Posted on 05/25/2006 6:51:03 AM PDT by Mr. Silverback
Its exactly the same to say the least. They did nothing but sell a product, which is what you are advocating here. Are we to believe that your "Crack-R-Us" outlets won't want customers? Again, making your argument look bad isn't the qualifier for dishonesty.
Smugglers/dealers primarily kill other smugglers/dealers, users primarily kill or steal from the innocent. You propose solving the first and ignoring the latter. So I do see a connection, but your solution solves the problem for the bad guys, while greatly increasing for the innocent.
No, it's a bad analogy because excessive speeding, in and of itself, places others in direct jeopardy, while drug use, in and of itself, does not place others in direct jeopardy. Therefore, it is a bad analogy.
A speeding car is potential energy,
No, that's kinetic energy. Potential energy is when it's at a high altitude, and could fall (and therefore gain kinetic energy) but it hasn't yet - which is why it's "potential" energy. But, enough of elementary school science for today.
The analogy is perfect because to you there is nothing wrong in the chain of events until the final step.
What is the corresponding "final step" when someone is smoking a joint, since you're so enamored of your analogy?
Thus, how can you say that someone that is speeding is reckless? They haven't caused an accident yet have they? You just refuse to apply the same logic to drug use. Its exactly the same thing.
Because a drug user is an armed-robber-in-waiting? Bigot. The same argument as "all black people are rapists-in-waiting" and "all gun owners are school shooters in waiting".
Apparently you don't read my posts. "The same things said about drugs today have been said about alcohol" is what I wrote. It's not me who has said these things, I'm citing others. If I cite alcohol prohibitionists and drug warriors, I'm not "comparing alcohol to drugs," I'm comparing the things others say about alcohol to the things others have said about drugs. The only comparison I have made about alcohol and drugs is that alcohol is far more destructive, killing far more people each year than drugs do.
FYI, the reason I'm against legal prostitution isn't based on the morality of prostitution. In my younger days I thought legal prostitution was a great idea, because I bought into the victimless crime nonsense.
As I got older, I realized that the vast majority of "voluntary prostitution" is made up of women with very serious psychological damage from sexual abuse as minors.
I'm also against legal Russian roulette tournaments based on similar assumptions of the participants mental health.
excessive speeding, in and of itself, places others in direct jeopardy
How? Who are you to say what the speed limit should be? You could only base this on the fact that a higher percentage of speeders commit crimes than nonspeeders. You are a tyrant by your own definition. It remains the perfect analogy.
Only using statistics, which is what is used to determine speed limits in relation to accidents. How this can be above anyone's comprehension is startling. Can you find the United States on a map of North America?
Only using statistics,
Back when I lived in Vienna VA we had two types of burglars, one type that would break into a vacant house, take valuables and leave. The other type would crawl through a window, bleed everywhere, mess up stuff, defecate on the rug and leave through the same window, often taking nothing. As the laws stood, the ones that came through the door would get a lot more prison time because of the amount of the theft.
What?????? FATHERHOOD MATTERS???? Don't let the feminists hear that.
potential energy n. The energy that exists in a body as a result of its position or condition rather than of its motion. sourcekinetic energy n. The energy possessed by a body because of its motion, equal to one half the mass of the body times the square of its speed. source
It's one thing for you to be wrong, it's another for you to cop an attitude about it, "You should have paid more attention in school."
Then again, pompous, ignorant people are just the sorts to force their ideas upon others at government gunpoint - and say they're doing it for their own good.
damning
(note to self: check!)
Yep.
Did you ever pause to think that this just might have something to do with them having a mom who married someone of the ilk that would commit three crimes to get caught up in the three strikes laws?
It implies that neither mom nor dad are especially bright (if you can count to two, that is a good time to quit).
It further implies that legal compliance is not high on the priority list at home.
I suppose that might make mom a real winner when it comes to raising kids, too.
Small wonder the kids are in trouble.
They should be studying the kids who grow up without dad at home (prison or not) and don't end up either in trouble with the law or in prison. Find out what people are doing right.
One more thing...in a small town, just being "a chip off the old block" will get a kid more scrutiny (amid 'I told you so' at the cop shop) than some "good kid from a good family". That might be a source of bias as well.
Yes, he should, but how does that justify sentencing that screws the child without changing the crime situation? If some kid never sees his dad because Dad's a murderer, or committed three armed robberies in a three strikes state, then that kid is collateral damage from the exact thing society should be doing. But that's not what we're talking about here.
I mean, you wouldn't say "The insurance company shouldn't have to pay for that kid's care in the burn ward. Her Mom should have thought about this before taking up smoking." So why would you say the state shouldn't care about the result of a nonviolent offender's kid getting screwed over? And why would we continue on any course of crime policy that does nothing to reduce crime?
Anyway, one of your examples is wrong, Jim Crow laws weren't enacted because blacks were thought of as more criminal but because they were stereotyped as inferior and shouldn't be mixed in blood, marriage or society.
Are you saying that we should allow the crook to get off "for the children"?
What is it the Bible says, something about sins of the father being visited on his children?
POST #16 - GREAT COMEBACK!!!
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