Posted on 09/16/2004 5:04:47 AM PDT by publius1
SOROS' $$ TOPPLES DA IN WAR OVER DRUGS By KENNETH LOVETT Post Correspondent September 16, 2004 -- ALBANY —
In an unusual infusion of big money into local upstate politics, billionaire George Soros poured cash into the Albany County district attorney's race — and engineered a stunning defeat of the incumbent because the DA supports the strict Rockefeller drug laws.
The Soros-founded Drug Policy Alliance Network — which favors repeal of the Rockefeller laws — contributed at least $81,500 to the Working Families Party, which turned around and supported the successful Democratic primary campaign of David Soares.
Trying to become Albany's first black DA, Soares on Tuesday unexpectedly trounced his former boss, incumbent Albany DA Paul Clyne, who has opposed changing the drug laws. The victory was overwhelming: Soares took 62 percent of the Democratic vote.
"This was more than a local race, that's what the [Soros] funding shows," said Assemblyman John McEneny, who supported the challenger's candidacy.
Soros, an international financier and philanthropist who says he is dedicating his life to defeating President Bush, favors legalizing some drugs.
Clyne backers claim that the Working Families Party, using the Soros money, illegally involved itself in the Democratic primary. They charge the Soros cash was used to target Democratic voters with mass mailings and phone calls labeling Clyne as the reason the drug laws were not reformed, as well as highlighting his anti-abortion stance.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
government, even
Namecalling is a good sign that someone has no substantive argument.
Your arguments are rather Orwellian in nature.
And the hysterical rhetoric ratchets up another notch.
Drugs cause its users to commit crimes in order to 'score' more, so we must ban such substances?
This is called a straw man. You pretend that I said something that I did not say and then argue against your own words that you have put in my mouth. Sorry.
Drugs do not cause behavior. They incentivize behavior.
Ah, no. That is blaming an inanimate object for willful behavior on the part of the user.
Wow, what a simple analysis!
Charge the user for the burglary, theft, murder, et al, that they have committed, but do not say 'the drugs made them do it'.
Again you assume that I have eliminated individual culpability without warrant.
We are all possesed of free will.
All free will is sharply delimited by reality.
One of the realities of drug abuse is that it alters the brain chemistry of the abuser.
Your argments can be used to ban any possibly 'dangerous' substance or object. That makes your argument dangerous to freedom and liberty.
Not at all. The straw man arguments that you have invented for me might be, but my actual position - which you have not even referenced - is nothing of the kind.
Remember, we fought a war based on the concept of "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness".
Thanks for reminding me.
The dopers have the dumb idea that getting high makes them happy.
And rapists have the dumb idea that raping people will make them happy. And drug dealers have the dumb idea that giving free samples of their product to teens in order to get them hooked will make them happy. So, the pursuit of happiness is clearly not an absolute.
Further, no one made the user take the first toke, hit, or snort of those substances. They chose to to so. Don't blame the drug, blame the user.
No one blames the drug. The existing laws do not sentence inanimate lumps of crack and crank to jail time, they sentence the users and dealers of those substances. The users and dealers are very much being blamed and I will gladly acknowledge your trivial statement that it isn't a rock of crack's fault that someone smokes it.
And I would use the word 'draconian', not tyrannical, to describe the Rockefeller Laws.
The word "draconian" comes, of course, from Draco - the Athenian lawgiver who prescribed the death penalty for such minor offenses as petty theft. The Rockefeller drug laws, which do not prescribe capital punishment for any offense, don't really merit the word in its purest sense. The Rockefeller drug laws are more punitive than many other states' drug laws. That's as much as can be objectively said about them.
Backward. If they don't want to invest the effort to determine which drugs have crossed state borders (by, say, patrolling those borders) then the Constitution requires them to keep their noses out of the matter.
Like the laws which compelled people to return slaves who had escaped to their "owners"? You have no moral obligation to obey the laws of the nation.
I would, however, try to change the opinion of the majority to change the law, as I do with abortion.
Usually a good idea. But not the only idea. Ask the black people who were governed by JIM CROW laws.
The issue with Soros is that he is using vast sums of money to try to drown out the voices that disagree with him.
It won't work. And many here are proposing to drown out voices that disagree with them by using government force to do so. same thing.
I have no problem with open debate.
Goody
The American people need to hear the FACTS on both sides of an issue to help them make INTELLIGENT decisions.
People can figure things out. Do you think that people are stupid? That's what elitist liberals think. I'm sure you don't agree with them.
Unfortunately that no longer happens. Dan Rather proved that.
Of course it does. Rather has been shown to be a goof. No credibility. And in record time I might add.
Winning is everything, the truth is meaningless. How sad.
Don't be sad. Happily you are incorrect in your assessment.
Some people call it that, but the actual power is "among the several states".
First, Congess must decide to regulate some interstate commerce. Just because wheat, let's say, is interstate commerce, and Congress has the power to regulate interstate commerce, doesn't mean that Congress must regulate wheat.
But let's say that there's a temporary glut of wheat on the world market. American farmers are going bankrupt because it costs more to grow the wheat that what they'll get for it.
Congress decides to regulate the wheat and limit the production in order to raise the price. They guarantee the farmers a set price if they only grow so many acres. The farmers agree. All but one.
This guy decides he'll grow his allotment at the guaranteed price, but then grows a little more for his own use (for bread, animal feed, etc.).
Should he be allowed to do that? Certainly if he can, then you must allow the other farmers to do the same.
Now, if these farmers are growing their own "personal use" amount of wheat, doesn't that have a cumulative affect on demand (ie., they're not buying it in the open market)?
Wouldn't you say that has an effect, perhaps a substantial effect, on interstate trade?
No that is not my position.
What does money represent in a modern US congressional or higher election?
At the end of the day it represents for the most part the ability to buy air time, which represents in one being able to put a message in front of the electorate.
When a message is placed in front of an electorate, there is absolutely no guarantee that this message is honest. Or would you argue that political ads are always honest?
Now, if a message is placed in front of an electorate that defames an opponent (which is pretty much status quo for election messages these days) do you argue that such messages will indeed have in the general case impact?
Is the electorate inately weak minded? No, but has the electorate been presented a fair portrayal of the facts, or a lop sided spin designed to make one look bad and another look good?
Now if this message is largely funded by monies coming from outside a represenatives, senators etc. district.. do you believe that the people funding that ad have the best interests in that district or state in mind? Or is their motivation a larger national or even international goal and that they care very little about the electorate of that district or state?
I would say, without question the answer is the latter represents reality.
The impact of national politicing on local races is ghastly and a net hinderance to our government. If you think it isn't I would say you are vastly misinformed. Do you believe that if representatives only recieved money from their constituents and not from the DNC or RNC or Unions or Corps that any Federal Unfunded Mandate would ever have been passed? Do you think that when Clinton passed his tax increase and sacrificed that Dem representative at the next election cycle by forcing her to go along even though she knew it would likely cost her re-election would have happened?
You cannot escape the net negative impact of outside money on local elections. Without such things as PAC contributions and activist and other group spending, much of the national leftist agenda would have never seen the light of day. They never represented a majority of the electorate, but because they could control a large portion of cash and control its flow into local elections and hold funding over people already electeds heads to influence thier actions once in Washington it has allowed these types of actions and policies to be moved forward.
Gross underestimate. The price of heroin (an economically comparable substance) goes up 30-fold just during transport from country of origin to country of use.
In Brooks v. United States, 267 U.S. 432, 436 -437 (1925) the court ruled, "Congress can certainly regulate interstate commerce to the extent of forbidding and punishing the use of such commerce as an agency to promote immorality, dishonesty, or the spread of any evil or harm to the people of other states from the state of origin. In doing this, it is merely exercising the police power, for the benefit of the public, within the field of interstate commerce."
No, says tacticalogic! The spread of evil must be allowed! I'm sure it says so in the Federalist Papers, the Constitution, and Declaration of Independence. Honest! This is America, dagnubbit!
Your one sided characterizations are so transparent it obvious you're getting desperate. Your entire methodology revolves around rationalizing a pre-determined conclusion, not arriving at by going where the evidence leads.
Now, what are the chances of them exercising that power and staying in office?
Nooooo, alkies who incapable of honest employment can nonetheless often get their legal-thus-cheap fix by panhandling and can-collecting.
And note that even if a user remains a robber after legalization, the vastly reduced price would mean much less roberry was needed to maintain his supply. I'm all for reducing (even if not eliminating) criminal's motivation to commit crime, especially since drug criminalization has had no demonstrable effect on drug use.
"I'm no fan of Soros, but the Rockerfeller drug laws are tyrannical to their core, and representatives who support them deserve to get beaten"
Exactly. And you don't have to be for legalization to recognize that these laws are atrocious.
There is no right to keep and bear arms on someone elses private property. There never has been. There is no conflict. Your argument is classic strawman.
As to name calling, Insane is appropriate for one who ignores and rejects reality..
Your "reality" is in your own mind.
Please stop the namecalling. It is counter to posting guidelines.
We're trying to ban various other drugs now. In case you didn't notice it, this ban isn't working either.
So we should restrict all political advertising because some of it is dishonest?
"3d. To "regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the States, and with the Indian tribes." To erect a bank, and to regulate commerce, are very different acts. He who erects a bank creates a subject of commerce in its bills; so does he who makes a bushel of wheat, or digs a dollar out of the mines; yet neither of these persons regulates commerce thereby. To make a thing which may be bought and sold is not to prescribe regulations for buying and selling. Besides, if this was an exercise of the power of regulating commerce, it would be void, as extending as much to the internal commerce of every State, as to its external. For the power given to Congress by the Constitution does not extend to the internal regulation of the commerce of a State (that is to say of the commerce between citizen and citizen), which remains exclusively with its own legislature; but to its external commerce only, that is to say, its commerce with another State, or with foreign nations, or with the Indian tribes. Accordinglythe bill does not propose the measure as a regulation of trade, but as "productive of considerable advantages to trade." Still less are these powers covered by any other of the special enumeration. " - Thomas Jefferson, on establishing a national bank.
Jefferson says if Congress cannot regulate an activity in interstate commerce without also regulating intrastate commerce, then it may regulate neither. You say if Congress cannot regulate an activity in interstate commerce without also regulating intrastate commerece, then they may regulate both. One of you is wrong.
And by pursuing their right to happiness they infringed upon someone else's right to happiness. Do you see the difference? You don't, nevermind. Brownshirts see their right to happiness as the right to infringe upon others. Are your children as fearful as you are?
We just need to do more of what's been consistently failing. Yeah, that's the ticket!
No, we should be honest enough to say if we argue that the purpose of our representatives is to represent their constituence (which last I checked is the purpose of having a constitutional republic). Then it should be up to those constituence and the electorate that the representative will represent to fund and support those canidates, and to them alone.
If you cannot vote for the person, you can't donate to the person, very simple. I know it will never happen, because far too many people have a stake in keeping the status quo, but if you want true reform not only of Campaign finance, but of our government in general, that one simple step will do more than hundreds of reforms bills that have or will come out of congress.
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