It's just a plant...

[Grok]

Pay attention to how you phrase things.  This is why you're looking so extreme... nearly every statement you just made is an extreme one.  Read this not from a defensive standpoint, but from someone else's eyes.

What?  You don't understand me.  My position is not extreme at all.

OK, you're not extreme "at all" (an extreme way of not being extreme).

I am not saying freedoms should be preserved at all costs.  I am saying that in SOME SPECIFIC CASES CERTAIN SPECIFIC FREEDOMS ARE NOT MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVERYTHING ELSE.

Sounds extreme.  From "some specific" vs "EVERYTHING ELSE" (you don't call everything else being an extreme position?

Sorry for the emphasis but at this point I'm f*cking pissed off at how thick headed people are being.

It's not other people's thickheadedness, it's your inability to communicate with them.  Don't put your failure on them.  Step back a second, realize that the people here are reading and responding to what you're saying, but what you're saying is indeed using extremes nearly throughout.  In addition, you're manipulating your arguments in transparent attempts to guide people to agree with you.  The frustration you feel is that these people are not lambs being led to the slaughter, they are thinking individual humans, each with their own opinions and reasons for having their viewpoints.  Work with that.  You'll get more production.

I am not arguing about NOT BEING ABLE TO ARGUE MY POINT.

Sure you are, you just did in the previous quote of yours, about people being thickheaded and you blaming them for not conceding to you so you can guide them into the pen.

If we had NO DETERRENT LAWS, NO SPEED LIMITS, NO LUGGAGE CHECKS, NO REASONABLE LAWS MAKING IT DIFFICULT FOR DANGEROUS PEOPLE TO OBTAIN VERY DANGEROUS WEAPONS, then society would be an ABSOLUTE MESS.

Count how many "extreme" words you used there.
(1) NO SPEED LIMITS
(2) NO LUGGAGE CHECKS
(3) NO REASONABLE LAWS ...
(4) VERY DANGEROUS WEAPONS
(5) ABSOLUTE MESS
Now do you see why your verbage looks extreme TO THE MAX?  (extreme ending intended)

My position is EXTREMELY MODERATE

LOL .. wtf?

, and I shouldn't need to argue it much, and it is NOT A BIG CONCESSION TO THINK that at SOME point SOME freedom may not be worth the trouble it causes in society.  I am not saying "deter all people's rights," and I am NOT saying that you need to concede that it is responsible to have laws in place to deter drug use.

Do you not understand how it is impossible to continue a discussion specific to drug use if you are not willing to concede to me that a given freedom is not always more important than everything else?

There you go again complaining how impossible it is to argue your points.

This post has been for illustrative purposes.  Really, I'll enjoy conversing with you about this, but give the caps a break.  More importantly, try to argue with less extreme words.  Don't ask me to concede the "one specific freedom compared to the end of all civilization since the beginning of time" scenarios, to guide me into a pen.  I won't Baa-aaaa-aaaa, any time soon.

[Rule]

Thanks for the laugh Grok  .

I think you had hastily misinterpreted what I am saying.  I will calmly rephrase my point.  I assure you I am being logical.

You, and others, want to argue about whether giving up the legal right to use marijuana would be in the best interests of society.  However, if you (or others) cannot agree that it might ever be appropriate (practically speaking) to exchange a freedom for any reason, how can I make a case for marijuana in particular? 

There is no point in talking specifically about whether it is necessary to take away the freedom to use marijuana or any other specific drug, if you will not agree that is may be necessary to take away a freedom in some (unspecified?) circumstance.
When I say "no point," I mean that we could never reach an agreement that marijuana should be illegal, regardless of whether I could prove that marijuana is very dangerous or not.

Myndfyre and TehUser understand what I mean in this regard, even though TehUser still claims that it is never practically reasonable (under any circumstance, ever) to exchange a freedom, for anything.  To me, this is a ridiculous standpoint: I could find statistics showing how speeding limits save a great number of lives, how luggage checks are an essential security measure, etc.  To me, a guarantee that a law used as a deterrent would save a great deal of lives is enough to justify the law.  I am not saying it should be enough for you to agree that it should justify the law, although I think it would be unreasonable for someone to maintain that absolutely nothing could justify a deterrent law.

[TehUser]

You, and others, want to argue about whether giving up the legal right to use marijuana would be in the best interests of society.  However, if you (or others) cannot agree that it might ever be appropriate (practically speaking) to exchange a freedom for any reason, how can I make a case for marijuana in particular? 

The only thing, as far as I'm concerned, is that legalizing marijuana is in the best interests of is freedom (which is inherently in the best interests of society, but that's another argument).  And as I explained to you last night, you can still present your case for marijuana.  You're trying to argue two entirely separate things.  Whether marijuana is detrimental to society has nothing to do with whether or not marijuana should be legal or illegal.  It can be detrimental in either case, much the same way that alcohol is.  We shouldn't have to agree with a faulty premise just to hear an argument to something that's unrelated.

There is no point in talking specifically about whether it is necessary to take away the freedom to use marijuana or any other specific drug, if you will not agree that is may be necessary to take away a freedom in some (unspecified?) circumstance.
When I say "no point," I mean that we could never reach an agreement that marijuana should be illegal, regardless of whether I could prove that marijuana is very dangerous or not.

Why are you so insistent that the purpose of arguing be to change someone's mind?  Believe it or not, people are actually capable of learning things through intelligent debate.  No one else is insisting that you come over to their point of view, we're just trying to get your reasoning explicated.

Myndfyre and TehUser understand what I mean in this regard, even though TehUser still claims that it is never practically reasonable (under any circumstance, ever) to exchange a freedom, for anything.  To me, this is a ridiculous standpoint: I could find statistics showing how speeding limits save a great number of lives, how luggage checks are an essential security measure, etc.  To me, a guarantee that a law used as a deterrent would save a great deal of lives is enough to justify the law.  I am not saying it should be enough for you to agree that it should justify the law, although I think it would be unreasonable for someone to maintain that absolutely nothing could justify a deterrent law.

I don't think it's ever reasonable to punish people for a crime that they haven't yet committed.  That's all what I'm saying boils down to.

[Rule]

TehUser:  I like how you didn't respond to the comments I had specifically directed towards you.   Also, the purpose of debate is to reach an agreement of some sort.  If we establish that it is impossible to reach an agreement  going into
the argument, then I see little point in having the argument.  Sure, I could argue
about how marijuana poses a danger to society, but that is a component of a bigger argument that marijuana should be illegal.  This is what we have been discussing in this thread, and it is what I would prefer to debate.  Deciding to completely ignore the legal aspect of the discussion would put us off-topic.

Inconsistency in your viewpoint:

I have repeatedly said that we shouldn't punish people for crimes they haven't committed.  On the other hand, I know that by not having certain deterrent laws we are definitely causing certain harm to people, in the same way you see running someone over with a car as causing harm to that person, although in the deterrent law situation the harm is guaranteed.   Let me rephrase that --
by not having deterrent laws we are infringing on people's rights.  Since deterrent laws themselves may infringe on people's rights (although this is not always the case), I guess you have to decide now which rights are more important.



As far as "punishing people for crimes they haven't committed"

Stopping and ticketing someone who is way above the speed limit:
punishment for wrecklessly endangering the safety of others

Checking luggage at an airport:
precaution to insure the safety of the passengers

etc.

It's ridiculous to be so extreme and maintain that your position is reasonable and could be practically applied.  All you have to find is one situation (out of an infinite number of scenarios) where you may agree that exchanging the freedom is worthwhile, and then your ideas must change.

For example, if we are in a situation where a law will facilitate selling a nuclear missile to someone who is insane and intends to use it to wipe out a north american city, you realize you are saying you would prefer that man be legally allowed to purchase the nuke at the most probable expense of hundreds of thousands of innocent lives.  His right to own the nuke is more important than those lives.  "We should only take away that right after he kills the people." Hmm......  How about instead of almost certainly charging him for the death of hundreds of thousands of people, we just legally prevent the problem from arising?  Hey since I have an infinite number of situations to pick from, lets add that if he is legally allowed to purchase the nuke there is a 99.999% chance he will use it to kill innocents, but if there is a law preventing him from making hte purchase, there is absolutely no chance he will cause harm to innocents.

[TehUser]

TehUser:  I like how you didn't respond to the comments I had specifically directed towards you.   Also, the purpose of debate is to reach an agreement of some sort.  If we establish that it is impossible to reach an agreement  going into
the argument, then I see little point in having the argument.  Sure, I could argue
about how marijuana poses a danger to society, but that is a component of a bigger argument that marijuana should be illegal.  This is what we have been discussing in this thread, and it is what I would prefer to debate.  Deciding to completely ignore the legal aspect of the discussion would put us off-topic.

What did I not respond to?  And no, whether or not marijuana poses is a danger to society is not inextricably linked to whether or not it's illegal.

Inconsistency in your viewpoint:

I have repeatedly said that we shouldn't punish people for crimes they haven't committed.  On the other hand, I know that by not having certain deterrent laws we are definitely causing certain harm to people, in the same way you see running someone over with a car as causing harm to that person, although in the deterrent law situation the harm is guaranteed.   Let me rephrase that --
by not having deterrent laws we are infringing on people's rights.  Since deterrent laws themselves may infringe on people's rights (although this is not always the case), I guess you have to decide now which rights are more important.

I don't know how you can say that "we shouldn't punish people for crimes they haven't committed" when you've consistently advocated laws that do exactly that.

As far as "punishing people for crimes they haven't committed"

Stopping and ticketing someone who is way above the speed limit:
punishment for wrecklessly endangering the safety of others

Checking luggage at an airport:
precaution to insure the safety of the passengers

etc.

Endangering them is not causing them harm.  That's why people can own guns.  Sure, it's endangering them and their children, but it's their right to do so.

It's ridiculous to be so extreme and maintain that your position is reasonable and could be practically applied.  All you have to find is one situation (out of an infinite number of scenarios) where you may agree that exchanging the freedom is worthwhile, and then your ideas must change.

For example, if we are in a situation where a law will facilitate selling a nuclear missile to someone who is insane and intends to use it to wipe out a north american city, you realize you are saying you would prefer that man be legally allowed to purchase the nuke at the most probable expense of hundreds of thousands of innocent lives.  His right to own the nuke is more important than those lives.  "We should only take away that right after he kills the people." Hmm......  How about instead of almost certainly charging him for the death of hundreds of thousands of people, we just legally prevent the problem from arising?  Hey since I have an infinite number of situations to pick from, lets add that if he is legally allowed to purchase the nuke there is a 99.999% chance he will use it to kill innocents, but if there is a law preventing him from making hte purchase, there is absolutely no chance he will cause harm to innocents.

You mean except by buying a nice black market nuke.  Legality doesn't stop people who want to do something (*gasp* Just like marijuana!), except in the case of marijuana, there's not even a good case to be made that it should be illegal.

[Rule]

You mean except by buying a nice black market nuke.  Legality doesn't stop people who want to do something (*gasp* Just like marijuana!), except in the case of marijuana, there's not even a good case to be made that it should be illegal.

"Legality doesn't stop people who want to do something."  That is another over-generalization, that is certainly untrue in certain cases.  By making that claim you are saying that, for example, speeding limits have never stopped anyone from speeding if they wanted to.

Also, remember, I can make up any situation I want -- it doesn't have to be realistic.  Let's say there is no black market -- the only way he can obtain the nuke is through legal means.  There's a 99.999999999% chance he will use it once he obtains it legally.

Maybe you should stop making blanket statements?



Also, it is quite a simple mathematical proof that practicing a freedom with an associated danger does cause harm if enough people exercise it.  Therefore there is an inconsistency in your position.

[MyndFyre]

It's ridiculous to be so extreme and maintain that your position is reasonable and could be practically applied. 

He's not maintaining that his position could be practically applied, Rule.  I tried to argue that his position, the way he was arguing it, would never be practically useful in any kind of political setting:

First of all, I'm not arguing an agenda.  I'm not arguing legislation.  I couldn't care less whether or not anyone likes or dislikes my argument and/or whether or not they want to put it to practical use.  I'm arguing theory.  I want reason.

[Rule]

If we are to talk about whether marijuana should be legalized, we should
undoubtedly be talking about ideas that can be practically implemented.  Further, if a theory does not work in practice, then there is a problem with the theory.

[TehUser]

"Legality doesn't stop people who want to do something."  That is another over-generalization, that is certainly untrue in certain cases.  By making that claim you are saying that, for example, speeding limits have never stopped anyone from speeding if they wanted to.

Once again, Rule, you're both wrong and advocating an extreme position.  I never said that speeding limits never stopped anyone.  But even you, in all of your madness, have to admit that it sure hasn't stopped some people.  Thus, legality doesn't stop people who want to do something.

Also, remember, I can make up any situation I want -- it doesn't have to be realistic.  Let's say there is no black market -- the only way he can obtain the nuke is through legal means.  There's a 99.999999999% chance he will use it once he obtains it legally.

Then I'll just have to hope he uses it somewhere in Canada that will prevent people who create asinine situations from doing so. 

Also, it is quite a simple mathematical proof that practicing a freedom with an associated danger does cause harm if enough people exercise it.  Therefore there is an inconsistency in your position.

What inconsistency?  And let's see this proof.

[Grok]

If we are to talk about whether marijuana should be legalized, we should
undoubtedly be talking about ideas that can be practically implemented.  Further, if a theory does not work in practice, then there is a problem with the theory.

This is incredibly simple to implement.  Repeal the laws that criminalize marijuana.  Work complete.  Suppose that means the theory had no problem.

[Rule]

Once again, Rule, you're both wrong and advocating an extreme position.  I never said that speeding limits never stopped anyone.  But even you, in all of your madness, have to admit that it sure hasn't stopped some people.  Thus, legality doesn't stop people who want to do something.

I'm advocating an extreme position, again?  Last I checked it was you who had all the ridiculously extreme ideas on how every single freedom one can think of is more valuable than anything else.  You're entitled to your opinion, even though we both know, and have established, that the idea cannot be practically translated into a general policy of legislation.

re: "My madness"       

Also, it is quite a simple mathematical proof that practicing a freedom with an associated danger does cause harm if enough people exercise it.  Therefore there is an inconsistency in your position.

What inconsistency?  And let's see this proof.

You claim that one should always be allowed to exercise a freedom unless it
infringes upon someone else's rights.  You have given "punching someone in the mouth," and other situations of someone inflicting harm on another as examples of "infringing on someone's rights."

You claim that if an individual uses a drug, there is merely a probability that this action will cause harm, or will lead to that person infringing one someone else's rights.  I have pointed out that every action only has a mere probability that it will
cause harm to someone, even in your examples.

However, the inconsistency in your position does not end there, and here is where the (exceptionally simple) mathematical proof comes into play.  You claim that deterrent laws infringe on people's rights, so they should not be used.
I will prove that by not having deterrent laws, we are infringing on people's rights.  Hence, we must then decide which "wrong-doing" is worse on a case by case basis -- taking away a group of people's rights, or letting these people have these rights (which as I have said may be very trivial) to prevent
other (perhaps more significant) rights from being definitely violated.

I will be purposely be very general in the following considerations:

Probability action A causes harm to another:   p
Number of people exercising action A:  w
On average, action A is performed j times per person.
Number of times action A is performed = j*w = n

P(p*n | n) = n! / [ (pn)! * (n-pn)! ]  * (np/n)^n * (1-np/n)^(np-n)
as n becomes very large
P( p*n | n ) = 1 .  In other words, there is a 100% chance that
n*p people will suffer or "have their rights violated" if one is allowed to exercise the given freedom.

To more clearly illustrate my point, however, it is nice to consider a variety of situations, using numerical values.

Let's say action A is taking a drug, and that merely one out of every hundred times it is used, its influence results in harm being done to another (I would say if we were considering alcohol a probability more like 1/5 would be appropriate).
Let's say we have 200,000,000 people using the drug in our community (roughly 80% of the US).

Assume that these people use, on average, once a week.  So, after 5 years, the drug has been used 52 billion times.

Let's calculate the probability that

at least one person's rights have been violated due to the drug use: 
1 - .99^(5200000000)   =  100%  (to about 500 significant digits)

the most probable number of times people's rights have been violated:
52000000000*.01 = 520000000, or five hundred and twenty million times.

Since these numbers are very large, it takes a great deal of time and computational effort to precisely compute certain probabilities.  However, you can verify that the probability at least 100000 (one hundred thousand) innocent people have had their rights violated as a result of the drug use is about 100% to approximately 9 significant figures.


Therefore by not violating people's rights to exercise certain freedoms, we are by probability, violating people's other freedoms.  This is one of two major inconsistencies in your position: while you think it is never appropriate to revoke a freedom by a deterrent law, you advocate violating people's freedoms by not supporting deterrent laws.  This doesn't mean I believe that we should always use deterrent laws: it is most rational to consider these situations on a case by case basis and to come to a decision that society would be most content with.  Of course, the other much more obvious problem with your position is that certain actions "are harm," when clearly, like everything else, certain actions are only probable harm – even if the probability is very high.

QED

[Grok]

You could say the same thing about getting out of bed.  Therefore we shouldn't let anyone get out of bed.

What about breathing?  I'm pretty sure that living humans have nearly an infinitely higher probability (to 500 digits precision?) of infringing on another person's rights.

I think we need to kill everyone to avoid such problems.

Use real numbers.  Find out how many pot smokers there are in the United States, how many joints are smoked, and how many people high on pot are convicted of infringing on other people's rights.  Then we'll have some numbers we can put in a pipe and smoke.

[Rule]

You could say the same thing about getting out of bed.  Therefore we shouldn't let anyone get out of bed.

What about breathing?  I'm pretty sure that living humans have nearly an infinitely higher probability (to 500 digits precision?) of infringing on another person's rights.

I think we need to kill everyone to avoid such problems.

Why are you purposely being difficult?  I said that we should consider these things on a case by case basis and come to decisions that people are most content with.   For example, is the right 100,000 people have to live definitely less valuable than the right to use a drug? 

Seems like you want to disagree with me.  Saying that everything has an associated risk to it does not conflict with my points in any way.  I acknowledge that and think that we should decide what is more dangerous -- right A or the rights that will be lost by exercising right A.  Nonetheless, not deterring certain rights has been shown to absolutely be infringing on other rights.

reply to your "real numbers edit": that sounds reasonable if we are ready to move onto a discussion specific to marijuana.  For that to be productive, we must first come to the agreement that it may be a benefit to revoke a freedom though.  I've proven this (using variables and numbers), so it really isn't much to ask for a quick nod in that regard.

[TehUser]

I'm advocating an extreme position, again?  Last I checked it was you who had all the ridiculously extreme ideas on how every single freedom one can think of is more valuable than anything else.  You're entitled to your opinion, even though we both know, and have established, that the idea cannot be practically translated into a general policy of legislation.

No, we don't both know that.  You think that.

You claim that one should always be allowed to exercise a freedom unless it
infringes upon someone else's rights.  You have given "punching someone in the mouth," and other situations of someone inflicting harm on another as examples of "infringing on someone's rights."

You claim that if an individual uses a drug, there is merely a probability that this action will cause harm, or will lead to that person infringing one someone else's rights.  I have pointed out that every action only has a mere probability that it will
cause harm to someone, even in your examples.

However, the inconsistency in your position does not end there, and here is where the (exceptionally simple) mathematical proof comes into play.  You claim that deterrent laws infringe on people's rights, so they should not be used.
I will prove that by not having deterrent laws, we are infringing on people's rights.  Hence, we must then decide which "wrong-doing" is worse on a case by case basis -- taking away a group of people's rights, or letting these people have these rights (which as I have said may be very trivial) to prevent
other (perhaps more significant) rights from being definitely violated.

I will be purposely be very general in the following considerations:

Probability action A causes harm to another:   p
Number of people exercising action A:  w
On average, action A is performed j times per person.
Number of times action A is performed = j*w = n

P(p*n | n) = n! / [ (pn)! * (n-pn)! ]  * (np/n)^n * (1-np/n)^(np-n)
as n becomes very large
P( p*n | n ) = 1 .  In other words, there is a 100% chance that
n*p people will suffer or "have their rights violated" if one is allowed to exercise the given freedom.

*yawn*  After all is said and done, the best you can do is come up with a number that is very close to 1 as n approaches infinity.  Unfortunately for you, a 9 in 10 chance of something happening doesn't mean that it happens.  A 99 in 100 chance of something happening doesn't mean that it happens.  And a 999999 in 1000000 chance of something happening doesn't mean that it happens.  It means that it's likely to happen.  And mere likelihood isn't enough for me to want to strip someone of their rights.

To more clearly illustrate my point, however, it is nice to consider a variety of situations, using numerical values.

Let's say action A is taking a drug, and that merely one out of every hundred times it is used, its influence results in harm being done to another (I would say if we were considering alcohol a probability more like 1/5 would be appropriate).
Let's say we have 200,000,000 people using the drug in our community (roughly 80% of the US).

Assume that these people use, on average, once a week.  So, after 5 years, the drug has been used 52 billion times.

Let's calculate the probability that

at least one person's rights have been violated due to the drug use: 
1 - .99^(5200000000)   =  100%  (to about 500 significant digits)

the most probable number of times people's rights have been violated:
52000000000*.01 = 520000000, or five hundred and twenty million times.

Since these numbers are very large, it takes a great deal of time and computational effort to precisely compute certain probabilities.  However, you can verify that the probability at least 100000 (one hundred thousand) innocent people have had their rights violated as a result of the drug use is about 100% to approximately 9 significant figures.

This is why you're not allowed to make up statistics, Rule.  Because when you make them up, they're just as meaningless as the point you try to make with them.

Therefore by not violating people's rights to exercise certain freedoms, we are by probability, violating people's other freedoms.  This is one of two major inconsistencies in your position: while you think it is never appropriate to revoke a freedom by a deterrent law, you advocate violating people's freedoms by not supporting deterrent laws.  This doesn't mean I believe that we should always use deterrent laws: it is most rational to consider these situations on a case by case basis and to come to a decision that society would be most content with.  Of course, the other much more obvious problem with your position is that certain actions "are harm," when clearly, like everything else, certain actions are only probable harm – even if the probability is very high.
QED

First of all, your proof fails.  Second, certain actions are harm.  You can't say that someone who has been punched in the nose "has a probability of being harmed".  He has been harmed.  Now, unless you've got some clever time machine to go back and fix his nose, I'm going to say that clearly, some actions constitute harm.

[Rule]

*yawn*   And a 999999 in 1000000 chance of something happening doesn't mean that it happens.  It means that it's likely to happen.  And mere likelihood isn't enough for me to want to strip someone of their rights.

Oh, that sounds very practical.  We only act when we know things are absolutely going to happen.  If there is a 99.99999999999999999999% chance someone is going to take a gun and kill me, we shouldn't stop him until he does the deed.  In fact, that is so practical we should base a society on legislation that never takes into account situations that are almost certainly going to happen.  I'm sure it will have a .00000000000000000000000000000000000001% chance of being successful.  Good luck with that.

This is why you're not allowed to make up statistics, Rule.  Because when you make them up, they're just as meaningless as the point you try to make with them.

Make up statistics for some unspecified unknown hypothetical drug?  The statistics are used for illustrative purposes.  You know, the same way that numbers are made up in economics textbooks for pedagogical reasons.  I'm teaching you a lesson.

Therefore by not violating people's rights to exercise certain freedoms, we are by probability, violating people's other freedoms.  This is one of two major inconsistencies in your position: while you think it is never appropriate to revoke a freedom by a deterrent law, you advocate violating people's freedoms by not supporting deterrent laws.  This doesn't mean I believe that we should always use deterrent laws: it is most rational to consider these situations on a case by case basis and to come to a decision that society would be most content with.  Of course, the other much more obvious problem with your position is that certain actions "are harm," when clearly, like everything else, certain actions are only probable harm – even if the probability is very high.
QED

First of all, your proof fails.  Second, certain actions are harm.  You can't say that someone who has been punched in the nose "has a probability of being harmed".  He has been harmed.  Now, unless you've got some clever time machine to go back and fix his nose, I'm going to say that clearly, some actions constitute harm.

First of all, my proof doesn't fail because you say it does.  Secondly, these certain actions you specify are not harm!  When blood is dripping from his nose, yes harm has been done.  When someone initiates the punching action, harm is probably going to be done.  This is why it would be smart to try and block a punch.  Well, at least I would, because I believe that if there is a very good chance something bad is going to happen it is reasonable to stop it.