijuana, you may rest assured that the vast majority of readers with a decent education are completely ignoring you.
Yeah.... yeah... unfortunately, it doesn't work that way, and that's a problem we've been completely ineffective in resolving.
Unfortunately, it isn't. Google up some knife massacres, check out mass poisonings, study up on some of the mass killings in countries like Japan where guns are outlawed. Enlighten yourself, you're in serious need of it. The problem isn't guns. You can't fix or ameliorate the problem by restricting guns. The problem is batshit crazy fucktards that we cannot identify. And the only solution is arranging for a way to stop them when they finally fall off the edge.
Unless your plan is to have everyone live in a padded room, your "removing guns" idea is utterly worthless. Knives, sharpened broomsticks, hammers, copper sulphate, vehicles, construction equipment, chainsaws, rotary hand saws, nail guns, screwdrivers, a sharpened fingernail and and a little bit of any of a vast array of toxins... there is not, and never will be, a shortage of tools with which to massacre people. And it'll be a long time before there's a shortage of crazies. So if you want to solve this instead of indulging in worthless feel-good activities like banning firearms, start thinking in terms of stopping the problem at execution time.
Me, I'm a good deal more concerned with highway deaths, but I've always been fond of dealing with reality. Makes me an outlier, but I can deal.
In 1791 (when the bill of rights were ratified), “arms” included all manner of pistols, rifles, muskets, cannons, explosive and solid cannonballs, cannonballs filled with shards, frigates with multiple decks of cannon, wagons with explosives and multiple guns rigged to fire in unison, chain shot, flaming missiles soaked with pitch and other inflammable, easily spread and hard to extinguish compounds, swords, knives, bayonets, fighting canes, brass knuckles, battering rams, catapults, siege towers, glass bottles, garrotes, whips, chains, both fused and mechanically triggered explosives, striking weapons like sticks and poles and quarterstaffs and maces and war-hammers, spears, bows, axes, arrows and crossbows, caltrops... I could go on for quite a while. All of these arms, and more, were in common use in warfare and self-defense at the time, and all of them were in private ownership and possession. Yet, knowing all these things, all they put in the 2nd amendment was “arms.” So clearly, that’s what they meant. Arms of any kind. They didn’t say “muskets and pistols.” They said arms.
Just as a point of reference, paper cartridge loaded weapons had been around since the 1500's.
Furthermore, those same people had watched arms technology advance, and of course they were aware of its long history of advances, and still they said arms. They meant for the populace to be armed, and they were serious about it. When the copper cartridge and rimfire primer were introduced (about 1845), any of them still living would probably have just rubbed their hands together in glee and congratulated each other on their choice of the word "arms."
So don't get too excited about cartridges. A face full of chain shot will do you in just fine.
And there are still multiple states with statutes that say atheists cannot serve in various political offices.
That's just the tip of the iceberg. A great deal of state and federal law (and court decisions) are really, really wrongheaded. Some of it is straight up unauthorized. There are ex post facto laws. The constitution has been relegated to the "who cares" zone. And very little of it will ever get straightened out. That's not what congress or scotus or the executive wants to do, and we have almost zero control over any of them. And the public not only doesn't care, they don't even faintly grasp the problem.
I kinda liked "bully puppet".... :)