The Wall

[BananaStand]

There are a crazy number of deaths due to drunk driving in the USA every year, and we accept that as a cost of freedom. Your position that risk of death is adequate motivation to outlaw something is clearly belied by legal alcohol and legal driving. It's illegal to mix the 2, but either on its own is fine.

You can't equate dangerous drugs to alcohol. You can have a drink or two, and not be impaired. You can't just get a buzz on heroin. Also, the destructive effects of alcohol are only experienced by a minority of users, and only after prolonged frequent use. In other words, not every drinker is an alcoholic. No single drink will destroy your liver.

Heroin and cocaine are significantly more addictive, often after just one use. Impairment is immediate, and extreme. Overdose is a risk virtually every single time you use. There's no such thing as a 'social heroin user', or a 'casual meth head'.

Legalization, regulation, and heavy taxation is a money maker. Criminalization is a money eater.

Do you not agree that heroin, cocaine, and meth have much more intense, immediate, and destructive effects than alcohol? how are you going to police irresponsible use like we do with alcohol? Police patrol roadways and are trained to look for signs of impaired driving. I don't know how many DUI arrests there are on any given day in America, but I'll bet it's alot.

Wouldn't you expect that to increase if you permit more inebriates to the market? And because of the higher intensity of addiction, you're likely to have more repeat offenders. The addiction will surely be stronger than the deterrent until you reach a point where you physically have to lock these people up. Then we're right back to your original complaint that it costs too much to enforce drug laws.

I hope you'll forgive me if I find your hubris to assert what other people deserve as not compelling evidence to sway my beliefs.

Well it's not what *I* think they deserve, its' what a judge, jury, and an advanced system of justice thinks they deserve.

I'm in disagreement that incarceration is helping anyone, here..

I think it's very much like we, as a society, are waiting until someone to go over the edge, then we punish them for falling. If there is a better way, I want it.

I believe you're significantly over-stating the cost of incarceration for drug offenses. The number of inmates within the federal prison system, whose worst offense is drug possession, is less than 250. In a country of 320 million!

My position is that the current laws seem to be criminalizing good-willed people who are not hurting anyone.

They are hurting someone. They are taking a job that could otherwise be staffed by an american. They are participating in an illegal labor market that depresses wages for legal workers. They are shirking their taxpaying responsibilities. And they are burdening our social programs (87% of them are on welfare).

IDK how you can assert that a Syrian refugee fails the economic test. If we're talking in the immediate short-term, then yeah, but the long term benefits of helping someone and having earned their gratitude and respect are non-0.

Is it really respect? Did we earn Cuba's respect by taking in their refugees in the early 80's? Or did they snicker behind our backs at how they were able to unload a burden of undesirables onto another country? Is Mexico respecting us by publishing pamphlets that teach people how to exist in the United States undetected?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/06/wo...n-us.html?_r=0

To clarify: My position on the travel ban is, "If extreme vetting is necessary for one group of immigrants, then it's necessary for all groups of immigrants."

Different topic now, but you're ignoring the fact that some immigrants come from countries with friendly/centralized governments who are willing to provide vetting information. No extreme measures necessary.

Treating people differently under the law should only happen on an individual, case by case basis where there is evidence of wrong-doing. Anything else is bigotry of some form.

Your position is a form of xenophobia.

My position on illegal immigration is, "Are the laws we currently have actually any good?"

If they aren't, which you seem to believe, what would you do instead? A wall?