Baltimore Is Begging Feds To Step In To Restore Law And Order

[DiogenesLamp]

Couldn't agree more?  Mayhap you want to reread my post.  All that matters is that you be a moral agent, capable of making moral decisions, to deserve the vote.

No.    What matters is that you have a negative feedback system to control spending.   Allowing non taxpayers to vote creates a positive feedback system which will destroy the finances of any nation that embraces it.   


This is exactly what killed the original Greek Democracy.   They kept voting themselves benefits out of the public treasury until it was bankrupted.    No system of this sort can survive the financial ravages of those who aren't paying the bills.   


It is a fundamentally flawed idea.   

Any system that requires taxes or property before you can vote has put material possessions over souls in determining the relative worth of individuals.

It is not about the "relative worth of individuals",  it is about financial stability,  which is impossible when people have no incentive to stop spending.   


If you disagree,  give me access to your money,  and perhaps I can convince you of the folly of your thinking.   

[DiogenesLamp]

But it's just fine for those who, through pure luck, own something to be able to vote to round up the poor and turn them into cannon fodder to defend the property they will never be able to enjoy?  That way lies tyranny and the false democracy of Athens.

Your beef is with life and luck.    The mathematics of your idea do not work.   Human nature will not ever allow your idea to work,  because people won't control themselves.   

[DiogenesLamp]

I don't often get involved with the comments in various strands so I don't know what your tendencies are.  However, I am quite certain you somehow think conservatives should be nambypamby wimps, something I am not.  Four score and 5 years after the founding, Lincoln basically told the south to eat sh#t, slavery was going to end one way or another. 

Okay,  now  you are going to get me involved in another thread.  This is false history.  Lincoln told them no such thing.   He told them that he would make slavery permanent if they would just give up the idea of seceding.   He supported the Corwin Amendment (which would have made slavery permanent)  and he said so in his first inaugural address. 


As late as August of 1862 he said he would keep slavery if it would preserve the Union. 


The Union had five slave states during the war,  and slavery lasted six months longer in the Union states than it did in the confederacy.    That the war was about slavery was a created fiction intended to justify all the carnage after the fact.   

No one had the courage in those intervening years to stand up to the "peculiar institution" of the south.  People begged the south to do the "right" thing and free the slaves but the south wouldn't hear of it and would never had heard it if Lincoln hadn't had the spinal strength to stand up to what was wrong. 

He didn't.   He just moved the goal posts about 2 years into the war.  When he started it,  he had absolutely no intention of doing anything about slavery.   Had he announced such a thing in the beginning,  he wouldn't have even been able to fight that war.   

[DiogenesLamp]

Bigun... do not try to use logic on these people.  They know everything and have no need for logic.

I remember now why I blocked diogenes for so long.

Immature people don't like to hear words which challenge their biases. 

[DiogenesLamp]

@To-Whose-Benefit?

That may "work" in theory, but the political reality is that you are never going to get "let them die on the streets" as a national policy.  So what you're really going to get is legalization, plus a government economic/medical safety net.  The political dynamic is such that the more widespread the usage, the more people have family members/friends who have drug issues, and the more likely they are going to support drug rehab centers, etc..  That's the exact dynamic that is happening here in Ohio.

Sane and rational commentary as usual. 

[DiogenesLamp]

@DiogenesLamp

All true.  And this country simply would not support a "let 'em all just kill themselves then" approach.  So we'd end up with those of us who aren't addicts supporting the vices of those who are.

That is exactly how it would work out in practice.   

[DiogenesLamp]

We already are.

Yes,  but in  a drug legalized society,  the numbers of dependents would soar,  and the numbers of responsible people would wane. 

[DiogenesLamp]

Again, I agree with you completely as to the best way to address the problem.  But the reality is that we don't seem able to get "stop subsidizing poverty" passed into law regardless of what we do with drugs. 

Because of the 24th amendment.   Because votes from non-taxpayers allows them to bribe these people with government money,   this will never get fixed until we break the positive feedback loop causing this problem. 


So long as people receiving government money can vote,  they will always vote for candidates who promise them the most in the way of government paid-for goodies.   

So sure, if we can get "stop subsidizing poverty" passed into law, then maybe you go to legalization.  But unless and until that much bigger change happens, legalization itself is a horrible idea.

You can't get that passed into law until you remove the ability of those affected by it to stop it.   So long as they can vote,  they will prevent any meaningful change to their benefits.   

[Maj. Bill Martin]

Because of the 24th amendment.   Because votes from non-taxpayers allows them to bribe these people with government money,   this will never get fixed until we break the positive feedback loop causing this problem. 


So long as people receiving government money can vote,  they will always vote for candidates who promise them the most in the way of government paid-for goodies.   




You can't get that passed into law until you remove the ability of those affected by it to stop it.   So long as they can vote,  they will prevent any meaningful change to their benefits.

That would take a constitutional amendment, and will never happen.  That would cripple Democrats, and they control enough states to stop it.  So regardless of the merits, it's a pipedream.

[DiogenesLamp]

That would take a constitutional amendment, and will never happen.  That would cripple Democrats, and they control enough states to stop it.  So regardless of the merits, it's a pipedream.

It is a mortal wound.    It is killing us even now. 

[goatprairie]

Okay,  now  you are going to get me involved in another thread.  This is false history.  Lincoln told them no such thing.   He told them that he would make slavery permanent if they would just give up the idea of seceding.   He supported the Corwin Amendment (which would have made slavery permanent)  and he said so in his first inaugural address. 


As late as August of 1862 he said he would keep slavery if it would preserve the Union. 


The Union had five slave states during the war,  and slavery lasted six months longer in the Union states than it did in the confederacy.    That the war was about slavery was a created fiction intended to justify all the carnage after the fact.   






He didn't.   He just moved the goal posts about 2 years into the war.  When he started it,  he had absolutely no intention of doing anything about slavery.   Had he announced such a thing in the beginning,  he wouldn't have even been able to fight that war.

So after the war was over,  the North, using the issue of slavery during the war as a ruse to oppress the South,  abolished the Emancipation Proclamation and reinstituted slavery?

[To-Whose-Benefit?]

@To-Whose-Benefit?

That may "work" in theory, but the political reality is that you are never going to get "let them die on the streets" as a national policy.  So what you're really going to get is legalization, plus a government economic/medical safety net.  The political dynamic is such that the more widespread the usage, the more people have family members/friends who have drug issues, and the more likely they are going to support drug rehab centers, etc..  That's the exact dynamic that is happening here in Ohio.

No argument with your reasoning here.

However, I refuse to be deterred any more than Adams was.

Stating what to me what is the obvious in the face of seemingly impossible odds didn't stop Sam Adams.

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
― Samuel Adams

It needs to be out on the table, for there are many who would never consider it if the thought remains left buried under the reigning paradigm of mindless PC.

[Smokin Joe]

Yes,  but in  a drug legalized society,  the numbers of dependents would soar,  and the numbers of responsible people would wane.

Every civilization, every empire which has let its libertine elements seize control and retain that control has either collapsed or is on the way. Ours would only crumble sooner.

[Fishrrman]

Diogenes wrote:
"We have the Civil War to thank for priming the pump of widespread drug addiction.   Both sides used cocaine and opium to treat war wounds,  and both sides ended up with massive numbers of men addicted to these narcotics."

First, let me say that I am VERY strongly opposed to drug legalization of any kind, including marijuana. I have no problem with "the Duterte solution" for drug dealers.

But, regarding the Civil War use of morphine, etc. -- just what else was there that could be used to kill the pain of maimed men on the field or in the hospitals? They used what they had, which was known to work. When one is in excruciating pain, one doesn't care what drug is used to quell it, so long as it cloaks the pain or makes it bearable.

In fact, there was a famous fiddle tune that came out of morphine as a pain killer. It's called "Soldier's Joy". Old time and bluegrass bands still play it today.