So...like...gay and trans people offend the fundies???
*plants gay pride flag and transgender pride flags firmly in the Sciforums' hilltop*
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How many people must be offended before we make it a crime?
- Thread starter Mind Over Matter
- Start date
So...like...gay and trans people offend the fundies???
*plants gay pride flag and transgender pride flags firmly in the Sciforums' hilltop*
A blue law is a type of law, typically found in the United States and, formerly, in Canada, designed to enforce religious standards, particularly the observance of Sunday as a day of worship or rest, and a restriction on Sunday shopping. Most have been repealed, have been declared unconstitutional, or are simply unenforced; though prohibitions on the sale of alcoholic beverages or prohibitions of almost all commerce on Sundays are still enforced in many areas. Blue laws often prohibit an activity only during certain hours and there are usually exceptions to the prohibition of commerce, like grocery and drug stores. In some places blue laws may be enforced due to religious principles, but others are retained as a matter of tradition or out of convenience.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...9MiLDg&usg=AFQjCNE_oEbHAaQxiVteu-WYPRIHKPzYoQ
That said there's always a way around the law by just driving to the next town that doesn't have these laws enacted. If there's laws like that where you live you can have them repealed if you want to do so.
So you wouldn't care if police, firemen, pilots and surgeons, to name a few, would get high and do their work? I'd think that there would be catastrophic results from getting stoned while doing many jobs and driving a car is not very good either for many accidents happen when people get high with alcohol which is a drug too.
We've had this discussion before, Cosmic...
If someone does their job or operates machinery intoxicated on anything and that puts other people at risk, then that, I agree, is a crime.
If you are at home and don't have to go to work or drive anywhere...and you toke out and put on some Pink Floyd, or have a couple of 'shrooms...you're not hurting anyone.
But it's a crime to have the substance. Why?
Do I approve of drunk driving? no. Arrest them, throw the book at them.
Do I think we ought to try prohibiting alcohol? Considering what happened last time we tried that? no.
The above is a reality-based position. It's the majority position in the US, I believe.
I simply extrapolate that same position to other substances; it makes logical sense to do so.
More broadly...why should something someone does in their own home, hurting no one except possibly themselves, be a crime? My own view is that in a free society, it should not be.
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I have two arguments against this
1. Diminished responsibility - sure you're only hurting yourself, while you're conscious, rational and in full control of all your reason and senses. What happens after you're stoked and there is an emergency involving others?
"This population-based case–control study indicates that habitual use of marijuana is strongly associated with car crash injury. The nature of the relationship between marijuana use and risk-taking is unclear and needs further research. The prevalence of marijuana use in this driving population was
low, and acute use was associated with habitual marijuana use, suggesting that intervention strategies may be more effective if they are targeted towards high use groups."
http://ukcia.org/research/CarCrashInjury.pdf
2. There is no free lunch. There are always innocent victims, because life happens
Drug addict's baby died of neglect - despite 47 visits in 50 days from social services
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ts-50-days-social-services.html#ixzz1fQhSIJG0
1. There is that.
Though by that logic you should never take any opiate pain meds, even for broken bones or post-surgery...and you have an obligation to know CPR and first aid, keep a high-end kit on hand and fire extinguishers, etc.
How much obligation do we owe others to be ready for their emergencies before it starts being a hindrance on having our own lives? I mean...I am willing to come to another person's assistance, myself. And I choose not to get stoned or hammered anymore, because it's not good for me.
But that's all voluntary.
2. That would qualify as harm to another person, though.
Your children aren't property, they are other people whom, by the act of having and keeping, you've accepted an obligation to care for...and there are indeed people who give up their children voluntarily because they cannot handle them. As that lady should have(...and I'm wondering why on earth social services did not remove the kids faster. But anyway...)
It is possible to be a addict/alcoholic and not starve or mistreat your children.
I would argue that you'e not emotionally there or modeling a healthy way to be. But nonetheless, addicts do manage to feed, clothe and not seriously neglect or abuse their kids.
It's not good, no, but there's plenty of people who do more damage to their kids stone-cold sober.
I think you meant to say "stoned." To be "stoked" means to be exhilirated and enthusiastic.
But, supposing you aren't an emergency responder or police man or fireman or something, what is a citizen's general responsibility to be ready and able to respond to emergencies involving others at all times? Doesn't this same reasoning apply equally to alcohol, not getting enough sleep, not eating good meals, or anything else that might realistically diminish a person's alertness, response times, etc.?
That is also true of absolutely anything you care to name.
Sounds like social services visits need some help in the effectiveness department - but where is the support for the implication that drug use caused that? How do we know that the baby wouldn't have been neglected regardless? Perhaps both the drug addiction and the neglect are both symptoms of some underlying third cause (mental health issues, maybe, or poverty, or any number of things).
Indeed, it should be easy enough to argue that drug legalization might have prevented that neglect, because the mother would have been able to get her drugs more readily and cheaply and safely, instead of having to resort to a life of prostitution. Certainly, you can't argue that drug prohibition would have saved that child, since the death occurred in the context of the drugs in question already being illegal.
chimpkin said:
There is only one rule here: do no harm
quadrophonics said:
Yes, I think so. Don't you? Its why we have designated drivers, nutritional labels, allergy warnings on some foods, warnings on medications that induce sleepiness or affect response time.
But you just asserted that such an ideal is, fundamentally and in principle, impossible.
So, then, your position is that currently-illegal drugs should be decriminalized and instead subject only to prohibitions on intoxicated driving, and that relevant nutritional and side-effect warning labelling should be placed on recreational drugs?
And not that criminalization of recreational drug use is warranted? Because you were citing that reasoning as supporting the criminalization of recreational drugs, a few posts up. Do you support the criminalization of medications that induce sleepiness or affect response time on the same grounds? If not, what's the difference?
On the contrary, I pointed out that a person with diminished responsibility is not capable of distinguishing harm to self from not harm to self.
My position is that all drugs should be available under prescription or by age limit. Like a gun, drugs cause crimes when they are misused. In which case, you should be liable for those choices
Oh. Actually I think the threshold is 6 million and one.
I don't think it's reasonable to expect us to always live in a state of alert readiness, SAM.
It would be ideal if we as a whole never got intoxicated, always slept well, always ate just as we should, and were always prepared to come to the assistance of those around us.
Is it reasonable to try and require that? To enforce it? I don't think so.
I personally do try to assist people that need it when I find them. I don't feel obligated to do it so much as moved to by my own desire to live in a world where those who need help are helped.
I've said free speech is the right to say offensive things.
I would suppose a free society includes some rights to be a selfish b@stard.
The rest of us can freely look down our noses at them though.
My position, pretty much...I rather presumed selling other intoxicants would work like alcohol and cigarettes-you would have to be of age to purchase them.
It would be ideal if we as a whole never got intoxicated, always slept well, always ate just as we should, and were always prepared to come to the assistance of those around us.
Is it reasonable to try and require that? To enforce it? I don't think so.
I personally do try to assist people that need it when I find them. I don't feel obligated to do it so much as moved to by my own desire to live in a world where those who need help are helped.
I've said free speech is the right to say offensive things.
I would suppose a free society includes some rights to be a selfish b@stard.
The rest of us can freely look down our noses at them though.
My position, pretty much...I rather presumed selling other intoxicants would work like alcohol and cigarettes-you would have to be of age to purchase them.
Hence my use of the word "choices". We all know our limits and if we nod off at the steering wheel and end up killing innocent people, it matters very little whether it was because of a late night, insomnia, or an indulgence of alcohol or just your regular low dose medical marijuana fix. We're adults and we can make choices such that they limit the harm caused - whether to ourselves or to anyone else. Or at least make sure there is someone else sober around us
Absolutely.
But this is rather straightforward, what about the OP?
I guess the answer is : "When the offended parties get enough power to make what offends them illegal."
This ought not to be the answer for nonharming behavior in a free society...but them's the breaks.
I was referring to this:
S.A.M. said:
If that's true, then there is no possibility of "do no harm." In real life, there are always innocent victims. No?
Okay. But, you realize that you posted those 2 reasons in direct response to chimpkin's question of why taking recreational drugs, in and of itself, should be a crime. So you can see where a reader would be confused that you don't actually think that taking recreational drugs should itself be a crime, I hope?
How many average people in their fully aware state of mind are really ready for emergency reaction? I think that's an unrealistic baseline. I get what SAM is saying, but I don't think that a person should be guilty of the crime of unpreparedness for any possible problem. That gets into the territory of the good Samaritan laws...not everyone is able or can be a good first responder, so it shouldn't be illegal if they don't jump in and help.
My experience? not a whole lot...I think a lot of time people don't realize there's a crisis ocurring, their minds are submerged in routine.
Religions can't get offended, people get offended
But they exercise it, regardless
Yes correct, because of elements like diminished responsiblity. Which is why I mentioned liability for choices.
I was arguing her/his specific position there, not the general issue i.e.
More broadly...why should something someone does in their own home, hurting no one except possibly themselves, be a crime?
That is, it can be, because...etc