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» Hatrack River Forum » Active Forums » Books, Films, Food and Culture » A personal "Thank You" to Mr. Orson Scott Card! (Page 2)

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Author Topic: A personal "Thank You" to Mr. Orson Scott Card!
plaid
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Ugh. You know, I don't even drink beer or coffee. So you might think I'd be sympathetic to an anti-drugs article. But the rhetoric and logic of this article is just awful...
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zgator
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quote:
IMO, anything you can get addicted to is BAD.
Ryuko, you average about 7 posts/day here at Hatrack. You may be addicted. [Razz]
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Alucard...
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quote:
What exactly makes you think that John Edwards should be the poster boy for evil-doing lawyers? Is it the fact that he became rich suing wrongdoers, or is it that you don't think the people he sued did wrong?
Tom, sorry I did not respond to your post sooner. A few answers:

I never suggest we make any posters. His history as an amazing trial lawyer that sues doctors for heinous amounts of money is simply the only reason I need to not support his cause. Hey, if I met him, I might even find him likeable, but I would still not support him. This is not about him as a person, but the path he has taken to achieve his place in politics. While we are at it, GWB is no shining angel either...

So to answer the second part of the quote, I am completely turned off by the millions of dollars made, yes. I agree that patients should be protected and in all liklihood, some patients who sued probably deserve more compensation than they were awarded. But that is not helped by the legal fees of 30-40%.

Maybe I would be less offended by John Edwards if he had those wonderful commericals where we can call now if we have been injured! And remember: There are no fees unless we get money for you .

Tom, The State of Pennsylvania has basically warned doctors not to leave in response to the huge increase in malpractice insurance rates. Do we have a decline in the quality of doctors that mandates higher premiums? I doubt it. The cost of living here is less than most states, but there has been a revisiting of how much companies charge for premiums, and also a reassessment of local and state taxes. This means organizations have realized they might not have been charging enough in this state, IMHO. I have watched doctors leave my hometown for no other reason than lower malpractice insurance premiums in another state. Doctors actually staged a "walkout" in response to the increasing premiums, and the situation is only getting worse. Hope that helps explain my opinions more. And it is nothing more than that: opinion.

Which reminds me of a joke:
Q: When can you tell if a politician is lying?

A: His lips are moving...

quote:
A one-for-one ratio, eh?

I doubt it very much. Let's see some proof.

But are you saying 1:1 on good vs. evil doctors? Or lawyers? Or pharmacists? Or just 1:1 for the good professionals on one side, and the evil every-one-who-is-evil on the other?

SS, Your initial assumption was incorrect. The math on this is a little rough, but do try and stay with me:

Good = A
Bad = B

A>B
(A does not equal B)
Ratio of A/B impossible to define, but for every B, there is at least one A.

And I thought all those math classes would never pay off...Thanks for making me clarify the obvious! [Big Grin]

[ July 20, 2004, 06:42 AM: Message edited by: Alucard... ]

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Kasie H
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quote:
I agree with OSC about legalizing drugs. It shouldn't be done. I would even go as far as saying that caffeine shouldn't be legal, or should at least be more regulated than it is. IMO, anything you can get addicted to is BAD.
Okay, so addiction = bad.

I'm sorry, but it doesn't logically follow that the government is responsible to keep people from doing all bad things.

Prohibition was a successful experiment, wasn't it?

Eating McDonald's every day of your life certainly is bad for you. Should the government tell me what I can and cannot eat?

Hanging meat hooks through your shoulders is probably not advisable (see story). Does that mean the government should disallow it? In this case, the police can't do anything.

Guns can do some pretty bad things. I'd argue, though, that the argument 'guns don't kill people, people kill people' could be applied to marijuana and McDonald's and meat hooks.

Obviously, the line has to be drawn somewhere. The strongest argument I see against legalizing drugs is a strictly economic one -- it is in the best economic interest of the United States to *not* have the entire population addicted to heroin or cocaine. Remember how the Brits controlled the Chinese through opium? It would be terrible for our productivity and ultimate economic prosperity.

Marijuana, however, falls into a different category (in my opinion). It does not cause physical addiction, and ultimately would not cause the same severe economic consequences that the legalization of narcotics would. This, of course, is open to debate.

But I'm a bit of a libertarian, and just because something is 'bad' does not mean I want the government telling me I can't have it.

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AvidReader
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Kasie, I assume you've never hung out with any stoners. I've known plenty of people who smoked until they were incapable of getting up off the couch. Every night when they came home from work, they smoked an ounce and vegged. Every day. For years.

Yeah, they were working. Sort of. When they felt like going in. But they weren't happy with their lives, and rather than do anything about it, they smoked pot and pretended it wasn't there.

Personally, I feel for our Congressmen. It'd be really easy to boost your polls by saying you favored legalizing marajuana. After all, all the cool people smoke pot. But I know I couldn't look the mothers of those kids in the eye and say, "Sorry, lady, it's not our problem. They should know better."

Marajuana, as we learned in health class, is a gateway drug, like alcohol and tobacco. Lots of people who use it are looking for an escape from their problems. When the buzz isn't good enough anymore, they'll move on to stronger drugs. So while it would be nice to let people use reasonable amounts, I can understand our Congressmen's reluctance to legalize. To me at least, there's too little potential good to outweigh the potential harm.

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Kasie H
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Yes, I know some stoners. I know many more people who smoke pot on a regular basis. And I probably know hundreds who've tried it once or twice. (I, for the record, never have.)

Thing is, people have been smoking marijuana for a long, long time. A few end up stoners for life. Most give it up by the time they start working. There're lots of hippies currently in the workforce. Most of them don't smoke pot anymore.

Cocaine and heroin addicts usually end up going down a different path.

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fil
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Avidreader...you knew stoners? Ones that used daily for years? And this is when it is illegal to use marijuana? How would legalizing it change anything for these friends of yours? Make it cheaper? Easier to get? From what it sounds like, nothing at all would change other than they could do it without fear of legal action against them. Keeping it illegal has done absolutely nothing to change their life for the better.

This "gateway drug" thing is always a hoot. Most drug prohibitioners say that Marijuana is THE gateway drug but I am very happy to read Avid's inclusion of alcohol and tobacco (most public discussions seem to ignore these real gateway drugs). As long as we live in a hypocritical and contradictory system, there will always be this tension between legalizing and criminalizing drug use. Two of the most dangerous drugs are legal and can be obtained by any adult without prescription, needing only an appropriately aged (or faked) ID card. Marijuana is safer, cheaper to produce and has less costly side effects than either of its two legal brethrens (no calories of beer and as far as I know, none of the cancerous effects of cigarette smoke...and for you Adkins folks, it is low in carbs [Big Grin] ). And unlike beer and cigarettes, marijuana has other medicinal uses.

On a side note, my old-school mother...who always worried that I did marijuana in high school (for the record, I didn't try it until college and even then didn't enjoy it as much as alcohol) has now been hinting that she would like her significantly older son to find some marijuana for her. She is diagnosed with fibromyalgia and suffers from a lot of pain that no medications have been able to help. She read about how cancer patients and MS patients have found a lot of relief in marijuana and wondered...just wondered...if I knew how to get her any. Gads! Who would have thought it! [Big Grin]

fil

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sndrake
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quote:
Tom, The State of Pennsylvania has basically warned doctors not to leave in response to the huge increase in malpractice insurance rates. Do we have a decline in the quality of doctors that mandates higher premiums? I doubt it. The cost of living here is less than most states, but there has been a revisiting of how much companies charge for premiums, and also a reassessment of local and state taxes. This means organizations have realized they might not have been charging enough in this state, IMHO. I have watched doctors leave my hometown for no other reason than lower malpractice insurance premiums in another state. Doctors actually staged a "walkout" in response to the increasing premiums, and the situation is only getting worse. Hope that helps explain my opinions more. And it is nothing more than that: opinion.

I've been way too busy the past few days to respond to this thread and believe me - I've wanted to. I am constantly amazed at how thoroughly successful the campaign to vilify trial lawyers has been. But maybe I shouldn't be. Sure, the trial lawyers have a good pot of money to draw on, but it's peanuts compared to the insurance industry.

How do you think we got to this juncture in malpractice litigation? Do you think insurance companies rush to settle fair and equitable claims or do they throw everything they have at every case - regardless of merit - and make the whole process as costly and time-consuming as possible? If the trial lawyer loses, it's an immense loss - and one of the reasons their percentage of the settlement, if there is one, is so high.

I'll try to dig up the GAO report on malpractice rates later. There are some interesting findings in it. One is that the claims of patients losing access to services are being exaggerated by the AMA and others. They have individual stories but little hard data (they've forgotten the plural of anecdote is not "data").

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Erik Slaine
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And, for the funny:

Thanks OSC! [Wink]

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Shan
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Wow. Fascinating thread.

As some of you here may remember, Grammy ran me over last summer backing out of her driveway. Her insurance companies stalled on paying ANY medical bills until I found an attorney. AFTER repeated verbal and written requests from me to honor medical bills that were going to be sent to collections due to their failure to act in a timely fashion. So . . . perhaps if the insurance companies did their job in an appropriate manner, there'd be less need for attorney's to do theirs . . .

Okay - legalization of drugs.

*Reconsiders the soapbox she was about to step on*

Never mind. Cary on with your fascinating conversation.

[Wink]

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pooka
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So you haven't ever treated any drug addicts, CT?
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AvidReader
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fil,

No, the only thing that stopped one of them was finding out he might have cancer. The rest are still at it.

Legalizing pot would basically be society saying, "Go ahead. We don't mind." I sympathize with our Congressmen. If it came to a vote, a decision either way would be hard.

Persoanlly, I think we'd be healthier as a nation if we made alcohol legal across the board but outlawed movies making it out to be cool to get smashed all the time. Same with the pot. But since no one wants to go preaching morality to everyone, the best we can do is say smoking pot is bad.

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sndrake
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Today's edition of the Miami Herald has an op-ed by the attorney representing Jeb Bush in the Terri Schiavo case. I'll excerpt it since the URL includes my registration info (this is weird - haven't run into it before):

quote:
Focus on ideas, not smears

BY KEN CONNOR

`A friend to personal-injury trial lawyers?''

Is that it? Is that the best the Republican National Committee can muster?

Immediately upon announcing that John Edwards would be John Kerry's pick for vice president, the Republican National Committee intoned that Edwards was a poor choice, in large part, because he is a ``friend to personal injury trial lawyers.''

As a Republican, a conservative, a supporter of President Bush, counsel to Gov. Jeb Bush and as a trial lawyer, I would caution against such empty-headed rhetoric.

Why?

For one thing, it will come back to bite the Republicans. Mel Martinez -- a former Bush Cabinet member and likely the Republicans' best hope for gaining a Senate seat in Florida -- is himself a trial lawyer. The same Republicans who extol his candidacy excoriate Edwards because of his occupation. And lest we forget -- the Republicans' most revered president, Abraham Lincoln, was a trial lawyer, and a mighty fine one at that.

Excerpts from transcripts of Lincoln's trials are frequently used as teaching tools for lawyers and law students today. Also, 40 percent of lawyers in Florida today are trial lawyers. Does the RNC disavow them? Will it refuse to accept their votes and support?

And if the rap on Edwards is that he is the friend of personal-injury trial lawyers, where does this leave the RNC? Is the RNC the friend of the drunk driver -- sued by the trial lawyer -- who blew the stop sign and caused a young mother to be a quadriplegic? Is it the friend of the car company -- again, sued by the trial lawyer -- that consciously decided not to fix its defective gas tanks, which, upon impact, were causing its vehicles occupants to be incinerated?

The RNC needs to be careful here.

The mere fact that someone is a trial lawyer should not be the gauge by which to judge that person. All professions have members who reflect poorly on them. Doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs -- all have members who are an embarrassment to the others. Should we all bemoan unscrupulous members of the trial bar? Of course. But let's be careful not to paint with too broad a brush.



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Farmgirl
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I'm not real sure if this thread is about trial lawyers, or about the legalization of drugs. Whatever.

Anyway, my two cents. Marijuana is kind of a non-issue to me. I used pot for awhile many years ago, and never cared for it a great deal -- mainly did it because the people around me were smokin it. I never found it addictive (like I did alcohol) and never did it make me want to try anything harder (like coke or meth). I think peer pressure has more to do with "trying" harder drugs, than the use of pot itself.

And I do have an addictive personality -- I struggled with alcoholism for several years. I think alcohol and cigarettes (nicotine) are much worse, on the whole, than pot. So I'm not sure why the government has picked pot as the scapegoat of choice and made only it illegal. But, of course, we know how much big money is behind the alcohol and tobacco companies, so that will never change.

Of course -- I'm saying ALL of it is bad for you and should be avoided. But I just don't think pot is worse...

FG

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sndrake
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[Confused]

Did I miss something? When did CT ban herself from Hatrack?

[Confused]

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Boothby171
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Alucard, your math unfortunately requires that the number of BAD people exceed the number of GOOD people for there to be "One bad person for every good person," and not the other way around, as you last put it.

I hope no one here believes that there are more "bad" people than "good."

BTW, any chance on getting your money back on those math courses? [Taunt]

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sndrake
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This thread is kind of all over the place, and I'm tempted to start a thread devoted to discussion of tort reform on its own. As I said - and probably badly - it's amazing that complex issues such as rising malpractice insurance have been sold as having a single, simple villain: trial lawyers.

USA Today recently published an op-ed by an internist that runs against that grain, calling for people to acknowledge the complexity of the problem - including those that originate from within the insurance industry (although he doesn't make a clear case in the latter).

Insurers, not just lawyers, inflict real pain on doctors

quote:
Posted 7/11/2004 9:00 PM

Insurers, not just lawyers, inflict real pain on doctors

By Marc Siegel

When you go to a doctor's office, you expect to be seen in a timely manner by a qualified professional. Your concern is your health, certainly not a distant issue such as the malpractice-insurance debate. It's an industry issue that doesn't affect you. Right? But consider:

• Care is being affected. Doctors are rushing to see more patients to cover the costs of rising premiums. Much as a teacher is more effective in smaller classrooms, physicians are best with manageable caseloads.

• Legal distractions are becoming more common. According to the American Medical Association (AMA), one in six physicians face a medical-liability claim each year. In high-risk specialties, the frequency rises. Now, many time-pressed doctors have even less time because of lawsuits. Yet 70% of the cases filed are found to be without merit.

Patients should consider that a demoralized and distracted doctor is not an effective caretaker. And doctors must begin to "heal ourselves" by acknowledging that much of our anger toward lawyers is misplaced.

The wrong message

At a recent AMA meeting in Chicago, some doctors said they were going to refuse to care for malpractice attorneys. But physicians' anger is not an effective tool for change. Besides, insurance companies, not lawyers, determine the prohibitive malpractice-insurance rates while ensuring their own profitability.

These skyrocketing rates, together with frivolous lawsuits, are sending the U.S. health care system into a predictable death spiral. Both must be addressed through reasonable reforms, not knee-jerk actions. If not, the patient will be the one to suffer.

Doctors would be wiser to group together and devise our own insurance than to target lawyers. A plaintiff's attorney in New York has a proposal to create liability insurance for physicians. He believes premiums are so overinflated that he can market malpractice insurance at one-third the current price. If such a notion were indeed possible, it would indicate that insurance companies are more than covering their costs.

There's more in the article, such as a system in place in Michigan which has a medical panel review lawsuits to evaluate if care fell outside accepted standards.

Not a great article - but it attempts to address a complex issue with something beyond "it's the lawyers' fault."

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sndrake
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quote:
Stephen, I've been too cranky even to stand myself. As of yesterday, I'm trying to stay away for a few days, work myself silly, and get over myself.

Cool. Now I can stop feeling guilty for my failure to respond to your questions about abuse. Still trying to sort out the mishmash of connections relating to control, testosterone, and perpetuated institutional customs such as "soaping". Being a divergent thinker (the kind term for "scattered") is really great until it comes time to sort it all out.)

(insert song "What do the linear folk do?" - I can sound just like Richard Harris in my head.)

[ July 21, 2004, 03:37 PM: Message edited by: sndrake ]

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sndrake
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<grin>

Nice links - I had an odd relationship with boomerangs as a kid. (story for another time)

Yeah - well, I live with someone who used to make her living lawyering, although most of her lawyering was working for the government going after scam artists - she won a few. [Smile]

The thing that really blows my mind about all this stuff about tort reform - especially relating to malpractice - is how little anger is directed at insurance companies.

Here's some stuff from a column Bob Herbert did in the NY Times a few weeks ago (alternate site provided here):

Cooking up a crisis

quote:
June 25, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST

Cooking Up a Crisis
By BOB HERBERT

If you hear something enough times from people in authority, you tend to believe it.

The tort reform zealots — including doctors, insurance company executives and legions of politicians across the country — have been hammering away at the idea that crackpot jury awards and lawsuits from undeserving patients are driving up the costs of health care and driving good doctors out of their profession.

"Junk and frivolous lawsuits" is the term of choice for President Bush, who told an audience in Youngstown, Ohio, last month that "junk and frivolous lawsuits discourage good docs from even practicing medicine in the first place."

According to the American Medical Association, "There are now 20 states in a full-blown medical liability crisis — up from 12 in 2002."

As the A.M.A. tells it, "America's patients are losing access to care because the nation's out-of-control legal system is forcing physicians in some areas of the country to retire early, relocate or give up performing high-risk medical procedures."

Full-blown crisis! Out of control!

All right. Calm down. Take a deep breath.

Just last January the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said this about the link between high malpractice premiums and the availability of physicians in various specialties:

The General Accounting Office "investigated the situations in five states with reported access problems and found mixed evidence. On the one hand, G.A.O. confirmed instances of reduced access to emergency surgery and newborn delivery, albeit `in scattered, often rural, areas where providers identified other long-standing factors that affect the availability of services.' On the other hand, it found that many reported reductions in supply by health care providers could not be substantiated or `did not widely affect access to health care.' "

That hardly sounds like a crisis. Moreover, in several states specifically characterized by the A.M.A. as in "crisis," the evidence is rolling in that malpractice claims and awards are not appreciably increasing, and in some instances are declining.

The A.M.A. has its crisis states marked in red on a map of the U.S. on its Web site. One of the red states is Missouri. But a press release in April from the Missouri Department of Insurance said, "Missouri medical malpractice claims, filed and paid, fell to all-time lows in 2003 while insurers enjoyed a cash-flow windfall."

Another red state on the A.M.A. map is New Jersey. Earlier this month, over the furious objections of physicians' representatives, a judge ordered the release of data showing how much was being paid out to satisfy malpractice claims. The judge's order was in response to a suit by The Bergen Record.

The newspaper reported that an analysis of the data showed that malpractice payments in New Jersey had declined by 21 percent from 2001 to 2003. But malpractice insurance premiums surged over the same period. A.M.A. officials told me yesterday that they thought the New Jersey data was "incomplete," but they did not dispute the 21 percent figure.

A little more...

quote:
There is no question that malpractice insurance premiums have increased sharply over the past few years. In some instances they have skyrocketed. But, as the Congressional Budget Office has noted, there are a variety of reasons for that, including the cost of malpractice awards, decreases in the investment income of insurance companies and cyclical factors in the insurance market.

"Insurance companies' investment yields have been lower for the past few years," the budget office said in a report in January, "putting pressure on premiums to make up the difference."

I'm kinda disgusted the AMA has made this their top legislative priority. As near as I can tell, they aren't spending anywhere near as much time and energy trying to get the profession to reduce the alarming rate of medical errors being made in the system. (one interesting aside in all this is that - and I'll have to look - there is good evidence that only a small percentage of malpractice cases actually get litigated.)
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sndrake
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I finally get around to posting my malpractice/tort reform stuff and the only response I get is from the person who isn't posting to Hatrack right now.

[Razz]

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Leonide
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What I don't understand is what is intrinsically bad about something you *might* become physically addicted too?

Isn't it more dangerous, by far, and more lasting and more difficult to "Get Over," a mental addiction to something? Certainly we have made no steps towards banning television watching for fear of it becoming chronic, or the entertainment industry altogether, to keep people from obsessing over stars, or *picture frames* to make sure no one can't stand to see them crooked. Why are possible mental addictions simply shrugged at and glossed over, whereas possible physical addictions (and let's face it, both types of addictions can be JUST as harmful to all parties involved) are jumped upon by just about everyone?

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sndrake
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quote:
Maybe we're all a figment of your imagination.
*Can't answer. Enjoying a good existential crisis right now, thank you very much.*
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rivka
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*hands sndrake the reins to da cartes*
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Katarain
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Why must marijuana remain illegal?

I'm so very glad you asked! Here are several answers to that very question.

1. Because we think it's bad, and therefore, must impose our belief on you.

2. We must impose our belief on you because you're too stupid to decide things for yourself. Just look at your choices so far. Yeah, Stellar!

3. Because we once knew a pothead who had no ambition and was basically a useless specimin of human existence.

4. We already have alcohol, and although it's more damaging to your body and dangerous for those around you, it's LEGAL already. Changing the law to include marijuana would just be too much trouble.

5. The government might not be able to tax everyone who grows and smokes marijuana, even though after the initial buying of seeds, the grower is spending no money on the product. This confuses even us, however, since potheads are notoriously lazy, and we can't imagine them going to the trouble of growing their own when it would be easily accessible at the corner store.

6. Our children might not believe all of the stories we make up about marijuana if it is legal for adults. (Don't judge us for making up stories! Marijuana is evil! Facts shmacts!) We're too scared to talk to our children honestly about the real problems associated with irresponsible marijuana use and that some people really shouldn't smoke it.

7. Marijuana is more potent than it was in the 60s. We got some real sciency guys who proved it, really!

8. Only unambitious parasites on society smoke pot. Successful people who say they smoke it are lying in an attempt to take over the world. They figure if everyone smoked it, they could steal all our stuff and we wouldn't care. We're not falling for it, buddy!

9. Everybody knows hippies smell funny.

10. People might not smoke as many cigarettes, creating financial problems for Big Tobacco and therefore, straining the economy.

11. People might not drink as much alcohol, which often makes people violent. If people weren't as violent, the police wouldn't have as much to do.

12. Pharmaceutical companies would suffer financially because some sick people would achieve better results from smoking marijuana.

13. Massive amounts of money can be made from hospilization, drugs, and treatments of cirrhosis of the liver, kidney damage, diabetes, and a myriad of other illnesses caused or complicated by alcohol consumption.

14. Cotton growers and the makers of synthetic materials would have to deal with competition from hemp producers.

15. It causes pleasurable sensations. This is unacceptable, even if you're in your own home, because all pleasure is bad. (See our related campaign against all sex, cheesecake, chocolate, video games, massage chairs, bubble baths, adreneline, fuzzy slippers, and other pleasurable items and activities.)

Thank you for taking the time to read our reasons for the prevention of the legalization of marijuana. Please feel free to submit your own reasons, as we feel this is but a very small number of the many, many reasons for our cause.

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Shan
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I vote for a tort reform thread. That'd be fascinating. And save me some research time to boot, I bet. (NOT a homework assignment, thank you very much. [Razz] )

Go for it, Stephen!

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Alucard...
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ssywak,

Those equations are quantum, um...populatory nanite-derived quotia of the 4th dimension. Yes,....that's it. And in all actuality, they make perfect sense to me. After all, my job only requires me to count by fives.

As for the derailment of this thread. It is no longer a thread but more like a web. The original point I was trying to convey is that I completely agreed with OSC's recent essay on every level. The essay that I refer to is open to much debate, and I just wanted to say a simple "THANKS!" for writing what he did. And as Voltaire is famous for his guardianship of opinions, so are the blessed members of Hatrack. And this thread is quite a smorgasboard of topics!

As for tort reviews, can we review the term "tort" and possibly initiate a grassroots effort to change the name to something cooler?

[ July 22, 2004, 07:29 PM: Message edited by: Alucard... ]

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Lalo
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On every level? Even his bit about Edwards?

...why? I thought you were smarter than that.

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Ryuko
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quote:
Ryuko, you average about 7 posts/day here at Hatrack. You may be addicted.
If I had read this comment on the day you posted it, you could tell me I'm addicted. [Razz]
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