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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:24
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quote:
Originally posted by David Floyd
Let's say, for example, that I felt that homosexuality was immoral (not saying that I do, so let's not open that can of worms). That's a personal belief, and it would govern my actions, but because homosexuality does not hurt anyone, I would not support government regulation of it.
The kind of laws I support, as orange pointed out to you, are laws that prevent or punish the violation of individual right. Violating someone's rights is, naturally, immoral, but that isn't all that morality is.
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This is a mixture of BS and mere hand waving. You need to tell me why these sorts of rights violations should be prohibited by law and why the rest of morality shouldn't.
Saying that one is mere "personal belief" isn't going to cut because I will just retort, "belief that only rights violations should be prohibited by law is merely another personal belief - in this case yours."
I'm guessing you will say that the one prohibits real harm to others and the other doesn't. This is sophistry - because you are privileging certain kinds of harm over others. For example, Libertarians would permit someone to fly the Nazi flag even though a holocaust survivor would find this more harmful than being punched in the face. Unless you specify what harms count and provide a meaningful distintion between them and the others, this answer will never get off the ground. Furthermore, I can think of plenty of cases of failing to do things which will result in harm to other people (like failing to give the charity) so perhaps by this criterion we should make doing certain things compulsory (i.e. good samaritan laws).
Moreover I can think of cases of violating rights in which no one is harmed. You go away and you leave some of your property behind. I start stealing it and you don't know. Fortunately you never come back and die never finding out that your property has been stolen by me. Even if you did it wouldn't bother you (though you have never consciously made this decision). How can this act of stealing be said to harm you?
Anyway, you should know better than this - Libertarians do not support their version of rights because of some harm that failing to do so would cause, they support them because they think that any other system of rights entails coercion and their fundamental belief is that coercion is wrong. If they privileged harm over coercion they would have to enact good samaritan laws.
Again, if you believe that morality only says "do no harm" one may beiieve this because one believes that coercion is wrong or for some other reason (divine command, etc. ) In other words it's not necessary to be a Libertarian to believe this.
But this rolls us right back around to the central question you have avoided for about 3 or four days now. It is
Is violating rights bad because it causes harm; or is harm bad because it is caused by violating rights?
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Ramo
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Austin, Texas, USA
Oct 1999
time: 23:24
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quote:
Actually, I have read accounts that, one of the factors (among many) attributed to the reduction in crime during the 1990s, was breaking down the crack-cocaine trade. |
Source?
quote:
First of all, since you have asked for sources, please supply me with sources with specific accounts of the atrocities committed by the emperor. |
Any decent account of Chinese history during the 18th and 19th centuries could describe the imperial taxes and their implications to the peasantry just fine, for instance "The Rise of the West" by William McNeill.
quote:
Secondly, the reason I am arguing the point is simple. (Actually you are arguing with me -- takes 2 to tango). I mentioned the Chinese situation as an example of a drug situation gone wrong, so Berzerker resorted to character assassination on the Chinese Emperor. (He has still yet to prove it, by the way. He hasn't given me 19th century American drug usage proof either).
Character assassination is pretty sly. If you can discredit someone with a sharp label, then in your mind you don't have to debate anymore because everything that the person in question does is pretty much immoral. |
I believe he was criticizing your accounts of the situation as not coming from an impartial source.
quote:
It's alot easier to just label him as a "slavelord" or whatever than to actually debate. The problem with this character assassination is that it ignores the simple fact that slavery was widespread thoughout the globe during this same time period, and our own US government was practicing it at the same time as the Chinese Emperor (assuming the slavery idea is true, which I don't buy). |
Why does it matter if the US gov't or anyone else is doing atrocious things?
quote]Sorry, every account I have read does not say that. Please again list your sources.[/quote]
I don't have a source on this as I'm making an assumption that the demographics of opium use in 19th century China was not fundamentally different from opium use in just about every well-documented situation. But apparantly you do have a source that this is not the case, so I'd appreciate it if you gave it to me.
quote:
No the British did not force them to buy it but I mean come on addicts go to desparate lengths to get their drugs, so, how "convenient" for the British to supply them. |
Since tobacco is an extremely addictive drug, I guess you consider that the purchasing of tobacco isn't a voluntary process, so you think tobacco should be prohibited? Right?
It's not moral, but if the Brits didn't supply them, someone else would've anyways. If the Chinese gov't cared about its subjects' well-being, it should've attacked the root of the problem, poverty, by stop leeching off the peasants.
quote:
Come on guys, I have supplied mountains of documentation that have backed up most of my points. You guys have supplied us with nothing but opinion and speculation. And some absurd theory that the Emperor didn't want them smoking because, "they might stop working hard." Fess up. Why do you think they are called, "The Opium Wars?" Duh! |
I don't think either of us have disputed that opium use isn't exactly a good thing. Its the other points you haven't provided any documentation for.
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Ted Striker
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United States of America
Jan 1970
time: 21:24
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quote:
Originally posted by Ramo
Source?
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Crack-cocaine Usage and Inner City Violence:
quote:
Reginald Shareef, professor in the Political Science Department at Radford University:
http://www.roanoke.com/magazine/shareef/10499.html
The researchers found a relationship between the waning crack-cocaine epidemic and violence in inner city neighborhoods.
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quote:
Any decent account of Chinese history during the 18th and 19th centuries could describe the imperial taxes and their implications to the peasantry just fine, for instance "The Rise of the West" by William McNeill. |
Sure but please mention those other factors as well.
quote:
Why does it matter if the US gov't or anyone else is doing atrocious things? |
It matters because this doesn't make China any relatively "worse" than other countries during that time period in regard to slavery. It matters because you can't just outright write off anything the Emperor did by character assassinating him.
quote:
I don't have a source on this as I'm making an assumption that the demographics of opium use in 19th century China was not fundamentally different from opium use in just about every well-documented situation. But apparantly you do have a source that this is not the case, so I'd appreciate it if you gave it to me. |
Go back to my opium posts. There are several there listing opium usage statistics.
quote:
Since tobacco is an extremely addictive drug, I guess you consider that the purchasing of tobacco isn't a voluntary process, so you think tobacco should be prohibited? Right? |
Actually I do.
quote:
It's not moral, but if the Brits didn't supply them, someone else would've anyways. |
That's not correct. The British were bringing this stuff in on huge frigates. Who would have supplied them?
Last edited by Ted Striker on 10-01-2003 at 08:19
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Berzerker
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topeka, kansas,USA
May 1999
time: 23:24
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Ted - quote:
Okay, I see where you are going. You made a THREAD about the Drug War. Today is the first time that I have seen it. And yes, now that I see who wrote it, I am going to ignore it. |
No, the post is in this thread.
quote:
When you said I was ignoring a Drug War POST, if you look back, you have a Drug War post that talks about the reasons for the Drug War and it had some kind of babble about Chinese, Blacks, and Mexicans. |
You call it babble, but it is fact. Opium, cocaine and marijuana were banned by people using racist fears of Chinese, blacks, and Mexicans. And you are still missing the more recent posts Obiwan and I (page20?) made about drug consumption rates prior to the Harrison Act.
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Ramo
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Austin, Texas, USA
Oct 1999
time: 23:24
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quote:
Read the studies. Crack-cocaine is what they studied, not poverty. |
Did they do a regression analysis to isolate crack from poverty? Where are the actual statistics? I'd like to see some hard evidence...
quote:
Already mentioned them, and #1 is Western interference. |
quote:
Oh no, I'm not playing that game. It's hard to miss, it's around the pictures of strung out Chinese opium users. |
I'm looking at the pictures and don't see the statistics on the demographics of opium users in 19th century China. I just see stuff saying that opium is bad, something that I don't disagree with.
quote:
I see where you are going with this. Nice lure but it won't work. Actually, if you have noticed, a caffeine-like compound called Ephedra has been banned. |
Does this mean you agree with this decision?
quote:
Caffeine hasn't been proven to be dangerous like opium. |
Why does that matter? It's still not good for you, and there is no consumer choice involved which was the original point. The coffee bean and cola producers are forcing us to drink it, right?
quote:
Actually, there were some Americans in on it. But the fact of the matter is that the British Clippers sailing into those major ports were the equivalent of huge oil tankers sailing into harbor full of opium on board. |
Huh? Individual opium shipments need to have high volumes?
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Ramo
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Austin, Texas, USA
Oct 1999
time: 23:24
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quote:
Again, I'm not playing that game. You asked for a source. You got 2. |
It's an important aspect of any such study. Any coorelation study is meaningless without a regression including all important variables.
quote:
Wow, you sure are quick reader to say that. Read the links and you will find the statistics. |
I skimmed the links, and didn't see anything. I really can't be arsed to read the entire thing that closely for something that may or may not be there when I'm dizzy off by ass from taking (legal ) drugs.
quote:
It matters because you are completely ignoring the DEGREE of danger involved with using each product. Again, that's a one-dimensional assessment. |
But the original issue was force. The danger of the product didn't enter into the original criticism (looping them into the other settlements of the Opium wars - the one sided trade restrictions).
quote:
I agree, there is not much difference between 2 tons and 200,000 tons. |
Not if there is only one 200,000 ton shipment every 10 years, and 10,000 2 ton shipments every year.
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Berzerker
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topeka, kansas,USA
May 1999
time: 23:24
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Ted - here is my post:
quote:
1 Excellent work, you aren't learning. We are talking about a slaveowner who didn't want his slaves using a drug to relax from the burden imposed by the slaveowner. If this slaveowner banned booze, tobacco, pot, or even bathroom breaks because they detracted from the amount of labor the slaveowner could extract from his slaves, I wouldn't place value on the slaveowner's claims about the horrors of booze, tobacco, pot, or bathroom breaks.
2Excuse me, but we are talking about opium, not general "drug use". I used opium and knew people who used, do you? Nope. And you don't know all the factors effecting these people. They may have been messed up before they ever used a drug. God knows many people who use drugs do so because of emotional problems stemming from other occurences in their lives (like slavery under Chinese emperors). Confusing symptoms of emotional trauma with the trauma isn't enlightenment.
3Then why didn't it happen with every country that had legalised opium throughout it's 5,000+ history?
4So you have figured out there was no contradiction when I said Coca-Cola and Bayer sold cocaine and morphine/heroin?
5When during the period you've cited in China's history did they cease having emperors? And now you are assuming western governments made altruistic decisions regarding drugs. That's BS. When the US banned opium, it was called "the Yellow Peril" and the cited fear was chinese men seducing/raping white women in opium dens. When cocaine became the target, it was black men raping white women. When marijuana became the target, it was those Mexicans. Notice a pattern? You don't know Sh!t about how prohibition came about, and even the people who weren't racists but worked toward prohibition didn't live to see how their "experiment" turned out. You seem to think that the enactment of a policy depends solely on the reason for the policy and that the results are irrelevant. People in 1900 didn't live to see the results of the path they chose, we are seeing the results. The people who enacted alcohol prohibition didn't know they were creating the gang warfare/Mafia and black market (they were shortsighted too) resulting from prohibition, but it didn't take long for the support they had to wither away after people began seeing the results.
6You're changing the debate again from China to other countries, does that mean you now understand that the motives of Chinese emperors are questionable? This same period has seen the rise of socialism. And in this country and others, socialists sought the centralization of power. What better way to destroy federalism and the Constitution than finding excuses to nationalise policy. As for those whose motives were pure (albeit immoral nonetheless), they saw what they considered to be a problem needing government intervention, but they were too ignorant to see what would happen down the road.
7Does that mean you accept that my response was not a "dodge"? That propaganda from the tobacco industry has come back to haunt them since lawsuits are being filed on the basis that the tobacco industry lied about it's product. The alcohol industry doesn't have that liability.
8You would support them. They are deceitful and hypocritical. But Hollywood was in on the act for a very long time, ala Reefer Madness et al. The commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics - Harry Anslinger - told Congress in 1937 that marijuana turned users into psychotic murderers, in 1952, he told Congress marijauna was a communist plot to turn users into pacifists. In 1937, the AMA opposed the prohibitive tax on marijauna saying prohibition just creates more problems. From 1937-39, 3,000 doctors were convicted by Anslinger's dept of illegally prescribing narcotics. In 1939, the AMA reversed it's position to support the ban on pot, and from 1939-1952, only 3 doctors were convicted by Anslinger of illegally prescribing narcotics. There's your altruistic government in action.
9I've debated "Doc" before, does he treat all the people wounded by black market violence?
10That's what you get for complaining about me asking Strangelove for a link and then telling me to look up links to support your arguments. Wallow in your hypocrisy.
11No, you just applauded a "parody" that made fun of me asking for a link and have continued the joke by repeatedly asking me for links. The fact you do this after telling me to look up links to support your arguments shows what a hypocrite you are. Btw, when I did offer a link, you attacked it as invalid because of the organization that published the article even though you didn't even try to refute anything in the article. So why should I provide you with any links when you're such a scumbag? Instead of asking me for links, take the advice you gave me when I asked you for a link, use google. |
And your "response"?
quote:
1That's your own wack theory. You have any other sources that corroborate this theory?
?I said late 1700s through modern times. Did you ever hear of the Communists?
5I think you are the ONLY one noticing a pattern, but that doesn't surprise me.
5What the hell are you talking about? We never mentioned Prohibition in this thread. Without a doubt, this is a textbook case of setting up a strawman. Here you are telling me I don't know anything about Prohibition and then you tell why I am wrong. All of this without me ever even saying a word about the topic. That's pretty good!
6Nice misinterpretation (though I suspect you really knew what I meant but once again skewed it). The point is that many other countries came up with the conclusion that Opium usage was bad, and decided to ban it. Their collective wisdom means nothing to you? Or are they all oppressive tyrnannical governments?
11Link?
11So find one that is from a neutral source. It's not that hard.
?19th Century drug numbers please |
That wasn't a response to my arguments, it was a dismissal. Your longest "response" was to accuse me of introducing a subject - prohibition - not even being discussed. But we not only were discussing prohibition, you were the one who introduced it. You were the one who said that because other countries banned opium, their motives somehow affirms the motives of Chinese emperors, When I exposed some of the US' motives for banning drugs, you didn't respond with anything resembling a rebuttal.
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Berzerker
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topeka, kansas,USA
May 1999
time: 23:24
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Ted - Nevermind, I'll just re-post the info.
quote:
It is probably not a good idea to tell our children the truth; that would clearly be sending them the wrong message. How, for example, could they deal with the fact that in 1914 when drugs were available on grocery store shelves and without prescription at the local pharmacy, 1.3% of the population was addicted. In 1979, just before the so-called "War on Drugs" crackdown, the addiction rate was still 1.3%. Today, while billions of dollars are spent to reduce drug use, the addiction rate is still 1.3%. |
http://www.lindesmith.org/library/judge_kane2.cfm
quote:
5 + 5 =10 is a fact. That is an opinioned analysis. Which is not a fact. |
It wasn't an opinion, it is a fact that people seeking a ban on opium, cocaine, and marijuana used Chinese, blacks, and Mexicans to achieve their goal.
quote:
Good lawd Quick Draw. Unlike you I don't have the rest of my life to respond to posts on Apolyton so give me some damn time to go back and check! I already said I would look for them, damn. |
You make it sound like I just asked you when I've been asking you for more than a day now.
quote:
You are unbelievable man! The depths of desparation that you will reach never ceases to amaze me. |
Everyone can see your pathetic "response" for themselves. If MRT wasn't so much of a hypocrite, he'd chime in too.
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10-01-2003 03:23
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