In article <stevethC5LM2E.Fx8@netcom.com> steveth@netcom.com (Steve Thomas) wri tes: >In article <C5L69C.Fxp@news.iastate.edu> jrbeach@iastate.edu (Jeffry R Beach) writes: >>In article <stevethC5Js6F.Fn5@netcom.com> steveth@netcom.com (Steve Thomas) w rites: >>>  Boy, it looks like the WOD is WORKING REALLY GOOD to stop people from >>>  being screwed up in the head, given that example! >>> >>>(Issue: your friend _got_ his drugs--legal or not legal, he'll continue to >>>get them.  Issue #2: why should _I_, as somebody who does NOT use illegal >>>drugs and who IS NOT "screwed up" have to PAY for this idiot's problems?  He 's >>>not doing anybody any harm except himself.  The WOD, on the other hand, is a n >>>immediate THREAT to MY life and livelyhood.  Tell me why I should sacrafice >>>THIS to THAT!). >> >>Hello, is there anybody in there?  You think you have to pay for this idiot's >>problem now, who's going to pay for the ballooning number of addicts and >>all of the associated problems with them.  I don't even want to think about >>it with Hillary in the White House and an administration that "feels our >>pain". > >Look, if you were truly for lower taxation and less government, you would not >be advocating the WOD.  Ever wonder why the WOD is a BI-partisan issue? > >> >>No harm but to himself?  What about when he drives his school bus full >>of kids into a train.  When he gets stoned and drives up on a sidewalk >>and kills 5 people.  When he lives off me on Welfare for the rest of his >>life. > >Ridiculous.  I can't imagine anyone this stupid.  Forgive me for flaming, >but this is sooooooo obvious! > >Tell me why any of the above cases cannot be caused be a legal drug, viz. >alcohol, or are you for having a War on That, too? > >Now I'll tell you: more people are killed by alcohol-related accidents >than all other drugs combined.  BY FAR. >  Probably because more people have access to alchohol.  It IS LEGAL you know.   >> >>The problem with the WOD is that it has no bite.  Sending the slimy >>bastards to the chair for selling drugs to kids, now there's some bit. >> > >Yeah, that's it, send a kid from the inner-city, who has no other viable >means to make money and turns to selling drugs, to an over-crowded federal >prison where he learns to do Real Crime. >  Of course, this kid would be much better off selling crack to his neighborhood  and helping in its demise.  >Without drug money being pumped into these blights from the (affluent) >outside, there would be no crime (who would they steal from, each other?). >Drugs bring money into the community just like any other business would, >except that, since drugs are illegal, the economy is an underground one.  And if those drugs were legal, the neighborhood could legally go to hell.  >A self-sustaining underground economy can only proliferate by a constant >willful infusion of money from the outside.  If you take away drug laws, >you put an end to the underground economy, and therefore to large-scale >crime. >  And if we made murder legal, we would put an end to murder as a crime.  >Kids in the inner-cities are faced with a very tough life growing up >there, or selling drugs and having everything at their fingertips instantly. >Many kids choose selling drugs.  They sell products to people who want to >buy them.  They make money off of rich white kids from the suburbs.  Then >they go to prison.  Then they become hardened criminals, and learn that >you're much better off stealing car-stereos in the suburbs because all >the police forces are spending all their money in the inner city saving >people from themselves.  What??????  > >You can bring up all the examples you want about crack-babies and whathaveyou. >The solution never has anything to do with the laws (crack is illegal). >  So you are saying crack babies who are that way legally are okay?  >No social problem, however great, is worth destroying the freedom in America. >The destruction of freedom is never an answer to any social problem.  You can't even walk down the street at night alone in America because of drugs. Freedom my ass.