Woman gets 10 Years in Prison for Selling $30 Worth of Weed in Oklahoma
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No, initially the statement was something along the lines of "you'll regret standing up for what you believe is right when your getting reamed in Federal Pound You in the *** Prison." In both cases it is the threat of violence that would make one think about civil disobedience, not the mere idea of the ethics of breaking the law.
I'm editing this to almost everyone here. LG98, for one, is solid.
The point is everyone draws a line in the sand somewhere. Everyone. Get into where that line is and get out of demonizing others and you're at the heart of it all. But the b.s. overshadows everything. We have agendas.
A mother who has her kids in the car while she is speeding is teaching her kids to break the law. I doubt anyone would support a lengthy jail sentence for that.
When does being left amount to being against the free market?
Not the point.
The point is there are too many people now that do not control themselves, and in your words, become "outlaws".
We wouldn't need, or wouldn't have put in so many laws if there weren't people that broke the laws.
If people did not steal, would we need a law against stealing?
There is, in general, a regression from disobeying laws, to dishonesty from hiding the disobedience, to more of the same, to collusion with others who do the same thing, to secret groups/gangs/whatever that work together to hurt others or for gain, or for power, at the cost of everything good for a society.
If people were honest and kept their word, we would not need lawers, people would not be sued, and a handshake would be a person's bond.
Unfortunately that is not the world we live in.
Some or many people lie, steal, kill, break every law they can in multiple ways... this requires tougher laws, more government to enforce the laws, tougher penalties for those that break the laws ... but it's still not effective because of the numbers of people out there doing these things.
This is a serious question I don't think there is an answer to: What is better, to have no or few laws which allow people to do almost whatever they want without fear of a penalty, or many many laws where the rest of society has to support those people? Is it better to have weak punishments and allow people to break laws time after time and return to society to break them again, or to have stronger punishments to take repeat offenders permanently out of society so they can no longer be a burden to society as a whole? What is better for society, and what is better for those individuals?
I hear arguments for all sorts of things, and I can honestly say I don't remember a single one I like. What is it going to take to fix our country and the people in it?
/rant2
A mother who has her car while speeding is teaching her kids to break the law. Two separate issues, one is that the person breaking the law, if caught should receive the punishment equal to, or attached to that law. A ticket, or maybe she might be taken in to jail or something if she is going 120 in a school zone, or if she has 15 unpaid parking tickets too.
The second issue is that teaching your children to break the law repeatedly is only causing those same habits to be part of those children's lives and they are more likely to not see a problem in breaking that law, or others depending on what other experiences they have. The kids will just keep the law breaking going most likely, and it will be multiplied by how many kids you have.... in general.
Separate the breaking the law and the punishment from what is being taught to the kids.
In this issue I can't separate the punishment. The punishment is ridiculously excessive and should not be warranted, even if the idiotic laws in Oklahoma support such a punishment.
And I'm not sure I agree with the general premise that children raised by minor lawbreakers are bound to become career criminals. If anything they just may break those minor laws, but I'm not even convinced there is much of a correlation there. Ethics are much more important than following the law. In general the two are one in the same, but there are times when the line gets blurry, especially when the law goes into moral value code territory than a cut and dry standard of harming your fellow person (or their property).
For example, who is being raised in the more ethical house. The children of parents who are monogamous and live an otherwise normal, tax paying life but with a father who smokes weed on the weekends or when the get home from work or whatever (and let's say this is in a sane state like Colorado where that activity wouldn't even bring jail time if they were caught with it). Or the father who lives an otherwise normal tax paying life, doesn't use any illicit drugs, but goes around and has numerous extramarital affairs. Unless they were in some sort of open relationship I would say the second is far less ethical. In the first the law is being broken, but that's about it. In the second the father is violating at the very least a contract with his wife (and more profound violations if you are of the religious nature), which is essentially lying, which as a behavior is just more unethical than the act of breaking a law.
Both options suck. If a gun were pointed to my head I would have to go with #2, because when you are talking about "law" in general most of it applies to putting people who harm others away so they can't harm any more others. In that case law is perfectly valid, and is the primary reason prison should be reserved for those who are a true danger to society (and not some lady selling a dime bag of weed). So at it's absolute most base point, I'd slightly prefer repressiveness to anarchy. Much like I'd prefer a stab wound to a gunshot.
I didn't make the argument that in this case the woman's sentence was excessive, it probably was. I don't know the whole story, so I would be guessing.
I was not talking about separating the punishment from the crime, I was talking about separating the effect a lawbreaking parent has on his/her kids from the law and corresponding punishment.
I am just saying that in general there is a higher likelihood that children raised by parents that break the law will continue to do so vs. children raised by parents that do not break the law. Each case will be different, but in general kids do what their parents do unless they make a conscious effort to not do the same things. I agree with the rest of this paragraph, people should use reason and a code of ethics... and yes in most cases they would not conflict with laws.
Not that it matters, and I don't see how it has to do with what I was saying, but I do agree that (in my personal opinion) I think a man that cheats on his wife is doing more harm than somebody that smokes pot. Neither are good, but I personally believe there is something sacred to a marriage vow that adds extra weight to the breaking of that. It may not be a law today, but in other societies it has been a law. Ethics and morals often times go beyond the scope of laws.
So it just comes to an argument over which laws you like and which ones you dont like...... and it's tough to get people to agree on it. There are so many angles people take, and reasons, or even agendas that get in the way.
I tend to agree with you though, even though both are tough to deal with.
LogGrad98
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They can do tests to determine the amount of active THC in the system. The current test is more for the metabolites of THC than THC itself since it metabolizes relatively fast in the body. Certain metabolites are fat-soluble only, so they bond to fat which is why it can take 30 days for it to clear your system. It was also deemed only necessary to see if any traces at all were in their system, since it is illegal and all, and the amount and immediacy were irrelevant. The same applies to narcotics testing. The tests are basically just simple present/not present results. They can do tests that determine more accurately how much and how recent. I have a wayward friend, for example, who has been struggling with narcotics, but one problem the court had in monitoring him was that he had a pain control issues (permanent back pain due to car accident) that caused him to need to use some narcotics as pain control under the direction of a pain control specialist. The court ordered blood tests regularly to see the exact level of the narcotics in his system, and compared that to the prescribed dosing to see if he was abusing beyond his pain control regimen. It would not be that tough to change the laws to allow someone to be brought in on DUI charges and then run a test for THC that is more comprehensive. I think for employers it would be no different than it is now, other than the tests would change. We send someone out if they have an accident on PIT (forklift, reach truck, etc.) that hurts someone or causes >$500 in damage and it tests for alcohol and the standard battery of drugs. I think as long as the tests are modified, I would not care if marijuana was legalized. Maybe other drugs as well.
One thing that making it illegal does is it makes it harder for people to get it who would otherwise not go looking for it. Obviously if you are set on it, you can find a dealer, but I think if drugs in general were legalized, you would see an uptick in teens using various drugs as they try out dad's stash or whatever, just like they get into their parent's booze now. The danger is that with harder drugs the consequences can be far worse than a hangover, or even alcoholism. The danger of overdosing and simply hard-core addiction is great enough that I think I could not with good conscience vote for legalizing everything.
But I think legalizing marijuana, which really is no more dangerous than alcohol, would lift a huge burden from the taxpayers and our over-crowded jails since MJ-related "criminals" are a relatively high percentage of prisoners at almost every level (estimates range between 1 in 5 and 1 in 8 prisoners are in there for marijuana-related crimes).
One thing that making it illegal does is it makes it harder for people to get it who would otherwise not go looking for it. Obviously if you are set on it, you can find a dealer, but I think if drugs in general were legalized, you would see an uptick in teens using various drugs as they try out dad's stash or whatever, just like they get into their parent's booze now. The danger is that with harder drugs the consequences can be far worse than a hangover, or even alcoholism. The danger of overdosing and simply hard-core addiction is great enough that I think I could not with good conscience vote for legalizing everything.
But I think legalizing marijuana, which really is no more dangerous than alcohol, would lift a huge burden from the taxpayers and our over-crowded jails since MJ-related "criminals" are a relatively high percentage of prisoners at almost every level (estimates range between 1 in 5 and 1 in 8 prisoners are in there for marijuana-related crimes).
Wouldn't it have been better described as Strawman Leftist hypocrisy?
Are you talking about some other thead?
A
Agoxlea
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Countries that legalize drugs tend to see a decrease in their use. See: Portugal
GVC
Well-Known Member
This whole post is absolute ********. It's hard to know where to start.
Why don't we ban TV, fast food, carbonated beverages, fat, sugar, cars, etc. These are all more harmful than cannabis, and most of them are more addictive. Further, they provide an "escape", which, as far as I can tell, is completely healthy. Do you watch TV? Are you not a basketball fan? Is idle recreation really so bad? If so, 100% of the world population should be thrown in jail.
As for what she teaches her kids" Maybe she's teaching them that liberty matters, that people ought to be free to enjoy their lives and ease their pain any way they choose, so long as they aren't hurting anyone else. Maybe she's teaching them that fascism and the rise of the police state should be fought against unrelentingly.
And, I can assure you, many people's quality of life is enhanced by cannabis. I was a miserable, unproductive mess before being introduced to cannabis. Religion had nearly killed me (now that's a harmful substance of ever one existed). Maybe you should shut the **** up about things you know nothing about, and allow people to live their lives as they see fit. I'm not pounding down your door and harassing you for doing things that I don't do because you're probably not hurting anyone with your actions. I expect the same level of respect.
GVC
Well-Known Member
Thanks for responding more respectfully later in the thread, but this post above is pretty damn terrible.
Characterizing cannabis legalization as an issue of the "left" is disingenuous at best. One needs only look at who has supported decriminalization and legalization measures in recent years to know that (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_19_(2010)#Stance_on_initiative). Hell, the group most frequently and consistently in favor of legalization is libertarians, who are far from pro-farm bill, pro-labor union anti-capitalists.
meh.
GVC
Well-Known Member
That's an oversimplification (which you are prone to). You can pick and choose laws based on societal effects. It's fair to say that actions between two consenting adults in the privacy of their own home(s) shouldn't be readily punished. If you're out breaking into people's homes, raping them, then stealing their dog, that's something entirely different.
No?
Of course it's not the left and of course it was [mostly] disingenuous.
The only serious part was about vouchers in Utah. The left screams about freedom this and that until it hits their pet projects. We wanted freedom of school choice, lower school costs, etc. and the left crushed it. They pulled every ridiculous tactic in the book, including demonizing Milton Friedman over his legalize mj stance. If that wasn't pure hypocrisy then I don't know what is.
Chad Feldheimer
Well-Known Member
" Portugal has arguably the most liberal laws concerning possession of illicit drugs in the Western world. In 2001 Portugal decriminalized possession of effectively all drugs that are still illegal in other developed nations including, but not limited to, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and LSD. While possession is legal, trafficking and possession of more than "10 days worth of personal use" are still punishable by jail time and fines. Since decriminalization was implemented, Portugal has seen rapid improvement in the number of deaths from drug overdoses as well as a decline in new HIV infections."
How could they see decriminalizing cocaine and heroin as a good idea.
I think Denmark's policy is a move in the right direction but not without it's flaws either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_the_Netherlands