On The Drive Home Today

[Winstonm]

The Huffington article says

But when it comes to putting its rhetoric into action, the Obama administration has faltered

and goes on to mention several cases in which, rhetoric aside, it's "business as usual" as far as the Feds are concerned.

i don't believe that anyone who has been around for any length of time expected anything to actually be different

Another rarity - Jimmy and I are in agreement.

[jdonn]

It's not that rare. Just talk with him about any Democrat in office. Since they are a Democrat he won't like them, and since they are in office you won't like them.

[Lobowolf]

It's not that rare. Just talk with him about any Democrat in office. Since they are a Democrat he won't like them, and since they are in office you won't like them.

This is a serious Post of the Year contender to challenge "It's a good thing I'm not political."

[Winstonm]

It's not that rare. Just talk with him about any Democrat in office. Since they are a Democrat he won't like them, and since they are in office you won't like them.

LoL. Noted.

[Winstonm]

I don't have a strong conviction either way as to whether or not drugs should be legalized - society certainly has the right to make that determination. I am surprised no on has said much about the effectiveness of the U.S. prison system in regards to drug and drug-related offenses.

 

I have read (and i won't bother to look it up now) that somewhere around 75-80% of the people in prison are there because of drug-related offenses, meaning they were drunk, stoned, or trying to get the money to get drunk or stoned when they commited their crimes.

 

These are more addiction problems than crime problems, and there is a great deal of evidence (so I've read) that indicates that drug courts do much better and with much less cost than penalty systems.

 

I also hold a grudge against anyone who thinks they are above the human condition, that if placed in similar situation their iron will or superior moral judgement would prevent them from the errors made by others.

 

Bullshit.

 

Every single one of us has a breaking point - if you have survived morally intact it just means you have been lucky enough to have not been placed in the position to fail.

 

If you sentence a meth addict to jail for breaking into your house, all you have accomplished is sending an ill human being to prison for trying to steal enough money to buy his medicine.

 

That does not alleviate the problem.

[Winstonm]

I just wanted to bump this thread lest I be said that I never agree with Winston.

 

I also like his thread on the nature of time.

I reserve the right to edit any post of mine with which Lobowolf agrees. B)

[mike777]

I do not see drug use as a victimless crime. Example lets call booze a drug, if your Mom or wife is drunk/high all the time the whole family suffers and is harmed. If Dad is using crack often, it harms the whole family.

I disagree, at least with respect to whether the "victimization" is inherent, which is the key question, IMO. Because some people drink a fifth of Jack Daniel's and beat their kids three times a week is not a sufficient justification to criminalize the people who drink alcohol in moderation.

 

Similarly, you qualify the problematic aspects of drug use by saying if Mom is drunk/high "all the time," or if Dad is using crack "often."

 

That's not to say that those excesses don't happen (often, even) and cause problems. But I don't favor criminalization of risk creation, with very few exceptions (drunk driving, making convicted pedophiles stay away from schools upon their release, etc.) Analyzing use by thinking in terms of abuse has its own problems. The next thing you know, you're banning strip clubs because some people might lose their jobs because they don't go to work, they get addicted to the strip club and hang out there all day. Or banning table salt, because it leads to heart disease, which causes financial hardship to the family when Dad has a heart attack at 50, or can't work.

I note booze and cigs are legal.

 

If you want to make all drugs legal fair enough, I just expect to see all the problems with legal booze and cigs to be the same with making crack legal.

 

I do expect the mob and violent gangs to be involved in legal drugs. I do expect minors to have easier access. I do expect a huge social and monetary cost to doing this. I do not expect the taxes raised to come anywhere near to covering this cost.

 

I heard one commentator claim the costs of legal booze and cigs is around 300 billion a year and taxes raised is about 35 billion. I have no idea if these numbers are realistic or not but hopefully someone can post some numbers.

 

Bottom line I just would prefer to see 300 million Europeans take the lead first if someone wants to run this social experiment. Lets learn from their lessons.

[Winstonm]

Those who adhere to the ideas of Ayn Rand are of course not going to be comfortable with laws against drug use. That's pretty much a given. Maybe Ron Paul thinks along those lines, but few elected politicians do, and I don't either. Right or wrong, I don't think the nation will be turning to the writings of Ayn Rand for guidance

 

But, of course, in our brilliance we put in charge of all of the U.S. economy and monetary system the one man who believed all Rand's crap: Alan Greenspan.

 

Is it any wonder we are skirting along on the edge of depression?

[kenberg]

i agree that drug use is not victimless and i still think it's as asinine to criminalize (most) drugs as it was to criminalize booze... the bigger problem to me is how to decide on which drugs to legalize and which to criminalize... remember, at one time cocaine was legal in the u.s., as was pot and opium

Ayn Rand favored selfishness, at least enlightened selfishness. Here we somewhat agree. I have limited interest in paying for cops to stop some idiot from going through life stoned and limited interest in housing and feeding the supplier when we put him in a prison. People are supposed to learn to watch out for themselves. Nonetheless, I am still quite wary of just saying anything goes in the use of drugs.

that's not the way i remember her writings... i remember her promoting selfishness and speaking rather harshly about the alternatives

I say she advocated selfishness and you say she promoted selfishness. I am not sure we disagree here.

 

I am not claiming that she would agree with my application of it, in fact I am pretty sure she and her followers would not.

 

But I do think self interest is important. We can hardlty sustain a major and costly effort unless we see some benefit. Now benefit to whom may be an issue. Largley drug usage has no direct effect on me. But doing something good for the country as a whole is something I value and so I am up for something that works. This attitude is, I believe, suspect with Randites. I favor it. that's freedom for you.

[blackshoe]

There's a difference between "I've got mine, screw you" selfishness and "I'm gonna do X, because it's good for me, but hurts no one else" selfishness. It's the latter of which Rand was in favor. So am I.

[Winstonm]

There's a difference between "I've got mine, screw you" selfishness and "I'm gonna do X, because it's good for me, but hurts no one else" selfishness. It's the latter of which Rand was in favor. So am I.

The problem I have with Rand is that she wrote about fictional characters acting in a fictional world - meaning she controlled all the outcomes. Is it any wonder the outcomes of her novels fit her philosophical ideations?

 

A more accurate picture of what really happens has been painted over the last 20 years with the repeal of the laws that came from the Great Depression - we let the bankers have their selfish greed and look what it did to society.

[blackshoe]

Rand wrote a lot more than just novels. Check out The Virtue of Selfishness, for example.

[Winstonm]

Rand wrote a lot more than just novels. Check out The Virtue of Selfishness, for example.

I don't begrudge you your beliefs but for me I got all of Rand I ever wanted from Atlas Shrugged - and history to me reveals that unrestrained selfishness always produces class warfare/struggles. (btw, it is the same human faults that cause both unrestrained capitalism and unrestrained socialism to fail, imo).

[blackshoe]

I'll say it again - Rand wasn't talking about "unrestrained" selfishness. She was talking about selfishness restrained by the principle that "your right to swing your arm ends at the tip of my nose".

 

Unrestrained anything is highly unlikely to be good. Well, love is probably an exception. As long as it doesn't turn into something else, like obsession. :(

[Winstonm]

I'll say it again - Rand wasn't talking about "unrestrained" selfishness. She was talking about selfishness restrained by the principle that "your right to swing your arm ends at the tip of my nose".

 

Unrestrained anything is highly unlikely to be good. Well, love is probably an exception. As long as it doesn't turn into something else, like obsession. :(

Right - my point is that there is no such thing as righteous or restrained selfishness, that it only lies in the imagination of the writer or reader. Reality shows us that selfishness is almost always abused.

[blackshoe]

I've never been able to actually finish one of Rand's novels - as a writer of fiction she was imo pretty bad. Her philosophical essays were another thing. Perhaps it's because they are shorter - mostly just a few pages. Perhaps it's because most of them were co-written with Nathaniel Braden, who may have been a better writer than she was.

 

There are certainly flaws in her philosophy — or at least things that need discussion. But I wouldn't dismiss it all because of a few flaws - or because she was a terrible writer. It certainly seems a better basis for living than the afore-mentioned "I've got mine, screw you". :(

[blackshoe]

Right - my point is that there is no such thing as righteous or restrained selfishness, that it only lies in the imagination of the writer or reader. Reality shows us that selfishness is almost always abused.

There is no philosophy in all of human history that has not been the basis of abuse, or allowance of abuse, somewhere, somewhen. There won't ever be unless, sometime in the (probably distant) future, the human race "grows up". If we survive that long.

[Winstonm]

I've never been able to actually finish one of Rand's novels - as a writer of fiction she was imo pretty bad. Her philosophical essays were another thing. Perhaps it's because they are shorter - mostly just a few pages. Perhaps it's because most of them were co-written with Nathaniel Braden, who may have been a better writer than she was.

 

There are certainly flaws in her philosophy — or at least things that need discussion. But I wouldn't dismiss it all because of a few flaws - or because she was a terrible writer. It certainly seems a better basis for living than the afore-mentioned "I've got mine, screw you". :(

I appreciate your discussion and I don't disparage whatever personal views you might hold - my own views are based on my life experiences and I lump all of mankind in one big bag of human flaw - all of us equal in our humanity.

 

Rand, IMO, tends to seperate and segregate into elitists and "the rest of us".

 

Edit: Agree about no philosophy winning - I simply used Rand as she had been mentioned earlier.

[blackshoe]

Rand's biggest flaw as a philosopher, imo, was an attitude that "if you don't fully embrace everything I tell you, you're wrong". I suppose that could be viewed as elitist. Anyway, my point was that there are some things (not everything, which I suppose makes me "wrong") in her philosophy that make sense to me, and may make sense to others. I was suggesting that it would be unwise to dismiss her out of hand. OTOH, if you've read her philosophy, and then decided she's full of crap, well, that's a different story. ;)

[Winstonm]

I undertand her philosophy and even tend to agree in principle with some but think it is only an academic exercise and fairly useless for real life experience. But then what do I know.

 

After all, who IS John Galt?

[blackshoe]

Damfino. ;)

[kenberg]

I like to test general philosophy against specific cases. We had company last night and the following story was told in passing.

 

Our guests had a babysitter a while back. Given our guests general outlook, I greatly doubt the babysitter gave any appearance of trashiness. She got pregnant. The boyfriend is into drugs. The girl wanted to keep him around but when he pushed her out of a moving car she called the police. He is now in jail. The general consensus around the table was that a husband for the girl and a father for the child would be good, but it's best if she keep looking elsewhere.

 

 

So the guy is demented or a total jerk or something, the girl is brain dead foolish.

 

This story is hardly unusual, unfortunately. What, if anything, is society's role here? I believe in helping people but some people are very resistant to being effectively helped. There will be a child. I think it is fair to say that here drugs and other irresponsibility will likely be leading to a life of poverty, rather than poverty leading to drugs and irresponsibility.

 

So what would Ayn Rand, or Jesus, or Barack Obama, or whoever, have us do here? The problem seems to be rampant.

[qwery_hi]

I like to test general philosophy against specific cases. We had company last night and the following story was told in passing.

 

Our guests had a babysitter a while back. Given our guests general outlook, I greatly doubt the babysitter gave any appearance of trashiness. She got pregnant. The boyfriend is into drugs. The girl wanted to keep him around but when he pushed her out of a moving car she called the police. He is now in jail. The general consensus around the table was that a husband for the girl and a father for the child would be good, but it's best if she keep looking elsewhere.

 

 

So the guy is demented or a total jerk or something, the girl is brain dead foolish.

 

This story is hardly unusual, unfortunately. What, if anything, is society's role here? I believe in helping people but some people are very resistant to being effectively helped. There will be a child. I think it is fair to say that here drugs and other irresponsibility will likely be leading to a life of poverty, rather than poverty leading to drugs and irresponsibility.

 

So what would Ayn Rand, or Jesus, or Barack Obama, or whoever, have us do here? The problem seems to be rampant.

Servers them right for not paying attention in the sex-ed class.

[kenberg]

As I understand sex-ed class, they show the students how to put a condom on a banana. The student's understanding of this is that before they have sex they should go put a condom on a banana.

[qwery_hi]

As I understand sex-ed class, they show the students how to put a condom on a banana. The student's understanding of this is that before they have sex they should go put a condom on a banana.

If kids followed instructions that well, abstinence only sex-ed would be a success.