Drug Users and SUV drivers: Do you not know or Do you not care?

The BBQ Pit
141

I have tried to stay out of the WOD portion of this thread and focus on the SUV one, since I don’t really know what to think about WOD. I must confess that although I tend to agree with hamlet on the subject of the SUV, I think I’m leaning the other way on the WOD. But I just came up with this example that supports his argument, for your perusal …

The ivory trade has been illegal for many years, because elephants are endangered, yada yada. However, lately in Southern Africa, there has been a surge in the elephant population, partly because of the trade ban, no doubt. So the elephants are eating all the forests and scaring villages and people are now discussing permitting ivory trade again, at least until the population goes down.

Problem: there are still endangered Asian elephants, and you couldn’t really tell if you were buying ‘okay’ African elephant tusk or ‘bad’ Asian elephant tusk. So lifting the ban would mean that the Asian ones would again be at risk.

This is analogous to the WOD: purchasing some kinds of drugs (or ivory) contributes to all kinds of nastiness, while purchasing other kinds does not, and could be beneficial (to the microeconomy of a college student, or the forests in Zimbabwe). Hamlet seems to be arguing that in order to preserve the Asian elephants, we shouldn’t buy any ivory (which, BTW, is where the debate stands now), where Beeblebrox (and others) seem to be saying that hey, the African ivory is A-OK to buy, so why not (which is what people are advocating)?

My own mind is not made up, this is for illustration only. What do you think?

142

Hamlet - at one point in this country’s history, there were segregation laws all over the place. When blacks attempted to bring about change, they broke many of those laws, by sitting in the front of the bus, registering to vote, drinking from the wrong fountain etc.

the response was, in many cases, very bad things[sup]tm[/sup], including violence, lynching, many murders, arson etc.

are you suggesting, that those who fought for Civil Rights were supporting the very bad things that happened by virtue of their breaking/questioning the laws that they found to be wrong?

how is this different from your argument?

143

Back to the question in the OP-

I do know, and I don’t care. Or more precisely, I am looking at things from a different perspective. You do understand that there can be more than one perspective, right? And that there is hardly ever a stark black-and-white right or wrong?

PS- reading Hamlet’s comment about the “ravishes” of drug use cracked me up! A Freudian slip if I’ve ever read one! (It’s “ravages”, BTW).

Anyway, it’s always a pleasure to read an anti-SUV thread. Luckily, we are hardly ever without them.

I’m going to go drive the Range Rover to my son’s preschool now. No guilt.

And this almost made me want to pick up a few drugs again, just to spite Hamlet! Oh well, would someone take care of my share? Thanks.

:smiley:

144

EJsGirl, why are you so smug about your Range Rover?

145

Hamlet, let me give you an example of how arguments are supposed to work:

(1. numbers) The XPD states that Y% of prisoners serving time for violent crimes are concurrently serving time for drug traficking. (2. causality) Though the XPD does not keep statistics on motive, I believe it can be reasonably infered that a signifigant portion of these violent crimes occured during the actual sale of illegal drugs. (3. logic) State Z law clearly distinguishes between simple possession and trafficking, therefore, these criminals were most likely engaged in traficking (as opposed to merely having a personal dime bag in their pocket) at the time of the arrest for the violent crime. Hence drug trafficking leads to violent crime.

See how that’s different from merely repeating “Bad Things happen” over and over? It would still be debateable, but at least it wouldn’t be as incredibly stupid as the “It’s a fact” bullshit.

146

Not smug, cowgirl. I noticed that the SUV drivers in this thread were naming their vehicle brands, so I named mine. If I was still driving my Explorer, I would have said so.

I have no guilt about driving an SUV.

147

EJsGirl, you imply that you have a different perspective from us (me and Hamlet in particular). I’m just curious to learn more about this perspective. How do you justify it, given its higher-than-standard fuel consumption?

148

She justifies it easily, cowgirl. She wanted it, she bought it, and it was for sale.

Beyond that it’s not any of your social-consciousness business.

I can’t figure out why you refuse to acknowledge that.

149

I have always driven older or bigger vehicles, which have never gotten great gas mileage. The additional costs I incur at the pump are acceptable to me.

Is there something else besides higher-than-economy-car fuel consumption I should be concerned with?

I really hate the idea of “justifying” the car I drive on a message board! People who know me know that we have two kids and raise Newfoundland dogs, which are a giant breed and must be ferried around in larger vehicles.

But none of that should even matter. I choose to drive my car instead of your car. The reason can be practical or impractical, medically necessary or completely frivilous.

Personal choice is my reason.

(On preview, I see that Airman Doors has posted a concise reply! Thank you!)

150

Hamlet, I think the problem in this thread is that you use a number of false analogies.

False analogy #1:
You don’t shop at the GAP. Fine. You don’t like the practices of that company? Don’t shop there. But those examples don’t apply to the War on Drugs because we’re not talking about one drug dealer with questionable practices. “Don’t buy your drugs from Boris, he supports global warming!” The law is that ALL drugs are bad. You have no choice in the matter to support drug X and not drug Y, to support dealer A but not dealer B. You can choose to not to shop at the GAP but Structure, Banana Republic, and even JC Penney’s is off limits too. Don’t like Ben & Jerry’s? You have the choice to shop for your ice cream elsewhere. But let’s see what you do when milk is illegal. Now you don’t have the option to get some good ol’ Blue Bunny because it’s a scumbag smuggler too and you support Very Bad Things.
The situations aren’t analogous because you have a choice on shopping elsewhere whereas those who want drugs don’t.

False analogy #2:
You claim that the only way to make businesses listen to you is by voting with your pocketbook. Then you go on and state that buying illegal drugs is bad. Why? Isn’t that exactly what you advocated? People are voting with their pocketbooks! They want drugs. They buy drugs. It should be clear to the government what the people want.
Your suggestion to stop buying drugs, despite wanting those drugs, is illogical. By doing so, you’re voting again with your pocketbook, but the message you send is “I want drugs to remain illegal,” which is the exact opposite of the message you really want to be sending.

I could go on and argue how ALL cars hurt the environment to some degree so even so-called “evironmentally friendly” cars support Very Bad Things buuuuuuut I’d just like to focus on points 1 and 2 right now.

151

cowgirl, thanks for the clarification. :slight_smile: Surprise! I actually agree with much of it. The part I take issue with is simply a matter of opinions - yours vs. mine - regarding whether or not I need an SUV (Which, for the record is a Ford Bronco and admittedly quite thirsty in regards to petroleum products, However it is well maintained and does not burn or leak oil.) I do feel the need to have a vehicle that can get me around in all sorts of inclement weather with minimal fuss and bother. Although perhaps that has something to do with the volunteer firefighter sticker on the bug guard…

152

Or if those undercover officers weren’t threatening to arrest the drug traffickers and weren’t killing hte drug traffickers, then the violence would also be reduced.

You are stating a bunch of truisms and then refining your argument down to such a narrow degree that only your argument can be true in this context. Which may be all well and good but I don’t know why you bothered bringing it up for debate if all that you want is a validation of your truisms.

As I said before, asking drug users to be responsible is irresponsible because it’s not pragmatic. If you want the violence to stop, legalization is the only option. Personally I care more about peasant farmers who have their crops destroyed by a foreign power with jets that cost more than their entire region will see in a decade, than I do about the random drug deaths. I think these people have THE RIGHT to grow that cash crop, and that people here have THE RIGHT to purchase it. It’s the government creating an unnatural situation within a supposedly free market that is causing so much death and destruction. Yes you are correct, if there were no market for drugs then there would be no drug dealers and therefore no black market crime attached. However, that’s just glossing over the real issue, in that if you really cared about the only feasible way of stopping the violence, then you’d support legalisation.

As it stands you’d rather just lambaste a few easy targets with moral truisms. Yes you’re right, the drug money I’ve spent DID support violence. My best friend was my dealer and I KNOW he administered beat downs because he was well known in Brooklyn for it. So I know that my direct source was involved in the violence. However, the black market trade is supported by people who want to have a better life than they currently have, and in a capitalist system that means aquiring more money. There is no better way for someone from a depressed economy to make a goodly sum of money than selling drugs. Many people feel that they need the benefit that drugs provide them, and many people feel that certain drugs are a quasi-religious experience. Everyone can see a direct cause and effect relationship between gluttony and being fat, but people are going to continue to overeat. You can blame the “fatasses” all you want, but they are going to keep eating. The same is true for drugs, and with drugs as opposed to overeating there is a bureaucratic solution to the problem.

So you can continue asking for your ego to be massaged and hope that we will give your twisted morality the validation you desperately crave, but it’s not going to happen because your solution is ludicrous, whereas our solution is feasible. And what frustrates US is that our solution would be MORE feasible if people like you cared more about a solution than your morality, and joined our side, as it’s the only way to truly put an end to the violence that is perpetuated worldwide by western governments, on it’s own people and people abroad.

So yes, you’re correct if no one used drugs there would be no drug trade. I hope this validation of your truism has helped you in some measure.

Erek

153

I can’t answer for CowGirl, but I can answer for myself, because libertarianism is a bullshit ideology set out to make pure self-interest seem like an enlightened philosophy.

Your SUV uses my air, my highways and my oil. Therefore I have an interest. Might doesn’t make right, and “because I can” is a might makes right attitude. Now you are welcome to your point of view, and I’m not going to torch your SUV, but I must point out that I think it’s bullshit.

Erek

154

Don’t mean to answer for EJsGirl, but do want to put in my own .02.

It’s not perspective, it’s need. It’s what works best.

You have stated that nobody needed SUV’s before, why do they need them now? Ever see an old Chrysler station wagon, or a 1970 Chevy Impala, or a big old Buick?

For some people, SUV’s, mini-Vans and small trucks have just replaced the larger cars of yesterday.

The new SUV’s get better mileage, can tow more, can carry more, can go places the old boats couldn’t and put out less pollution. This is a good thing. Things are getting better.

On top of that, more people have more leisure time than they did 30 years ago (IMHO). They own boats, travel trailers, second homes.

People also choose to do more of their own work on their own houses. Hell, that’s my hobby.

You can run into Home Depot and pick up a compressor and a nail gun on a Saturday at 8pm. You couldn’t do that 30 years ago. Times have changed. Good, bad, or indifferent.

The '70s and '80s pushed the Auto manufacturers to make more efficient vehicles. It was done. It’s still being done. It will continue to get better.

Some people will continue to drive bigger cars (for whatever reason). This will continue to make the manufacturers make more efficient vehicles. This tech. gets passed on to all vehicles.

There are 4 cylinders cars out there that put out as much HP as some V8s of the early 80’s. Yet they get much better mileage and put out less emissions. And they run for 200,000 miles now! Easily. First tune up is what 40,000 miles?

This is a good thing.

Believe it or not, the need or want of these big vehicles is helping all vehicles achieve better efficiency

155

Your oil? You don’t own the oil, the oil companies do. And we buy it from them. And i pay tax dollars for the highways as well. So you get to say who drives on them but i don’t? please. Air is the only part of that argument that works. But only a little, as giant polluting companies belch out crap all day, but you gotta go after SUVs. Why don’t you go after lawnmowers? Lots of dirty gas pollutants there. Also leaf blowers, besides being the most useless tool in the universe (use a rake, you lazy fuck!), they are noisy, wasteful pollution machines! What about Leaf burning for polluting the air?

i’m cutting this short cuz i gotta go to class, but i’ll be back! (note, taking the electric bus, like i did this morning and everyday to work, but since i own an SUV, i am evil)

156

How is it “your” oil if I pay for it? As for your highways, I pay taxes on the fuel I burn in my SUV… Wouldn’t it therefore follow that, since my SUV burns more fuel than that econoboxes on the road that the highway in question is, arguably, more mine than yours?

157

enipla: I agree with your assessment of progress being the ultimate solution to environmental questions. (I think that’s what you were driving at)

I’ve been avoiding the SUV portion of the debate, but I’ll jump in on it. First of all I have seen uses for SUVs that are reasonable. I have also seen the suburban housewives that drive their Montero the same way they’ll drive their Integra, and that’s frightening.

However, let’s go to oil consumption. Oil is analogous to food. When you look at vehicles and all tools as the extensions of the limbs that they truly are, they need to be fed. When a person eats, they only need so much to maintain their physical health and keep up proper energy levels. If they consume more they pollute more in the form of unecessary body mass. Now vehicles that are gluttonous do not gain mass, but their waste matter, in otherwords their shit is more pervasive, it gets into our air, our water and also depletes the overall supply of food that took millions of years to produce. Human beings learned long ago that to live healthier longer, and more productive lives, that they should remove their waste products, their urine and their shit, from the places in which they live. Therefore, if you are wasting more oil than I am that means that the majority of the shit in the alley between our homes is yours, and that it is starting to overflow because of the accumulated shit there, however more of it is yours than is mine, and if you limited yourself to the amount of shit you dumped from your chamberpot into the alley, then it would take that much longer for it to overflow into the street and into our living rooms.

Waste is waste, regardless of how much you’re doing it, you should try and limit your waste, however, two wrongs don’t make a right. Just because someone drives their civic a quarter mile to the 7/11 every day and you don’t even though you drive an SUV to work every day, and your waste has a sort of parity, it doesn’t mean that both of you are not wasting more than is necessary.

Now many of you have valid reasons for owning an SUV and many of you don’t. However it IS societies business how much you waste because your shit is flowing up onto our doorsteps. So fine, you own an SUV because you need it for a few tasks, and you drive it to work every day because you can’t afford to have a civic in addition to your SUV, I can understand that, and I think we’ll put that under the necessary evil category, however, it is still wasteful, that should still be recognized and we can keep working toward changing that, as we do.

But denying your amount of waste because other people waste MORE is a very immature justification.

Erek

158

No in fact it is NOT your oil it is all of our oil. We all share the Earth, we all live here, and for the time being we all are stuck on this rock. It is NOT your oil, it is NOT the oil companies oil and it is NOT ok for a small number of people to justify wasting it just because they have figured out a way to make the system work more in their favor than the average person.

I’m not advocating a cessation of capitalism. I am not advocating that you don’t own an SUV. I don’t even think you are evil for owning an SUV, if I knew you personally, I’d ride in your SUV, and I’d ask you to help me move if necessary or any number of other very useful tasks that an SUV provides. What I am advocating is personal responsibility. I just wish people who drive SUVs would acknowledge the negatives that an SUV has. That’s all. I don’t expect it to necessarily happen but I think it would be nice and it would open a fresher dialogue instead of all these “You lefties want to control me, well fuck you I’m proud of my SUV” and “You capitalist pigs don’t care about anyone but yourselves” bullshit arguments.

The oil is as much a part of the earth as the air. And capitalism is a great system for making humanity congeal as a unit, therefore I support it. However I do not believe in property rights to any degree more than it supports the capitalist system. I do not think you have an inherent right to pollute, or use up as much oil as you want just because you have found a way to make more dollars flow into your bank account than I have. We go to war in the middle east because of our oil consumption, and I have as much of a stake in a middle eastern war as you do. In fact, I live in New York city, I take mass transit EVERYWHERE, and I am more likely to see a terrorist attack than you are. I don’t claim that I am not wasteful in any way, yes I am. My shoes were probably made in a sweatshop, I admit that. However, I DO have the right to a dialogue about your SUV, I do have a vested interest in what you drive because your choices affect me. You don’t live in a bubble and neither do I.

One of my biggest issues with the SUV debate is it brings up the religious fervor that many Americans feel for capitalism that I don’t share. I think that it’s a problem, I think it’s a very limited viewpoint and I’m going to point that out. Your purchase of oil AFFECTS ME. That’s all I am trying to say. Now enjoy your SUV, drive it 16 miles a day, but recognize that your choices DO affect others, and that you don’t just have the right to do something because you can. You have the right to drive an SUV because society grants that right, and I don’t think that it should be taken away from you, however it is granted by society of which is a company that I hold 1/6,000,000,000th of the stock.

Erek

159

I’m with Beeblebrox, I’d like to see some cites, Hamlet, mostly concerning your contentions about drug money and Very Bad Things. (And you don’t get a free pass for the “This is the Pit!” argument) You may well be correct, but I’d like to see some evidence before I give up Uncle Sid.

160

**
Pretty much what I was saying.

**
Nope, two wrongs don’t make a right (but three left turns do :)) .If the Gov. or anti-SUV folks forced everyone into small cars that got 25 miles per gallon and had 80 HP, we wouldn’t have made the leaps in efficiency that we have. Consumers have created the 250 Hp V6 that gets 28 miles to the gallon. Yes, it took pressure, And that’s O.K. That’s progress.

**
We are working toward changing that. So we agree. On that…
Wasteful? For some I suppose. Would you rather have everyone in the afformentioned 25mpg 80HP basic car? Or should we let needs, and wants overcome the problem?

**
I’m not denying anything. You call it waste. I call it use. And I sure as hell didn’t make a YOU WASTE MORE accusation. You got that from someone else.