WoW! I got banned from FTL

[Jan]

Marijuana user offenders who are disabled obviously will not be the ones digging the holes, erecting the wall, et. al. All marijuana user offenders who are disabled, as well as all marijuana user offenders who do not live in a border state, will for their community service be assigned to special factories that will be built throughout the US (paid for by marijuana fines), in which the individual sections of the fence will be pre-made by the offenders. The disabled marijuana user offenders will get easy jobs that they can still do regardless of their disability, such as operating the machine that makes the razor wire. Those sorts of  machines are largely able to run themselves, so the actual task will probably consist of cutting off the razor wire whenever there is enough to cover the top of one section of fence, and then carrying it to the next workstation.

Here I go wasting more key strokes...but, really, I'm serious when I ask this...are you for real Luke S???   I'm tempted to head to Gambier/Mount Vernon Ohio and find you to see for myself.
You HAVE to be yanking our chains. 

[K. Darien Freeheart]

All marijuana user offenders who are disabled, as well as all marijuana user offenders who do not live in a border state, will for their community service be assigned to special factories that will be built throughout the US (paid for by marijuana fines), in which the individual sections of the fence will be pre-made by the offenders.

Oh. And of course George Washington's picture shouldn't be taken down. Owning slaves is far worse than growing marijuana

Why is owning slaves wrong? The idea of considering another human being to be inferior, and then using violence or the threat of violence to hold them against their will is something you'd consider wrong? Your posts on this forum have done nothing except express condemnation for others (Notice you don't even call them PEOPLE - they're 'marijuana user offenders' and not "people who smoke marijuana") and advocate that they should be forcibly put in labor camps. I see zero difference between a deep south slave picking cotton and your wall camps.

Here I go wasting more key strokes...but, really, I'm serious when I ask this...are you for real Luke S?

I don't think Luke is a troll, I think he really believe what he says.

I believe Luke is just really really bad at playing the devil's advocate. It's a debate tactic I like to personally use, and I've seen others try to immitate it and they come off as pompous asses. Luke's ability to toss out things that are directly contrary to the ideas of liberty makes it clear he gets it. Either he's actually HOSTILE to liberty and knows it OR he's tossing off his own doubts as "devil's advocate" as a way to grok the logic. Most people I chat with ask me about taxes and when I explain it say "Wow, I've never realized taxes are force!". I have, however, had the occasional person who, once makes the connection between taxes and force, actually says "Oh, wow. Okay, I guess I need to change my answer - I DO think certain uses of force are okay." Most people simply won't admit it but there ARE people who think their goals warrant the use of force.

[Luke S]

Marijuana user offenders who are disabled obviously will not be the ones digging the holes, erecting the wall, et. al. All marijuana user offenders who are disabled, as well as all marijuana user offenders who do not live in a border state, will for their community service be assigned to special factories that will be built throughout the US (paid for by marijuana fines), in which the individual sections of the fence will be pre-made by the offenders. The disabled marijuana user offenders will get easy jobs that they can still do regardless of their disability, such as operating the machine that makes the razor wire. Those sorts of  machines are largely able to run themselves, so the actual task will probably consist of cutting off the razor wire whenever there is enough to cover the top of one section of fence, and then carrying it to the next workstation.

Here I go wasting more key strokes...but, really, I'm serious when I ask this...are you for real Luke S???   I'm tempted to head to Gambier/Mount Vernon Ohio and find you to see for myself.
You HAVE to be yanking our chains. 

I can confirm to you that I am not yanking your chain. I have held these beliefs for a long time. I mean, I only came up with the marijuana user-wall builder-community service punishment idea a couple months ago, but I've always held the views that the border wall is an excellent idea that needs to be built as fast as possible, and that marijuana criminals are scum who deserve harsh punishment, so I'm not just saying what I'm saying to yank your chains, this is what I really believe.

[Dylboz]

Scum? Why? What possible logical reason, that is not an opinion unrelated to the use and effects of the drug, could you have for this position? And how then does that justify their enslavement? You are a slaver, you realize this, don't you? You are saying that by virtue of smoking a joint, a person forfeits enough of their humanity to then be subject to forcible labor and a total loss of liberty.

Just because you have held a belief for a long time doesn't make it correct. The U.S. government has been engaged in the drug war for over 30 years, and it is, was and always will be an abject failure, as well as a human rights disaster and completely immoral.

I ask again, what is immoral about smoking marijuana? The act, and it's effects, specifically. This is not about their culture or their politics or anything else, I am asking what about smoking a joint is wrong. And if there is nothing immoral about it (which, there isn't) then how is it moral to arbitrarily subject these people who have hurt no one, to enslavement, imprisonment and in many cases, lack of access to the most effective medicine available for their conditions, on the sole basis that you think they are "scum?"

[Luke S]

All marijuana user offenders who are disabled, as well as all marijuana user offenders who do not live in a border state, will for their community service be assigned to special factories that will be built throughout the US (paid for by marijuana fines), in which the individual sections of the fence will be pre-made by the offenders.

Oh. And of course George Washington's picture shouldn't be taken down. Owning slaves is far worse than growing marijuana

Why is owning slaves wrong? The idea of considering another human being to be inferior, and then using violence or the threat of violence to hold them against their will is something you'd consider wrong? Your posts on this forum have done nothing except express condemnation for others (Notice you don't even call them PEOPLE - they're 'marijuana user offenders' and not "people show smoke marijuana") and advocate that they should be forcibly put in labor camps. I see zero difference between a deep south slave picking cotton and your wall camps.

It's not labor camps. It's community service. They'll show up maybe 15 hours a week or something like that at these factories which will be built throughout the US and build sections of the wall if they don't live in a border state, and if they do live in a border state, they'll work 15 hours a week erecting that wall. For the rest of the time, they'll just live wherever they live.

Here I go wasting more key strokes...but, really, I'm serious when I ask this...are you for real Luke S?

I don't think Luke is a troll, I think he really believe what he says.

I believe Luke is just really really bad at playing the devil's advocate. It's a debate tactic I like to personally use, and I've seen others try to immitate it and they come off as pompous asses. Luke's ability to toss out things that are directly contrary to the ideas of liberty makes it clear he gets it. Either he's actually HOSTILE to liberty and knows it OR he's tossing off his own doubts as "devil's advocate" as a way to grok the logic. Most people I chat with ask me about taxes and when I explain it say "Wow, I've never realized taxes are force!". I have, however, had the occasional person who, once makes the connection between taxes and force, actually says "Oh, wow. Okay, I guess I need to change my answer - I DO think certain uses of force are okay." Most people simply won't admit it but there ARE people who think their goals warrant the use of force.

I swear to God I'm not playing devil's advocate or anything like that. I really do believe that marijuana criminals and other drug criminals are scum who need to be punished. As I've said before, I don't think freedom means free-for-all. There are restrictions, and people who violate those restrictions must be punished.

[Luke S]

Scum? Why? What possible logical reason, that is not an opinion unrelated to the use and effects of the drug, could you have for this position? And how then does that justify their enslavement? You are a slaver, you realize this, don't you? You are saying that by virtue of smoking a joint, a person forfeits enough of their humanity to then be subject to forcible labor and a total loss of liberty.

Just because you have held a belief for a long time doesn't make it correct. The U.S. government has been engaged in the drug war for over 30 years, and it is, was and always will be an abject failure, as well as a human rights disaster and completely immoral.

I ask again, what is immoral about smoking marijuana? The act, and it's effects, specifically. This is not about their culture or their politics or anything else, I am asking what about smoking a joint is wrong. And if there is nothing immoral about it (which, there isn't) then how is it moral to arbitrarily subject these people who have hurt no one, to enslavement, imprisonment and in many cases, lack of access to the most effective medicine available for their conditions, on the sole basis that you think they are "scum?"

I've already explained.

I believe that freedom comes from the fact that we are rational adults who are able to take personal responsibility for the consequences of our free choices. Drugs by their very nature take away our ability to know right from wrong, and therefore take away our ability to take personal responsibility for our actions.

Once I've ingested a drug, because I know longer know the difference between right and wrong, I'm not able to make responsible choices . Because my ability to make responsible choices has been taken away by the drug, I'm not able to take responsibility for my actions while on the drug, and thus I have no right to ingest the drug in the first place, unless I'm under the supervision of medical professionals who know what they're doing, and I'm in a dentist's office or in the hospital.

So I'm absolutely not advocating freedom just for me and not for anyone else. I'm advocating freedom for everyone so long as they have the ability to take responsibility for their actions.

[K. Darien Freeheart]

It's not labor camps. It's community service.

If it's "community" service, why aren't all members of the community (yourself included) required to be there? How are the marijuana smoking members of that same community being benefited by this community service?

They'll show up maybe 15 hours a week or something like that at these factories which will be built throughout the US and build sections of the wall if they don't live in a border state, and if they do live in a border state, they'll work 15 hours a week erecting that wall.

And if they don't show up, what happens? If they choose not to show up are they absolved of the debt you claim they own, and free to go along their way without being further deprived of life, liberty and property?

I really do believe that marijuana criminals and other drug criminals are scum who need to be punished.

And you believe it is acceptable to use force to do that punishing, correct? Jail (or servitude at the THREAT of jail) is force.

There are restrictions, and people who violate those restrictions must be punished.

What prevents some person or group of people in the future  from sending you to jail or shooting you for being what THEY consider "scum". You think marijuana users are scum and the people on this forum think you are. If the tables were turned, and you were jailed for narcing on non-violent people, what would make our actions okay?

How are you free to live your life if there's the threat that at some point, the people making decisions on "who should be punished" might target you? What is freedom if not for the security that this can't happen?

[Dylboz]

I'm new here.

I believe that freedom comes from the fact that we are rational adults who are able to take personal responsibility for the consequences of our free choices. Drugs by their very nature take away our ability to know right from wrong, and therefore take away our ability to take personal responsibility for our actions.

Once I've ingested a drug, because I know longer know the difference between right and wrong, I'm not able to make responsible choices . Because my ability to make responsible choices has been taken away by the drug, I'm not able to take responsibility for my actions while on the drug, and thus I have no right to ingest the drug in the first place, unless I'm under the supervision of medical professionals who know what they're doing, and I'm in a dentist's office or in the hospital.

So I'm absolutely not advocating freedom just for me and not for anyone else. I'm advocating freedom for everyone so long as they have the ability to take responsibility for their actions.

This is absolutely untrue. It is a fantasy. For an example, I take drugs every single day. Hard drugs. Oxycodone is chemically almost the same as heroin, and I ingest it into the hundreds of milligrams every day. Sure, it's under a doctor's supervision, if writing a prescription once a month is supervision. Yet, I am responsible, I come to work every day (I even drive!), I do my job, I do not commit crimes, and I have never hurt anyone while under the influence of the drugs I take. I can certainly guarantee you, I have never lost the ability to judge what is fundamentally right or wrong.

There is a big logical fallacy in your argument, in that if a person who uses drugs never takes an action that effects anyone but themselves, they have never done anything that merits your consideration. You are criminalizing what you perceive to be an increased potential or likelihood to commit a crime or make irresponsible choices. Yet, you can never eliminate either from society, since you can never know for sure what, exactly, motivates a person to do those things. What you can do, is hold them accountable for those actions, and those actions alone, that harm others, and only WHEN THEY OCCUR. Everything else is NONE OF YOU BUSINESS.

Pot smokers who sit at home and play video games and eat Doritos are none of you business, because in doing so, they have never made a choice or committed an act that could even fall into the categories of "right or wrong" that you are so concerned with.

Drugs alter, temporarily, your perceptions of time and space, they effect motor control, and sometimes lower your inhibitions. The drug has yet to be invented that changes one's fundamental morality, and thank goodness it hasn't. What you believe about drugs is pure propaganda, and it is just not true. It is a religious belief, not fit to be backed with violence. I can tell you exactly who shares it though.

Jihadi Fundamentalist Muslims. Is that the company you wish to keep?

You know who else thinks things like that? Rabid anti-gun lefties. They think the mere presence of a gun makes you more likely to kill or use it in a crime, as if the gun negatively affects your state of mind and changes your perception of right and wrong. Still like your new friends?

You might want to put aside your distaste for people altering their perception of reality, and separate their actions from their blood chemistry. We should hold people accountable when they do something that hurts someone else, no matter what they were on at the time, even if it was just adrenaline and anger, because that is all that matters. In fact, your position actually diminishes personal responsibility, by claiming that drugs relieve people of their morality. If you really believe that, then you could not punish them for the crimes they committed while high, because they don't know any better. They are victims as much as those they hurt. Your position just doesn't make any sense.

/troll food

[Tom Sawyer]

The ignorant fear and hatred of cannabis users is plain and simple, bigotry.

[Caleb]

Marijuana user offenders who are disabled obviously will not be the ones digging the holes, erecting the wall, et. al. All marijuana user offenders who are disabled, as well as all marijuana user offenders who do not live in a border state, will for their community service be assigned to special factories that will be built throughout the US (paid for by marijuana fines), in which the individual sections of the fence will be pre-made by the offenders. The disabled marijuana user offenders will get easy jobs that they can still do regardless of their disability, such as operating the machine that makes the razor wire. Those sorts of  machines are largely able to run themselves, so the actual task will probably consist of cutting off the razor wire whenever there is enough to cover the top of one section of fence, and then carrying it to the next workstation.

If you work hard, we will eventually set you free.

I think I've heard of this somewhere.

[Caleb]

I have no idea why I continue to play along with this guy, who thinks that me and my friends are "scum" (to quote him).

But here goes. Maybe I'll use questions instead of statements and see if that works.

1)  Are you aware of any difference between a moral imperative and a law? If so, please explain.

2) What should a person do if he believes a law to be unjust?  Is it possible for a law to be unjust? If so, please explain how a person should judge.

3) Are there cases where laws ought to be defied? Also, since by definition a person who is rebelling against a law that he perceives to be unjust will be in conflict with the law, please explain what the moral options are for a person serving in a position of authority when he encounters a person who is rebelling for the sake of conscience.

4) In America, there is a Constitution that was adopted by the States and the rich, white, old, male, pot-smoking scum who voted for it at the time. Some countries, however, (such as England) do not have a written constitution. On what principle should their laws be based?  Is your answer based on a set of moral absolutes? If so, please explain why these same moral absolutes do not apply here in America. If your answer is not based on a set of moral absolutes, please justify it.

5) Do you believe that a group of people, pooling resources and acting together, can acquire rights that none of them possess? For instance, I don't personally have the right to murder you. Can I get together with a million of my closest friends and somehow acquire this right?  If so, please explain the mechanism and process by which these extra rights are acquired.

6) Imagine a scenario in which you walk by my home, and observe me peacefully smoking pot with several of my friends. Doritos are also present. My friends are engaged in a pleasant discussion about peanut butter.  Using only moral arguments (no legal arguments permitted), please explain how you acquire the right to enter my home and subject me to violence.

[Free libertarian]

 Luke if pot were somehow no longer illegal, would your prisoners uh "community service workers"
be released from their debt to society?

  Would you have other offenders working there too? You know drunk drivers, petty thieves, crooked
  cops and others?  What if you built this "factory" just for Pot smokers and suddenly nobody smoked pot anymore, thus ending your labor supply and the fence was only half finished...would you then begin to incarcerate nail biters, people with bad breath or dandruff? Obesity?  The "unemployed" ?
 
Are there any exceptions to your rule that pot smokers should do "community service"? Can you think of any redeeming quailties a pot smoker might have or all they all bad?

What if a pot smoking single mom has a pack of kids, no relatives and a broken down car, send her off to hitch hike to your factory? Turn on the cartoons and open a box of cookies for the kids and off she goes?  Will you have society pay to watch her kids while she's working at your factory? Say she's one of those hot single moms, you know the kind with a penchant for tight clothing? 
Should she wear special baggy clothes so her attractiveness won't arouse the dufus guards who will man your prison camp?   Or will your guards be neutered anonomous henchman types?  You will have dufus guards won't you ? I mean the TSA can't hire them all! Who will make the lazy pot smokers meet their quotas? 

Will your community service workers be strip searched on there way into your factory? Can't have them smuggling weed into the factory can we?  Okay, now the hot single mom is a few years older say 39 and her 15 year old grand daughter gets nailed for pot...do we send a minor to your factory?  Since the 15 year  old is a minor do we have Catholic nuns strip search her on the way in to your factory to ensure her safety? 

Should we have the "thought police" scan your brain to ensure you are staying on the pot smoker topic and not drifting off to other more illicit carnal thoughts? Oh wait a minute a thought isn't a crime (yet)... why? Because it's just a thought, there is no victim, right?  So do you think we should control and prosecute "victimless crimes"? Or "thought crimes" ?

What would you do to a pot smoker who declined "community service" ? Would you arrest them and incarcerate them? Do you think federal laws where a persons assets can be seized if they're involved in "drug related" crimes are just?  Do you think if a judge were busted for driving under the influence  the state should seize his house too?
What about cops? Should they go to your factory or do they go to special cop prisons?   
 
Do you recieve any scholarships, loans or grants to attend college?  If you are late for a loan payment, would you be willing to work in "Lukes factory"? 


... and finally what if it's a hot single mom who happens to be a cop, who's grandfather is a judge and she never paid back her school loans causing a downward spiral in her life to wearing tight shirts, smoking pot and fantasizing about hot sex with "freedom loving" trolls from Ohio is in a wheel chair because she was clipped by a mack truck with NHFREE on the license plate while hitchhiking on her way to your factory...oh shit where was I going with this?  Toke, toke, bubble bubble (sound of a bong hit) okay Luke you win, I lost my train of thought, what time do I uh report to your factory?
 

[Lloyd Danforth]

Damn!  After inbibing  copious amounts of booze 'till almost midnight you're hitting the pipe before 7am!

You're my hero!

[Luke S]

I have no idea why I continue to play along with this guy, who thinks that me and my friends are "scum" (to quote him).

But here goes. Maybe I'll use questions instead of statements and see if that works.

1)  Are you aware of any difference between a moral imperative and a law? If so, please explain.

Moral imperatives are imperatives which differ based upon which moral system that you subscribe to. Legal imperatives, or laws, are imperatives which differ based upon which country or state or locality you live in.

2) What should a person do if he believes a law to be unjust?  Is it possible for a law to be unjust? If so, please explain how a person should judge.

A law is unjust if it is in conflict with a higher law. For example, the puppet show law that Dave Ridley is going to break when he gets better from being sick is an unjust law, because puppet shows are protected by freedom of speech, just like movies are protected by freedom of speech. And the fact that he's getting paid for the puppet show doesn't take away his free speech protection, so the law is an unjust law.

The Michigan "no men seducing women" law that I was talking about earlier in another thread is an unjust law because it violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution, since it only makes it illegal for men to seduce women, and doesn't make it illegal for women to seduce men.

The Ohio "no killing flies within 160 feet of a church" law that I was talking about earlier on another thread is also an unjust law, since it violates the Establishment clause of the Constitution, because it only criminalizes killing flies next to churches. Not synagogues, not mosques, not anything else. That amounts to giving Christianity special protections that are not afforded to other religions, which violates the Establishment clause.

3) Are there cases where laws ought to be defied? Also, since by definition a person who is rebelling against a law that he perceives to be unjust will be in conflict with the law, please explain what the moral options are for a person serving in a position of authority when he encounters a person who is rebelling for the sake of conscience.

A law can be defied when it is an unjust law, as explained in #2. If someone is aggrieved by an unjust law, then they should defy that law.

Those in authority should listen to the arguments of breakers of unjust laws when explaining why the law is unjust. If the breaker of the law is correct that the law violates a higher law, then the unjust law should be struck down, and the breaker should be set free.

For example, there used to be a law in Michigan (which was often listed in Dumb Law joke books and websites) which made it illegal to swear in front of women and children. In 2004 or thereabouts, a man was canoeing on Lake Michigan, and his canoe tipped over, and he got all wet, and he got very, very angry and cursed continually for an hour and a half. The police heard him cursing, and wanted to punish him for something, so they fined him $150 alleging that women and children had heard him cursing, so he had broken the no cursing in front of women and children law.

Now my father and I argued about this because my father thought this was just punishment, but I had known about this law even before this incident, and I thought it restricted freedom of speech, and thus I thought the man's punishment was unjust punishment.

Anyway, the man went to court and argued against his fine, citing that the law was against both the First Amendment protection of free speech, and against the Equal Protection clause since the law protected women and children from swearing, but not men. The court ruled against the law and in favor of the man, and either at that time or shortly thereafter, the law was struck from the Michigan lawbooks.

4) In America, there is a Constitution that was adopted by the States and the rich, white, old, male, pot-smoking scum who voted for it at the time. Some countries, however, (such as England) do not have a written constitution. On what principle should their laws be based?  Is your answer based on a set of moral absolutes? If so, please explain why these same moral absolutes do not apply here in America. If your answer is not based on a set of moral absolutes, please justify it.

I'm not able to answer that question because it took me a long time to learn (at least some of) the ins and outs of American law. I don't know the ins and outs of other countries' laws at all, so I can't answer that question.

5) Do you believe that a group of people, pooling resources and acting together, can acquire rights that none of them possess? For instance, I don't personally have the right to murder you. Can I get together with a million of my closest friends and somehow acquire this right?  If so, please explain the mechanism and process by which these extra rights are acquired.

No I don't believe that.

6) Imagine a scenario in which you walk by my home, and observe me peacefully smoking pot with several of my friends. Doritos are also present. My friends are engaged in a pleasant discussion about peanut butter.  Using only moral arguments (no legal arguments permitted), please explain how you acquire the right to enter my home and subject me to violence.

I wouldn't do that, because I am not a police officer. And I couldn't make a citizen's arrest* either because I'm not a citizen of New Hampshire. So the answer is that I don't acquire that right. Only a citizen of New Hampshire making a citizen's arrest or a New Hampshire police officer would have that right.

*Note: Even if I were a NH citizen, I would not make a citizens' arrest on you or anyone else for doing this. I believe that a good rule of thumb for citizens' arrests is they should only be made if you are witnessing either a theft or a violent crime. Other arrests should be left up to the police.

[Luke S]

I have no idea why I continue to play along with this guy, who thinks that me and my friends are "scum" (to quote him).

Caleb, I wholehartedly apologize to you and everyone here for calling you and your friends "scum".

Usually when I debate with people about this issue, the "for" side is not composed of marijuana smokers, but people who are arguing on the "for" side from a purely academic and philosophical point of view, so in most debates, I am able to say "marijuana users are scum" without attacking any parties in the debate. I had momentarily forgotten that that is not the case in this situation.

Although I do not agree with what you all are doing, that does not make it acceptable for me to call names, and for that I am sorry.