The sad side of America

Pristinegirl said:
Wouldn't your suggestion on legalizing drugs, have the land lords sell the drugs at a much lower price than in the pharmacy, as with the case now?
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How can the drug dealers compete with corporate production and distribution.

The whole reason why drug dealers exist is because the prices are very high, due to the fact that they're illegal (and thus the supply is limited). The high prices justify the risk. That is to say that prohibition of anything inevitably creates a black market if the prohibited good is considered useful somehow.

As for drugs and addiction - it is a complex issue. Though there is an underlying element of self medication. Whether due to boredom with life or something more serious. If the drugs were legalized, but regulated, then this could be monitored.

I'm not saying this is the best solution. But America's 'war on drugs' is a big expensive programme and yet it has had little success in stopping the endemic problem in many parts of America. Alternatives must be considered seriously.
 
Shai Gar said:
  • Remove the laws that say it's a crime to sell or buy illicit narcotics
  • Ensure that Narcotics be sold over the counter at a pharmacy, where they're maintained at the same chemical compound and strength, as well as FAA testing for ingredients
  • Provide free health care to all citizens
  • All Abandoned Housing that is owned by the banks, have them sell it at bottom dollar, and I do mean "Bottom Dollar" to the current inhabitants.
  • Provide a community based police force that comes from THAT community, with family roots in it.
  • Ensure that the Internal Affairs is no longer a part of the Police Force, and has greater powers of arrest for arresting police who abuse their position
These are really smart. I can see the wisdom of having Narcotics being sold over the counter so that the product is controlled. But then I think about heroin. Heroin is one of the drugs that you can get hooked on the first time you use it. Addicts have the lowest recovery rate. When people are younger they do not have the development in their Frontal Cortex to control dangerous behavior. This develops later in men- I think it isn't until they are in their 20s that the brain develops the function to a look before you leap . I would hate to see more lives destroyed by Heroin. But overall these are really good suggestions.
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sookie said:
Shai Gar said:
  • Remove the laws that say it's a crime to sell or buy illicit narcotics
  • Ensure that Narcotics be sold over the counter at a pharmacy, where they're maintained at the same chemical compound and strength, as well as FAA testing for ingredients
  • Provide free health care to all citizens
  • All Abandoned Housing that is owned by the banks, have them sell it at bottom dollar, and I do mean "Bottom Dollar" to the current inhabitants.
  • Provide a community based police force that comes from THAT community, with family roots in it.
  • Ensure that the Internal Affairs is no longer a part of the Police Force, and has greater powers of arrest for arresting police who abuse their position
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These are really smart. I can see the wisdom of having Narcotics being sold over the counter so that the product is controlled. But then I think about heroin. Heroin is one of the drugs that you can get hooked on the first time you use it. Addicts have the lowest recovery rate. When people are younger they do not have the development in their Frontal Cortex to control dangerous behavior. This develops later in men- I think it isn't until they are in their 20s that the brain develops the function to a look before you leap . I would hate to see more lives destroyed by Heroin. But overall these are really good suggestions.
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Not entirely. I have had a look before leaping attitude for most of my life.
 
mf said:
Not to mention addicts are willing to commit crimes they normally never would consider if they are jonessing and need a fix. It wouldn't reduce crime, it would just morph into something else. I would guess that B&E and muggings would increase.
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I fully agree, these drug users will still need money for their habit.. Thus, theft, burglary, prostitution and so on, in order to feed their addiction.

Architectonic said:
How can the drug dealers compete with corporate production and distribution.

The whole reason why drug dealers exist is because the prices are very high, due to the fact that they're illegal (and thus the supply is limited). The high prices justify the risk. That is to say that prohibition of anything inevitably creates a black market if the prohibited good is considered useful somehow.

As for drugs and addiction - it is a complex issue. Though there is an underlying element of self medication. Whether due to boredom with life or something more serious. If the drugs were legalized, but regulated, then this could be monitored.

I'm not saying this is the best solution. But America's 'war on drugs' is a big expensive programme and yet it has had little success in stopping the endemic problem in many parts of America. Alternatives must be considered seriously.
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It could be more controlled and monitored for those which would probably be good for those who self-medicate, but for those whose life has deterorated in these areas, buying over the counter medication will not help a shit. It seems like the next generation of addicts would have it easier though, seeing as they probably would go to the pharmacy rather than finding it in the streets. However if the street price is cheaper, since drugs are demerit goods, people will naturally choose the lower price.

For example: Someone may have been prescribed Oxycontin. An addiction developes, which then furthermore lead to switching to the cheaper option; street heroin...


sookie said:
Shai Gar said:
  • Remove the laws that say it's a crime to sell or buy illicit narcotics
  • Ensure that Narcotics be sold over the counter at a pharmacy, where they're maintained at the same chemical compound and strength, as well as FAA testing for ingredients
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If left to the market forces, it will be overconsumed!
  • Provide a community based police force that comes from THAT community, with family roots in it.
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GREAT suggestion!
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I agree that it is indeed a sad side of America. Yet at least it is contained to a specific area or to a group of people involved. If you don't see the video footage you can pretend that everything is peachy.

However there are some sad things that are widespread and generate a sense of disillusionment about this country. It's the general erosion of moral values:
  • Greed is good
  • Overconsumption is good
  • Inequality is good (from the boss of top Wall St. bank: "We have to tolerate the inequality")
  • Frugality and savings are bad
  • Critical thinking is discouraged
  • Reflection is discouraged
  • Fake smiles are good
  • Rage and blood-thirst is good: if you kill some americans it gives them moral right to go and kill 10 times more of your people (see Afghanistan)
  • They can bomb your house and kill your family for no apparent reason (see Iraq). They justify it by "spreading the democracy".
 
Okay, hold up here -- what makes people think that the only thing Americans want is to take money from everyone around them? What makes people think that Americans always spend like idiots?

Most people in America that get rich do so BECAUSE they save, take care of their finances, consider the best way to advance their career -- I mean, people often do actually WORK for a living here. And yeah, we all hear about those rich people that came from a rich family, or who lost all their wealth for some stupid reason, but that's really not the solid reality. Many people who are rich and STAY rich do not fit this category.

Let's get a few things straight here -- in my life, I've known middle class people, wealthy people, and poor people. In fact, my family is friends with people of all walks. My mother came from a large farming family, and my father from a large nursing family, and neither of them had much to start off with. They are now very financially stable, but they are so because they WORKED for it and took the opportunities presented to them! Friends of the family who are very wealthy came from the same boat -- we know Greek immigrants who worked their way to the top, small-town nobodies that spent years in school to become what they are...some may have it easy, but that's not in any way all-exclusive. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that many of the people who have made it "to the top" did so somehow by their own merit.

Furthermore, most of the people that are not financially well off are so because they don't know HOW to manage their finances. I've known many who make poor financial choices or other such choices that set them back. I know people who rack up credit card debt and don't make their payments so their credit goes to shit. I know people who had to create families much too early because of poor judgment, and then never knew how to recover.

I know few Americans that actively believe "greed is good" or that "people should be inequal." Half of what makes people that way here is very much from either social complications or personal decisions, and if anyone can come up with a quick-fix for either of those problems, please take over the world, kthx. It's not in any way, shape, or form that simple.


And the last thing I have to say is this: Politicians, movie stars, and dumb youtube hicks do not make up the entirety of the American population.
Just because there are greedy assholes in the government and self-absorbed pricks on TV from America does NOT mean that the majority of people in America are so thoughtless or self-absorbed. In fact, having spent a year overseas and getting a taste of different culture, there is a lot of merit to American hospitality, at least in the state I come from. And those of you who have never been to America and only know it from a TV/computer screen or those who lived here their entire life and are drowning in the I-hate-America-blues because it must be hundreds of times greater somewhere else, take a moment to actually be realistic about things. It's not better, but it sure as hell ain't worst.
 
It's the Media Effect. Most people don't believe this, but the people that get to broadcast our 'viewpoint' come off as only caring about money, looks, youth, career success, sex, etc.

It's easy to fall into the trap of believing that most people share that viewpoint.
 
Solar Empath said:
It's the Media Effect. Most people don't believe this, but the people that get to broadcast our 'viewpoint' come off as only caring about money, looks, youth, career success, sex, etc.

It's easy to fall into the trap of believing that most people share that viewpoint.
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Especially when the media are broadcasting that America is a democracy to everyone on earth, and that their media is representative of the people of America. That tells you that you can take your opinion of the American people from their movies, news and politics.
 
Shai Gar said:
Especially when the media are broadcasting that America is a democracy to everyone on earth, and that their media is representative of the people of America. That tells you that you can take your opinion of the American people from their movies, news and politics.
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Fair enough, but I wonder why people don't seem to think, for instance, that all Indians behave like Bollywood stars or Ghandi? Or that all people in England are like Monty Python or the Beatles or Queen Elizabeth? Or that everyone in Australia shares Rupert Murdoch's viewpoint.... wait, nevermind.

I think people just lack experience and see what they want to see, and often that's only from one or two sources.
 
Janet said:
Fair enough, but I wonder why people don't seem to think, for instance, that all Indians behave like Bollywood stars or Ghandi? Or that all people in England are like Monty Python or the Beatles or Queen Elizabeth? Or that everyone in Australia shares Rupert Murdoch's viewpoint.... wait, nevermind.

I think people just lack experience and see what they want to see, and often that's only from one or two sources.
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Because the news, fashion experts, pop culture pundits and political talking heads don't portray those individuals in that manner any more.
 
Janet said:
Fair enough, but I wonder why people don't seem to think, for instance, that all Indians behave like Bollywood stars or Ghandi? Or that all people in England are like Monty Python or the Beatles or Queen Elizabeth? Or that everyone in Australia shares Rupert Murdoch's viewpoint.... wait, nevermind.

I think people just lack experience and see what they want to see, and often that's only from one or two sources.
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Because I've met a fair few Indians and so on...

And whenever I stoop to type "ASL" into omegle, they respond with the two letter initial of their USA State.

It's the internet. It's international. But most Americans I've met online don't seem to think so.

Even in here, when Americans type in their location in their intro thread, they say the state they live in. If I were to say Tasmania, Gansu, or Thuringia, few, but people in their nations would know where they were.
 
Well, how do they portray them, then? And who's doing the portraying?

I mean, surely people don't think all people from England are like that David Beckham person or the Spice Girls or whatever.

(I don't have TV so I really don't know.)
 
http://satirewire.com/news/0010/international.shtml

AMERICANS ANNOYED BY "ALL THIS
INTERNATIONAL SHIT" ON INTERNET
Web's Increasingly Worldly Flavor Threatens Americans' Worldview

PULLMAN, WASH. (SatireWire.com) — The profusion of international news available on the Internet has made it increasingly difficult for the average American to ignore the rest of the world, a trend researchers say threatens Americans' long, proud history of disregarding anything not about them.

"With all the foreign newspapers and multi-cultural sites, the Internet is making it almost impossible for the average American to remain uninformed and apathetic," said Samantha Lessborn of Washington State University, which conducted the survey. "Americans can still do it. But it now takes effort, whereas before it was as easy as turning off Tom Brokaw whenever he said 'In South Korea today...'"

According to survey participant Danny Grisham, a 22-year-old from Cheyenne, Wyoming, it's not just the plethora of international news on the Web that is irritating. "Look, I can get around the news. I just turn off Reuters headlines in MyYahoo," he said. "But even some of the search sites like Yahoo and Alta Vista are available in different languages. Like everybody in the world doesn't speak English. Yeah, right."

"I can see where it's important if we're, like, beating some country in the Olympics or bombing them or, ideally, both," Grisham added. "But if some Colombian drug lord sinks a ferry full of Israeli soldiers in North Latvoania or Serbo-Malaysia, or wherever, and Americans aren't involved, what has that got to do with me?"

Other respondents said they were appalled, not just by the availability of non-U.S. news, but by the way important U.S. news is reported by some of these foreign sites. "Yesterday, for instance, the St. Louis Rams beat the Atlanta Falcons, OK, and I go to the London Times site and it's not even there," said Chip Pernadge of Kansas City, Mo. "Jesus, no wonder those guys lost the war and had to give Hong Kong back to Canada."

Sensing a market opportunity, Net Nanny, makers of Net Nanny filtering software, announced this week it will introduce NetNarrow, an English-only product that automatically filters out content that appears to be international. Specifically, the software looks for world datelines and keywords indicative of irrelevant foreign stories, including "Shiite," "post-Apartheid," and "Bob Geldof."

Survey-taker Craig Barker of Brooklyn, New York, said he will be among the first to get NetNarrow. "On the Web, there are so many ways to get news from so many different places, I could really get some fresh insights into what's going on in other countries if I wanted to," he said.. "But I don't want to."

"You'd think these Internet people would know that," Barker added. "I mean, that's why the Internet is called America Online, right? It's supposed to be about America."


Editor's Note: It seems that after reading this entirely fictional story, some investors/customers of Net Nanny believed the company actually was going to produce NetNarrow software. As a result, Net Nanny asked SatireWire to please assure people that this is not the case. No, really.

Copyright
 
I am aware that my opinion is highly subjective therefore I'm not going to argue. Your opinion is equally subjective as mine. And the truth is somewhere in between.

I know that there are a lot of good people in your country. I even take the liberty to assume that you're one of them :) Heh, I still remember that nice internet initiative after Bush reelection when common people took photos of themselves holding a sign "I'm sorry" and posted on a special website. I would really like for folks like them to become the representatives of your country instead of youtube-bush-wallstreet crackpots. It would restore what America WAS famous for. Maybe people like Pristine could contribute to that goal.

But until that happens I have a right to complain for some poor decisions and moral influence that your country brings to the world.
 
Shai Gar said:
Because I've met a fair few Indians and so on...

And whenever I stoop to type "ASL" into omegle, they respond with the two letter initial of their USA State.

It's the internet. It's international. But most Americans I've met online don't seem to think so.

Even in here, when Americans type in their location in their intro thread, they say the state they live in. If I were to say Tasmania, Gansu, or Thuringia, few, but people in their nations would know where they were.
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Well, then tell them. You can't fix stupid but you can do something about ignorance. If someone said, "hey, where's State so-and-so," then most Americans would say something like, "Oh, sorry, I forgot this is an international forum. It's at such-and-such a place. Where's Gansu?" And they might like to know.

But when you go around saying "Dumb Americans" it certainly does't make anyone want to learn more or expand their horizons.

America is huge, and Americans do not have the opportunity to travel in the same way that Europeans, especially, do. We rarely even get to meet people from other countries and being perenially insulted and even threatened with death does not increase the desire to do so.

Just sayin'.
 
Tamagochi said:
I am aware that my opinion is highly subjective therefore I'm not going to argue. Your opinion is equally subjective as mine. And the truth is somewhere in between.

I know that there are a lot of good people in your country. I even take the liberty to assume that you're one of them :) Heh, I still remember that nice internet initiative after Bush reelection when common people took photos of themselves holding a sign "I'm sorry" and posted on a special website. I would really like for folks like them to become the representatives of your country instead of youtube-bush-wallstreet crackpots. It would restore what America WAS famous for. Maybe people like Pristine could contribute to that goal.

But until that happens I have a right to complain for some poor decisions and moral influence that your country brings to the world.
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The problem here is extremism draws viewers. Viewer numbers draws advertisers. People love to hate viewpoints. Without ad revenue, the cost of airing anything on major network television is insane.

So the average viewpoint will never be getting much airtime.
 
Shai Gar said:
Even in here, when Americans type in their location in their intro thread, they say the state they live in. If I were to say Tasmania, Gansu, or Thuringia, few, but people in their nations would know where they were.
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To be fair, your location is listed as the empire of Shai Gar or something like that (and the few people that know what a Shai is might think you're in Egypt or something)

Anyone with a basic understanding of world geography would know where Gansu, Tasmania, and Thurigia are.

Also, vBulliten is based in America so....
 
Tamagochi said:
But until that happens I have a right to complain for some poor decisions and moral influence that your country brings to the world.
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Fair enough but people need to remember that our politicians don't speak for each of us individuals (not saying that you specifically stereotype us). It's like saying all Muslims are terrorists because some who identify with Islam just so happen to be terrorists. The United States as a population of over 300 million, that's almost a third of Europe's entire population. We're just as diverse as an entire small continent.
 
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