Bruce gets political

[stack-o-tracks]

The percentage of our Federal income taxes (and the Federal budget) that is spent on roads is so small as to be irrelevant to this discussion.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_federal_budget#Total_outlays_by_agency  I think libertarians are bent because of the amount of money that is spent killing brown people, assassinating citizens overseas without trial or due process, furthering the military industrial complex.

I'll gladly pay more state taxes if we can stop the egregious spending at the Federal level.

When you say "bent," you mean "justifiably upset," right? The only brown people we should still be fighting are the drug cartels in Mexico. That country has been and continues to be completely messed up by America's appetite for drugs and we've done next to nothing about it. We get their drugs and they get our weapons and tens of thousands of Mexicans are dead because of it.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

The percentage of our Federal income taxes (and the Federal budget) that is spent on roads is so small as to be irrelevant to this discussion.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_federal_budget#Total_outlays_by_agency  I think libertarians are bent because of the amount of money that is spent killing brown people, assassinating citizens overseas without trial or due process, furthering the military industrial complex.

All right, that's an entirely fair grievance thought it must be noted that these wars you are talking about are motivated mainly by the concentrated wealth power centre not the state. American foreign policy has been, for decades, a consequence of business power wanting to extend their control over resources to the international sphere. As far as I'm concerned, if you want to eliminate that kind of behavior, you have to attack at its roots, not at the State which has merely been an instrument of major financial institutions.

[Jason]

The War on Drugs needs to be ended and all drugs legalized and sold on the free market as soon as possible. You'll fight the drug cartels by depriving them of business.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

The War on Drugs needs to be ended and all drugs legalized and sold on the free market as soon as possible. You'll fight the drug cartels by depriving them of business.

Oh goodie - let's put drugs into the hands of the same sort of people who run the fast food industry. And then once state regulations are done away with, then they can be free to poison us as much they want to without all those pesky consequences.

[stack-o-tracks]

The War on Drugs needs to be ended and all drugs legalized and sold on the free market as soon as possible. You'll fight the drug cartels by depriving them of business.

Oh goodie - let's put drugs into the hands of the same sort of people who run the fast food industry. And then once state regulations are done away with, then they can be free to poison us as much they want to without all those pesky consequences.

Of course drugs are a double-edged sword, but it's obvious that the people who want to do drugs are going to do them no matter what and the other option is to let gangsters & sleazy dealers deal them. If they were legal, at least the tax money could go for educating the masses on the dangers of hard drug use & addiction. As opposed to a new Escalade with shiny chrome rims for the guy who puts baking soda in your cocaine.

[stack-o-tracks]

Luckily we have this guy protecting us from the evils of marihuana: http://blog.norml.org/2012/04/30/the-drug-czar-knows-even-less-about-hemp-than-he-knows-about-cannabis/

[Heysaboda]

The War on Drugs needs to be ended and all drugs legalized and sold on the free market as soon as possible. You'll fight the drug cartels by depriving them of business.

Oh goodie - let's put drugs into the hands of the same sort of people who run the fast food industry. And then once state regulations are done away with, then they can be free to poison us as much they want to without all those pesky consequences.

Of course drugs are a double-edged sword, but it's obvious that the people who want to do drugs are going to do them no matter what and the other option is to let gangsters & sleazy dealers deal them. If they were legal, at least the tax money could go for educating the masses on the dangers of hard drug use & addiction. As opposed to a new Escalade with shiny chrome rims for the guy who puts baking soda in your cocaine.

You are correct that "the people who want to do drugs are going to do them no matter what and the other option is to let gangsters & sleazy dealers deal them" but to me, drugs, the hard ones (not Mary Jane) are just another form of slavery.  Legalizing them and putting them out in the 7-11's would be ruination for our society.  We'd have 1,000 times the problems that we have today.  But, I agree the "war on drugs" is an effing fiasco.

I don't know what the answer is though, other than sensible drug education, from a very early age.  And better family/home life.

[GreatUrduPoet]

The percentage of our Federal income taxes (and the Federal budget) that is spent on roads is so small as to be irrelevant to this discussion.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_federal_budget#Total_outlays_by_agency  I think libertarians are bent because of the amount of money that is spent killing brown people, assassinating citizens overseas without trial or due process, furthering the military industrial complex.

I'll gladly pay more state taxes if we can stop the egregious spending at the Federal level.

When you say "bent," you mean "justifiably upset," right? The only brown people we should still be fighting are the drug cartels in Mexico. That country has been and continues to be completely messed up by America's appetite for drugs and we've done next to nothing about it. We get their drugs and they get our weapons and tens of thousands of Mexicans are dead because of it.

Unfortunately, the Zetas now get our weapons courtesy of the U.S. Department Of Justice.

[Eireannach]

The War on Drugs needs to be ended and all drugs legalized and sold on the free market as soon as possible. You'll fight the drug cartels by depriving them of business.

Right.  One need look no further than Prohibition to see how this works.

[Eireannach]

All right, that's an entirely fair grievance thought it must be noted that these wars you are talking about are motivated mainly by the concentrated wealth power centre not the state. American foreign policy has been, for decades, a consequence of business power wanting to extend their control over resources to the international sphere. As far as I'm concerned, if you want to eliminate that kind of behavior, you have to attack at its roots, not at the State which has merely been an instrument of major financial institutions.

What business do we have in Afghanistan, though?  Osama is dead and we are trying to win a war in a place that the Russian's could not.  (Think about that.)  There is no business interest in Afghanistan (or Libya, for that matter).  For all the business interests in Iraq, we are still paying $4.00/gallon for gas.  That said, I agree with you that business (read: money) is the reason we are fighting these wars.  Just look at the defense budget allocation in the Federal budget.  It's sickening.

[rab2591]

All right, that's an entirely fair grievance thought it must be noted that these wars you are talking about are motivated mainly by the concentrated wealth power centre not the state. American foreign policy has been, for decades, a consequence of business power wanting to extend their control over resources to the international sphere. As far as I'm concerned, if you want to eliminate that kind of behavior, you have to attack at its roots, not at the State which has merely been an instrument of major financial institutions.

What business do we have in Afghanistan, though?  Osama is dead and we are trying to win a war in a place that the Russian's could not.  (Think about that.)  There is no business interest in Afghanistan (or Libya, for that matter).  For all the business interests in Iraq, we are still paying $4.00/gallon for gas.  That said, I agree with you that business (read: money) is the reason we are fighting these wars.  Just look at the defense budget allocation in the Federal budget.  It's sickening.

I do believe rockandroll was talking about the military industrial complex....which is big business.

[Eireannach]

I do believe rockandroll was talking about the military industrial complex....which is big business.

Yes, I mentioned that in my post from last night.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

The War on Drugs needs to be ended and all drugs legalized and sold on the free market as soon as possible. You'll fight the drug cartels by depriving them of business.

Oh goodie - let's put drugs into the hands of the same sort of people who run the fast food industry. And then once state regulations are done away with, then they can be free to poison us as much they want to without all those pesky consequences.

Of course drugs are a double-edged sword, but it's obvious that the people who want to do drugs are going to do them no matter what and the other option is to let gangsters & sleazy dealers deal them. If they were legal, at least the tax money could go for educating the masses on the dangers of hard drug use & addiction. As opposed to a new Escalade with shiny chrome rims for the guy who puts baking soda in your cocaine.

I'm all for legalizing drugs and putting an emphasis on education - I'm more skeptical about the wonders of the free market solving these problems.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

What business do we have in Afghanistan, though?  Osama is dead and we are trying to win a war in a place that the Russian's could not.  (Think about that.)

The American government never particularly cared about killing Osama. That was never a major goal. Remember that a few weeks after 9/11 the pretext to attack Afghanistan shifted away from Osama to regime change. The business that the US has in Afghanistan is the same business that they had in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, the Dominician Republic, Haiti, Panama, Vietnam, and on and on - and that is, they desire to see a political system that is open to American investment, doesn't matter in particular what it's for, it is usually something specific to the region. Now that's the war the US wants to win but if they can't win that, then simply having a state in shambles, unable to produce a genuinely national-oriented government should suffice. And something similar was true of the Soviet Union. They didn't particularly care about leaving Afghanistan in shambles either, as long as it didn't become a key strategic piece in the bid for American imperialism. If they could be part of the Soviet Union, great, if they couldn't, then being in shambles would be good enough.  

There is no business interest in Afghanistan (or Libya, for that matter).

There are business interests for the United States in every state on the planet.

 

For all the business interests in Iraq, we are still paying $4.00/gallon for gas.

Which of course is incredibly cheap. I bet some of our friends on this board from Europe and England would love to pay $4 per gallon. Gas prices in the United States should be higher and the reason they should be higher is to induce pressure for alternative fuel, that is if we care about the survival of the species. Keep in mind, the US desire to control Middle East oil resources is not to keep prices low - that's assuming that they're going to war the benevolent reason that concentrated power really cares about the American people. In reality, the US controls Middle East oil because they want to control the price level within a certain range (not too low and not too high) and most significantly, to use it as a lever of strategic power. This control ultimately gives the US leverage over rival economies in Europe and Asia. That's the central purpose for controlling resources - the benefits of this very rarely affect the common American.

And anyway, I am a little hesitant to go down the line of thinking that American intervention in Afghanistan would be more acceptable if we had business there, or American intervention in Iraq would be more acceptable if gas prices were lower. Ultimately, I think, one should be against intervention because it violates a basic right to independence and no positive results that come as a consequence of that violation in any way justifies it.

That said, I agree with you that business (read: money) is the reason we are fighting these wars.  Just look at the defense budget allocation in the Federal budget.  It's sickening.

Okay but the reason why these wars are being is not so defense can get a big budget - that doesn't really help anyone substantially. Rather, defense has a big budget in order to protect the interests of the minority of concentrated wealth and power.

[guitarfool2002]

I almost don't want to take a swim in this pool, but over the past weeks I had a few interesting conversations that made me question or at least second-guess the legalization issue. I was at the point of throwing up my hands and saying "legalize it" because all the arguments against the so-called "war on drugs" rang very true. But then I thought of and discussed a point which I have not seen discussed among the pro-legalization folks posting here. Maybe a few opinions either way would be helpful, maybe a new thread is warranted, whatever...anyway:

The issue which has been changing my mind is how drugs which are legal and are being prescribed regularly by physicians are causing havoc. Witness the "pill mill" cases which are running amok in certain areas of Florida and other states. Witness the increase in crime and robberies of drug stores and pharmacies where the target is Oxycodone, Oxycontin, and other legal, prescribed painkillers. Witness the increase in misery caused by addictions to these pills and how addicts will resort to crime, theft, and the "black market" where an Oxy can bring 10 dollars per pill and more to those seeking their fix.

In my area there has been a dramatic rise in pharmacy robberies - one college student was on a robbery spree claiming he had a syringe with the AIDS virus or some such nonsense and he was hitting a string of area pharmacies for prescription painkillers until he was caught. Other robberies are more of the strong-arm variety, or more typical of the dumb guy who hands the bank teller a threatening note but has no weapon, only a threat on paper.

It would be a comedy of errors but no one is laughing, and it is affecting people beyond the pharmacy employees who have to deal with this nonsense directly.

And the issue of pill mills and doctor-shopping, not to mention the daily occurrences of fake and forged prescriptions being passed off to pharmacies, as well as regular accounts of employees and patients stealing doctor's prescription pads and worse, may qualify this as an epidemic. And a very costly and time-consuming one at that.

So here is the point:

How would legalizing and controlling the narcotics and hallucinogenics currently outlawed in the US produce a net positive result different from what is happening around those narcotics and pain-killers which are currently legal, regulated, and prescribed by doctors?

We call for legalization, yet what would make it different from what is happening around legal painkillers like Oxy and the rest? Black markets still exist, criminals are still profiting on the re-sale and illegal distribution of these drugs, law enforcement is spending a lot of public money to control the abuses, millions of people are "hooked" on these drugs and when their legal supply runs out, too many are looking to a criminal or underground element for their fix...

How would an across-the-board legalization produce results which would differ from what we see with legal prescribed painkillers?

[hypehat]

I almost don't want to take a swim in this pool, but over the past weeks I had a few interesting conversations that made me question or at least second-guess the legalization issue. I was at the point of throwing up my hands and saying "legalize it" because all the arguments against the so-called "war on drugs" rang very true. But then I thought of and discussed a point which I have not seen discussed among the pro-legalization folks posting here. Maybe a few opinions either way would be helpful, maybe a new thread is warranted, whatever...anyway:

The issue which has been changing my mind is how drugs which are legal and are being prescribed regularly by physicians are causing havoc. Witness the "pill mill" cases which are running amok in certain areas of Florida and other states. Witness the increase in crime and robberies of drug stores and pharmacies where the target is Oxycodone, Oxycontin, and other legal, prescribed painkillers. Witness the increase in misery caused by addictions to these pills and how addicts will resort to crime, theft, and the "black market" where an Oxy can bring 10 dollars per pill and more to those seeking their fix.

In my area there has been a dramatic rise in pharmacy robberies

Just to add, this happened to one of our posters in the last week or two - you're on to something....

[Chocolate Shake Man]

So here is the point:

How would legalizing and controlling the narcotics and hallucinogenics currently outlawed in the US produce a net positive result different from what is happening around those narcotics and pain-killers which are currently legal, regulated, and prescribed by doctors?

We call for legalization, yet what would make it different from what is happening around legal painkillers like Oxy and the rest? Black markets still exist, criminals are still profiting on the re-sale and illegal distribution of these drugs, law enforcement is spending a lot of public money to control the abuses, millions of people are "hooked" on these drugs and when their legal supply runs out, too many are looking to a criminal or underground element for their fix...

How would an across-the-board legalization produce results which would differ from what we see with legal prescribed painkillers?

Exactly - these are entirely the right questions which is why simply legalizing drugs and putting them on the free market wouldn't work. You'd also have to invest in education, which we know works when you look at how cigarette smoking has gone way down. You also have to keep in mind that a lot of crime related to drugs in the United States is a result of drugs being extremely high in cost, particularly compared to their costs in other industrialized countries with more socialized medicare.

[guitarfool2002]

So here is the point:

How would legalizing and controlling the narcotics and hallucinogenics currently outlawed in the US produce a net positive result different from what is happening around those narcotics and pain-killers which are currently legal, regulated, and prescribed by doctors?

We call for legalization, yet what would make it different from what is happening around legal painkillers like Oxy and the rest? Black markets still exist, criminals are still profiting on the re-sale and illegal distribution of these drugs, law enforcement is spending a lot of public money to control the abuses, millions of people are "hooked" on these drugs and when their legal supply runs out, too many are looking to a criminal or underground element for their fix...

How would an across-the-board legalization produce results which would differ from what we see with legal prescribed painkillers?

Exactly - these are entirely the right questions which is why simply legalizing drugs and putting them on the free market wouldn't work. You'd also have to invest in education, which we know works when you look at how cigarette smoking has gone way down. You also have to keep in mind that a lot of crime related to drugs in the United States is a result of drugs being extremely high in cost, particularly compared to their costs in other industrialized countries with more socialized medicare.

What concerns me about these two points is that the prescription painkiller issue has revealed flaws which I don't believe education or reduced costs through socialization would address or come close to resolving.

Investing in education would possibly create another bureaucracy - what agency would we charge with overseeing this when currently the DEA, AMA, Dept. Of Health and Human Services, and various other local, state, and federal groups are seeing the crime and abuse of legal painkillers spiral out of control? Will another government agency be impaneled to train "educators" and have the taxpayers pay them to spread the word about the problems and dangers of these drugs?

Currently the doctor is the one charged with making these decisions. As it should be, yet how would a government agency be able to better educate the general public than a doctor who deals with the people one-on-one? Again, tobacco is still legal and is still a choice for people to make. So is alcohol, and despite spending untold millions of dollars to educate people on the dangers of drinking and driving, there is at least one story every day in nearly everyone's local newspaper about someone driving drunk.

I don't think personal responsibility can be legislated or taught by a government body. Nor should it be.

As far as saying the cost is too high, suggesting a system of socialized medicine would be a solution, I disagree. For one, I do not want my money going to fund someone's hobby of chasing an Oxy with a beer. Period - it sounds harsh, it sounds inhumane, but any cent taken from me by a government instituting a system of socializing the prescription of painkillers at a reduced cost is a system I'll fight against with all my efforts.

The system currently in place for dealing with prescription painkillers is failing, and the issue will get worse before it gets better. Considering there is already a system in place for controlling and regulating the sale and distribution of these legal narcotics, as well as a system of reducing costs and offering lower-cost generic alternatives to brand-name pills...yet we *still* have an active black market, underground network of dealers and distributors, and the aura of crime surrounding the abuse of these painkiller from petty theft to violent robberies, I don't see how lowering the cost of the pills for the users through government subsidies or outright public funding through socialization would solve the larger issue.

Or the issue of how much is the limit when an addict depletes then needs more than their prescribed amount, or their subsidized amount through a government program, and the need for "more" exceeds that person's ability to make rational decisions?

Additionally, if we subsidize and socialize these prescription painkillers, and publicly fund them so the costs are kept low, how would the government agencies who currently regulate these things then control or be able to stop "John Doe" from getting a prescription painkiller under his allotment and selling it to "Jane Doe" for a profit when Jane's allotment for the month has run out?

And would legalizing any of the drugs currently illegal produce a different result?

[Chocolate Shake Man]

Investing in education would possibly create another bureaucracy - what agency would we charge with overseeing this when currently the DEA, AMA, Dept. Of Health and Human Services, and various other local, state, and federal groups are seeing the crime and abuse of legal painkillers spiral out of control? Will another government agency be impaneled to train "educators" and have the taxpayers pay them to spread the word about the problems and dangers of these drugs?

No, not necessarily. And even with another government agency, with a more socialized system you'd be vastly reducing taxpayer costs to health care - the amount saved there would more than likely be much more than the amount that the taxpayer would be paying for education.

Currently the doctor is the one charged with making these decisions. As it should be, yet how would a government agency be able to better educate the general public than a doctor who deals with the people one-on-one?

Because that's how education works. I didn't decide not to smoke because the guy at the corner store told me not to - I decided because it was taught to me very early on how dangerous smoking is.

Again, tobacco is still legal and is still a choice for people to make.

It is, and far fewer people make that choice than they did even ten years ago - and the difference between people who make that choice now and people who made that choice in say, the 1950s is probably astronomical.

So is alcohol, and despite spending untold millions of dollars to educate people on the dangers of drinking and driving, there is at least one story every day in nearly everyone's local newspaper about someone driving drunk.

According to the National Institutes of Health, alcohol-related traffic deaths per population have been cut in half since the 1980s, amounting to 150,000 lives being saved which is "more than the combined total saved by increases in seat belt use, airbags, and motorcycle and bicycle helmets." This, as far as I'm concerned is not only a vast improvement but a uniquely vast improvement. Now, if your standard for something to work means zero fatalites, then unfortunately, there is no solution to any of the problems you're raising and there never will be.

I don't think personal responsibility can be legislated or taught by a government body. Nor should it be.

You mean, we don't have a responsibility to protect each other?

As far as saying the cost is too high, suggesting a system of socialized medicine would be a solution, I disagree. For one, I do not want my money going to fund someone's hobby of chasing an Oxy with a beer. Period - it sounds harsh, it sounds inhumane, but any cent taken from me by a government instituting a system of socializing the prescription of painkillers at a reduced cost is a system I'll fight against with all my efforts.

In that case you will be more than likely fighting against decreasing drug-related crime. You say you don't want to "fund someone's hobby of chasing an Oxy with a beer" but you're currently funding Big Pharma's overspending on research and development, which helps keep drug prices high, which leads to the kind of criminal activity you were talking about above.

The system currently in place for dealing with prescription painkillers is failing, and the issue will get worse before it gets better. Considering there is already a system in place for controlling and regulating the sale and distribution of these legal narcotics, as well as a system of reducing costs and offering lower-cost generic alternatives to brand-name pills...yet we *still* have an active black market, underground network of dealers and distributors, and the aura of crime surrounding the abuse of these painkiller from petty theft to violent robberies, I don't see how lowering the cost of the pills for the users through government subsidies or outright public funding through socialization would solve the larger issue.

In fact, the US government is uniquely the only government in the industrialized world legally prohibited from negotiating drug prices, which is also keeping drug prices high and ensuring a thriving black market, and drug-related criminal activity. So, yes, if you want to eliminate a lot of the drug-related criminal activity you have to keep drug prices low and if you want to curb abuse of drugs then you have to educate people, which has likewise proven to be effective. These are elementary and proven ways to deal with these issues but there is one central flaw - they do not necessarily lead to generating enormous profits for private businesses. Therefore we're supposed to hate these ideas. But apart from that reason, I can't fathom any serious reason we should oppose them - that is, if we're more serious about dealing with these issues than we are about protecting the interests of the wealthy elite.

Additionally, if we subsidize and socialize these prescription painkillers, and publicly fund them so the costs are kept low, how would the government agencies who currently regulate these things then control or be able to stop "John Doe" from getting a prescription painkiller under his allotment and selling it to "Jane Doe" for a profit when Jane's allotment for the month has run out?

I don't know - you'd have to show me that this is a serious concern in countries that have a more socialized system before we would need to consider it to be a viable reason not to pursue such a system.

[guitarfool2002]

Of all the points, I just want to address the one about protecting each other:

Who has the authority to legislate or even decide who will support and who will be supported by public funds? Who decides the level of "protection" afforded one person to another? Who will decide under socialized medicine which addict receives their fix at a reduced cost and how much of the controlled substance they receive versus any other person in the same program?

Do we include those living in the US illegally? Do we include those already receiving public assistance of some kind? Do we include those who have committed a felony offense up to and including murder? Do we include those who do not work, and do not contribute to society? Do we include the entire world's population, do we include only North America, do we only go state-by-state or county-by -county? Where does it end?

In other words, why should I not only feel like I'm somehow not able to choose whether I'm responsible for someone else other than me and my immediate family, friends, and dependents, but also why should I trust someone to not only take my money through taxation and public funding but also determine which anonymous person or persons I have no legal, personal, or moral obligation to protect or support is worthy of that money and support, if I choose not to support or protect them?

I'm already sick and tired of my money going to support politicians and their lifestyles and exorbitant spending habits which benefit no one remotely close to me...why would I support giving them more power to use more money?

Socialized medicine as a panacea for solving the prescription painkiller issue is a flawed solution, mostly due to the fact that prescription painkiller abuse, theft, and black-market sales is driven by addicted individuals who in too many cases are not much beyond looking to someone else for their own gratification or the fulfillment of their cravings from the addictions. For every person who is genuinely and legitimately addicted through no fault of their own, whether through bad medical decisions or whatever else, how many are like that college student who was going around my area robbing pharmacies for Oxys and other painkillers for his own selfish needs and wants?

Should I be legislated or compelled into thinking I owe something to that f*cker who terrorized various pharmacy employees to gratify his own needs and wants in life, versus someone who legitimately and/or medically needs the help? Do we really need another government agency to make those decisions for us, and take our money to fund those choices?

Or can we make those choices without assistance from a government body of some kind?

[guitarfool2002]

And, apart from all the side issues, the bottom line is the painkiller issue I already raised: We have seen a system which is failing more and more each day when dealing with prescription narcotics which are strictly regulated and legal, and controlled by the government. Why should we believe that the same system and the same government will be successful if and when more types of currently illegal drugs are legalized?

[Chocolate Shake Man]

Of all the points, I just want to address the one about protecting each other:

Who has the authority to legislate or even decide who will support and who will be supported by public funds? Who decides the level of "protection" afforded one person to another? Who will decide under socialized medicine which addict receives their fix at a reduced cost and how much of the controlled substance they receive versus any other person in the same program?

In a properly functioning democratic society, the people make those decisions. I can in some way understand your hesitation. In the United States, we are ideologically driven to understand the government, not as driven by the population but driven by a select few people. This, of course, was by design. It was understood from the beginning that the role of the government was to protect the interests of the elite minority rather than the population as a whole. There are indeed larger concerns - and the fight for a functioning democracy is a legitimate fight. Remember, of course, it is assumed in a normal society that everyone will be supported by public health care. It's not simply a matter of one this group of people pays for another group of people. Everyone needs some form of health care at some point and, yes, some people may need more of it than others but that is very rarely that person's fault.

Do we include those living in the US illegally?

Well, when I stop someone from stepping in front of a moving truck that they do not see, I don't stop to ask if they are documented or not. Furthermore, it depends on the case, but usually in the case of undocumented immigrants that I know of, the US bears some responsibility for these people being in the country in the first place.

In other words, why should I not only feel like I'm somehow not able to choose whether I'm responsible for someone else other than me and my immediate family, friends, and dependents, but also why should I trust someone to not only take my money through taxation and public funding but also determine which anonymous person or persons I have no legal, personal, or moral obligation to protect or support is worthy of that money and support, if I choose not to support or protect them?

Again, why should you choose to stop someone from stepping in front of a moving vehicle. We're entering into a debatable arena here, but when we talk about personal or moral obligation, it seems to me that we are personally and morally obligated to protect each other. I don't think anyone would say that if you knew you could stop someone from getting hit by a truck that you didn't know, that it was okay to let them die because you don't know them. In fact, I think you are personally and morally obligated to alert that person. That seems to be the very basis of a civilized and decently functioning society.

I'm already sick and tired of my money going to support politicians and their lifestyles and exorbitant spending habits which benefit no one remotely close to me...why would I support giving them more power to use more money?

Because the way our society is set up, that's the only way to get effective and decent results, if you are interested in getting them.

Socialized medicine as a panacea for solving the prescription painkiller issue is a flawed solution, mostly due to the fact that prescription painkiller abuse, theft, and black-market sales is driven by addicted individuals who in too many cases are not much beyond looking to someone else for their own gratification or the fulfillment of their cravings from the addictions.

This is why I'm not merely suggesting socialized medicine, but also legalization and education.

Should I be legislated or compelled into thinking I owe something to that f*cker who terrorized various pharmacy employees to gratify his own needs and wants in life, versus someone who legitimately and/or medically needs the help? Do we really need another government agency to make those decisions for us, and take our money to fund those choices?

Again, you'd have to demonstrate that these issues would be exacerbated by a socialized medicare system.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

And, apart from all the side issues, the bottom line is the painkiller issue I already raised: We have seen a system which is failing more and more each day when dealing with prescription narcotics which are strictly regulated and legal, and controlled by the government. Why should we believe that the same system and the same government will be successful if and when more types of currently illegal drugs are legalized?

Pescription drugs are not "strictly regulated...and controlled by the government." I repeat, prescription drug prices are set by the pharmaceutical industry and unlike in other industrialized countries, the US is prohibited from negotiating these prices. Consequently, drug prices are higher than they are in any other industrialized country. And as a result, according to a recent study, "the pharmaceutical industry is — and has been for years — the most profitable of all businesses in the U.S." What role the government has - in fact, the role the public has - is paying for the costs of developing drugs (not the manufacturing, which costs comparatively little) and as studies have shown, more than half of Big Pharma's development costs typically go into the making of copycat drugs in order to stay competetive on the market. This is the worst system imaginable - not only does the public pay for this kind of mis-spending but they pay more when such mis-spending leads to the high cost of drugs. To me, the facts show, that the problem with prescription medicine has nothing to do with the government's role - outside of the government's role in protecting the interests of these corporations. The problem mostly is that the needs of the public are quite simply inconsequential when compared to the needs for profit.

[guitarfool2002]

I fail to see how the basic human reaction of stopping someone from walking in front of a moving vehicle relates *in any way* to a discussion of topics related to socialized medicine curing the ills of the prescription painkiller mess.

I could see it this way, in theory:

If I see someone walking in the street, and see them fall, I will go over and help them up. And if they are injured or need additional help, I will do my best to provide it. That is my choice.

On the other hand:

I do not need an employee of the government giving me an order to report to 7th Avenue and Main Street of my town and stand there on duty from 7 am to 3 pm to watch for anyone who might trip and fall on that street corner and require assistance.

One is a choice driven by human nature and ultimately a gut reaction, the other is a mandate which eliminates the most obvious choice in that scenario.

If we can equate stopping someone from getting crushed by a vehicle in front of our own eyes in some extreme comparison which seems to suggest the worst extremes of relativism and relativist logic, we can surely consider the above.

Or perhaps the whole notion is like comparing apples to oranges to sledgehammers.

[Heysaboda]

BTW

GREAT series of posts!