Mark G. on Mick Jagger’s fence:
Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones was once asked in an interview if drugs should be legalized. Rather than being eagerly for it as I would have expected, Mick said you should try that out in a few small areas first and see how it works before having the whole country adopt it at once. Mick, always the astute businessman, said if a company wanted to introduce a new product they would test market on a small area first and said that might be a good idea too in the area of political changes.
This struck me as a typical Anglo point of view, moving slowly in changing long established laws and customs. It’s why the English speaking countries never had anything like the violent French Revolution and still continued to use things like feet, yards, and miles instead of switching over to the metric system like everyone else. This traditional view is slowly declining and you can see it in the eagerness of younger people in wanting to quickly make radical societal changes, to the point that young people now make an aging counter culture figure like Jagger look like a hidebound conservative by comparison.
Social media speeds everything up. That slow decline has become rapid. Nothing is stable, increasingly including our mental health.
Conservatives hold the line on guns and abortion. Not much else, including marijuana legalization, to 216’s chagrin:
The Culture Industry has condemned tobacco, but legitimized cannabis.
There is no logic to this distinction, only liberalism.
Use of cannabis subverts traditional notions of morality, and promotes laziness.
It’s not a matter of chemistry, nor is it a matter of policy. Most people don’t think that way. It’s an emotional/cultural matter.
Recreational drug use is a morally shameful act, and conservatives don’t say this anymore. Regardless of what the drug policy should be, it is now cultural conservatism which is morally shamed. And that’s wrong.
When it comes to potential damage the user inflicts on those he comes into contact with, alcohol is worse than marijuana and marijuana is worse than tobacco. The cultural (and legal) ordering of these three broad substance categories is nonsensical.
American blacks perceive race relations today to be worse than they were fifty years ago. Almost Missouri on part of the reason why:
Most of the formerly amicable state of race relations was really due to the opposite of authority: it used to be that no one was forced to mix with other races if they didn’t want to. Now the most powerful government on earth has taken it as its highest priority to force race mixing wherever it can. The results are as dire as they are foreseeable.
Instead of letting birds of a feather voluntarily flock together, unnaturally force them together while amplifying and criticizing every difference and distinction between members of different flocks–this would be the formula to follow if discord was the objective, right?
Arabic
Chinese (Simplified)
Dutch
English
French
German
Hebrew
Hindi
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Persian
Polish
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish
Vietnamese
As it stands most places you go you are subjected to mixing with those of another race. Considering when you are on your own time at your own place it is amicable of you to provide civil discourse with those of another race, but you do not have to mix with them. It really comes down to common sense, treat other as you would like to be treated.
Indeed. This was once common sense, but no longer, so its adherents need a name. “Cautious progressive” would be the clearest, but “prudent progressive” is catchier.
In any event, I’m sure social media absolutely plays a part, and may even be a necessary condition for this widespread abandonment of common sense, but I think moral fanaticism is also very important. True injustice against minorities is ever harder to find. To manufacture outrage about trivial matters requires one degree or another of moral hysteria about “who we are.” In the absence of concrete harms, appeal must be made to feelings of identity and moral self-respect. In turn, this creates an uncompromising moral imperative that is indifferent to cost/benefit analysis and therefore resists the wait and see approach.
Of course, all of this begs the question as to why the elites feel the need to carry on manufacturing outrage about trivialities. Only one answer occurs to me. They are inveterately hostile to the people and culture of the West, and their very identity impels them to stand as the morally superior, critical outsider among us.
This seems to me to be very strong language. It’s “morally shameful” for me to have a couple glasses of wine with some girlfriends on a camping trip? I don’t think so.
The Anglosphere, and especially the US, seems to be a society that needs moral fanaticism. It needs constant moral panics. The history of the past century-and-a-half has been a story of one moral panic after another.
The moral panics of systemic racism and the #metoo thing and OMG transphobia are just the latest in a long long line of moral panics.
Most of these moral panics have been totally unnecessary. In some cases they were real social problems that were wildly and hysterically exaggerated and actually exacerbated by the moral panics. In other cases they were totally imaginary (such as the Satanic Ritual Abuse panic).
In almost every case the only tangible result has been to encourage governments to take away even more of our legal rights, and to encourage governments to become ever more intrusive and oppressive.
But people seem to need and want these moral panics.
To anyone who uses recreational drugs, I suggest an alternative: Cats.
https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/forget-what-you-ve-heard-being-cat-lady-healthy-ncna789676
Oxytocin is some really good sh!t. Just look at these babies:
Good times!
https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2020/08/26/oxytocin-shows-promise-for-alcohol-and-opioid-addiction.html
Despite severe health risks from cigarettes, there need to be distinctions re tobacco. Major health studies have shown that there is virtually zero health risk from smoking 1 or 2 cigars per day (versus cigarettes etc), because (1) premium cigars are all-natural, & (2) you don’t inhale into the lungs (National Cancer Institute Monograph 9, ‘Cigars – Health Effects & Trends’, 1998) … Many living past age 90 or 100 have some moderate tobacco & especially cigar use
In South America there are indigenous native tobacco healers, ‘tabaqueros’, who say that tobacco is indeed only meant for the head, not for the lungs and chest, and should not be burned with artificial substances, the paper, chemicals etc in cigarettes … and they do use tobacco successfully to heal
The risk-free deeply relaxing spiritual pleasure of the occasional cigar, is one of those facts apparently hidden by the powers that be, seeking to deprive us … What else can you get for $5-$10 that is hand-made and gives you much of an hour in meditative, intellect-supporting enjoyment? … For those unfamiliar, who would like to try the cigar experience:
Pick one medium thick, about 12-16mm, just over half-inch diametre, a ‘corona’ or ‘panetela’, not the very fat ‘robusto’ nor a very thin (typically harsh) ‘cigarillo’ … have a good meal beforehand … you may need to poke a half-diametre hole in the smoking end, don’t cut off the whole width … smoke briefly in mouth only, exhale right away, you only ‘taste’ the smoke … one puff about every 30 seconds or so … every 5 minutes, blow-exhale through the cigar to freshen it … don’t smoke the last third, it can get harsh then
I’m not sure how AE arrived at this hierarchy. I would put marijuana below alcohol, based on the fact that I know a very high ratio of light or moderate drinkers to alcoholics (maybe 100:1) compared to a low ratio of light or moderate marijuana users to useless potheads (about 1:1).
But whatever. I think the legal ordering of the substance categories isn’t so nonsensical when one considers the first item in the OP: “the typical Anglo point of view, moving slowly in changing long established laws and customs.”
Alcoholic beverages have been with us since neolithic times. Civilizationally, it doesn’t get longer than that in terms of “established laws and customs”. Tobacco has been a Western thing for about 500 years, and is still only partially accepted. Marijuana, particularly the new high-potency hothouse strains, is a relative novelty.
And the last serious attempt to ban alcohol in a non-Muslim country didn’t work out so well. Even prohibitionists had to concede the cure was often worse than the disease. US counties that feel strongly about alcohol have banned it locally, and that that seems to work pretty well as a compromise: users keep it out of public spaces and go to the next county if they feel as strongly as their own county’s authorities.
I know people who live in Denver, CO, where marijuana is legal, and it seems there are quite a few people there who live productive lives and use it just in the evening to relax or whatever. Of course, there are also a lot of major potheads in Denver, but you have to take into consideration that Denver attracts them from other places.
When I was there last, I used marijuana for the first time. It wasn't a very nice experience, although I was told afterwards that the amount I took (eaten), was quite large for a naive user. However, I will say that after I slept and sobered up, I felt better than I have in years--decreased joint pain, muscle relaxation, and a nebulous sense of well-being that lasted about 2 days. Based on my experience, I would be interested in trying it again, see how it could be medicinally beneficial, and don't see major reasons for it to be banned.
I don't buy the argument that alcohol is fundamentally different from other drugs. I think that is a conceit based on the modern history of drug use in the USA and its relationship to politics as well, likely, as the fact that many conservatives are reportedly low in Openness on the Big Five. (Personally, I have never been evaluated, but feel open to experiences like drug use, while often feeling "unopen" to accepting the equal validity of alternative lifestyles and also to much leftist art--although perhaps that is "disagreeableness" rather than lack of openness...)Replies: @JohnPlywood, @Wency
My thought process is that the number of marijuana-related auto fatalities pales in comparison to the number of alcohol-related auto fatalities. Harm from tobacco use is negligible. Alcohol puts others in a lot of danger, marijuana puts them in moderate danger, tobacco puts them in no danger.
In South America there are indigenous native tobacco healers, 'tabaqueros', who say that tobacco is indeed only meant for the head, not for the lungs and chest, and should not be burned with artificial substances, the paper, chemicals etc in cigarettes ... and they do use tobacco successfully to heal
The risk-free deeply relaxing spiritual pleasure of the occasional cigar, is one of those facts apparently hidden by the powers that be, seeking to deprive us ... What else can you get for $5-$10 that is hand-made and gives you much of an hour in meditative, intellect-supporting enjoyment? ... For those unfamiliar, who would like to try the cigar experience:
Pick one medium thick, about 12-16mm, just over half-inch diametre, a 'corona' or 'panetela', not the very fat 'robusto' nor a very thin (typically harsh) 'cigarillo' ... have a good meal beforehand ... you may need to poke a half-diametre hole in the smoking end, don't cut off the whole width ... smoke briefly in mouth only, exhale right away, you only 'taste' the smoke ... one puff about every 30 seconds or so ... every 5 minutes, blow-exhale through the cigar to freshen it ... don't smoke the last third, it can get harsh thenReplies: @Chrisnonymous, @obwandiyag
I like cigars, but the Scot in me always ruins the experience at the end: I am too tight to simply throw away the butt, so I smoke it until it barely will stay together anymore. Inevitably, the smoke at the end is too hot and too ashy. I prefer a pipe with a stem on the long end. However, I haven’t smoked a pipe since I came to Japan. They sit in storage back home.
But whatever. I think the legal ordering of the substance categories isn't so nonsensical when one considers the first item in the OP: "the typical Anglo point of view, moving slowly in changing long established laws and customs."
Alcoholic beverages have been with us since neolithic times. Civilizationally, it doesn't get longer than that in terms of "established laws and customs". Tobacco has been a Western thing for about 500 years, and is still only partially accepted. Marijuana, particularly the new high-potency hothouse strains, is a relative novelty.
And the last serious attempt to ban alcohol in a non-Muslim country didn't work out so well. Even prohibitionists had to concede the cure was often worse than the disease. US counties that feel strongly about alcohol have banned it locally, and that that seems to work pretty well as a compromise: users keep it out of public spaces and go to the next county if they feel as strongly as their own county's authorities.Replies: @Chrisnonymous, @obwandiyag, @AndrewR, @Audacious Epigone
I’m not going to look up the stats right now, but I think AE’s hierarchy is based on social damage like deaths from drunk driving, injuries from fighting, and medical consequences of excess use (personally, I think alcohol is a major contributor to the obesity epidemic in the USA, as well as contributing to high blood pressure, etc).
I know people who live in Denver, CO, where marijuana is legal, and it seems there are quite a few people there who live productive lives and use it just in the evening to relax or whatever. Of course, there are also a lot of major potheads in Denver, but you have to take into consideration that Denver attracts them from other places.
When I was there last, I used marijuana for the first time. It wasn’t a very nice experience, although I was told afterwards that the amount I took (eaten), was quite large for a naive user. However, I will say that after I slept and sobered up, I felt better than I have in years–decreased joint pain, muscle relaxation, and a nebulous sense of well-being that lasted about 2 days. Based on my experience, I would be interested in trying it again, see how it could be medicinally beneficial, and don’t see major reasons for it to be banned.
I don’t buy the argument that alcohol is fundamentally different from other drugs. I think that is a conceit based on the modern history of drug use in the USA and its relationship to politics as well, likely, as the fact that many conservatives are reportedly low in Openness on the Big Five. (Personally, I have never been evaluated, but feel open to experiences like drug use, while often feeling “unopen” to accepting the equal validity of alternative lifestyles and also to much leftist art–although perhaps that is “disagreeableness” rather than lack of openness…)
Mr. Epigone says:
Instead of letting birds of a feather voluntarily flock together, unnaturally force them together while amplifying and criticizing every difference and distinction between members of different flocks–this would be the formula to follow if discord was the objective, right?
I say:
The JEW/WASP Ruling Class of the American Empire is using Totalitarian Inclusivity and Identity Stalinism and Anarcho-Tyranny to retain and maintain their perch on top of the power structure in the American Empire.
Ruling Class Decapitation and Ruling Class Deposition must be utilized by White Core Americans to remove the JEW/WASP Ruling Class from power.
White Core America will be the new Ruling Class in the American Empire and White Core America will explicitly advance the interests of the European Christian ancestral core of the USA.
All members of the JEW/WASP Ruling Class and their minions must be financially liquidated and then they must be forcibly and permanently exiled to a walled and fenced compound community in sub-Saharan Africa.
Netty-Yahoo in Israel is bragging about his fences and walls in his bid to retain power and perhaps White Core America could make a deal with Netty-Yahoo whereby Israel or Israeli contractors could be involved in constructing the compound community in sub-Saharan Africa where the deposed JEW/WASP Ruling Class will be held in exchange for Netty-Yahoo telling the diasporan Jews in the USA and the other European nations to stop their incessant call for more and more nation-wrecking mass legal immigration and nation-wrecking mass illegal immigration.
The American Empire needs an Edward the Third type man to fix this mess in the USA and if you aren’t blood related to Edward the Third you ain’t it. You gotta have French ancestry too, buckaroo.
Mick Jagger’s Fence
Netty-Yahoo’s fence and wall system protecting Israel works but fat ass baby boomer boob Trump didn’t have the balls to build a wall on the borders of the USA and Trump refused to deport the upwards of 30 million illegal alien invaders in the USA.
Trump also called for the mass legal immigration invasion of the USA to continue and to accelerate.
Trump says he wants foreigners pouring into the USA “in the largest numbers ever.”
Baby Boomer Conservatism Must Be Crushed and Buried To Advance The Interests of WHITE CORE AMERICA.
Tweets from 2014 and 2015:
I notice that race relations seem better in the Black Belt than much of the country, perhaps anywhere else in the country. It seems a cultural arrangement has been made due to long stable years of co-existence. Perhaps a factor is that most people are poor, no one is all that ambitious or envious, everyone is just scraping by. I also wonder if, in areas that are roughly 50% white and 50% black (which is common in lots of areas in and around the Black Belt), without any in-migration, everyone feels stable enough in their position: the place isn’t about to tip one way or the other, and no one feels that much like an embattled minority. Everyone mostly sticks to their own kind, but seems to regard the other kind with polite cordiality.
Not really sure what to do with all this, just observations from my vicinity and other areas I pass through regularly.
The North is full of shit-libs who live in 95% white areas, aghast at the Not-Magic Negro's they meet.
I live in New England next to NH. All White. I go to Logan International and it’s bustling with Orientals of every sort. No blacks of an african american sort, ever. When I de-plane at Tampa it’s a reset back to all White. It isn’t the colors, it’s the violence and hassle of having blacks in the picture in any way that is objectionable to all. Only those that travel in protected convoys and private planes would have no problem with blacks in our midst.
In any event, I'm sure social media absolutely plays a part, and may even be a necessary condition for this widespread abandonment of common sense, but I think moral fanaticism is also very important. True injustice against minorities is ever harder to find. To manufacture outrage about trivial matters requires one degree or another of moral hysteria about "who we are." In the absence of concrete harms, appeal must be made to feelings of identity and moral self-respect. In turn, this creates an uncompromising moral imperative that is indifferent to cost/benefit analysis and therefore resists the wait and see approach.
Of course, all of this begs the question as to why the elites feel the need to carry on manufacturing outrage about trivialities. Only one answer occurs to me. They are inveterately hostile to the people and culture of the West, and their very identity impels them to stand as the morally superior, critical outsider among us.This seems to me to be very strong language. It's "morally shameful" for me to have a couple glasses of wine with some girlfriends on a camping trip? I don’t think so.Replies: @JohnPlywood, @dfordoom, @dfordoom
Ah yes, just what we needed. More names, adjectives, nouns and categories for shit that absolutely does not matter.
I know people who live in Denver, CO, where marijuana is legal, and it seems there are quite a few people there who live productive lives and use it just in the evening to relax or whatever. Of course, there are also a lot of major potheads in Denver, but you have to take into consideration that Denver attracts them from other places.
When I was there last, I used marijuana for the first time. It wasn't a very nice experience, although I was told afterwards that the amount I took (eaten), was quite large for a naive user. However, I will say that after I slept and sobered up, I felt better than I have in years--decreased joint pain, muscle relaxation, and a nebulous sense of well-being that lasted about 2 days. Based on my experience, I would be interested in trying it again, see how it could be medicinally beneficial, and don't see major reasons for it to be banned.
I don't buy the argument that alcohol is fundamentally different from other drugs. I think that is a conceit based on the modern history of drug use in the USA and its relationship to politics as well, likely, as the fact that many conservatives are reportedly low in Openness on the Big Five. (Personally, I have never been evaluated, but feel open to experiences like drug use, while often feeling "unopen" to accepting the equal validity of alternative lifestyles and also to much leftist art--although perhaps that is "disagreeableness" rather than lack of openness...)Replies: @JohnPlywood, @Wency
Yeah I’m sure it’s alcohol that significanfly contributes to high blood pressure in Americans, as opposed to the insane wealth inequality, racism, outrageous housing and land prices, cost of living and general difficulty of existing here.
Despite some of the BS about “second hand” smoke that nobody ever really bought, the war on tobacco smoking is not about those you come in contact with, but rather paternalistically saving you from your own bad decision.
The reason tobacco is a bad decision is that it’s an unnecessary but deadly delivery system for another highly addictive substance. And the risk to return ratio of using this delivery method is insanely bad. If it’s the addictive nicotine you are after you can buy and consume all you want as pills or patches. (Or if you just enjoy inhaling smoke, you could roll up newspapers or some other flammable substance and inhale the fumes). But using cigarettes to get your nicotine fix will just give you bad breath, yellow fingers and lung cancer.
It's like the attempt to impose Wokeness and the LGBT agenda on the sports that people who are socially disapproved of happen to enjoy. Sports like football and NASCAR racing.
It's just another manifestation of hatred towards the lower classes.
Typical can’t see the forest for the trees spin.
Whenever anyone talks about marijuana, they talk about how it affects individuals. They talk about the moral dimension.
They never talk about how crooks in the government and out of it make trillions of dollars as a result of it being illegal. The Drug War is the biggest scam in history. Bigger than the US military, which is the second biggest scam.
Drugs need to be legalized or at least decriminalized nationwide for the same reason alcohol was. To cut the rug out from under the mafiosi–which category includes the DEA, state senators and congressman, banks, etc.
Nobody is saying drugs are good for you. They are bad for you. And for society. But they are worse for society when they are illegal. I know this is hard for you to understand, but try.
There are really only two sustainable paths:
1) Allow people to indulge in self-destructive behavior at their own risk (no safety nets).
2) Proscribe self-destructive behavior with strong enforcement.
Anything else will result in societal/economic destruction and reversion to primitive living conditions.
In South America there are indigenous native tobacco healers, 'tabaqueros', who say that tobacco is indeed only meant for the head, not for the lungs and chest, and should not be burned with artificial substances, the paper, chemicals etc in cigarettes ... and they do use tobacco successfully to heal
The risk-free deeply relaxing spiritual pleasure of the occasional cigar, is one of those facts apparently hidden by the powers that be, seeking to deprive us ... What else can you get for $5-$10 that is hand-made and gives you much of an hour in meditative, intellect-supporting enjoyment? ... For those unfamiliar, who would like to try the cigar experience:
Pick one medium thick, about 12-16mm, just over half-inch diametre, a 'corona' or 'panetela', not the very fat 'robusto' nor a very thin (typically harsh) 'cigarillo' ... have a good meal beforehand ... you may need to poke a half-diametre hole in the smoking end, don't cut off the whole width ... smoke briefly in mouth only, exhale right away, you only 'taste' the smoke ... one puff about every 30 seconds or so ... every 5 minutes, blow-exhale through the cigar to freshen it ... don't smoke the last third, it can get harsh thenReplies: @Chrisnonymous, @obwandiyag
Ulysses S. Grant
But whatever. I think the legal ordering of the substance categories isn't so nonsensical when one considers the first item in the OP: "the typical Anglo point of view, moving slowly in changing long established laws and customs."
Alcoholic beverages have been with us since neolithic times. Civilizationally, it doesn't get longer than that in terms of "established laws and customs". Tobacco has been a Western thing for about 500 years, and is still only partially accepted. Marijuana, particularly the new high-potency hothouse strains, is a relative novelty.
And the last serious attempt to ban alcohol in a non-Muslim country didn't work out so well. Even prohibitionists had to concede the cure was often worse than the disease. US counties that feel strongly about alcohol have banned it locally, and that that seems to work pretty well as a compromise: users keep it out of public spaces and go to the next county if they feel as strongly as their own county's authorities.Replies: @Chrisnonymous, @obwandiyag, @AndrewR, @Audacious Epigone
Marijuana has been with us since pre-historic times. Probably predating alcohol. Sorry.
And the medicinal value of cannabis, as against alcohol, seems much higher or at least less dangerous. If you've ever done police work, pot heads are far easier to handle than drunks. Or at least they were.
Alcohol as a pain killer goes way back. Noah getting numb is in Genesis and so on.
Cannabis was used widely for digestive and menstrual issues before it became illegal in the 1930s. When the drug companies saw a free and natural solution for medical conditions they could make a fortune on, they started a propaganda effort rivaling the old COMINTERN to make cannabis illegal. The borrowed a Mexican slang word ("marihuana") so people wouldn't notice it's just a form of hemp the Founding Fathers thought was terrific.
We have no clue how or even if cannabis was "abused" before it was prohibited. Their appeals were based on emotion, prejudice. and greed. Just like what they do now.
The problem with pot is that you can get high and get behind the wheel of your vehicle and do this:
https://twitter.com/Networkinvegas/status/1345111683065282560
Collins should’ve been indicted for DUI manslaughter but under our current justice system prosecuting black youths for pot is a non-starter. So the prosecutor threw out the DUI charge and kept the much less serious reckless driving charge. That will likely keep him out of prison.
My hunch is if it were alcohol and a different defendant, no such outcome.
You doctrinaire lol-bertarians may want to roll the dice with guys like Collins, but I don’t. I want to see them do 10 years of hard time.
Not really sure what to do with all this, just observations from my vicinity and other areas I pass through regularly.Replies: @Bill Jones
Of course they are. The South has a much longer more involved experience and hence is more realistic.
The North is full of shit-libs who live in 95% white areas, aghast at the Not-Magic Negro’s they meet.
In any event, I'm sure social media absolutely plays a part, and may even be a necessary condition for this widespread abandonment of common sense, but I think moral fanaticism is also very important. True injustice against minorities is ever harder to find. To manufacture outrage about trivial matters requires one degree or another of moral hysteria about "who we are." In the absence of concrete harms, appeal must be made to feelings of identity and moral self-respect. In turn, this creates an uncompromising moral imperative that is indifferent to cost/benefit analysis and therefore resists the wait and see approach.
Of course, all of this begs the question as to why the elites feel the need to carry on manufacturing outrage about trivialities. Only one answer occurs to me. They are inveterately hostile to the people and culture of the West, and their very identity impels them to stand as the morally superior, critical outsider among us.This seems to me to be very strong language. It's "morally shameful" for me to have a couple glasses of wine with some girlfriends on a camping trip? I don’t think so.Replies: @JohnPlywood, @dfordoom, @dfordoom
Yep.
The Anglosphere, and especially the US, seems to be a society that needs moral fanaticism. It needs constant moral panics. The history of the past century-and-a-half has been a story of one moral panic after another.
The moral panics of systemic racism and the #metoo thing and OMG transphobia are just the latest in a long long line of moral panics.
Most of these moral panics have been totally unnecessary. In some cases they were real social problems that were wildly and hysterically exaggerated and actually exacerbated by the moral panics. In other cases they were totally imaginary (such as the Satanic Ritual Abuse panic).
In almost every case the only tangible result has been to encourage governments to take away even more of our legal rights, and to encourage governments to become ever more intrusive and oppressive.
But people seem to need and want these moral panics.
“American blacks perceive race relations today to be worse than they were fifty years ago. ”
I swear, people are asleep.
For a long time after slavery, American Blacks were officially discriminated against – meaning, they were paid less than the prevailing wage and the rich pocketed the change.
With civil rights, blacks got the right to organize and fight for higher wages and working conditions. For a while it worked well, and black janitors and meatpackers were doing pretty well.
But the rich would have none of that – they imported massive numbers of Mexican nationals, fired blacks en masse, and pocketed the change.
Now I have nothing against the Mexicans as individuals – it’s not their fault that their corrupt oligarchy crushed the working class in that nation. Nevertheless, when an American black was fired from a good paying position, and replaced with a Mexican who had no better alternative than to work for cheap (you really think the Mexicans are poor because they have a strong work ethic? Really?), well, that had the effect that it had.
So American blacks gained the right to vote, and lost the ability to earn a decent living. Maybe not such a good trade.
But we can’t talk about this, because it would make the rich look bad.
But seriously: a few corrupt upper-middle class blacks have made a nice living out of guarding the left flank of the oligarchy as ‘diversity champions,’ but the average American black has been thrown under the bus, deprived of the ability to earn a decent living.
Of course blacks are pissed. It’s just that there has been so much dishonest propaganda about this, that blacks have been convinced that their enemy is poor white trash, not the elites that have crushed them into the mud.
Heaven forbid that the proles should identify a common enemy. That would never do.
In any event, I'm sure social media absolutely plays a part, and may even be a necessary condition for this widespread abandonment of common sense, but I think moral fanaticism is also very important. True injustice against minorities is ever harder to find. To manufacture outrage about trivial matters requires one degree or another of moral hysteria about "who we are." In the absence of concrete harms, appeal must be made to feelings of identity and moral self-respect. In turn, this creates an uncompromising moral imperative that is indifferent to cost/benefit analysis and therefore resists the wait and see approach.
Of course, all of this begs the question as to why the elites feel the need to carry on manufacturing outrage about trivialities. Only one answer occurs to me. They are inveterately hostile to the people and culture of the West, and their very identity impels them to stand as the morally superior, critical outsider among us.This seems to me to be very strong language. It's "morally shameful" for me to have a couple glasses of wine with some girlfriends on a camping trip? I don’t think so.Replies: @JohnPlywood, @dfordoom, @dfordoom
Or they just don’t want you to notice how rich they’ve become while ordinary people are really struggling.
I don’t think so either. I don’t think that using terms like “morally shameful” is helpful. It just makes social conservatives seem like humourless killjoys. Which, in many cases, they are.
The reason tobacco is a bad decision is that it's an unnecessary but deadly delivery system for another highly addictive substance. And the risk to return ratio of using this delivery method is insanely bad. If it's the addictive nicotine you are after you can buy and consume all you want as pills or patches. (Or if you just enjoy inhaling smoke, you could roll up newspapers or some other flammable substance and inhale the fumes). But using cigarettes to get your nicotine fix will just give you bad breath, yellow fingers and lung cancer.Replies: @dfordoom
The war on tobacco smoking is actually part of the class war. It’s an attempt to prevent people who are disapproved of from doing something they enjoy doing.
It’s like the attempt to impose Wokeness and the LGBT agenda on the sports that people who are socially disapproved of happen to enjoy. Sports like football and NASCAR racing.
It’s just another manifestation of hatred towards the lower classes.
Cannabis did not enter Western law codes until the late 19th and early 20th century.
216’s a fag
But whatever. I think the legal ordering of the substance categories isn't so nonsensical when one considers the first item in the OP: "the typical Anglo point of view, moving slowly in changing long established laws and customs."
Alcoholic beverages have been with us since neolithic times. Civilizationally, it doesn't get longer than that in terms of "established laws and customs". Tobacco has been a Western thing for about 500 years, and is still only partially accepted. Marijuana, particularly the new high-potency hothouse strains, is a relative novelty.
And the last serious attempt to ban alcohol in a non-Muslim country didn't work out so well. Even prohibitionists had to concede the cure was often worse than the disease. US counties that feel strongly about alcohol have banned it locally, and that that seems to work pretty well as a compromise: users keep it out of public spaces and go to the next county if they feel as strongly as their own county's authorities.Replies: @Chrisnonymous, @obwandiyag, @AndrewR, @Audacious Epigone
Have you ever used cannabis or alcohol? If not, you certainly could have educated yourself before humiliating yourself with such an ignorant comment.
I don’t advise driving (or engaging in any other risky activity) under the influence of weed, but I can guarantee that the average car crash that results from weed intoxication involves much lower rates of speed than alcohol-related crashes. Alcohol leads to feelings of invincibility and omnipotence. THC at best leads to feelings of tranquility and at worst to hypercautiousness. Do the math.
And as Chris pointed out, alcohol and aggression have a very high correlation. Cannabis and aggression have a negative correlation.
And when it comes to harm only done to oneself, alcohol is orders of magnitude more harmful than weed.
I mean seriously. This is Common Sense 101. The last 60 years haven’t brought us many good things, but two of those good things are the increased awareness of the harm alcohol can cause and the increased awareness of the relative harmlessness of cannabis. Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon are no longer here to give you “good doggy” headpats for your mindless regurgitation of idiotic propaganda.
I know people who live in Denver, CO, where marijuana is legal, and it seems there are quite a few people there who live productive lives and use it just in the evening to relax or whatever. Of course, there are also a lot of major potheads in Denver, but you have to take into consideration that Denver attracts them from other places.
When I was there last, I used marijuana for the first time. It wasn't a very nice experience, although I was told afterwards that the amount I took (eaten), was quite large for a naive user. However, I will say that after I slept and sobered up, I felt better than I have in years--decreased joint pain, muscle relaxation, and a nebulous sense of well-being that lasted about 2 days. Based on my experience, I would be interested in trying it again, see how it could be medicinally beneficial, and don't see major reasons for it to be banned.
I don't buy the argument that alcohol is fundamentally different from other drugs. I think that is a conceit based on the modern history of drug use in the USA and its relationship to politics as well, likely, as the fact that many conservatives are reportedly low in Openness on the Big Five. (Personally, I have never been evaluated, but feel open to experiences like drug use, while often feeling "unopen" to accepting the equal validity of alternative lifestyles and also to much leftist art--although perhaps that is "disagreeableness" rather than lack of openness...)Replies: @JohnPlywood, @Wency
On the Colorado phenomenon, I don’t really want to live in a place where it’s legal, but I’m fine with other states doing it. It seems like a good use of federalism at work. I actually know two people in my age group who moved states due to legal pot (one to CO, one to WA). Also seems like a good thing — let potheads gather in some places that want potheads to gather there, and stay away from places that don’t want potheads. But I’m guessing that it will be legal in all 50 states before long.
Your points are probably true on the culture around drug use. Pot might objectively not be as physiologically bad as alcohol, but there’s a culture around it, and openness to experience might be a factor in that. Still, I’ve never known someone who truly had a destructive alcohol problem, but the NEETs I’ve known (also 2 but not the same as the two migrating potheads) both smoke a lot of pot and seldom drink. Would they be NEETs without the pot? Probably, I guess, but I’m not certain.
Certain parts of the “war on drugs” made things much worse. Crack Cocaine is a perfect example of this.
Smugglers found that dealing with bags of powder was awkward and too easily detected. Adulterating the Cocaine with material that allowed forming ~10kg bricks made transport much easier. When this process started, the bricks were converted back into powder at the receiving end. No one knows who came up with the idea of chunking the brick down and selling the material as a solid. However once it happened, it became its own market.
Prohibition is the only reason Crack exists.
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Street selling of addictive material leads to blackmail and crime. However, 100% bans can lead to even more addictive substances hitting the market.
Some form of legalization of materials that have a wide band between a recreational level and a toxic overdose seems like it has more up side than down side. Chemicals that have limited addictive potential are also candidates for some form of decriminalization.
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If anyone wants to look at a specific substance – https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/ – is a comprehensive source for both effect & risk. Many of the things they list you have never heard of and wouldn’t touch even if you were paid.
PEACE 😇
Whenever anyone talks about marijuana, they talk about how it affects individuals. They talk about the moral dimension.
They never talk about how crooks in the government and out of it make trillions of dollars as a result of it being illegal. The Drug War is the biggest scam in history. Bigger than the US military, which is the second biggest scam.
Drugs need to be legalized or at least decriminalized nationwide for the same reason alcohol was. To cut the rug out from under the mafiosi--which category includes the DEA, state senators and congressman, banks, etc.
Nobody is saying drugs are good for you. They are bad for you. And for society. But they are worse for society when they are illegal. I know this is hard for you to understand, but try.Replies: @Technite78
I’d be inclined to agree with you… except the government wants me to pay for all the bad decisions that foolish people make.
There are really only two sustainable paths:
1) Allow people to indulge in self-destructive behavior at their own risk (no safety nets).
2) Proscribe self-destructive behavior with strong enforcement.
Anything else will result in societal/economic destruction and reversion to primitive living conditions.
Quite correct.
And the medicinal value of cannabis, as against alcohol, seems much higher or at least less dangerous. If you’ve ever done police work, pot heads are far easier to handle than drunks. Or at least they were.
Alcohol as a pain killer goes way back. Noah getting numb is in Genesis and so on.
Cannabis was used widely for digestive and menstrual issues before it became illegal in the 1930s. When the drug companies saw a free and natural solution for medical conditions they could make a fortune on, they started a propaganda effort rivaling the old COMINTERN to make cannabis illegal. The borrowed a Mexican slang word (“marihuana”) so people wouldn’t notice it’s just a form of hemp the Founding Fathers thought was terrific.
We have no clue how or even if cannabis was “abused” before it was prohibited. Their appeals were based on emotion, prejudice. and greed. Just like what they do now.
America has had forced race-mixing since the very beginning. Nat Turner had no business being in America, and he knew it.
Recreational drug use is a morally shameful act….
How is it different from having a few beers after work?
People's attitudes towards particular drugs usually have nothing to do with the drugs themselves. Usually they reflect either positive or negative feelings about the people who are inclined to use those drugs.
Recreational drug use in the 1950s was confined to a few small groups, particularly musicians (including many black musicians) and the newly emerging counter-culture. These were people that mainstream society disapproved of. Hence the hostility towards recreational drug use, especially among conservatives.
In recent decades tobacco has been mostly popular among the lower socio-economic classes so much of the anti-smoking agenda actually reflects hostility to those social classes.
Amusingly some years back the Australian government increased taxes on alcohol, ostensibly to discourage alcohol usage. But wine was exempted, because good people (in other words middle-class people) drink wine while bad people (in other words working-class people) drink beer.
How is it different from having a few beers after work?Replies: @dfordoom
Obviously it’s not very different at all.
People’s attitudes towards particular drugs usually have nothing to do with the drugs themselves. Usually they reflect either positive or negative feelings about the people who are inclined to use those drugs.
Recreational drug use in the 1950s was confined to a few small groups, particularly musicians (including many black musicians) and the newly emerging counter-culture. These were people that mainstream society disapproved of. Hence the hostility towards recreational drug use, especially among conservatives.
In recent decades tobacco has been mostly popular among the lower socio-economic classes so much of the anti-smoking agenda actually reflects hostility to those social classes.
Amusingly some years back the Australian government increased taxes on alcohol, ostensibly to discourage alcohol usage. But wine was exempted, because good people (in other words middle-class people) drink wine while bad people (in other words working-class people) drink beer.
But whatever. I think the legal ordering of the substance categories isn't so nonsensical when one considers the first item in the OP: "the typical Anglo point of view, moving slowly in changing long established laws and customs."
Alcoholic beverages have been with us since neolithic times. Civilizationally, it doesn't get longer than that in terms of "established laws and customs". Tobacco has been a Western thing for about 500 years, and is still only partially accepted. Marijuana, particularly the new high-potency hothouse strains, is a relative novelty.
And the last serious attempt to ban alcohol in a non-Muslim country didn't work out so well. Even prohibitionists had to concede the cure was often worse than the disease. US counties that feel strongly about alcohol have banned it locally, and that that seems to work pretty well as a compromise: users keep it out of public spaces and go to the next county if they feel as strongly as their own county's authorities.Replies: @Chrisnonymous, @obwandiyag, @AndrewR, @Audacious Epigone
The attempts to ban marijuana in non-Muslim countries hasn’t worked out well either!
My thought process is that the number of marijuana-related auto fatalities pales in comparison to the number of alcohol-related auto fatalities. Harm from tobacco use is negligible. Alcohol puts others in a lot of danger, marijuana puts them in moderate danger, tobacco puts them in no danger.