Originally posted by Silver Ghost:


I was refering to the Supreme Court's decsion to stop counting votes. It seems to me that the only people who would want to not count all the votes are those with a particular outcome in mind.


And how many more times were the votes going to be recounted using how many different factors? Every trick in the book was pulled to scrap enough votes up for Gore. They would have kept counting until they GOT the result they wanted, not the one that was PRODUCED via the election...

He won the popular vote but lost the electoral. What's your point? If this is such a conspiracy and blatant conservative power grab, the lawsuits would be piled upon each other awaiting trial. The fact that there aren't just blows your thinking out of the water as there are countless entities that had more to lose in the election than any one private citizen.

Originally posted by Silver Ghost:
Funny that you avoided the (more serious) President's lying issue. Do you condone it?



Get specific. Which issue? Blanket statements don't tell anyone much of anything.

Originally posted by Silver Ghost:
Cultural? That's rich. Ok, lets start with the misconception that alcohol is safer than mj. On the basis of physical harm alone, alcohol would have to be outlawed if you are trying to protect people.



Get with reality. I'm not saying you don't have a logical argument; I'm saying that it WON'T happen.

The US has been there and done that. It won't happen and given the response and circumstances surrounding prohibition, this country damn-sure won't legalize pot, given the double-whammy it faces as being a narcotic and part of the smoking health hazard that has permeated recent social thought. As a government and society, the US is just coming out of denial that smoking and drinking in most cases is BAD for you, especially the overindulgence of such. You ACTUALLY think that pot, a known narcotic that is rountinely delivered through smoking and is known to serve as a springboard drug is going to be legalized?

Don't hold your breath...

Originally posted by Silver Ghost:
The fact that it isn't (and can't be) outlawed is the reason that mj will eventually be legalized -- mj is a safer drug.

Again, not when you consider that many people move upwards from pot to stronger substances, and that I've yet to come across a person that smoked a filtered joint, hence the heat and pollutants that enter the lungs are akin to jamming a campfire log in your mouth and sucking that down your windpipe...

I'll say it again and again. Pot faces a double-whammy. You MIGHT clear one hurdle and find a another one that WON'T be possible to surmount...

Originally posted by Silver Ghost:
And what keeps driving up their profits? The war on drugs.



And here I thought it was a balance of supply and demand that was the basis behind pricing. Silly me.

Originally posted by Silver Ghost:
Are you seriously contending that all the money and attention spent on the drug war over the last 20 years wouldn't have been put to better use countering the real threat of terrorism?



ABSOLUTELY. The US pays attention to known issues that are most pressing and most impactful. NO ONE 20 years ago (10?maybe to an extent) could have predicted the dollar amount, impact and scale of terrorist operations, so it doesn't matter what you or I contend on this point. Deal with the facts; not if's, could's and should's.

I challenge you to find a study that says anything different than the FACT that drug use has EXPLODED in the last 30 years. It may be leveling off now in certain segments, but that wasn't the case a couple of decades back. Given the threat that copious amounts of illicit narcotics have been pouring through our borders, yes.

I'll also counter that more money should have been spent on education and awareness campaigns, but again, that's neither here nor there.


Originally posted by Silver Ghost:
How come Al-Qaeda wasn't in the public eye before 9-11?

Perhaps because drugs have claimed more lives than Al-Qaeda has BY FAR and the fact that no major US incursions had taken place by then. The squeakiest wheel gets the most grease.

The US is a reactive society for the most part, not a proactive one. It's only when something becomes a GLARING and DANGEROUS problem do we react and it's something that DRIVES me up the wall...

Originally posted by Silver Ghost:
They were at war with the U.S. well before that. The policy makers were blinded by ideology and the public were mislead about real threats. And if this wasn't the case, why now, post 9-11, are funds and attention being shifted away from the drug war to anti-terrorism? Drugs are not now, and never were, public enemy no. 1.

Necessity. There's only so much money to go around and the potential fallout ignoring one or the other has to be weighed. I'd say today that Militant Islamic radicals trying to smuggle a nuclear device or chemical toxin for mass destructive use on US soil would serve to destabilize things to a FAR greater degree than a couple extra tons of coke coming across the border. Are they public enemy no. 1 now? No. Are they on the top 5? Damn-skippy they are.


Originally posted by Silver Ghost:
This is simply U.S. foreign policy disguised as a "drug war."

Really? So, tell me what immense natural resourse the US is interested about in Columbia, apart from the cocoa trade? Their oil production is in decline and the coffe industry is getting it's head turned up on end because of the cheap crap coming out of SE Asia (Vietnam of all places). Pray tell what "foreign policy" we are pursuing in Columbia, if it's not trying to cripple the drug trade....

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