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| Acmlm's Board - I3 Archive - - Posts by Arwon |
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Arwon Bazu                 Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| I've always been baffled that people can argue against decriminalisation because of all these negative effects decriminalisation will have... without reference to the places where it already is decriminalised and it isn't a big deal.
How do people deal with the existance of, say, Canada or South Australia or the Netherlands when they're arguing all the bad things that decriminalising pot will do? The examples are THERE. It's NOT a hypothetical. Fuckin' legalise it, sell it in stores, punishing people for smoking pot is absolutely pointless. Also: Arguing that something is bad for you is NOT an automatic argument for keeping it illegal. (edited by Arwon on 03-18-06 08:20 AM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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Originally posted by Skydude Point taken, but I don't think the culture between, say, Australia and the US and Canada is different enough that they can't be used as reference points. As opposed to guns where the regulations are verifiably different, there's many classes of weapon and shooter treated in many different ways, and the gun debate is or should be far far far more complicated and nuanced than just GUNS FOR ALL or BAN ALL GUNS. Yes. Specifically talking about Marijuana, it's not a culture issue, it's a law enforcement issue... and with reference to Ziff's comments on Canada, and the situation in the parts of Australia that resemble Canada (versus the rest of Australia, with varyingly more zero-tolerant approaches): Essentially the entire difference between these broadly similar Anglo-dominated colonial settlement societies is the range official attitudes of law enforcement and the justice system. And less criminalisation is better. You don't need to legalise it fully, and indeed we don't "sell it in stores" here either (the "legalise all drugs, they are less harmful if they're legal and regulated, even or even especially heroin" argument is a WHOLE other deal and basically a pet axe I like to grind) even in South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory. You don't need to fully legalise it, just tolerate it, and recognise that pressing charges for having a joint or a few plants is totally completely pointless and even counterproductive. |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Skydude, the question shouldn't be its harmfulness or distastefulness as a substance, this shouldn't have much to do with its legal status at all. Well, at least, the nature of the substance can't be considered in a vacuum, as it's not the job of teh gubermint to tell us what we can and can't do with our lives without compelling reasons to do so... I mean, many peoples' diets are far more harmful to them than any controlled substance they may ingest. Should the government be banning saturated fats? No, at most on issues of self-harm through poor lifestyle choices, their role is regulating for health and safety standards (in food, or in other things) and ensuring information about things is easily available so people can make choices themselves.
The central issue is, or should be, that keeping it illegal and punishing people for using it it utterly pointless, a waste of police resources and insulting to grown adults who should have the power to make these choices for themselves. Or, if you prefer, we can go the a harm minimisation approach, where legalising or at least decriminalising will actually reduce net harm done by marijuana. In the case of marijuana, substantial harm is done by the hard-line prohobition and the punishment of it, with people being jailed for no good reason and a criminal trade in the substance being fostered to meet the inevitable demand. Meanwhile virtually zero harm is prevented by the illegality of cannabis since no-one ever says "well I wish i could smoke marijuana but it's illegal... so lets go study and become productive citizens instead!" A simple cost-benefit analysis compels us to say illegality is pointless and counterproductive and "it's bad for you" is NOT an argument to that. (edited by Arwon on 03-22-06 05:19 PM) (edited by Arwon on 03-22-06 05:27 PM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| America-France rivalry has a long history.
I think the Economist nailed it (France quarrels with America not because the pair are so different but because they are so alike) in its dissection of the nature of French political and popular anti-Americanism. Both are nations borne out of enlightenment-era revolutions, both view their particular national values (whatever they may be) as universal values that should be spread and are something all nations should strive for: The modern French and American polities may have evolved quite differently, notably where the role of the state is concerned, but both emerged as highly codified, anti-clerical, secular republics. Both--unlike the dissembling English--can articulate unapologetically what their country stands for. Born of revolutions, America and France each established republics inspired by Enlightenment thinking, and based on freedom and individual rights. Within the same year, 1789, both the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the American Bill of Rights were drafted. Above all, each nation believed in the universalism of its model—the Americans stressing liberty, the French civilisation—and shared an ambition to spread it abroad. Essentially both countries think everyone should be like them, they have different visions of what this should entail, and this leads to a great deal of antagonism and competitiveness. In response to Skydude's claim that "They started it!" I'd also point out that this oft-bemoaned "Anti-Americanism" is actually less prevalent in France than is often thought. Indeed I think you'd find the average person on the street here is more anti-American than the average Frenchman: "Of course, a taste for American brands or popular culture does not necessarily mean a taste for America, its citizens or leaders. [...] Yet even the evidence for popular anti-Americanism is ambivalent. For sure, 85% of the French disapprove of George Bush's international policies, according to the latest German Marshall Fund transatlantic survey, compared with 72% of all Europeans and 62% of the British. [...] And today's America—God-fearing, fixated by terrorism, militaristic—is not the Europhile America of old that a nostalgic France often yearns for. Yet the French do not seem to generalise this dislike. In one 2004 poll, 72% of the French had a favourable view of Americans, more even than in Britain (62%) or Spain (47%). Some 68% of those questioned in another poll the same year said that what unites France and America was more important than what separates them." So, Sky, it might be more correct for you to say "one of the reasons that many Americans hate the French is because THEY THINK many of them hate Americans because that's the stereotype of the French". (edited by Arwon on 03-22-06 10:17 PM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Snakes on a Plane is going to be huge, I think. Whoever came up with this is a genius... this is a movie PERFECTLY aimed at the current pop culture zeitgeist. It's UBER ZEITGEISTY and many many many people will go see it. Honestly, something intentionally, gleefully, seriously, self-consciously terrible is pretty much bound to succeed given how much genuine shit there is out there. This might be the start of a new genre of "terrible/awesome" movies. The tone needs to be right, of course... utterly serious and earnest, not a winking comedy, no Mel Brooks farce. That stuff's obsolete and we demand something subtler. No, this NEEDS to take itself seriously, and I suspect that it will, I suspect anyone with the balls to pitch a movie called "Snakes on a Plane" and the follow-through to draft Samuel L Jackson knows what he's doing. If this does hit that tone, it really is film-making gold.
Yep, irony continues to eat itself, double-back in on itself, layer in on itself and everything else until no-one knows where the parody stops and the seriousness begins. If anywhere. It's not just "cheese" any more, it's not just a MST3K-inspired train-wreck fascination with terribly made movies, I think the trend represented by the excitement for SNAKES ON A PLANE goes beyond all that. One Bruncher said that it must be an elaborate ruse by the Hollywood elite (a break from Homosexualising America, perhaps?). I suspect they may be right... how big is this absurd little "fuck you to actual standards" culture getting? How far could the in-joke go? Could Movie Critics get in on it and start praising the brazen originality and the way it flies in the face of the convention that movies have to be good or make sense? Could Samuel L Jackson win an Oscar? In the post-Simpsons world, is there ANYTHING that can't be layered with irony and satire and double-irony and deadpan humour to utter saturation point? Is nothing sacred!? Will it still be funny if EVERYONE starts proclaiming how awesome it is? "Dude, are you being sarcastic!?" "I don't even know any more!" |
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Arwon Bazu  Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Fuck it, arguing marijuana's easy and passe.
Let's do the "decriminalise heroin" debate. |
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Arwon Bazu  Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Sumer Is Icumen In - Richard Thompson
This is the oldest round in the English Language, a simple little song about summer coming. It's from his album/tour 1000 Years of Popular Music where he and his accoustic guitar and some other support musicians play through popular music of all ages. He said "The idea for this project came from Playboy Magazine - I was asked to submit a list, in late 1999, of the ten greatest songs of the Millennium. Hah! I thought, hypocrites - they don't mean millennium, they mean twenty years - I'll call their bluff and do a real thousand-year selection." He starts with this song, plays through things like miner songs and Italian operettes and old blues numbers, and ends with a bizzarely good cover of "Oops... I Did It Again" which somehow just WORKS in this context, rendered with his guitar and vocals. (edited by Arwon on 03-29-06 12:48 AM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| If you're not capable of drinking without losing control/doing stupid things, you're not drinking right. It's not alcohol's fault, it's a problem with you. | |||
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Arwon Bazu  Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Hey, it's not my fault there's a shitty drinking culture there, SS.
If the legal age was lower, like 18, and parents (and police) were more accepting of the realities of youthful drinking, and educated, supplied and looked out for their kids instead of being all DRINKING IS BAD (the first time I ever got hammered was at a mate's place, at a party his parents helped him throw), maybe more people would be capable of being responsible. With more accepting parents actually talking to their kids and generally not making them feel they have to hide from their parents, it'll be easier for people to, er, drink responsibly and get educated. These slightly more capable youth with their better understanding of alcohol could then look out for/educate others, and you'd have a nice flow-on effect, and maybe college kids wouldn't be all about the massive binging. And they'd grow up to be better parents too, more capable of helping their kids. I'm not saying we've got a perfect drinking culture over here, but in my experience it's a damn sight better than that which is prevalent in the US ... and the moralistic viewpoint and high drinking age and lack of parental involvement is the problem. Binging's bad, but it happens, because we're not quite at the southern European level of alcohol-respect... and really the best you can do is try and ensure it's happening in a decent environment. That's how we learn to respect Alcohol, and I think Tarale will agree with me there... we binge and we learn how much it sucks, and we gradually learn our limits. No-one is born knowing how to drink, it's an aquired skill, and its easier to aquire in an environment which isn't puriticannically anti-drinking, this is an environment more or less perfectly designed to set up this false "abstention/binging" dichotomy which I see in so many Americans' views on alcohol. (edited by Arwon on 03-29-06 05:29 PM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Can't you split the thread? | |||
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| I think this is where me and a bunch of libertarians jump up and down and scream VICTIMLESS CRIME at you. | |||
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| "Tell every mother whose child was killed by a drunk or stoned driver that using drugs is a victimless crime."
No, because driving under the influence IS a crime with victims. Or to put it another way, drugs don't crash cars/rob you/steal VCRs, people do... so the crime should be solely in the ACTION or ATTEMPTED ACTION taken under the influence, not the mere situation of being under the influence. |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| The perfect government is some variation of the complex kleptocratic muddle we have now... but run much better. | |||
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| And food too.
It sounds incredibly obvious, but I've lost count of the number of times that I've confused lack of sleep and food for a profound existential depression... |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| I strongly object to the idea being put forward by Skydude and Silvershield that "victimless crimes" should still remain crimes, because they may contribute to associated crimes such as theft and DUIs.
The actual crimes under discussion are covered by other offences and thus decriminalisation of a drug will do nothing to allow those other crimes... and using the outlawing of mere consumption of a substance to combat those other crimes is an extremely blunt and ineffective instrument targetting many innocent people. This is not even to mention how staggeringly hypocritical a principle it is, given the close relationship between legal alcohol and assault, drink-driving and property damage. And basically, the paternalistic disregard for personal responsibility, liberty, intelligence and decision making is just plain insulting. "Drugs are bad" does not, and SHOULD NOT imply "drugs must be banned". Thinking something is bad should never automatically imply it should be illegal... and arguing that something is bad does NOT prove it must be banned. The idea that some drugs are outlawed cos they contribute to criminal behaviour is not only one that cannot stand on its own merits, but in many cases such as heroin, the reality is actually directly the inverse. The effects of criminalisation of junk on its users (social marginalisation and alienation from legal and social institutions, dependency on the dealers who have a monopoly over supply, the massive increase in market price) actually CAUSES crime and a great deal of suffering. (edited by Arwon on 04-02-06 07:11 AM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Among beers I tend to go for dark ales, Tooheys Old or Carlton Draught. The occasional Guinness hits the spot, too.
Wines I like a good red, particularly a Cab Sav, or a Shiraz. And generally my choice in spirits is vodka and coke, as in, a bottle of coke and a bottle of vodka. (edited by Arwon on 04-03-06 08:18 AM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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Originally posted by Rom Manic Probably not as many as Cubans... |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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Originally posted by geeogree When did this government give us privacy? You must be confusing us for a country with defined rights. |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Laws come from religion?
Prove it. |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Your life is Uncle Sam's life? How awful for you.
*hug* Also I suspect that to Tarale "there's no right to privacy in the Constitutiion of the United States" means precisely squat as an argument against privacy. As far as I'm aware, the US constitution is not the be-all and end-all of rights for all humanity, and just because something's not in a document written two-hundred-plus years ago doesn't mean it's not a valid right, and it certainly doesn't mean people have no grounds to feel they should have a right to privacy in their personal affairs. The idea that the government should have all this unfettered and arbitrary power to spy on people's private affairs, be it email snooping, phone tapping, bugging, whatever, is abhorrent and extremely dangerous. The principle in play here is that excessive and arbitrary power makes a government grow lazy, abusive and corrupt, and contemptuous of the people. Some of us don't want a government that thinks it's above basic accountability and decency and respect for human dignity. Tarale's hit the nail on the head, it's about a sense of violation, a sense of security, a sense that the Government doesn't have the right to do whatever it fucking wants just because it says it can. (edited by Arwon on 04-06-06 11:52 PM) |
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| Acmlm's Board - I3 Archive - - Posts by Arwon |
