Politics >> common sense or statistics

No politician is going to say they plan on increasing crime when they go for office, so its assumed they will try to lower it. So people can't pick a side for that. People can pick a side on whether guns should be legal/illegal. They will get biased information based on what they want to hear due to the black/white 2 party system currently, this can be correct or incorrect info. If making guns illegal gets him elected he will do it. After all its the next guys problem to fix it.

Its common knowledge that something is illegal is that for a reason, it is bad. Thus it can't be good and can not be made legal. When in reality it was made illgeal because someone needed it to be illegal.

For example cigarettes are ok but marajuana is not. Note cigarettes were a $$ maker, and activity for colonial upper class. Marajuana type drugs were used by savage Indians before scalping raids on innocent settlers, so it was given a bad stigma.

*edit* no guns in the forecast this week

 

nice post, silver...i have to say i agree with you on every point.

 

Rambling = SPAM*** Count it up boys

 

Sad but true. People elect officials based on what those officials say they are going to do regarding certain stigmas, dangerous or not. People believe those stigmas because of the last person they elected beating it into them, and the person before that and the person before that.

Som facts...

Prostitution was not only legal, but highly venerated as a sacred occupation by many ancient societies, including the Greeks and Romans, and many before that. There were temple prostitutes, and their services were regarded with great wonder by the population, and they were called upon during times or ritual or religious feasts. It was only with the advent of Christianity that prostitution became stigmatized, and many historians believe that it was more as a way of distancing the Christian religion from those that it replaced, as a way of demonizing pagan religions.

Opuim was legal and smoked in Opuim dens until the early 1900s, when it was banned as a way of harassing Chinese immigrants. Sure it can be unhealthy, but no more than alcohol when used in moderation. Opuim is illegal due to one fact, racism.

Marijuana was legal until it was assocciated with Blacks and Hispanics. It was said that Mexicans would come to the US, smoke pot, and kill people at random, and that pot caused "white women to want to fornicate with negros" I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried, look up speeches made by Anslinger, that is a direct quote from the man responsible for pot's banning.

 

i did a huge report on weed back in high school..it was actually made illegal because of hemp's versatility and the money that it would've lost for the million dollar paper/textile industries of the 1800s..in order to get the population on board they made up all the crap about mexicans killing people and white women fornicating with negros...and they made films like "reefer madness". if you've never seen it, you definitely should pick it up at the library and check it out, it's hilarious.

 

I don't think you have been right about this yet. Maybe you should stop trying.

 

Yeah, I have read many reports on that, but most of them were from conspiracy theorists, which made me very dubious about their veracity regardless of how much sense it made. Just like Michael Moore could walk up to me and tell me that I have legs, and I'd tell him to go **** in a pot, that I'm not buying his BS.

And yeah, I've seen Reefer Madness, my roommate is a pothead (started when it was prescribed to him during chemo). I gues it's just the passing of ages, but I don't see how that film could possibly have turned people away from pot. That party looked like a blast! And I would SOOOOOOOO bang that blondie.

Too bad that's not what pot is like at all. I did it three times, and I just hated each time. So I don't do it now and I wouldn't even if it was legalized. But the fact remains that some "illicit" drugs no longer have valid reasons to be illegal other than the crime factor that them currently being illegal draws in. The 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act made booze and organized crime synonymous by the sheer nature that possessing, transporting, brewing, distilling, or selling was illegal, so naturally those that were already involved in illegal acts stepped in to provide a service that no one else would. When drugs were made illegal, crimnals stepped in to capitalize on a growth market, and thus made association with drugs nearly as dangerous as tehy had initially tried to convince people that it was. But with the repealing of the 18th Amendment, alcohol didn't make people go mad with crime, it didn't increase Mafia activity. After a few years, when most of the states figured out their own laws and booze was readily available again, it nearly CRIPPLED the Mafia for a while. They eventually had to get into number running, piracy, and casino dredging to make teh kind of living that they were used to. If people did'nt have to deal with the dangerous Mafia or anything in their control, why would they? Alcohol wen't right back to where it was before Prohibition, relatively safe and sane, and in the hands of Everyday Joes.

I think that much of drug legalization or at least, less stringent laws would put drugs right back in the hands of everyday citizens, who now in this day and age, armed with scientific understanding that wasn't available in the early part of the 20th century, would be even safer that the old days. Criminals would be figuratively kneecapped, since illegla drug money finances many terrorist acts, many organized crime attacks, and creates a do or die situation for many criminals. Why go to the alley in Hell's Kitchen and deal with Robertito or Vinny or Nahojay to buy drugs, when you can walk right across the street and borrow some from Clark and Betty, who can then pick up some more at the Albertson's? Give it back to the regular people and you will see a near total normalization of it. Doing a drug would be no different than having a drink or smoking a cigar, do it responsibly, and everything is ok, hurt someone else when doing it, and be punished for the damage you did. Criminalizing people for doing something that (when done properly and in moderation) hurts no one is just ridiculous. Even Nixon said that punishment for use of a drug should not be more harmful to the individual than that actual use of the drug itself, but nearly half of the adult prison population in America are there for drug charges.

 

that would be nice, but sadly, i don't really think it's possible anymore...prohibition lasted for a little over a decade..weed has been illegal for nearly 70 years now..so even if they did legalize it i think the stigma would carry on...crime associated with marijuana (trafficking, selling, etc) would definitely drop, but i really don't think the country could ever see it as a harmless herb again..at least not in this or the next generation

 

LEON is the ******* man!!! Ok, now that I'm thinking about it, I need to watch that movie... RIGHT NOW... Be back in 2 hours...

 

Mmmmmm, 12 year old Natalie Portman.

Is it still pedophelia if they're of age now?!?

Um, nevermind, scratch that. I didn't say anything and you didn't read it either. I know where everyone of you live.