Author Topic: Aging Seedlings on drug policy  (Read 6486 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline FueLaw

  • Posts: 74
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
Aging Seedlings on drug policy
« Reply #15 on: December 18, 2005, 12:34:00 PM »
It is amusing to read post from people who are so far out on the left fringe tell someone else they are in left field.

Whatever happend to moderates ?

The problem with the people on the fringes, left and right, is that they have to omit a series of facts and ignore logic in order to reach their positions. In addition they think if they repeat their ill concieved arguments a thousand times it somehow becomes a valid argument when, truth be told, it is just as invalid the 1000th time as it was the first.

For example, the argument that society isn't better off today because when when Ginger's brother's were old enough to drive insurance was easier, less expensive, to get or you didn't even have to have it all. The statement ignores the reasons and facts as to why insurance has become mandatory and why rates are what they are.

The reason for mandatory insurance is laws is to protect those who are victims of some else's carelessness or negligence. In other words if someone smashes into you on a public street , road, highway ect.. they have an obligation to make you whole. That means repair your car, if repairable, or replace it if totaled. Pay your medical bills and pay you for any other damages such as lost wages ect...

Obviously there were to many people getting into accidents with no insurance and leaving people without a remedy. The solution is to force people to carry a minimum amount of insurance to at least provide any victim of an accident some remedy. Holding people accountable for their negligence and leaving the victims of others negliegence whole is not bad law or bad public policy. This means that if someone is negligent, runs a red light or stop sign, and smashes Ginger's "late model van" they have to fix it. If they cause her physical injury they have to pay for it. How else would you want it?

Keep in mind the policy is also based on the theory that driving on a state roadway is a priveldge not a right. Why does anyone have the right to cause someone else injury or damage and then just shrug their shoulders and say sorry I'm broke and don't have no insurance ? If they can't afford it tough luck. Society can't afford to pay for their neglience. Life aint always fair.

If I throw a rock thru someone's window do I just say i'm sorry or do I pay for the window ?

The stuff about unpaid fines is totally bogus. When you get your license you agree to follow the laws and rules of the state issuing you the license. Get a fine...pay it. Got to have rules otherwise the whole traffic situation would be chaos. Go to Haiti or the Dominican Republic if you dont believe me. Follow the rules you dont get fined.

The crap about insurance companies & excutives ect... making lots of $$$ also misses the mark.The main reason insurance rates are higher is because everyting else is higher today then it was 30-35 years ago. 35 years ago you get a new car for $2000-$5,000. Today $20,000-$40,000. It obviously cost more to repair and replace these cars than it did 30+ years ago.  In addition medical cost are way way higher. Those cost are passed on to the policy holders in the form of higher premiums. There is no other way to do it. Keep in mind insurance companies are in business to provide a service for a profit.


The comment about drug courts is also way off the mark. "Drug Courts" are one of the best things the criminal justice system has ever created. Everyday judges throughout America literally agonize over what to do with young defendants, 18-24 year olds,who have been accused or convicted of violating the law. Drug programs offer the judges a form of sentencing, other than prisons, to give a person another chance to straighten out their lives. Some people succeed some don't...can't blame a judge for trying. The judges are duty bound to do something with anyone convicted of a crime.

My take on the whole rehab debate is this...If you are over 18, an adult, you can either voluntarily place yourself in a rehab or agree to be placed in one under court order. This is regardless of whether or not we want to call them a cult or not. Adults can make their own decisions. However, I oppose any program that is , TC in nature, for kids 17 and under.  :wave:
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Antigen

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 12992
  • Karma: +3/-0
    • View Profile
    • http://wwf.Fornits.com/
Aging Seedlings on drug policy
« Reply #16 on: December 18, 2005, 01:26:00 PM »
Quote
On 2005-12-18 09:34:00, FueLaw wrote:

The reason for mandatory insurance is laws is to protect those who are victims of some else's carelessness or negligence. In other words if someone smashes into you on a public street , road, highway ect.. they have an obligation to make you whole. That means repair your car, if repairable, or replace it if totaled. Pay your medical bills and pay you for any other damages such as lost wages ect...


Yeah, I know that's the intent. But it doesn't actually happen. I lost a 10k car and a kneecap to a drunk driver. His insurance paid and so did mine. I got less than 10k, and I'm still missing half a knee cap. Never mind the lost vacation, trauma to the kids wo (thankfully) were not seriously injured, the months and months of recovery.

I could have, under more normal circumstances, gone after him directly through the courts. Instead, I was forced by law to go through insurance companies and their lawyers. They're all living pretty well, it seems. While I spent the next couple of years driving around in an old k car and paying higher rates than before.

The intention sounds real good to some people. Wouldn't it be nice to live in a risk free world? But the reality is quite different. We live in a world that's just full of risk. We used to pay for insurance to make us feel safe from certain accidents and catastrophes. Now we're forced to pay for that comfy safe feeling even if we don't get even that. And, for all that, young adults are effectively limited in their ability legal to travel. That's so damned important. Kids ta day can't get around to work, to school, to visit relatives, to take on a role as an adult in the extended family. And this is WITH both kids working as much as they possibly can.

Now, how's that better? Or, more to the point, better for whom?

As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, poet, philosopher

« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
"Don\'t let the past remind us of what we are not now."
~ Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Sweet Judy Blue Eyes

Offline Antigen

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 12992
  • Karma: +3/-0
    • View Profile
    • http://wwf.Fornits.com/
Aging Seedlings on drug policy
« Reply #17 on: December 18, 2005, 01:40:00 PM »
Quote
On 2005-12-18 09:34:00, FueLaw wrote:

The stuff about unpaid fines is totally bogus. When you get your license you agree to follow the laws and rules of the state issuing you the license. Get a fine...pay it. Got to have rules otherwise the whole traffic situation would be chaos. Go to Haiti or the Dominican Republic if you dont believe me. Follow the rules you dont get fined.


And yet you can't get blood from a rock. And you can't rely on the fines always being fair or well deserved. They're not. One way local ppl around here like to harrass themselves is to cry harassment. Works like this. Adult kid pisses of his mom, she calls the cops and claims he cussed at her (used the ef word!) That qualifies as harassment. Kid's mailing address is the mother's house, and she's warned him never to come around or she'll call the cops. So she waits for the court date to pass and the warrant to be issued and notice sent by mail. Then she calls the kid and says "Look, I'm sorry, I was just really mad but I'm over it, come over and let's talk". Kid gets there and the cops arrive to arrest him on that warrant that he never knew about. Kid spent some weeks locked up AND got fined.

Kid is still paying those fines, along w/ a $300 for littering by a passenger in the car he was driving.

All good intentions aside, the reality on the ground is that all this regulation intended, every individual piece of it, to help and protect us all actually chokes off commerce in a thousand ways.

Your blaming the victims in this case just doesn't wash, unless you think there's something about the regional culture that just makes them all failures. Fact is, very few young adults around here can put together a car, insurance, license, gas and repairs. I didn't realize how bad it was till the kids' car broke down. Half the ppl who they know who do drive have suspended licenses for one reason or another. They have to avoid driving in towns where the cops know them and know they're unlicensed. See, you have to drive to earn money to pay the fines so that you can drive.


Life is like a shit sandwich; the more bread you got, the less shit you gotta eat.
--Anonymous

« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
"Don\'t let the past remind us of what we are not now."
~ Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Sweet Judy Blue Eyes

Offline Antigen

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 12992
  • Karma: +3/-0
    • View Profile
    • http://wwf.Fornits.com/
Aging Seedlings on drug policy
« Reply #18 on: December 18, 2005, 01:55:00 PM »
Quote
On 2005-12-18 09:34:00, FueLaw wrote:

The comment about drug courts is also way off the mark. "Drug Courts" are one of the best things the criminal justice system has ever created. Everyday judges throughout America literally agonize over what to do with young defendants, 18-24 year olds,who have been accused or convicted of violating the law. Drug programs offer the judges a form of sentencing, other than prisons, to give a person another chance to straighten out their lives. Some people succeed some don't...can't blame a judge for trying. The judges are duty bound to do something with anyone convicted of a crime.

My take on the whole rehab debate is this...If you are over 18, an adult, you can either voluntarily place yourself in a rehab or agree to be placed in one under court order. This is regardless of whether or not we want to call them a cult or not. Adults can make their own decisions. However, I oppose any program that is , TC in nature, for kids 17 and under.  



Well, we didn't have this monumental problem before prohibition and Harrison. The simple solution is to repeal laws against consensual, non-criminal activities. The Old Deal, in other words, when people took or were pressed w/ responsibility for their actual actions, not some social engineers supposition about what might happen at some time down the road due to the individual's drug preferences.

And, unfortunately, TC and stepcraft based treatment make up somewhere around 90% of the programs to which the courts order their non-criminal violators. What else are they gonna do except maybe join LEAP. LEAP is made up of career law enforcement, judges and POs who have come to the conclusion that what we're doing is not helping at all and is creating a whole raft of problems in the process.

I want the Old Deal back, damn it! That's what my dad fought for in WWII, against communism.

Men had better be without education than be educated by their rulers.

--Thomas Hodgskin

« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
"Don\'t let the past remind us of what we are not now."
~ Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Sweet Judy Blue Eyes

Offline FueLaw

  • Posts: 74
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
Aging Seedlings on drug policy
« Reply #19 on: December 18, 2005, 01:56:00 PM »
What happend to you is clearly wrong. The legal system is far from perfect. The law doesn't always work as intended. Hopefully in your case the judge made resitution a part of the sentencing order. In Fla if the driver casued you serious injury he would get some time if he had no insurance and no way to make restitution.  

About the people not being able to afford insurance. There is no good answer. Cant let them drive without it. On the other hand they cant afford it. Kind of a "catch 22". Works both ways if they get in accident then they will want and be entitled to compensation.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Stripe

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 286
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
Aging Seedlings on drug policy
« Reply #20 on: December 18, 2005, 04:01:00 PM »
Quote
On 2005-12-17 18:16:00, Anonymous wrote:

"Why don't you get off your butt and get a job that pays you money ? That way you can buy insurance, decent clothes and live in a decent house and even help your children. Quit feeling sorry for yourself and blaming being in a rehab for every problem you encounter in life.  At what point to you take personal responsibility for your own failures?"


Dude:
I just could not help but respond to you.

Have you completely missed the point?

Tell me, please, where does this notion of failure come from?  I didn't see those words anywhere on this thread.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
The person who stands up and says, ``This is stupid,\'\' either is asked to `behave\' or, worse, is greeted with a cheerful ``Yes, we know! Isn\'t it terrific ?\'\' -- Frank Zappa

Offline Antigen

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 12992
  • Karma: +3/-0
    • View Profile
    • http://wwf.Fornits.com/
Aging Seedlings on drug policy
« Reply #21 on: December 18, 2005, 06:58:00 PM »
Quote
On 2005-12-18 10:56:00, FueLaw wrote:

"What happend to you is clearly wrong. The legal system is far from perfect.

But this is the norm. Actually, I didn't get screwed quite so badly as I might have. A few weeks after, w/ one leg imobilized and hurting still, I got a call to go pick up a draft for almost $10k. So I did, and went directly to the bank with it. Next day, I get this call from the same clerk or scty or whomever she was. She says they made a mistake, they shouldn't have issued the draft and they'll get in big, big trouble if I don't take the money out of the bank, in cash and rush it over to them.

I may have been born at night, but not last night!

Quote
The law doesn't always work as intended.

When something I own fails to work this consistently for this long, I generally get rid of it and mark it up to experience. How much longer will it take in this case?

Quote
Hopefully in your case the judge made resitution a part of the sentencing order.

What sentencing order? Are you joking? The blood sample (drawn by the cop at the scene just to make sure it got done) spoiled. So badly did it spoil, they say, that one could not assess the level of alcohol.

After paying the surgeon (who, oddly, didn't get a slice of the $2k already paid for medical bills) I passed on the weekly therapy and, instead, got some dental work done, a halfway decent family vehicle and a trip to bring my kids to see my dad out in the sticks in WV. We didn't know it then, but next time I saw him he'd be dying and it would be the last time for my kids.

So, you tell me, would that cash of mine have been better spent fighting the good ole' boys? I don't think so.

Quote
In Fla if the driver casued you serious injury he would get some time if he had no insurance and no way to make restitution.  

He had insurance. Which meant that I couldn't, even if I wanted to, sue him. I'd have to go up against his insurance company. How helpful!

Quote
About the people not being able to afford insurance. There is no good answer. Cant let them drive without it. On the other hand they cant afford it. Kind of a "catch 22". Works both ways if they get in accident then they will want and be entitled to compensation. "


And people in hell want ice water. We're not getting it. Insurance is like Vegas; except for a rare fortunate few, no one ever wins against the house. Who would run an insurance company at a loss? Why would they?

As Jefferson said, "It is error alone that requires the support of goverment. The truth can stand on it's own."

Free commerce, the capitalist system, only works in a free market. The orange growers of Florida (AKA Tropicana/Coca~Cola) would have gone bust a long time ago, in competition w/ Brazil, had it not been for their having friends in high places in the USDOA and FLDOA (coincidence that Florida Prison Corp is heavily invested in groves, processing plants and patented consumer products manufactured by Johnson & Johnson? Ok.) If we let them fall, instead of spending many millions in public funding to prop them up, do you think that land would go fallow and all the grove and factory workers starve? Hell no, people would come up w/ better uses for that land. People are adaptable to changing conditions. Socialist governments are not.

They were making a profit selling a year's worth of car insurance to 16yo boys for somewhere around $100. Now that it's compulsory, the profit margin is not even a consideration. Everyone must buy, therefore the price is artificially high. Cars were cheaper then, of course. Thanks to all of Ralph Nadar's help, cars are now far more expensive to build. Do you really think it's the market squashing production or demand for cheaper, simpler, fuel efficient, fix it your self transportation? Are you nucking futs?

Offer that for sale in this valley and you'll be beatng eager prospective customers off with a stick. I know young men (especially, though girls too) who would gladly give you their left arm for that. It would be life changing. But, according to those kind, benevolent watchers of ours, more dangerous than raising a generation of kids in a world where good, honest working folk can't afford to get to work.

Yes, it is a catch 22. If I hadn't been forced to part with all those insurance premiums over all these years, I might be in a better position to cover any damage I may one day do to anyone. But between the mandated private spending and layer upon layer of taxation (to administer and teak and change and execute all of the help we're getting) we become too impoverished, too restricted to ever get around to anything more than just staying afloat.

I think we've had just about all the help we can stand. I want the Old Deal back, damn it!

To regard Christ as God, and to pray to him, are to my mind the greatest possible sacrilege.
--Leo Tolstoy, Russian revolutionary



_________________
Drug war POW
Straight, Sarasota
`80 - `82
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
"Don\'t let the past remind us of what we are not now."
~ Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Sweet Judy Blue Eyes

Offline Anonymous

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 164653
  • Karma: +3/-4
    • View Profile
aging seedlings on drug policy
« Reply #22 on: August 25, 2006, 08:48:42 PM »
i'll weigh in here..to ginger ::rocker::  to me, there 3guarantees of a free society, and they are  1)well amed  2)well educated  and 3) well informed    well armed is all that's left, and that not much longer.... i have a question..of course it's a rhetorical question, whaddya expect..is it mere co-incidence that the fbi was instituted to combat the rapid growth of organized crime, which grew from prohibition ? was it mere co-incidence that following repeal, the mann act was passed, and the nation awoke to the unrivalled horrors of marijuana addicts skulking through every alley in every town and that the nations youth were being exposed to jazz musicians,artists, negroes and worse? may i humbly recommend a book? title 'the soveriegn individual" published in 1997.. my opinion, a real earth shaker.. i am a conservative, which means that i find social engineers of the left as loathsome as those on the right. to fuellaw..if the government compels me by force to purchase from private industry, ie: insurance, is it not incumbent upon the government to compel that industry to provide the lowest cost?  if my choice is to either participate in a grand fraud or abandon the use of my private property (my car or boat or plane) and suffer economic dis-enfranchisement.. what choice is that?why is the insurance industry exempt from sherman anti-trust? re: medical costs and insurance..if insurance were not in collusion with gov't. and ama/pharmaceutical please tell me why so very many effective, safe and cheap therapies have been suppressed? (and no, that's not exaggeration, i can, if you're interested, supply example after example. benzodiazepam class drugs are an excellent one.. thnk you, one and all i've enjoyed the rant, and i hope i've properly bludgeoned you with fact.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Antigen

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 12992
  • Karma: +3/-0
    • View Profile
    • http://wwf.Fornits.com/
Aging Seedlings on drug policy
« Reply #23 on: August 30, 2006, 09:47:36 AM »
In answer to your question...
Quote from: ""H.L. Mencken, 1923""
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins; all of them imaginary.


" there 3guarantees of a free society, and they are 1)well amed 2)well educated and 3) well informed well armed is all that's left, and that not much longer...."

Here lately, I've been giving some dedicated thought to just exactlywhat it would take to attain that state of soverignty in which ya really don't have to give a flyin run at a rollin donut what happens in Timbucktu or Kalamazoo. Armament is only shorthand for what it really takes. So ya got a gun or three in the house. Good. You may need them one day. But do you know how to use it? Where do you get ammo? Have you really given enough thought to if and when you might take out another human, under what circumstances and how many bullets to reserve for provision of meat? And can you grow a garden that will actually feed your family, any guests who may drop in on you and the friend down the way who bet it all on proceeds from his berries last year and is rockin hang dawg as summer turns to fall? Do you have the kind of get along w/ ppl around your area who keep in practice w/ all the necessary arts and craft that make up provision of basic needs and are your good friends of a stripe and character to actually favor the common law of good society over the letter of the official law when the two come into conflict?

For example, it is illegal to employ yeast to produce ethanol for the purpose of fueling a motorized vehicle, unless and until you have met a patently impossible test of bureaucratic aptitude and expense. The common law and the laws of physics are pretty reasonable in this, but the official laws of the land are not. So, if you and your neighbors need fuel and the necessary alterations to your gasoline engines and machines in order to survive or to live well and independently, will yenz actually come to terms with that conflict and take the necessary steps to ensure provision of fuel in time for winter?

That's what I'm talkin about.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
"Don\'t let the past remind us of what we are not now."
~ Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Sweet Judy Blue Eyes

Offline Anonymous

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 164653
  • Karma: +3/-4
    • View Profile
aging seedlings on drug policy
« Reply #24 on: September 08, 2006, 05:04:52 PM »
dear ginger, dear heart.. yep, boy howdy you are something , and fierce.. of course arms are only the face of it, but they are  very impportant face of it..the largest question is HOW THEN SHALL WE LIVE? WHAT SHALL WE DO?" it seems to me that most people of decent resolve are simply out in the cold, that what i would call ordinary morality and courage, ie; the simple impulse to live quietly and well( i would sure as hell like to have you at my house, whereupon i would make a near perfect manhattan, and a far better than perfect pork roast.. so there! and furthermore ,for the menfolk, i can put an effective round at 250 yards, and i can charm a woman at about 5yards, although, not exactly a sober one.) i don't really know how we shall live, but we must. in what do we believe, finally?+
sean ross
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »