Is the War on Drugs an extension of the philosophy of "Supply-Side Economics?"

Deciding if the War on Drugs is a failure depends on how you measure success.

If the intention of the War on Drugs was to increase incarceration rates, strengthen gangs, destabilize society (especially the among the poor) increase fear, and waste tax-payer money, then it has been very successful indeed.

Under the War on Drugs, a large amount of wealth has been concentrated among a few individuals at the top of large gangs and cartels, while the drugs themselves have trickled down to be consumed by masses, and the "war-laws" used to jail the poor.

Under the same period after Supply-Side Reaganomics, we've seen concentration of power not only among organized crime/drug-cartels, but also among other industries as well, including media, banking, telecommunications, and many others.

You're wrong about virtues of Christianity
And you're wrong if you agree with Sean Hannity
If you think that pride is about nationality, you're wrong

You're wrong when you imprison people turning tricks
And you're wrong about trickle down economics
If you think that punk rock doesn't mix with politics, you're wrong

You're wrong for hating queers and eating steers
If you kill for the thrill of the hunt
You're wrong 'bout wearing fur and not hating Ann Coulter
Cause she's a cunted cunt

You're wrong if you celebrate Columbus Day
And You're wrong if you think there will be a Judgement Day
If you're a charter member of the NRA, you're wrong

You're wrong if you support capital punishment
And you're wrong if you don't question your government
If you think her reproductive rights are inconsequent, you're wrong

You're wrong fighting Jihad, your blind faith in God
Your religions are all flawed,
You're wrong about drug use, when its not abuse
I hope you never reproduce

You're getting high on the downlow
A victim of Cointelpro
You're wrong and will probably never know

Love this song *promote

I'll cover IUD's first. While there is some evidence that the older style copper ParaGard might have a slightly increase in preventing a fertilized egg from implanting, the evidence for the Mirena. Here are two medical journals documenting as such:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4018277
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/13625180903519885
If those are too much reading, they are summarized in http://videosift.com/video/Myths-About-IUDs

Remember Google gives personalized search results. No two people get the same results, even when signed out of Google... More details at http://videosift.com/video/There-are-no-regular-results-on-Google-anymore

I'd also agree that there are many things America gets right. Overall it's a good country.

And I think I started out by pointing out it isn't about guns, or just about guns.

Now I'm not sure what you mean assigning attributes to the right. I was pointing out policies that are consistent with the conservative right, Republican platform positions that are not pro-life.

The Death Penalty. This is a typically Republican strong stance position. And has been at various times part of the party's official platform. The Democrat party official position supports the death penalty too, after a DNA testing and post-conviction review. The point isn't wither or not the Death Penalty is right or wrong, I'd personally argue it's wrong, it's the claim of being pro-life while supporting the death penalty. There can be no way to reconcile those two positions.

One needs only to look at how Bush and the present day regime of Republicans in Washington think of handling issues in the Middle East to see what that they support a strong military and an interventionist doctrine (http://www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/Republican_Party_War_+_Peace.htm). One of the key factors of the Bush Doctrine is preemptive strikes. While one normally wouldn't cite Wikipedia, I'll let their page on the Bush Doctrine and their references clear things up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_Doctrine. Heck Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize largely just because he wasn't Bush... sadly he did little to lower US involvement in the Middle East, a situation we should have left alone ages ago. Again the Democrats aren't as peace loving as they should be, and generally the most peace loving people in Congress tend to be Libertarians (who object more to the expense of war than war itself, and love pointing out how the war in Iraq from 2001 to 2011 cost more than NASA's entire history to that point, even after adjusting for inflation (https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA)) and Libertarian leaning Republicans like Ron Paul, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus (http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/). Again, war isn't pro-life, it is perhaps one of the most anti-life things one can support short of supporting murder itself.

It's also Republicans, aka the right, that are trying to undo the Affordable Health Care Act, a program that ironically enough is modeled after the ones they tried to pass twice under Bush Sr and once under Clinton as to oppose Democrat plans to push for a Single Payer system. Prior to the passing of Obamacare, the US was spending nearly twice as much on healthcare as a percentage of it's GDP than the next nation, and getting only the 37th best results . Just listen to the crowd at the September 12 2008 Republican debate that chant over and over "let him die" as a solution to a guy who needs medical care but elected not to buy private insurance. These same people are the one's who claim to be pro-life. Affordable health care should be a right, as it is in every civilized nation but the US. Obamacare is far from ideal, but much better than the previous policy of only those with good jobs could afford health care everyone else, die or go bankrupt, driving the costs of healthcare up more. One can't say they are pro-life and oppose affordable healthcare, including for services you don't support such as IUDs (it doesn't matter that I object to our overly huge military budget that is much bigger than the next several nations combined, so it shouldn't matter if some medical services such as IUDs are supported), as quality of life matters as much as being alive.

Related to guns however is the Republican stance on stand your ground. Watch Fox News and how they defend the use of guns, or how mass shootings would be avoided if people were carrying concealed weapons and could stop the shooters... again escalating things to a death penalty. Now in the case of a mass shooter, ideally you want to take them down alive, but if death is the only option, then I personally don't object. However stand your ground typically expands to home invasion, where criminals typically aren't looking kill, just rob the place. Here they defend the homeowner's right to shoot to kill (I've been in firearm safety classes, generally the aim is to aim for the center of mass, which will likely result in death, but the odds of making a shot at the legs to impede the crooks is very low, so if you shoot you have to assume it is to kill). This position is contrary to the pro-life stance. All life is equal... which could get into a whole other argument about how they don't value immigrants, especially illegal immigrants, people who just want to improve their lives by moving to what they hope is a better country that will allow for a better opportunity for them and their families, but the Republicans are fighting hard to stop them from improving their lives here just because an accident of birth made them born in another country than the US... heck just look at the way Republicans lined the buses of refugee children fleeing war and gang torn areas of Latin America and they shouted at the children.... children... to go home that nobody wanted them. That isn't a pro-life statement, to tell a child that nobody wants them. The pro-life position would be to want to nurture and protect the children fleeing a dangerous area... We should be moving to a world without borders, as that is the pro-life position, to realize we are all humans, and that we all must share this world, and that we should do all we can to protect one another and this world and all that inhabits it (except mosquitoes, roaches, most parasites, etc... lol)

As to high poverty rates, the Republican policy of trickle down economics helps drive that. Helps spread the ever growing income and wealth gaps in the US. The Walmart heirs alone have more wealth than the bottom 40% of the US population (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/jul/31/bernie-s/sanders-says-walmart-heirs-own-more-wealth-bottom-/). Now true, some could argue it isn't trickle down economic that is causing the growing wealth and income gaps, but the correlation is very strong, and one is hard pressed to find any other causative points beyond the rich paying less and less to their workers while taking more and more for themselves while the government eases the tax burden on the rich more and more.

Overall I think it's clear that the people who vote Republican because they are "pro-life" are hypocrites given the party's positions in key issues that aren't pro-life. I'm sure many, especially those on the right would disagree. They'd argue the death penalty is needed to discourage others from killing and therefore protects life, and that preemptive strikes ala the Bush Doctrine keep another 9/11 from happening (although the counter to that is fairly easily that we make more extremist the more we use those strikes). So one's mileage may very. For me, I think they are hypocritical saying they are pro-life if they don't value that life as much as their own after they are born.

Thanks for the very nice feedback and for the patience as the outstanding changes slowly trickle through.

Lmfao.. dribble? ...seriously.. lol.

You silly old geezer, did you mean.. drivel.. @_@?!

Or are you suggesting my statements of being too.. bouncy?
..or a small trickling stream of droplets..? hehe.

Is this what you meant by "at least a little intelligent"? lmao.. it's okay. big words are tough. I get it.

aah, this is too.. like.. shooting fish in barrel.. with a rocket launcher


Okay okay, now go ahead and deny your incorrect usage of words.

Them please explain to me how your not proving my point with every statement you make. HAH.

@RedSky

Selling assets and, to a certain degree, the reduction of public employment is an unreasonable demand. There's too much controversy about the effects it has, with me being clearly biased to one side.

Privatisation of essential services (healthcare, public transport, electricity, water) is being opposed or even undone in significant parts of Europe, since it generally came with worse service at much higher costs and no accountability whatsoever. Therefore I see it as very reasonable for Syriza to stop the privatisation of their electricity grid and their railroad. There are, of course, unessentials that might be handed over to the private sector, but like Varoufakis said, not in the shape of a fire sale within a crisis. That'll only profit the usual scavengers, not the people.

Similarly, public employment. There's good public employment (essential services, administration) and "bad" public employment. Troika demands included the firing of cleaning personnel, who were replaced by a significantly more expensive private service. And a Greek court decision ruled the firing as flat out illegal. For Syriza to not hire them back would not only have been unreasonable financially as well as socially, it would have been a violation of a court order. Same for thousands of others who were fired illegally, according to a ruling by the Greek Supreme Court.

Troika demands are all too often against Greek or even European law, and while the previous governments were fine with being criminals, Syriza might actually be inclined to uphold the law.


On the issue of reforms, I would argue that the previous governments did bugger all to establish working institutions. Famously, the posts of department heads of the tax collection agency were auctioned for money, even under the last government. Everything is in shambles, with no intent of changing anything that would have undermined the nepotic rules of the five families. Syriza's program has been very clear about the changes they plan to institute, so if it really was the intent of the troika to see meaningful reform the way it is being advocated to their folks at home, they would be in support of Syriza.

Interventions by the troika have crashed the health care system, the educational system and the pension system. Public pension funds were practically wiped out during the first haircut in 2012, creating a hole of about 20 billion Euros in the next five years.

I would like to address the issue of taxation specifically. Luxembourg adopted as a business model to be an enabler of tax evasion, even worse than Switzerland. In charge at that time was none other than Jean-Claude Juncker, who was just elected President of the European Commission. He's directly involved in tax evasion on a scale of hundreds of billions of Euros every year. How is the troika to have any credibility in this matter with him in charge?

Similarly, German politicians are particularly vocal about corruption and bribery in Greece. Well, who are the biggest sources of bribery in Greece? German corporations. Just last week there was another report of a major German arms manufacturer who paid outrageous bribes to officials in Greece. As much as I support the fight against corruption and bribery, some humility would suit them well.


As for the GDP growth in Greece: I think it's a fluke. The deflation skewers the numbers to a point where I can't take them seriously until the complete dataset is available. Might be growth, might not be. Definatly not enough to fight off a humanitarian crisis.

Surpluses. If everyone was a zealous as Germany, the deficit would in fact be considerably narrower, which is a good thing. Unfortunatly, it would have been a race to the bottom. Germany could only suppress wage growth, and subsequently domestic demand, so radically, because the other members of the Eurozone were eager to expand. They ran higher-than-average growth, which allowed Germany to undercut them without going into deflation. Nowadays, Germany still has below-target wage growth, so the only way for Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy to gain competetiveness against Germany is to go into deflation. That's where we are in Europe: half a continent in deflation. With all its side effects of mass unemployment (11%+ in Europe, after lots of trickery), falling demand, falling investment, etc. Not good. Keynes' idea of an International Clearing Union might work better, especially since we already use similar concepts within nations to balance regions.

Bond yields of Germany could not have spiked at the same time as those of the rest of the Eurozone. The legal requirements for pension funds, insurance funds, etc demand a high percentage of safe bonds, and when the peripheral countries were declared unsafe, they had nowhere to go but Germany. Also, a bet against France is quite a risk, but a bet against Germany is downright foolish. Still, supply of safe bonds is tight right now, given the cuts all over the place. French yields are at historic lows, German yield is negative. Even Italian and Spanish yields were in the green as soon as Draghi said the ECB would do whatever it takes.

The current spike in Greek yields strikes me as a bet that there will be a face-off between the troika and Greece, with very few positive outcomes for the Greek economy in the short run.

QE: 100% agreement. Fistful of cash to citizens would not have solved any of the core issues of the Eurozone (highly unequal ULCs, systemic tax evasion, tax competition/undercutting, no European institutions, etc), but it would have been infinitely better than anything they did. If they were to put it on the table right now as a means to combat deflation, I'd say go for it. Take the helicopters airborne, as long as it's bottom-up and not trickle-down. Though to reliably increase inflation there would have to be widescale increases in wages. Not going to happen. Maybe if Podemos wins in Spain later his year.

Same for the last paragraph. The ECB could have stuffed the EIB to the brim, which in return could have funded highly beneficial and much needed projects, like a proper European electricity grid. Won't happen though. Debt is bad, even monetised debt during a deflation used purely for investments.

trickle down has been the prevailing economic policy for the last thirty years and it does not work. This is also the same time period that the middle class has been disappearing not just the last 6 years.

Carter and Clinton are the last two presidents to have budget surpluses. Republicans preach about being fiscally responsible, but the record shows they aren't. Had we followed Carters course, we would be energy independent and it's possible we would have avoided wars with Iraq twice and Afghanistan. Think of what we could have done with all the money that would have been saved. Trillions of dollars.

I keep coming across report after report (from respected financial and economic institutions all over the world) that discredit trickle-down economics. For example http://warincontext.org/2014/12/09/oecd-reports-on-the-failure-of-trickle-down-economics/

But i simply can't find the one i was looking for. However if you google "report failure of trickle down" you get report after report from myriad different experts - including one report by the Congressional Research Service, a bipartisan think tank established a century ago to give information to Congress without spin or political bias, which was covered up by the Republicans.

It is widely accepted that trickle down economics doesn't work amongst those who are in a position to judge.

Explaining how trickle down works in the real world

Perhaps in your mind, not mine. I have consistently said Carter was my favorite recent president, just the least popular. He did what he saw as right (and in my eyes he was correct at nearly every turn, like adopting solar BEFORE it's too late, and using less oil and gas by turning down your thermostat and putting on a sweater if it's cold inside for military, economic, and ecologic reasons), and was called wishy washy for it. He was a nuclear submarine commander, HARD CORE military, yet he was called weak on the military/defense (rather than insightful). I also disagree that Obama was the worst, in my lifetime Bush caused WAY more damage to our country, Obama has taken 6 years to dig out of the Bush hole, so he's no hero for me either...but he's certainly not the villain you wish to label him...we haven't even had a domestic terrorist attack on his watch.

Regan policies include raising taxes on the rich and limiting military spending (true, not by choice or often, but he did do both) If that's what you mean, perhaps you're correct...but I think you mean his trickle down economics, which were a clear proven disastrous failure and didn't even work for the rich...it made the top few % more dollars, but less wealth in the end because those dollars were worth far less, as @dannym3141 said above.

Odd, you have no trouble changing facts....why can't I? ;-)

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/06/30/trickle-down-economics-fails-to-deliver-as-promised/

Article discussing the trickle-down idea. Refers to a paper from a respected uni which shows that there is little evidence to believe that it works, and if it does work it a) doesn't work as well as widely touted and b) hardly works at all.

I also read another article from more recent than 2009 from some kind of financial group on or associated strongly with Wall Street itself that concluded even the wealthy see more spending power if their money is more evenly spread; they may have less money in a mathematical sense, but their money will be worth more and provide more because the flow of the economy is so much more active. I'll keep looking and edit if i find it.

@bobknight33 "Trickle down worked and still does."

If you mean shit trickles down your leg.

Regan destroyed America. It took a few decades.

Things were great under Regan and under Clinton. I would say Clinton era went strong because of the internet The internet bubble burst and then Bush got in. Bush did not blame Clinton ( like OBAMA) for the mess he inherited.

Kennedy, It was post war every thing was going gang busters, Democrat or Republican did not matter who was in charge. This lasted up through Johnson then came the oil crisis which drag the economy down and 15%+ interest rates, Carter got caught up in this and became the worst president to that date. (Obama is now the worst).

Regan policies turn this around. Trickle down worked and still does.

But you still cant change the fact..

You are living in a opposite world. Everything you believe Democrat leadership stand for, they have delivered the opposite.


We can thank the disappearing middle class and the poor being worse off from 6 years of the failed leadership.
But on the bright side the rich are richer, Thank to Democrat leadership.

Well if you like the disappearing middle class keep voting Democrat.

The middle class has been disappearing since trickle down economics was instituted under reagan. Tax rates on rich was 70% and he lowered it to 35%. Note: my numbers are off, but the change was that drastic.

Support for newt's point... https://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/economy/news/2004/07/28/964/economic-prosperity-and-the-presidents/