What's new
Frozen in Carbonite

Welcome to FiC! Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Economic Liberalism Discussion

I hope Democrats go full force on legalizing/decriminalizing drugs in the United States. The Drug War is a waste of billions of dollars and hurts many Americans.
Problem, most of those drugs are still disastrously harmful to humans... so they'll have to be forbidden anyway.
 
Problem, most of those drugs are still disastrously harmful to humans... so they'll have to be forbidden anyway.
True, but the use of extremely harmful drugs should be considered a health problem, not a criminal one. The money wasted on enforcing drug laws should be used for health care and education to help prevent addiction and other bad habits.
 
True, but the use of extremely harmful drugs should be considered a health problem, not a criminal one. The money wasted on enforcing drug laws should be used for health care and education to help prevent addiction and other bad habits.
Problem with education is with an old adage: you can lead a horse to water, but you can't force it to drink. This is especially bad given the extreme anti-intellectualism that has taken hold of the US. That money that is towards enforcing drug laws? That won't go into healthcare or education anyway for most places. It'll go to either pet projects or something else.
 
Problem with education is with an old adage: you can lead a horse to water, but you can't force it to drink. This is especially bad given the extreme anti-intellectualism that has taken hold of the US. That money that is towards enforcing drug laws? That won't go into healthcare or education anyway for most places. It'll go to either pet projects or something else.
Let us assume that this weird assumption of yours is true

Why does that mean we should keep spending it on racist drug laws
 
Problem with education is with an old adage: you can lead a horse to water, but you can't force it to drink. This is especially bad given the extreme anti-intellectualism that has taken hold of the US. That money that is towards enforcing drug laws? That won't go into healthcare or education anyway for most places. It'll go to either pet projects or something else.
Even if the drug enforcement money won't be going to anything useful, it's better to not have the drug laws.
 
Even if the drug enforcement money won't be going to anything useful, it's better to not have the drug laws.
[rolls eyes] That is far too optimistic.
Let us assume that this weird assumption of yours is true

Why does that mean we should keep spending it on racist drug laws
Problem, the laws have been applied in a racist manner, but in the end you can't trust people to do what is the best for them...
 
[rolls eyes] That is far too optimistic.

Problem, the laws have been applied in a racist manner, but in the end you can't trust people to do what is the best for them...
The drug laws exist for racist reasons. That's literally what they were made for, and there is no good version of them. Even ignoring the race angle, drug laws are things that really only negatively affect the poor. Stop being stupid.
 
The drug laws exist for racist reasons. That's literally what they were made for, and there is no good version of them. Even ignoring the race angle, drug laws are things that really only negatively affect the poor. Stop being stupid.
Nope, many of the drugs that have been banned are either too addictive, too damaging to the human body, able to be used as effectively combat drugs, or the mix of the above. Since most people won't do what is best for them... you have to force them.
 
Nope, many of the drugs that have been banned are either too addictive, too damaging to the human body, able to be used as effectively combat drugs, or the mix of the above. Since most people won't do what is best for them... you have to force them.
And drug laws don't work at stopping people from taking them.
 
If you want people to stop doing meth, decriminalize taking it so people can get treated instead of going to prison
 
Nope, many of the drugs that have been banned are either too addictive, too damaging to the human body, able to be used as effectively combat drugs, or the mix of the above. Since most people won't do what is best for them... you have to force them.

Ya but they dont work and actually cause harm above and beyond that.
 
Ya but they dont work and actually cause harm above and beyond that.
The big thing is that outlawing the hard stuff, like the "bath salts" group of street drugs, is reasonable for much the same reason as outlawing original formula 4loco. Essentially, it's a health risk to let the substance exist in public. However, the biggest catch is that the central reason the War On Drugs is so counterproductive is because it outlawed consumption and possession, rather than just outlawing selling and manufacturing. It's a vast waste to go after the users, because there's always more of them to be had. Another sucker born every minute. You'll never get through the customers, you have to go after the dealers, and focusing entirely on the dealers for criminal treatment while using therapeutic measures on the users gets things a lot farther.
 
If you were able to tax legalized drugs, what do you want to fund using the tax revenue? According to Marijuana Moment, New York lawmakers is considering to send its revenue towards it's subway system for maintenance and renovations or support less fortunate communities.
Healthcare? Hopefully a mental healthcare system, or at least a campaign to de-stigmatize getting proper treatment for those issues?
 
San Francisco, California has decided to end parking requirements to help boost new development in the city. Also, Minneapolis, Minnesota has passed its ambitious Minneapolis 2040 plan to encourage dense construction. According to Slate, this plan would allow the construction of triplexes in residential areas, abolish parking minimums for all new construction, and allow high-density buildings along transit corridors.
 
Last edited:
The big thing is that outlawing the hard stuff, like the "bath salts" group of street drugs, is reasonable for much the same reason as outlawing original formula 4loco. Essentially, it's a health risk to let the substance exist in public. However, the biggest catch is that the central reason the War On Drugs is so counterproductive is because it outlawed consumption and possession, rather than just outlawing selling and manufacturing. It's a vast waste to go after the users, because there's always more of them to be had. Another sucker born every minute. You'll never get through the customers, you have to go after the dealers, and focusing entirely on the dealers for criminal treatment while using therapeutic measures on the users gets things a lot farther.
I'm all for turning consumption away from being a 'crime', the biggest problem in the US is it's immense emptiness and how cheap the land can get outside the high density areas.
San Francisco, California has decided to end parking requirements to help boost new development in the city. Also, Minneapolis, Minnesota has passed its ambitious Minneapolis 2040 plan to encourage dense construction. According to Slate, this plan would allow the construction of triplexes in residential areas, abolish parking minimums for all new construction, and allow high-density buildings along transit corridors.
Problem is that development always went for cheap land, thus the US's 'urban sprawl'. You'll have to jack up the price for land to ludicrous levels to make building 'tall' viable.
 
You'll have to jack up the price for land to ludicrous levels to make building 'tall' viable.
Or subsidize the everliving hell out of urban housing projects (possibly through districting shenanigans), or flat-out make public housing on the partial arcology level on the government end. Instead of making land expensive to remove advantage, make construction cheap to add advantage. Positive pressures tend to be less painful to the economy.
 
I'm all for turning consumption away from being a 'crime', the biggest problem in the US is it's immense emptiness and how cheap the land can get outside the high density areas.
Yeah, and it confuses me that businesses will still go to places like Silicon Valley, DC or NYC to set-up their headquarters and what-not.

It's like they're in a hurry to dump their profits into the waiting pockets of Urban Slumlords.
 
They're taking advantage of existing infrastructure, for one.
There's no infrastructure that those cities have over other cities that justify spending 4x the cost on property & realestate. Aside from all the important people with deep pockets and long reach happen to be in these zip codes.

Liberals are the ones who most frequently ally with fascists, most commonly to destroy the left.
That's because the left is full of godless degenerates.
 
There's no infrastructure that those cities have over other cities that justify spending 4x the cost on property & realestate. Aside from all the important people with deep pockets and long reach happen to be in these zip codes.

Like I said, taking advantage of existing infrastructure. I just didn't specify the infrastructure. :sneaky:
 
Back
Top Bottom