Greatest Threat to World Peace: A Gallup Survey

Actually I saw Boehner's press conference on my lunch break. He made things sound pretty good when talking about his accomplishments over the last few years: job growth, deficit reduction and tax reduction on all but the top 1%.

ml242 wrote

Good thing we'll have someone to fight the O-man on his quest to

provide healthcare
reduce the deficit
reduce unemployment drastically
prevent us from engaging in future unnecessary war

and so on....

GOOD THING COACH

How does that Koolaide taste, I didn't drink it

Harvey wrote

Actually I saw Boehner's press conference on my lunch break. He made things sound pretty good when talking about his accomplishments over the last few years: job growth, deficit reduction and tax reduction on all but the top 1%.

Can't Obama claim those same successes as his own??

Better than the poison the doom + gloom crowd is serving up.

did he cry?  he should hang out with Brett.  

Coach Z wrote

From a purely economic standpoint legalizing pot turns it from a cash economy to a taxable one and eliminates the criminal element.

Harder drugs are just too dangerous and addictive to do this with.

Define 'harder' drugs.  Do you know anything about drugs and addiction?  Are you... experienced?



I've done a lot more drugs, both legal and illegal, than just weed.  I'm not bragging, but also my life didn't end and I didn't get addicted to the point where it ruined my life and I was a worthless junkie.  I graduated college summa cum laude with a 4.0 gpa.  I can provide references if need be.  Again I'm not trying to brag, just point out your misconceptions.

And there are quite a few 'legal' drugs that easily turn people into junkies.

My worst experience was actually with Vicodin.  I took it legally for long term pain management.  It was the absolutely worst withdrawal I ever went through... and I used to smoke cigarettes.

People deal with addiction all the time - it's a disease.  And not only for drugs.  Why do you feel you have the moral right to tell them what is OK and what is not?  Do you really know?  Or are you just basing your decision off of something Nixon set forth?

PS I also realize that my evidence is anecdotal and based on my own experience, but if you were to look hard enough I'm sure you will find this is not a rarity in either instance.  Most people aren't willing to tell strangers about their drug experiences both positive or negative.  I honestly don't give a crap, judge me how you will.  My goal is to try to educate you on a different perspective and possibly hint to you that maybe letting people have these kind of freedoms is a better option both morally and fiscally.  Perhaps experience and education is a better tool than punishment?  And how has that war on drugs been going?  Anyone winning?  Seems to me people still do a lot of drugs and the government spends a lot of money trying to stop it.  Who suffers?

Coach, you paying attention? Lots of enlightenment going on in this thread!

ScottyJack wrote

Coach, you paying attention? Lots of enlightenment going on in this thread!

He says as he sarcastically giggles to himself.

Coach Z wrote

From a purely economic standpoint legalizing pot turns it from a cash economy to a taxable one and eliminates the criminal element.

Harder drugs are just too dangerous and addictive to do this with.

Really?  Seriously.  Think about it. The fact is enforcement of drug laws actually creates more "danger" and "addiction" than it prevents.  It was never a war on Drugs.  It has always been a war on people, that disagreed with the establishment.  Recreational drug users are not criminals... neither are addicts.  

Enforcement of the drug laws is an enormous waste of tax dollars that only makes drug dealers rich.  This is a true conservative viewpoint.  IMO: Anyone who does not support extreme legalization is a real Liberal.  

I participated a lot in this thread, but I'm enjoying just sitting back and reading now. Enjoyed PeeTex's post on Immigration, the talk about difference's between opportunities in the past vs. now, and MikeK's post on drugs.

Carry on.

That was yesterday:



He was singing "zipitty do dah" today. For realz.

He was doing the greatful dead truckin walk... later bros!

Nor did I drink rhe cool aid

ml242 wrote

Good thing we'll have someone to fight the O-man on his quest to

provide healthcare
reduce the deficit
reduce unemployment drastically
prevent us from engaging in future unnecessary war

and so on....

GOOD THING COACH

 
Let's see where to start.  Obama is by far the worst president of my life time worsting Carter by a mile

He raised the cost of health care for an entire country except for those that now are getting it free that we all are paying for

Reduce the deficit?  What hard drugs are you exactly doing?  
Obama has Increased debt more than every other president in the history of the us.  http://useconomy.about.com/od/usdebtanddeficit/p/US-Debt-by-President.htm

The only way he reduced unemployment was by 16 million workers dropping out of the work force and just sucking on the public tit. http://www.mybudget360.com/not-in-labor-force-us-employment-low-wage-labor/

Which war did we avoid?  We are significantly less safe now than we were under Bush because no one is afraid of us anymore

Must be acid in your cool aid

Coach Z wrote

Let's see where to start.  Obama is by far the worst president of my life time worsting Carter by a mile

Wrong. Bush was way worse.

He raised the cost of health care for an entire country except for those that now are getting it free that we all are paying for

Health care costs raise every year. What Obamacare did was slow the rate of that growth. That's a fact (http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/09/obamacare-haters-freaking-out-over-new-report.html)

Reduce the deficit?  What hard drugs are you exactly doing?  
Obama has Increased debt more than every other president in the history of the us.

You're confusing debt with deficit. Deficit has gone down every year since 2009 (a year of Bush's budget). That's another fact.
(http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/economix/2013/12/24/the-budget-deficit-as-seen-from-2009/?referrer=)

The only way he reduced unemployment was by 16 million workers dropping out of the work force and just sucking on the public tit.

Well, if you're counting Social Security as "the public tit", sure. But the aging workforce means that the labor participation rate is going down. That's another fact:
http://www.factcheck.org/2015/03/declining-labor-participation-rates/

Which war did we avoid?  We are significantly less safe now than we were under Bush because no one is afraid of us anymore.

Syria, and that last line is pure bullshit.

Sucks to get all of your points dismissed, coach. Want to play again?

I don't think you are ever going to convince Coach that anyone was a worse president than Obama.  But I am wondering if Coach will grant that the most costly mistake we have ever made was invading Iraq?

IMO The three trillion is only a downpayment and a lot of what we are spending now, which doesn't count as Bush spending, is a result of that war.

I use the $3T number, but all the money was borrowed and with interest is probably more like $6T.  I believe before we invaded we were spending very little or maybe zero in that country.

So total debt now is $18T - what part of that number was a bigger waste than Iraq? I'm guessing Medicare and Social Security are probably most of the rest of that total.

Bush Tax cuts for the rich were more costly, and it doesn't seem to be trickling down.

Look you two, since 911 we have been spending like mad. Bin Laden is winning the war.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/11/01/binladen.tape/

We have got to stop the bleeding on both sides and stop this save the world bull shit.
Yes - some rag heads attacked us, killed a lot of innocent people but look who is winning. It's not us.

Bush is also responsible for the unfunded Medicare Prescription Act of 2003.

The projected $400 billion cost over 10 years was known to be a lie by the Bush Administration while they were pushing the bill thru Congress (actual projected cost was over $500 billion). It also prohibits the federal government from negotiating discounts with drug companies, unlike private health insurance companies that do negotiate discounts. So the largest purchaser of prescription drugs in the largest market in the world is not allowed to get better pricing for its population - us.

This was a complete give away on the backs of anyone who earns a paycheck.

I don't follow much of this shit because it's about as pointless as herding cats, but I do recall this...

Companies started dropping health care benefits and insurance companies raising deductibles before Obama ever came to office.  Don't you think that had something to do with healthcare reform?

Because there weren't any jobs, people couldn't complain or quit and find another job that would give them better benefits.  They just had to bend over and take it if they wanted to keep getting at least some kind of a paycheck.  I know I did until my wife started working for the government (they still get good HC bennies).  So tell me again how this wild, unchecked free market BS gives everyone the best options...

The other thing that I've noticed is how fucking booming the HC industry is.  I live in a city where that's our major industry.  U of R owns everything.  They never even felt a glitch during the recession.  People are always sick.  Sicker than ever.  There's a goddamn script drug for everything you can imagine.  Where is the incentive to actually heal people and help them live healthier lives?  Why not just take a pill, eat some processed food, eat some fish and drink some water with heavy metals in it and wonder why we keep getting sicker.

And so for all you haters who are going to say I'm a communist, fuck off, and think about this.  What was one of the most important structures in our three branches of government?  I gave a hint earlier in my rant.  And really this all I think needs to happen.

Harv I've said it before I think about 20 pages ago in this very thread that Iraq 2 was a bad decision.  It never would have happened if Bush 1 would have finished the job the first time around.  It would gave only taken a week or two more in the first Iraq war to gave taken Saddam out.  We could gave then turned it over to the Suadis to run and gotten the hell out.

The 9/11 guys all came from Saudi Arabia.  Iraq has no record of attacking us before the war.  IMO Bush 1 did the right thing. I don't want to own that place but now we do. You break it you bought it.

There are tons of bad guys out there. The fiscally conservative thing to do is to avoid invading every country with an asshole leader.  Conservative christians would honor the 6th commandment.

If it is ok to invade a country because it violated another country's sovereignty for reasons other than self-defense, then we should be ok with Iraq invading us. If it's ok to invade a country because you think they are a threat and you think they have weapons of mass destruction then every country on that map should be justified invading us.