A question isolationism vs intervention?

As if we should do anything else? As well, I think "our interests" extend to creating a Mexico that isn't entangled in a brutal, drug-fueled civil war. I don't think we could get involved in a major way without totally defeating our opposition, and to that end I don't think we'd see anything but support from the international community.

Of course, I'm not too keen on the idea of throwing our military into another long-term conflict, and I think we'd see a hell of a lot more negative ramifications Stateside if we involved ourselves in Mexico. Al Qaeda and the Taliban may be terrible enemies, but they don't have the access or the power of the cartels, and they're not sitting right on our border. A war with them would be considerably more brutal than the one we're fighting now, and I don't know if we have the financial or cultural stamina to undergo something like that right now. At the same time, we have both the means and motive to seriously fuck these assholes up, and help a lot of people in the process. But then, we can do that all over the world, and it's only very rarely a good idea for us to actually do it.

Well, for better or worse, the reality of the matter is that no politician who plans on sticking around very long will back a real military intervention in Mexico.

I know this might sound crazy to you retards, but the only way to stop the drug wars and violence that plague the US, Latin America, and indeed the rest of the world is to legalize drugs.

Yes, surely legalizing cocaine and haroine is a great idea.

I can see your point about marijuana, but this one you will have to explain to me.

I can tell you're highly educated on the subject.

I will create the Shaw's perfect world and make free drugs and give it out to everyone.

Honestly in this election I am expecting the PRI to win.

And certainly it is possible to tell the entirety of a person's IQ from a single spelling error.

I make mistakes. I am human.
Clearly you are some god that never makes a spelling error and insists that it is absolutely necessary to always check a dictionary every time that you post something.
Get over yourself.

The sole purpose of posting anything on this forums is to convey an idea or ideas.
Language is merely the means that I use to do it.

Are you seriously telling me that a single spelling error is proof that I do not know something?
Are you so blind and dictionary-bound that you need everything to be spelled correctly to understand an argument?

Are you some god that knows everything?
Or do you look up information as you debate as well, as most mortals do?

You are just picking at my posts and harassing me since you disagree with my political opinions and I disagree with you.
You are pathetic.

Because I don't like the idea of the government telling people what they can and can not do to themselves. And honestly I would rather have private, legitimate industries control the distribution of heroine in a regulated market than having the drug cartels and gangs handle that shit freely. Because obviously we can't stop them.

Return of the English Nazi!

Do you feel any side effects when doing drugs?

I can see your point.

However:
On individual rights:
It serves a compelling government interest to prevent the spread of such substances as they can possibly constitute a major threat to both the safety and productivity of society.

On private, legitimate industries controlling the substances:
I would not agree that it would be much better than it is at the moment. You are still talking about massive sums of money being placed in the hands of individuals who sell addictive substances. While, yes, in theory they would purify the substances, as the tobacco industry's enhancement of the addictive potential of their product demonstrates, that is not necessarily a good thing. The substance is hazardeous to the society either way. While it is true that tobacco and other addictive substances (some of which I believe are more addictive than the substances at question here) have relatively effective regulation at the moment, the fact remains that you are speaking of substances that have no disternable benefits that cannot be better conveyed by an already well-regulated substance. So, as opposed to a potentially useful substance like morphine, which carries more benefit when regualted and legal (under certain circumstances), you are proposing to legalize substances that are not useful in any meaningful context.

On legalizing because it cannot be stopped:
Neither can the inevitablity that people kill one another. Suppose that we should legalize that too. And yes, I know that this is an extreme example and thus not the most effective, but the point still remains that the argument that something seemingly unstoppable should not be opposed is a weak one.

I find the idea of putting the benefit of society over the benefit of the individual appalling. But maybe that's just me. I stand by my word.

Doctors and pharmicists do it all the time. Hell, so do gas stations.

I said we could regulate it. On tobacco, the only reason the corporations can make tobacco more addictive is because of counterproductive tobacco taxes, meant to hurt the tobacco industry and somehow make them stop, make it so that only the large, greedy, corporations who put additives in the smokes can stay in business because they're the only ones who can pay the taxes. But that is a debate for another day.

I get this argument, and although I again say I don't believe in putting the society ahead of the individual, I am more a proponent of softer drugs being legalized and would not be upset if harder drugs remained illegal. But I also dislike your argument of keeping it illegal because it has no benefits. Prohibition is more easily justified against something because it's harmful, not because it isn't beneficial. Although heroine and the likes are still very harmful, yes.

You can't really use the murder argument because murder is illegal as it is a crime against a person and their very life. Where I see prohibition as a crime itself.

Ultimately when it comes to hard drugs I would rather have us treat them differently, not with punishment, but with help. I can live with the prohibition of heroine and coke so long as we treat it differently and more reasonably. But in my perfect world people would be free to make their own decisions, and that, to me, outweighs any argument in favor of prohibition, even though mine might be a minority view.

Thing is that spelling heroin as "haroine" is not a typo. You spelled it that way because you didn't know how to properly spell the word. If you were even marginally familiar with the subject matter, you'd have seen the word enough to know how to spell it properly.

That's extremely stupid. A company that can legally sell the addictive substances does not have to engage in criminal activity to maintain their business. A company that can legally sell addictive substances has legal recourse, and can form binding contracts. A company that can legally sell addictive substances has a vested interest in maintaining a positive public image. A company that can legally sell addictive substances is bound by state and federal regulation, not just in the sense that their products are monitored, but in the way they treat their employees and customers. To think that there wouldn't be significant and positive differences between criminal organizations operating a black market that finances their war on law enforcement and government, and private businesses, because they both sell addictive substances is patently ridiculous, and further evidence of your ignorance of the subject matter.

Kali is a better debater than me.

I honestly thought your debate was great, far better then anything I could pull off.

And I can understand that. I disagree, but I think that I can see your point and where you are coming from.

In my view, in some scenerios, the health of the society as a whole outways the benefits of the individual.
In this case, you have still not proven that there is anything beyond a philisophical benefit for the individual.

Doctors and pharmacists distribute those drugs for the intended purpose of benefiting the health of the individual or individuals who recieve them. There is no problem with that. I was disputing the merit of legalizing the sale of substances for the sole purpose of profit and convey not benefit that cannot be conveyed by an already legal and regulated substance. In the case of doctors and pharmacists, there is a reasonable counter-balence to the profit that they recieve. Both parties gain something. The substances that you propose legalizing convey a lasting benefit only to the seller. The reciever can in fact die from the substance, which hardly helps them. Unless they are looking to die that is.

I assume by gas stations you are referring to alcohol and tobacco.
I never stated that I support the use of either alcohol or tobacco. I tolerate alcohol insofar as it is part of culture, society, and religion. I don't approve of tobacco use to a great extent to at all.

However, I would point out that two wrongs do not constitute a right. Simply that society makes the mistake of having two legal substances that are actually harmful to it does not mean that they should legalize others.

Mmm... I think this is part of the problem. I am kind of shooting in the dark here since I don't know what you are advocating to legalize.
Please provide a list (not all, if it is too long, just enough for me to get an idea).

Mmm... like the quote response above, we have some problems with not having a definite list of what we are talking about.
I think we are agreed that harming the society is part of the equation.
As for benefits: I mostly intended it as a reason why comparing certain addictive legal drugs to illegal ones is a faulty argument. Though in most cases, it is a factor since it can be a net-gain, net-loss kind of system.
I agree that there is an amount of caution to be exercised when agruing that a substance should be illegal simply for not being beneficial to society as many things can easily be classified under that, but in the case of illegal drugs (particularly addictive ones), I think that the point has merit.

Like I said, it was a bad example to use.
The point still stand though.
Just because something doesn't seem stoppable doesn't mean that you should legalize it.
It was made illegal for a good reason and what population is addicted to it show the effects of what it was illegalized to prevent.

I never said that we should not help those addicted (though I am not enthusiastic about spending my money on addicts).
The method is at a standstill in my opinion. Either it has done too much or too little. It has tried to straddle the middle and been punched... umm... you know, every time. I agree something has to be changed, but I disagree with simply legalizing the illegal substances. But I don't think that the US population has the stomach to go the other way.

On the whole, I don't mind people using substances as long as it doesn't adversely affect me or someone that I care about. In my ideal society, I wouldn't mind people using substances as long as they fufilled their duties and didn't bother others and disturb their duties.
The problem is that there is usually (I think its called) 'the ripple effect'.
Even though the frontlines might be a long ways away, it still affects me and usually not in a good way.

I've seen university professors, doctors, and professors alike misspell words essential to their subject matter.
Are you alledging that none of them actually knew anything about their subjects?
You are just picking on a single word in my post.

I stated that I did not believe the situation would be a much better.
It was a matter of perception and opinion.
We both might see how they would regulate and sell the substance as good, but I might disapprove of the practice altogether, no matter who is doing it.
Thus, it is not much 'better' in any case.

The only way to stop these cartels in Mexico is to starve them out, there already wasting a lot of money on military stuff, the mexican governemnt still has a chance but if the real corrupted politicians come into power, in the PAN and the PRI, then Mexico might not make it. the situation is becoming dire this election is the most anticipated in Mexican history.

How is that the pcp could win if everyone knows they're corrupt? Or do only people like you think that?

PCP? The PRI uses to be the Partido Nacional revolutionario the party that ruled Mexico for the past 70 years the PAN has proved itself to be inept and useless with felipe calderon. The PRI or there former selves have rigged elections for 70 years and kept it secret no amymore atlest thats why they changed there name.

How do you "starve them out?" I'm pretty curious since it is apparently so simple that you didn't have to explain it...

Sorry if I don't believe in your extremely biased opinions on this one.

Well to be fair, Kali is better than almost anyone and perhaps even everyone on this forum.

Also: LEGALIZE IT!

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heads_of_state_of_Mexico 70 straight years, the PRN dominated Mexican politics for 70 years under the facade of a leftist national group, I am biased but my bias is based off facts, I hate the PRN and its New name.

What I meant by starving them out was, they are wasting loads of money on there military endeavors. Eventually they will go bankarupt.