Obama birth certificate finally released

[MrPopo]

How is the drug-related crime rate in the US?

So far there have been half a million people assaulted by our government because of drugs. Legalization would absolutely change that.

Did you just claim that government officers upholding the law is assault?

[Hatta]

Enforcing an unjust law is no different than breaking a just law.

Edit: Let me elaborate a bit. Violence employed by the state is just as wrong as violence employed by anyone else. The only reason it's deemed OK is because it's expected that appropriate violence employed by the state will lead to a net decrease in violence. However, when the number of assaults committed by the state outnumbers the number of assaults(~800K/year) all together, this moral reasoning breaks down. In such a case I can only conclude that the government is worse than the criminals they claim to protect us against.

[MrPopo]

Enforcing an unjust law is no different than breaking a just law.

Edit: Let me elaborate a bit. Violence employed by the state is just as wrong as violence employed by anyone else. The only reason it's deemed OK is because it's expected that appropriate violence employed by the state will lead to a net decrease in violence. However, when the number of assaults committed by the state outnumbers the number of assaults(~800K/year) all together, this moral reasoning breaks down. In such a case I can only conclude that the government is worse than the criminals they claim to protect us against.

But you're claiming that an arrest is the same thing as an assault. How many arrests are peaceful things? Cop pulls a guy over for speeding, spots a bag of weed in the back seat, cuffs him. No struggle, no damage, just a nice easy arrest. Plus, the statistic you are comparing drug arrests to is a specific kind of assault. Aggrevated assault, by the definition set down in the link, is assault with the intent to greviously injure. So that cuts out all the assaults which are just simple things like I decked you at a ball game while I was drunk. If you're going to compare statistics to make a point at least have the statistics be for similar things.

[Bikeage]

So far there have been half a million people assaulted by our government because of drugs. Legalization would absolutely change that.

Decriminalizing marijuana would create less of a legal and penal burden on strictly marijuana users and growers, but criminals would probably ramp up production of hard drugs to make up for the loss, so in theory legalizing weed would create more meth labs and crack heads.

My solution is simple. Decriminalize and regulate pot, and heavily regulate cocaine imports and make it only legally available under strict conditions, because the demand is going to be there across all social strata, and can be used responsibly in moderation. Everything else considered extremely addictive and socially destructive, smack, meth, crack, KFC Double Down sandwiches.... 3 strikes and you face decades of hard labor in prison factories, producing goods to be sold to offset the taxpayers burden of incarceration.

[Hatta]

That's a fair point Popo. It's not quite the same thing since it's not usually life threatening. But holding someone against their will on the threat of violence would still be assault in any other context. The question is, does arresting (assaulting) a pothead prevent more than one assault on average.

[Limewater]

Why would the White House post up a jpg image, translated to pdf? The White House sucks.

I won't comment on whether or not the White House sucks, but there's nothing weird or screwy about the pdf file. That's actually pretty common for scanned documents. Most likely, they just used standard settings and ran the birth certificate through a scanner, and it spit out a pdf. That's just how it's usually done.

[Limewater]

He would ... force school prayer on unwilling students, ... and force tax payers to pay for religious education.

These statements are pretty dishonest.

[MrPopo]

That's a fair point Popo. It's not quite the same thing since it's not usually life threatening. But holding someone against their will on the threat of violence would still be assault in any other context. The question is, does arresting (assaulting) a pothead prevent more than one assault on average.

I don't think it matters. I think it's a reasonable expectation that if you break the law you can go to jail. Not all laws include prison time, but this one does. Just because you disagree with the law doesn't make it "unjust". There is no intrinsic property of laws that make them just or unjust; it's all based on social context. And right now social context says that we want drugs illegal.

Here's a thought I had this afternoon. How about we make marijuana legal, BUT it is only legal for those who are born after the bill becomes law. I'd be curious to see how many people would support that measure. After all, it wotuld decriminalize something that a lot of people claim should be, we're just putting a timestamp on it to show that people actually think it should be decriminalized because it isn't harmful, not just because they want to get high.

[BoringSupreez]

Pulling all forces back to the US would be a stupid move. If we do that, then our enemies will come over here to fight us.

This does not logically follow. If we don't get involved in a civil war in Libya, the Libyans will all gang up and invade the United States?

I am having a hard time seeing this.

It may sound rather uncaring towards other nations, but the president should America first. And that's not what Ron Paul would do.

Show a country you care. Invade it.

I never said we should be in Libya in the first place. And I never said that invading a country shows we care about them. If they want to harm us, then it shows we care about us if we stop them.

[Jrecee]

IMO, if Ron Paul become a president and served both terms, the USA could be again the land of free and I would be seriously considering moving there. Nowadays, I would be scared to live there, especially in the big cities like New York, because of the constant terrorist threat due to your meddling in the countries all over the world.

Your chances of dying in a terrorist attack increase 1000 fold by living anywhere in europe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_ ... ates#2000s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_ ... ed_attacks

Now I know not all are made by your enemies from abroad but a lot of them are.

Really interesting comment. The last terrorist attack here was almost 10 years ago. It was successful in 1 place. New York. And this is a huge country.

I don't think so, I live in so unimportant of a country that I feel safe here. There has never been a terrorist attack, except against the fascist (during the WWII) and communist government a long time ago.

I guess it depends on how you define terrorism. You were talking about terrorism caused by our 'meddling in the countries all over the world' so I assumed you were talking about the islamic extremist type of terrorism.

Either way, I don't see how Ron Paul would change any of that.