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6IXSTRINGJACK
In a closed society where everybody’s guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.
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And there it is.... the regulation argument being used to avoid the legalization issue.
I'm getting dizzy..... 
I can't believe that I'm even doing this, but I gotta come in here and try to clarify Citizen's position because he and I actually agree on something for once.... I think.
Citizen Said: Quote:
Legalisation of Alcohol after prohibition more or less pushed the Mafia out of the market. It's pretty likely that legalising at least some drugs will do the same thing.
Finn Said: Quote:
So you’re solution to drug dealing on college campuses is to legalize drugs. There it is. The legalization argument being used to avoid the regulation issue.
He didn't even propose a solution here, so I don't really even have a clue as to where that came from. He merely made an intelligent statement comparing the lift of the constitutionally ammended ban on alcohol resulting in the virtual elimination of a major crime element in America overnight to what is potentially a very similar situation we face today. Where you took that from there is wherever your own biases and predispositions wanted to go with it, I suppose.
Now, what I'm adding personally is that the only reason the drug problem has gotten so bad in this country and all of the schemers, "bad guys", felons, etc. are prospering in this country today is because the outright ban on these products has for decades propped up an ever expanding market in which they all thrive. Without the distributors, it is somewhere between hard and impossible for normal folk who want it to get it, short of risking their own property and freedom growing their own, so the price goes up.... And when the price goes up the aformentioned bad guys are willing to take greater risks to bring the product to those willing to pay the asking price. Risks including, but certainly not limited to manufacturing the goods, transporting the goods, housing the goods, distributing the goods, getting busted with the goods, getting busted distributing the goods, 3 strikes your out, bullet to the head by rival gang members, bullet to the head by police, bullet to the head by feinin' junkie, etc. etc. etc.....
Now legalize pot. Take away the incentives, and make it more readily available to people, say... over the age of 18, and right there you've eliminated I'd guesstimate somewhere in the area of 70-90% of the black market for the drug within weeks. Sure, there are always going to be those who are trying to buy outside the legal guidelines, like those who are underage, or those willing to buy a possibly tainted product to get a better price, but eventually the bad guys say "What's making this worth my while, why am I risking my life for peanuts?"
Regulations on the drug are another issue altogether and a valid one at that. Personally, I'd rather be surrounded by an entire city full of potheads than the one I live in where I don't know who's on prozac or ritalin, or anti-depressants/anti-psychotics, etc., but I understand that there are many who do not share this opinion. While there is still fear of pot and it's effects because of the decades upon decades of wonderful propoganda campaigns against it (originally funded by William Randolph Hearst and likely funded by Pfizer, the US gov, and the drug cartels in South America today), I'm sure a compromise can be met and there can be reasonable regulations regarding its use.
I just don't see how an intelligent people in this country on either side of the issue haven't been able to come together and make reasonable compromises which would all but eliminate the major source of crime in this country today. Though I'll be the first to admit that pot can be abused, who could argue that the same can be said about cigarettes, booze and pills made in every color of the rainbow every day. That, in my mind, is no reason to ban the substance which for decades has propped up organized crime, currently funds terrorism against our country and all over the world, and has cost theUS taxpayers billions of dollars every year funding the "War" on drugs..... a debt that sadly we will never repay and will pass along to our children and our children's children.
Don't you find it funny how you don't hear the term "War" on drugs much when there is an actual REAL war going on?
D.A.R.E. to know the truth.
Disclaimer: I partake, and although this is probably the one board I've associated myself with that continually has thought provoking content and an overall much higher percentage of the correct usage of English than any board I've ever seen before, I think I keep up pretty well. From personal experience, I can say that I'm still pretty damn sharp and I've never gone psychotic and mamed anyone as of 05:48 Central this morning, as "Reefer Madness" would have you believe I would have, probalby many times over by now.
If we were able to grow it next to the tomatoes, what a dream come true for people of my way of thinking. No money funding organized crime stateside, no money funding drug cartels in South America/Mexico, no money funding terrorism worldwide, 90% reduction in the amount of American taxpayer dollars go to funding feeding and housing millions of "criminals" every year for minor non-violent drug offences, 90% reduction in the money we flush down the toilet in the unwinnable "war" on drugs, and no tax dollars being made on our end that I would feel guilty about going to fund our worldwide imperialism at the same time.
Everybody wins! Well...... except for the South American/Mexican drug cartels.... terrorists... the gangs distributing the drugs stateside... and the 10s of thousands of American Government law enforcement employees who will be laid off when there is no reason to justify paying their salary anymore... and the defence attorneys who will have to downsize their houses and cars and wives/girlfriends/mistresses.... and the rabid anti-drug zealots..... Nope.... can't say there's anybody I care none to much for that would be suffering in that deal.
 "A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack
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Great cast
the acting is wonderful
It's up there with the original Superman movies IMHO
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KNIGHTREYEDER
I start fighting a war, I guarantee you'll see something new.
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Vump, be back in an hour.
_________________________________________________
Mal's expression in the scrapyard when he first see's Serenity says it all.
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KNIGHTREYEDER
I start fighting a war, I guarantee you'll see something new.
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Summer is sensually creepy, as a Terminator that is.
Disturbingly attractive, has Cute hardware.... is one good looking machine, something.....
_________________________________________________
Mal's expression in the scrapyard when he first see's Serenity says it all.
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NEEDY
INDECHIPHRABLE, INVINCIBLE, INSANE?
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OOC: Excellent posts WYSB, can't wait to see how the story of Project:Einstein pans out
Think I might entitle the next thread Special Projects, what do you think?
Well without further ado, lets get back to the story 
****
"I wasn't looking for attention. And I didn’t have any grand plans of infamy. I did this because I truly thought it was the right thing to do”
“And what’s that?” Safe asked without hesitation.
“I volunteered”
“For what?” Safe said, staring into the man’s eyes, willing to see past the façade of a poor stowaway, and the truth that hid underneath, some deep dark secret no doubt.
The man laughed and shook his head. “You don’t get it, I’m not who they say I am”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about” Safe replied whilst Soul looked on in silence. “Why don’t you tell me who you are, what you’re doing here. Then I’ll decide where we take it from there.”
The man shook his head again. “Well I’m certianly not like you. Alliance right? Or at least you were. You certainly look the part, standing tall with your head held high as if you’ve nothing to be ashamed of, meanwhile you’re standing on the very rug that you just swept your dirt under.”
Safe bit his tongue, he’d let the man have this little dig at him, he was ignorant, didn’t know the first thing about him, his past, nor his former dealings with the alliance.
“I was nothing special, didn’t have a military background – my mother was a priest and my dad spent most of his time working down at Eavesdown. I thought I was gonna turn out to be a mechanic just like him, didn’t have any aspirations otherwise. But I was chosen. Chosen for the training program that the group offered me.”
“What group?” Safe asked
“The Expendables” Soul muttered to his friend, whilst The Weapon nodded his head.
Safe glared at Soul and clenched his teeth. He wanted to draw his weapon and hold it point blank against The Weapon’s forehead. The group were dangerous and one of their agents – Ciaran – had just killed one of their passengers, whilst leaving another in a critical state. But Soul had also been one. He didn’t know if that should make him want to give the stowaway the benefit of the doubt or whether he should just throw both him and Soul overboard.
“Don’t worry, I’m not with them anymore, and you can trust me on that”
Safe didn’t care what the man said, he wasn’t putting blind faith in anyone anymore
“But I believed, hell in a way I still do, that they’re not all bad. That they do have our best intentions at heart. They are trying to do good work. They are trying to improve the verse, trying to take that power the Alliance so mercilessly holds over everybody else, and turn it against them. It's only then that things can change.”
“Okay,” Safe butts in “first of all, The Alliance are doing good things too, or at least they're trying to. Maybe I do look at them differently to the rest of you but it doesn't mean I'm not right. They’re in over their heads, for sure, but they are not the evil corporation you make them out to be. And without that government in place, the human race probably would have destroyed itself years ago.”
Silence descended upon the group of three, each giving thought to their own standing on the matter.
“Maybe you’re right” The Weapon broke the silence “but it was The Alliance, not The Expendables that did this to me”
“I was trained to be the best” he continued “until it got to the point where I was the ultimate soldier. But others were doing their own experimentation, experiments on innocent civilians. These ones weren’t chosen or asked if they wanted to take part, they were dragged off the streets. I don’t know how many died before we even got wind of the news, but when they wanted to send an operative in, I made sure I was on the front line. I volunteered for that. To shut them down, once and for all.
Only... I failed. They found me out and before long I was subjected to the same experiments. I became their soldier. It didn’t matter what I wanted. I had no control. No say so. I carried out their assignments like a drone, a zombie, controlled not by free will nor conscience but by pre-programmed directives.
Let me tell you it was a godsend when I was captured. Being thrown in prison was no picnic but at least I had control of my senses. Feeling the pain of torture... it was the worst thing I ever felt. But at least I knew I was alive, that I was me again”
“Then what is it you’re trying to achieve? Why are you here?” Safe asked in a calmer tone, evidently the tale the man had told had opened his eyes to what was truly going on.
“We’re trying to make sure that these inhumane experiments don’t happen again. That these monsters don't get away with it. I’m the proof! Don’t you understand? We’re going to expose them both.”
“Both?”
“The Expendables too. Yes, I believe in the beginning their motives were pure, but things have changed. Leadership has changed. I’m afraid that now they’re no more different that the Alliance themselves. In that they’re doing whatever is necessary to achieve their means. Their soldiers may be in control to an extent, but still they’re only there because they've been conditioned to think as they think. How is that any different to being a zombie.”
Safe turned his head to the side, staring at the blackened walls, deep in thought.
“Safe?” Soul asked. “What are you thinking?”
The man didn’t answer the question, not directly, instead he replied “Get them together. The crew. All of them. We’re gonna figure this out, together."
"You're going to put it to a vote?" Soul asked
"We're going to come to a decision." Safe answered. "And there's not gonna be any more secrets between us.”
-----
Needy. Male Companion: Chosen One?
-----
http://needsalt.livejournal.com/
www.myspace.com/dicksquinty The World's Greatest Detective?
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Quote:
Over time people become resistant to change. ... So in general I don't think people are scared of change as much as tired by it.
You haven't even opened the book, have you?
There is more to authoritarianism than response to change. I'm not a hugely adventurous person and- as you say- even less so as I get older. (I'm also not a big rule-breaker.)
But I don't rate high on the authoritarian scale because being authoritarian by HIS definition means that you not only believe in the accepted way of doing things (what you perceive as being accepted by "the authorities"), you also believe very strongly that everyone should follow all those same rules AND you will become violent in order to impose them on others. IMHO the violent part is what sets authoritarians apart from people who simply prefer to live placid, uneventful lives. His point is that authoritarians aren't simply tired folk, they're simmering with fear and anger.
So read the book before you start interpreting what he said, because you don't even KNOW what he said yet!
---------------------------------
Let's party like it's 1929.
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KNIGHTREYEDER
I start fighting a war, I guarantee you'll see something new.
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Vump and off to physical therapy.....
_________________________________________________
Mal's expression in the scrapyard when he first see's Serenity says it all.
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Quote:
Originally posted by CunningOrangeToque:
Simon (O/S):Um, Kaylee, I think the artificial gravity is broken again.
---------------------------------------------
How many Jaynes does it take to change a light bulb?
Two. One to try to put it in and another to find a bigger hammer.
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Those who do not vote - no matter how loud they scream - say nothing.
"You were busy trying to get yourself lit on fire. It happens." -Mal
