Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => The Coffee Corner => Topic started by: Rob C on July 05, 2018, 08:20:16 am
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Not sure whether to post this in the jokes slot or here, but it probably makes little difference.
Tv news informs me that the Rio Grande is drying up because of poor snow production in Colorado. I wondered if this could present an opportunity for some security-on-the-cheap, as it were. Rather than spend money building walls and, as collateral damage, ugly visual scenics, why not take advantage of nature's new, dry gift - bounty, some would say - and work the other way around: excavate!
At a stroke, this would accomplish several things, amongst which would be work for those diggers that I suppose Caterpillar will be happy to supply, and possibly go into overtime to meet production for more, thus helping the American engineering business, and, coincidentally, reducing the pressure on the arms industry to produce more, and the NRA to wear itself out with stressful and sometimes unpopular promotional events. At the same time it would present Mr T with an opportunity to mend fences with France by engaging Lafarge to provide the cement for the new, now deeper fortified sides to the old river, as the firm has gained much valuable experience in desert work in the Middle East. Then, in the unlikely event that global heating is actually a myth, unexpected rainfall some years from now would surge through the remodelled river bed, creating a wonderful, unrestricted and nature-aided method of environmental cleansing. With sufficient foresight, turbines could be fitted as a means to generate more electrical power...
As side-benefit, the excavated earth would be easily processed for gold and other metals and minerals, making this an amazingly productive exercise all round. There's a new head honcho in Mexico, and I'm sure full cooperation is but a request and/or "business arrangement" away!
What's to lose, unless you like walls per se?
Rob
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Why would you think of putting this in the jokes slot? The idea might only be a couple of adjectives and adverbs away from being public policy these days, especially if you can shorten it to 140 characters. Or is it 280 nowadays, I forget. If you're trying to out-crazy Mr. T, you're taking on a big challenge, better eat your Wheaties.
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Why would you think of putting this in the jokes slot? The idea might only be a couple of adjectives and adverbs away from being public policy these days, especially if you can shorten it to 140 characters. Or is it 280 nowadays, I forget. If you're trying to out-crazy Mr. T, you're taking on a big challenge, better eat your Wheaties.
Indeed. Yet very little of what Mr. T. pronounces is taken seriously. But, because he is the main attraction in the circus we are euphemistically calling "federal government," his popularity does reap the benefits of venality (Exhibit A: Scott Pruitt.) So never underestimate the depths humans will sink to for money, power and fame. Is a trench instead of a wall a joke? Follow the money. Always.
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This might work. It depends on whether we could entice enough Mexican construction workers to cross the border to do the work.
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Indeed. Yet very little of what Mr. T. pronounces is taken seriously. But, because he is the main attraction in the circus we are euphemistically calling "federal government," his popularity does reap the benefits of venality (Exhibit A: Scott Pruitt.) So never underestimate the depths humans will sink to for money, power and fame. Is a trench instead of a wall a joke? Follow the money. Always.
Pruitt resigned. Well, I'm sure Trump pushed him out.
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This might work. It depends on whether we could entice enough Mexican construction workers to cross the border to do the work.
Are you crazy? The objective is to provide and protect American jobs and provide a fresh rapprochement with a somewhat miffed M. Poirot Macron!
Using foreign labour would represent the same admission as the British health service is having to face, where about 8% of staff is/has been foreign; I learned that the service is the fourth largest employer in the world. Recruitment of trained nursing staff from Spain has shrunk to the equivalent of zero.
The answer is going to be found in the cars. And aircraft component production or, rather, the losing of. There are those who felt smug when they believed only the bankers and stockbrokers would suffer. Social justice does run eccentric and often suicidal; but hey, we stand alone, don't you know?
Fun days ahead, if you are retired and rich! I'm half-way there!
Rob
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Maybe he could just declare the wall to be finished. Who'd know? Even if the biased media reported that there actually was no wall, no one would believe fake news like that. They might publish photos of the non-wall, and people on web site forums could argue about whether photos lie.
Are we in a movie?
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Using foreign labour would represent the same admission as the British health service is having to face, where about 8% of staff is/has been foreign
What a pathetic piddling percentage! No wonder I hear so many complaints from British acquaintances about the NHS. I suspect Brexit may make things worse, but no doubt Boris will be able to cook up a brilliant solution.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand, I read somewhere (University of Texas study, if memory serves) that fully half of the construction workers in Texas are "undocumented"—i.e., they entered without inspection (snuck across the border) or entered legally but are not authorized to work in the United States.
During a visit to Mexico last year—which happened to coincide with the inauguration back in Washington of el señor Loco (photo below)—I spoke with four young men, a cab driver and three waiters, who had recently spent time in the States working construction. Not an enormous sample, to be sure, but it represented the only four men of the appropriate age to do heavy labo(u)r with whom I was able to strike up extended conversations. As far as I could tell, they all crossed the border legally. (But who can say?) Three, apparently, used tourist visas. The fourth had a multiple-entry visa, and his last construction job—six months, I think he told me—had provided him with enough money to finish a university degree in psychology at a Mexican university. He was waiting tables to accumulate enough money to continue his studies until he could determine whether it was safe to cross the border again to get another construction job. He didn't seem overly worried about Trump, per se, but he knew Obama had cracked down on illegal immigration and he didn't want to risk his visa status.
It isn't just Texas. My wife and I built a house a few years ago in a small Maryland city on the eastern coast of the United States, not far from Washington, D.C., and the overwhelming majority of the workers—in all the construction trades—were hispanohablantes. Mostly central Americans, I suspect, and probably the majority of them were working here legally. (But who can say?) I don't think we have a lot of Mexican immigrant labo(u)rers in suburban Maryland, and the South American immigrants and visitors around here mostly seem to be professionals; however, my Spanish isn't good enough to detect regional accents.
We've always been dependent on recent arrivals from elsewhere to do the heavy-lifting in the United States. The Irish, Germans, Chinese, Italians, Poles, Greeks, Indians, Pakistanis, Iranians, and immigrants from various Arab countries—and don't forget the Jews from all over Europe who made the United States the world's foremost contributor to modern science.
So we really need to maintain the immigrant flow. Because after a couple of generations, the descendants of the new arrivals become as unmotivated and lazy as those of us whose ancestors came here centuries ago.
That's the miracle of America.
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Why would you think of putting this in the jokes slot? The idea might only be a couple of adjectives and adverbs away from being public policy these days, especially if you can shorten it to 140 characters. Or is it 280 nowadays, I forget. If you're trying to out-crazy Mr. T, you're taking on a big challenge, better eat your Wheaties.
So, what is your solution to enforcing border policy, and protecting the very poorest American citizens from having to compete with low skilled, poorly educated flooding the country? Mine is to try to stabilize the countries most are fleeing, helping their governments provide safety, and sentencing American drug users to do edifying work for 6-12 months in those poorest countries that their drug habits are destroying. And, redo immigration laws so skilled people can come, as needed, without paying organized criminals in Mexico. If they still come illegally, they are immediately sent back same day. I've seen no poll that shows Americans are in favor of millions coming here illegally. That's the part that Trump got right.
Kent in SD
Kent in SD
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Dems don't want a wall. They want an autowalk (preferably air-conditioned).
Flooding the U.S. with socialist migrants from Latin America is the Democrat Party's ace up the sleeve.
Time is on the Democrats' side. The Trump movement is pro tempore.
(https://us.123rf.com/450wm/jocker17/jocker171802/jocker17180200033/95120056-airport-terminal-hi-tech-walkway-motion-blur-effect-time-concept.jpg?ver=6)
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Flooding the U.S. with socialist migrants from Latin America is the Democrat Party's ace up the sleeve.
Actually, the we don't need to have immigrants come into the US (legal or illegal) since white America is doing a fine job of killing itself off all by themselves...
Fewer Births Than Deaths Among Whites in Majority of U.S. States (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/us/white-minority-population.html)
WASHINGTON — Deaths now outnumber births among white people in more than half the states in the country, demographers have found, signaling what could be a faster-than-expected transition to a future in which whites are no longer a majority of the American population.
The Census Bureau has projected that whites could drop below 50 percent of the population around 2045, a relatively slow-moving change that has been years in the making. But a new report this week found that whites are dying faster than they are being born now in 26 states, up from 17 just two years earlier, and demographers say that shift might come even sooner.
In addition to an aging white population with declining birth rate, the mortality rates have shot up due to drug overdoses, alcoholism and suicides in the white population–particularly in rural areas of the country.
So, ya see, all ya gotta do is wait...
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So, what is your solution to enforcing border policy, and protecting the very poorest American citizens from having to compete with low skilled, poorly educated flooding the country? Mine is to try to stabilize the countries most are fleeing, helping their governments provide safety, and sentencing American drug users to do edifying work for 6-12 months in those poorest countries that their drug habits are destroying. And, redo immigration laws so skilled people can come, as needed, without paying organized criminals in Mexico. If they still come illegally, they are immediately sent back same day. I've seen no poll that shows Americans are in favor of millions coming here illegally. That's the part that Trump got right.
At the risk of helping a thread to become a bit more serious than the OP probably intended, I have to respond by saying I have no solution for you, not being an American. I understand completely the need and desire to control borders, you have to know who is coming into your country. (I take as hyperbole the cute little asides about how the evil Dems just want to open the floodgates. That is, I take those comments for what they are, but not as statements of fact.)
Having said that, the level of paranoia about undocumented immigrants seems too intense to me, a bit exaggerated. It's not your biggest problem. The estimates that I saw (13 million illegals from south of the border) are not that many people really, considering that they seem to mostly working, eating and paying rent, which BY DEFINITION, makes them part of the economy. But if they are displacing American workers, as you say, then I have to ask, why aren't those Americans filling out the application forms for the jobs then? And why aren't those American employers hiring them instead?
If there are that many in the country and if they are participating in the economy to that extent, that doesn't happen by accident. There's more happening here that simple solutions, like building an expensive wall, can fix.
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Hi Robert, according to this morning's paper your PM just said he'll take 'em all off our hands, so I guess you'll soon have a chance to see whether or not paranoia is an appropriate reaction.
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At the risk of helping a thread to become a bit more serious than the OP probably intended, I have to respond by saying I have no solution for you, not being an American. I understand completely the need and desire to control borders, you have to know who is coming into your country. (I take as hyperbole the cute little asides about how the evil Dems just want to open the floodgates. That is, I take those comments for what they are, but not as statements of fact.)
Having said that, the level of paranoia about undocumented immigrants seems too intense to me, a bit exaggerated. It's not your biggest problem. The estimates that I saw (13 million illegals from south of the border) are not that many people really, considering that they seem to mostly working, eating and paying rent, which BY DEFINITION, makes them part of the economy. But if they are displacing American workers, as you say, then I have to ask, why aren't those Americans filling out the application forms for the jobs then? And why aren't those American employers hiring them instead?
If there are that many in the country and if they are participating in the economy to that extent, that doesn't happen by accident. There's more happening here that simple solutions, like building an expensive wall, can fix.
Cheap labour. It's irresistible to some employers. In fact, it also helps some consumers because otherwise, without some form of subsidy, the product would often cost more than its value to them. We have the same thing in Europe with migrants, possibly legal, working for money that some Brits find less attractive than unemployment benefits. Farming comes to mind, especially at picking time. Do you want to sell that pretty fruit or do you want it to rot?
Don't even blame the farmers a hundred percent: they, in their turn, get screwed by the supermarkets via the usual sin of bulk-buying, which I have touched upon previously with regard to its effect on the small photographic shops.
It's going to end up the same with the shift to Internet buying instead of buying in a local shop or, ironically enough, supermarket. Banks are playing too, closing down real banks where you can discuss your needs, with replacement, online traps where leaks and mistakes can cause you harm you would otherwise have avoided.
The drive to eliminate the value of people is remorseless; only people can stop it if they pause and think who's going to be next on the unemployment parade. You know, ask not for whom the bell tolls.
Rob
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I think its interesting that our regular European posters who usually knock America are absent here probably because their immigration policies are more provincial and much less open to immigration. However, America is an immigrant nation. Most Americans want immigrants, just that the process should be controlled and legal. Immigrants have tripled in percentage from 4.7% to 13.5% of the population, a huge portion from Latin American which is why Democrats want the trend to continue and are opposed to the wall and stopping illegals. Latinos vote for Democrats who look to control American politics in the future. That's why they are so opposed to any border controls, oppose ICE, want no removals from America back to their own country. Most of all they want them legalized so they can vote. For Democrats.
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Hi Robert, according to this morning's paper your PM just said he'll take 'em all off our hands, so I guess you'll soon have a chance to see whether or not paranoia is an appropriate reaction.
I was watching france24.com this evening, and the Friday chat show with journalists touched upon the current migrant problem in Europe. There was a huge amount of fudging going down, with arguments for and against the migrants being accepted, but not one person mentioned the real fear, which is not competition for employment: the indigenous folks simply do not desire to be blended with other races and religious beliefs. That's the bottom line, the real problem that is being faced in private but fudged in public. Truth is the first fatality in war, and this is a war of race and religion. It's why we have a rising far-right these days - there are no other avenues for protest at what is happening. People do know about relative birth rates, and the maths are not too demanding; who wants to become the eventual minority's in his own land?
Why do governments and parties try to pretend it is not thus? Votes today will not be votes tomorrow when the demographic is turned on its head; the votes you try to buy today will bite your ass later on in the game when the numbers have made your ideas of democracy irrelevant.
Rob
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I think its interesting that our regular European posters who usually knock America are absent here probably because their immigration policies are more provincial and much less open to immigration. However, America is an immigrant nation. Most Americans want immigrants, just that the process should be controlled and legal. Immigrants have tripled in percentage from 4.7% to 13.5% of the population, a huge portion from Latin American which is why Democrats want the trend to continue and are opposed to the wall and stopping illegals. Latinos vote for Democrats who look to control American politics in the future. That's why they are so opposed to any border controls, oppose ICE, want no removals from America back to their own country. Most of all they want them legalized so they can vote. For Democrats.
That's precisely the situation with Europe, except that the racial mix has been greater in the States for a lot longer; it's looking at the social troubles you have there because of it that is partly the experience Europeans want to prevent in their own back yard. Throw on the added weight of a religion that is driven to convert or, sometimes, kill those who don't accept it and the fear is even stronger.
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Hi Robert, according to this morning's paper your PM just said he'll take 'em all off our hands, so I guess you'll soon have a chance to see whether or not paranoia is an appropriate reaction.
Not many crops to pick up here. Almost all our farming is mechanized. Besides, almost all the labour surveys in the last decade for Canada state that we will soon have a labour shortage and that we need more immigrants or the economy will suffer greatly.
But what I was really getting at, is that maybe the whole issue isn't so simple that a wall can fix it. As a corollary of that, whatever the problems that illegal immigration can create, the economic argument is the least obvious. All waves of immigration have created economic booms, and each wave was accompanied by fear. One of the main talking points of the KKK revival in the 1920s and 1930s was how risky it was to let in Jews and Italians. They were especially afraid of a Catholic-instigated government coup with the aim of putting the Pope in charge.
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... People do know about relative birth rates, and the maths are not too demanding; who wants to become the eventual minority's in his own land? ...
One obvious question that comes to mind is that once you (white people?) are a minority, then would it still be your land? What does that even mean? You live in Spain, I believe. Do Spaniards consider you an invader?
There's an interesting discussion in Quebec where many Francophones there use emotional language about how the land there is theirs. Well, they've only been there 400-500 years, what makes it theirs, especially considering that the indigenous people had been there for 5000 years prior to that. I'm a little wary of "groups" declaring land to be "theirs". I have a title deed to the house I own, so that makes it mine, so long as I pay property taxes. That's about as far as it goes imo.
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. . .maybe the whole issue isn't so simple that a wall can fix it.
I agree with most of what you said, Robert, and I certainly agree with this statement. But a wall can help to calm things down to the point where a solution might be possible. The point is to get things to a level where we actually might know what's going on and could get a grip on the influx of people.
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Wall here, barriers there, and Trump everywhere.
(http://cdn3.spiegel.de/images/image-1312346-breitwandaufmacher-lthd-1312346.gif)
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It seems to me that it's not so much what a government does, it's HOW it does it.
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That's precisely the situation with Europe, except that the racial mix has been greater in the States for a lot longer; it's looking at the social troubles you have there because of it that is partly the experience Europeans want to prevent in their own back yard. Throw on the added weight of a religion that is driven to convert or, sometimes, kill those who don't accept it and the fear is even stronger.
But America is an immigrant nation. The nations in Europe have been French, or German, or whatever for centuries. The nations there are each homogenous to a large degree. So immigrants are looked on as outsiders more than in America. America is made up of many different peoples who agree to be American. The commonality among French-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Black-American, Italians-Americans, Polish-Americans, Mexican-Americans, even British-Americans, and all the other hyphenated Americans is we're all American. As a New Yorker I'm familiar with all the parades there are there. Every week it's another parade. St. Paddy's Day, Puerto Rican Day Parade, Steuben Parade (Germans), Israel Parade, Chinese New Year's, etc. Everyone enjoys the parades and no one really seems threatened. So while each group may practice their cultural and religious and social heritage, at the end of the day we're Patriotic to America. We all speak English. Well mainly. At least in the public square. There's an understanding that if you accept America as your nation, you can be as American as any other American. I don't think that's true in Europe.
So being absorbed as an immigrant in America is easier than most other places. Especially with the children that are born here.
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1. One obvious question that comes to mind is that once you (white people?) are a minority, then would it still be your land? What does that even mean? 2. You live in Spain, I believe. Do Spaniards consider you an invader?
3. There's an interesting discussion in Quebec where many Francophones there use emotional language about how the land there is theirs. Well, they've only been there 400-500 years, what makes it theirs, especially considering that the indigenous people had been there for 5000 years prior to that. I'm a little wary of "groups" declaring land to be "theirs". I have a title deed to the house I own, so that makes it mine, so long as I pay property taxes. That's about as far as it goes imo.
1. Once the indigenous, white people become a minority in their own land - the place they have lived in as an almost absolute majority for generations upon generations, hardly a difficult concept - they do lose the democratic control of their living space. That means that the "new" people become the numerical rulers of that area. Having the numbers, they then win the political power. Guess who loses.
2. Yes, I do live in Spain. The situation is mixed: on the one hand, we, the incoming people, have brought a lot of capìtal, created jobs largely in construction, and the tourist trade (different animal to expats living here) has given more work in the hospitality trades. That is far from a balanced equation, though, as the incoming numbers have distorted the natural, pre-tourism balance and equilibrium of the land, what its natural resources can support. Water is regularly a problem, and the demand on the sewerage systems is massive. Farms have been abandoned and sold to rich foreigners who turn them into personal pleasure domes; right across the hedge from me, what used to be a beautiful field of ripening wheat, rippling in the breeze like some golden ocean, is now abandoned and turning back into an extension of the pine forest on the hill beside me... very nice idea, but in a few years there will be a view limited to fifty feet, and an immediate fire hazzard.
What do the locals make of us interlopers? In general, they appear to have come to accept us as a source of wealth that trickles across to them via plumbers, joiners, builders, restaurants etc. but, importantly, the new people are making home purchases ever more difficult for the natives. Even those, like myself, who came over forty years or so ago, are being left behind regarding prices, and many of us could never have bought into the market at today's prices. The result is a crisis where the locals often have to live at home too long. So, I would assume that their opionions of us are mixed, to say the least!
And don't forget: we came over as relatively rich, money-spending and wealth-spreading people, not as job-stealing, wage-undercutting or state handout-dependant migrants. Big difference.
3. Five hundred years is a helluva long time! Importantly, you must not forget that the people to whom you refer came over with superior weaponry. As with all of the Americas, from Spanish times, it was about conquest and the establishing of the Catholic religion often, itself, no more than a ruse for the amassing of wealth for the so-called religious kings and queens. Exploitation, theft.
What's happening today in Europe is pretty much the same thing: the attempted replacing of one set of power structures by another. In place of armadas we get migrants bringing with them their faith and birthrates. Unfortunately, unlike the ones that settled in Spain centuries ago, bringing education, art and sciences, the new ones bring the seeds of death and religious intollerance. Their own religion has been usurped and taken over by people so akin to the Christian fundamentalists as to be two sides of the same snake. I am not guessing: I was at a boarding school run by such people; I know the mindset and its perversions.
If the West got one thing right, it was freedom for religion and freedom from it. As usual, the French have a word for it, and separation of state from religion: laïcité.
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But America is an immigrant nation. The nations in Europe have been French, or German, or whatever for centuries. The nations there are each homogenous to a large degree. So immigrants are looked on as outsiders more than in America. America is made up of many different peoples who agree to be American. The commonality among French-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Black-American, Italians-Americans, Polish-Americans, Mexican-Americans, even British-Americans, and all the other hyphenated Americans is we're all American. As a New Yorker I'm familiar with all the parades there are there. Every week it's another parade. St. Paddy's Day, Puerto Rican Day Parade, Steuben Parade (Germans), Israel Parade, Chinese New Year's, etc. Everyone enjoys the parades and no one really seems threatened. So while each group may practice their cultural and religious and social heritage, at the end of the day we're Patriotic to America. We all speak English. Well mainly. At least in the public square. There's an understanding that if you accept America as your nation, you can be as American as any other American. I don't think that's true in Europe.
So being absorbed as an immigrant in America is easier than most other places. Especially with the children that are born here.
I find it interesting that there is ever the need for being a hyphenated American, that it's actually celebrated... and you think that equates with nationhood? How very strange.
To me, it signifies permanent division, just as on the island of Ireland and, now, Cyprus. Perhaps denial of this truth is attempted in the visual statement of flags hanging or flying - depending on the ammusement of nature - in private homes, something I have only seen in Spain with Catalan and Mallorcan separist extremists who use the flag to show anything but solidarity with neighbouring peoples.
And no, you are quite right: it most certainly does not hold water in any part of Europe with which I am familiar. Solidarity requires much more than recent political geography. I think Slobodan could lecture us all very informatively, and far better than can I, on what that has meant in parts of Europe.
Rob
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1. Once the indigenous, white people become a minority in their own land - the place they have lived in as an almost absolute majority for generations upon generations, hardly a difficult concept - they do lose the democratic control of their living space. That means that the "new" people become the numerical rulers of that area. Having the numbers, they then win the political power. Guess who loses.
I don't know what you mean by "Guess who loses."
Sounds like you don't approve of democracy. If they're living there and voting, it's their land too. End of story. Who and what their/your ancestors were and where they lived is beside the point. I don't expect to inherit the sins of my father, so I shouldn't expect to inherit his power either.
And yes, if there aren't enough of "you" left, your culture might die. So what else is new.
I hope it hasn't escaped your sense of irony, but a lot of what you're expressing is pretty much what was deplorable about colonial invasions.
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If the West got one thing right, it was freedom for religion and freedom from it. As usual, the French have a word for it, and separation of state from religion: laïcité.
Tell that to the women in the USA who are increasingly seeing their access to abortion diminished because there are lots of Americans who don't separate state from the church, or who at the very least believe their own specific interpretation of Christian beliefs should take precedence over other people's. As if they actually think they have the right to tell others how to live. Explain how that's so different from the Taliban, albeit slightly less savage. (Unless you go back less than 100 years and look at lynchings, which were pretty savage.)
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I find it interesting that there is ever the need for being a hyphenated American, that it's actually celebrated... and you think that equates with nationhood? How very strange.
To me, it signifies permanent division, just as on the island of Ireland and, now, Cyprus. Perhaps denial of this truth is attempted in the visual statement of flags hanging or flying - depending on the ammusement of nature - in private homes, something I have only seen in Spain with Catalan and Mallorcan separist extremists who use the flag to show anything but solidarity with neighbouring peoples.
And no, you are quite right: it most certainly does not hold water in any part of Europe with which I am familiar. Solidarity requires much more than recent political geography. I think Slobodan could lecture us all very informatively, and far better than can I, on what that has meant in parts of Europe.
Rob
Well NYC population currently is 40% foreign born. It's always been a magnet for different cultures, religions, and nationalities. Many neighborhoods, like Chinatown, have a distinctive flavor where pride of who your descendants are can be on display. But when it comes down to it, everyone thinks they're New Yorkers, whatever that means even when the celebrate their heritage.
Other parts of the country are somewhat like that. But in the end, maybe because no one group is very large compared to the overall population, most people see themselves as American, when push comes to shove. Sure we're had Japanese internment of Japanese-Americans citizens during WWII, a disgraceful situation, and blacks had been single out for minority treatment, but so have the Irish, Italians, Jews and other groups. All have advanced to become part of the fabric that is America. The joke now is that WASPs (White Anglo Saxon Protestants) who traditionally "ran" America are now a minority.
What I always find interesting is when I see a person speaking perfect American English on TV who is Chinese or whatever. Yet the parents barely speak English. First born generation of most groups do that. They absorb Americanism, smoke pot as kids, play American baseball and become part of the American milieu because we're an immigrant nation.
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But America is an immigrant nation. The nations in Europe have been French, or German, or whatever for centuries. The nations there are each homogenous to a large degree. So immigrants are looked on as outsiders more than in America. America is made up of many different peoples who agree to be American. The commonality among French-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Black-American, Italians-Americans, Polish-Americans, Mexican-Americans, even British-Americans, and all the other hyphenated Americans is we're all American.
So being absorbed as an immigrant in America is easier than most other places. Especially with the children that are born here.
You may like to ask a Palestinian-American if he agrees with you.
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So being absorbed as an immigrant in America is easier than most other places. Especially with the children that are born here.
You may like to ask a Palestinian-American if he agrees with you.
Actually, I used to work with some Palestinian immigrants, and non-immigrants who were here as international exchange visitors—as well as many other colleagues from Arab countries—and I suspect few if any of them would take issue with Alan's point.
Of course, in personal conversations most of them disagreed — usually quite vehemently — with U.S. government policy toward Israel. (And they were employees of the federal government, by the way: broadcast journalists working for the Voice of America.)
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1. I don't know what you mean by "Guess who loses."
2. Sounds like you don't approve of democracy. If they're living there and voting, it's their land too. End of story. Who and what their/your ancestors were and where they lived is beside the point. I don't expect to inherit the sins of my father, so I shouldn't expect to inherit his power either.
3. And yes, if there aren't enough of "you" left, your culture might die. So what else is new.
4. I hope it hasn't escaped your sense of irony, but a lot of what you're expressing is pretty much what was deplorable about colonial invasions.
1. Don't be disingenuous; of course you know to whom I refer: to the people who inhabited the place over the last few centuries, the long-established nation.
2. Democracy. It has value in some cases, but falls on its face when the vote of the uneducated mind counts the same as that of the educated mind. How can that possibly make sense? Especially when brilliant is way outnumbered by dumb, the result is a spectacular victory for whichever political party offers the most shiny beads. Which is why there is so very little genuine difference between them all: they chase the same high-number electorate.
Insofar as the new arrival having claim to co-ownership of the land he has entered of his own volition, then no, I do not think he is a valid co-owner/citizen at all. Proof of that is in my own position: I have the right to vote in local elections but not the national: I vote in neither, because I do not believe that I understand local politics well enough, and because I am grateful just to be accepted and allowed to live here, without expecting to change the way the local folks run their area. How presumptuous would that be?
Colonial invasions were of an epoch before my time. Insofar as India goes, I lived there prior to, and for a few years post August, 1947. (Independence.)
I never felt any sense of ancestral guilt, and neither did I run into hatred directed my way (same here in Spain) but I clearly remember the mutual tears of family and staff as we left what had been home for the trip back to Britain whence we'd come. Far from good riddance, it represented an immediate loss of employment for the folks left behind. You know, it's been my experience that those who protest most about colonial days are those who have never spent years within those affected countries, whose terms of reference are today's politicians and the writers looking for the easy buck from promotion of faux guilt amongst those who know nothing about the reality.
Should anyone think that Britain introduced some sort of slavery or subjugation to India, they clearly know nothing about the system already entrenched by the local power structures when the first Brits landed. Of course there were abuses, as there always have been, at home as abroad, yesterday as today and all the tomorrows lined up there on the horizon. But don't forget the institutions that the Brits left behind them, that still function and upon which models the present ones run. The balance is not negative.
3. I have no wish for my culture to die, and believe that it has every right to defend itself from invaders that would substitute their own. If keeping them out is the only way, then so be it. That is a far cry from the original status of the EEC, which was either nominally Christian, agnostic or atheist. That's why Turkey will probably never get its membership key, though the fact that so many people have been getting in anyway, renders it a bit pointless as far as calming religious fears go.
4. Colonial invasions were part of a historic time far removed from the world of today. The slavery that made America flourish did not come alone, but brought in its wake the problems that bedevil it today which, as I pointed out before, is something Europe does not want to emulate. There are sufficient examples already of the price of colonial adventure being paid in Britain as in France, without opening the gates to the rest of an Africa in transit and flight, both from itself as much as because of the hope of personal betterment elsewhere. In Britain we invited in peoples from the Caribbean as well as the Indian continent to help reconstruct post-war Britain. Or so we are today informed. Quite how those people were going to do that isn't so clear; did they all have building trades qualifications? Or was it perhaps a very early harbinger of today, where many Brits prefer idleness to low-paid work? Germany imported lots of Turks and Spaniards to work in its industries; many of the latter returned home well enough off to be able to start businesses of their own. I don't know anything about what Turks may have done. One thing is for sure: the Spanish had a beautiful country to which to return.
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Tell that to the women in the USA who are increasingly seeing their access to abortion diminished because there are lots of Americans who don't separate state from the church, or who at the very least believe their own specific interpretation of Christian beliefs should take precedence over other people's. As if they actually think they have the right to tell others how to live. Explain how that's so different from the Taliban, albeit slightly less savage. (Unless you go back less than 100 years and look at lynchings, which were pretty savage.)
Robert, I have always equated religious fundamentalism as equal evil, from wherever it arises. But, Ireland has overturned that, and the irony of ironies is that it remains the largely Protestant Northern Ireland that still labours (NPI) under the same problem!
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You may like to ask a Palestinian-American if he agrees with you.
Good challenge!
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Actually, I used to work with some Palestinian immigrants, and non-immigrants who were here as international exchange visitors—as well as many other colleagues from Arab countries—and I suspect few if any of them would take issue with Alan's point.
Of course, in personal conversations most of them disagreed — usually quite vehemently — with U.S. government policy toward Israel. (And they were employees of the federal government, by the way: broadcast journalists working for the Voice of America.)
Well, when you think about the power structures in the US it comes as little surprise that Israel gets the free tickets. Only natural.
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Actually, I used to work with some Palestinian immigrants, and non-immigrants who were here as international exchange visitors—as well as many other colleagues from Arab countries—and I suspect few if any of them would take issue with Alan's point.
Of course, in personal conversations most of them disagreed — usually quite vehemently — with U.S. government policy toward Israel. (And they were employees of the federal government, by the way: broadcast journalists working for the Voice of America.)
My P-A friend who was asked by a judge if he was a terrorist would probably beg to differ. Likewise the friends and relatives of Alex Odeh.
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I think Robert Frank's experiences with the law during his continental drives illustrates things quite well. Cameras, accent...
Then there is the Rolling Stones' experience of driving the rural roadtrip.
;-)
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Don't you know the wall has already been built? When they took Trump down to see it, they told him it was made of special bricks that are invisible to everyone except "smart stable geniuses."
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Don't you know the wall has already been built? When they took Trump down to see it, they told him it was made of special bricks that are invisible to everyone except "smart stable geniuses."
That was one smart cartel wot built it!
:-)
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1. Don't be disingenuous; of course you know to whom I refer: to the people who inhabited the place over the last few centuries, the long-established nation.
2. Democracy. It has value in some cases, but falls on its face when the vote of the uneducated mind counts the same as that of the educated mind. How can that possibly make sense? Especially when brilliant is way outnumbered by dumb, the result is a spectacular victory for whichever political party offers the most shiny beads. Which is why there is so very little genuine difference between them all: they chase the same high-number electorate.
Insofar as the new arrival having claim to co-ownership of the land he has entered of his own volition, then no, I do not think he is a valid co-owner/citizen at all. Proof of that is in my own position: I have the right to vote in local elections but not the national: I vote in neither, because I do not believe that I understand local politics well enough, and because I am grateful just to be accepted and allowed to live here, without expecting to change the way the local folks run their area. How presumptuous would that be?
Colonial invasions were of an epoch before my time. Insofar as India goes, I lived there prior to, and for a few years post August, 1947. (Independence.)
I never felt any sense of ancestral guilt, and neither did I run into hatred directed my way (same here in Spain) but I clearly remember the mutual tears of family and staff as we left what had been home for the trip back to Britain whence we'd come. Far from good riddance, it represented an immediate loss of employment for the folks left behind. You know, it's been my experience that those who protest most about colonial days are those who have never spent years within those affected countries, whose terms of reference are today's politicians and the writers looking for the easy buck from promotion of faux guilt amongst those who know nothing about the reality.
Should anyone think that Britain introduced some sort of slavery or subjugation to India, they clearly know nothing about the system already entrenched by the local power structures when the first Brits landed. Of course there were abuses, as there always have been, at home as abroad, yesterday as today and all the tomorrows lined up there on the horizon. But don't forget the institutions that the Brits left behind them, that still function and upon which models the present ones run. The balance is not negative.
3. I have no wish for my culture to die, and believe that it has every right to defend itself from invaders that would substitute their own. If keeping them out is the only way, then so be it. That is a far cry from the original status of the EEC, which was either nominally Christian, agnostic or atheist. That's why Turkey will probably never get its membership key, though the fact that so many people have been getting in anyway, renders it a bit pointless as far as calming religious fears go.
4. Colonial invasions were part of a historic time far removed from the world of today. The slavery that made America flourish did not come alone, but brought in its wake the problems that bedevil it today which, as I pointed out before, is something Europe does not want to emulate. There are sufficient examples already of the price of colonial adventure being paid in Britain as in France, without opening the gates to the rest of an Africa in transit and flight, both from itself as much as because of the hope of personal betterment elsewhere. In Britain we invited in peoples from the Caribbean as well as the Indian continent to help reconstruct post-war Britain. Or so we are today informed. Quite how those people were going to do that isn't so clear; did they all have building trades qualifications? Or was it perhaps a very early harbinger of today, where many Brits prefer idleness to low-paid work? Germany imported lots of Turks and Spaniards to work in its industries; many of the latter returned home well enough off to be able to start businesses of their own. I don't know anything about what Turks may have done. One thing is for sure: the Spanish had a beautiful country to which to return.
I won't respond point by point, am running out of time here today. Just some thoughts.
The concept is that everyone is equal, every person gets an equal vote. That's because the government represents all their interests and they all pay taxes.
Being highly educated is but one aspect, and it is not correlated with being honest, decent, fair, etc. You place too much emphasis on it.
Colonial powers of course see colonialism through rose-coloured glasses. As for it being a thing of the past, all but forgotten now, I hardly think so.
What may be happening in Europe is that the old boy network doesn't like being disrupted. Several countries let in foreigners to work the farms and auto plants and now everyone is surprised that all those people want to be part of the community at large and want to participate in it. Well, duh.
In the US and I'd say Canada, foreign-born immigrants tend to more rapidly enter the political fray. Both countries have various members of (former) minorities in political office, Cubans, Asians, Indians, elsewhere. Some people don't like this, naturally, "They're taking over our country" may be the refrain. My point is that it's NOT your country. The country belongs to whoever is living in it at the time.
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Being highly educated is but one aspect, and it is not correlated with being honest, decent, fair, etc.
Nor is it correlated with an ability to think.
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Robert:
"Being highly educated is but one aspect, and it is not correlated with being honest, decent, fair, etc. You place too much emphasis on it."
But then neither does the lack of education naturally endow those attributes; when held by either demographic sub-set, often, they can actually come to represent part of a problem best solved via pragmatism and an understanding of what actually works, rather than what should work in some idyllic, politically correct situation or, rather, manner.
Further, I hate the way that "fair" has wormed its way into political life. It is not a natural state of being, any more than is happiness. Both are artificial concepts that founder on the rocks of reality and unequal abilities. Selling voters the idea that they are all equal is the fib that gives birth to the unavoidable conflict with reality and its total lack of interest in the runts of the race. Were that not true, I would have displaced Avedon decades ago. The heart was always willing, even if the skills never quite there!
;-)
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Well said, Rob. It's something that seems to be less understood as time goes by.
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The US Constitution once allowed voting to be restricted to property-holding white men. I think the fact they wanted only property owners to vote went to their distrust of the "common man". Since people vote their pocketbooks, they were worried that people would move the country where property would be distributed from those who had to those who didn't have. That's exactly what's happening.
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...The country belongs to whoever is living in it at the time.
Hence the wall.
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The US Constitution once allowed voting to be restricted to property-holding white men. I think the fact they wanted only property owners to vote went to their distrust of the "common man". Since people vote their pocketbooks, they were worried that people would move the country where property would be distributed from those who had to those who didn't have. That's exactly what's happening.
Luckily a solution has been found and ignorant rednecks have been convinced to vote for someone who acts only for the property owners, so now everyone is happy.
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Luckily a solution has been found and ignorant rednecks have been convinced to vote for someone who acts only for the property owners, so now everyone is happy.
First, "ignorant rednecks" is an ad hominin attack not appreciate by me and particularly the moderators as its a personal attack on me and other Trump supporters. In any case, voting for someone who's not interested in redistribution of wealth, but relies on law to protect people's wealth, is not just appreciated by land owners, but by Americans in general. Capitalism, not Socialism, made America a great and wealthy nation.
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First, "ignorant rednecks" is an ad hominin attack not appreciate by me and particularly the moderators as its a personal attack on me and other Trump supporters. In any case, voting for someone who's not interested in redistribution of wealth, but relies on law to protect people's wealth, is not just appreciated by land owners, but by Americans in general. Capitalism, not Socialism, made America a great and wealthy nation.
Je repose ma valise.
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... Capitalism, not Socialism, made America a great and wealthy nation.
It is amazing to me just how easily the younger generation (and certain other demographics) has fallen for the idea of socialism, while having absolutely no clue what it actually is.
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they will have their work cut out for them to afford us for the next 30 years.
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Hence the wall.
Countries have the right, and the duty, to control who they let in. I have never stated otherwise, and I don't recall any others stating it either, although people have been vilified as if they had. This is what is basically normal now in online discussions, I find. Hyperbolic misrepresentations of what others say, when they disagree with you, is now par for the course.
It is the very essence of tribal-based "debate".
Today's Dilbert cartoon (http://dilbert.com/strip/2018-07-08 (http://dilbert.com/strip/2018-07-08)) illustrates this well.
My own gut feeling is that the wall, assuming it's actually ever built, will be about as successful as the "war on drugs". I would have thought that conservatives would want to be more careful with large expenditures of tax monies of this nature, but sometimes it seems as if the security industry is immune from scrutiny. I'm not saying that the wall would not be partly effective, I'm sure it will stop the low-hanging fruit very well. Even the war on drugs made many street-level arrests. If that's ok with you, well, it's your money. I'm just saying that a little more thought might yield better results, assuming you want results and not theatre.
This all depends on your point of view of course. The security industry probably thinks that the war on drugs is fantastic as it allows them to feed at the public trough to their heart's content. I imagine that brick and concrete lobbiests and contractors are wetting themselves at the prospect of a long wall.
Trump's "muslim ban" is an interesting case in point. If I understand it properly (and I'm not certain that I do, it has undergone some changes and I don't follow them daily), it really only explicitly restricts entry from some countries and not members of a specific religion. But according to the Wiki entry on the subject, Saudi Arabia is not on that list. That's kind of an interesting omission, given where the 9/11 terrorists came from.
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It is amazing to me just how easily the younger generation (and certain other demographics) has fallen for the idea of socialism, while having absolutely no clue what it actually is.
None of us reading these pages have ever lived in anything other than a mixed economy. You're not trying to instigate another "red scare", are you?
And who says that the younger generation IS falling for it?
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Countries have the right, and the duty, to control who they let in. I have never stated otherwise, and I don't recall any others stating it either, although people have been vilified as if they had....
If by "any others" you mean members of this forum, you are probably right. However, we are not only addressing members of this forum in our debates, but larger societal themes as well. In that context, there certainly are calls for open borders, no ICE, no wall, etc.
As for the wall, I use it in a broader meaning. I don't care if it is concrete, or legislative, or policy, as long as it stops, or slows down illegals. I agree that it is probably not the most financially effective solution. My own would be a $1 million fine per illegally employed.
By the way, the following illustration fits within your ideas of "no nations" (i.e., no nation states) as well, unless I am misunderstanding your position:
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None of us reading these pages have ever lived in anything other than a mixed economy...
I did.
And who says that the younger generation IS falling for it?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chapman/ct-perspec-chapman-young-socialism-capitalism-20180520-story.html
https://www.aier.org/article/over-half-millennials-identify-socialist-heres-how-change-their-minds
https://www.marketplace.org/2018/05/17/economy/millennials-socialism-isnt-dirty-word-it-was-other-generations
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If by "any others" you mean members of this forum, you are probably right. However, we are not only addressing members of this forum in our debates, but larger societal themes as well. In that context, there certainly are calls for open borders, no ICE, no wall, etc.
As for the wall, I use it in a broader meaning. I don't care if it is concrete, or legislative, or policy, as long as it stops, or slows down illegals. I agree that it is probably not the most financially effective solution. My own would be a $1 million fine per illegally employed.
By the way, the following illustration fits within your ideas of "no nations" (i.e., no nation states) as well, unless I am misunderstanding your position:
Fair enough about your "broader wall" comment. A broader outlook makes sense. But a broader outlook might also include some analysis of the need for some of that immigrant labour. Going by what others have stated on these pages, there's a lot of it, so it must be economically important.
As for wild demands that people make, what else is new and how important is it in the scheme of things? Shall we waste our time quoting white supremacist group web sites too? I regard that as part of the general polarization, people make wild-ass crazy statements all the time.
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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chapman/ct-perspec-chapman-young-socialism-capitalism-20180520-story.html
https://www.aier.org/article/over-half-millennials-identify-socialist-heres-how-change-their-minds
https://www.marketplace.org/2018/05/17/economy/millennials-socialism-isnt-dirty-word-it-was-other-generations
How many young people are members of young Republicans, or belong to Libertarian groups, or militia groups for that matter? When has there NOT been a great diversity of opinion?
And anyway, discussions of "socialism" are nearly meaningless in this context. What each of us means by it is probably so wildly different, the conversation has no meaning. In another thread, Russ (I think) once referred to the Stalinist economy of California. What? To proceed with any hope of making any sense, would require some common definitions and basic agreement to terms. I am not particularly interested in this on these pages, even if it weren't summer. It has been done before by more knowledgeable and erudite people than us. I am sure we can go read some books.
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Actually, the we don't need to have immigrants come into the US (legal or illegal) since white America is doing a fine job of killing itself off all by themselves...
Fewer Births Than Deaths Among Whites in Majority of U.S. States (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/us/white-minority-population.html)
In addition to an aging white population with declining birth rate, the mortality rates have shot up due to drug overdoses, alcoholism and suicides in the white population–particularly in rural areas of the country.
So, ya see, all ya gotta do is wait...
Jeff,
Absolutely correct. We (the waspy US in particular and the “west” in general) bought into the progressive notion that overpopulation was going to destroy the planet, and spent a couple of generations preaching this to our kids in the public school system (sound familiar?). Turned out to just be cultural suicide.
It will be “fun” to see what the current progressive notions-da-jour will bring in the next couple of generations. Suffice to say I’m not optimistic.
When you add in the complete polarization in political thought, it is sure to speed things along nicely. One of President Obama’s achievements was advancing the notion that American exceptionalism was a really bad thing. He’s succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. There are other cultures with very firm exceptionalist worldviews just waiting to fill the vacuum.
Rand
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The nations in Europe have been French, or German, or whatever for centuries. The nations there are each homogenous to a large degree.
This is in fact untrue as anyone who has studied the history of the Balkans, Poland, and The Holy Roman Empire will know. Germany did not become a country until 1866, Italy somewhat later, and poor Poland was constantly appearing and disappearing as a country. I'll say nothing about the USSR other than it certainly was not homogeneous. Some of the countries became homogeneous by taking harsh action against those who were living there, Spain and Portugal being classic examples. Whether Britain could be classified as homogeneous is open to debate given the various ethno-religious groups.
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3. Five hundred years is a helluva long time! Importantly, you must not forget that the people to whom you refer came over with superior weaponry. As with all of the Americas, from Spanish times, it was about conquest and the establishing of the Catholic religion often, itself, no more than a ruse for the amassing of wealth for the so-called religious kings and queens. Exploitation, theft.
Let's be historically accurate and note that the English colonization was not about establishing the Catholic religion or conquest either. The Dutch were also non-Catholic colonizers albeit on a smaller scale.
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This is in fact untrue...
Seriously!?
Serbs are homogenous, just as Croats, Bulgarians, Slovenes, etc. Whether and when they got a state is irrelevant. Germans are homogenous with or without the state, just as Poles are.
As for the USSR, nobody claimed it was homogenous. But Russians certainly are.
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Seriously!?
Serbs are homogenous, just as Croats, Bulgarians, Slovenes, etc. Whether and when they got a state is irrelevant. Germans are homogenous with or without the state, just as Poles are.
As for the USSR, nobody claimed it was homogenous. But Russians certainly are.
It is my custom not to respond to you but this time I do need to correct your misconception of what I said. You did not carefully read what I quoted from Alan Klein's post so I will bold it for you, "The nations in Europe have been French, or German, or whatever for centuries. The nations there are each homogenous to a large degree." If you look at how 'nations' have evolved to the present day you will of course note that there have been states that were quite heterogeneous in their ethnic make up. Is this not true? Look at Yugoslavia; it certainly was not ethnically homogeneous. Same thing with USSR and the other examples I pointed out. Anyone intrepid enough to make good use of Internet maps and population dynamics can easily see that that these states were not homogeneous.
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... If you look at how 'nations' have evolved to the present day you will of course note that there have been states that were quite heterogeneous in their ethnic make up. Is this not true? Look at Yugoslavia; it certainly was not ethnically homogeneous. Same thing with USSR and the other examples I pointed out...
Another silly argument. The fact there are non-homogenous contraptions does not refute the fact that there are homogenous states, like French and German.
As for Yugoslavia, it was to a certain degree an artificial state in itself. Before its existence, there were interdependent nation-states (Serbia, Montenegro) and homogenous nations under Austro-Hungarian rule (Croatia, Slovenia). Guess what happened to Yugoslavia recently: it disintegrated along those nation-state lines. What happened to USSR? It disintegrated along nation-state lines.
What does it tell you? That nation-states and the sense of nationhood is stronger than "loftier" goals of globalism, based on "I pay taxes here, ergo it is my state."
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Let's be historically accurate and note that the English colonization was not about establishing the Catholic religion or conquest either. The Dutch were also non-Catholic colonizers albeit on a smaller scale.
Obviously not; they spent a lot of effort getting Rome out of the equation, changing "royalty" varieties along the way to achieving it. That admitted, it strikes me as odd that you suggest they were doing anything other than conquer, colonies being tough omelettes to make without the cracking of a few conquered eggs!
Why else did they get driven out of the USA, if not because they still wanted the revenue from all that effort?
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Another silly argument. The fact there are non-homogenous contraptions does not refute the fact that there are homogenous states, like French and German.
As for Yugoslavia, it was to a certain degree an artificial state in itself. Before its existence, there were interdependent nation-states (Serbia, Montenegro) and homogenous nations under Austro-Hungarian rule (Croatia, Slovenia). Guess what happened to Yugoslavia recently: it disintegrated along those nation-state lines. What happened to USSR? It disintegrated along nation-state lines.
What does it tell you? That nation-states and the sense of nationhood is stronger than "loftier" goals of globalism, based on "I pay taxes here, ergo it is my state."
It tells me that you conveniently prove my point, heterogeneous multi-ethnic states were present in Europe for a long time and if one considers Spain with the Catalan and Basque populations still are. On our recent trip to Barcelona one was struck by all the Catalan independence flags flying from the windows of countless apartments. FYI, the Catalan language is separate from Spanish just as the Basque language is as well.
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... FYI, the Catalan language is separate from Spanish...
I noticed... I lived four years in Barcelona.
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For what it's worth, I think Slobodan has the stronger historical argument—and one that is specifically relevant to this thread.
The nation-state is primarily a continental European concept, which derives from the sorting out of political boundaries after the religious wars of the 17th Century. That's when the idea of conflating ethnicity (nation) and jurisdiction (state) became widely accepted as a defining principle in Europe. Not necessarily elsewhere, although I think there are close analogues in Africa and parts of Asia (e.g., Japan and Thailand).
Americans, north, south, and central, have always been different. The concept of "nation-state" never made sense here. Although, admittedly, the term has recently been adopted by some right-wing populist commentators.
Even in the pre-Columbian era, while there were what we would today consider to be ethnic differences—tribal and linguistic—between the non-nomadic indigenous populations, as far as I am aware most of them never had anything resembling a modern theory of territorial boundaries. And, unquestionably, after the Europeans arrived almost all the American colonies and countries that evolved in this hemisphere were multinational (i.e., multi-ethnic).
There was a brief period after the united states declared their independence from Great Britain (capitalization and emphasis intended) when arguably you could claim there was a correspondence between principal ethnicity (English and Scottish protestant) and political boundaries. But only in some of the states. Not in Maryland (founded as a Catholic colony), or New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania (with their large Dutch populations and, in Pennsylvania, a considerable Quaker minority), or in Vermont and New Hampshire (quite French in the northern parts of both states). Not to mention the Amerindian populations, or the Africans, enslaved and free, or the Germans, Irish and other "foreigners" who started arriving in large numbers even before the adoption of the constitution of 1789.
Same thing in Latin America, where in most countries the mestizo population tends to be much larger than the "pure" descendants of the colonizing Castilians or the other European immigrants who arrived more recently.
As for borders, in North America they have traditionally been very porous. My wife and I used to drive into Canada without being asked for any identification by the Canadian inspectors, and to return with no more documentation than our U.S. drivers' licenses.
I don't recall for certain, but I think we always took our passports with us when we visited border towns in Mexico. But I have a very distinct memory of returning to the United States late one afternoon in Nogales, and being impressed by the rapidly-moving stream of Mexican day workers walking back in the other direction—almost all of them carrying bags filled with goods they had purchased at Walmart, Target, or CVS. I rather doubt that all of their documentos were carefully checked when they returned for work the next morning.
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It is my custom not to respond to you but this time I do need to correct your misconception of what I said. You did not carefully read what I quoted from Alan Klein's post so I will bold it for you, "The nations in Europe have been French, or German, or whatever for centuries. The nations there are each homogenous to a large degree." If you look at how 'nations' have evolved to the present day you will of course note that there have been states that were quite heterogeneous in their ethnic make up. Is this not true? Look at Yugoslavia; it certainly was not ethnically homogeneous. Same thing with USSR and the other examples I pointed out. Anyone intrepid enough to make good use of Internet maps and population dynamics can easily see that that these states were not homogeneous.
You're playing word games rather than trying to understand the thrust of my point. That's the same thing people do with Trump. Suddenly people become English majors and professors. Slobodan got it right. The point I'm making is that the people are one as a people. Sure the national lines were drawn and re-drawn, or held together artificially like Tito did with Yugoslavia. But there was no Yugoslav people. It was a phony country. There was no Soviet people. There were Russians, and Georgians, and Ukrainians, etc. And the French are French and the Germans German. (Were there East German people and West German people? )
Which raises another interesting observation. Are there South Korean people and North Korean people? I don't think so. They will be united one day just like Germany.
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. . . That's when the idea of conflating ethnicity (nation) and jurisdiction (state) became widely accepted as a defining principle in Europe. Not necessarily elsewhere, although I think there are close analogues in Africa and parts of Asia (e.g., Japan and Thailand).
. . .
Let’s not forget the patitioning of the Middle East at the end of the war, where state boundaries were drawn by Europeans and others with little or no contemplation of the tribal group identity or the impacts of said boundaries, setting the statge for strife for the last 80 years.
Rand
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You're playing word games rather than trying to understand the thrust of my point. That's the same thing people do with Trump. Suddenly people become English majors and professors. Slobodan got it right. The point I'm making is that the people are one as a people. Sure the national lines were drawn and re-drawn, or held together artificially like Tito did with Yugoslavia. But there was no Yugoslav people. It was a phony country. There was no Soviet people. There were Russians, and Georgians, and Ukrainians, etc. And the French are French and the Germans German. (Were there East German people and West German people? )
Which raises another interesting observation. Are there South Korean people and North Korean people? I don't think so. They will be united one day just like Germany.
Surprisingly and contrary to general belief, once you separate a country and establish different rules and lifestyle in each part, after a generation or two, you'll end up with two different nations.
Let's take Germany as example. After being divided for 40 years, and united for 30 years, only half the population there thinks unity exists between the east and the west.
I wonder how (actually first IF) the Koreans will handle their re-unification.
Here is a five year old report on some of the German re-unification issues and many of the reported facts are still valid today.
Germany's unemployment rate made headlines when it hit a two-decade low this summer. But that rate is not evenly spread: former West German states still have far better employment levels than their eastern neighbors.
Demographic differences are not only the result of joblessness and income gaps. Most foreigners who live in Germany have chosen to settle in the western parts, and their arrival has decreased average ages. Several factors explain the significantly smaller foreign population in the east. Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, western Germany invited many Turks to live in the country as guest workers. Many of them never left.
Furthermore, the climate is less friendly to foreigners in the east, according to a study by Leipzig University researchers who interviewed 16,000 Germans over 10 years. These findings coincide with a larger presence of right-wing neo-Nazi sympathizers.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/10/31/the-berlin-wall-fell-25-years-ago-but-germany-is-still-divided/?utm_term=.b8dcbba20d2a
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Surprisingly and contrary to general belief, once you separate a country and establish different rules and lifestyle in each part, after a generation or two, you'll end up with two different nations.
Let's take Germany as example. After being divided for 40 years, and united for 30 years, only half the population there thinks unity exists between the east and the west.
I wonder how (actually first IF) the Koreans will handle their re-unification.
Here is a five year old report on some of the German re-unification issues and many of the reported facts are still valid today.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/10/31/the-berlin-wall-fell-25-years-ago-but-germany-is-still-divided/?utm_term=.b8dcbba20d2a
I can't access any more Washington Post articles without paying money. They may not like Trump. But they're just as greedy as him.
In any case, there's load of cultural and other differences between different parts of the US. But we still think of ourselves as Americans. So much the more so with Germans, Italians, etc. I think language is the great emulsifier. Which is why I want English as a single legal language in America. Look at the problems with two languages in Canada. Added to cultural differences, it almost broke up the country a few decades ago when Quebec province wanted their own country.
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If any further proof is needed for nation-states, the old Latins would say: "Nomen est omnis," or "the name is [says] everything"
Scotland = the land of the Scots
Ireland = the land of the Irish
Serbia = the land of the Serbs
France= the land of the French
Germany (Deutschland) = the land of the Deutsche (Germans)
etc.
Which reminds me of the following joke:
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I can't access any more Washington Post articles without paying money. They may not like Trump. But they're just as greedy as him.
What? Should everything be free? I thought you were a capitalist. :)
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What? Should everything be free? I thought you were a capitalist. :)
I agree: we should have to pay them for the work that they do - makes sense. That said, passing links don't make it worthwhile to get involved in any long-term way. So I just give it a miss.
:-(
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I agree: we should have to pay them for the work that they do - makes sense. That said, passing links don't make it worthwhile to get involved in any long-term way. So I just give it a miss.
:-(
The Washington Post as with many newspapers that have paywalls does permit access to a certain number of free 'reads' per month. As I already noted on another thread, I think only The Guardian of all 'major' newspapers is totally free (they rely on donations to preserve this).
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You're playing word games rather than trying to understand the thrust of my point. That's the same thing people do with Trump. Suddenly people become English majors and professors. Slobodan got it right. The point I'm making is that the people are one as a people. Sure the national lines were drawn and re-drawn, or held together artificially like Tito did with Yugoslavia. But there was no Yugoslav people. It was a phony country. There was no Soviet people. There were Russians, and Georgians, and Ukrainians, etc. And the French are French and the Germans German. (Were there East German people and West German people? )
Yugoslavia was formed after WW I, well before Tito came onto the scene. As Rand also notes, the modern Middle East was drawn up after WW I and it was done quite badly (David Fromkin's wonderful book, "A Peace to End All Peace" is perhaps the definitive book on the topic and well worth reading). I'm not trying to play word games, others who post on this Forum are far more adept at that than me, but only pointing out that the historical record argues otherwise. Ultimately, religious and ethnic issues arise and cause great tragedies (I always recommend CV Wedgewood's masterful account of the Thirty Years War that tore apart central Europe in the 17th century as a good example). IMO, The US is the only successful example of a multi-cultural nation that has withstood the test of time (so far).
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The Washington Post as with many newspapers that have paywalls does permit access to a certain number of free 'reads' per month. As I already noted on another thread, I think only The Guardian of all 'major' newspapers is totally free (they rely on donations to preserve this).
As an aside and off-topic, I find it interesting that we (royal we) were happy to spend a quarter (or a dollar) to read a newspaper every day but don't want to spend the same amount to read web sites. Might be something about having something tangible to hold in your hands, so that it "feels" like you actually bought something. Web sites may be too ephemeral. You pay for something that disappears, in a sense. Maybe if instead of buying the right to read something, if they instead downloaded pdfs that filled up disk space, people would feel as if they bought something "real". It's an odd situation because we pay for things that disappear all the time in other areas. When you go see a movie, you don't take the movie home with you. Anyway, sorry to interrupt the thread.
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Yugoslavia was formed after WW I, well before Tito came onto the scene. As Rand also notes, the modern Middle East was drawn up after WW I and it was done quite badly (David Fromkin's wonderful book, "A Peace to End All Peace" is perhaps the definitive book on the topic and well worth reading). I'm not trying to play word games, others who post on this Forum are far more adept at that than me, but only pointing out that the historical record argues otherwise. Ultimately, religious and ethnic issues arise and cause great tragedies (I always recommend CV Wedgewood's masterful account of the Thirty Years War that tore apart central Europe in the 17th century as a good example). IMO, The US is the only successful example of a multi-cultural nation that has withstood the test of time (so far).
It doesn't matter if Yugoslavia was created before WWI or if it was held together by Tito after WWII. It's a phony country made up of distinct peoples. There is no single Yugoslav people.
I agree with your point about the US. That's why I'm against creating a second language, Spanish, as a lingua franca. We're moving in that direction and it's very dangerous. It would aggravate comity of the populace and create a situation similar to Canada's, maybe worse.
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As an aside and off-topic, I find it interesting that we (royal we) were happy to spend a quarter (or a dollar) to read a newspaper every day but don't want to spend the same amount to read web sites. Might be something about having something tangible to hold in your hands, so that it "feels" like you actually bought something. Web sites may be too ephemeral. You pay for something that disappears, in a sense. Maybe if instead of buying the right to read something, if they instead downloaded pdfs that filled up disk space, people would feel as if they bought something "real". It's an odd situation because we pay for things that disappear all the time in other areas. When you go see a movie, you don't take the movie home with you. Anyway, sorry to interrupt the thread.
Actually, when you pay for online access, you can come back and read the articles as many times as you like. Unlike the real papers that end up in trash (or in a recycling bin). I remember the times, when the rural folks kept their outhouses stocked with the newspapers. You could read them first and then repurpose them. I recall Pravda which was rather thin.
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It doesn't matter if Yugoslavia was created before WWI or if it was held together by Tito after WWII. It's a phony country made up of distinct peoples. There is no single Yugoslav people.
I agree with your point about the US. That's why I'm against creating a second language, Spanish, as a lingua franca. We're moving in that direction and it's very dangerous. It would aggravate comity of the populace and create a situation similar to Canada's, maybe worse.
No Yugoslav people, only Yugo cars.
As to the Spanish, that already exists in the US as a second language, although not officially.
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No Yugoslav people, only Yugo cars.
As to the Spanish, that already exists in the US as a second language, although not officially.
These lingual "multis" bring little that's good.
Spain has its language problems with at least Catalan, which constantly pricks the sore on the Catalan area's nose. Mallorca has its own version of Catalan, called Mallorquin and Ibiza, I believe, has yet another version. The official language of Spain is Castilian. I have never, in about thirty-seven years, come across anyone who doesn't handle the official language far better than do I. Yet, there is also another running sore in medicine: staff recruited from the Spanish mainland have to be able to cope with Catalan in order to be employed, or at least on equal terms (now the latest bright idea). How damned self-harming a regulation is that to an island that needs good medical staff? As far as I can make out, that demand isn't coming from local docs, but from politicians with an eye on the separist vote.
For me, it's the same dish of putrid fish in Britain, where dialects and opaque languages are "celebrated" as a good thing. Why? Isn't the purpose of language the facilitation of a clear understanding between people? Media has become messed up with regional accents that do anything but help understanding. For once, colour has been a positive: two black newsreader, Moira Stuart and Gillian Joseph have beautiful voices that are both clear and accurate and devoid of obvious regionalism. They fit their job perfectly.
Rob
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FYI, this is a link to an NPR Fresh Air podcast (about 40-45 min) consisting of an interview with a reporter who has been covering events on the Mexican border, especially those to do with the separation of those kids from their parents. The reporter gives a summary of the various things that can happen to people trying to cross the border, and how difficult it is for the various agencies to bring kids back together with their parents just from the logistics point of view. The situation is multi-faceted. Daily headlines and the present discussion do not make the situation very clear.
http://freshairnpr.npr.libsynfusion.com/the-ongoing-crisis-at-the-border (http://freshairnpr.npr.libsynfusion.com/the-ongoing-crisis-at-the-border)
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...The situation is multi-faceted. Daily headlines and the present discussion do not make the situation very clear....[/url]
At least we are slowly moving away from the simplistic, sensationalistic angle of "the monster who cages children."
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At least we are slowly moving away from the simplistic, sensationalistic angle of "the monster who cages children."
True, but that part hasn't gone away.
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Oh dear! If it's on NPR it must be true.
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I can't access any more Washington Post articles without paying money. They may not like Trump. But they're just as greedy as him.
In any case, there's load of cultural and other differences between different parts of the US. But we still think of ourselves as Americans. So much the more so with Germans, Italians, etc. I think language is the great emulsifier. Which is why I want English as a single legal language in America. Look at the problems with two languages in Canada. Added to cultural differences, it almost broke up the country a few decades ago when Quebec province wanted their own country.
Irony of ironies that Steven Miller's (Trump's immigration advisor) grandmother could not speak English. (https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/24/us/immigration-resistance-genealogy-jennifer-mendelsohn-trnd/index.html). There are still many parts of New York city where English is secondarily used. Spanish, to be sure, is prevalent among first generation immigrants as was the native language of Germans, Italians, Koreans, Japanese, etc. but the kids learn English pretty quick. In many ethnic grocery stores, English is not the first language (we have a fine Asian supermarket that has the best fresh fish in the area and all of the staff are multi-ethnic with lots of different languages being spoken.
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Irony of ironies that Steven Miller's (Trump's immigration advisor) grandmother could not speak English. (https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/24/us/immigration-resistance-genealogy-jennifer-mendelsohn-trnd/index.html). There are still many parts of New York city where English is secondarily used. Spanish, to be sure, is prevalent among first generation immigrants as was the native language of Germans, Italians, Koreans, Japanese, etc. but the kids learn English pretty quick. In many ethnic grocery stores, English is not the first language (we have a fine Asian supermarket that has the best fresh fish in the area and all of the staff are multi-ethnic with lots of different languages being spoken.
My grandmother on my mother's side couldn't speak English either. She never became an American citizen but her husband did. My parents were born here so they are naturalized citizens as I am. Back when you had to register as an alien (I guess you still do?!), my grandmother would pester my father every year to file her immigration papers at the Post Office. She was always afraid she'd be sent back to the "old" country wherever that was. I don't think those towns even exist anymore. :)
As a New Yorker, I'm familiar with with all the neighborhoods where so many different languages are spoken. Well, 40% of NYC are immigrants. But NYC has always been that way. However, English is the official language of government in the USA. Usually, when you speak English, these people will switch to English. Chinese in public will speak English; I assume they speak Chinese at home. It's like a rule for them. But many Spanish speaking people will continue to speak Spanish in public. They suffer educationally and economically because of that. Chinese understand they have to adapt to the culture they live in to get ahead. Indians do well here too because they have the advantage of already speaking English. I'm always very impressed with so many posters here who not only speak English but understand idiomatic English. So even though I often disagree with them, they impress me with their language skills.
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Oh dear! If it's on NPR it must be true.
Right on cue.
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But many Spanish speaking people will continue to speak Spanish in public. They suffer educationally and economically because of that. Chinese understand they have to adapt to the culture they live in to get ahead. Indians do well here too because they have the advantage of already speaking English.
I think only the top level university graduates from India come here. The vast majority of Indians do not speak English at all. There are a significant number of Indian MDs in the Washington DC area, and a large number of gasteroenterolgists (I have no idea why this is so). It has been reported that Steven Miller's antipathy to immigrants was a result of his experience at Santa Monica High School where many of the Latino students spoke Spanish with one another and according to a Los Angeles Times story, "As he was finding his voice at Santa Monica High, Miller bemoaned the school's Spanish-language announcements, the colorful festivals of minority cultures, and the decline, as he saw it, of a more traditional version of American education." Personally, I have no problem at all with people speaking in their native languages.
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Oh dear! If it's on NPR it must be true.
I make it a habit to listen to about 3 hours of: NPR, Fox News, several US Network news programs, per week. They are all biased toward their editorial perspective(s) and by listening to all of it, I might on accident stumble across something worth knowing - doesn’t happen very often.
Who, or what organization doesn’t have their worldviews influencing their output? If you think anyone or any organization is objective, you, my friends, are the most naieve people on the planet. In fact, if they didn’t promote their perspective it would be very strange indeed. They all lie, slant, leave things out, make stuff up, etc. to promote their perspective. When you add to that the very poor journalistic training they’ve received “as a group” in the last generation, and that once a “story” is “written” it lives forever as boilerplate on some server somewhere (inaccuracies and all) waiting for the next installment of “the truth” to be written by some lazy-ass “journalist,” it gets pretty weird.
I get real kick out of all of us here, hanging on for dear life to “our” favorite version of BS being spewed, and going to battle with “the other guy who is undoubtedly got it wrong!” Talk about a waste of bandwidth.
Rand
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I make it a habit to listen to about 3 hours of: NPR, Fox News, several US Network news programs, per week. They are all biased toward their editorial perspective(s) and by listening to all of it, I might on accident stumble across something worth knowing - doesn’t happen very often.
Who, or what organization doesn’t have their worldviews influencing their output? If you think anyone or any organization is objective, you, my friends, are the most naieve people on the planet. In fact, if they didn’t promote their perspective it would be very strange indeed. They all lie, slant, leave things out, make stuff up, etc. to promote their perspective. When you add to that the very poor journalistic training they’ve received “as a group” in the last generation, and that once a “story” is “written” it lives forever as boilerplate on some server somewhere (inaccuracies and all) waiting for the next installment of “the truth” to be written by some lazy-ass “journalist,” it gets pretty weird.
I get real kick out of all of us here, hanging on for dear life to “our” favorite version of BS being spewed, and going to battle with “the other guy who is undoubtedly got it wrong!” Talk about a waste of bandwidth.
Rand
I happen to agree with much of what you said. But something else has happened recently. And that's the media have made a financial and business decision to be deliberately biased to match what they conceive as the best way to increase their ratings. So Fox caters to conservatives. And the rest cater to liberals. The Washington Post has become a liberal screed.
It wasn't always like this. While there was bias, often there was an attempt to create some balance. Now there's none. The objective is to hold your supporter group to hold your ratings. Damn the truth. Even late night comedians have boarded that train. In the past, they would knock the presidents. But they also would knock the opposition. Now they've made a decision to go fully left as they seem to believe their ratings are tied into the generation that thinks like that.
If only they could be as fair minded as the posters here. :)
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Well said, Alan, and on the money.
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I happen to agree with much of what you said. But something else has happened recently. And that's the media have made a financial and business decision to be deliberately biased to match what they conceive as the best way to increase their ratings. So Fox caters to conservatives. And the rest cater to liberals. The Washington Post has become a liberal screed.
It wasn't always like this. While there was bias, often there was an attempt to create some balance. Now there's none. The objective is to hold your supporter group to hold your ratings. Damn the truth. Even late night comedians have boarded that train. In the past, they would knock the presidents. But they also would knock the opposition. Now they've made a decision to go fully left as they seem to believe their ratings are tied into the generation that thinks like that.
If only they could be as fair minded as the posters here. :)
Alan,
It mostly only “appears” more obvious because all sides are less talented “journalists” than in the past. And, let me add this, if anyone thinks media “news” of any sort are in the information business (or ever have been) rather than the entertainment business - well that’s even more amusing.
Rand
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There's a report on "thehill.com" this afternoon that the administration will probably not meet the deadline for re-unification of the families. That NPR podcast I mentioned earlier provided a good explanation of why that might be the case, involving different agencies who do not have easy ways to share info with each other, along with some procedural problems which led them to NOT being able to identify which parents belonged to which kids.
Was it politically bias to report that information? Don't you think it's important for you, as citizens, to know things like that about the people doing things in your name?
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One reason they can't identify which parents belong to which kids is that in a lot of cases the kids hauled across the border illegally aren't the haulers' kids.
What's so terribly hard to understand about all this? These people came across our border illegally. That makes them criminals. I realize people don't like to use that word when it's applied to people who haven't committed assault or rape or murder, but the fact is that they broke the law. That's a crime. The makes them criminals.
I understand that they're coming here because of wretched situations in their home countries. But that's a political problem for them to solve, not for us to solve. On their way here they crossed Mexico. Why didn't they stay in lovely Mexico? You know damned well why.
I think we should handle these criminals as gently as possible. That's the Christian thing to do. But this crap has to stop somewhere, and we finally have a president who's willing at least to try to stop it. That's a change and a relief.
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I happen to agree with much of what you said. But something else has happened recently. And that's the media have made a financial and business decision to be deliberately biased to match what they conceive as the best way to increase their ratings. So Fox caters to conservatives. And the rest cater to liberals. The Washington Post has become a liberal screed.
IIRC you stated earlier that you don't read the Washington Post because of the paywall. If this is in fact correct, how can you make such a pronouncement? What aspects of the Post are "liberal screed" and why?
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I understand that they're coming here because of wretched situations in their home countries. But that's a political problem for them to solve, not for us to solve.
I wonder what exactly you understand. What caused their "wretched situation"? Anything to do with the US? Hands all nicely washed?
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One reason they can't identify which parents belong to which kids is that in a lot of cases the kids hauled across the border illegally aren't the haulers' kids.
What's so terribly hard to understand about all this? These people came across our border illegally. That makes them criminals. I realize people don't like to use that word when it's applied to people who haven't committed assault or rape or murder, but the fact is that they broke the law. That's a crime. The makes them criminals.
I understand that they're coming here because of wretched situations in their home countries. But that's a political problem for them to solve, not for us to solve. On their way here they crossed Mexico. Why didn't they stay in lovely Mexico? You know damned well why.
I think we should handle these criminals as gently as possible. That's the Christian thing to do. But this crap has to stop somewhere, and we finally have a president who's willing at least to try to stop it. That's a change and a relief.
You seem to be assuming that they are all criminals. And that all the kids were hostages or decoys. Maybe some are, but it seems far-fetched to assume they all are. I don't think it's a good idea to abandon due process based on feelings, do you?
You, and others, keep using the term criminals a lot, but it's not exactly the same thing as someone who holds up a liquor store, is it? That liquor store thief gets due process and the government doesn't kidnap his kids to coerce a plea bargain.
In your shoes, I would have no idea what to do. But there had better be something better than Trump working the crowd rallies up into a frenzy about criminals, animals and rapists. That's not even remotely civilized and beneath America's dignity. You should know better.
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IIRC you stated earlier that you don't read the Washington Post because of the paywall. If this is in fact correct, how can you make such a pronouncement? What aspects of the Post are "liberal screed" and why?
The WP allows x number of free articles per month which I read. Once I go above the free limit, I can't read any more until the next month. The entire paper is against Trump. Everything they write is slanted against him. He could walk on water and they'd complain that he doesn't know how to swim. Regarding my comment about how they play to their readers, when you read the email "letters" underneath an article about Trump, 95%+ of the postings are against Trump, with many just being vile vituperations. You get the same thing with the NY Times, although it's probably 90-95% anti Trump. But at least the NY Times doesn't allow the vileness of the letters the WP posts. NY Times readers hate Trump just as much as WP readers. They're just a little more classier.
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Alan,
It mostly only “appears” more obvious because all sides are less talented “journalists” than in the past. And, let me add this, if anyone thinks media “news” of any sort are in the information business (or ever have been) rather than the entertainment business - well that’s even more amusing.
Rand
It's as if they never went to Journalism 101. But I could accept it on the so-called cable news like Fox (some of it is more balanced and not just opinions), MSNBC, CNN. The problem is that the main broadcast stations like NBC, CBS, ABC have allowed their copy to shift into political activism. They've always been that way; even before cable. But its really gotten a lot worse. Ditto with the NY Times. Everyone;s got an agenda. No one plays it straight. It's like a ball game and everyone is choosing up sides. Actually, watching ballgames are more honest. The announcers seem to stick to the facts.
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The WP allows x number of free articles per month which I read. Once I go above the free limit, I can't read any more until the next month. The entire paper is against Trump. Everything they write is slanted against him. He could walk on water and they'd complain that he doesn't know how to swim. Regarding my comment about how they play to their readers, when you read the email "letters" underneath an article about Trump, 95%+ of the postings are against Trump, with many just being vile vituperations. You get the same thing with the NY Times, although it's probably 90-95% anti Trump. But at least the NY Times doesn't allow the vileness of the letters the WP posts. NY Times readers hate Trump just as much as WP readers. They're just a little more classier.
Isn't the WP owned by Bezos ? and isn't Amazon a "special" target of Trump ?
no surprise then.
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Does this headline leave any doubt where the WP bias is?
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That liquor store thief gets due process and the government doesn't kidnap his kids to coerce a plea bargain.
Robert, that's about the silliest comparison as I've ever seen. Ever notice that the liquor store thief doesn't bring his little kids with him when he robs a store. But if they catch him, they throw him in the pen, and if the rest of the family can't take care of his kids they get hauled off to government facilities of one sort or another.
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... Ever notice that the liquor store thief doesn't bring his little kids with him when he robs a store....
Perhaps he should? Hoping a bleeding heart judge would give him a get-out-of-jail free card? Fast forward, and 80% of liquor-store robberies are conducted with a toddler in tow, own or borrowed.
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Does this headline leave any doubt where the WP bias is?
That "headline" is part of WAPO's op/ed section, which, on the whole, is probably about as close to balanced as you're going to find. Regular op/ed columnists include noted conservatives George Will, Charles Krauthammer (until his recent passing), Michael Gerson (a former Bush speechwriter I believe), as well as more outspoken/partisan right wingers like Marc Theissen and Hugh Hewitt. It also frequently offers guest columns by numerous current and former notable Republicans like Bill Frist, Eric Cantor, Alberto Gonzalez etc. etc.
It's also important to note that being "anti-Trump" doesn't equate to being a liberal. Plenty of sensible conservatives that believe in the traditional values of free trade and a government that is "hands off " with the economy understand that Trump's "management" style is chaotic, lacking consistency, and pretty bad for the country.
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That "headline" is part of WAPO's op/ed section, which, on the whole, is probably about as close to balanced as you're going to find. Regular op/ed columnists include noted conservatives George Will, Charles Krauthammer (until his recent passing), Michael Gerson (a former Bush speechwriter I believe), as well as more outspoken/partisan right wingers like Marc Theissen and Hugh Hewitt. It also frequently offers guest columns by numerous current and former notable Republicans like Bill Frist, Eric Cantor, Alberto Gonzalez etc. etc.
It's also important to note that being "anti-Trump" doesn't equate to being a liberal. Plenty of sensible conservatives that believe in the traditional values of free trade and a government that is "hands off " with the economy understand that Trump's "management" style is chaotic, lacking consistency, and pretty bad for the country.
And it just so happens that all the "balanced" opinions in WP come from anti-Trump "sensible" conservatives ;)
Btw, is that the same Gorge Will who said that in the next elections conservatives should vote for... Democrats?
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Robert, that's about the silliest comparison as I've ever seen. Ever notice that the liquor store thief doesn't bring his little kids with him when he robs a store. But if they catch him, they throw him in the pen, and if the rest of the family can't take care of his kids they get hauled off to government facilities of one sort or another.
Because that's what important here, my choice of analogy.
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And it just so happens that all the "balanced" opinions in WP come from anti-Trump "sensible" conservatives ;)
No, not at all actually. Hewitt and Theissen are often Trump apologists, and there's a frequent contributor named Gary Abernathy that's a full-on Trump supporter.
Btw, is that the same Gorge Will who said that in the next elections conservatives should vote for... Democrats?
This is what Will actually said: "In today’s GOP, which is the president’s plaything, he is the mainstream. So, to vote against his party’s cowering congressional caucuses is to affirm the nation’s honor while quarantining him. A Democratic-controlled Congress would be a basket of deplorables, but there would be enough Republicans to gum up the Senate’s machinery, keeping the institution as peripheral as it has been under their control and asphyxiating mischief from a Democratic House. And to those who say, “But the judges, the judges!” the answer is: Article III institutions are not more important than those of Articles I and II combined."
He makes the argument that Congress has abdicated it's responsibility to act as a co-equal branch of government and in doing so is allowing Trump to run roughshod over the parts of the American tradition that he values. It's a sound point, I think (and less and less unique amongst more traditional Republicans).
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... This is what Will actually said: ...
Long story short, he said what I thought he said ;)
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No, not at all actually. Hewitt and Theissen are often Trump apologists, and there's a frequent contributor named Gary Abernathy that's a full-on Trump supporter...
And guess what? I personally have never seen a headline from WAPO favorable to Trump, Opinion page or not.
Nobody reads articles these days. Attention span is barely sufficient for headlines. And in the example I provided, it does not say "Opinion," it just says Washington Post.
Now feel free to counter my example with something that is in Trump favor and only bears WAPO logo on it.
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And guess what? I personally have never seen a headline from WAPO favorable to Trump, Opinion page or not.
Nobody reads articles these days. Attention span is barely sufficient for headlines. And in the example I provided, it does not say "Opinion," it just says Washington Post.
You must be looking on Mobile, because on the main site it's clearly in the opinion section. Not are what more you want?
Now feel free to counter my example with something that is in Trump favor and only bears WAPO logo on it.
How many do you want? These are all archived, so they would have been under the same WaPo op/ed area at the time of publication, and as I said, WAPO regularly prints opinion pieces supporting Trump's positions' s well of those of conservatives that do not agree with Trump. As I said before, don't confuse "anti-Trump" with "liberal."
Now go find me four pro-Obama pieces on Fox or (shudder) Breitbart. ;)
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Ok, James, you made your point, thanks.
However, I guess my main beef is that headlines come without "opinion" note (at least not in news aggregators, which I use - Bing News, Apple News) thus making people think it is a WAPO position.
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One wall goes up, the other is removed. Or “The enemy of my enemy is my friend".
Interesting video on the new deal between Germany and China by Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2018-07-10/merkel-lauds-china-s-market-opening-video?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=bd&utm_campaign=headline&cmpId=yhoo.headline&yptr=yahoo
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That "headline" is part of WAPO's op/ed section, which, on the whole, is probably about as close to balanced as you're going to find. Regular op/ed columnists include noted conservatives George Will, Charles Krauthammer (until his recent passing), Michael Gerson (a former Bush speechwriter I believe), as well as more outspoken/partisan right wingers like Marc Theissen and Hugh Hewitt. It also frequently offers guest columns by numerous current and former notable Republicans like Bill Frist, Eric Cantor, Alberto Gonzalez etc. etc.
It's also important to note that being "anti-Trump" doesn't equate to being a liberal. Plenty of sensible conservatives that believe in the traditional values of free trade and a government that is "hands off " with the economy understand that Trump's "management" style is chaotic, lacking consistency, and pretty bad for the country.
You fail to mention that Trump, a populist, went against these people during the nomination process when he beat "traditional" Republicans like Bush, Cruz, Rubio, etc. who most of these people supported. So the bulk of the WP opinion writers are either anti-Republican Democrats or anti-Trump Republicans. What kind of balance is that? But the really unfortunate part is that it's their regular news section that's biased to destroy Trump.
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Ok, James, you made your point, thanks.
However, I guess my main beef is that headlines come without "opinion" note (at least not in news aggregators, which I use - Bing News, Apple News) thus making people think it is a WAPO position.
And that's a very good and important point that you make, Slobo. Without any deliberate attempt at bias, aggregators and secondary reporting sources can significantly impact the view of the original material because it no longer sits within a primary context.
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And that's a very good and important point that you make, Slobo. Without any deliberate attempt at bias, aggregators and secondary reporting sources can significantly impact the view of the original material because it no longer sits within a primary context.
This, of course, underlines the futility of seeking anything that resembles an objective point of view.
My late wife was into maths and the sciences (chemistry and physics) and, as a result, would avoid allowing herself to be drawn down the path of futile argument. I, naturally enough, was the absolute opposite, and rose to almost each and every occasion where even the shadow of contretemps was on the table. All in all, she was generally the more contented soul. We can learn much, not just from our mothers.
:-)
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This, of course, underlines the futility of seeking anything that resembles an objective point of view.
My late wife was into maths and the sciences (chemistry and physics) and, as a result, would avoid allowing herself to be drawn down the path of futile argument. I, naturally enough, was the absolute opposite, and rose to almost each and every occasion where even the shadow of contretemps was on the table. All in all, she was generally the more contented soul. We can learn much, not just from our mothers.
:-)
Wise woman.
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The WP allows x number of free articles per month which I read. Once I go above the free limit, I can't read any more until the next month. The entire paper is against Trump. Everything they write is slanted against him. He could walk on water and they'd complain that he doesn't know how to swim. Regarding my comment about how they play to their readers, when you read the email "letters" underneath an article about Trump, 95%+ of the postings are against Trump, with many just being vile vituperations. You get the same thing with the NY Times, although it's probably 90-95% anti Trump. But at least the NY Times doesn't allow the vileness of the letters the WP posts. NY Times readers hate Trump just as much as WP readers. They're just a little more classier.
I just sent you a 30 day free past to the WaPo (as a subscriber, I get one of these each month; maybe I'll send next month's pass to Russ ;D). I never read the email comments as they are just people venting on one issue or another and certainly it would not be surprising if they were mainly anti-Trump. David Farenthold who uncovered some of the issues about the Trump Foundation during the election had a nice piece in today's paper about Trump's former driver who is now suing for not receiving overtime pay and having his health insurance taken away. WaPo writes
"Noel Cintron, 59, who said he served as Trump’s driver for more than 20 years, alleges that Trump did not pay him the time-and-a-half overtime wages required under New York state law. Instead, he was paid a flat yearly salary, which was set at $62,700 about 2003 and rose to $75,000 in 2010, according to his suit.
Cintron — who still worked for the Trump Organization in security as of Monday, according to his lawyer — served as Trump’s driver until mid-2016, when the real estate developer became the Republican presidential nominee and the Secret Service took over."
Maybe this is just a nuisance lawsuit, I don't know, but it is a patter of past behavior where various workers/suppliers to Trump hotels have been stiffed.
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And it just so happens that all the "balanced" opinions in WP come from anti-Trump "sensible" conservatives ;)
Btw, is that the same Gorge Will who said that in the next elections conservatives should vote for... Democrats?
As have Max Boot, Jennifer Rubin, and a host of other conservative Republicans. These folks have a long history with the Republican part. George Will helped prepare Ronald Reagan for the first debate with President Carter during the 1980 election. Perhaps they understand or see something that you don't.
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Thanks Alan for the subscription. I'm sure I'll learn a lot. Regarding Trump and his driver, I know I've reported here numerous times that I think Trump is a cheapskate. I worked with other real estate guys in New York City. They're all the same. It's hard to get paid.
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So the bulk of the WP opinion writers are either anti-Republican Democrats or anti-Trump Republicans. What kind of balance is that? But the really unfortunate part is that it's their regular news section that's biased to destroy Trump.
Hewitt, Thiessen, Abernethy (who is the editor of a small town Ohio paper and has been an op-ed contributor to the WaPo for almost a year) and the not yet mentioned Ed Rogers are all pro-Trump writers. Gerson has not explicitly come out against Trump but has been critical of many things he has done. It would have been interesting to see what Krauthammer would make of what is going on had he lived.How many more do you want? The fact that Rubin, Will, & Boot have turned against Trump is reflective of the mood of a number of Republicans who have defected from that party (I think you can agree with this). I see nothing wrong with this. If anything, the WaPo op-ed page has given much more space than many other newspapers.
Your statement about the news section being biased is arguable. Is the the goal of the press to report the truth? If we had a President who did not have an itch Twitter finger and didn't reflect the day's "Fox and Friends" news we would not need so much fact checking. Also, the WaPo fact checking column led by Glenn Kessler has gone after many Democrats as well!
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Because that's what important here, my choice of analogy.
Why are you complaining? It illustrates your method of reasoning.
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... "Noel Cintron, 59, who said he served as Trump’s driver for more than 20 years, alleges that Trump did not pay him the time-and-a-half overtime wages required under New York state law. Instead, he was paid a flat yearly salary, which was set at $62,700 about 2003 and rose to $75,000 in 2010, according to his suit...
It’s been a while since I paid close attention to this specific category of labor laws, so this is based on my memory:
Wouldn’t the sheer salary level place the driver in the “exempt” category? That is, category of employees exempt from the 1.5x overtime requirement, actually ANY overtime?
One of my beefs with Obama was for not raising the threshold for the exempt category, one of the surest ways, imho, to help middle class. The threshold remains unchanged since the 70s (again, my memory). It is possible, however, and please correct me if so, that Obama did raise that threshold ultimately in the last year (blame my memory).
I surely never got any overtime, even when working 80-hour weeks at times.
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job classification, not salary level, had more to do with the exempt/non-exempt determination. i know several diving welders that make over 200,000 USD per year. They get paid overtime at 1.5x.
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It’s been a while since I paid close attention to this specific category of labor laws, so this is based on my memory:
Wouldn’t the sheer salary level place the driver in the “exempt” category? That is, category of employees exempt from the 1.5x overtime requirement, actually ANY overtime?
One of my beefs with Obama was for not raising the threshold for the exempt category, one of the surest ways, imho, to help middle class. The threshold remains unchanged since the 70s (again, my memory). It is possible, however, and please correct me if so, that Obama did raise that threshold ultimately in the last year (blame my memory).
I surely never got any overtime, even when working 80-hour weeks at times.
This may be specific to New York state and of course it's a frivolous lawsuit (bet you never thought I would say that!!!). I also never received any overtime at any of the jobs I had and as with you there were often times when we had to work 80+ hours a week.
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job classification, not salary level, had more to do with the exempt/non-exempt determination. i know several diving welders that make over 200,000 USD per year. They get paid overtime at 1.5x.
Possibly job classification plays a role, but I am 100% certain there is a salary level too. It is possible that the base welder salary is bellow the threshold, say $50K, and the rest is overtime.
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Possibly job classification plays a role, but I am 100% certain there is a salary level too. It is possible that the base welder salary is bellow the threshold, say $50K, and the rest is overtime.
We were invited by friends to the Washington Nationals (baseball) game last Saturday night. My friend has season tickets and has a good relationship with one of the vendors who sells cold drinks and peanuts during the game. He asked him how the business works. He pays up front for the beverages and peanuts and keeps the proceeds from the sales including any tips he receives. He didn't say what his cut was from the beverage sales but did say that he usually nets $900 a night. He also works up at the Baltimore stadium for the Orioles on nights when the Nationals are out of town. If he does the 81 home games in Washington that works out to over $70K; add in the income from Baltimore and that's a good amount of money for just over six months work. I'm sure that the income from sales get reported to the IRS but the tips do not.
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As an ex one-man business (usually without his dog), I have no surprise to express at long working days, or days and nights in sequenced, sleep-deprived high.
Most folks have no concept of what it means to do your own thing and try to keep everybody you depend upon happy.
Would I do it again? I don't really know - my personal jury is still out. Thank goodness that's just academic today.
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Earlier on this thread there were several comments about non-factual news (I don't like the term 'Fake News'). The good folks at the Washington Post have dissected President Trump's speech in Montana last week and found that 76% of the claims were false, misleading, or lacking in evidence. The complete list is published HERE. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/07/10/anatomy-of-a-trump-rally-76-percent-of-claims-are-false-misleading-or-lacking-evidence/?utm_term=.dcb6b8eb1b78) Apologies to those who either don't have a WaPo subscription or have used up their quota of free articles for the month.
Here is the beginning of the article,
"We’re doing something new: analyzing every factual claim from President Trump’s campaign rally in Montana on Thursday. According to The Fact Checker’s database, the president had made 3,251 false or misleading claims at the end of May, and his average daily rate was climbing. This side of Trump really comes alive during campaign rallies, so we wanted to do the math and find out whether the president speaks more fictions or facts in front of his crowds.
We focused only on Trump’s statements of material fact at the Montana rally, avoiding trivialities and opinions. We didn’t double-count statements when the president repeated himself. According to our analysis, the truth took a beating in Montana. From a grand total of 98 factual statements we identified, 76 percent were false, misleading or unsupported by evidence."
Now some of you may say that everyone does this and of course that is correct. I don't believe we have ever seen exaggerations (I'm being charitable here) emerge from a President's mouth in this quantity in my lifetime.
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Earlier on this thread there were several comments about non-factual news (I don't like the term 'Fake News'). The good folks at the Washington Post have dissected President Trump's speech in Montana last week and found that 76% of the claims were false, misleading, or lacking in evidence. The complete list is published HERE. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/07/10/anatomy-of-a-trump-rally-76-percent-of-claims-are-false-misleading-or-lacking-evidence/?utm_term=.dcb6b8eb1b78) Apologies to those who either don't have a WaPo subscription or have used up their quota of free articles for the month.
Here is the beginning of the article,
"We’re doing something new: analyzing every factual claim from President Trump’s campaign rally in Montana on Thursday. According to The Fact Checker’s database, the president had made 3,251 false or misleading claims at the end of May, and his average daily rate was climbing. This side of Trump really comes alive during campaign rallies, so we wanted to do the math and find out whether the president speaks more fictions or facts in front of his crowds.
We focused only on Trump’s statements of material fact at the Montana rally, avoiding trivialities and opinions. We didn’t double-count statements when the president repeated himself. According to our analysis, the truth took a beating in Montana. From a grand total of 98 factual statements we identified, 76 percent were false, misleading or unsupported by evidence."
Now some of you may say that everyone does this and of course that is correct. I don't believe we have ever seen exaggerations (I'm being charitable here) emerge from a President's mouth in this quantity in my lifetime.
The WP can't see the forest through the trees. That's because they're blinded by Trump and are only concerned with damaging him.
No one cares about his hyperbolic salesmanship and marketing strategies. His supporters care about results and that he's keeping his word and being truthful to his pre-election policy objectives. That's where the WP should be analyzing what he's doing. But then, they'll have to admit he does tell the truth. That he is getting things done. Here are promises made during the election that he's kept or keeping:
1. He said he would pick justices for the supreme court from a list of 25 furnished before the election. He's done that appointing one (Gorsuch) and nominating a second (Kavanaugh).
2. He would increase military spending (Done)
3. He would approve the XL pipeline from Canada. (Done)
4. He would pull out of Paris (Done)
5. Decrease taxes and pass a new tax bill (Done- although I'm one of those who's paying more)
6. Get NATO countries in pay more for their military. (Working on it)
7. Defeat Obamacare (tax penalty removed but Obamacare still in effect due to no action from Congress)
8. Reduce regulations (A lot done. More to go)
9. Straighten out the trade imbalances (Working on it)
10. Develop better relations with Russia (working in it but held up by Mueller and the dark state)
11. Stop illegal immigration (Working on it but needs help from COngress).
12. Stop immigrants who want to hurt the USA. (passed presidential order approved by SCOTUS)
13. Open up more off-shore drilling. (Done)
14. Reverse Monuments (Done reducing the size of them-Big Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante)
He's telling the truth regarding his campaign promises. That's what people care about not how big he claims his hands are, or the size of his rallies. By wasting time with their "gotcha" analyses, the WP just shows how petty they are. WP followers cheer them on missing the big picture. In the meanwhile, Trump could turn out to be the most consequential president since Reagan and embarrass all those fake, conservative Republican neo-cons and fellow travelers the WP hires to write "nyah, nyah" articles against him.
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Great list, Alan. All that's quite true. But you're spinning your wheels. Neither the WP, nor the people who push WP-style BS care about any of that. What they care about is RESISTANCE! They want Hillary to have won, and they're gonna bang their heads against the wall, stamp their feet, and yell until Trump's outta there and Hillary (or her clone) is in. The mid-term election is gonna be a prime indicator of whether or not they're making progress. I think they're sliding down the hill, but at this point who knows?
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Great list, Alan. All that's quite true. But you're spinning your wheels. Neither the WP, nor the people who push WP-style BS care about any of that. What they care about is RESISTANCE! They want Hillary to have won, and they're gonna bang their heads against the wall, stamp their feet, and yell until Trump's outta there and Hillary (or her clone) is in. The mid-term election is gonna be a prime indicator of whether or not they're making progress. I think they're sliding down the hill, but at this point who knows?
Unfortunately I think it is helping Democrats. Most people don't have time to read anything but headlines. So attacks work and anti-Trump biased media overwhelms the air waves. MAybe ads during the midterms elections will make a difference. They have to show what he's accomplished. As a marketing guy, I'm surprised he hasn't done this. WEll, he has with tweets. Without them, he'd never get out his point of view.
Oh, another promise he made:
15. Defeat ISIS (done except for a few rump elements)
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Yes, you published a nice list but there are nuances that you missed to some of them.
1. He said he would pick justices for the supreme court from a list of 25 furnished before the election. He's done that appointing one (Gorsuch) and nominating a second (Kavanaugh).
Do you have any documentation for this?
2. He would increase military spending (Done)
Every President I've ever known has increased military spending so this really doesn't count for much. Also he promised to get the US out of Iraq and Afghanistan which has not happened. He also continued the faulty Obama strategy of letting Russia control Syria.
3. He would approve the XL pipeline from Canada. (Done)
Yes, and he's said it's going to create a lot of new jobs which is patently false. It's also likely not to be used much as fracking is displacing the need for oil from the tar sands in Alberta which was the reason for the pipeline to begin with. I suspect in the long run it won't be used much
5. Decrease taxes and pass a new tax bill (Done- although I'm one of those who's paying more)
He also promised to end the carried interest loophole for hedge fund managers which he clearly did not do. He also said that tax "reform" would hurt him personally and there is zero evidence that is true since most of the real estate deductions are still on the books. I am also paying more in taxes.
7. Defeat Obamacare (tax penalty removed but Obamacare still in effect due to no action from Congress)
You must have missed the article this week that the Administration is not going to reimburse insurers because of high incurred costs. This will do more to drive them out of the ACA marketplace than anything else. I'm thankful that my two daughters, formerly on ACA policies, are no longer independent workers and are getting taxpayer subsidized insurance from their employers (another pet peeve of mine was they should have eliminated the business deduction for employee health insurance and cleaned up the tax code).
9. Straighten out the trade imbalances (Working on it)
Other than the two loony tune economists who work for the Administration, I know of no mainstream economists that think what he is doing will solve anything at all. Soybean prices are rock bottom and I wonder if the farmers will come begging for a bail out when China shifts their purchases to Brazil.
10. Develop better relations with Russia (working in it but held up by Mueller and the dark state)
Seriously, is this something to be proud of? Here is a country that is doing so much bad stuff it's not even funny. How about the poisonings that took place in England recently? Syria? Ukraine? Russian attempts to sabotage elections in the US and England? If this is the kind of friend you want, good luck. Also, please point out to me how the "dark state" what ever that is is involved.
13. Open up more off-shore drilling. (Done)
I wouldn't say this is done. Point to me one state on the Eastern Seaboard that is going to allow offshore oil drilling. Even the really Republican governors are against this one.
14. Reverse Monuments (Done reducing the size of them-Big Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante)
I don't think this was a campaign promise but could be wrong.
He's telling the truth regarding his campaign promises.
He also said that he would be a top job creator and yet the statistics still show job growth has not been any greater than that of Obama's second term once we got out of the great recession. Even Carter and Clinton saw greater job creation in their first term than we are seeing right now. If some of this money coming back into the country from overseas corporate holdings went to increased salaries for workers, I might cut Trump a break but that's not happening at all. We are seeing stock buy backs and dividend payouts but that's it. It's fine for upper 2% of the population but I don't think that is Trump's entire base.
I would also give Trump major credit were he to do something as ambitious as infrastructure but he has shown little interest in fixing the roads and bridges here in the US.
In total, he has done very little other than the tax bill which he signed and did not get involved in as he hinted he would during the campaign. It looks like he will get his second Supreme Court justice approved but if Congress were ever to do its job correctly the Supreme Court becomes unnecessary.
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You're arguing against his policies. I didn't say you should like them. You're complaining about "nuances". All distinctions without differences. Of course nothing's perfect. But the point is that he told the truth to his supporters and is following through on his campaign promises.
I just heard that he's adding another $200 billion to his tariffs on Chinese goods. I'm sure he's doing that also as a signal to the EU and NATO countries before his trip to Europe. Next is a tariff on German cars. Was he going to add tariffs to the Japanese cars too? I better hurry up and get that new Acura my wife wants or I'll have to buy a Ford. :)
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10. Develop better relations with Russia (working in it but held up by Mueller and the dark state)
Seriously, is this something to be proud of? ...
Yes. We currently have one common enemy.
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Yes. We currently have one common enemy.
Western Europe??
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Western Europe??
Close, but no cigar ;)
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Close, but no cigar ;)
Ah.. stupid me. I forgot that NATO encompasses more than just Western Europe these days. ;)
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Economics are totally above my paid grade, so here goes a genuine question. Chinese economy is based primarily on manufacturing. US economy seems to be based on the service industries and on consumption. China makes, US uses. How do you balance that? Would it not require the US not being such a consumer. Don’t buy that new phone, stick with the old TV or toaster for a while longer. Columbia produces cocaine, they sell it it to the US, how would you balance that? Stopping consumption I would assume.
Like I say. Above my pay grade.
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Economics are totally above my paid grade, so here goes a genuine question. Chinese economy is based primarily on manufacturing. US economy seems to be based on the service industries and on consumption. China makes, US uses. How do you balance that? Would it not require the US not being such a consumer. Don’t buy that new phone, stick with the old TV or toaster for a while longer. Columbia produces cocaine, they sell it it to the US, how would you balance that? Stopping consumption I would assume.
Like I say. Above my pay grade.
Good points. As a letter in the Financial Times pointed out yesterday, when you take into account the manufacturing that takes place in China for US companies (Apple is the obvious example) the "imbalance" reduces or disappears.
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Close, but no cigar ;)
The Masons?
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Economics are totally above my paid grade, so here goes a genuine question. Chinese economy is based primarily on manufacturing. US economy seems to be based on the service industries and on consumption. China makes, US uses. How do you balance that? Would it not require the US not being such a consumer. Don’t buy that new phone, stick with the old TV or toaster for a while longer. Columbia produces cocaine, they sell it it to the US, how would you balance that? Stopping consumption I would assume.
Like I say. Above my pay grade.
there was a large sign outside of Trenton NJ that was visible from the train when we would go up to New York for a visit, "Trenton makes, the World takes." Alas, this is no longer true. The best way to stop the imbalance in the drug trade is to fully decriminalize it and eliminate the vast profits that can be made. I'm curious whether the current trend in the states to decriminalizing marijuana will have any impact on the use of other drugs.
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The Masons?
Nope, The Illuminati
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Nope, The Illuminati
Aw man, not them again.
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there was a large sign outside of Trenton NJ that was visible from the train when we would go up to New York for a visit, "Trenton makes, the World takes." Alas, this is no longer true. The best way to stop the imbalance in the drug trade is to fully decriminalize it and eliminate the vast profits that can be made. I'm curious whether the current trend in the states to decriminalizing marijuana will have any impact on the use of other drugs.
You focus on the wrong factor.
Forget money for a second; consider the ruined lives instead.
Do you really, really believe that if drugs were freely and cheaply available in the local chemist or tobaconist shops, free of dangers from arrest or violence, that the number of folks who would never get out of bed short of crawling out to buy some more junk, would not increase dramatically?
The only way to beat the drugs business is to be serious, arrest the fat cats whose identities I am sure are known to the powers that be, arrest the users and blame them, not give them hugs and more free, alternative crap to divert the dependency to something else. Those dickheads bring it on themselves, and can hardly plead ignorance! As Russ recently pointed out, modern folks don't like to use the word criminal when describing people who commit crime.
As with everything commercial: remove the market and the product vanishes.
America makes so many guns; use them to achieve, at last, some ultimate good!
(Almost time for another Q.E.D.)
Rob
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No one cares about his hyperbolic salesmanship and marketing strategies. His supporters care about results and that he's keeping his word and being truthful to his pre-election policy objectives.
“I will tell you what has carried me to the position I have reached. Our political problems appeared complicated. The people could make nothing of them… I…reduced them to the simplest terms. The masses realised this and followed me.”
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Economics are totally above my paid grade, so here goes a genuine question. Chinese economy is based primarily on manufacturing. US economy seems to be based on the service industries and on consumption. China makes, US uses. How do you balance that? Would it not require the US not being such a consumer. Don’t buy that new phone, stick with the old TV or toaster for a while longer. Columbia produces cocaine, they sell it it to the US, how would you balance that? Stopping consumption I would assume.
Like I say. Above my pay grade.
While the number of people employed in manufacturing has declined, the percent of manufacturing to total GDP has been constant. This is due to automation. Another example is farming. Over hundred years ago, 95% of the people were farmers and required to feed the US population. Today, due to automation, tractors, fertilizer, etc. only 5-10% is required. So automation has freed up farmers and manufacturing employees to pursue other trades, mainly in the service industries. Check the chart in this link.
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/us-manufacturing-past-and-potential-future-baily-bosworth.pdf (https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/us-manufacturing-past-and-potential-future-baily-bosworth.pdf)
But regardless of the number of employees, we still produce stuff and we want to be able to sell our goods into all countries. China has imposed tariffs that make it harder for us to sell into their country while we do not apply the same tariffs to their goods. Trump is adding tariffs on Chinese goods hopefully to force them to lower their tariffs so we can compete more fairly.
Additionally, China has been stealing our intellectual property. Trump and previous presidents wanted them to stop. So Trump is using tariffs as a way to force the issue since they have refused to stop stealing our creativity. It would help you sell your photos to Chinese buyers. :)
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You focus on the wrong factor.
Forget money for a second; consider the ruined lives instead.
Do you really, really believe that if drugs were freely and cheaply available in the local chemist or tobaconist shops, free of dangers from arrest or violence, that the number of folks who would never get out of bed short of crawling out to buy some more junk, would not increase dramatically?
The only way to beat the drugs business is to be serious, arrest the fat cats whose identities I am sure are known to the powers that be, arrest the users and blame them, not give them hugs and more free, alternative crap to divert the dependency to something else. Those dickheads bring it on themselves, and can hardly plead ignorance! As Russ recently pointed out, modern folks don't like to use the word criminal when describing people who commit crime.
As with everything commercial: remove the market and the product vanishes.
America makes so many guns; use them to achieve, at last, some ultimate good!
(Almost time for another Q.E.D.)
Rob
We already have to drive on roads with drunk drivers. Does anyone believe that adding stoned drivers is going to make driving safer? The new Democrat governor in my state New Jersey is pushing to legalize pot. He's looking to run for president and wants to be seen as a liberal-progressive. What a jerk.
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You focus on the wrong factor.
Forget money for a second; consider the ruined lives instead.
Do you really, really believe that if drugs were freely and cheaply available in the local chemist or tobaconist shops, free of dangers from arrest or violence, that the number of folks who would never get out of bed short of crawling out to buy some more junk, would not increase dramatically?
Perhaps but I envision a government tax on sales that would be used to provide addiction treatment for those who want it.
The only way to beat the drugs business is to be serious, arrest the fat cats whose identities I am sure are known to the powers that be, arrest the users and blame them, not give them hugs and more free, alternative crap to divert the dependency to something else. Those dickheads bring it on themselves, and can hardly plead ignorance!
We know full well who is responsible for the prescription opioid epidemic yet have done nothing to stop it. this should have been the easiest case of all since the drugs are already regulated for sale in the US.
As with everything commercial: remove the market and the product vanishes.
this is too humorous. President Nixon declared a war on illegal drug use back in 1971 (when usage was mainly pot; cocaine and methamphetamine came much later, heroin was always a niche drug). It's estimated that the US has spent $1 trillion during this time to little effect. Sentencing guidelines have led to overcrowding in US prisons and there is no proof that this deterrence has worked. A fuller discussion of this is on the good Wikipedia page (open to all and no paywall): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs
America makes so many guns; use them to achieve, at last, some ultimate good!
Shoot all the drug users?
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... to fully decriminalize it...
+1
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We already have to drive on roads with drunk drivers. Does anyone believe that adding stoned drivers is going to make driving safer? The new Democrat governor in my state New Jersey is pushing to legalize pot. He's looking to run for president and wants to be seen as a liberal-progressive. What a jerk.
You don't want marijuana legalized?
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The Masons?
Warm, warm... in the sense you got the first letter right ;)
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You don't want marijuana legalized?
No. Not for recreational use. If some of its ingredients have medical advantages, then those should be utilized.
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“I will tell you what has carried me to the position I have reached. Our political problems appeared complicated. The people could make nothing of them… I…reduced them to the simplest terms. The masses realised this and followed me.”
Another reference to Hitler.
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Another reference to Hitler.
Well, if Trump can adopt Mussolini's slogans ("drenare la palude"), it seems appropriate.
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Well, if Trump can adopt Mussolini's slogans ("drenare la palude"), it seems appropriate.
There you go again. Now Jeremy is going to shut down this thread because you called Trump both Hitler and Mussolini. Can't you control, yourself? Do us all a favor and delete your posts referencing these two despots.
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Well, if Trump can adopt Mussolini's slogans ("drenare la palude"), it seems appropriate.
In fairness this is only half true: http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2018/may/09/madeleine-albright/madeleine-albright-right-about-mussolini-and-drain/ It was never said by Mussolini.
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In fairness this is only half true: http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2018/may/09/madeleine-albright/madeleine-albright-right-about-mussolini-and-drain/ It was never said by Mussolini.
Thanks for the correction :-)
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In fairness this is only half true: http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2018/may/09/madeleine-albright/madeleine-albright-right-about-mussolini-and-drain/ It was never said by Mussolini.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright who compared Trump to Mussolini and Hitler was the person who also said:" there's a special place in hell for women who don't vote for Hillary". What a buffoon.
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Good for you, Alan. You're being very polite.
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Secretary of State Madeleine Albright who compared Trump to Mussolini and Hitler was the person who also said:" there's a special place in hell for women who don't vote for Hillary". What a buffoon.
One could say the same about Sarah Palin who fell for Sascha Baron Cohen's ruse and now is trying to blame it on him!
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“I will tell you what has carried me to the position I have reached. Our political problems appeared complicated. The people could make nothing of them… I…reduced them to the simplest terms. The masses realised this and followed me.”
While this quote is ascribed to he who shall not be mentioned, it also has been paraphrased in a lot of different ways over the years. The 'buffoon' referred to by Alan Klein in another post has a new book out on Fascism and she uses the quote in THIS INTERVIEW. (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/08/madeleine-albright-fascism-is-not-an-ideology-its-a-method-interview-fascism-a-warning) I'll point out that there is truth in some of the things Albright says in the interview.
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... I'll point out that there is truth in some of the things ...
Which is a required ingredient in any propaganda: a mixture of truth, semi-truth and lies.
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We already have to drive on roads with drunk drivers. Does anyone believe that adding stoned drivers is going to make driving safer? The new Democrat governor in my state New Jersey is pushing to legalize pot. He's looking to run for president and wants to be seen as a liberal-progressive. What a jerk.
This is already true. It has always been true. No one (almost) who wanted drugs has ever had any difficulty obtaining them. Ever. The notion that prohibiting them prevented (or decreased) use is not plausible. Despite "drugs" being illegal almost everywhere on earth, despite the "war" on them, the rise of international drug cartels was never curtailed and you could argue that the very self-described "war" accelerated gang growth.
Wouldn't it make more sense now to observe and learn from the jurisdictions that did decriminalize drugs to see what happened there. Wouldn't it make sense to stop relying on feelings but rather see what actually happens in the real world, given how completely unproductive the current methodology has been.
All this skirts around the issue of why drugs were ever made illegal in the first place, which is far from being obvious. The fundamental notion that drug usage is a supply-side driven phenomenon is suspect. "Pushers" don't force people to take drugs, people chase after dealers with money to BUY drugs.
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You focus on the wrong factor.
Forget money for a second; consider the ruined lives instead.
Do you really, really believe that if drugs were freely and cheaply available in the local chemist or tobaconist shops, free of dangers from arrest or violence, that the number of folks who would never get out of bed short of crawling out to buy some more junk, would not increase dramatically?
The only way to beat the drugs business is to be serious, arrest the fat cats whose identities I am sure are known to the powers that be, arrest the users and blame them, not give them hugs and more free, alternative crap to divert the dependency to something else. Those dickheads bring it on themselves, and can hardly plead ignorance! As Russ recently pointed out, modern folks don't like to use the word criminal when describing people who commit crime.
As with everything commercial: remove the market and the product vanishes.
America makes so many guns; use them to achieve, at last, some ultimate good!
(Almost time for another Q.E.D.)
Rob
I think that the last century's experience with criminalizing drugs demonstrates that you are wrong. Doing more of the same will NOT lead to a different result. How could it?
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Which is a required ingredient in any propaganda: a mixture of truth, semi-truth and lies.
WOW, pick me up off the floor! You just provided an excellent example of Trumpian rallies!! I'm sure this is just an accident and would look for you to quickly delete the offending post.
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“I will tell you what has carried me to the position I have reached. Our political problems appeared complicated. The people could make nothing of them… I…reduced them to the simplest terms. The masses realised this and followed me.”
I have made my position crystal clear: http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=125576.msg1054484#msg1054484. I will not tolerate such comparisons, direct or indirect. Take a holiday.
Jeremy
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This is already true. It has always been true. No one (almost) who wanted drugs has ever had any difficulty obtaining them. Ever. The notion that prohibiting them prevented (or decreased) use is not plausible. Despite "drugs" being illegal almost everywhere on earth, despite the "war" on them, the rise of international drug cartels was never curtailed and you could argue that the very self-described "war" accelerated gang growth.
Wouldn't it make more sense now to observe and learn from the jurisdictions that did decriminalize drugs to see what happened there. Wouldn't it make sense to stop relying on feelings but rather see what actually happens in the real world, given how completely unproductive the current methodology has been.
All this skirts around the issue of why drugs were ever made illegal in the first place, which is far from being obvious. The fundamental notion that drug usage is a supply-side driven phenomenon is suspect. "Pushers" don't force people to take drugs, people chase after dealers with money to BUY drugs.
The evidence is in that legalized pot is causing more accidents and deaths on the road. How can anyone be surprised at that?
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The evidence is in that legalized pot is causing more accidents and deaths on the road. How can anyone be surprised at that?
THIS (https://coloradopolitics.com/marijuana-legalization-has-not-increased-traffic-fatalities/) argues against what you state. It's makes no difference to me because DUI should be applicable. From my perspective, if you drink or you smoke, you don't drive.
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Once I drove from my home in NY to a club in NJ high on pot. Strange, I felt that I was driving downhill all the way. If figured it must be that NY's elevation is higher than NJ's. Strange, when I drove home, I still felt like I was driving downhill. Funny how topography works. :)
All considering afterwards, I really don;t know how I made it there and back without killing myself or someone else. Anyone who says it's safe to drive on pot just wants pot legalized so they can use it. But it's no way safer than driving sober.
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Once I drove from my home in NY to a club in NJ high on pot. Strange, I felt that I was driving downhill all the way. If figured it must be that NY's elevation is higher than NJ's. Strange, when I drove home, I still felt like I was driving downhill. Funny how topography works. :)
All considering afterwards, I really don;t know how I made it there and back without killing myself or someone else. Anyone who says it's safe to drive on pot just wants pot legalized so they can use it. But it's no way safer than driving sober.
That's the key point. It's not safer and there should be equal penalties DUI. I've been drug free since 1973 (one of my lab colleagues showed me the data on carcinogens in marijuana smoke (10 fold higher than cigarettes) and that made me stop cold turkey) but even when I did smoke I never drove. Don't have anything more than a single glass of wine or glass of beer if we go out for dinner either. Driving while impaired is just too risky.
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...Anyone who says it's safe to drive on pot...
I hope nobody says that seriously.
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I think that the last century's experience with criminalizing drugs demonstrates that you are wrong. Doing more of the same will NOT lead to a different result. How could it?
What it showed, and is still showing, is that the political and police will to end the damned thing is simply not there. Too many people are happy to take a rake-off and look the other way or, even (understandably) are just too frightened or disillusioned to keep trying to do the right thing. It is always the easy option to look elsewhere for both blame and hard action; that makes everybody feel they are doing something constructive, even if just keeping the idiots at home supplied with their stuff whilst peasants and cartels battle it out somewhere else, in another country.
There was always the option to hit some Afghan poppy fields instead of some fat bastards selling death in the local clubs or street corners of home; and see how well that turned out: it made an entire religion hate you. Forget walls; build more prisons at home and use them. Clean up the domestic mess before playing world cop in those sorts of wars. There are other, more important ones to prevent.
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Report from the Governors Highway Safety Association found that 44% of drivers who died and were tested had positive results for drugs in 2016, up from 28% in 2006.
The presence of pot in tested drivers has increased substantially in the past decade, it found, more than the presence of opioids. In 2016, 41% of the drug-positive fatalities showed marijuana in the bloodstream compared with 35% in 2006. But about 20% of the drug-positive drivers had some type of opioid present compared with 17% in 2006. Meanwhile, of the deceased drivers with known alcohol test results, about 38% tested positive for any amount in 2016, a slight drop from 41% a decade earlier.
In Colorado, the number of traffic fatalities in which a driver tested positive for THC increased from 18 in 2013 to 77 in 2016.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/more-drivers-killed-in-car-crashes-show-traces-of-pot-opioids-in-their-systems-2018-05-31
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Report from the Governors Highway Safety Association found that 44% of drivers who died and were tested had positive results for drugs in 2016, up from 28% in 2006.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/more-drivers-killed-in-car-crashes-show-traces-of-pot-opioids-in-their-systems-2018-05-31
The problem is that THC is fat soluble and stays in the body so the urine test is unreliable in terms of when the pot was smoked. Heavy users can test positive for 1-3 months after quitting - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_drug_testing There is no way to figure out if those drivers who were killed and tested positive for THC were still high.
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Anyone who says it's safe to drive on pot just wants pot legalized so they can use it. But it's no way safer than driving sober.
Who ever said that?
But I still don't understand what you're suggesting. People who would smoke dope and drive are already doing so, and yes, they should be stopped. (I also think that people who drive tired should be stopped and people who drive on bald tires should be stopped, etc., but we don't do much about any of those.)
But you're tangentially making the case for total prohibition of alcohol. Are you advocating that?
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What it showed, and is still showing, is that the political and police will to end the damned thing is simply not there. Too many people are happy to take a rake-off and look the other way or, even (understandably) are just too frightened or disillusioned to keep trying to do the right thing. It is always the easy option to look elsewhere for both blame and hard action; that makes everybody feel they are doing something constructive, even if just keeping the idiots at home supplied with their stuff whilst peasants and cartels battle it out somewhere else, in another country.
There was always the option to hit some Afghan poppy fields instead of some fat bastards selling death in the local clubs or street corners of home; and see how well that turned out: it made an entire religion hate you. Forget walls; build more prisons at home and use them. Clean up the domestic mess before playing world cop in those sorts of wars. There are other, more important ones to prevent.
If you're making the case that drug cartels are repulsive, you'll not get an argument here or, I hope, anywhere.
Prohibition of alcohol in the USA fuelled the rise of bootleggers and organized crime. The ending of prohibition ended that business for them. Why not do the same for drug cartels?
We can't keep drugs out of prisons. Prisons have locked doors and we know everyone going in or out. Do you really think we can stop drug trafficking in a free society? Do you think all the police forces in the world stand a chance against that level of black market profit?
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...But I still don't understand what you're suggesting. People who would smoke dope and drive are already doing so, and yes, they should be stopped. (I also think that people who drive tired should be stopped and people who drive on bald tires should be stopped, etc., but we don't do much about any of those.)
But you're tangentially making the case for total prohibition of alcohol. Are you advocating that?
I never advocated prohibiting alcohol. However, adding more driving accidents and fatalities that could effect my family or yours due to stoned drivers on legal recreational pot is not something I'd vote for. I guess you missed Les's post showing that there are more driving accidents and fatalities in Colorado where they have legalized it.
Here's a copy of Les's post.
[/font]Report from the Governors Highway Safety Association found that 44% of drivers who died and were tested had positive results for drugs in 2016, up from 28% in 2006.
The presence of pot in tested drivers has increased substantially in the past decade, it found, more than the presence of opioids. In 2016, 41% of the drug-positive fatalities showed marijuana in the bloodstream compared with 35% in 2006. But about 20% of the drug-positive drivers had some type of opioid present compared with 17% in 2006. Meanwhile, of the deceased drivers with known alcohol test results, about 38% tested positive for any amount in 2016, a slight drop from 41% a decade earlier.
In Colorado, the number of traffic fatalities in which a driver tested positive for THC increased from 18 in 2013 to 77 in 2016.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/more-drivers-killed-in-car-crashes-show-traces-of-pot-opioids-in-their-systems-2018-05-31 (https://www.marketwatch.com/story/more-drivers-killed-in-car-crashes-show-traces-of-pot-opioids-in-their-systems-2018-05-31)
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The problem is that THC is fat soluble and stays in the body so the urine test is unreliable in terms of when the pot was smoked. Heavy users can test positive for 1-3 months after quitting - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_drug_testing There is no way to figure out if those drivers who were killed and tested positive for THC were still high.
So either:
A: The increase in accidents were caused because the drivers were in fact high at the time the accidents occurred.
or
B. That the 44% of drivers who died and were tested had positive results for drugs weren't high. It's just that these drivers who died were people who use THC but must be worse drivers than people who don't use THC. What else could account for the high 44%?
I'll go with selection A.
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That's the key point. It's not safer and there should be equal penalties DUI. I've been drug free since 1973 (one of my lab colleagues showed me the data on carcinogens in marijuana smoke (10 fold higher than cigarettes) and that made me stop cold turkey) but even when I did smoke I never drove. Don't have anything more than a single glass of wine or glass of beer if we go out for dinner either. Driving while impaired is just too risky.
If it's not safer, I don't want to legalize a substance that will add more carnage on the roads where me and my family drives. I'm for others freedoms. But not when their freedom puts me at risk I rather not take. I have my freedoms as well.
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If you're making the case that drug cartels are repulsive, you'll not get an argument here or, I hope, anywhere.
Prohibition of alcohol in the USA fuelled the rise of bootleggers and organized crime. The ending of prohibition ended that business for them. Why not do the same for drug cartels?
We can't keep drugs out of prisons. Prisons have locked doors and we know everyone going in or out. Do you really think we can stop drug trafficking in a free society? Do you think all the police forces in the world stand a chance against that level of black market profit?
You are missing or sidestepping my point: it's about the will to beat the problem.
The makers are just one fraction of the whole: the people who run the rings, import, make stuff locally, distribute, they are the problem within the domestic part of the situation. And they are the people who can be dealt with locally. Of course drugs could be kept out of prisons: just as you can keep dangerous materials off aircraft you can prevent them getting into jails. The missing link is the will to do it. That, and penalties to match the consequences of the crimes. Less attention to the "rights" of inmates and a concentration on keeping drugs out of reach would be a start.
The huge profits are only there because the risks are worth taking because the chances of the capos being nabbed are very low. Why? I doubt it's because the police don't have the technology or resources to find them; I think it is because they are kept immune from authority. And where you have a society of dimwits ready and willing to abuse themselves with substances that will probably ruin their lives, it is pointless depending on them to provide solutions. The best you can do is catch them early: toss them out of school or university if that's where they do their thing; let their friends realise it is not fun and games, that it all comes at life-changing price. Set example of consequence.
As for the bootleggers: they hardly kept low profiles. They were popular characters, criminal stars, even. Their immunity was even more obvious than that of today's lot.
A start could be made by investigating the funding of some of those wonderful palaces that grace the Intracoastal Waterway; the funding of some of the larger yachts all over the Mediterranean; yacht clubs have waiting lists, and the last time I heard, the local one wants about €23,000 to join and you still won't get a berth to buy. Wonder about those folks who can buy multi-million pound apartments in Monaco and London, and on and on. By no means do I suggest they are all crooks, but you would be very unlucky not to unearth one if you looked in the right place. As I say, it's a matter of will.
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The expectations of coming legalization of pot in Canada are getting ridiculous. Scores of people (mainly women, most likely because men who were interested in the stuff were not deterred so much by the previous ban) are already planning marijuana parties, and getting high on October 17, when it becomes legal. Media are full with promises of fantastic business opportunities.
Once the pot growing becomes an indispensable feature of Canada's economy, Canada will able to compete with Afghanistan in growing the production and markets for this very desired commodity.
Legalized marijuana presents opportunity of a lifetime for Canadian entrepreneurs. Canada is creating a $23 billion business opportunity. And that's just the beginning.
Canadians could also be at the forefront of a growing global business, exporting not only cannabis and its derivatives, but also the technology to grow it.
The cannabis corporations that are now emerging will need accountants, public relations professionals, packagers, security and legal experts. They'll be leasing office space, buying furniture, paying taxes, and hiring lots and lots of people.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canada-cannabis-greenrush-1.4383010
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The expectations of coming legalization of pot in Canada are getting ridiculous. Scores of people (mainly women, most likely because men who were interested in the stuff were not deterred so much by the previous ban) are already planning marijuana parties, and getting high on October 17, when it becomes legal. Media are full with promises of fantastic business opportunities.
Once the pot growing becomes an indispensable feature of Canada's economy, Canada will able to compete with Afghanistan in growing the production and markets for this very desired commodity.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canada-cannabis-greenrush-1.4383010
My guess is that growing pot and making other drugs is already a large part of every country's economy and has been for decades. A black market part of the economy, of course.
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You are missing or sidestepping my point: it's about the will to beat the problem.
The makers are just one fraction of the whole: the people who run the rings, import, make stuff locally, distribute, they are the problem within the domestic part of the situation. And they are the people who can be dealt with locally. Of course drugs could be kept out of prisons: just as you can keep dangerous materials off aircraft you can prevent them getting into jails. The missing link is the will to do it. That, and penalties to match the consequences of the crimes. Less attention to the "rights" of inmates and a concentration on keeping drugs out of reach would be a start.
The huge profits are only there because the risks are worth taking because the chances of the capos being nabbed are very low. Why? I doubt it's because the police don't have the technology or resources to find them; I think it is because they are kept immune from authority. And where you have a society of dimwits ready and willing to abuse themselves with substances that will probably ruin their lives, it is pointless depending on them to provide solutions. The best you can do is catch them early: toss them out of school or university if that's where they do their thing; let their friends realise it is not fun and games, that it all comes at life-changing price. Set example of consequence.
As for the bootleggers: they hardly kept low profiles. They were popular characters, criminal stars, even. Their immunity was even more obvious than that of today's lot.
A start could be made by investigating the funding of some of those wonderful palaces that grace the Intracoastal Waterway; the funding of some of the larger yachts all over the Mediterranean; yacht clubs have waiting lists, and the last time I heard, the local one wants about €23,000 to join and you still won't get a berth to buy. Wonder about those folks who can buy multi-million pound apartments in Monaco and London, and on and on. By no means do I suggest they are all crooks, but you would be very unlucky not to unearth one if you looked in the right place. As I say, it's a matter of will.
The profits in drug sales are high because they're illegal.
There is no WILL on anyone's part to get rid of drugs. Never have been. It's not a supply-side problem. People everywhere want to BUY drugs.
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If it's not safer, I don't want to legalize a substance that will add more carnage on the roads where me and my family drives. I'm for others freedoms. But not when their freedom puts me at risk I rather not take. I have my freedoms as well.
I don't think it is logically consistent to believe what you believe without wanting alcohol prohibited. Alcohol has been involved in (rough average) 50% of all traffic accidents for decades.
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You are missing or sidestepping my point: it's about the will to beat the problem.
The makers are just one fraction of the whole: the people who run the rings, import, make stuff locally, distribute, they are the problem within the domestic part of the situation. And they are the people who can be dealt with locally. Of course drugs could be kept out of prisons: just as you can keep dangerous materials off aircraft you can prevent them getting into jails. The missing link is the will to do it. That, and penalties to match the consequences of the crimes. Less attention to the "rights" of inmates and a concentration on keeping drugs out of reach would be a start.
The huge profits are only there because the risks are worth taking because the chances of the capos being nabbed are very low. Why? I doubt it's because the police don't have the technology or resources to find them; I think it is because they are kept immune from authority. And where you have a society of dimwits ready and willing to abuse themselves with substances that will probably ruin their lives, it is pointless depending on them to provide solutions. The best you can do is catch them early: toss them out of school or university if that's where they do their thing; let their friends realise it is not fun and games, that it all comes at life-changing price. Set example of consequence.
As for the bootleggers: they hardly kept low profiles. They were popular characters, criminal stars, even. Their immunity was even more obvious than that of today's lot.
A start could be made by investigating the funding of some of those wonderful palaces that grace the Intracoastal Waterway; the funding of some of the larger yachts all over the Mediterranean; yacht clubs have waiting lists, and the last time I heard, the local one wants about €23,000 to join and you still won't get a berth to buy. Wonder about those folks who can buy multi-million pound apartments in Monaco and London, and on and on. By no means do I suggest they are all crooks, but you would be very unlucky not to unearth one if you looked in the right place. As I say, it's a matter of will.
The problem Rob is that people want drugs - cannabis, alcohol, nicotine etc. Any of those in excess is a problem we all agree. Making them illegal will not stick will it? There are more pressing laws to enforce than a ban on alcohol or cannabis use. And I link the drugs deliberately together, in spite of the fact one is illegal and the other is not. For example, just substitute your word 'substances' above for alcohol and you will see how pointless would be the threat of tossing them out of school or university. Many people smoking pot (I don't - never even tried a cigarette) carry on a perfectly normal life - like users of alcohol.
Jim
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Alcohol seems only to be a problem when people are either very young, are experimenting with stretching their wings and underpants, or with those older ones who become alcoholics and have a hard time for the rest of their lives, even if they manage to stay off the drinks. Mostly, I think alcohol remains a kind of social lubricant that removes some self-consciousness but, unfortunately, often a lot more than that. It does improve a good meal, though.
More strongly enforced traffic checks in the U.K. have reduced the drunk driver element somewhat, and appear to have affected pub turnover in some areas. No bad thing.
Pot may or may not be "harmless" and may even have some genuine medical uses - I don't pretend to know. On the other hand, the medical value of self-administered cocaine, heroin etc. entirely evades me as does the reason why anybody of sane mind would feel the urge to use it. Recreational; if ever there was a misnomer, that's got to be it!
Whether or nor making drugs legal is a money-spinner for the government is another matter, and to me, seems one of the more cynical ideas any government has put forward. I suppose they will claim it's wonderful news for the health service, which will then receive so many millions per week extra... there is precedent, as all Brits know only too well.
Yes, I am aware that many people want drugs. Many also want to screw their neighbour's wife and/or daughters (or sons, I dare say). Is that sound cause to say, you know what, let's do it!
There are all sorts of unsavoury appetites in this world; their existence is no reason for making the satisfaction of same legally available.
I suppose I can't express this clearly enough to make my point, so I might as well say nothing more.
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... Of course drugs could be kept out of prisons: just as you can keep dangerous materials off aircraft you can prevent them getting into jails...
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/6/tsa-failed-detect-95-percent-prohibited-items-minn/
EDIT: as the title of the link says, 95% of prohibited items got past TSA screeners in secret government tests. Since Rob used the TSA analogy to argue that drugs can be kept out of prison if only there is a will, my link proves how difficult it is to enforce something even when there is an unquestionable will (to stop arms and explosives on the plane).
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So either:
A: The increase in accidents were caused because the drivers were in fact high at the time the accidents occurred.
or
B. That the 44% of drivers who died and were tested had positive results for drugs weren't high. It's just that these drivers who died were people who use THC but must be worse drivers than people who don't use THC. What else could account for the high 44%?
I'll go with selection A.
The only factual conclusion you can draw is that more people used MJ in the last three months than they did before it was legalized. Let me put it this way - If bananas had perviously been unavailable in Colorado, but then someone started importing bananas, suddenly finding bananas in many more accident victims wouldn't necessarily mean that banana eating was causing accidents, assuming that one can detect banana eating up to three months after ingesting said banana.
Personally, I tend to agree with you that driving while under the influence of anything is bad news, and I wouldn't;be surprised at all to find that MJ had led directly to some x% of traffic accidents. Butt hen you have the every real issue of policing *anything* that causes a decrease in driving awareness, and I suspect - I don't know but I suspect - that there are other legal actions that could be equally dangerous, lack of sleep being top amongst them.
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The expectations of coming legalization of pot in Canada are getting ridiculous. Scores of people (mainly women, most likely because men who were interested in the stuff were not deterred so much by the previous ban) are already planning marijuana parties, and getting high on October 17, when it becomes legal. Media are full with promises of fantastic business opportunities.
Once the pot growing becomes an indispensable feature of Canada's economy, Canada will able to compete with Afghanistan in growing the production and markets for this very desired commodity.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canada-cannabis-greenrush-1.4383010
What good is the extra money if you create another lost generation? Thousands of additional people are going to be condemned to addiction. Thousands more are going to die or get maimed in car accidents including people who don't use the drug. What's the financial cost to society to rehabilitate both emotionally and financially.
This remind me of when NY started Off-Track Betting (OTB) to stop illegal betting. They were going to take all the profits and use for schools. Well, the money wound up being used for other things. Then OTB went bankrupt and the government shut it down. Can you imagine losing money in gambling when you're the house?
Actually I'm glad Canada and Colorado and a few other states are legalizing it. We'll see soon enough the damage it creates. Hopefully the rest of the country will decide against it before everyone jumps on board.
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I don't think it is logically consistent to believe what you believe without wanting alcohol prohibited. Alcohol has been involved in (rough average) 50% of all traffic accidents for decades.
Agreed. But America went down that path with Prohibition and reversed course. It won;t go down that path again. However, just because we have carnage on the roads because of alcohol doesn't mean we should foolishly add another drug and increase the carnage.
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Agreed. But America went down that path with Prohibition and reversed course. It won;t go down that path again. However, just because we have carnage on the roads because of alcohol doesn't mean we should foolishly add another drug and increase the carnage.
+1
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The only factual conclusion you can draw is that more people used MJ in the last three months than they did before it was legalized. Let me put it this way - If bananas had perviously been unavailable in Colorado, but then someone started importing bananas, suddenly finding bananas in many more accident victims wouldn't necessarily mean that banana eating was causing accidents, assuming that one can detect banana eating up to three months after ingesting said banana.
A smaller number than 44% of the public uses MJ in Colorado. So how could 44% of the traffic accident victims have marijuana in their bloodstream and then claim that MJ was not responsible for their accidents?
Personally, I tend to agree with you that driving while under the influence of anything is bad news, and I wouldn't;be surprised at all to find that MJ had led directly to some x% of traffic accidents. Butt hen you have the every real issue of policing *anything* that causes a decrease in driving awareness, and I suspect - I don't know but I suspect - that there are other legal actions that could be equally dangerous, lack of sleep being top amongst them.
Well there are laws against use of cell phones, texting, etc. Don't know how you would monitor people not getting enough rest. There's even laws against driving while under the influence of MJ. But that's all beside the point. Legalization will increase death and mayhem on the roads. I don't want to risk my family any more than is necessary while driving so I am against legalization.
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/6/tsa-failed-detect-95-percent-prohibited-items-minn/
No one cares if prisoners are using drugs and we can't intercept the drugs beforehand. After all. They're in jail. :)
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...If bananas had perviously been unavailable in Colorado, but then someone started importing bananas, suddenly finding bananas in many more accident victims wouldn't necessarily mean that banana eating was causing accidents...
Wrong analogy, James. In contrast to your banana example, marijuana WAS available in CO prior to being legalized. What remains unknown is how the legalization affected the number of users. Did all of a sudden many more people start using it, which never used it before? Maybe. All I know is that, if it is legalized in Florida, I would not use it anyway.
The 44% stats are rather unreliable. The article states that "in 2016, nearly half of all fatally injured drivers weren’t tested for drugs." Do we know the percentage for 2006? What often happens with stats is not that there are more occurrences of something (crime, rape, accidents), but that there is a changing societal attitude toward reporting or measuring those occurrences.
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Wrong analogy, James. In contrast to your banana example, marijuana WAS available in CO prior to being legalized. What remains unknown is how the legalization affected the number of users. Did all of a sudden many more people start using it, which never used it before? Maybe. All I know is that, if it is legalized in Florida, I would not use it anyway.
The 44% stats are rather unreliable. The article states that "in 2016, nearly half of all fatally injured drivers weren’t tested for drugs." Do we know the percentage for 2006? What often happens with stats is not that there are more occurrences of something (crime, rape, accidents), but that there is a changing societal attitude toward reporting or measuring those occurrences.
The 44% figure is pretty impressive regardless if they were only from illegal drugs and even if half the fatalities weren't tested. We have to assume that if there were tests on all fatalities, the 44% figure would hold. It's scary to think that 44% of fatalities had use MJ when we know that no where near that number of the whole population actually use MJ.
I just checked alcohol related deaths which are at 28% found with alcohol in their bloodstream. So the numbers any way you look at them are dire when you consider how much carnage is caused by drugs and alcohol.
"In 2016, 10,497 people died in alcohol-impaired driving crashes, accounting for 28% of all traffic-related deaths in the United States."
https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html (https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html)
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Wrong analogy, James. In contrast to your banana example, marijuana WAS available in CO prior to being legalized. What remains unknown is how the legalization affected the number of users. Did all of a sudden many more people start using it, which never used it before? Maybe. All I know is that, if it is legalized in Florida, I would not use it anyway.
The 44% stats are rather unreliable. The article states that "in 2016, nearly half of all fatally injured drivers weren’t tested for drugs." Do we know the percentage for 2006? What often happens with stats is not that there are more occurrences of something (crime, rape, accidents), but that there is a changing societal attitude toward reporting or measuring those occurrences.
For sure - we're 100% in agreement. Point remains - we actually can't derive Alan's doomsday scenario and anti-legalization conclusion from what we know. That said, I think common sense tells us that more and simpler access to "imparing" substances will lead to more impaired drivers (even though though many of us could probably cite numerous examples of something that's seemingly "common sense" that doesn't actually hold up under study.)
What I do find interesting is that Alan, one of the less nuanced participants in these political discussions, is unreservedly in favor of governmental intrusion into private choices when he fears that another citizen might make a bad choice that effects him in a negative manner. Something to ponder ;)
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Back to trust in news... came across this. Hard to blame Trump for European, and especially UK, distrust in their own media though.
Source: LinkedIn (https://image-store.slidesharecdn.com/e22edd74-7435-493e-821d-c9f63662325f-large.jpeg)
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For sure - we're 100% in agreement. Point remains - we actually can't derive Alan's doomsday scenario and anti-legalization conclusion from what we know. That said, I think common sense tells us that more and simpler access to "imparing" substances will lead to more impaired drivers (even though though many of us could probably cite numerous examples of something that's seemingly "common sense" that doesn't actually hold up under study.)
What I do find interesting is that Alan, one of the less nuanced participants in these political discussions, is unreservedly in favor of governmental intrusion into private choices when he fears that another citizen might make a bad choice that effects him in a negative manner. Something to ponder ;)
I'm in favor of personal freedoms, Jim. I just feel in this case that the potential harm to me and my family is not acceptable. If someone wants to hike a dangerous trail like I saw in April in Zion Canyon (Angels' Landing), the rangers allow them too even though many are inexperienced novices and young to boot. Many get killed over the years. But I won't be hurt if they do. But drivers under the influence of drugs and alcohol put me at risk I don't find acceptable.
I understand that every law and rule and regulation the government issues, takes away someone's freedom. It's why I'm generally opposed to laws. But I also understand that we can't live as a society without rules. I suppose it's where you want to draw the line.
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Angel's Landing hike, Zion National Park, Utah, USA
Just watching it gives me agita.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy6K0KoMrco
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Angel's Landing hike, Zion National Park, Utah, USA
Just watching it gives me agita.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy6K0KoMrco
This straight down view will make your teeth ache. Kids are doing this. I didn't realize that it was this tough and risky until I saw the videos when I got home. If I was in better shape, I might have tried it myself. That's what makes it dangerous to the inexperienced. You assume the park's people won't allow dangerous hikes like this. But they do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpmuakyEWpo
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Good thing, Alan, you can only make a mistake (misstep?) once ;)
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Back to trust in news... came across this. Hard to blame Trump for European, and especially UK, distrust in their own media though.
Source: LinkedIn (https://image-store.slidesharecdn.com/e22edd74-7435-493e-821d-c9f63662325f-large.jpeg)
It looks like in Serbia the press is almost as bad as in UK.
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Good thing, Alan, you can only make a mistake (misstep?) once ;)
Well, Angel's Landing was too much for me. But I did go to Dead Horse Point State Park in Canyonlands, Utah. Magnificent view. So I hand my camera to this stranger and ask him to take my picture as I stand ten feet from a 1500 foot cliff. He asks me to step back so he can get the whole valley in the shot.
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You look quite pissed off with the photographer, Alan. No wonder that he tried to push you off the cliff.
Here is a picture I took of my camera club colleagues standing on a cliff near Tobemorry in Ontario over Georgian Bay which is part of Lake Huron. Beautiful place which looks more dangerous than it really is.
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Nice shot Les. Of course you were the one taking the picture and weren't standing on the cliff where they were.😏
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The expectations of coming legalization of pot in Canada are getting ridiculous. Scores of people (mainly women, most likely because men who were interested in the stuff were not deterred so much by the previous ban) are already planning marijuana parties, and getting high on October 17, when it becomes legal.
Not sure it will be so dramatically different from this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONGIOzOrmcA) or this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVxzFTh5x-o). :)
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Not sure it will be so dramatically different from this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONGIOzOrmcA) or this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVxzFTh5x-o). :)
I'm in the US and get a message that the videos are not available.
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I'm in the US and get a message that the videos are not available.
Ahh, too bad. I appear to have broken the forum rules anyway by not explaining the links. They were to two comedy sketches from a Canadian group called "Baroness Von Sketch". I get similar messages occasionally from U.S. links. The Internet isn't as universal as it sometimes seems.
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I'm kind of late to the party but as a 29 year resident of Colorado I welcomed recreational pot when it was passed.
I attribute the increase of people with pot in their systems in fatal accidents to just an increase in pot in people's systems in general. People who liked it but weren't having it to be law abiding can now get and use pot without having to do business with or be a criminal. That's going to increase the general population's thc levels.
I'm sure some of the accidents can also be attributed to an impaired person driving which I'm definitely opposed to. But given the choice I'd prefer sharing the roads with overly-cautious stoners than overly-confident drunks. Of course I'd also prefer sober people to either of those groups, but from my observations drunks seem to be the most dangerous ones we are likely to encounter.
With the fake crap that gets sold ("spice" or "synthetic marijuana", often legally) places where weed is illegal, it presents a much greater risk to people than just good old fashioned cannabis. So far there have been 0 deaths attributed to weed overdoses over it's very long history. The fake stuff is showing much different results (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/deaths-poisonings-from-synthetic-marijuana-spice-k2/) over a much shorter period of time.
I don't want my kid to use pot before he is an adult, but if he is going to experiment I'd rather is was with relatively harmless pot than that other stuff.
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Anyone who thinks that smoking dope doesn't increase your chance of a fatal accident is, well, smoking dope. So arguing that pot doesn't cause fatalities directly from its use is a senseless argument. People high on pot are dying when their car hits a tree or some poor sober slob who's driving and just minding his business. The biggest increase in usage has been 18-25 year olds who are most at risk for mental and emotional growth problems relating to its use. Kids are dropping out of school more and failing in their subjects because more of them are using pot. So Colorado is creating a state of future stupid people. What dummies. This gives the John Denver's song "Rocky Mountain High" on new lease on life.
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It's not even safe walking. :)
"The study, which was first reported by the New York Times, notes that in seven states where marijuana has been legalized recreationally—Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Alaska, Colorado, Washington and Oregon—pedestrian deaths collectively increased by 16.4 percent the first six months of 2017 compared to the first six months of 2016.
In all other states reported, where recreational cannabis is not legal, pedestrian deaths decreased by 5.8 percent."
http://www.wweek.com/news/2018/03/01/walking-deaths-have-risen-disproportionately-in-states-where-weed-is-legal-including-oregon/ (http://www.wweek.com/news/2018/03/01/walking-deaths-have-risen-disproportionately-in-states-where-weed-is-legal-including-oregon/)
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Washington State, another legal pot state, doesn;t seem to be doing well either.Apparently poly-drug intoxications (alcohol and MJ), has made it worse than either alcohol or pot alone. The number of drivers high on pot has doubled since implementation of legalization.
Among drivers in fatal crashes 2008-2016 that tested positive for alcohol or drugs, 44 percent
tested positive for two or more substances (poly-drug drivers). The most common substance in
poly-drug drivers is alcohol, followed by THC. Alcohol and THC combined is the most common
poly-drug combination.
Although research-based estimates of the risks posed by THC have varied greatly, all studies
included in this report agree that combining alcohol and THC will only further inflate the level of
impairment and crash risk. The deadly consequences of combining these two impairing
substances and driving are already apparent in Washington fatal crash data.
For the first time in 2012, poly-drug drivers became the most prevalent type of impaired drivers
involved in fatal crashes. Since 2012, the number of poly-drug drivers involved in fatal crashes
have increased an average of 15 percent every year.
By 2016, the number of poly-drug drivers were more than double the number of alcohol-only
drivers and five times higher than the number of THC-only drivers involved in fatal crashes.
According to the biological results of Washington’s Roadside Survey, nearly one in five daytime
drivers may be under the influence of marijuana, up from less than one in 10 drivers prior to the
implementation of marijuana retail sales"
http://wtsc.wa.gov/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2018/04/Marijuana-and-Alcohol-Involvement-in-Fatal-Crashes-in-WA_FINAL.pdf (http://wtsc.wa.gov/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2018/04/Marijuana-and-Alcohol-Involvement-in-Fatal-Crashes-in-WA_FINAL.pdf)
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Anyone who thinks that smoking dope doesn't increase your chance of a fatal accident is, well, smoking dope.
Once again, who ever said that?
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Once again, who ever said that?
Like I said. Anyone who thinks that smoking dope doesn't increase your chance of a fatal accident is, well, smoking dope. Astoundingly, many dope smokers think it actually improves their driving. It also appears I underestimated the ignorance of the non-using public. 23% of these people who don;t smoke also believe MJ doesn't impair driving. Which means even the non-smoking public is misinformed. If they knew the truth, more would be opposed to legalization. Unfortunately, the biased press who wants it legalized is not providing accurate information. Fake news again. The ignorant public doesn't understand the true dangers of MJ and driving.
From Washington State Report April 2018 - Washington Traffic Safety Commission see pg 2. The whole report is pretty dire.
o 39.1 percent of drivers who have used marijuana in the previous year admit to driving
within three hours of marijuana use. This is similar to the results from Washington’s
Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey (33.5 percent).
o More than half (53 percent) of drivers ages 15-20 believe marijuana use made their
driving better. This is a significantly higher rate than drivers ages 21-25 (13.7 percent)
and drivers ages 26-35 (17.4 percent).
o Among drivers who have used marijuana in the past year, only 36.6 percent believe that
it is very likely or likely that marijuana impairs a person’s ability to drive safely if used
within two hours of driving, compared to 77 percent of drivers who have not used
marijuana in the previous year.
http://wtsc.wa.gov/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2018/04/Marijuana-and-Alcohol-Involvement-in-Fatal-Crashes-in-WA_FINAL.pdf
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An interesting opinion piece from Irish Times about the test-marketing of fascism: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-trial-runs-for-fascism-are-in-full-flow-1.3543375 (https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-trial-runs-for-fascism-are-in-full-flow-1.3543375). It is condemning of the vicious rhetoric with respect to border control and immigration. You don't need to speak (or think) like that to make the case for better border control.
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An interesting opinion piece from Irish Times about the test-marketing of fascism: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-trial-runs-for-fascism-are-in-full-flow-1.3543375 (https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-trial-runs-for-fascism-are-in-full-flow-1.3543375). It is condemning of the vicious rhetoric with respect to border control and immigration. You don't need to speak (or think) like that to make the case for better border control.
So you quickly changed from false accusations about MJ to false accusations about Trump being a fascist. You go from one fake news to another. It would have been nice if you first acknowledged the answer to your question about MJ.
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That's an interesting piece from Ireland.
The trouble is, if you have the ability to write, you eventually conclude that you are ever more distant from your own, inner belief core.
Why do I think so? Simple: any writer who can wield a colon is perfectly able to write almost anything from a wide variety of points of view. That, after some time, makes it very difficult to believe in any single path as being the better option. Especially when you realise that at the end of the stroll or gallop, you are but a little pile of dust, regardless.
Rob
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Not much to do with walls, but I was quite mesmerized watching la dolce Melania dismount trom the presidential bird this week.
I know it's been decades since ladies were pulled into girdles - thank goodness - but said sweetie was not wearing hers under her dress, the dress was the girdle! Those heels! A fetishist's delight, or so I'm pretty sure; I guess that with Mrs Sarkosy out of the picture - at least for now - she remains the single contestant in the parade of premier political wives worth the recording.
I don't in the least envy photographers who have been so-called White House snappers - neither within any oval rooms nor anywhere else - but I certainly would have enjoyed snapping Mel under almost all circumstances.
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So you quickly changed from false accusations about MJ to false accusations about Trump being a fascist. You go from one fake news to another. It would have been nice if you first acknowledged the answer to your question about MJ.
I have already said all that I'm going to say about MJ, nothing more to add. At this point, we're all just repeating ourselves. We've had the "how-to-deal-with-drugs" discussion before.
This thread was more generally about the wall and immigration, so I was returning to it because I read something relevant that I thought was interesting.
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All the same arguments against alcohol which leads to a lot more destructive behavior than pot. I think they should be treated the same. I think impaired driving is something to discourage regardless of what their drug of choice is. Another thing to consider is pot can show up weeks after using it in a drug test so that sways the stats.
Just that as we saw with alcohol, prohibition of a popular libation isn't effective. Might as well regulate it and defund organized crime.
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All the same arguments against alcohol which leads to a lot more destructive behavior than pot. I think they should be treated the same. I think impaired driving is something to discourage regardless of what their drug of choice is. Another thing to consider is pot can show up weeks after using it in a drug test so that sways the stats.
Just that as we saw with alcohol, prohibition of a popular libation isn't effective. Might as well regulate it and defund organized crime.
Sounds suspiciously like legalising murder. At a stroke - or a stab or a shot - you'd make the lawyers less rich, but then whoa! what happens to brand Leica? Who'd buy the shiny limos? You see the problems with legalising "fun" and "recreation" and things that are generally not so good for you?
;-)
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Sounds suspiciously like legalising murder. At a stroke - or a stab or a shot - you'd make the lawyers less rich, but then whoa! what happens to brand Leica? Who'd buy the shiny limos? You see the problems with legalising "fun" and "recreation" and things that are generally not so good for you?
;-)
I said above that I had said everything I wanted to on this, but I will add one more comment in response. The people who do dope and then drive, thus putting your life in additional risk, have already been doing so for decades.
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I said above that I had said everything I wanted to on this, but I will add one more comment in response. The people who do dope and then drive, thus putting your life in additional risk, have already been doing so for decades.
Quite so, but why encourage them, and others still virgin, under the banner of freedom and legal acceptance of the stupid habit?
Making these products difficult to get, and worthy of heavy penalty for consumption and not just for supplying, seems the better route to me.
Rob
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Sounds suspiciously like legalising murder. At a stroke - or a stab or a shot - you'd make the lawyers less rich, but then whoa! what happens to brand Leica? Who'd buy the shiny limos? You see the problems with legalising "fun" and "recreation" and things that are generally not so good for you?
;-)
I don't quite follow but if you are saying legalizing it takes the money out, that isn't correct. People are still getting plenty rich from selling weed, but now they are accountable to regulations that help limit who they can sell to. The tax money collected goes to lots of great programs in the state to help education, substance abuse prevention, and things like parks and trails. I'm sure the lawyers will still do ok. ;)
Prohibition is funding murder. Legalizing is funding education and prevention. I think we chose wisely in Colorado.
The whole medical aspect is another success for getting people off opioids.
https://www.9news.com/article/news/nation-world/seniors-choosing-cannabis-over-opioids-for-pain/507-574186491
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Quite so, but why encourage them, and others still virgin, under the banner of freedom and legal acceptance of the stupid habit?
Making these products difficult to get, and worthy of heavy penalty for consumption and not just for supplying, seems the better route to me.
Rob
That is a great argument for alcohol prohibition. Should we bring it back?
The cartels will be happy to provide whatever the people crave and higher penalties means higher profits!
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That is a great argument for alcohol prohibition. Should we bring it back?
The cartels will be happy to provide whatever the people crave and higher penalties means higher profits!
We don't need to add another drug to create additional Mayhem on the roads.
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We don't need to add another drug to create additional Mayhem on the roads.
I agree. But this isn't another drug, it's always been around.
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I think I'm almost done here and we are going to have to agree to disagree (or disagree to disagree?).
I just want to add this driving test video that shows people smoking until they can't drive properly. My first observation is it sure takes a lot of weed to make them really drive poorly. My second is they still drive better than a typical drunk person.
Like I said earlier, sober drivers are my preference but I'd still prefer stoners to drunks. We have a lot of tourists around here so I'm used to people driving too slowly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw1HavgoK9E
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As someone who has been for legalization of all drugs for years, I can not see a logical argument that would accept the legality of alcohol but deny it to drugs.
As in any social decision, it is a matter of cost-benefit analysis and having the benefits outweigh the cost. So, yes, there might be a cost to pay in increased road accidents, but the benefits would outweigh the cost. The rational solution would be to engage in impaired driving education of the general public and drug users in particular, devising better methods of detecting drug-impaired drivers, etc. If I am not mistaken, police already has specially trained policemen capable of spotting multiple sigs of drug use in drivers.
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I agree. But this isn't another drug, it's always been around.
But it is, in the sense that if you legalise it, it joins the ranks of alcohol as the same drug that was once illegal, but is now legal. So you end up with twice the number of legal ones as you had before, but with availability made risk-free and possibly less expensive. So, open to even more people.
Next, do you progress to the setting up of an agreed legal level of coke snorting, heroin shooting etc. etc. till everything is good for go?
This is simply the same faux argument as the gun lobby makes: people always died from guns, so hey, nothing's gonna change, put more of them out there and of course, the numbers dying will fall because everyone will be armed. Crazy, or what?
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As someone who has been for legalization of all drugs for years, I can not see a logical argument that would accept the legality of alcohol but deny it to drugs.
As in any social decision, it is a matter of cost-benefit analysis and having the benefits outweigh the cost. So, yes, there might be a cost to pay in increased road accidents, but the benefits would outweigh the cost. The rational solution would be to engage in impaired driving education of the general public and drug users in particular, devising better methods of detecting drug-impaired drivers, etc. If I am not mistaken, police already has specially trained policemen capable of spotting multiple sigs of drug use in drivers.
The logic is if you legalize marijuana the carnage on the roads will increase.
If you legalize all drugs as you suggest then the carnage to the non driving population will increase as well as more and more people will OD with needles stuck in their arms. Haven't you been reading the news lately with opioids?
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As someone who has been for legalization of all drugs for years, I can not see a logical argument that would accept the legality of alcohol but deny it to drugs.
As in any social decision, it is a matter of cost-benefit analysis and having the benefits outweigh the cost. So, yes, there might be a cost to pay in increased road accidents, but the benefits would outweigh the cost. The rational solution would be to engage in impaired driving education of the general public and drug users in particular, devising better methods of detecting drug-impaired drivers, etc. If I am not mistaken, police already has specially trained policemen capable of spotting multiple sigs of drug use in drivers.
Exactly this.
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But it is, in the sense that if you legalise it, it joins the ranks of alcohol as the same drug that was once illegal, but is now legal. So you end up with twice the number of legal ones as you had before, but with availability made risk-free and possibly less expensive. So, open to even more people.
Next, do you progress to the setting up of an agreed legal level of coke snorting, heroin shooting etc. etc. till everything is good for go?
This is simply the same faux argument as the gun lobby makes: people always died from guns, so hey, nothing's gonna change, put more of them out there and of course, the numbers dying will fall because everyone will be armed. Crazy, or what?
I wondered if someone was going to point that out. That logic is flawed for sure and I was just using it as a debate point that might appeal to Libertarian leaning people. Good catch. :)
The point of freedom-limiting laws is to protect us from danger. My disagreement is with the degree of danger we are talking about of legal pot vs. prohibited pot compared to other potentially dangerous intoxicants. Pointing out that people involved in accidents have thc in their systems and its increase in places where pot is legal does not prove that driving high is a significant problem. I should add it also doesn't disprove it. Correlation does not indicate causation, especially with the way current testing can detect it so long after use.
We are in the early days of detection and determining the appropriate levels but I'm sure law enforcement is getting it figured out. I'm happy to have them dedicating more resources to actual dangers to society like intoxicated driving and other crime instead of ruining lives for what otherwise non-criminal people do in the privacy of their homes.
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I wondered if someone was going to point that out. That logic is flawed for sure and I was just using it as a debate point that might appeal to Libertarian leaning people. Good catch. :)
The point of freedom-limiting laws is to protect us from danger. My disagreement is with the degree of danger we are talking about of legal pot vs. prohibited pot compared to other potentially dangerous intoxicants. Pointing out that people involved in accidents have thc in their systems and its increase in places where pot is legal does not prove that driving high is a significant problem. I should add it also doesn't disprove it. Correlation does not indicate causation, especially with the way current testing can detect it so long after use.
We are in the early days of detection and determining the appropriate levels but I'm sure law enforcement is getting it figured out. I'm happy to have them dedicating more resources to actual dangers to society like intoxicated driving and other crime instead of ruining lives for what otherwise non-criminal people do in the privacy of their homes.
The study from Washington State Motor Vehicle Commission shows that there are more accidents and fatalities since their state legalized MJ. I highlighted some of those in my earlier posts.
The "ruining lives" of people who use pot in the privacy of their homes is not an issue. You created a straw man argument. Police aren't breaking into homes and arresting people for smoking a doobie. Unfortunately, the whole fear argument and false narrative that pot is safe has worked. It's switched public opinion to favoring legalizing pot. We'll reap what we sow.
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... That logic is flawed for sure...
I wonder what exactly is flawed with that logic?
I just stated in the previous post that you can not possibly defend the logic of legal alcohol and smoking and deny the same logic for drugs. Either the alcohol prohibition was right and should have never been abolished, or it wasn't right. You can't have it both ways.
As for coke and heroin...sure, be my guest. If someone wants to use them, they will (and do), legal or illegal.
As for the gun argument... at the risk of reopening the old debate, I will say that the parallel is false. The manyfold increase in (legal) guns in the States over the years, has NOT been accompanied by the similar order of magnitude in gun deaths.
Both alcohol and tobacco are legal, yet we teach our children (and ourselves) to stay away from it, and if they do enjoy it responsibly, not to drive. After all, a reasonable consumption of alcohol has been found to be beneficial for your health. I do not smoke, but occasionally enjoy a good cigar. I am sure there is no health benefit from smoking (the way I do), and probably there is some damage, but it's been outweighed by the psychological pleasure I received (Cuban cigar + a good bourbon = happy guy).
In other words, the fact that something is legal (like alcohol and tobacco) doesn't mean everybody is going to jump into it.
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I wonder what exactly is flawed with that logic?
I just stated in the previous post that you can not possibly defend the logic of legal alcohol and smoking and deny the same logic for drugs. Either the alcohol prohibition was right and should have never been abolished, or it wasn't right. You can't have it both ways.
As for coke and heroin...sure, be my guest. If someone wants to use them, they will (and do), legal or illegal.
As for the gun argument... at the risk of reopening the old debate, I will say that the parallel is false. The manyfold increase in (legal) guns in the States over the years, has NOT been accompanied by the similar order of magnitude in gun deaths.
Both alcohol and tobacco are legal, yet we teach our children (and ourselves) to stay away from it, and if they do enjoy it responsibly, not to drive. After all, a reasonable consumption of alcohol has been found to be beneficial for your health. I do not smoke, but occasionally enjoy a good cigar. I am sure there is no health benefit from smoking (the way I do), and probably there is some damage, but it's been outweighed by the psychological pleasure I received (Cuban cigar + a good bourbon = happy guy).
In other words, the fact that something is legal (like alcohol and tobacco) doesn't mean everybody is going to jump into it.
It isn't often we disagree. But this is one case. It is true that alcohol creates more carnage on the road then anything else. But just because it isn't illegal doesn't mean that we have to legalize less damaging drugs as well and add to the carnage. That seems perfectly logical to me. That would be like a diabetic telling himself it's OK to eat a cupcake because he already finished a hot fudge Sunday. Of course for the diabetic, he'd only be killing himself. He's not going to kill a pedestrian or three children riding home from a soccer match.
I'm totally against coke and heroin. It's killing people and hurting society even not considering driving.
Trusting people not to drive while under the influence just doesn't work. Check my earlier posts that show that 37% of users don't believe pot effects your driving. 40% admit to driving within three hours of smoking it.
The one thing we agree on is guns. But even if they are an issue, there are constitutional protections that would have to be changed to effect who can own them. On the other hand, drugs do not have constitutional protection.
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Quite so, but why encourage them, and others still virgin, under the banner of freedom and legal acceptance of the stupid habit?
Making these products difficult to get, and worthy of heavy penalty for consumption and not just for supplying, seems the better route to me.
Rob
you are naive to think this is a viable option.
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As someone who has been for legalization of all drugs for years, I can not see a logical argument that would accept the legality of alcohol but deny it to drugs.
As in any social decision, it is a matter of cost-benefit analysis and having the benefits outweigh the cost. So, yes, there might be a cost to pay in increased road accidents, but the benefits would outweigh the cost. The rational solution would be to engage in impaired driving education of the general public and drug users in particular, devising better methods of detecting drug-impaired drivers, etc. If I am not mistaken, police already has specially trained policemen capable of spotting multiple sigs of drug use in drivers.
OMG!! WE AGREE OK SOMETHING
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The study from Washington State Motor Vehicle Commission shows that there are more accidents and fatalities since their state legalized MJ. I highlighted some of those in my earlier posts.
The "ruining lives" of people who use pot in the privacy of their homes is not an issue. You created a straw man argument. Police aren't breaking into homes and arresting people for smoking a doobie. Unfortunately, the whole fear argument and false narrative that pot is safe has worked. It's switched public opinion to favoring legalizing pot. We'll reap what we sow.
Actually, they are. Just not in Colorado anymore. If they aren't, then let's not have this gray area where if a cop suspects or doesn't like you they can choose to enforce a law that is usually ignored. It would be much clearer to everyone if the law and the enforcement are consistent.
If Sessions gets his wish I have a feeling it might be more like his other zero tolerance policies which I think has mostly just ruined lives (IMO of course).
Pot is safe, at least more so than alcohol or tobacco. I'm not trying to make the argument that intoxicated driving is ok (even if less severe than alcohol). If we are using general public safety as a reason to maintain prohibition, we are prohibiting the wrong substances.
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Actually, they are. Just not in Colorado anymore. If they aren't, then let's not have this gray area where if a cop suspects or doesn't like you they can choose to enforce a law that is usually ignored. It would be much clearer to everyone if the law and the enforcement are consistent.
If Sessions gets his wish I have a feeling it might be more like his other zero tolerance policies which I think has mostly just ruined lives (IMO of course).
Pot is safe, at least more so than alcohol or tobacco. I'm not trying to make the argument that intoxicated driving is ok (even if less severe than alcohol). If we are using general public safety as a reason to maintain prohibition, we are prohibiting the wrong substances.
Matt, You're repeating a falsehood. Police are not breaking into homes to arrest users. Sure they do that if there are sellers or smugglers there. But not casual users. In NYC, if you smoke on the street, you'll probably be ignored by the cops. If they stop you, they give you a ticket and you pay $35 or so like a parking ticket. There's no criminal arrest or record. It's an administrative fine. By the way, even though alcohol is legal, you can't drink in public either. In any case, no one's life is being ruined. Let's not increase the number of users and death on the roads by legalizing it. If you want to smoke a joint, buy it illegally if you feel you have to and stay off the roads.
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... If you want to smoke a joint, buy it illegally if you feel you have to and stay off the roads.
That is way less optimal than buying it legally and staying off the roads.
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I wonder what exactly is flawed with that logic?
I just stated in the previous post that you can not possibly defend the logic of legal alcohol and smoking and deny the same logic for drugs. Either the alcohol prohibition was right and should have never been abolished, or it wasn't right. You can't have it both ways.
As for coke and heroin...sure, be my guest. If someone wants to use them, they will (and do), legal or illegal.
As for the gun argument... at the risk of reopening the old debate, I will say that the parallel is false. The manyfold increase in (legal) guns in the States over the years, has NOT been accompanied by the similar order of magnitude in gun deaths.
Both alcohol and tobacco are legal, yet we teach our children (and ourselves) to stay away from it, and if they do enjoy it responsibly, not to drive. After all, a reasonable consumption of alcohol has been found to be beneficial for your health. I do not smoke, but occasionally enjoy a good cigar. I am sure there is no health benefit from smoking (the way I do), and probably there is some damage, but it's been outweighed by the psychological pleasure I received (Cuban cigar + a good bourbon = happy guy).
In other words, the fact that something is legal (like alcohol and tobacco) doesn't mean everybody is going to jump into it.
I think the logic is flawed because if you compare anywhere with tighter gun regulation with us, the number of gun deaths is exponentially higher in the USA. Recently gun purchases have gone way up but gun ownership has not. What that means is the existing gun owners are stockpiling and hoarding their guns and for the most part guns are not being purchased by new owners at the same rate. As long as those existing owners keep them out of circulation it may not be an issue, but eventually I think they are likely to trickle out to a wider group.
I don't really want to get into the gun debate again but I guess I brought it up. I just think we need tighter regulation. The genie is out of the bottle so we will never successfully completely ban guns at this point but I think the free for all is bad for society. We need to find the happy medium, like I believe the term "A well regulated militia" is all about. Actually, that's a great parallel to pot. I think that should be regulated too because when prohibited, it's unregulated nature makes that a free for all as well. Sensible regulation will help keep pot or guns out of the wrong hands, but obviously not 100% of the time.
I suffer from debilitating gout in my feet and have had to give up my favorite libation, beer to help control it. Tobacco makes me sick and is not in any way enjoyable for me. I also don't want to risk physical addiction to nicotine.
Pot is nice and a pleasant way for me to chill out and watch a good movie that doesn't irritate my medical condition. I don't even have to smoke it, I can eat it, vaporize it, or even drink it. It's not physically addictive so if I take an extended trip and don't have any for weeks or months, it's no big deal.
I like that the way I choose to live my life doesn't make me a criminal by definition or make me have to deal with criminals to buy pot.
This is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
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I think the logic is flawed because if you compare anywhere with tighter gun regulation with us, the number of gun deaths is exponentially higher in the USA. Recently gun purchases have gone way up but gun ownership has not. What that means is the existing gun owners are stockpiling and hoarding their guns and for the most part guns are not being purchased by new owners at the same rate. As long as those existing owners keep them out of circulation it may not be an issue, but eventually I think they are likely to trickle out to a wider group.
Because many of those legally purchased hand guns in USA end up in Canada.
Canadians crack down on guns, alarmed by flow from U.S.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/us-gun-problem-is-creeping-into-canada/2016/02/13/a28cd1e4-c388-11e5-b933-31c93021392a_story.html?utm_term=.53fd5702d9b1
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That is way less optimal than buying it legally and staying off the roads.
My arguments for no legalization will not effect current users much. The purpose of keeping it illegal is to not allow more use of the drug and more carnage on the roads because of the legalization. I really don;t care if the current user has to go through more problems getting an illegal drug. That's their problem. My concern is staying safer on the roads for me and my family.
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I think the logic is flawed because if you compare anywhere with tighter gun regulation with us, the number of gun deaths is exponentially higher in the USA. Recently gun purchases have gone way up but gun ownership has not. What that means is the existing gun owners are stockpiling and hoarding their guns and for the most part guns are not being purchased by new owners at the same rate...
Bringing other countries into the gun debate is flawed simply because we have a whole plethora of other issues (culture, context, etc.) popping up and muddying the waters. Looking at the increased number of guns inside the US is much more telling.
But the analogy with the new gun owners is right and can be applied to legalizing pot too: existing pot users will simply use it more often and legalizing it is not suddenly going to make a whole bunch of new users.
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Bringing other countries into the gun debate is flawed simply because we have a whole plethora of other issues (culture, context, etc.) popping up and muddying the waters. Looking at the increased number of guns inside the US is much more telling.
But the analogy with the new gun owners is right and can be applied to legalizing pot too: existing pot users will simply use it more often and legalizing it is not suddenly going to make a whole bunch of new users.
But accidents are up since legalization. Also, it's too early to tell how many more people will try out pot increasing the number of users and carnage on the road. I think it would be smart if the rest of the country would wait to legalize it in their states until we can see what's going on in states that have legalized it. So far, it's worse. I can't imagine it will get better.
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... So far, it's worse. I can't imagine it will get better.
It will. Everything new is overused initially. Just remember the atrocities of the early shadow-recovery use in Photoshop. Quite a useful tool today, and mostly used in moderation, without even noticing its use ;)
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My arguments for no legalization will not effect current users much. The purpose of keeping it illegal is to not allow more use of the drug and more carnage on the roads because of the legalization. I really don;t care if the current user has to go through more problems getting an illegal drug. That's their problem. My concern is staying safer on the roads for me and my family.
Maybe we should extend the ban to the use of cell phones in cars. Distracted drivers are a menace regardless of what is causing the distraction. Turn cars into Faraday cages where cell phone signals are blocked.
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I'd heartily agree with that, Alan.
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That might be something we could all agree on!
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Maybe we should extend the ban to the use of cell phones in cars. Distracted drivers are a menace regardless of what is causing the distraction. Turn cars into Faraday cages where cell phone signals are blocked.
That would spoil the ability of satnav systems to supply traffic updates, of course. iPhones now have "do not disturb while driving" which goes some way towards what you suggest.
Jeremy
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you are naive to think this is a viable option.
Has it been tried and properly enforced yet?
Rob
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Maybe we should extend the ban to the use of cell phones in cars. Distracted drivers are a menace regardless of what is causing the distraction. Turn cars into Faraday cages where cell phone signals are blocked.
Not completely, but to a large degree they are here. If you're on a learner's permit or a provisional licence (2 levels, total of 3 years after a year on your learner's permit) you can not use a mobile phone for any purpose at all, nor touch it, in a car unless you are parked, out of the line of traffic. Not for music, not for navigation, not for any reason.
For fully licenced drivers, you can use them connected to a hands free system of some sort. They can only be touched to answer a call and only if they're in an approved cradle. Other functions must either be done through the vehicle via bluetooth or Android Auto or Apple Car Play or simialr or via voice command.
It's a $384- fine to breach this and a loss of 4 points from your licence (you get 13 as a fully licensed driver). Those prohibited from using them face an automatic licence suspension if caught using them. Police are now allowed to use cameras to show you were on a phone or holding it whilst driving and then fine you (or fine the registered owner who has the option of making a stat dec to declare another person was driving at the time). Fines and points are increased if caught in a school zone. There is no requirement in Australia for the police to take you to court to make the fines, although you can opt to take it to court to challenge it but good luck with that unless you have clear evidence that you didn't do it.
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Not completely, but to a large degree they are here. If you're on a learner's permit or a provisional licence (2 levels, total of 3 years after a year on your learner's permit) you can not use a mobile phone for any purpose at all, nor touch it, in a car unless you are parked, out of the line of traffic. Not for music, not for navigation, not for any reason.
For fully licenced drivers, you can use them connected to a hands free system of some sort. They can only be touched to answer a call and only if they're in an approved cradle. Other functions must either be done through the vehicle via bluetooth or Android Auto or Apple Car Play or simialr or via voice command.
It's a $384- fine to breach this and a loss of 4 points from your licence (you get 13 as a fully licensed driver). Those prohibited from using them face an automatic licence suspension if caught using them. Police are now allowed to use cameras to show you were on a phone or holding it whilst driving and then fine you (or fine the registered owner who has the option of making a stat dec to declare another person was driving at the time). Fines and points are increased if caught in a school zone. There is no requirement in Australia for the police to take you to court to make the fines, although you can opt to take it to court to challenge it but good luck with that unless you have clear evidence that you didn't do it.
Phil, we have similar restrictions in the US but these are done at the state and not the national level. there are large penalties associated with wrongful use but I still see lots of people using their phones in an unsafe manner while driving. My phone synchs up via Bluetooth in my Honda but it's still awkward to use while driving as the controls on the steering wheel are not intuitive (perhaps with use they would be but I don't get many calls on my mobile). Because cellular phones have a time signature if they are in use, the police 'should' be able to identify a driver involved in an accident as in violation of the law.
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It will. Everything new is overused initially. Just remember the atrocities of the early shadow-recovery use in Photoshop. Quite a useful tool today, and mostly used in moderation, without even noticing its use ;)
Well alcohol's been around a long time. Doesn't seem to be getting better.
"According to NHTSA 10,497 people died in alcohol-impaired crashes in 2016, up 1.7 percent from 10,320 in 2015. In 2016 alcohol-impaired crash fatalities accounted for 28 percent of all crash fatalities.."
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Phil, we have similar restrictions in the US but these are done at the state and not the national level. there are large penalties associated with wrongful use but I still see lots of people using their phones in an unsafe manner while driving. My phone synchs up via Bluetooth in my Honda but it's still awkward to use while driving as the controls on the steering wheel are not intuitive (perhaps with use they would be but I don't get many calls on my mobile). Because cellular phones have a time signature if they are in use, the police 'should' be able to identify a driver involved in an accident as in violation of the law.
I got stopped by a NJ policeman locally where I live. He cautioned me that I wasn't suppose to use my cell phone. When I told him I was using it for navigation, which I was, and not for messaging or phone calls, he said that doesn't matter. He let me go without a ticket. Maybe because my wife was with me. Nice guy.
In any case, my car doesn't have Apple Play or Android Auto. The new Acura RDX 2019 that we're think of getting only has Apple Play. Acura says they're going to add Android in a software upgrade to be done at the dealers. But who really trusts them to spend tens of thousands on a car with the hope they're going to keep their word? Also, when? Would I be safer and less distracted going back to paper maps that I kept on my lap to use before Google Maps and Garmin Auto-Navigation equipment? In any case, is messaging any less distracting using Apple Play on the dashboard? There's so much stuff going on today with the technology. It's like being a fighter pilot in a cockpit. My friend never opened up the 800 page car manual. He never uses the on-board navigation system. He told me he follows the instructions from his wife. :)
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In any case, my car doesn't have Apple Play or Android Auto. The new Acura RDX 2019 that we're think of getting only has Apple Play. Acura says they're going to add Android in a software upgrade to be done at the dealers. But who really trusts them to spend tens of thousands on a car with the hope they're going to keep their word? Also, when? Would I be safer and less distracted going back to paper maps that I kept on my lap to use before Google Maps and Garmin Auto-Navigation equipment? In any case, is messaging any less distracting using Apple Play on the dashboard? There's so much stuff going on today with the technology. It's like being a fighter pilot in a cockpit. My friend never opened up the 800 page car manual. He never uses the on-board navigation system. He told me he follows the instructions from his wife. :)
I'm pretty sure that it has Bluetooth as all Honda cars (Acura is a Honda brand) do these days. It's also likely that it has controls on the steering wheel to answer your phone if you get a call (my 2017 Honda has this). You can use Google maps to provide vocal navigation and really not have to look at the phone. You can also get adapters to mount the phone on the console so you could see it if need be. I don't know what other features you might need.
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... In 2016 alcohol-impaired crash fatalities accounted for 28 percent of all crash fatalities.."[/size]
OMG! That means that sober drivers are 3-4 times more dangerous than the drunk ones! ;)
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I knew that all along.
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I have a couple of older cars, a 2004 Forester and a 2007 Tacoma, neither of which came with Bluetooth or even a line in (which was annoying for an early tech adopter like me) back then. I added line-in capability myself through third party devices that trick the head unit into thinking they are a CD changer (remember those?).
Recently, I just replaced the head units in both vehicles with new Pioneer units that only have line in, Bluetooth, and USB connectivity and no CD player.
They work and sound great but can be fiddly if you aren't used to the interface yet. Now that I'm used to them it's a great system that I know my way around and I can even talk them to via Google Assistant to change the music, take a call, navigate, or whatever.
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OMG! That means that sober drivers are 3-4 times more dangerous than the drunk ones! ;)
OMG you're right. We should give them all sobriety tests and they fail if they blood-alcohol content is below 0.09!
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I am happy enough with music on motorways, but whenever I have to park alongside, by reversing parallel against kerbs, the sound is right off!
Perhaps in an old-design car, designed to let one see the corners again, this would never have become necessary.
Actually, I believe that using a 'phone whilst driving is madness. I have realised that even glancing and reaching quickly down to use the heating controls is enough to change the direction in which one is steering.
Distraction is very bad for everyone's survival chance.
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I'm pretty sure that it has Bluetooth as all Honda cars (Acura is a Honda brand) do these days. It's also likely that it has controls on the steering wheel to answer your phone if you get a call (my 2017 Honda has this). You can use Google maps to provide vocal navigation and really not have to look at the phone. You can also get adapters to mount the phone on the console so you could see it if need be. I don't know what other features you might need.
If there's no Android Auto, you'll have to touch the cell phone at some point while navigating and that's illegal. Am I suppose to pull off the road to tap it when Google Maps asks me if I want to switch to a faster route based on changes in traffic? In any case, why would I spend thousands of dollars on a new car and have to fiddle around? My wife uses an Apple iPhone and I use an Android Galaxy. So we need both Apple Play and Android Auto. Some cars have both, but not many. If Acura adds Android as they said they would, then I'll consider buying it. Meanwhile I'll wait.
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I am happy enough with music on motorways, but whenever I have to park alongside, by reversing parallel against kerbs, the sound is right off!
Perhaps in an old-design car, designed to let one see the corners again, this would never have become necessary.
Actually, I believe that using a 'phone whilst driving is madness. I have realised that even glancing and reaching quickly down to use the heating controls is enough to change the direction in which one is steering.
Distraction is very bad for everyone's survival chance.
Chicks in hot shorts during the summer are a distraction too.
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Chicks in hot shorts during the summer are a distraction too.
Don't let them sit next to you as you drive, and you should be okay!
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Don't let them sit next to you as you drive, and you should be okay!
My wife would kill me.
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Phil, we have similar restrictions in the US but these are done at the state and not the national level. there are large penalties associated with wrongful use but I still see lots of people using their phones in an unsafe manner while driving. My phone synchs up via Bluetooth in my Honda but it's still awkward to use while driving as the controls on the steering wheel are not intuitive (perhaps with use they would be but I don't get many calls on my mobile). Because cellular phones have a time signature if they are in use, the police 'should' be able to identify a driver involved in an accident as in violation of the law.
I still see people doing the wrong thing here, but there's a huge campaign going on at the moment. Road rules are also state matters here, but there is a federal model that they follow to maintain consistency.
To answer a call, I press the "OK" button on my steering wheel. To make a call, I press the "Voice" button and tell Google who to call (like "Call Alan's mobile"). If I want to send a message, I hit the voice button and say, "Send a message to Alan on his mobile" and it then asks me what I want to say and then reads it back to me and then sends it. The phrasing doesn't have to be exactly what I've written, anything similar is fine. An incoming message can be read to me if I click OK at the time it's received. I have no option to read it on a screen or send one by typing, through Android Auto. Not all systems are like that, but that's where the best ones are headed.
Still, just talking hands free on a phone IS distracting, and anyone who says otherwise is lying to themselves. Ideally, calls are short or if the traffic is particularly bad or it's raining and night time and so on, I'll often tell people I'll call them back. If it's critically urgent, make it super quick or I can just pull over (I've had to do that a couple of times for work related matters). Similarly, I often tell people I'll call them back if I call and they're in their cars.
My other pet peeve is people who hang things from their rear vision mirrors or who mount phone cradles that obscure their vision out of the windscreen. Both are technically illegal here but not well enough enforced.
Driving is not easy (and I had 20,000km under my belt on my learner's permit as a just-turned-17-year-old when I took my test to get a provisional licence, having driven from Darwin to Sydney via Perth (Google maps for reference) plus huge all the other city, suburban, and rural driving. I was very lucky. If you get too blase or take it for granted, then accidents happen. I enjoy driving - in good conditions it's fantastic - but always take it seriously and understand it requires application.
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Good comments Phil. I only answer a phone call from my wife in case it might be an emergency and don't make any outgoing calls while driving. Text messages can wait until I am parked.
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I always do a slide shows with video clips of my vacations. I add music and narration etc, title, credits, etc, and play it in 4K on my UHDTV. It's really great. My last trip turned out to be my first road trip where I planned the video show. It was to the American Southwest in April. I visited all the National Parks. So I used short video clips as I drove from park to park which were then incorporated in the slide show. It required that I drive steering with my right hand and holding the 1" P&S camera with my left hand or vice versa. I aimed the camera through the windshield in front of the steering wheel in 24mm wide angle mode. It got a little dicey at times. Especially when we were on turns near cliffs and there weren't any guardrails. I finally chickened out and put a bean bag on the dashboard and set the camera there. It worked brilliantly. Steady as a rock and I only had to start and stop it. That freed up my second hand so I could eat an ice cream cone.
Here's a sample clip but this one we had to actually stop in the middle of the road to let the cattle pass on the way to Dead Horse Point State Park near Canyonlands in Utah. I was holding the camera. Not on the bean bag.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanklein2000/41087103295/in/album-72157694819890421/ (https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanklein2000/41087103295/in/album-72157694819890421/)
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... That freed up my second hand so I could eat an ice cream cone...
Haha... that’s a good one. Reminds me of a joke. A traffic cop, spotting a driver driving with only one hand on the wheel, while the other was hugging his girlfriend, shouted: “Both hands, sir, both hands!” The driver responded: “I can’t ... I have to drive.”
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Chicks in hot shorts during the summer are a distraction too.
True. Even more so during the winter ;-)