Avoid Major Oil companies

That's still cheaper than the regular prices in Europe.

shakiro

And we are still not financing every social program in the country based on gasoline taxes as are many countries where gasoline is more expensive for this reason alone. The gasoline cost pretty much the same all over the world. It is all the pork barrel spending by the politicians that accounts for a huge portion of the price difference you pay at the pump.

Lugnut

True, and in Europe there's not that huge porverty problem that exists in the USA, thanks to those taxes. So no people here who need to go stealing for their living, hence Europe isn't the part of the world with the relatively highest number of prisoners (per head of population).

In the banana republic there's indeed the 'pork barrel' (maybe also in the US?) that's spent exclusively for the politicians, not so much in Europe.

shakiro

You may or may not have a valid point. It is a hotly debated topic in this country. I think our standard of living stacks up pretty well against most any other country. The government has set the so called poverty level relatively high making it seem as though there is much poverty compared to other countries. Poverty certainly exist but, not to the degree you may perceive based on the politicians assertions. If it were as bad as you hear, there wouldn't be so many people doing whatever is necessary to get into the USA - and do it again if found and deported.

As far as the prison population, I think it is probably the result of this "war on drugs" that evryone believes to be so important. It has gotten to the point that our economy would suffer if the war on drugs was somehow ended abruptly and drugs legalized. Our law enforcement and justice system would damn near collapse without drug and alcohol enforcement generated or related revenues. I think other countries are more tolerant of drug and alcohol use. Hell, this country still treats alcohol with a stigma whereas other countries accept it as a normal part of their culture. Most of them are fairly harsh on those who drive while impaired because of irresponsible drinking. This tends to deter the behavior and I have no problem with that approach. I don't know the current statistics but, at one time something over half of our prison population was a result of drug or alcohol infractions. Of course, there are those countries who do not have a drug or alcohol problem because the penalty is execution. There are some where you could stay incarcerated an for years before going to trial only to be found guilty.

Lugnut

I have seen both sides of this coin. I lived in northern Europe from approximately 1981 to 2003. You can't equate the systems exactly. The USA does not have the highest standard of living in the world, across the board. For those who do enjoy a high standard, there is no place quite like it, but for the lower socioeconomic levels, it isn't so hot.

The people who want to come here are from places where it is worse, and there are many.

One of the big problems is the ethnic diversity we have in the USA, each subculture being more or less distinct and culturally polarized.

In Norway, where I lived, people worked because they wanted to do so, not because there was no social system to help them if they chose not to work. If you opened that sort of opportunity in the USA, how many people would hold jobs, and how many would sit on the sofa waiting for food to be delivered?

[snip>

I'm not so convinced, for example, there's no medical insurance for the poor people. In Europe's most countries, the state will provide medical insurance, in any way covering the very high costs that the pple themselves can not bear because of lack of income.

There have been numerous cases presented on television here where people, apparently at a high level of wealth, get jobless, lose their medical insurance, get sick, have to sell their house, and end up living in a camper on some farm in misery and poverty. At least in our perception.

Sounds like an assumption :) Even if the government would take the 'drugs problem' a bit more relaxed, then still, because of the poverty many people are caught in, there would still be a lot of 'offenders' of hard drugs laws, hence put in prison. Further, if the prison system is privatised, certainly the last thing a prison director would want, is to launch a social rehabilitation problem preventing recidivism once they get out. The more cruel and de-humanising the system, the more chance those private companies will see their 'customers' return.

shakiro

That's not an assumption. The facts are available. In fact, something like

90 percent of women in prison are directly there because of drugs--either their sales or the sales of their boyfriends.

Drug laws are the most common that have mandatory sentences. US prisons often have to free more violent criminals to make room for non-violent drug offenders who have mandatory sentences.

Except that poverty doesn't cause drug use--nor does it cause crime. Contrary to popular opinion, only a minority of poor people are either criminals or drug users. If poverty CAUSED either one, the percentage would be much higher (and rich people would never be criminals or drug users).

I'd be interested to know what part is for soft drugs, and what part hard drugs.

Sounds like... euhm... nah, never mind :)

Still government could take the 'drugs problem' a bit more relaxed :) I remember the world championship (or was it european, i don't remember because i'm not so much of a soccer fan) where the final 2 games were divided between belgium and the netherlands. In Belgium there were a lot of problems with fighting hooligans, in The Netherlands no violence at all. All hooligans were peacefully smoking and enjoying pot :)

shakiro

Of course, the hidden truth in this is that many of these offenders pleaded down from more egregious charges, with the prosecution having full knowledge that they would serve a mandatory sentence (no sentencing discretion, and without possibility of parole). So they may not be non-violent individuals, they just happen to be serving time for a non-violent crime.

Now, this Rube Goldberg system is not necessary in any way; if the mandatory non-violent sentences were not available, there would simply be a lesser degree of plea-bargaining. Using drug sentences as plea-bargain bait just happens to be the status quo, and law enforcement certainly likes it that way because plea bargains tend to get them testimony when they can't otherwise build a case.

The feds for the most part try to stay out of local cases unless someone is making the feds look bad, or if the feds simply disagree with the local policy and wish to make a political example of it. See Raich, Emery, et.al.

I think the prevailing fiction is that drug use causes poverty. One might be able to make the claim that drug *dependence* or abuse has a high association with poverty, and even use cigarettes and alcoholism towards proving that claim. But good luck separating *use* from *abuse* in any layman's mind.

The crossover word is "addiction". A responsible user could be viewed as addicted by some people's definitions simply because he enjoys his chemical of choice and does not plan to discontinue its use. But a person who has become irresponsible or physically dependent and thus has placed his future success in jeopardy is also referred to as addicted. In that way all users are placed in one group that is propagandized away from the mainstream with a force equal to that group's force of normalization. (Conveniently, all citizens' tax dollars are used by ONDCP to perform this marginalization, rather than placing the onus onto concerned citizens to finance their own propaganda campaigns.)

The true dependents who are allowing their lives to be destroyed by alcohol or other drugs make up maybe 5-10% of the whole at most, according to NIDA and interest group statistics. I've always been puzzled at why it would be considered more effective to enforce the law and incarcerate 100% of illegal drug users and continue to pay for a demonstrably ineffective propaganda campaign, as opposed to simply funding treatment for the 5-10% who actually have a measurable problem. This puzzlement is compounded by the fact that 30 years of WoD-style enforcement has been associated with an overall *increase* in drug use, so it is clearly a failed policy compared to the only controls we have (Dutch and Canadian liberalization policies, for example). Why do we continue to spend money on this boondoggle? Think how much engineering, science, and education could have been done with $600b over the last 30 years, and that's just at the federal level.

Then there are all the problems of a black market that we know very well from alcohol prohibition: association with crime and violence, impure and fake products, not discriminating against minors in sales, and the 'forbidden fruit' phenomenon that attracts people, especially youths, to something that they may have otherwise been disinterested in.

With over 40% of adults having consumed marijuana at some point in their life, and 95% of high school students currently having what they consider to be easy access to it, not to mention recent research debunking most of its supposed health risks, it is difficult to imagine how much longer the government can keep its head in the sand on that particular issue. It has lost its credibility with youths by employing hyperbole in a failed attempt to convince them to abstain entirely from marijuana, instead of conveying its risks realistically so that an individual can make an informed decision. Then when the youth does inevitably give marijuana a try, they find that they have been lied to, and subsequently disbelieve any other claim from authority that marijuana could be bad at all.

Experienced users know that marijuana must be used with moderation, like any other intoxicant. The youth, however, has been set up for a drug problem, all because an abstinence-based approach was attempted. The principles of responsible use in order to minimize potential harms associated with a drug were never conveyed to him, so he will have to learn them on his own. (Compare to alcohol: don't drink and drive, drink responsibly, have parents present if you party, etc. Youths still get into alcohol, but at least they know better and can choose to act on that knowledge.)

Abstinence versus harm reduction is a debate that has several contexts, but it is quite appropriate here too. A harm reduction approach prevents the 'fall from grace' that typically accompanies a failed abstinence approach. Whether harm reduction actually increases the overall level of irresponsible or harmful behavior is an open question though.

The War on Drugs will continue until it manages to affect a large number of people personally in some way. At the polls, the WoD is a non-issue except to those who have a personal stake in it, so politicians can continue to get away with the abuses of the Constitution that form its foundation, with few people changing their vote as long as no junkies are breaking into their house for a "fix".

We do need to limit imports as we currently do with alcohol and enforce against external smuggling. A sane import policy in general would place an extremely high duty on imports from countries with authoritarian or non-representative governments, not only to prevent domestic consumption of their products, but to send a message to those regimes. Such a policy should extend to intoxicating substances especially. It is utter nonsense to be using our freedom, won by our forefathers' blood and passed down to us, as currency to trade for cheap imported goods! I feel sympathy for the individuals who were born into those regimes, but they are not going to be in a position to demand freedom as long as we continue to fill the coffers of the state-run industries who bankroll their continued oppression.

So there's a load of cra^W^W^Wmy opinion on that topic for you.

No. You're looking only at the last century in the US. Intially, the 13 colonies that became the first United States were far more varied. Even though half of them had their own religions (which varied in terms of social outlook), the other half was as staunchly insistent of a separation of church and state. In fact, it was a radical Puritan (and the founder of the American Baptist convention) who coined the phrase "wall of separation between Church and State," and that was based on Protestant values. In fact, if people knew the truth, the separation of Church and State is the ONLY Christian/Protestant value invested into the government of the US.

What you see in the US today is a continuance of Americans copying (toward the end of the 19th century) the British wave of religiosity (embedded in their "White Man's Burden" to Christianize the world). The US was not very religious as a "national value" until then.

What followed during the 20th century, of course, was the rise of the US as a world power, and as ALL world powers have done since Sargon the Great, the presumption world success is the evidence that we MUST be God's favored nation (not many Christians realize that the reason pagan Rome persecuted Christians was not because Christians worshipped Christ. The Romans were PAGANS after all--they didn't care how many gods you worshipped, as long as you gave a nod to the national patron gods, including Caesar, so the nation could continue to prosper. The Christians refused, so they were persecuted for atheism).

Don't be so sure about those characterizations. Democrats will burn books just as quickly as Republicans...just different titles. They all believe in government controlling the lives of citizens, just different areas of control. In terms of being totalitarianist social planners, both Democrats and Republicans are just very pale shades of Communists.

There had previously been a lot of wild and wooly cross politicalization in the US, and not nearly as much polarization most of the time. Most people don't realize that today's Democrats were actually the progressive wing of the Republican party 100 years ago. At the start of the 20th century, the term "progressive" was owned by the Republicans. All social progress--economic, ecological, racial matters, gender equality--all were planks of the Republican platform. The Democrats were the social conservatives.

Yes. I was.

Yes, clearly by choice, formally...

Interesting, thanks. Was the influence of the other states joining in the federation meaningless (in that respect)?

Of course (I assume) this has not been formalised, but rather became part of the us' cultural (sub)conscience?

I think this is well-known to people who are raised as protestant.

Maybe, yet I expect a lot less attempts of 'mind-control', combined with rigorous personal-freedom affecting measures (as with McCarthy then, Bush' adm. now), from the democrats than from the republicans. Just a feeling. I think the democrats are more into the control of circumstances than of the people themselves.

I remember the father of friend of mine telling me that he, as an Egyptian professor, held a chair in a NY Univ. in the McCarthy era, and upon arrival a woman immediately asked him: "Are you a communist?". His response was a bit amused and he asked: "Why did you think of that?" and immediately she reported him with the university's administration. He had some work in undoing (and here's where the danger is of such types of witch hunts) the damage. If he'd enter there today, the daughter of that lady probably would ask him: "Are you a terrorist?", after which the whole procedure would repeat itself...

Well, at least I did not realise that. Thanks,

shakiro

You lost me here. Many founding fathers referred to themselves as Deists, professing no belief beyond that in a 'prime mover' who set the universe in motion. Besides, these people, even the religious ones, were escaping systematic religious oppression. That is why freedom to practice religion, and the illegality of a state sponsored religion, is encoded into the Constitution.

This 'left vs right' battle is what 20th century politics degenerated into, not how the country was founded. In fact, many of the founders did not like the idea of party politics. You will find that prior to the Cold War, popular politics included many views that would be laughed off the air today. Whether this popular intolerance to new ideas is due to the influence of mass media, the privatization of the presidential debates, general postmodernism and malaise, or simply that those ideas are *bad* ideas, is left as an exercise to the reader.

This is a terrible generalization. The two parties are identical in their aims to increase the size and power of government. All they disagree on is implementation details, and they continually offer up irrelevant moral issues as distractions to citizens who might otherwise pay more attention to their power plays.

Zero tolerance stems from the basic assumption that illegal drugs are bad and no amount of bad done by zero tolerance enforcement can outweigh the bad of drugs. This assumption usually boils down to a value judgement when people take the time to think about it. Most people are content with the knowledge that drugs are bad because they are illegal, or vice versa. One who has no curiosity on the subject and who is ignorant of the potential benefits of responsible use of currently illegal drugs is not likely to change their position. This leads to the idea that, as a matter of garnering political support, 'psychonauts' should spread the word and encourage people to experiment, and thus to political stinkbombs like Leary's famous "drop out" proposition. Unfortunately, this approach is much like that of spreading a religion. Some will be too receptive to it and not exercise appropriate caution, leading to scare stories in the media; others will be turned off by the aggressive evangelizing. In my opinion, this approach did more harm than good.

A better approach along the same lines would have been to argue the line of logic that one's right to imbibe in mind-altering chemicals is equivalent to one's right to practice religion as they see fit - the government cannot discriminate against such practice unless someone else is harmed. The so-called hippie bullshit, on the other hand, was a nice thought toward improving society, but bad politics in a country which had already demonstrated itself capable of prohibiting ALCOHOL!

We, as Americans, vote with our wallets every day. Every day we continue to buy imported consumer goods and oil products that originate in countries that hate democracy, that is another day we are entangled in the politics and economics of other countries who will eventually come back and use that economic and political capital against us. Exporting our freedom is a myopic strategy, yet, who can resist the lure of keeping up with the Joneses at bottom dollar?

There is a simple solution. Leave it up to the states and locales to decide their drugs policies. Unfortunately, the feds like their war chest and police power just the way it is. And activist judges continue to stretch the Constitution to validate the status quo, instead of standing firm and deciding when enough is enough. As of this summer, the power to regulate drug laws within states could have been returned to the states. However, 6 of 9 Supreme Court justices decided that the word 'among' was equivalent to 'within', and several of them used the necessity of the CSA to law enforcement as a rationale for allowing feds to arrest medical marijuana users, destroy their plants, and seize their property even when state lines were not involved. Circular logic?

We'll find out what the government really knew once the FOIA makes it public. Developments within the last years have made the government's original claims quite suspect. Now we have to fall back on "spreading the ideal of freedom". An honorable action from most perspectives. But while we fight 'Nam II, the people responsible for 9/11 and continued murderous acts continue to grow more hateful while we mire ourselves in an ideological battle instead of a practical one, to destroy those who have demonstrated themselves to be willing to kill our citizens. And now we throw domestic problems, that couldn't be foreseen but should have been prepared for, onto the pile. We have some very interesting times ahead of us.

They certainly have you fooled. It's the Democrats (rather "liberal") who are far more into "mind control" than the Right Wing. The Right Wing doesn't really care what you think--just what you do. It will be Liberals who will most insist that you *think* properly, and who will ensure that proper thought is incalcated into all educational forums. The Right Wing will just use police force.

No, what actually happens on US campuses today is that someone representing the right will NOT BE PERMITTED TO SPEAK AT ALL. Someone representing a terrorist viewpoint would be welcomed.

Well, maybe such a guest speaker could spread some more light onto the real causes (and causers) of 'terrorism'? Everything would be better than Bush' comment like "considering the amount of terrorism we see in Iraq, it's a good thing we entered there to fight it". Before the war in Iraq there were no terrorists there. Same goes for the 'war on drugs'. Before the removal of the Taliban there was no drugs production in Afghanistan, now there's plenty.

shakiro

The Internet is one step in that direction. Access to information is slowly becoming more universal. Then you have to somehow get people to care. The most common approach is to assume that they share your values and try to market one's own burning causes to them. I think a better strategy is to find a way to demonstrate that no matter what their other values are, that if they value freedom they had better pay attention to what is going on. If freedom is no longer a shared value then trying to fix this country is moot. Might as well start over somewhere else where that value is once again shared.

Well, I disagree with that policy too. I never would have supported a dictator unless it led directly to assisting his people in overthrowing him. Past mistakes don't justify continuing to make the same ones. Nor does it make sense to mire ourselves in trying to amend those past mistakes by picking the wrong time and place to make an actual stand against authoritarian regimes. This, I believe, is the wrong time and place. Mostly because I don't think it will be a repair that lasts.

Agreed, and I hope people will some day realize that their little insignificant day-to-day choices like where to shop and where to buy gas can add up to devastating problems like this.

People have to want freedom to keep it. If they don't want it, it will be taken away from them as easily as it was given. One way to demonstrate a burning desire for freedom is to overthrow a government. If the Iraqi people wanted freedom, why didn't they overthrow their oppressive government? Where were the underground coup factions, whom we could have assisted in a set-up like the CIA has been doing for half a century or more?

Not that handing freedom to people who don't really care isn't an honorable thing to do. It just seems like throwing pearls to swine. And we don't have enough pearls to go around right now.

Blame could also be placed at the mayor's feet, for having a half-ass evacuation plan, not even executing on THAT plan until T-minus 12 hours, and then somehow concluding that the Superdome would be a good storage place for citizens instead of getting them the hell out. Can't see the reasoning there but hopefully one day the story behind it will make the decisions look better. The facts just aren't all there at the moment.

Nah. You might need 'em next summer...

Well, Hussein was paying Palestinian families when their sons would blow themselves up in Israel. That qualifies as supporting terrorism. The ties to Al-Qaeda are quite a bit weaker, though. So we aren't really providing consequences to the 9/11 terrorist network by taking out Iraq.

That would be a difficult claim to swallow, given that Islam has a history of violence and desperate extremism that compares to no other religion in the world.

What makes you so sure? Afghan hash has for decades been among the best quality in the world. And as for opium farming, it could very well be that we didn't know the extent of it until we shined a light in their direction.

[snip>

I heard various people, including the chief of the UN's WoMD search team, Herr Blikx, declare there were no weapons, or at least they weren't finished looking for them yet. Also the murder of Dr. David Kelley, just 3 days after him testifying that Blair was fabricating a 'spin' concerning Iraq's nuclear capabilities suggests there was a political will to attack Iraq for a completely different reason than the one Bush & Blair gave us.

If the truth has to come from left I won't object :) Anyway, if 'democracy' and 'freedom' were the real motives of Bush (and his doggy Blair) to invade Iraq, then they would have invaded other countries with ruthless dictators before.

'Harm' to (non-american) people has never been a reason for the us to intervene

The UN was more than willing to extend their search of WoMD's if Bush would only have waited with attacking Iraq.

Hmm, this motive sounds a bit like the Microsoft Riddle: "It's not a bug, it's a feature." Stating that providing additional motivation, room for training, and importing terrorists was the real goal of the war in Iraq sounds to me a bit suspect to say the least :)

Unfortunately this motive looks very suspect, because, why suddenly in Iraq and not in other states? No, there must be additional incentives for the us to have invaded Iraq. And for me it still is oil.

This one is also more or less probable to me.

Yes, I am aware of that, but if a region is so strategically important for the whole federation, than what would be more appropriate than to send a big bag full of federal money and let them build proper concrete dikes that are able to withstand the water?

shakiro

I do not agree on that one. The Palestinians are a people highly oppressed by the Israeli military power and are that desperate that the only way they can defend themselves is to blow themselves up in the face of the Israelies. Nobody called the Japanese WWII kamikaze pilots 'terrorists'.

Oops, are you now suggesting to kill all moslims because you think their religion sucks?

Yes, it was very good, but after the Taliban kicked out the Shah and took over, they also introduced death penalty for hash growers. And when they also carried out their threats, the farmers quickly found something else to grow.

shakiro

[snip>

Exactly.

[snip>

Made on order!

shakiro