Political linkspam

[ms_daisy_cutter]

Most of these are from diego001....

The Strategic Imperative Not to Hire Anybody. GRRRR.

Are drug raids causing more crime than drugs themselves? Having just watched that awful video (thanks to champloo4u, who sent me this article) - in which a SWAT team shoots and kills a man's pit bull and wounds his freakin' corgi - I'd say that's a damned good question.

Hugo

Comments

[nimbrethil]

The "Will the Fetus Be Aborted" video has been removed.

*goes off to read the other links*

[ms_daisy_cutter]

Thanks for telling me - I replaced the link with another from YouTube. Same song, different vid.

[nimbrethil]

...I think I'll have to come back to it later.

I made it halfway through the Strategic Imperative article before I couldn't go any further from it being both rage-inducing and just plain terrifying in its implications.

*sigh*

I wonder how much of a future this nation actually has.

[nimbrethil]

Okay, I went ahead and listened to that vid. I feel slightly better now, because I first imagined it to the tune of "Will the Circle Be Unbroken," and am glad I was right. Although I imagined it as sung by a certain Man in Black...

[matrexius]

Are drug raids causing more crime than drugs themselves? Having just watched that awful video (thanks to [info]champloo4u, who sent me this article) - in which a SWAT team shoots and kills a man's pit bull and wounds his freakin' corgi - I'd say that's a damned good question.

Authority figures shooting dogs during drug raids is extremely common, to my knowledge. And considering they could shoot a sleeping dog, claim it was aggressive, and get away with it scot-free, I'm not sure what could be done about the problem.

The problem is also worse with humans themselves, because a lot of drug raids are no-knock; they kick your door in unannounced and march in with their guns prominently displayed, and it's not unheard-of for the occupants of the house to start shooting, because hey, they have no idea who the fuck just burst into their house. This is especially true at night (which is when most of the raids take place, *I think* - it's been a while since I've read about them), since they can't even see the intruders. Then occupants and/or

[nimbrethil]

The simple fact of drugs being illegal makes criminals out of otherwise decent, harmless people, and that's not even touching on the sheer absurdity of people charged and sentenced over drug possession being given punishments on a par with violent offenders. Then there's the fact that having drugs illegal in the first place creates a thriving black market that does far more fucking damage than it otherwise could.

[matrexius]

Precisely. You'd think that the colossal failure of alcohol prohibition and the organized crime-driven black market it created would have taught us that, but as Hegel said, the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.

I mean shit, I check the online newspaper from my hometown regularly to see what's going on up there, and there was an article today about a rally supporting a bill in PA that will legalize medical marijuana. The comments were predictable:

[ms_daisy_cutter]

Pennsylvania. Yeah, I'm surprised.

[happiestsadist]

The Strategic Imperative one is just so chilling and enraging. "I Am a Good Person" made me tear up, as did Lessons My Bullies Taught Me.

[nimbrethil]

Chilling and enraging were my impressions of that article, too. =(

[arthur_sc_king]

"Strategic Imperative" pissed me off.

There's a quote I want to beat right-wing corporatist Mormons (Mitt Romney, among others) with over the head, repeatedly:Let mechanics and every man who has capital create business and give employment and means into the hands of laborers....
        - Brigham Young, Discourses of Brigham Young
Also, I was amused to find that the author referred to Shoshanna Zuboff's book In The Age of the Smart Machine. That was my primary reference when I was writing my "graduating essay" (imagine a mini-thesis, expected to be 50 pages long) for my MBA back in 1991. And then I found a cheap copy in a bookstore for like $3, so I got to have one of my own. I should re-read it; haven't read it for, like, ever.

Re: the overpopulation links

[nimbrethil]

I spent far more time than I'll admit to reading a forum where a guy kept insisting over and over and over again that overpopulation is a myth, and that many, many eons ago there were 178 billion people on the planet. How'd he reach this conclusion? Because L. Ron Hubbard said so.

Re: the overpopulation links

[ms_daisy_cutter]

Oh, well, then, there you go. Elron said it. QED.

[arthur_sc_king]

Lessons My Bullies Taught Me

I started a big rant here, but then decided to just post it on my own journal, so as not to hijack things here.