Can residents of Texas improve the on-time delivery of books to Santa Fe bookstores, by believing in the global warming faith and purchasing a Prius?
If you have been ingesting large quantities of hallucinogenic substances over the last few decades, you should be able to answer this question.
I know it is not correct to leap to conclusions, and to assume anyone is or was a pot-head or acid-head simply because of their political views, however I confess this thought does cross my mind.
You mean leap to delusions?
Probably
By the way, welcome Caleb. In think Steven means it as a kind of general insult to warmists like the “what have you been drinking / smoking?” line. Still, there’s a lot libertarians on this site it seems, perhaps a majority, many that think the old guard was wrong and continues to be wrong to prosecute Nixon’s failed police state inducing and costly and totally ineffective drug war for 40 years. This is another one of those controversial issues among conservatives.
So one could try to find other ways of wording insults of the warmists that don’t refer to drugs. Because we want people like you and me to feel welcome. If skeptics are fighting and pissing off each other, then of course the warmists and ultimately the liberals are the beneficiaries, and many potential patrons of this site could say screw this. Particularly blue state conservatives should not be chased away. And blue states are often 40 to near 50 percent conservative, and these people are mostly climate skeptics (although NJ is different).
So a huge amount of the ready made audience for a skeptic site could be turned off by some of the more argument inducing issues among conservatives. Actually there’s only two issues that I think are potential land mines among conservatives: that are going to turn us against each other and thus weaken us, that is the drug war issue, and abortion. There’s general agreement elsewhere, even on gay marriage any disagreement is not vitriolic as those who have just switched sides on this (to being pro gay marriage) are not really that excited about their switch.
Off topic, it has been cold! And it’s a good point you made Caleb on your blog about the July UAH satellite temperatures dropping an further .13 degrees worldwide: http://sunriseswansong.wordpress.com/2013/08/04/july-uah-satellite-temperatures-show-13-degree-drop-worldwide/
I dunno, I’m widely considered a libertarian and I have ‘ingested large quantities of hallucinogenic substances’, though it was many years ago, and I take no offense to the reference at all. If anything, the first-hand experience makes me relate better; the absurd can appear quite rational if your mind is ‘flexible’ enough. Just because you don’t spend 25 years in jail for dropping a hit of acid doesn’t mean doing acid is a good idea.
Hi spinifers. I personally have never done acid and the only time I did pot I found it to be a drag, so to speak. From what I’ve heard, hallucinogenic drugs like LSD are very dangerous. But so is glue. Do we outlaw glue? For those that are against the effin crazy a$$ police state which I know includes Steven Goddard, see these two ~ 4 minute anti-drug war videos at this link: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mgroff/the-1315-project
I didn’t take offense either to the hallucinogenic drug reference. Yet some might find the drug references gratuitous in light of the pitched battle that is shaping up over drug policy, and Caleb said only that you can’t assume political affiliation from drug use. So, in this case, I was more thinking about others than myself.
Thank you for your very thoughtful reply. It deserves as much thought, before I reply. However I likely will be very busy this coming week, and, as I might otherwise forget to reply, I’ll reply in a less-than-thought-out manner. Please consider this a sort of rough draft.
I have taken drugs of many sorts, and advise others to avoid following my footprints. In my case many footprints walked that way, and mine alone return. I saw friends die and friends deranged. In Childcare I see little children drugged, and to me it seems they are hindered more than helped.
I am basically a Libertarian. People should be free. However with drugs you are free to start, but when it comes to stopping you discover you are not so free. Fortunately I quit the worst while still a teenager, but it was hell. Despite being an atheist, or at least an agnostic, I had to call out to some sort of “higher power,” because addictions of both physical and psychological sorts made me about as powerful as a whip made of boiled broccoli.
Because of my experience, I don’t feel drugs deserve to be in the same sentence as the word “Freedom.” I believe in Freedom, but drugs seem the exception to the rule.
(Not that idiotic films like “reefer madness” are the right approach. As usual, the government made a mess of thing.)
Hopefully I’ll have time to reread your thoughts and to elaborate further, later. In the meantime, thanks for your openness and honesty.
Caleb, I appreciate your candor, though I’m going to have to be frank, I find the most dangerous thing to be those that have done drugs and now are “converted” law and order types that want to continue Nixon’s brutal immoral costly devastating, and completely ineffective, failed drug war. You know what’s immoral? This:
What else is immoral? This:
I think the stark reality is that if you had been arrested and put in the slammer for 20 years you’d feel a lot different about wanting to continue the drug war. It’s friggin hell in prison and you want to put people away for precious years of their lives, for a victimless crime? The fact is that the social stigma and the financial ruin and the pain of drug addiction is enough of a deterrent. Illegality adds nothing to the existing personal deterrent to avoid drug addiction. Even the “sellers,” simply fulfilling a consensual transaction and a market demand, have to be considered no more guilty then sellers of tobacco as far as harming society, and most of the inmates serving 15+ year sentences are just small time sellers that were trying to raise petty cash to support their habit.
I ask, Caleb, that you at least check out some of the videos or stories about Portugal’s experience with drug decriminalization, where drug addition, especially heroin, has actually dropped. And in the following link (with good comments also) see that despite the US spending $1.5 trillion since Nixon declared “all out war” on drugs, the addiction rate remains…. exactly the same at 1.3%: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/10/chart-says-war-drugs-isnt-working/57913/
But, as you said, your comment was just a draft. So I look forward to more discussions about this with you in the future, especially after you’ve checked out the Portugal story.
A quick video primer on official drug war profiteering that vastly expanded the precursor to Obama’s National Police Force:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mgroff/the-1315-project
I see where you are coming from. The problem is that, for every tale of incredible human stupidity on the part of law enforcement there are a hundred tales of incredible human stupidity on the part of pushers “turning on” a ten-year-old, or seducing thirteen-year-old girls.
The laws that simply jail people are definitely dumb, most especially because jails are so seldom places that lead to any sort of reformation or improvement. Instead they too often turn petty criminals into hardened criminals.
It may be impossible to outlaw incredible human stupidity, but the stupid benefit from some sort of guidance. Not that the stupid will get the guidance. You can put up a stop sign, but that doesn’t mean the stupid won’t drive right through it and cause a ten-car-crash. If you are in one of those ten cars, it is hard to remain a libertarian.
In the same manner, if it is your daughter who is drugged and seduced, it is very hard to remain calm and to avoid shooting the pusher, whether that pusher be a shady character in a dark alley or a smug psychiatrist in a well-lit office.
This is most definitely a difficult topic.
Maybe they are just the weak and the stupid.
The Prius might help if you load some books in the Prius, drive to a Fedex office, and airfreight the books to wherever they are going.