Breakdown In Civil Order

[Derec]

I have a solution: Let's get rid of cities so people can behave like people instead of rabid rats.
To be fair, that might be a biased view driven by my own deep dislike of cities.

And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches. Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.

 

[Derec]

For instance, in the Thunderdome wasteland where I'm currently sitting (Seattle), the rule that disallowed all police chases has been revoked.

Hopefully we settle on some sort of sane policy. Unfortunately, things usually keep swinging between extremes.

 

[Derec]

Prop 47 did NOT decriminalize possession or use of heroin, for instance. Police simply don’t enforce it; selective enforcement is yet another problem created by drug laws.

No, selective prosecution is a problem created by prosecutors. It is not limited to drugs, like how certain DAs do not want to prosecute thieves at all and only want to prosecute armed robbers for "petit larceny" even if they steal grand larceny worth of stuff using a weapon.

 

[Derec]

No great fortune happens without great sins.

That's a simplistic version of the Balzac quote.
"The secret of a great success for which you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been found out, because it was properly executed"
It does not refer to all fortunes.

I know the money that comes into my hands will be stained with oil and global warming lies, and quite possibly tetraethyl lead.

Most likely just with cocaine and other illicit drugs.

 

[Derec]

I did not ONLY say that we should pull ICE vehicles from markets,

Since BEVs constitute <10% of new car sales, >90% still have internal combustion engines. It is simply not realistic to pull them from the markets now. Not even California is proposing banning ICE vehicles anytime soon, and not even then would they mandate existing ICE vehicles to be scrapped.

I also said in addition to removing all ICE vehicles, that we should help people make the change by putting the financial burden on auto manufacturers

Which would bankrupt them. Also, I do not see any president or Congress passing such a destructive policy.

as a consequence of their historic pushing of ICE vehicles.

They were companies selling technologically viable transportation products. Why should they be penalized for that?

Anyone bickering over a straw man of my position is intensely dishonest.

Well, you are bringing up very unrealistic policies like this one. And this being a discussion forum, the rest of us discuss them.

 

[Derec]

Here is a Robert Reich video directly related to billionaire morality.

Like all the RR stuff, it's a mix of strawmen and half truths.

Nobody is claiming billionaires like Bezos or Musk came from poverty. And in any case, turning a quarter million investment into a quarter of a trillion is quite a feat any way you cut it.

Billionaires pay no taxes? Really? In reality they pay billions in taxes.

This claim relies on pretending that unrealized capital gains are "true income" that they somehow avoid paying taxes on, when US tax system does not tax unrealized capital gains. We had a whole thread on that when some journalist made the whole thing up a few years ago.

And so on.

 

[ZiprHead]

I do not think all drug laws should be abolished, but they can certainly be liberalized. That would not "take out majority of the crime" though. I think most drug users who get arrested do so for some ancillary crime, and not being busted buying or using. Thing like driving under the influence, or stealing to feed one's habit. Neither of these would go away if drug laws were repealed, but the prosecutors would not be able to tack on various possession and paraphernalia charges. Mandatory rehab would also be a better sentence than jail for lower level drug-influenced crimes.

 

[ZiprHead]

Here is a Robert Reich video directly related to billionaire morality.

Like all the RR stuff, it's a mix of strawmen and half truths.

Nobody is claiming billionaires like Bezos or Musk came from poverty. And in any case, turning a quarter million investment into a quarter of a trillion is quite a feat any way you cut it.

Billionaires pay no taxes? Really? In reality they pay billions in taxes.

This claim relies on pretending that unrealized capital gains are "true income" that they somehow avoid paying taxes on, when US tax system does not tax unrealized capital gains. We had a whole thread on that when some journalist made the whole thing up a few years ago.

And so on.

Really?

How much tax a wealthy person owes in a given year is a complex tapestry threaded with exemptions, deductions, credits, and obscure loopholes you’ve never heard of. The ideal is to owe zilch. If that sounds impossible to achieve, just look at the leaked tax returns of the wealthiest Americans that nonprofit news site ProPublica analyzed in 2021: Over several years, billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Michael Bloomberg, among others, paid no federal income taxes at all.
How do they do it? Here are some basic rules they live by.

The billionaire’s guide to doing taxes

How the very rich lose money, overvalue art, buy very expensive life insurance, and somehow profit.

www.vox.com

And yes, I am aware of the unrealized capital gains issue. If you receive wealth you should be taxed on the wealth you receive.

 

[unapologetic]

I think most drug users who get arrested do so for some ancillary crime,

No one disputes that.
With full prohibition we have lost control of the so called 'controlled substances'. Just like we did with alcohol. The economics of 'contraband' has passed control to the greedy and unscrupulous. If drugs were decriminalized, and controlled by the Medical Profession, instead of 'law enforcement', there would be less ancillary crime, and less taxpayer money need be spent trying to 'enforce' what they are failing to enforce.
Alcohol was decriminalized. Is now under control, with no ancillary crime.

 

[bilby]

with no ancillary crime.

[citation needed]

Alcohol addicts are amongst the most prolific criminals in the US. Thefts and robberies to support alcohol addiction are widespread.

The only reason that alcohol is treated as though it were not a drug at all, is that its use is so ubiquitous that almost all the anti-drug campaigners are regular consumers of alcohol, and it would be devastating to their self-image if they were to accept that they themselves are drug users.

But they are.

 

[Jarhyn]

with no ancillary crime.

[citation needed]

Alcohol addicts are amongst the most prolific criminals in the US. Thefts and robberies to support alcohol addiction are widespread.

The only reason that alcohol is treated as though it were not a drug at all, is that its use is so ubiquitous that almost all the anti-drug campaigners are regular consumers of alcohol, and it would be devastating to their self-image if they were to accept that they themselves are drug users.

But they are.

100% correct.

Then, when were humans on the whole ever keen on self awareness?

 

[Rhea]

I suspect most of the landlords have no rens mea, though.

A rens mea?

I suspect he meant Mens Rea

In criminal law, mens rea (/ˈmɛnz ˈreɪə/; Law Latin for "guilty mind"[1]) is the mental state of a defendant who is accused of committing a crime. In common law jurisdictions, most crimes require proof both of mens rea and actus reus ("guilty act") before the defendant can be found guilty.

 

[Shadowy Man]

I suspect most of the landlords have no rens mea, though.

A rens mea?

I suspect he meant Mens Rea

In criminal law, mens rea (/ˈmɛnz ˈreɪə/; Law Latin for "guilty mind"[1]) is the mental state of a defendant who is accused of committing a crime. In common law jurisdictions, most crimes require proof both of mens rea and actus reus ("guilty act") before the defendant can be found guilty.

Spoonerism.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Just the usual blather, all talk no solutions...

When in a hole, first stop digging. That means voting out toxic mayors like Michelle Wu and DAs like Gascon and Moriarty.

We could take out a majority of crime overnight--repeal the drug laws. They're the primary driver of crime. Yet the Republicans keep digging.

Because that's worked so very well in Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco?

Legalizing possession is not enough. The crime comes from the high cost. Think of the difference between the alcoholic and the junkie. Neither are good but who is going to mug you?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Just the usual blather, all talk no solutions...

When in a hole, first stop digging. That means voting out toxic mayors like Michelle Wu and DAs like Gascon and Moriarty.

We could take out a majority of crime overnight--repeal the drug laws. They're the primary driver of crime. Yet the Republicans keep digging.

Because that's worked so very well in Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco?

According to this article it takes more time to work than these cities gave it before giving up.

Drug overdose deaths spiked almost 50 percent, from 1,171 in 2021, when possession of drugs for personal use was decriminalized, to 1,683 in October 2023, according to the latest data available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Opioids, particularly fentanyl, caused most of the deaths, according to the Oregon Health Authority. The number of homeless people in Portland, the state’s largest city, also rose to nearly 6,300 in 2023, a 65 percent hike since 2015. And public drug use grew rampant in the city, leading state and local leaders to declare a 90-day fentanyl emergency in January.

Yeah, just need to ride it out until when?

As noted, when in a hole, stop digging.

And how much did they spike elsewhere? Heroin shifting to fentanyl has caused a lot of overdoses everywhere.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

i personally would rather experiment with approaches that have never been tried before and if it doesn't work you can adjust as needed.

Legal for addicts has been tried--and worked well.

 

[Emily Lake]

I’m most concerned about corruption in the Supreme Court, the impact of the McConnell Ryan Trump tax give away on revenue, the appointment of shills to and destruction of executive agencies, etc… But hey if we can just keep the brown people and queers in check then it won’t matter if a couple of global entities hold all the capital, control the supply chains, freely dump negative externalities on the commons, and fix prices then everything will be okay. It will be a bonus if the Christianists get to claim their territories.

This seems entirely irrelevant to this thread. I'm sure there's somewhere more appropriate you could have posted this.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I suspect most of the landlords have no rens mea, though.

A rens mea?

Latin, a guilty mind. I suspect most did not realize it was price fixing. They just saw a company offering guidance on setting rent for maximum profit and didn't realize it worked by getting everyone to charge too much.

Most crimes require an intent to commit a wrongful act. Someone who has no idea they consumed alcohol will get off on a DUI. (usually alcohol-naive teens who didn't know the punch was spiked, but it could also apply to someone roofied or the like.) Likewise, the UPS guy isn't guilty of possession for delivering a box of drugs.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

We could take out a majority of crime overnight--repeal the drug laws. They're the primary driver of crime. Yet the Republicans keep digging.

I do not think all drug laws should be abolished, but they can certainly be liberalized. That would not "take out majority of the crime" though. I think most drug users who get arrested do so for some ancillary crime, and not being busted buying or using. Thing like driving under the influence, or stealing to feed one's habit. Neither of these would go away if drug laws were repealed, but the prosecutors would not be able to tack on various possession and paraphernalia charges. Mandatory rehab would also be a better sentence than jail for lower level drug-influenced crimes.

Stealing to feed one's habit is the main one. Yes, it wouldn't go away but the amount of crime and the severity would go way down. When is the last time you heard of someone getting mugged by a wino?

 

[Emily Lake]

Alcohol was decriminalized. Is now under control, with no ancillary crime.

Just out of curiosity... do you consider drunk driving to NOT be an ancillary crime? Assaults while inebriated? Alcohol-related domestic violence? Drunk and disorderly?

Prohibition didn't work as intended, true. Many people who previously got drunk a lot still got drunk, because alcohol was still accessible. Prohibition allowed for a black market for alcohol to flourish... but a large part of that is because humans have been distilling and fermenting alcohol for millennia, and it doesn't really take super specialized knowledge or supplies. It's relatively easy for any random person to obtain the information necessary to create a still, and to make alcohol. There are some risks, sure, but they're fairly small.

The same situation applies to marijuana - it doesn't take exorbitant expertise to keep a pot plant alive. They're pretty hardy plants, and it's relatively easy to grow and harvest weed. As a result of that, prohibition of marijuana isn't going to be effective (and we've seen that it wasn't).

On the other hand... fentanyl takes specialized knowledge and equipment to produce. So does heroin. So do a lot of highly addictive and very dangerous drugs.

A lot of people seem to view regulations and laws in a borderline libertarian fashion, as if it's all or nothing. Some things need good regulation, some need professional oversight and monitoring, some need no particular laws at all. Not all scenarios and situations are the same, and each needs to be considered on its own merits with consideration given to both direct and indirect consequences.