That is an awful argument......and it kind of makes you an anarchist. Let me explain.
No law ever has completely stopped the crimes they outlaw. By your measure, no law should exist.
E.g. speed laws don't prevent speeding by all cars, theft laws don't prevent theft by all thieves, bribery laws don't prevent bribes by all real estate tycoons, drug laws actually increase drug related crimes, but firearm laws must prevent all misuse of all weapons, not even just all firearms, or forget it?!

Your requirements of gun control are completely...insanely... unrealistic.

Also...crazy cat lady is "using those cats to claw your face" just like shooting wildly into a neighborhood is "using a gun to shoot you". Her irresponsibility directly created a situation that endangered the neighborhood and caused damage, no? Damage caused by firing unguided fur missiles is always the shooters responsibility, not the missiles'.

Uhh more people were deported under Obama than the previous administration. And drug laws are idiotic. Stop equivocating.

No, it makes them like the Democratic Party who don't have any problem simultaneously touting their position on women's rights and supporting Bill Clinton who was a serial groper and philanderer... in the same way that they condemn Trump for a lack of respect for the rule of law while they worshiped Barrack Obama who didn't feel it was necessary to enforce (or even recognize) immigration law or drug laws.

I don't really think either party has a monopoly on hypocrisy...

I don't think Utah even has medical marijuana yet. They have some really strict liquor/drug laws. It's like the bible belt of the western U.S. Still, absolutely gorgeous for sure.

In open warfare of govt vs people, drones don't matter, just like jets don't matter. I already covered this above.



Nowhere is an oppressive dictatorship - until it is.
[redacted]
I feel like people are too distracted with instagram and other B.S. to bother learning about how the world works.
History is long. The current peace is an anomaly. When things go bad, there is little warning. If you're lucky, a year or so of build up. If you're not lucky, weeks or days. Shit likes to spiral.
In bad times, you have only what you have on hand.


Most western countries with [regardless of gun ownership] don't have a population that's F'd in the head.
Nothing stops a German gun owner from taking his AR15 and shooting up a concert.
Storing his guns in a safe that he can open doesn't mean anything.
Paying for a new license card for every few guns doesn't alter the guns.

Gun laws, as proposed, are fluff. Nothing that makes people safer, nothing that prevents ownership, but plenty to crap on collectors.
* 10 round limit = 2 second pause to reload
* Gun show loophole is a misnomer.
* (re. above) Only private sales (gun show or not) don't require checks - but you still end up in court if the buyer does something bad.
* Assault weapons ban only bans pistol grips and threaded barrels. Cosmetics. Just google "California compliant AR15" (they already have a de-facto AWB).
* There's already laws against straw purchase.
* There's already laws against crazy people buying (already part of the background check)
* Registration is pointless as gun control. Doesn't alter the guns or who has them (background check already tells gov who, when, and where bought a gun).

(I'd sooner vote for mandatory roll cage and 6 point harness in every car. Could eliminate 90+% of car fatalities in one rule - if people cared enough.)


By the way, gun owners hate people like the Vegas shooter even more than anti-gunners hate people like him.
Precisely because assholes like that shooter make anti-gunners turn on their frustration on innocent gun owners.

The call to "do something" is the phrase that perfectly describes the sentiments that led to actions, that in turn became described by either "famous last words" or "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".





We had shit health insurance before Obama. We had shit insurance during Obama (only you're required by law to buy it, even if it's not a good value), we continue to have shit health insurance during Trump, and no matter what trump does, it will still be shit.
Problem is that the insurance company lobbyists draft the language of the law (no matter the party in charge), and it's not for our benefit.





Re. Minorities, most are living normal lives. The white eutopia that the few vocal people complain about, doesn't exist. At least I have yet to see it. Don't let a few thousand people in a nation of millions guide your thoughts about overall social norms.

I'm happy to see them protest. Frankly, I wish white people had the same solidarity that black people have. When a black gets shot by a cop, they come together. When a white is shot by a cop, other whites say "he probably deserved it". I wish the black community good luck and success.





Yes, I wish we weren't jailing more people than anywhere else on the planet, over things that harm nobody.
I wish we had the drug laws of Portugal (decriminalization)
I wish we had the legal system of Sweden (no jail before conviction).

Know how I said that most countries don't have as many people that are F'd in the head? Same applies for people in government.
None of this shit will get fixes.
Republicans are bible thumping retards that funnel money to defense contractors and campaign donors.
Democrats are buck-passing censors that funnel money to insurance companies and campaign donors.
And people just pick a team and bark at the other team, while each gets fleeced by their very own side.

-scheherazade

One of my favorite police PSAs ever.

My favorite, however, was when they cited me for possession and court ordered me to take a "marijuana" "class" taught by an ex-cop, who told us drug laws are bullshit, but as long as no one can see you smoke, it's a'ight.

I guess there's a reason he taught those classes -- emphasis on the "ex" part of "ex-cop" -- but damn. The. Court. Ordered. Me. To. Take. A. Class. Which. Said. Fuck. The. Law. As an intellectual who had only smoked marijuana like 3 or 4 times up until that point, it really opened my eyes. I was one of very few white people in that class room. That also opened my eyes.

Ahhhhh, the law. Such a fickle thing.

For those people who DO think that way, I fully agree. I take issue with everyone being lumped in with them, however. I vote, and I always vote for candidates that are anti-drug laws, anti-no victim crime, anti-war (except in defense, then I want an ogre who will smash...but targeted smashing of only the right people!), etc. It was disturbing to listen to him chastise me for trying to fix the system, and being called that which I vote to eradicate. I left off before most of the religious part, but I'm totally with him on most being hypocrites and not following their own teachings/laws.
I was actually thinking more like interstate highways, bridges, other large public works (most of which have not been funded for decades, admittedly).
Yes, I agree, it's broken. I think finance reform is the first step towards fixing it, but not the last by far.
My government represents itself and special interests mostly. Again, finance reform.
There's more than two flavors, I never vote on party lines either.
I get, and even applaud the anger. It's the lack of targeting that anger I had problems with.
Do you just want eyes, or liquefied body in those bottles?

Yes, you're ignored, and I read your comment anyway.

No, in saying "use drugs," I was not "implying cannabis." I said "use drugs" because I meant "use drugs." Rather than trying to interpret or 'read into' what I'm saying, it might help if you responded to my post, and not what you post in your mind on my behalf.

And I will take you up on your 'challenge:' below is a list of ten "highly intelligent" people who have used cocaine (note: at no point did I say "encourages the use of cocaine." I said "use drugs" without becoming addicted, and being able to function), so that you can provide me with 10,000 more** whose lives and families have been destroyed by it. (**And note here, we're talking about individuals whose lives were destroyed by the use of cocaine itself, and not by the pointless drug laws that imprison people for having a mental or emotional condition that provokes "self-medication" as a form of treatment. Nor are we talking about the illegal status of cocaine which, itself, gives rise to violent cartels that function in the shadow of its legal status.)

So, while certainly many of the following list of "highly intelligent" (non-cognitively deficient) and successful "celebrities" may no longer be using cocaine, all of the following have used cocaine and are/were not addicted and function(ed) just fine:

Sigmund Freud
Thomas Edison
Oprah Winfrey
Stephen King
Tim Allen
Hunter S. Thompson
Angelina Jolie
Robert Louis Stevenson
Steven Tyler
Robert Downey, Jr.

There are others (like William Burroughs, Eric Clapton, Grover Cleveland, David Crosby, Arthur Conan Doyle, Isadora Duncan, Ulysses S Grant, Abbie Hoffman, Elton John, King George V, Larry Kudlow, Sir Paul McCartney, & Barack Obama), but I thought I'd stop at 10.

And if you post the 10,000 names of those whose lives and families were destroyed by cocaine (and not by the pointless drug laws or its illegal status) by the end of the week, I'll take your point.

This comment stream shows that the interviewer succeeded in what he apparently set out to do -- derail the conversation into something other than what Russell Brand came to talk about.

Changing society's approach to drug laws and drug treatment.

It is a complete canard to say that Brand can't talk about using the existing system to change the drug situation because Brand doesn't like the current system. So what if he doesn't like it? He is going to stop trying to fix things?

So far, all the comments aren't about Brand's perspective on drug laws. They are off and running on a side issue.

And that is how the system doesn't change. False equivalencies, derailment from the topic, and nobody even notices.

Fuck.

Maybe a bit of sanity when it comes to medical marijuana and the feds. Fingers crossed. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/in-historic-vote-republican-controlled-house-passes-sane-drug-law/371875/

A real solution does not exist in modifying drug laws or even making any and all drug use a matter of free-will choice: The solution? One would be to dismantle the police state before it grows more Hydratic heads exponentially and turns the entire population of humans in the United States into criminals.

Police are screened psychologically in order to get the best candidates for the job. Low-intellect, hind-brained thugs with control issues who were abused as children, as adults. Police have become a developmentally-disabled army of legalized extortion, blackmail, and assault-specialists with no conscience save that of their duty to the State.

ALL police, all troupers, sheriffs, constables or federal agents are felons.

ALL POLICE will eventually or intentionally in their careers, either witness a felony being perpetrated by another cop which they will not report because of their sick fraternal ideals, or will commit one themselves with the sanction of the state, her courts and judges. Law enforcements' a broken, pathetic farce, and will eventually turn this country into a chasm of shit, and very soon.

Best not to plan a family until the shits repaired, as an reasonable adult one wouldn't want a child born into a situation they are wholly unprepared for under the guise of illusion and order.

Gotta give it up to her for being able to look Skeletor in the face standing so close. Once she started speaking with passion he was then compelled to turn his gaze from the floor to her face.....(cringe) I couldn't have met that snivelingly-sinister gaze as she did, YOW!


I'd imagine (and tout the idea constantly when people start bitching about being powerless in these situations) a most effective impact would be had in the form of protest through boycott:
For instance, the entire country buys no gasoline for a week, a month, etc.
Protest prison system woes and completely fucked drug laws by hitting more commodities, boycott cotton and coffee for six months and watch 'em squirm.

Week off Work protests stretch into month off work.
Laws violating the human rights of retail employees, the ethical treatment of squirrels in public parks, pick a cause and demand change through withdrawing your capitol and watch the cockroaches scatter!

Shut down the predictable meatbag habits and watch the shit change dramatically.

We are heading towards planet lock-down and we can make it easy for Babylon, or a pain in her ass.

What, you didn't know that our drug laws are rooted in racism? WAKE UP

My love affair with Libertarianism was crushed by reality. I was a big Libertarian, pushing for Ron Paul up until the actual election of 2008 (I pushed Paul through the primaries). Then the company I worked for at the time sent a memo saying that if Obama won, and put his tax plans in place, they would have to fire over 300 people. Then before Obama even was in office, the company fired 350+ people, and sent a memo to the rest of us that there would be no raises (nobody at that company but the executives have had raises since) as the company couldn't afford it, and claimed that the cost of living went down anyhow. The owner then went out and purchased a private jet and another mansion in a gated community where he already had the second largest mansion in it. I called BS on that, as did a few others. I then started looking at the rich and corporations as a whole and started doing some real studies, not just Libertarian propaganda, and realized that they wouldn't operate on the rational interests of society, but would gladly screw over anyone just to advance their own short term self interests. That owner who fired over 1000 people and kept everyone else under his employ at the same pay rates over 5 years wasn't an aberration, he was the norm, a very high percentage norm. Libertarians are under a delusion that corporations and the rich will act in the rational interests of society, but they could care less about anyone but themselves, and that isn't misusing the phrase "could care less" because less than 2-3% of them care about what would be best for society as a whole, and sure I'm pulling that figure out of my ass, but I'm sure I'm being generous with that guess).

It became clear that without minimum wages, companies like McDonalds and Walmart would gladly pay their workers $1 or $2 an hour. The Libertarian response that people just wouldn't work there then, is BS, because nobody really wants to work at those places for minimum like they do now. The workers would be stuck, just like they were in the days prior to labor unions and minimum wage laws. The 40 hour work week that we have the unions to thank for, would be gone, as companies paid less, people would be forced to work more, and with the Libertarian ideal of removing overtime laws and other pay laws, people would end up working 80 to 100 hour work weeks just to make what used to be minimum. I'm sure we would see child labor return too, as families would have no choice but to put their kids to work to help make ends meet.

It became clear that without government in the way they would gladly pollute and destroy the environment if it means better short term profits and if they don't have to worry about paying clean up costs later, and in a Libertrian world, they won't have to pay for the clean up costs later as nobody would force them to.

I still believe in individual freedom. I believe drug laws are an impairment to individual freedom, the right to do with your body as you will. I don't believe that a company has unlimited freedom, corporations are not people my friend. I believe in the social contract, that we have an obligation to help lift people up, and the only way to do that is via a government that is designed to help those that need it, and that taxes must be collected to achieve that. I believe that if we teach people that greed is bad, to work in the rational interests of all, then we could eventually get rid of government, but it is needed for now to overcome those that would abuse the people. Bring government back to the people and away from the corporations and rich.

there are other issues of course, mainly dealing with federal law trumping state laws - so then we get into constitutional issues of states rights.

there are intent issues, because a felony requires intent, and they are latching intent to other charges - weapons, etc.

and there are issues of fairness, because of ambiguity in the law.

but in general, people are just sick of bullshit drug laws for non-violent offenses. and that's the real point.