Oregonians support ending drug decriminalization

[acptulsa]

For reasons I don't understand, Latin America is violent...

Here's a fun piece of trivia: Look up la guerra del fútbol.

[PAF]

Regarding any war on drugs, it's not a simple and easy issue and it's not just a matter of personal choice. If Reason supports a hands off approach, then it should look at Mexico for how that works out.

I can't speak for all areas or countries, but from what I observe in Mexico and a few other countries (setting aside the personal choice do drugs or not), most of the violence occurs between the drug lord factions, not civilians and tourists.

My position is similar to Occam's Banana in Post #753.

[susano]

Here's a fun piece of trivia: Look up la guerra del fútbol.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_War

Wow. Never heard of this. It was about a lot more than football, though, I guess. That just solidifies my own opinion that organized sports serve to keep the masses stupid and in the team mentality for when the real SHTF. It's interesting that the violence part wasn't a thing in north America. Maybe that's an indication of higher IQ or something. It's not just a white thing because the Brits act like morons over "footie", though not as violent as someplace like Brazil which isn't very white. What do you make of it? Sounds like a good topic for a grant proposal for a few million in research welfare.

[ClaytonB]

I don't really know what I think about about all of this legalization idea. They did it in Portland and Vancouver British Columbia and the results have been disastrous. Even with just weed, California where it's legal, has a huge problem with illegal grows by organized crime. If the licensing aspect were also removed, I don't think it would make any difference.

This was the genius of the Founding Fathers. We don't have to "just know" whether drugs should be legal/illegal. Rather, every State in the union has authority from the Constitution to set their own laws in their own State. So, the correct answer to the vast majority of modern "national issues" is not legalization, or illegalization, it is de-federalization. There are a few things that do need to be Federal. You have to have a proper election in your State for the electors, representatives, etc. otherwise, you are potentially allowing a North Korea to be a State in the Union, and that's no good. So, those are the things that ought to be federalized, but SCOTUS treats them as "States' rights". Amazing. On the flip-side, issues like abortion and drug legalization are clearly not within the authority of Congress to regulate, and are issues reserved solely to the discretion of each state under the 9th and 10th amendments. The purpose of the Constitution was to act as a framework or foundation under which the States -- each of which is a government in its own right -- could set local laws according to the views of their own citizens and, through a process of competition between these various legal regimes, the best policies would tend to emerge over time. There are a couple quotes from the Founders to this effect although I've forgotten the citations. This is one of the most misunderstood principles of the founding of the US government, and it's an absolute travesty that American school-children are not taught this in their government indoctrination centers schools.

[Occam's Banana]

I don't really know what I think about about all of this legalization idea. They did it in Portland and Vancouver British Columbia and the results have been disastrous.

Portland's problem isn't the "legalization". Portland's problem is the irresponsible addict-coddling of bat$#@! insanity progressivism.

Leave it to the government to $#@! up freedom (not just in the taking, but also in the giving).

[...]

The Oregon Problem | Mark Thornton
https://odysee.com/@mises:1/the-oreg...ark-thornton:c
{Mises Media | 09 December 2023}

The Wall Street Journal reported last month that the ballot initiative to decriminalize all drugs in the state of Oregon is failing, and that efforts are underway to recriminalize hard drugs. Mark points out that decriminalizing drug possession does nothing to improve black market production of drugs, which makes drugs much more dangerous to consume. More importantly, it is Oregon's socialist ideology that coddles homelessness and open hard drug use that is the real problem for the good citizens of the state—and is not helping the drug addicts either. The solution is for society—the nexus of private property owners—to reassert its will.

See also "Welcome to Needle Park" by Mark Thornton: https://Mises.org/Minor48_A

[...]



[...]

Even with just weed, California where it's legal, has a huge problem with illegal grows by organized crime.

But if there are "illegal grows", then it isn't really legal, is it?

If the licensing aspect were also removed, I don't think it would make any difference.

Of course it would make a difference. The "licensing aspect" incurs costs which incentivizes the unlicensed (i.e., "illegal") activity.

Prohibition didn't prevent alcohol production or consumption. It just made it much more profitable for (and thus, attractive to) criminals.

[susano]

I can't speak for all areas or countries, but from what I observe in Mexico and a few other countries (setting aside the personal choice do drugs or not), most of the violence occurs between the drug lord factions, not civilians and tourists.

My position is similar to Occam's Banana in Post #753.

Well, yeah, but who's in control? The psychopaths are (including federales and military) because there's nothing stopping them. In less violent cultures, like north America (though becoming far violent than in the past), addicts are all over the streets, committing crime and dropping dead on the $#@! covered sidewalks. Vancouver, Portland, Seattle, Philly, are real life experiments in legalization or lax enforcement of drug laws. We've gone from weed being a harmless and natural plant that anyone should be free to use (I agree) to fentanyl and other who knows what drugs flooding those cities and it's made them $#@!holes.

This is worth watching if you haven't seen it:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT8OU8Yhs_s

[Occam's Banana]

Well, yeah, but who's in control? The psychopaths are (including federales and military) because there's nothing stopping them. In less violent cultures, like north America (though becoming far violent than in the past), addicts are all over the streets, committing crime and dropping dead on the $#@! covered sidewalks. Vancouver, Portland, Seattle, Philly, are real life experiments in legalization or lax enforcement of drug laws. We've gone from weed being a harmless and natural plant that anyone should be free to use (I agree) to fentanyl and other who knows what drugs flooding those cities and it's made them $#@!holes.

The fentanyl thing is not really much different from the poisonous "bathtub gin" problem that existed during alcohol prohibition. It's a problem that occurs because of prohibition, not because of "legalization".

The problem with all these so-called "legalization" schemes is that they only "legalize" possession and consumption, but not production and distribution (which remain criminal). So the only producers, distributors, and sellers will be criminals who will (1) be prone to violence to protect their turf and profits, and (2) have no incentives to care about the quality or safety of their products.

Notice that, unlike during alcohol prohibition, innocent (and even not-so-innocent) people are not being injured or killed during running gun battles between competing alcohol distributors (such as Anheuser-Busch and Miller Brewing Co.). Brewers and sellers don't need to peddle their wares on schoolyards, and those who peddle poisonous products can be held civilly and/or criminally liable to their victims. And this was all without having to coddle drunks (unlike what is going on in Portland and elsewhere with respect to drugs & addicts).

[susano]

The fentanyl thing is not really much different from the poisonous "bathtub gin" problem that existed during alcohol prohibition. It's a problem that occurs because of prohibition, not because of "legalization".

The problem with all these so-called "legalization" schemes is that they only "legalize" possession and consumption, but not production and distribution (which remain criminal). So the only producers, distributors, and sellers will be criminals who will (1) be prone to violence to protect their turf and profits, and (2) have no incentives to care about the quality or safety of their products.

Notice that, unlike during alcohol prohibition, innocent (and even not-so-innocent) people are not being injured or killed during running gun battles between competing alcohol distributors (such as Anheuser-Busch and Miller Brewing Co.). Brewers and sellers don't need to peddle their wares on schoolyards, and those who peddle poisonous products can be held civilly and/or criminally liable to their victims. And this was all without having to coddle drunks (unlike what is going on in Portland and elsewhere with respect to drugs & addicts).

Fentanyl production is legal. It's used in hospitals, especially in surgery. It's not so much illegal drug trafficking but trafficking (and manufacturing) in controlled substances. I don't know about comparisons to bathtub gin. You've gotta drink gin to OD on it and fentanyl is so deadly that unintentional exposure has killed or nearly killed people:

Dad reveals horrific details of baby’s reported fentanyl overdose at S.F. playground

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/...a-17621718.php

What possible reason does it make sense to have drugs like that on the streets?

[susano]

This was the genius of the Founding Fathers. We don't have to "just know" whether drugs should be legal/illegal. Rather, every State in the union has authority from the Constitution to set their own laws in their own State. So, the correct answer to the vast majority of modern "national issues" is not legalization, or illegalization, it is de-federalization. There are a few things that do need to be Federal. You have to have a proper election in your State for the electors, representatives, etc. otherwise, you are potentially allowing a North Korea to be a State in the Union, and that's no good. So, those are the things that ought to be federalized, but SCOTUS treats them as "States' rights". Amazing. On the flip-side, issues like abortion and drug legalization are clearly not within the authority of Congress to regulate, and are issues reserved solely to the discretion of each state under the 9th and 10th amendments. The purpose of the Constitution was to act as a framework or foundation under which the States -- each of which is a government in its own right -- could set local laws according to the views of their own citizens and, through a process of competition between these various legal regimes, the best policies would tend to emerge over time. There are a couple quotes from the Founders to this effect although I've forgotten the citations. This is one of the most misunderstood principles of the founding of the US government, and it's an absolute travesty that American school-children are not taught this in their government indoctrination centers schools.

I agree with control being local. The experiments in legalization of dangerous man made drugs should serve as a lesson to other locales who are considering the same.

[ClaytonB]

What possible reason does it make sense to have drugs like that on the streets?

The problem with this line of reasoning is that it just assumes that we have any choice in the matter. Effective enforcement is expensive. Therefore, you can't enforce everything, and you have to choose what is important to enforce, and how many things you are going to enforce (this is economics 101, the principle of alternative uses.) But because of the myth of omnipotent government, the modern West lives in almost total denial of this obvious reality. We are a culture of narcissists trapped in an echo-chamber of our own egotism, enabled by wantonly wasteful government expenditures on trivialities, while ignoring collapsing infrastructure.

To sort through issues like this, States could pass ballot measures to ask "Which issue is more important? Stopping fentanyl distribution on the streets or stopping daylight break-ins of parked vehicles?" Using a computer algorithm, it is not difficult to construct a relatively small sample of questions like this that will allow you to then sort the issues in rank-order of importance, reflecting the "values" of the public, at least, on the issues in the list. Once you have this list, you can then configure public-policy accordingly. The most government expenditures should go to solving the first problem on the list, less expenditures should go to the second problem on the list, even less to the third problem, and so on down the list. While this is still less efficient than market methods, it's at least rational given government control of law, courts, police, etc. What we have now is not rational towards any end which is consistent with the public good, broadly construed. This situation did not come about by accident, either. Our systems of government are being actively sabotaged.

[susano]

Portland's problem isn't the "legalization". Portland's problem is the irresponsible addict-coddling of bat$#@! insanity progressivism.

From the thread about that very subject:

But if there are "illegal grows", then it isn't really legal, is it?



Of course it would make a difference. The "licensing aspect" incurs costs which incentivizes the unlicensed (i.e., "illegal") activity.

Prohibition didn't prevent alcohol production or consumption. It just made it much more profitable for (and thus, attractive to) criminals.

The illegal grows are usually on public land. They just go out into the forest, clear an area, find a water supply, and set up. Would they buy their own land and incur that expense if there were no regulations? I doubt the ones who are basically squatting would. Some do, though. I saw a video about this, recently, and a certain ethnic group (can't recall who) bought houses and set up indoor grows. Anyway, that's all just weed and while the outdoor illegal operations are an environmental and violent criminal problem, it's just plants. Fentanyl, meth and other man made drugs are an entirely different problem.

The addict coddling is/was an effort to make it safer (clean needles, "clean" drugs, designated user areas) and did not work. Addiction and crime just got worse. If they had just legalized or decriminalized the same drugs, with "safety" programs, that, too, would have been worse. It looks like the only place that has successfully done anything like this is Portugal but while they offer the "safety", they demand treatment and make it available. That is a huge taxpayer investment. There is no such infrastructure here. So, you either make it illegal and we get back to 1950s America or you put massive money into serious treatment programs for addicts and the mentally ill because legalization begets addicts and mental illness. Why do you think Soros has funded legalization efforts?

[susano]

The problem with this line of reasoning is that it just assumes that we have any choice in the matter. Effective enforcement is expensive. Therefore, you can't enforce everything, and you have to choose what is important to enforce, and how many things you are going to enforce (this is economics 101, the principle of alternative uses.) But because of the myth of omnipotent government, the modern West lives in almost total denial of this obvious reality. We are a culture of narcissists trapped in an echo-chamber of our own egotism, enabled by wantonly wasteful government expenditures on trivialities, while ignoring collapsing infrastructure.

To sort through issues like this, States could pass ballot measures to ask "Which issue is more important? Stopping fentanyl distribution on the streets or stopping daylight break-ins of parked vehicles?" Using a computer algorithm, it is not difficult to construct a relatively small sample of questions like this that will allow you to then sort the issues in rank-order of importance, reflecting the "values" of the public, at least, on the issues in the list. Once you have this list, you can then configure public-policy accordingly. The most government expenditures should go to solving the first problem on the list, less expenditures should go to the second problem on the list, even less to the third problem, and so on down the list. While this is still less efficient than market methods, it's at least rational given government control of law, courts, police, etc. What we have now is not rational towards any end which is consistent with the public good, broadly construed. This situation did not come about by accident, either. Our systems of government are being actively sabotaged.

That approach to determining what's important to address priorities sounds as good as anything. I don't see how markets address rampant mental illness, drug addiction, crime and immorality. I would think markets would just feed all that. All of this $#@! is a result of the Marxist attack on our society. It was not like this when we grew up and it's getting worse. Do you want to live in one of these $#@!holes? I assume not. Why not if you think that hands off approach is correct?

[Occam's Banana]

Fentanyl production is legal. It's used in hospitals, especially in surgery. It's not so much illegal drug trafficking but trafficking (and manufacturing) in controlled substances. I don't know about comparisons to bathtub gin. You've gotta drink gin to OD on it and fentanyl is so deadly that unintentional exposure has killed or nearly killed people:

Bathtub gin wasn't deadly because it was gin. Some of it wasn't even gin at all. (The term "bathtub gin" was used to describe any illicitly produced booze that was cooked up in things like bathtubs - hence, "bathtub gin".) It was deadly because it was adulterated with other legally produced substances (such as formaldehyde) to increase its volume and/or potency. - just as (legally produced) fentanyl, in addition to being used directly as a drug itself, is often used to adulterate other drugs to increase their volume and/or potency (which are then consumed by unwitting users who don't even know it's there - something which would be much less likely to occur if the production and sale of drugs were fully legal and their producers and sellers could be held liable for such adulteration, just like alcohol producers are).

Dad reveals horrific details of baby’s reported fentanyl overdose at S.F. playground
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/...a-17621718.php

From the article (bold emphasis added):

Police said they are working with park officials to ensure the area remains free of drug use and elements that may contribute to contamination of the playgrounds.

[...]

“You literally have to watch their every move,” Jones, said. “Does it make me nervous? Yeah. But we found glass over there... syringes... I don’t let kids go into the bushes. Every playground has these problems.”

[...]

Supervisor Catherine Stefani, whose district includes the playground, said while the details of the incident are still being investigated, it’s certain “our drug crisis is out of control and it’s affecting all corners of our city. It is absolutely unacceptable that children can’t safely play in our parks because traces of fentanyl or drug paraphernalia are present.”

And as I noted in your quote of me (bold emphasis added):

Notice that, unlike during alcohol prohibition, innocent (and even not-so-innocent) people are not being injured or killed during running gun battles between competing alcohol distributors (such as Anheuser-Busch and Miller Brewing Co.). Brewers and sellers don't need to peddle their wares on schoolyards, and those who peddle poisonous products can be held civilly and/or criminally liable to their victims. And this was all without having to coddle drunks (unlike what is going on in Portland and elsewhere with respect to drugs & addicts).

Just add "and playgrounds and parks" to "schoolyards".

What possible reason does it make sense to have drugs like that on the streets?

Like alcohol addiction (or any other kind of addiction), drug addiction doesn't make sense, and not "hav[ing] drugs like that on the streets" is not an option. As for reasons: there is a huge market for it, and one way or another, that market will be served, by fair means or foul. If fair means are prohibited, then the foul ones will remain and flourish.

There are only policies that make things relatively better or worse. Prohibition policies make things worse. (That's why alcohol prohibition eventually had to be ended.)

[Occam's Banana]

The addict coddling is/was an effort to make it safer (clean needles, "clean" drugs, designated user areas) and did not work. Addiction and crime just got worse. If they had just legalized or decriminalized the same drugs, with "safety" programs, that, too, would have been worse. It looks like the only place that has successfully done anything like this is Portugal but while they offer the "safety", they demand treatment and make it available. That is a huge taxpayer investment. There is no such infrastructure here. So, you either make it illegal and we get back to 1950s America or you put massive money into serious treatment programs for addicts and the mentally ill because legalization begets addicts and mental illness. Why do you think Soros has funded legalization efforts?

There always have been and always will be booze hounds and drug addicts. The War on Drugs is no more "winnable" than the War on Booze was. The only thing it will accomplish is the enrichment of violent criminals and government bureaucrats.

And the fact that government "safety" programs don't work any better than government "prohibition" programs should be a surprise to no one.

[bold emphasis added:]

Leave it to the government to $#@! up freedom (not just in the taking, but also in the giving).

Culture matters. It matters a lot. It has consequences - and liberty requires a culture of responsibility, not indulgence.

Our current culture is one of atomized "if it feels good, do it" hedonism - facilitated by the State's usurpation of formerly private locuses for the mitigation of public ills. Once [the State] arrogated to and subsumed into itself the roles of nanny caregiver and stern schoolmarm - roles in which, by its nature, it is entirely unfit to serve - our culture's doom was effectively sealed.

There are, for example, many good reasons for the separation of Church and State, and not just the most-often cited one (namely, the protection of people from the forcible imposition of some particular religious doctrine). Another vital reason is the protection of the Church and the efficacy of its function as one of those private locuses for the mitigation of public ills. Through competition for the support of those who genuinely care about their effectiveness, private churches are subject to accountability for their abject failures - but the church-scold State is not.

[susano]

Bathtub gin wasn't deadly because it was gin. It was deadly because it was adulterated with other (legally produced) substances to increase its potency. - just as (legally produced) fentanyl, in addition to being used directly as a drug itself, is often used to adulterate other drugs to increase their potency (which are then consumed by unwitting users who don't even know it's there - something which would be much less likely to occur if the production and sale of drugs were fully legal and their producers and sellers could be held liable for such adulteration, just like alcohol producers are).



From the article (bold emphasis added):

And as I noted in your quote of me (bold emphasis added):

Just add "and playgrounds and parks" to "schoolyards".



Like alcohol addiction (or any other kind of addiction), drug addiction doesn't make sense, and not "hav[ing] drugs like that one the streets" is not an option. As for reasons: there is a huge market for it, and one way or another, that market will be served, by fair means or foul. If fair means are prohibited, then the foul ones will remain and flourish.

There are only policies that make things relatively better or worse. Prohibition policies make thing things worse. (That's why alcohol prohibition had to be ended.)

I don't think I agree. In the past I would have but that doesn't seem to have been proven in the cities mentioned. They've all become $#@!holes.

This isn't a problem with easy or ideological solutions. Because all of this poses serious problems to other people, it requires serious thinking and learning from others who have tried to tackle it, like Portugal. Without that treatment infrastructure, though, it won't work.

Was it Madison who said this (freedom) only works with a moral people? How is serving the immoral working out? I agree with Bukele when he warns the US is headed in the same direction as El Salvador was when he took over. No sane society wants this. Even the loons in Portland are sorry they did it.

[ClaytonB]

That approach to determining what's important to address priorities sounds as good as anything. I don't see how markets address rampant mental illness, drug addiction, crime and immorality. I would think markets would just feed all that.

Hmm, I think that's just not the right way to think about it. "Markets" don't "address" anything, they are just people producing and exchanging in order to make a living. Rather, when you get the government out of the business of trying to play Jesus, this allows the appropriate institutions to move in and do what they do best... charities, religions, education establishments, other NGOs.

Most of the "public-policy problems" that our "leaders" constantly push into our faces are actually self-solving problems. Drug-addicts tend to die early. Contrary to conventional wisdom, self-selection is a real thing. Fewer addicts having children over the generations --> fewer addictive personalities in society. What creates more of a particular type of person (with dispositional/behavior problems) is government subsidy, because this artificially extends the life and reach of such persons which would otherwise be cut off by Nature much earlier. Thus, there is a relatively higher proportion of these undesirables than there would otherwise be. Consider the phenomenon of baby-mamas raising the spawn of their convict baby-daddy just released from prison who impregnated her, abandoned her, then got sent up on fresh charges due to re-offense... all paid for by you and me through taxes in the name of "child welfare". That child is the spawn of someone who, 100 years ago, would have died young, and childless. So, welfare is actually demographic warfare in disguise. This has nothing to do with "eugenics", quite the opposite, it is dysgenics. That's the point. The ultra-wealthy live in a cocoon that completely insulates them from all of this. They are at war with us, thus, they support policies that turn the public space into a living nightmare. They hack our worthless opinions about "The Way It Oughtta Be" to flip the entire social order on its head. In a democracy, everybody somehow "just knows" the way everything should be done, and that's precisely the hubris which the misanthropic "elites" use to flip us all on our heads, reducing the general social order to little more than a human cesspool. And everybody just goes on with life like everything's perfectly A-OK.

All of this $#@! is a result of the Marxist attack on our society. It was not like this when we grew up and it's getting worse. Do you want to live in one of these $#@!holes? I assume not. Why not if you think that hands off approach is correct?

Actually, the problems with living in most parts of the world are exaggerated here in the US. There are horrible places to live in every part of the world, including most major US cities. If you just film those parts, you can make any place look like an absolute $#@!hole. And while the US is 1000x less free than it was a century ago, it's still not as unfree as many other parts of the world. The entire "American experiment", which we have pretty much forgotten since 9/11, was to demonstrate to the world -- by a living experimental demonstration -- that freedom produces both peace and prosperity. Thus, the Old World lie that "you must give up freedom to have security (peace) and prosperity" was exposed for the whole world to see. When the people of Podunkistan read and heard accounts of the American cities whose streets are paved with gold and where a man is free to do whatever he wants so long as he doesn't commit a crime, this caused them to wonder, "Why again do we have to have these tyrannical rulers here in Podunkistan? Freedom works great in America. There's no reason it couldn't work here, too." Needless to say, this scared the "elites" of Podunkistan absolutely $#@!-less. That could spell the end of their inter-generational parasitic scam! This is the real reason why the NWO came into being. The NWO doesn't originate within America, it originated within the Old World system, and that's really what it is... it's the Old World Beast System with a new mask on, calling itself "teh New World Order". I call them the Bug-Eaters because they're so obsessed with eating bugs. This is the snapback against the culture of Americans who flaunted their freedom to the whole world and demonstrated that peace and prosperity flow from freedom, not from the suppression of freedom. 9/11 had to occur so that the Old World "elites" could put the bit into our mouths and then they could start saddle-breaking us. Everything since 9/11 is just this pattern... the influence of alien elites projected onto the American public for the purposes of breaking us down to atoms ("Great Reset"), and then permitting us to re-integrate under "the New Normal"... doomsday virus forever, vaxxes forever, face-masks forever, bug-burgers forever, etc.

This is why now is the time to go ALL-IN on America First. I am not proud of America 2024. But I am proud of what America once was, and what America could be if she awakens from this vegetative coma, this spell which she has been placed under by the ancient witchcraft of the Beast System. In some sense, yes, it really is America versus the world... not the people of the world, but certainly the "elites" of the world. There is not room on this planet for the two of us. Either the global "elites" will succeed in wiping out Americans-as-such, or America is going to wake up and wipe them out. They will never make peace or see reason or negotiate, because they are not "elites" at all, they are just common crooks, pirates who have been using the means of witchcraft to rape and pillage their subject populations since time immemorial. They understand that 1776 America is an existential threat to them. We The People have yet to wake up and realize that they are an existential threat to us, an avowed enemy beyond all negotiation or compromise of any kind. The only thing they want for you and me is to have us liquidated, converted to biomass, and fed to the bugs they're raising to feed to the rest of the enslaved masses of the world. That would be a merciful end, in fact, since they could make just as much of dissidents as human-lab-rats in their bio-labs. These people are sick, as Q put it -- even more than that, they are straight from the pit of hell.

[Occam's Banana]

I don't think I agree. In the past I would have but that doesn't seem to have been proven in the cities mentioned. They've all become $#@!holes.

It hasn't been "proven" in those cities because it hasn't been done in those cities. As I said earlier (and as Mark Thornton explains in the video I quoted in this post):

The problem with all these so-called "legalization" schemes is that they only "legalize" possession and consumption, but not production and distribution (which remain criminal). So the only producers, distributors, and sellers will be criminals who will (1) be prone to violence to protect their turf and profits, and (2) have no incentives to care about the quality or safety of their products.

You really can't "half-ass" this kind of thing like that and then expect anything but "half-assed" results. I would also add that those places didn't become $#@!holes because they "legalized" possession and consumption (but not production and distribution) - rather, they "legalized" possession and consumption (but not production and distribution) because they became $#@!holes (or as I put it ealier, because of "bat$#@! insanity progressivism").

This isn't a problem with easy or ideological solutions. Because all of this poses serious problems to other people, it requires serious thinking and learning from others who have tried to tackle it, like Portugal. Without that treatment infrastructure, though, it won't work.

Was it Madison who said this (freedom) only works with a moral people? How is serving the immoral working out? I agree with Bukele when he warns the US is headed in the same direction as El Salvador was when he took over. No sane society wants this. Even the loons in Portland are sorry they did it.

I don't disagree with any of this. But the State and it's prohibitions are not the source for that "infrastructure" you speak of - it is the destroyer of it.

Forgive me for repeating this quote from an earlier post, but it bears repeating (this time with a different part emphasized):

Leave it to the government to $#@! up freedom (not just in the taking, but also in the giving).

Culture matters. It matters a lot. It has consequences - and liberty requires a culture of responsibility, not indulgence.

Our current culture is one of atomized "if it feels good, do it" hedonism - facilitated by the State's usurpation of formerly private locuses for the mitigation of public ills. Once [the State] arrogated to and subsumed into itself the roles of nanny caregiver and stern schoolmarm - roles in which, by its nature, it is entirely unfit to serve - our culture's doom was effectively sealed.

There are, for example, many good reasons for the separation of Church and State, and not just the most-often cited one (namely, the protection of people from the forcible imposition of some particular religious doctrine). Another vital reason is the protection of the Church and the efficacy of its function as one of those private locuses for the mitigation of public ills. Through competition for the support of those who genuinely care about their effectiveness, private churches are subject to accountability for their abject failures - but the church-scold State is not.

[susano]

Hmm, I think that's just not the right way to think about it. "Markets" don't "address" anything, they are just people producing and exchanging in order to make a living. Rather, when you get the government out of the business of trying to play Jesus, this allows the appropriate institutions to move in and do what they do best... charities, religions, education establishments, other NGOs.

Most of the "public-policy problems" that our "leaders" constantly push into our faces are actually self-solving problems. Drug-addicts tend to die early. Contrary to conventional wisdom, self-selection is a real thing. Fewer addicts having children over the generations --> fewer addictive personalities in society. What creates more of a particular type of person (with dispositional/behavior problems) is government subsidy, because this artificially extends the life and reach of such persons which would otherwise be cut off by Nature much earlier. Thus, there is a relatively higher proportion of these undesirables than there would otherwise be. Consider the phenomenon of baby-mamas raising the spawn of their convict baby-daddy just released from prison who impregnated her, abandoned her, then got sent up on fresh charges due to re-offense... all paid for by you and me through taxes in the name of "child welfare". That child is the spawn of someone who, 100 years ago, would have died young, and childless. So, welfare is actually demographic warfare in disguise. This has nothing to do with "eugenics", quite the opposite, it is dysgenics. That's the point. The ultra-wealthy live in a cocoon that completely insulates them from all of this. They are at war with us, thus, they support policies that turn the public space into a living nightmare. They hack our worthless opinions about "The Way It Oughtta Be" to flip the entire social order on its head. In a democracy, everybody somehow "just knows" the way everything should be done, and that's precisely the hubris which the misanthropic "elites" use to flip us all on our heads, reducing the general social order to little more than a human cesspool. And everybody just goes on with life like everything's perfectly A-OK.



Actually, the problems with living in most parts of the world are exaggerated here in the US. There are horrible places to live in every part of the world, including most major US cities. If you just film those parts, you can make any place look like an absolute $#@!hole. And while the US is 1000x less free than it was a century ago, it's still not as unfree as many other parts of the world. The entire "American experiment", which we have pretty much forgotten since 9/11, was to demonstrate to the world -- by a living experimental demonstration -- that freedom produces both peace and prosperity. Thus, the Old World lie that "you must give up freedom to have security (peace) and prosperity" was exposed for the whole world to see. When the people of Podunkistan read and heard accounts of the American cities whose streets are paved with gold and where a man is free to do whatever he wants so long as he doesn't commit a crime, this caused them to wonder, "Why again do we have to have these tyrannical rulers here in Podunkistan? Freedom works great in America. There's no reason it couldn't work here, too." Needless to say, this scared the "elites" of Podunkistan absolutely $#@!-less. That could spell the end of their inter-generational parasitic scam! This is the real reason why the NWO came into being. The NWO doesn't originate within America, it originated within the Old World system, and that's really what it is... it's the Old World Beast System with a new mask on, calling itself "teh New World Order". I call them the Bug-Eaters because they're so obsessed with eating bugs. This is the snapback against the culture of Americans who flaunted their freedom to the whole world and demonstrated that peace and prosperity flow from freedom, not from the suppression of freedom. 9/11 had to occur so that the Old World "elites" could put the bit into our mouths and then they could start saddle-breaking us. Everything since 9/11 is just this pattern... the influence of alien elites projected onto the American public for the purposes of breaking us down to atoms ("Great Reset"), and then permitting us to re-integrate under "the New Normal"... doomsday virus forever, vaxxes forever, face-masks forever, bug-burgers forever, etc.

This is why now is the time to go ALL-IN on America First. I am not proud of America 2024. But I am proud of what America once was, and what America could be if she awakens from this vegetative coma, this spell which she has been placed under by the ancient witchcraft of the Beast System. In some sense, yes, it really is America versus the world... not the people of the world, but certainly the "elites" of the world. There is not room on this planet for the two of us. Either the global "elites" will succeed in wiping out Americans-as-such, or America is going to wake up and wipe them out. They will never make peace or see reason or negotiate, because they are not "elites" at all, they are just common crooks, pirates who have been using the means of witchcraft to rape and pillage their subject populations since time immemorial. They understand that 1776 America is an existential threat to them. We The People have yet to wake up and realize that they are an existential threat to us, an avowed enemy beyond all negotiation or compromise of any kind. The only thing they want for you and me is to have us liquidated, converted to biomass, and fed to the bugs they're raising to feed to the rest of the enslaved masses of the world. That would be a merciful end, in fact, since they could make just as much of dissidents as human-lab-rats in their bio-labs. These people are sick, as Q put it -- even more than that, they are straight from the pit of hell.

Again, wasn't it Madison who said this only works with a moral people? We don't have that. Even in 1776 there were bad actors but do you think what's going on now would have been tolerated? I don't think so! Would it have been put up with in 1950? No. Now, I agree with you about many of the causes but that's another issue and will take longer to reverse, if it happens, which is doubtful. This is like debating how it came to be that Jeffery Dahmer ate people instead of locking his ass up first. On the one had, everything you brought up needs addressing/fixing and, on the other hand, the results of bad actions/not doing the right things have to be dealt with, now.

I completely disagree that the problems are exaggerated. When in your life do you remember all of these homeless drug addicts living on the streets of American cities? When do you remember all of these fentanyl deaths? BTW, though I'm old, now, I came of age in the 70s and have done my share of drugs and it was free for all back then. Nothing like what we're seeing was happening then except for maybe Haight Ashbury which was pretty ground zero for what was to come.

I don't want my freedoms impinged upon for a war on drugs but I'm saying that when man made dangerous drugs are legalized then you lose freedom because of mentally ill, drug addicted, violent lunatics become a threat to sane human beings. How free are people in San Francisco who have to leave their car windows down and hatch backs/trunks open so one of the degenerates doesn't smash the windows? How free are little kids or adults that have to walk through dangerous homeless encampments and filth to go about wherever they live? When I was young and living at home, my parents subscribed to National Geographic. I remember an issue on Bombay India that showed pics of this city with sky scrapers and other modern things you'd see in a big city, with people living on the sidewalks, in view of those buildings, in cardboard boxes with other trash as roofs for them. I was stunned that something like that could exist and at what a $#@!hole the place was. Now, we're there! So, no, it's not exaggerated.

[Anti Federalist]

This, the hundreds of thousands of dead from drug overdoses, is more fallout from transitioning from a high IQ, High Trust, homogenous society to a low IQ, Low Trust, diversity society.

Legacy whites either see what is going to happen to them or what has happened to their former homelands, and finding themselves hopeless and adrift and alone, they check out, either through drugs or suicide.

It does not help the situation when the unwholesome flood of invading trash, come from nations that also have among the highest rates of drug overdose deaths in the world.

https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/...se/by-country/

[susano]

It hasn't been "proven" in those cities because it hasn't been done in those cities. As I said earlier (and as Mark Thornton explains in the video I quoted in this post):

You really can't "half-ass" this kind of thing like that and then expect anything but "half-assed" results. I would also add that those places didn't become $#@!holes because they "legalized" possession and consumption (but not production and distribution) - rather, they "legalized" possession and consumption (but not production and distribution) because they became $#@!holes (or as I put it ealier, because of "bat$#@! insanity progressivism").



I don't disagree with any of this. But the State and it's prohibitions are not the source for that "infrastructure" you speak of - it is the destroyer of it.

Forgive me for repeating this quote from an earlier post, but it bears repeating (this time with a different part emphasized):

For the sake of continuity, forgive me for not quoting the previous quotes in your post but I'm not sure how to.

Yes, it has been tried! Vancouver gives out real, pharma grade, fentanyl which, again, is legally manufactured. It may not be legal to purchase or sell to the general public but they give it for free so it's easily available. Yes, those places got infested with commies long ago but don't you think addicts all over the streets compounds even the problems created by the $#@!libs? It does because they've done it! Drugged out zombies cannot get jobs or take care of themselves. Without either in patient treatment or jail, they're on the streets.

I think most addiction treatment facilities are private and the Salvation Army is the only charity that I'm aware of that has offered a residential program for alcoholics (in the city near me, anyway). Dunno if they still do it or how many SA's have done it. Getting into a treatment program is not easy because there are so few and many are very expensive. i don't buy that charities will step up and spend millions on this. They haven't done it, yet, have they? I see that as some kind of pipe dream. Besides, they're all busy destroying the country and getting paid for it by the State Dept and HHS. I'd like to know how Portugal does it.

[susano]

This, the hundreds of thousands of dead from drug overdoses, is more fallout from transitioning from a high IQ, High Trust, homogenous society to a low IQ, Low Trust, diversity society.

Legacy whites either see what is going to happen to them or what has happened to their former homelands, and finding themselves hopeless and adrift and alone, they check out, either through drugs or suicide.

It does not help the situation when the unwholesome flood of invading trash, come from nations that also have among the highest rates of drug overdose deaths in the world.

https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/...se/by-country/

OMG

US 21.28 ODs per 100K
Portugal 0.64

Why not copy what works?

[PAF]

Yes, it has been tried! Vancouver gives out real, pharma grade, fentanyl which, again, is legally manufactured. It may not be legal to purchase or sell to the general public but they give it for free so it's easily available.

Government f&ck up number 7,402,159: "Canada’s public health system finances it."

[susano]

Government f&ck up number 7,402,159: "Canada’s public health system finances it."

Yes, though I would contend it wouldn't be any better to sell fentanyl to over 18s at the local liquor store, either.

[PAF]

Yes, though I would contend it wouldn't be any better to sell fentanyl to over 18s at the local liquor store, either.

What about booze? Or beer? Should we go back to prohibition?

[susano]

What about booze? Or beer? Should we go back to prohibition?

Fair question and no.

[ClaytonB]

Again, wasn't it Madison who said this only works with a moral people? We don't have that. Even in 1776 there were bad actors but do you think what's going on now would have been tolerated? I don't think so! Would it have been put up with in 1950? No.

If you're right, then the main battlefield is spiritual/religious. Which if you take a look over my post history in the last several years, is what I've been constantly harping on. This is not just politics anymore. It's spiritual. We need a renaissance of biblically-based Christianity in this country, because that's what it was built on. We've since gotten distracted with Yoga and Wicca and every new-fangled thing to come down the pike. Sure, the other religious perspectives are free to exist, but they are objectively inferior in terms of not only moral teachings but, even more importantly, their theological view of God, humans and society. A nation of people living in religious delusion is guaranteed to be unfit for a republic based on individual accountability and self-determination.

Now, I agree with you about many of the causes but that's another issue and will take longer to reverse, if it happens, which is doubtful. This is like debating how it came to be that Jeffery Dahmer ate people instead of locking his ass up first. On the one had, everything you brought up needs addressing/fixing and, on the other hand, the results of bad actions/not doing the right things have to be dealt with, now.

OK and "First do no harm". The VERY first step is to stop causing new/fresh injuries. If someone is in a severe roadside collision and they are injured and in need of EMT, the first step is to let go of their ankle and stop dragging them along the side of the road causing new injuries to their spine/whatever. So, the first step that WTP need to take is to put a full-halt, forthwith, to all expansionary measures. That means: stop printing new money, stop expanding government expenditures, stop increasing government revenues, stop issuing subsidized credit to banks/etc. stop increasing regulations, stop making new laws, stop approving new weapons systems, stop deploying more troops, stop opening new theaters of war, etc. etc. etc. Also, do not allow the Fed to trigger a deflationary collapse... they need to be "freeze-framed" and forced to maintain exact ceteris paribus until WTP decide through Congress what to do with them and how to disband them. IOW, stop dragging the poor collision victim along the pavement and causing more and more massive new injuries. Once we STOP making new injuries, we can start the discussion over how to prepare for the arrival of the EMT, i.e. how to reverse the past century+ of ever-increasing damage that has been done by layers upon layers upon layers of government corruption and misguided interventions.

I completely disagree that the problems are exaggerated. When in your life do you remember all of these homeless drug addicts living on the streets of American cities?

That's not what I meant. What I mean is that they are taking a self-solving problem and they are characterizing it in terms of something that "WE need to stop." Self-solving problems can usually just be solved by freeing up private parties to defend their own property. When a homeless person gets shot and killed for trespassing in the loading dock of a local business, and the police arrive and say, "Good job, we need private citizens to defend their property so the whole burden is not on us", and no charges are pressed, the rest of them will flee like a flock of birds to some new destination. I don't have anything against the homeless, I've been homeless myself at one point. It can happen to anyone, most Americans do not realize how thin the line between themselves and homelessness. But these scourges are always the result of prior bad policy, and then the ruling class just uses the scourge itself as excuse to call for even more bad policy to fix the previous bad policy. This is the cycle of modern omnipotent government that has been going on, unchecked, for over a century.

I don't want my freedoms impinged upon for a war on drugs but I'm saying that when man made dangerous drugs are legalized then you lose freedom because of mentally ill, drug addicted, violent lunatics become a threat to sane human beings.

But, just as with guns, the issue isn't legalization versus illegalization. When I was in the homeless shelter, I understood by firsthand observation why government policies are powerless to do anything about most of these problems: people who are already homeless have nothing left to lose, so they simply don't give a damn what laws you pass. "What are you gonna do to me, feed and house me in a jail for 3 months? Pffft." That's not a caricature, that's literally what they joke about in the soup-line. Obviously, they don't like getting harassed by the cops, and they don't enjoy being in jail, but it's not "the end of the world" for them, as it is for the suburbanites who are proposing and passing these laws. The whip crack stings the suburbanite because they have a lot to lose... house, cars, family, and so on. But that same whip is a wet noodle on the homeless. And short of becoming Saudi Arabia, that's never going to change. So what has to actually change is the first point you made above: our morality. Our hearts are what has to change. This is a spiritual problem, not a political one! And that shouldn't be surprising since, when the boomers hit adulthood, America was still deeply religious, as it had been for centuries. In the span of just over 1 generation, we went from being one of the most religious countries in the world, to being one of the most secular. And we have been in free-fall decline on every social measure since then, in direct proportion to our abandonment of God. This is basically just the Old Testament, 2024-edition.

How free are people in San Francisco who have to leave their car windows down and hatch backs/trunks open so one of the degenerates doesn't smash the windows? How free are little kids or adults that have to walk through dangerous homeless encampments and filth to go about wherever they live? When I was young and living at home, my parents subscribed to National Geographic.

They are free to relocate, purchase insurance, hire a valet or personal security, etc. I'm not being facetious, the point is that these problems are not really unsolvable, they are problems where the only solution is to, as I remember being famously scrawled across Paris Hilton's shirt: "STOP BEING POOR." So, we see yet again how the destructive effects of inflation, taxation, regulation and all the accoutrements of the modern omnipotent State have made us all much poorer than we ever realized. There was an economic value to knowing that you lived in a neighborhood where nobody was going to be skimming down the street peeking in your windows for any unsecured bags in cars and doing a smash&grab. And so on, and so forth. As those safeties began to disappear, we were like the frog being boiled alive. Since we could still afford liquor, smokes and Blockbuster rentals on the weekend, nobody noticed that we were actually being robbed blind. Now that the problem has become so enormous that it is visible from space, even the ostriches with their heads firmly buried in the sand can't ignore it any longer.

I remember an issue on Bombay India that showed pics of this city with sky scrapers and other modern things you'd see in a big city, with people living on the sidewalks, in view of those buildings, in cardboard boxes with other trash as roofs for them. I was stunned that something like that could exist and at what a $#@!hole the place was. Now, we're there! So, no, it's not exaggerated.

I'm not saying that stuff is exaggerated! That was a separate point regarding how the propaganda machine self-propagates the call for new bad policies to fix the old bad policies. Anyway, yes, the 3rd world has come here because that's precisely what the globalist Marxists have been using those oceans and oceans of cash they print up at the Federal Reserve to do. The globalists explicitly laid out a multi-step plan to bring America down to the global average (economically) and simultaneously bring up all other countries to par with it. They need every country in the world to be "equal" with every other country, so they can institute global Marxism, where every person is equal (income) with every other person... except, of course, the Party members who will live like gods, driving over the rest of us peons like ants on the pavement. So, the purpose of the Fed is not merely to steal Americans' wealth (and do nothing with it) but, rather, to use subtle channels to export it to China, India, South America, Africa and many other parts of the world, under various guises, but primarily in order to disempower Americans and empower the corrupt elites everywhere around the world. In this way, the "shining city set on a hill" as a beacon of light proving that freedom founded on the Gospel leads to peace and prosperity, can be snuffed out and made into just another $#@!hole like all the other $#@!holes in the world...

[susano]

If you're right, then the main battlefield is spiritual/religious. Which if you take a look over my post history in the last several years, is what I've been constantly harping on. This is not just politics anymore. It's spiritual. We need a renaissance of biblically-based Christianity in this country, because that's what it was built on. We've since gotten distracted with Yoga and Wicca and every new-fangled thing to come down the pike. Sure, the other religious perspectives are free to exist, but they are objectively inferior in terms of not only moral teachings but, even more importantly, their theological view of God, humans and society. A nation of people living in religious delusion is guaranteed to be unfit for a republic based on individual accountability and self-determination.



OK and "First do no harm". The VERY first step is to stop causing new/fresh injuries. If someone is in a severe roadside collision and they are injured and in need of EMT, the first step is to let go of their ankle and stop dragging them along the side of the road causing new injuries to their spine/whatever. So, the first step that WTP need to take is to put a full-halt, forthwith, to all expansionary measures. That means: stop printing new money, stop expanding government expenditures, stop increasing government revenues, stop issuing subsidized credit to banks/etc. stop increasing regulations, stop making new laws, stop approving new weapons systems, stop deploying more troops, stop opening new theaters of war, etc. etc. etc. Also, do not allow the Fed to trigger a deflationary collapse... they need to be "freeze-framed" and forced to maintain exact ceteris paribus until WTP decide through Congress what to do with them and how to disband them. IOW, stop dragging the poor collision victim along the pavement and causing more and more massive new injuries. Once we STOP making new injuries, we can start the discussion over how to prepare for the arrival of the EMT, i.e. how to reverse the past century+ of ever-increasing damage that has been done by layers upon layers upon layers of government corruption and misguided interventions.



That's not what I meant. What I mean is that they are taking a self-solving problem and they are characterizing it in terms of something that "WE need to stop." Self-solving problems can usually just be solved by freeing up private parties to defend their own property. When a homeless person gets shot and killed for trespassing in the loading dock of a local business, and the police arrive and say, "Good job, we need private citizens to defend their property so the whole burden is not on us", and no charges are pressed, the rest of them will flee like a flock of birds to some new destination. I don't have anything against the homeless, I've been homeless myself at one point. It can happen to anyone, most Americans do not realize how thin the line between themselves and homelessness. But these scourges are always the result of prior bad policy, and then the ruling class just uses the scourge itself as excuse to call for even more bad policy to fix the previous bad policy. This is the cycle of modern omnipotent government that has been going on, unchecked, for over a century.



But, just as with guns, the issue isn't legalization versus illegalization. When I was in the homeless shelter, I understood by firsthand observation why government policies are powerless to do anything about most of these problems: people who are already homeless have nothing left to lose, so they simply don't give a damn what laws you pass. "What are you gonna do to me, feed and house me in a jail for 3 months? Pffft." That's not a caricature, that's literally what they joke about in the soup-line. Obviously, they don't like getting harassed by the cops, and they don't enjoy being in jail, but it's not "the end of the world" for them, as it is for the suburbanites who are proposing and passing these laws. The whip crack stings the suburbanite because they have a lot to lose... house, cars, family, and so on. But that same whip is a wet noodle on the homeless. And short of becoming Saudi Arabia, that's never going to change. So what has to actually change is the first point you made above: our morality. Our hearts are what has to change. This is a spiritual problem, not a political one! And that shouldn't be surprising since, when the boomers hit adulthood, America was still deeply religious, as it had been for centuries. In the span of just over 1 generation, we went from being one of the most religious countries in the world, to being one of the most secular. And we have been in free-fall decline on every social measure since then, in direct proportion to our abandonment of God. This is basically just the Old Testament, 2024-edition.



They are free to relocate, purchase insurance, hire a valet or personal security, etc. I'm not being facetious, the point is that these problems are not really unsolvable, they are problems where the only solution is to, as I remember being famously scrawled across Paris Hilton's shirt: "STOP BEING POOR." So, we see yet again how the destructive effects of inflation, taxation, regulation and all the accoutrements of the modern omnipotent State have made us all much poorer than we ever realized. There was an economic value to knowing that you lived in a neighborhood where nobody was going to be skimming down the street peeking in your windows for any unsecured bags in cars and doing a smash&grab. And so on, and so forth. As those safeties began to disappear, we were like the frog being boiled alive. Since we could still afford liquor, smokes and Blockbuster rentals on the weekend, nobody noticed that we were actually being robbed blind. Now that the problem has become so enormous that it is visible from space, even the ostriches with their heads firmly buried in the sand can't ignore it any longer.



I'm not saying that stuff is exaggerated! That was a separate point regarding how the propaganda machine self-propagates the call for new bad policies to fix the old bad policies. Anyway, yes, the 3rd world has come here because that's precisely what the globalist Marxists have been using those oceans and oceans of cash they print up at the Federal Reserve to do. The globalists explicitly laid out a multi-step plan to bring America down to the global average (economically) and simultaneously bring up all other countries to par with it. They need every country in the world to be "equal" with every other country, so they can institute global Marxism, where every person is equal (income) with every other person... except, of course, the Party members who will live like gods, driving over the rest of us peons like ants on the pavement. So, the purpose of the Fed is not merely to steal Americans' wealth (and do nothing with it) but, rather, to use subtle channels to export it to China, India, South America, Africa and many other parts of the world, under various guises, but primarily in order to disempower Americans and empower the corrupt elites everywhere around the world. In this way, the "shining city set on a hill" as a beacon of light proving that freedom founded on the Gospel leads to peace and prosperity, can be snuffed out and made into just another $#@!hole like all the other $#@!holes in the world...

Your posts are long and a tad hard to respond to, lol.

I agree that there is a spiritual problem.

I don't agree that we have to end the Fed before getting fentanyl off the streets.

Me reference to the homeless was about drug addicts. Addicts of hard core drugs can't function and become homeless.

Most people can't afford personal security nor should they have to move (though I sure would if I lived in one of the $#@!holes).

One thing we haven't talked about is completely $#@!ed up these people on the streets are. I mean REALLY out there. Dr Drew has talked about this. The mental illness is severe and I don't know if addiction treatment facilities (which don't exist) could even deal with the level of crazy out there, much of it violent. It doesn't look very promising.

[ClaytonB]

Your posts are long and a tad hard to respond to, lol.

Apologies. The counter-point is that these issues are actually quite complex and subtle, and the "conventional wisdom" on both left and right tends to be so wrong that it's just beyond belief. If you'd like to understand where I'm coming from, overall, I highly recommend Thomas Sowell's excellent and highly readable book, Basic Economics. I read that book in 2007 and it turned my world upside down. Note that I was a highly conservative Republican at that time, both culturally and economically. I had no idea how messed-up my economic beliefs were until I read BE. And, as a conservative, I was an economics genius compared to any typical moderate or left-leaning American. It's a problem so enormous that sometimes I despair of how it will ever be corrected. Milei-level of drastic is a bare-minimum. I think even more drastic measures would be required in the US because the stakes are so much higher. I don't even think about it very much because it's just too much to bear...

I don't agree that we have to end the Fed before getting fentanyl off the streets.

I think we should not double-down on failed policies, and the War on Drugs is a proven failed policy. That doesn't mean I'm pro-legalization, I'm just anti-NEW-measures-which-are-proven-failures. We don't need to empower cops any more than they already are. And what else are you going to do to "get fentanyl off the streets" besides empowering our already tyrannical, redcoat police-forces?! What we need to do is wake up, as a nation, and start addressing the hard problems, in order of hardness. So yes, that means we need to confront the hardest problems first. And first among those is ending the Fed. That doesn't mean we need to complete the project of ending the Fed before addressing fentanyl. If I were "emperor pro-tempore" of America, this is the deal I would strike: if my fellow Americans are so eager to get fentanyl off the street, first pass a resolution that the Fed is going to be ended and set up a committee to research how that will be done, and then move on to fentanyl. And I would apply that same bargain for every issue that suburbanites care deeply about, because suburbanites automatically care about the wrong things. That's no fault of their own, because there is no good reason why they should care about the right things, that is, the incentives are all wrong.

Most people can't afford personal security nor should they have to move (though I sure would if I lived in one of the $#@!holes).

My point still stands: the government itself is the problem, not the solution. Adding more of the poison won't cure the problem created by the old poison.

the level of crazy out there

Mark my words (seriously): You ain't seen nothin' yet.

[Anti Federalist]

@susano

It was John Adams.

And he's right.

[susano]

@susano

It was John Adams.

And he's right.

Thank you! Indeed, he was right and that's why we can't have nice things unless that is fully understood.