This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I'm glad someone else has looked into the Maoist answer to the drug problem. The problem in America at this point is not only do we believe in Democracy, but the Democratic voters paralyze and any decision-making process allowing us to actually begin to answer the problem. Only the wokest policies are able to pass as we blindly virtue-signal the country to oblivion.
The drug problem will not be delt with until we close our southern border -Trump was right, deploy the army, shoot at any illegal trying to enter the country. This won't work as I'm sure firing into Mexico would cause some international treaties to be broken, but the paralysis at every level in US Cities is becoming untenable.
I'd argue US drug policy is not "woke" at all - in fact, this is one of the rarest case where I'd like it to be closer to what the wokes think. I mean, we still have marijuana as Schedule I federally. There's no substantial distinction between highly addictive and non-addictive drugs. The whole policy is a mishmash of nonsensical historical baggage and moral panic. And the population is largely OK with it because they don't care - they aren't drug users (unless they're ill and need strong painkillers, in which case sucks to be you) and drug users look ugly, so just put the boot on their faces and be done with it.
As for the idea that totalitarianism can stop drugs - I'd propose you a question - did USSR have drug addicts? If you research this question, you may find that your faith in the effectiveness of totalitarian regimes in suppressing problems like drug abuse would be substantially eroded.
This strikes me as a highly misinformed take on the state of American drug laws. Theoretically, sure, marijuana is still a schedule I drug. In practice, there are open smoking areas in every city for marijuana. And harder drugs too. The people actually incarcerated for drugs are almost universally dealers who have engaged in an act other than mere drug dealing. The average amount a person was caught with in the US was something like 100 kg. The non-violent imprisoned drug dealer is so rare as to be a rounding error.
Because when you fighting something for 50 years and there's no sight of winning, at some point the third generation into it stops taking it seriously. I mean, if it's ok for The President to smoke it (and yes, he inhaled) why it's not ok for anybody else?
"Dealers" is a very flexible term. In fact, it's not a legal term at all - IIRC the legal description is "possession with intent to distribute". From what I understand, "intent to distribute" may be as much as having a couple of bags of weed in your pocket while being in area where drugs are routinely sold (how else would you get those into your pocket - it's not like you can have Uber deliver it to you, at least not in prohibition places). And since like 95% of cases never see the trial, how many of those "dealers" were actual dealers and how many were just druggies caught with their weekly stash - anybody's guess?
this: https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/dofp12.pdf says 52% of inmates are in for drug offenses and only 4.8% for violent offenses. If everybody who is in jail for drugs were convicted of violent crimes, I don't think there would be 10x difference. In fact, 44% of marijuana convicts and 48% of cocaine convicts have no previous criminal history.
This is a quirk that is the result of plea bargains. Possession crimes are impossible to beat without a 4th amendment violation so everyone cops to that and gets the other stuff dropped. Or its not even charged in the first place because the cops just picked up a bunch of people fleeing a crime scene and don't have the time to bother.
To the extent that actual mere possessors are picked up, unfortunately they tend to be from wealthier super-safe suburbanites who do live in a bit of a police state due to the problem of the efforts required to avoid urban spillover.
That very well may be the case, but in this case I don't think we have much basis for the claim that all of them were violent dealers? I mean, just fleeing doesn't really give us enough data to make such a conclusion, does it?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link