23 replies to this topic

[Thrash]

[apollogod]

All I heard was


Blah I suck monkey cock Blah Blah Blah I suck Monkey Balls.

[Evil Rudekker]

All I heard was "rewrite the constitution so that political minorities are represented and the two-party system is done away with for a multiparty system."

[Lucas Perry]

... what's the point of that. My audio isn't working right so I couldn't understand it.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

A multiparty system would probably be a vast improvement. But it's irrelevant anyway. The hurdles that need to be overcome in order to amend the Constitution are daunting at the best of times. In today's polarized and entrenched atmosphere they would be impossible.

There is an excellent book on this very topic. Despite the imposing-sounding title, it's quite a good read. I highly recommend it.

You can also read my own four-part article on this topic, from 2006:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

I never claimed to not be a shameless self-promoter.

[atlashill]

All I heard was him becoming more and more like his predecessor.
More overextending our reserves, more mispronunciations, more bad debt.

That hopey changey stuff is doing well for me, thank you very much. Now all I need is, um, uh… (looks at sweaty hand) nukes, aircraft and some Doritos.

[Amonra]

Cant we all just agree if we just legalized marijuana 90% of our problems would be fixed
Trillons in debt - just tax it. Need a little more, just add a tax to Doritos
Everybody hates America - Nobody hates a friend with weed
violence Overunning our cities - every tried to be violent while high?
Overcrowded jails - Release all the weed prisoners and you would only have OJ and Madoff and thats about it
health care - ok... we would all be fat.....

[Timtacious]

A multiparty system would probably be a vast improvement. But it's irrelevant anyway. The hurdles that need to be overcome in order to amend the Constitution are daunting at the best of times. In today's polarized and entrenched atmosphere they would be impossible.

There is an excellent book on this very topic. Despite the imposing-sounding title, it's quite a good read. I highly recommend it.

You can also read my own four-part article on this topic, from 2006:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

I never claimed to not be a shameless self-promoter.

Haha, that's AWESOME!

[Thrash]

Cant we all just agree if we just legalized marijuana 90% of our problems would be fixed

Have to agree with this.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

Everybody hates America - Nobody hates a friend with weed

That may be the best argument for the legalization of marijuana that I have ever heard.

I have read some of the fascinating history of marijuana in this country. In 1900 it wasn't illegal. It became so essentially because Mexicans and blacks liked it, and the authorities at the time assumed that anything that Mexicans and blacks liked must be bad and were afraid it would spread to whites. So the government started a campaign to raise public (i.e. white) alarm about it, which resulted in such "awareness" films as the famous -- and hilarious -- Reefer Madness.

The whole thing was helped enormously by the fact that marijuana was equated with hemp, a cheap and renewable source of material such as paper. The last thing the powerful timber/paper industry wanted was cheaper source of paper to compete with. Then the Hearst papers got on board, and marijuana's fate was forever sealed.

[Thrash]

yea, Reefer Madness is pretty pathetic. Most unrealistic representation of what it's like to smoke pot.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

TELL YOUR CHILDREN!!!

[Lucas Perry]

ROFL.

My friends argue all the time over if it should be legal or illegal. Afterwards, we all have a beer and play xbox.

[nicraM]

If I could just interject...

I know a little bit about the criminalization of marijuana.

What happened, was this.

In the early 1900's there was the US government that had no way to prosecute federally across state lines. Hoover would soon change this.

He would also change the way the laws were written in respects to drug use.

Marijuana itself was not made illegal. It was the procurement of Hemp itself that was deemed illegal. With that came basically making marijuana illegal.

We were tricked into it. Then when the laws were being disobeyed, Hoover went before the Senate, I believe. And basically ran this schpeel....

He told them that there was a new danger ready to invade the states from the south(mexico).

It was a mexican tobacco that was favored by the mexicans and blacks. When smoked, he added, it would inevitably lead to the rape and sodomy with white women being the victims and the mexicans and blacks being the suspects.

Weed makes black and mexican dudes rape white women...

That is also how opium was made illegal. Just switch out black and mexican for asian.

I can't make this shit up...

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

NicraM is quite correct. The bottom line is that at the turn of the last century marijuana was not illegal. It was, however, largely used at the time by Hispanics and blacks, and the powers that be (the same powers that be who would soon criminalize alcohol) took the position that anything that the swarthier peoples liked must be bad ("Pepperidge Farm remembers a time when racism was institutionalized"). They didn't want these "vices" (ironic how much the authorities at that time were obsessed with "vice," given that their poster boy, J. Edgar Hoover, liked to wear sun dresses and bed Mexican pool boys) to spread to good, white people, so they criminalized it.

If it's one thing Americans have always liked, it's a good witch hunt. http://cn-invicta.co...tyle_emoticons/default/smile.gif

[KingTopherXXIII]

The declaration is on hemp paper as well! Might as well go back to our roots! Re-legalize! Hemp, Hemp, Hooray!

[Amonra]

A petition was handed in to the California goverment that had enough signatures to get a "Marijuana Legalization & Taxation" bill on the ballot in the November election.
Some economist have estimated that in California alone it could create a billion and a half in new taxes for the state. I predict this will pass and 6 or 7 states will immeadiatly jump on it. States like Alaska, Colorado, Arizona, Washington, Vermont, Iowa and Alabama will have bills similar to this in short order to get their own taxes.
Then it will all come down to what Obama and the Feds do in response.
They will either step aside or fight the shit out of this and stop it in its tracks.
So we could be a year or two away from Legalization or it get kicked back another 20 years.
Get out and vote if you get the chance.

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[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

Alabama? You think they'd go for it? I would have thought that Bible Belt states would be the most hard core against it.

As to the feds, my guess is that under Obama pursuing federal drug laws in states where marijuana was legal would not be a priority. Under a different president, who knows? A lot would depend on precedent. If this goes through, and the feds just kind of turn a blind eye for the duration of Obama's presidency, then you're looking until at least 2013 before a potentially adversarial administration comes into office, and quite possibly 2017. By then, if all has gone well (tax revenues are up, crime hasn't exploded, etc.) then it seems unlikely that even a hard-line social conservative would try to oppose or overturn it.

[Thrash]

Yea, it needs to happen soon, because Palin won't allow it once she becomes POTUS in 2012.

[Amonra]

Palin wont be POTUS. I am a republican myself and she scares me. She is WAY to bible thumpy!

States like Alabama and Michagin have such a high poverty rate and unemployment rate that I think this is something at least a few of them grab on too. Plus in the early stages the first states would get tourism $ from it. I mean can you imagin all the people who would flock to those states for vacations and weekends to get "Legal Weed"? Alabama especially would be ideal long term for a replacment of tobacco farming.

This is gonna be awesome!

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