Lax sentencing for criminals

[eyeball]

The Tory base is generally all in favour of crackdowns on drug users.

Perhaps if that extended to the dope the government peddles society might get the right-wing's message that recreationally altering your mind is the real issue and that all forms should be stamped out.

You know that notion that a dope dealer busted within 2 blocks of a school should face a harsher sentence?

I'm always reminded of that when I see the local drunks all lined up in the front of our courthouse...right next door to our government liquor store.

[Oleg Bach]

Try to apply to the Ontario Disabity Program for an early pension - They insist that you be all doped up and useless via pharm product before they consider adding you to the force that launders money via government dope and the poor....oooooh so boring.

[Boges]

What is this sentencing you speak of?

yours,

C. Anthony

[eyeball]

Yes. I like Fritos corn chips. But if the government brought in a law which could put me in jail for six months for having Fritos around the house I'd stop buying Fritos.

How complicated does this have to be for you?

It's not complicated at all you're quite simply appalled at the thought of people not submitting to the state's authority and that it's might always makes right no matter what.

People like you are precisely why we need a criminal justice system that is immune to...people like you. As I also understand it people like you are why we're expected to celebrate our veteran's sacrifices.

Like I said above, amongst whatever else it is the right-wing represents in Canada these days it includes the very lowest of the low.

Edited July 5, 2011 by eyeball

[Wild Bill]

You are forgetting, WB, that while millions of Canadians might smoke pot, those who actually care a lot about the freedom of pot smokers are more likely to be liberals or NDPers or Greens than Tories. The Tory base is generally all in favour of crackdowns on drug users. And even if they don't really care overmuch about pot smokers, well, they're not shedding a lot of tears for them either.

You seem to base your argument on an implied premise - that there are either few or no Tory voters who would not respect a crackdown on pot. I would suggest that there is only the tiny evangelical portion of the Tory support that would fall into that category.

I have nothing but my own life experience but I would bet a month's pay that you're dead wrong! I think you must have grown up in a rather sheltered community not at all representative of Canada as a whole.

If the Tories proceed with this approach, why don't we sit back and see just what sort of reactions, positive or negative, they get?

I really think that whoever in the Tory party is driving this has NO affinity for the ordinary man! It doesn't matter if you approve or not of pot smoking. It exists and attacking it will have political effects.

As I said before, all downside and little upside. All you gain is the 1423 evangelical Christians, who all don't even live in the same riding.

Judging by your words Scotty, while you're entitled to your opinion if you ever became Harper's campaign manager I think the Liberals and the NDP would throw the biggest celebration Ottawa has ever seen. You seem to equate your own personal feelings with mainstream voting patterns. It really doesn't appear to truly equate!

Edited July 5, 2011 by Wild Bill

[cybercoma]

Yes, pot is benign:

Get the facts: Frequently asked questions about marijuana and cancer risks of long-term recreational smoking of marijuana

Marijuana Damages DNA And May Cause Cancer, New Test Reveals

Since this thread is way off topic anyway...

From the things I've read, people aren't really arguing that marijuana smoke is less of a carcinogen than cigarette smoke. The difference is in the way they are imbibed. Most people don't smoke a pack of joints a day. Even if they did, they're not sucking them through fibre-glass filtres and many people use water pipes to smoke marijuana, as opposed to tobacco. It's these differences in the habits and uses of the different products that changes the risks of cancer associated with the two, not necessarily the smoke itself in equal parts. And it may also be the case that THC can shrink some tumours (even fox news ran the STORY), possibly reducing the cancerous effects of marijuana smoke.

[Oleg Bach]

No one should submit to the states authority if the state is full of shit. I will like all others bow down to a King that is my superiour. If the state shows it self to be my inferiour no way in hell am I going to debase myself to make some politican not fit to rule feel good and powerful about them selves.

[guyser]

The Tory base is generally all in favour of crackdowns on drug users.

So they want to arrest everyone on earth? Only those 6 months old or less will be left.

EVeryone, save maybe 1 person here, is a drug user.

[guyser]

But by stiffening the laws it will cause the more intelligent ones to, perhaps regretfully, decide it isn't worth the risk. As to the others, the addicts who have to have their pot no matter the risk, throwing a few into prison as an example isn't going to make many people cry, at least, not many people inclined to vote for the Conservatives.

And we will see the rise in price, the rise in crime and so on.

Good plan to prove we need jails when you make everyone a criminal.

Wonderful Tories, aint too bright , just enough to make their plan work.

Edited July 5, 2011 by guyser

[bloodyminded]

You seem to base your argument on an implied premise - that there are either few or no Tory voters who would not respect a crackdown on pot. I would suggest that there is only the tiny evangelical portion of the Tory support that would fall into that category.

I have nothing but my own life experience but I would bet a month's pay that you're dead wrong! I think you must have grown up in a rather sheltered community not at all representative of Canada as a whole.

I think you're probably right.

It seems odd to me that a Conservative supporter would have so little respect for conservatives.

[bloodyminded]

No one should submit to the states authority if the state is full of shit.

The funny thing is that everyone agrees with this principle...but only in theory, as a warm druggy feeling about the Glorious Past. Right now, we should all submit to authority no matter what.....

]

[eyeball]

And we will see the rise in price, the rise in crime and so on.

Good plan to prove we need jails when you make everyone a criminal.

Wonderful Tories, aint too bright , just enough to make their plan work.

There's also the Opposition's fear of appearing soft on crime to help swing our state ever closer to one of mutually assured dictatorship.

It's enough to drive a person to drink.

[guyser]

It's enough to drive a person to drink.

Dont, you too will be a drug user.

Dont you wish to remain as pious as....um....hmmm...

[Oleg Bach]

Dont, you too will be a drug user.

Dont you wish to remain as pious as....um....hmmm...

There is a time to be sober and a time to be drunk..papa had an old Russian saying similar to Chuchill..." I might be drunk but in the morning I will wake up sober and lucid - you on the other hand will still wake up an idiot."

[eyeball]

I think you're probably right.

It seems odd to me that a Conservative supporter would have so little respect for conservatives.

What about the respect so many of these do have for each other however when it comes to electing the same people come election time?

It seems to me the libertarian and social conservative ends of the right-wing should be at real odds with each other over the issue of the state stomping on people's backs the way Harper proposes to do with pot.

By contrast the fact so many Conservatives/conservatives are so reticent when the state's complicity in the addiction of millions of people with even deadlier more addictive drugs is mentioned suggests to me that many if not most really do harbour authoritarian leanings and support the state's right to might no matter what and above all else. The law is the law is the law and that's all anyone need to know or think to be a good upright little citizen.

Of course the irony that so much alcohol use leads so directly to crime even more effectively than broadening the criminal code does is almost enough to drive one to heroin.

[bloodyminded]

What about the respect so many of these do have for each other however when it comes to electing the same people come election time?

It seems to me the libertarian and social conservative ends of the right-wing should be at real odds with each other over the issue of the state stomping on people's backs the way Harper proposes to do with pot.

As bad a reputation as social conservatives get--much of it richly deserved, I hasten to add--the self-styled libertarians are usually far more hypocritical. It's kind of sad, because in some fundamental ways I have a lot of sympahty for (some) libertarian views.

But every self-styled libertarian with whom I've ever had a discussion--without exception, as far as I remember--ultimately proves to be nothing of the sort.

By "libertarian" they usually mean, "lower taxes!"

Period. Everything else is awesome, so long as the word "socialist" isn't breathed.

They're fine with authoritarian government. Even defensively supportive of it, so long as it falls in a realm that can be construed as "conservative."

And the few who genuinely oppose authoritarian government of any party will usually support the tyrannical power of unelected, unrepresentative private wealth interests. Which boggles the mind, truly.

Edited July 5, 2011 by bloodyminded

[RNG]

As bad a reputation as social conservatives get--much of it richly deserved, I hasten to add--the self-styled libertarians are usually far more hypocritical. It's kind of sad, because in some fundamental ways I have a lot of sympahty for (some) libertarian views.

But every self-styled libertarian with whom I've ever had a discussion--without exception, as far as I remember--ultimately proves to be nothing of the sort.

By "libertarian" they usually mean, "lower taxes!"

End stop.

They're fine with authoritarian government. Even defensively supportive of it, so long as it falls in a realm that can be construed as "conservative."

And the few who genuinely oppose authoritarian government of any party will usually support the tyrannical power of unelected, unrepresentative private wealth interests. Which boggles the mind, truly.

Again, the only thing I know about the Libertarian Party of Canada, if that's their name, is visiting their website and checking it out. One good thing about it, they make the very first Reformers look like mamby-pamby wimpy moderates.

But I visit a US dominated political forum. The members there are more aligned such that the social conservatives are the "no taxes ever" crowd, while the libertarians are small government, do what you need to to lower the debt and stay out of individuals lives as much as possible. The only real negative I have about them is that they are very isolationist in all terms. Of course this is all generalizations, but valid IMO.

[Shwa]

Since this thread is way off topic anyway...

From the things I've read, people aren't really arguing that marijuana smoke is less of a carcinogen than cigarette smoke. The difference is in the way they are imbibed. Most people don't smoke a pack of joints a day. Even if they did, they're not sucking them through fibre-glass filtres and many people use water pipes to smoke marijuana, as opposed to tobacco. It's these differences in the habits and uses of the different products that changes the risks of cancer associated with the two, not necessarily the smoke itself in equal parts. And it may also be the case that THC can shrink some tumours (even fox news ran the STORY), possibly reducing the cancerous effects of marijuana smoke.

Although people who smoke marijuana generally smoke fewer marijuana cigarettes than people who smoke tobacco cigarettes, they tend to inhale more smoke per puff and hold it in their lungs for as much as four times longer. Because of this, some estimate that smoking 3 to 4 marijuana cigarettes per day is roughly equivalent to smoking 20 tobacco cigarettes. Marijuana users may have many of the same health problems as cigarette smokers, including an increased risk of cancer.

Read more: http://www.cancer.ca/canada-wide/how%20you%20can%20help/take%20action/advocacy%20what%20were%20doing/marijuana%20smoking/cancer%20risks%20of%20long-term%20recreational%20use/get%20the%20facts%20frequently%20asked%20questions%20about%20marijuana%20and%20cancer%20risks%20of%20long-term%20recreational%20smoking%20of%20marijuana.aspx?sc_lang=en#ixzz1RGLWBov1

I know, I know. There is no way that pot can cause cancer to the same degree as cigarettes. But that is not to say there is 0 risk of cancer with marijuana use. The lack of definitive study also does not mean a 0 risk of cancer.

[eyeball]

And the few who genuinely oppose authoritarian government of any party will usually support the tyrannical power of unelected, unrepresentative private wealth interests. Which boggles the mind, truly.

Once the boggling passes it's pretty damned depressing too.

It's wondering WTF to do about it that really gives me a headache.

[eyeball]

The only real negative I have about them is that they are very isolationist in all terms.

You mean isolationist in the sense that they want Uncle Sam to mind his own damned business and not interfere in the affairs of other countries?

Wow. That's freakin' radical. What are they smoking?

[eyeball]

The lack of definitive study also does not mean a 0 risk of cancer.

I bet brownies do.

[Molly]

As bad a reputation as social conservatives get--much of it richly deserved, I hasten to add--the self-styled libertarians are usually far more hypocritical. It's kind of sad, because in some fundamental ways I have a lot of sympahty for (some) libertarian views.

But every self-styled libertarian with whom I've ever had a discussion--without exception, as far as I remember--ultimately proves to be nothing of the sort.

Call me fundamentally libertarian. Small l, mind.

[RNG]

You mean isolationist in the sense that they want Uncle Sam to mind his own damned business and not interfere in the affairs of other countries?

Wow. That's freakin' radical. What are they smoking?

No foreign wars, no trade treaties, no foreign aid. Like really isolationist.

[Shwa]

I bet brownies do.

A body stone is not something to joke about eyeball.

[Wild Bill]

I think you're probably right.

It seems odd to me that a Conservative supporter would have so little respect for conservatives.

BM, I can only speak for myself. I support those Tory principles that I happen to agree with. The others - I don't!

I've never been the type of political supporter who will back a party right or wrong. If I think it's wrong then I won't support it. Period and end of story.

That being said, I've never been offered a perfect match to my own values. Reform came close, if only for its streak of populism. If the party voted to adopt a position that I did not share I at least had a possibility of getting it changed, albeit after a lot of work.

With all the other parties it's always been the same old crap. They tell you what they stand for and you are expected to swallow ALL of it!

There isn't a man or a God to whom I would surrender my own reason in such a way. I learned at an early age that just because someone has more power than you doesn't make him any smarter. Usually its the reverse!

So it's not that I have so little respect for conservatives. I just have little respect for Scotty's views on this subject!