Ahhh ha... unintended consequences.

Post #392,772 by folkert 8/4/14 8:58:34 AM Reply	Ahhh ha... unintended consequences. In 1970, not only did "they" start putting cops in patrol cars, "they" also started the War on Drugs well before it was signed into law in 1972. This explains a lot to me, especially about your feelings about the effects and "cost" of drugs. I'm sorry it took away good experiences and good feeling and general overall good times. -- greg@gregfolkert.net "No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible." --Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
Post #392,774 by mmoffitt 8/4/14 10:10:49 AM Reply	Um, your decades are off a little with that drug thing. The 1970's were very much "high times." Between 1973 and 1977, however, eleven states decriminalized marijuana possession. In January 1977, President Jimmy Carter was inaugurated on a campaign platform that included marijuana decriminalization. In October 1977, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to decriminalize possession of up to an ounce of marijuana for personal use. Within just a few years, though, the tide had shifted. Proposals to decriminalize marijuana were abandoned as parents became increasingly concerned about high rates of teen marijuana use. Marijuana was ultimately caught up in a broader cultural backlash against the perceived permissiveness of the 1970s. http://www.drugpolicy.org/new-solutions-drug-policy/brief-history-drug-war
Post #392,782 by folkert 8/4/14 11:52:01 AM Reply	But... In actual practice... it is only recently that things have changed. I'm still sorry you experienced this stuff. -- greg@gregfolkert.net "No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible." --Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
Post #392,796 by rcareaga 8/4/14 3:19:34 PM Reply	mmoffitt, you've been formed by... well, by your formative years. So was I, for that matter, but I've made some attempts to modify the original design. You yourself appear, on the evidence laid out for us in your posts, oddly impervious to changing any conclusion you hadn't arrived at by the time you were old enough to purchase strong drink. For most of your fellow neo-Confederates this results in voting the straight GOP ticket. I'm glad that your early Marxist infection at least prevents that. cordially,
Post #392,806 by mmoffitt 8/5/14 8:16:32 AM 8/5/14 8:18:11 AM Reply	Well, ... When you figure things out correctly the first time there's little incentive to change your positions. ;0) But your charge that I am "oddly impervious to changing" my positions is inaccurate. Consider a topic near and dear to a great many on this board: recreational use of pot. At 21 or 22 I had the firm view that anyone who used marijuana qualified for immediate execution - no exceptions (that's not hyperbole - I actually believed that). My view now is keep it and the people who use it away from me and I'm happy. I don't want to hear the rationalizations of what a good idea it is to voluntarily drop your IQ 4 to 6 points. But if you want, nay, demand to be allowed to do that, go ahead. I think it's stupid and causes you to not pay careful attention to things of actual importance, but go ahead. I don't care to be around it and I should have that right. Just as non-smokers of tobacco have a right to be away from tobacco smoke. I'd say that's quite a change in my view on that topic from the one I had when I first became "old enough to purchase strong drink." There's a whole host of ideas I had in my early 20's that have changed over time. But I knew there's nothing more important than legalizing drug use at this moment, so I thought I'd use that counter-example to your claim. If you think I'm intransigent now, you should have met me 34 years ago. ;0) Edited by mmoffitt Aug. 5, 2014, 08:18:11 AM EDT Expand All History
Post #392,807 by drook 8/5/14 9:15:07 AM Reply	So tiring I've been biting my tongue, but this is really getting old. Consider a topic near and dear to a great many on this board: recreational use of pot. No, it's near and dear to your heart. Yes, the rest of us have opinions on it, but I doubt any of us hold those opinions as dear as you hold yours. In other words, you imagine us to be something that we're not. I don't want to hear the rationalizations of what a good idea it is to voluntarily drop your IQ 4 to 6 points. No one here has ever said that is a good idea. What many have said is that there should be a difference between "bad idea" and "criminal behavior". Again, you're arguing against a position no one here has taken. But I knew there's nothing more important than legalizing drug use at this moment, so I thought I'd use that counter-example to your claim. Here you score a two-fer: No one has said marijuana legalization is the most important issue facing us. By your logic we shouldn't talk about anything except the most important issue until that's resolved, then we can all talk about the next most important issue. So what is the single most important issue, which we should exclusively be attending to? You lump marijuana up with every other drug in the world with "legalizing drug use". Because drugs 'r bad, m'kay? Right? All drugs are just like all other drugs? Your constant straw man arguments are tiring. We are not the ones taking the position that anything not mandatory is prohibited, that's you. You have clearly stated your opinion, you have made it clear that no possible evidence will change that opinion. What are you trying to accomplish here? FOR EVERYONE ELSE: Knock it the fuck off already. He has his opinion and he's not going to change it. Taking every opportunity to poke him with a stick does nothing but spawn right-shift orgies of rehashed straw man. -- Drew
Post #392,808 by mmoffitt 8/5/14 9:58:58 AM 8/5/14 10:04:13 AM Reply	My heart? Really? Here's my most recent post on the topic: I don't care. http://forum.iwethey.org/forum/post/392665/ And someone else's lead post: http://forum.iwethey.org/forum/post/392494/ And when it comes to the "appropriate time" to discuss things other than the big issue, I think it's pretty clear that in an environment where the unthinkable (a shooting war between US/NATO and Russia is not outside the realm of possibility) hell, yes, we better solve that first. Before Justin Bieber's newest dating fiasco, or same-sex marriage or legalization of marijuana use. As for legalization being "the biggest issue", clearly, at least one person thinks so. Unless you don't think "the biggest issue" in 1968 was the Viet Nam War. Edited by mmoffitt Aug. 5, 2014, 10:02:11 AM EDT Edited by mmoffitt Aug. 5, 2014, 10:04:06 AM EDT Edited by mmoffitt Aug. 5, 2014, 10:04:13 AM EDT Expand All History
Post #392,809 by drook 8/5/14 10:14:23 AM Reply	No. That's the coward's way out Own up to your opinions. You don't get to argue your position then tell your opponent that it's really not important so they're being unreasonable to argue theirs. In this forum, the only measure of caring is what you spend your time writing about. If you really don't care, then don't write about it. You can make that decision for yourself, not for anyone else. -- Drew
Post #392,810 by mmoffitt 8/5/14 10:29:44 AM Reply	What am I failing to live up to? I don't care if pot is legalized. By God, I don't. I was adamantly opposed for a lot of years, but as I've said explicitly, I DO NOT CARE ANYMORE. What I do care about, and have ALWAYS cared about is how easily the media can get everyone to take their eye off the ball. To me, that's what's going on here. "Don't look at what's happening over there, you've never been there, you don't know anyone from there and besides, they're Rooskies who we've always hated. Hey! Look here instead! We're gonna legalize pot! Isn't that great!" We are pushing Putin into a corner and people are dying and the stakes couldn't be higher. I am as mystified as Cohen on how anyone could possibly think about anything else. I'm sorry I brought the pot thing up. My point in doing so was to point out the idiocy of giving a tinker's damn one way or the other in the current environment and more importantly, to directly refute an accusation made against me and my character. You don't like that I have supporting links? Tango Sierra.
Post #392,812 by pwhysall 8/5/14 10:48:22 AM Reply	The stakes could be WAY higher. It's a shitty little internal war between Russia, Ukraine and the partisans. This sucks mightily for the people living there, but lots of things suck mightily for lots of people all over the planet, so whatever. "Higher stakes" would be nukes pointed at my house as a result of this. I'll bet copious amounts of beer that, for us here in The West, this whole situation never goes beyond the strongly-worded email stage. There is certainly no chance of EU/NATO/US boots on the ground or even wings over Ukraine.
Post #392,818 by mmoffitt 8/5/14 12:14:02 PM Reply	Oh, I think the retargetting is a given. And I think that's the best outcome we can hope for. With our help, you guys in Europe have pushed NATO all the way to Russia's border. How do you think the US would react if a modern Warsaw Pact was spread across the Canadian and Mexican borders?
Post #392,820 by pwhysall 8/5/14 12:45:51 PM Reply	Why do you think any of this? There's no reason to. Ukraine isn't a member of the EU, nor of NATO. Russia is a paper tiger these days; it's poor, it's stupid, it's unhealthy, its military is a shadow of its former self, and it's still dining out on tales of when it was a superpower. Regional conflict is regional.
Post #392,825 by mmoffitt 8/5/14 1:43:54 PM Reply	Couple things. Ukraine isn't a member of the EU, nor of NATO. Not now. But you can't tell me we haven't been pushing that - and hard. Forbes reported at the time on the “stark difference” between the Russian and Western views “not over the advisability of Ukraine’s integration with the EU but over its likely impact.” The Forbes piece explained that the West knew the pitfalls, and Mark Adomanis’s predictions seem to be coming true. Add in the language that required Ukraine ‘to abide by Europe’s security and military policies’, and as Cohen reasonably decodes it: ‘bring Ukraine into NATO through the back door’. http://my.firedoglake.com/wendydavis/2014/06/17/updates-on-the-gruesome-news-from-ukraine-and-the-underlying-geopolitics/ Russia is a paper tiger these days; it's poor, it's stupid, it's unhealthy, its military is a shadow of its former self, and it's still dining out on tales of when it was a superpower. And it still has nuclear weapons and your heating fuel. If I accept your description of a Russia struggling with its self-concept at face value, doesn't that make it more likely that they will pound their chest with the only appendage they have left to pound with (i.e. nuclear arms)? When weighing Russia's poverty, you might want to consider the 30 year oil deal it just signed with China. That looks pretty healthy to me. But then, I live in the world's leading debtor nation. I'm hoping this resolves itself peacefully, but I don't think that a path to a peaceful resolution is clear at present. We've got the non-declared-but-clearly-running leading Democratic candidate and former Secretary of State calling Putin "Hitler" for chrissakes. (Aside: I agree with Cohen on this point, too, that her doing that should be an automatic disqualification). Personally, if no diplomatic solution is reached and we force Russia to lose the Ukraine, I cannot see how their remaining nukes are not aimed at their aggressors.
Post #392,834 by pwhysall 8/5/14 4:08:31 PM Reply	Nuclear exchange over Ukraine? That's just ridiculous.
Post #392,852 by mmoffitt 8/6/14 9:07:00 AM Reply	No, not exchange, retargetting. Just like in the first Cold War.
Post #392,813 by folkert 8/5/14 10:48:41 AM Reply	'MURICA! EFF-YEAH! SHINY THING OVER HERE! nevermind that blowing up thing over here... BENGHAZI! ACORN! -- greg@gregfolkert.net "No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible." --Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
Post #392,824 by rcareaga 8/5/14 1:38:52 PM Reply	Re: So tiring drook makes his points a tad intemperately, but he's certainly spot-on when he observes that that the issue of marijuana's legal and social status makes a rather dimmer glow on most of our radars than it does on mmoffitt's. Left to my own devices (without, that is, the prospect of "losing my situation" should the cunning contract chemists of BDS ever detect forbidden compounds in my pee) I would likely indulge perhaps two or three times a year. Legalization doesn't loom large in my personal politics, though I'm of course gratified to see that we appear to be in the early stages of a paradigm shift very long overdue. I'm unspeakably relieved to learn that mmoffitt no longer holds the "firm view that anyone who used marijuana qualified for immediate execution - no exceptions." That he believed this at one time does not, it seems to me, make for a very persuasive argument that THC shaves off IQ points, since that is a very stupid position for a pot-abstaining 21 year-old to advance. Certainly if we take that stance as our baseline, mmoffitt has attained a measure of wisdom since then. cordially,
Post #392,842 by crazy 8/6/14 1:21:25 AM Reply	Sorry Drook He keeps pulling the IQ bullshit, I'm gonna throw this link out there. Of course, it is not for him, but any drive by readers. The whole point of arguing with idiots on the internet is NOT to change their mind, we know that won't happen, but to give random people who are researching the subject a decent bit of info if they are really interested and haven't made up their mind yet. http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/01/09/1215678110

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