United States of Prison

Savage:

Puritans? Where? The politicians that sleep around while demanding Explicit Lyrics labels on music? The ones that have armed guards while striving to take away our right to keep and bear arms? Are you talking about the Puritains that "forget" to file taxes for years, while giving IRS collecors shotguns to throw us in jail for failing an audit?

Those Puritains?

We don't have any Puritains, Savage. I'm about the closest thing you'll get to a Puritain, and I have ZERO political pull to toss you into jail - nor do I particularly care what you do behind closed doors. Smoke a bowl, drink underage, I really do not care. (well, I do, but not for legal concerns.)

Have I made myself clear?

Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.

I don't do much of the Law Enforcement stuff anymore actually, I'm completely invested in the security side.

So when it comes to conflicts with me paying the mortgage, don't touch any planes or steal any money and we're good to go.

Druggies are fucking pathetic, it's my personal bias more than anything that forms my opinion.

I am a gung-ho Eaglelander with the best of them. But this harsh reminder of how fucked up this country is makes me litterally ill.

And yes, let's not bullshit ourselves the LION'S share of the problem is race. But like the guy in the video, it's not what it sounds like.

This nation still has an overriding problem with racism, it's as plain as the stars and the stripes. Nothing keeps non-whites firmly outside all the opportunity this country offers than a criminal record.

And of course in many communities, black/Hispanic automatically means "criminal".

It's a fucking disgrace before God in heaven.

It was an honor

You're a heavy drinker, IIRC. What would be your position on the government if it banned booze like in the '20s? I guess you'd be (pretty much) up in arms.

At any rate, I'm glad to hear you're not in law enforcement anymore : You're mostly a decent guy.

edited 8th Dec '11 12:55:05 PM by SavageHeathen

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

I'm actually not a heavy drinker. You don't have to twist my arm to make me drink, but I could easily go without alcohol if it was banned, less money for me to spend.

But this isn't about me, the high prison rates are indeed because of drugs. Though to me getting nailed for drugs makes me think of a person knowing fire will burn them, and touching a campfire anyway.

edited 8th Dec '11 12:59:10 PM by Barkey

To a large extent, they're fighting the good fight: Alcohol prohibition was eventually scrapped because it didn't work. Had it worked, we'd be unable to get a goddamn beer by now.

I think drug users deserve some more credit than you're givin'them: We're supposed to deal with soul-crushingly boring jobs for crappy pay and little benefits: At the very least, they could let us get high in peace. I don't get why politicians get sadistic kicks out of having us endure the rat race sober, frankly.

edited 8th Dec '11 1:04:28 PM by SavageHeathen

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

I have a crappy skull crushingly boring security job now, and I don't need to get high to cope with my life.

Less effort on getting high, more effort on bettering yourself.

If you accept mediocrity and decide you want to work for minimum wage for the rest of your life and get high as an escape from what a crappy life you have, you're doing it wrong. You're an unambitious loser.

edited 8th Dec '11 1:16:42 PM by Barkey

...Your drug of choice is okay because it doesn't influence your ability to be a hard worker, but their drug of choice is automatically indicative of pathological laziness?

Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.

If you don't need drugs, more power to you: Nobody's forcing you to take'em.

However, those of us who do need drugs to cope with our crappy lives deserve to be left alone: It ain't nobody else's business, really.

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

I am really rather tired of this "Puritan" shit. Drugs were banned as a public-health threat, not for moral reasons.

Prohibition was Puritanism, but even that was also motivated by public health.

PMCs are, by-and-large, the scum of the Earth. Or at least, those that act as mercenaries and not as pure security.

I am now known as Flyboy.

So if the will of the masses is that the weak should be beaten to within an inch of their lives for everyone else's amusement, people should go along with that?

"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart

Why should we criminalize being unambitious losers?

We shouldn't, ideally.

I am now known as Flyboy.

I mean I agree that most people who do drugs to cope with their rat race lives are unambitious losers, but I don't see why that should make it illegal. I mean is making it illegal actually forcing them to become better people?

edited 8th Dec '11 4:33:07 PM by ohsointocats

No, it doesn't make them any better.

I current;y have the draft of an OP to a thread on... well, related to the War on Drugs, so sometime in the immediate future we'll be able to talk about that specifically, as it's not the only reason we have such a massive prison population.

Just the primary one...

edited 8th Dec '11 6:57:51 PM by USAF713

I am now known as Flyboy.

No, we should criminalize people who help set a standard of mediocrity in this country, as it drags down and diminishes the whole.

Maybe it's because I live in a surfer town, but I just really hate all the druggies who work at the mall and aim to have their entire life span consist of a shitty job, no education, and getting high after work because they have nothing better to do.

Better yourself, motherfuckers

Uh...

> But this isn't about me, the high prison rates are indeed because of drugs. Though to me getting nailed for drugs makes me think of a person knowing fire will burn them, and touching a campfire anyway.

Uh, this is not true. They are just unlucky. War on Drugs are ineffective because they are a lot who managed to use drugs without getting arrested / send to prison. Obama and Bush (or Clinton?) both admit using drugs when young. The Olympic Swimmer Champion also using it. Campfire always burn anyone touching it, Drug is not.

Law Enforcement isn't as attentive as the omnipresent nature of physics that makes fire burn people, it's just a comparison.

If you want to be nitpicky though, fine.

If you do something knowing it could get you into trouble, and then you get into trouble, you should not be surprised nor outraged about the situation you are in.

I'm sorry, but drugs are merely the smokescreen. America's racist past (present) is the driving force behind the abominably high prison population.

The fact that minorities make up the majority of the convicted criminals in this country speaks volumes.

It was an honor

Bleh... it's really all about economics. Racial prejudice begins and is then furthered by classism; minorities stuck in a spiral of poverty turn to gangs and drugs; apathetic and dehumanizing bueracracies respond with harsh jail sentences as they either do not comprehend the causes or do not care.

We cannot point to any single, definitive cause; only the most influential ones...

I am now known as Flyboy.

Just to note drug taking doesn't automatically indicate mediocrity/unambitious loser lifestyle.

Also a fair point Karkadinn made earlier is regarding how alcohol (which arguably causes greater social harm) the drug of quite a few poster's choice is ok whereas as others aren't.

By the powers invested in me by tabloid-reading imbeciles, I pronounce you guilty of paedophilia!

Alcohol is a drug just like any other, but to compare it to other opioids or delirants is rather simplistic and demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of the issues surrounding them.

Alcohol abuse is deadly on several levels, but the scientific facts show that alcohol ranks lower than most of the "trade" drugs in terms of permanent physical and mental damage as well as lacking the violent culture that many of those other drugs do.

So while the case could be made, it's a bid more involved than that.

It was an honor

You may want to look at this article in the Lancet (a super old respected medical journal.) Link here. (Requires registration to read but the article is free.)

The article in fact says that alcohol has the highest harm rating including social harm.

Link to graph of the Harm Index.◊

By the powers invested in me by tabloid-reading imbeciles, I pronounce you guilty of paedophilia!

Oh.

It would seem I was mistaken. Then this really does beg the question of why alcohol is ubiquitous and available and the trade drugs are so much of an issue.

It was an honor