Prohibition Laws

[Neb]

Originally posted by Azred: What good is a discussion if it doesn't have the potential to become heated? [img]graemlins/beigesmilewinkgrin.gif[/img] So no one should be able to sell cars or motorcycles, yes? [img]graemlins/saywhat.gif[/img]

Difference: Cars and motorcycles are safe as long as you are careful. Drugs are actually poison. The reason that you get high is because you're poisoning yourself.

And what's this crap about it not harming others to not wear a seatbelt or to do drugs? Wouldn't you feel bad if your friend died in a car crash because of not wearing a seatbelt? Can't a child become an orphan because of it? Plus, if you do drugs you'll most likely end up as a non-productive member of society. Maybe even commit crime to pay for your habit. Now tell me that those things don't harm others.

Originally posted by StigTC: I usually dont post in something that's likely to get heated, but here goes. Starting with Night Stalker: You're wrong, it has been proven time upon time that by prohibiting and fining people for doing something, they will eventually stop doing it, how many fines do you think it takes for someone to realize that the seatbelt isn't such a great evil. Not to sound heated or rabid [img]smile.gif[/img] Ill address each of your points in order. I suggest you read up on the Prohibition act of the 20's. It was a total failure. You can't find a single instance in history where it actually worked. I know many people who do not use seatbelts, and who don't wear helmets ....they some times get fined but all you are doing is taking from them the liberty our constitution gaurentees them. Next you will want to legislate what people eat, what time they go to bed and get up..all in the name of "whats good for them" that is not what this country is about. Seat belts are not an evil, helmets are not an evil...a LAW telling me I HAVE to use them..is an evil. Down with the Nanny Culture! [img]smile.gif[/img] About the gun control, it might not stop all criminals from carrying guns, but it will stop some of them, and how many do you need to stop when it's human lives we're trying to save. For the record, I dont believe in total abolishment of guns either, but if you dont have a use for it, why should you have one, buy an alarm in stead. Not one person has stopped an intruder by throwing an alarm at him. hundreds of people each year save their lives, their family and their property with firearms. Alarms...how many times do you jump up and call the police when a car alarm goes off? how long does it take police to respond? Do the police even respond? But even that is not the issue. Read what George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had to say about firearms, Rifles and pistols. It is a right of our people to own them. Rights cannot just be taken away. At least they aren't supposed to be taken away. MagiK: Do you honestly believe that you can run the country on a set of base rules that are more than 200 years old (the constitution is that old right) with-out ammending them every once in a while. Actually yeah... I posted the Bill of rights a while back and if you look, you will see that all the ammendments after a certain point in the 1800's are basicly government giving itself more power, or protecting people from a twisted set of lawyers....or better defining exactly what certain terms meant. NONE of the ammendments changed the basic founding principles. I will also point out that the constitution was all about LIMITING the power of government. The power of government over the people to be more precise. The people who wrote it were against authoritarian central governments and wanted the people to have freedom and liberty, not shackles and yokes. Chewbacca: Historically, countries didn't have the means to enforce theese laws. We pour billions into the war on drugs annually...I can still go two blocks over and get a gram of coke. LennonCook: Sure they can be taxed, it's income just like everything else, they just need to change tax rates according to what you makie your money on. I actually agree here. You can tax drugs if you treat them like any other commercial import export. Some drugs Im against because they are very toxic, but hey..so is alcohol and tobacco...slap a surgeon general warning label on them and let the people that want to abuse them do so. The Gene pool will be better off without the people who are truly geneticly prone to become addicted. Im sick of our government trying to protect us from our selves. That is NOT its job. Final note: I dont think anyone should be allowed to sell anything that will kill you as fast as drugs. And NightStalker and Magik, when reading you post my mind was ringing the anarchy bell with a sledge hammer. Nope not anarchy. I am all for laws and regulations within the bounds set down by the constitution. Not selling anything that will kill you as fast as drugs..hmm slippery slope there...A car can kill you in a heartbeat. A gun...A swimming pool, sharp eating utensils....all very dangerous to your health...where do you draw the line? or maybe we should let grown adults make those choices for themselves?

A final note. I disagree with your stance but don't mean for that disagreement to be interpreted as disagreeing with your right to have the stance.

[ 10-08-2002, 09:23 AM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

[Attalus]

Neb, I am with you on this one. Hey, where are you going? I have to say that since the law was passed, seat belt and helmet usage are way up in the US. I just had to (yesterday) go out to a truck crash site where the lone survivor was a kid who was wearing his seat belt, and the last thing that he told me before the helicopter took him away was, "They made fun of me because I buckled up, and now they're dead and I'm not." He was weeping, and his leg was broken at the thigh, but he will live. Thanks to his seat belt.

[ 10-08-2002, 09:27 AM: Message edited by: Attalus ]

Originally posted by Neb: Difference: Cars and motorcycles are safe as long as you are careful. Drugs are actually poison. The reason that you get high is because you're poisoning yourself. And what's this crap about it not harming others to not wear a seatbelt or to do drugs? Wouldn't you feel bad if your friend died in a car crash because of not wearing a seatbelt? Can't a child become an orphan because of it? Plus, if you do drugs you'll most likely end up as a non-productive member of society. Maybe even commit crime to pay for your habit. Now tell me that those things don't harm others.

mm Nebbie. My best friend, Kurt in Highschool died because he crashed without his seatbelt on. I feel bad that he died, but not that he died because at the time there was no seatbelt law.

On the other hand. My dad is alive because he didn't have his seatbelt on when his truck was side swiped by a drunk driver and crashed into a tree...because he was not tied in palce by the belt, he was thrown to the floor of the vehicle and saved from having his skull crushed by the tree when it caved the roof of the truck in. Yeah I know my dad was the exception to the rule, but the thing here is...are we adults able to make decisions for our selves? Or are we to forever remain children dependant on others to make the choices for us?

Originally posted by Attalus: Neb, I am with you on this one. Hey, where are you going? I have to say that since the law was passed, seat belt and helmet usage are way up in the US. I just had to (yesterday) go out to a truck crash site where the lone survivor was a kid who was wearing his seat belt, and the last thing that he told me before the helicopter took him away was, "They made fun of me because I buckled up, and now they're dead and I'm not." He was weeping, and his leg was broken at the thigh, but he will live. Thanks to his seat belt.

Guess we can't always agree on everything [img]smile.gif[/img] My pioint is still, that it is not the governments job to protect us from our selves. They should make the information available, not legislate our behaviour. Once you allow them to do that in one instance..it is all too easy for them to widen that scope. I realize that you as a physician have to deal with the tragic results produced by the idiocy of people...but maybe if we allow the truly stupid to remove themselves from the genepool, we as a race will benefit? (I, by the way wear seatbelts and Helmets..not because the law says so..but because I have children who depend on me)

EDIT: Umm I wear seatbelts in the car and helmets while on motorcycles...not seatbelts and helmets while driving my car [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 10-08-2002, 09:35 AM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

[Neb]

Originally posted by Attalus: Neb, I am with you on this one. Hey, where are you going?

You're agreeing with me? [img]graemlins/saywhat.gif[/img] Maybe you should have Galadria check your temperature?

[Timber Loftis]

A few things I must point out, and this time I'll actually say I subscribe to most of the views I put forth herein:

1. Jefferson did not write the Constitution. He wrote the Declaration of Independence, a beautiful document. After that came the Articles of the Confederation, which governed us a bit, and then the Constitution, which was the result of lots of time spent drafting by a lot of (very bright) wealthy landowners. They placed their ideas in the newspapers for public debate on the issues - and mostly the writings in such debate were done by Madison and Adams - the Federalist Papers. The resulting Continental Congress saw the completion of the Constitution - and correct me if I'm wrong, but Delaware's Ratification of same made the 2/3 majority which was needed to pass it.

Jefferson was a bit forward-thinking by the other drafters' points-of-view. The freedom he believed black people should be accorded and other leftist views caused most of the other psuedo-aristocracy drafting the Constitution to marginalize him. He had less and less to do with the drafting of the document over these periods. About the only idea he helped get through in any big way was the radical notion that someone who didn't own land could nevertheless vote.

2. The fact that a preventative law does not work 100% of the time is not necessarily evidence that it is a waste of time. This is too large a rubrik to discuss this issue under.

3. Yes, you can tax something that's not processed. Example: corn (unless perhaps it's GMO corn [which might be but likely is not considered "processed"], but you *don't* want to get me started on that).

4. Seatbelts and helmets are a touchy subject. They do save lives, there is no argument. And, requiring them does increase usages, there is no argument. As far as seatbelts go, this argument is likely moot, as New Hampshire is the only state where they're not required. I have a case right now where the Plaintiff wrecked his Harley doing about 35 MPH. He hit his head, spent months in a coma, and can now only function as a mentally disabled person. Likely would not have happened with the helmet. Moreover, you bet the defendants will introduce evidence that the lack of a helmet was negligent - lessening his recovery for the injury, and thus harming his family. Personally, I am against requiring these safety devices, but I will detail why in a minute under the topic LAW/RESPONSIBILITY BALANCE.

5. As well, I am generally against the outlawing of *most* drugs. The tricky question with drugs always becomes where to draw the line. Advocating marijuana should be legal is in my opinion, and I'm sure others here will feel the same, very different than advocating cocaine be made legal. Incidentally, it's not just the ingester we are concerned with here - on the news this morning Jude Law's kid ate an X tablet at a function that it found on the floor left by the most recently-held other function in the venue. I don't know exactly what MDMA does to a two-year-old's brain, but it's scary. Especially since the X you guys get over there in London kicks the sh*t out of what's available here in the US.

6. LAW/RESPONSIBILITY BALANCE. Did you know that if you are really drunk you can't get convicted of Murder 1 in almost every state? You lack the mental capacity ("mens rea") to have the planning and premeditation necessary to get a Murder 1 conviction - the highest mental capacity you can get convicted for is a "reckless" one. Unless you "drank for courage" or you tried to trick the system, in which case the rule changes because the premeditation is there. The same is true for being high on other drugs than alcohol, and drug-related vehicular homicides.

That is the heart of the problem, and I think others here have touched on it well - I'm just rying to put a name to it. Drugs are fine to legalize if you can somehow: (1) pass on the responsibility of the actions to the person on the drug under a theory that since they chose to do the drug they are liable for even the unintended results, and (2)you can somehow protect the innocent bystanders.

I think that #2 above is the most difficult to deal with. Clearly, a basic concept in our society is that no matter how we define the limits otherwise my "yes's" must certainly end at your "no's." The general agreement is that we won't harm each other, and that each of us owns ourself to do with as we please. This is an old concept, and is the basic agreement Locke asks us to make in his "Second Treatise: On Property" wherein he goes on to take that one simple agreement and justify the existence of all property. (On the theory that if you own yourself, and then mix yourself with the land, you own the fruits of your labor).

But, that line between my "yes's" and your "no's" is not a bright line, and it is ever-moving. Clearly, most of us feel we have a right to NOT put on a seatbelt, as we have a right to die damnit (Note that suicide is illegal as well). However, what about the cost you the uninsured motorist places on the rest of us when we have to scrape your sorry ass off the pavement? Is there one? If you're on welfare, we pay your medical bills. Is that fair? Can we only require that people who cannot afford their own medical expenses wear seatbelts? Can we limit someone's recovery in a lawsuit because they didn't put on their seatbelts, and thereby caused the damages to themselves to be worse? (We do sometimes.) Tricky questions indeed.

Similarly, you clearly, in my mind, have a right to coke up if you like - and more power to you. We were all young once, and if you're not young that shit will put you out of our misery soon enough. But, how do we ensure you don't do crazy sh*t while on it that you would not otherwise do? That's the rub - we don't want you hurting others.

With drugs I think there is not a "legalize" or "make illegal" distinction you can make. I think it comes down to judging how dangerous the substance is to those around you. I am against the paternal governmental judging of what the drug does to you, however - and I like MagicK's phrase in the other thread about this, but I can't remember his exact phrasing right now.

I don't think I'm going to propose answers on these questions, I just want to help define the realms of the debate. I don't even think I have many answers.

I will say that in determining what drugs to make illegal and which ones to legalize, there is in my mind no argument that if alcohol is legal, pot should be. Given the analysis I set up a few paragraphs ago, looking to the collateral (e.g. affecting the "others" who are near the one doing the drug) effects of them, it seems alcohol is more prone to cause violence and lack of judgment and motor skills. On the other hand, a nation full of potheads' single largest problem would be that no one could find their car keys.

[ 10-08-2002, 04:46 PM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

[Timber Loftis]

I didn't speak to guns in my rambling post (above). I think I'm for strict control of who can buy guns. Howabout a 2 week wait - I mean it takes that long to get your Eddie Bauer order in the mail. If you aren't at least that patient, you don't deserve a gun.

I like guns, I like shooting them, I like looking at them and reading about them - when I was a teen I had a fetish. Hell, I'm a red-blooded boy, y'know.

But, violent crime rates are waaaayyyy higher in this country and other gun-friendly countries than in those that aren't. And, before you assert this response, know that the numbers are statistics and not raw numbers - so total population size differences are not a simple mathematical way to obviate the fact.

Now, I of course support the right to arm bears (joking ) inherent in the second amendement. This is, as I see it, integral to our society - in this Country there was a time when our forefathers had to pick up their guns and oust an unfair government. It's not just shooting fuzzy animals or protecting your home.

But, do you really *need* submachineguns floating around society? I mean, a fully-auto MAC-11 is a *treat* to shoot, at least for the three seconds it takes to empty the mag, but is it necessary. What about the annual Kentucky Machinegun Shoot - outlandish but fun.

As well, I'm really against the Brady Bills' limiting of magazine capacity. The reason a 9mm Baretta 92F is designed to hold 17 bullets is that it won't sit someone on their ass like a .45 M1911A1 will. And, with home protection (or any) gunplay, sitting the opponent on his ass *is* the goal.

I'm also for carry-conceal programs. (A) They are very instructive to the attendees, and from what I've seen are very serious about teaching gun safety above all else. (B) Who wants to look like a dork with a holster on their hip?

So, I'm for some kind of control - definately. I certainly must say that the gun shows (which have deserved the press they are getting) are a loophole big enough to drive a HMMWV mounted with an M209 belt-fed grenade launcher through. So, by best idea at this moment is stricter review and longer waiting periods.

[ 10-08-2002, 04:17 PM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

[Night Stalker]

Timber

You make some very good points. I don't suggest to have the answers to these very touchy situations, just food for thought. I still disagree about the preventitive laws though. You don't need a law to increase education or awareness. These situations and laws have all been enacted with initial good intentions, but the slope is very steep and slippery once starting on the path of legislating common sense and the like. And the opportunity for abuse is too great IMHO. I do not condone any of the actions I've mentioned in this post. I wear my seatbelt (when I remember), but not cause I'm required to. The idea of an armed public scares me a little (esp from a soldiers point of view - room to room clearing is hell), but I fully support the right to arm bears. You won't ever catch me with a doob in hand, but I don't want to stop someone else. If a coke head comes charging at me, I can defend myself with the law on my side. But, if he keeps to himself, by all means snort up. By the way the weapon mounted on the HMMWV is the Mk-19 40 mm auto grenade launcher.

StigTC

The human psyche will have it's vices, like it or not. Yes, you can socialize out some behaviors with negative reinforcement, but not the vices. For some reason the human psyche needs to escape. From what? Who knows. Yes some methods of escape are more productive/healthy than others. Heck alot of us on this very forum use the time here or with the games we play to escape for a little while. This is Escape Gaming [img]smile.gif[/img] ! But as long as they don't *directly* affect other people, these vices should not be outlawed. There are already laws to deal with you if your direct actions if while indulging you get out of line. Finaly, if you think I am for anarchy, you are way off base. I proudly defend this Nation against all enemies - foreign and domestic. Expressing dissatisfaction with the way of things today, and feeling that gov should stay within the confines set by the Constitution does not mean I advocate chaos and anarchy.

Attalus

I really appreciate the position you have. Working in the ER has got to be very tough, seeing the results of peoples stupidity. My friend is a Nephrologist (sp?) and he mentions things like this all the time. But he always points out in the end, you can't make people take their meds. People still have the choise.

Neb

The point is not about feeling bad about bad things that happen to good people. Lady Justice is supposed to be blind, cold and unfeeling. Support groups and charities are for humanizing things, not the gov.

Magik - of course .... I agree.

OK here is my conlusion. No law has ever prevented a tragedy from happening. Seatbelts save lives, not seatbelt laws. It's kinda like not being able to directly prove a negative. Enabling the law to have teeth to react to tragedies is perfectly fine. Giving it procationary power enables abuse of the People by the system. It already happens every day.

[The Hunter of Jahanna]

Whatever it is legalize it. Drugs and alcohol are a great way to thin the herd. The stupid and weak will O.D. and die, thereby freeing up valuable resources for the more productive members in society. Guns dont kill people, people shooting other people is what kills people.Takeing away guns will not stop murders.Almost all of the realy successfull serial killers never used a gun once. Gacy strangled,Bundy blugented,Dahmed used power tools,Lucas and Toole used what ever was handy and even Manson used knives. Outlawing guns wouldnt have saved a single person that thoes people killed and some of them killed well over a hundred other people.Helmets and seatbelts should be optional. Let the buyer beware when useing a motor vehicle. I seriously doubt anyone else not useing a helmet or seat belt can hurt me more than themselves. When you get down to it , people have choices and choices have consequences. Stupidity can not be legislated against and natural selection can not be stopped. Almost every foolish death is prefaced by the phrase,"Hey Earl, watch this!"