Do you have an actual critique of the article I posted? Or are you waiting for Bill O’Reilly to tell you what to think about it?
Can YOU back up your article, seeing as you are the one who posted it? It’s your job, not mine.
What makes you think they’re trying to limit it? As opposed to maintaining an incarceration rate that has half of all federal prisoners in there for drug offenses, which has made exactly zero difference to the rate of drug abuse. How many of those arrested for drug offenses do you think get treatment as opposed to simply being thrown in jail (hint: very, very few). In fact 65 percent of the nation’s inmates meet medical criteria for substance abuse and addiction.
The United States has less than five percent of the world’s population and consumes two-thirds of the world’s illegal drugs and incarcerates almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners with pretty much no effect whatsoever. Seems to me that if you want to make tons of money from the drug trade and don’t want to do anything about it, things are unfolding just as they should.
Cites:
http://thenationshealth.aphapublications.org/content/40/3/E11.full
You strike me as a halfway intelligent person. So I’m confused. Do you think the profits get distributed evenly among low-level drug dealers? Do you think the drug trade is just a big ole cooperative?
What do you think of when you think “drug kingpin”? I know I think of someone who is so far removed from the business that he appears to be downright respectable. The kind of person who might actually have friends in high places.
The Mexican drug cartel isn’t known for being a peaceful bunch. They’ve got a pretty powerful arsenal, I’m guessing. Who do you think would lose out if those guys were to stop fighting?
monstro said they did
If “rich people” are trying to make money off of drugs, they wouldn’t simultaneously launch a war on their product. It doesn’t make any sense.
Yes, but that is like comparing…
Well, I’m sure bankers and high level real estate brokers and people who sell expensive cars and watches all welcome the $$$ drug dealers bring them… but that does not mean they help run the illegal drug trade.
I’m just trying to have an accurate understanding of what is going on…
1- perhaps its two - different - sets of rich people.
2- perhaps it is the same set, but, it is more profitable, for some reason, to have drugs illegal than legal. I’m sure you can sell them for more profit if they are illegal.
If somehow what I posted implied an “all less educated Whites are …” then I am sorry.
Rather it is the sort of sorts of things that your cite actually demonstrates:
Less educated Whites are more likely than college educated Whites to endorse a host of other beliefs as well: immigrants bear most of the blame for our economic woes; America’s best days are past; Islam is incompatible with American values; discrimination against whites has become as big a problem today as discrimination against blacks and other minorities; voting doesn’t matter. As noted in the op less educated Whites, especially males, are more likely to kill themselves both intentionally and by drug overdose. Of course not every less educated White male is suicidal! But the “White working class” is the most pessimistic group in America.
Yeah? I’m not a Republican. Are you?
Now maybe a mainstream GOP person has a different motivation to address these issues than I do. Maybe for them it is a question that concerns the very identity of the party and impacts their ability to accomplish other items on their agenda … not possible if they are not steering their party’s ship. Or maybe they care about the well-being of at least some others as well. Their motivation is up to them, but we all should be able to agree that the alienation, anger, and pessimistic view of their own and of our collective futures, of much of the less educated White demographic is not good for any of us, including to our political hopes.
What, no comment on the actual facts I posted in #44 wherein it makes absolutely perfect sense?
There’s a somewhat similar dichotomy, for entirely different reasons, related to undocumented immigrants. Wealthy Republicans running for office make all the right noises about ending the “scourge” of illegal immigration in order to appeal to the rubes, and then hire those very same illegals as gardeners, housekeepers, nannies, and low-paid business help. Try to keep up with current events. Hypocrisy is a fairly widespread phenomenon.
I do agree. But if you take note I did not respond until you pointed out how poor uneducated whites felt “alienated” from more progressive, more educated people(s). It is this celebration of ignorance, Duck Dynasty and Mike Huckabee, that annoys me.
As far as personality, Huckabee seems to be ok/good, a decent person. It’s his politics I find suspect. The Duck Dynasty people, when not acting stupid on purpose for the camera, seem to be ok/decent people. Again, removed from their political POV.
I guess a lot of small town people are like that.
But, bad ideas are bad ideas. Pride in ignorance is always bad. So is distrust of “intellectuals”. And people who have no/little compassion for the difficulties of others really don’t seem to deserve much compassion. Even if they have no malice, indifference has an (almost) as bad an effect.
And, I do have compassion for rural poor white people. Suffering is suffering. But I don’t have the same level of compassion or consideration as I do for poor minorities or people with disabilities or some similar situation.
It means they have a vested interest in the drug trade. It means that they are going to feel very different about the drug trade than someone who has literally been awash in the blood resulting from drug-related violence.
And you better believe that when people have a vested interest in something and they also have political power, they don’t vote against those interests. They only vote to increase those interests. Politicians and their friends are much smarter than the rest of us in that regard.
Yeah, I agree
Yeah. My landlord is a state senator. He also owns 2 liquor stores. I wonder… is he likely to vote for or against legalization of marijuana? I doubt he would vote for it, it would cut into his alcohol sales.
Islam is somewhat incompatible with American values. What have they done for the country right now?
I understand that “New York values” are incompatible with American values, too. :rolleyes:
New York laws are incompatible with New York Values sometimes.
CITE?
How about your own freaking former presidential candidate? The guy that wants to run the place as chief executive of the nation and commander in chief. Does it get any more blatant than that?
Don’t ascribe opinions to me that I do not hold.
He wasn’t “my” candidate.