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[Bauglir]

I'm shocked that she had weapons in there. I'm quite chill about the drug part but the idea of a granny pistol whipping a subpar dealer disturbs me. Someone doesn't fill their quota and gets a Vader style treatment from her: "You have failed me".

This is what people who don't understand why drugs are illegal don't get. Yes, their being contraband contributes to violence in distribution, but it is not solely responsible for it. I'm surprised she didn't have more weapons.

I, uh, still don't get it. How does this situation support your claim? Surely somebody claiming that violence exists as part of the illegal drug economy would say that that is exactly why she had any weapons at all?

[GlyphGryph]

This is what people who don't understand why drugs are illegal don't get.

Seconding with utter confusion as to the lack of seeming logic or connection from this statement to the article posted.

[Skyrunner]

Aren't transexuals still very much "one or the other", though?  As in their preferred gender.  It's surely more excluding those with intersex conditions, which are actually more common than you might think.

I know 3 people who are getting treatment to be Gender Neutral, and that sort of claim (And the book itself) would get sharply worded answers from each of them.

We're going to have to reinvent the English language to be gender neutral at some point.

As far as I know, most languages are not gender neutral, and instead default to the masculine.

English, for example, is supposed to default to 'he' instead of s/he, he or she, xe, or any other things. Romance languages always default to masculine (Spanish 'el/los', French 'le'...). Not so sure about Slavic, Germanic; meanwhile Altaic (Mongolian, Hungary, Korea, Japan) most probably default to masculine. I don't know anything about Chinese or related languages, nor African...

Someone correct me if I'm wrong D:

The pronoun 'one' has the significant drawback of sounding formal and stiffy, on par with 'the author' and 'the reader'. :\ I know that one of my prose books said to avoid 'one' if its not strictly needed.

[Darvi]

I'd refer to people as "it"s but they don't take it really well.

[Truean]

I'm shocked that she had weapons in there. I'm quite chill about the drug part but the idea of a granny pistol whipping a subpar dealer disturbs me. Someone doesn't fill their quota and gets a Vader style treatment from her: "You have failed me".

This is what people who don't understand why drugs are illegal don't get. Yes, their being contraband contributes to violence in distribution, but it is not solely responsible for it. I'm surprised she didn't have more weapons.

I, uh, still don't get it. How does this situation support your claim? Surely somebody claiming that violence exists as part of the illegal drug economy would say that that is exactly why she had any weapons at all?

I realize when I say "my experience," it comes off as immensely arrogant and I wouldn't blame anyone one bit for calling bullshit on that. The closest I can come to explaining it is the contention that you've used the wrong categorical descriptor. "Illegal," drug economy isn't what causes the weapons. I'd say its the "addictive"  economy [including gambling] that primarily causes the weapon use. Legal or not, people will make moves to protect a captive market. Case in point, tobacco companies. There is a reason they set up the ATF as the "Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (and explosives)," agency. They come together. Yes, prohibition contributed to alcohol's association with firearms, fine, but what about tobacco's association with firearms? Where and why does tobacco fit in there? Also why didn't other drugs of abuse get included? Even currently, legal goods of abuse like tobacco that are taxed cause criminal smuggling.

I could go on about how horrible the tobacco companies were/are and forgetting how they've gone on a well documented campaign of misrepresentation and selling their consumers products that will often kill them if used as directed, but would that really matter? Tobacco, though legal, is addictive and smuggled. And that's just to evade taxes.... So my contention is that something doesn't have to be illegal just to spawn organized crime and weaponry that goes with it, but addiction seems to be the common denominator.

Do I have anything approaching airtight proof on this matter? Nope. But then trying to convince people over the internet has never been a productive use of time, so I'm cutting down on that quite a bit. [shrugs] Feel free to disagree; I don't care enough to argue it in depth one way or the other.

Aren't transexuals still very much "one or the other", though?  As in their preferred gender.  It's surely more excluding those with intersex conditions, which are actually more common than you might think.

I know 3 people who are getting treatment to be Gender Neutral, and that sort of claim (And the book itself) would get sharply worded answers from each of them.

We're going to have to reinvent the English language to be gender neutral at some point.

As far as I know, most languages are not gender neutral, and instead default to the masculine.

English, for example, is supposed to default to 'he' instead of s/he, he or she, xe, or any other things. Romance languages always default to masculine (Spanish 'el/los', French 'le'...). Not so sure about Slavic, Germanic; meanwhile Altaic (Mongolian, Hungary, Korea, Japan) most probably default to masculine. I don't know anything about Chinese or related languages, nor African...

Someone correct me if I'm wrong D:

The pronoun 'one' has the significant drawback of sounding formal and stiffy, on par with 'the author' and 'the reader'. :\ I know that one of my prose books said to avoid 'one' if its not strictly needed.

Yup, "It" is gender neutral, but makes someone sound like an object. It's insulting to call a person a thing; makes them not sound like a person.
"One," again, makes you sound weird or as you put it, sounds formal and stuffy, but it doesn't call someone a thing.

There's no winning.

[SalmonGod]

That's an interesting perspective that I had never been exposed to before, Truean.  So thanks.  I would need a bunch of time and extra reading to absorb this before I could even think about arguing.

[kaijyuu]

You don't see gang and cartel wars over alcohol anymore. Legalizing it severely cut down on the violence.

Corporations, evil as they are, are less evil than cartels. They do their fighting in court and with bribes. That's WAY better than doing their fighting with guns (and bribes).



Drugs being illegal does jack shit in keeping people away from them. I live in a quiet suburban neighborhood, but could definitely get some drugs if I wanted. Several kids are known for it around here. If we wanna fight drugs in a way that's not just symbolic, we should first minimize the damage done by distribution, then focus on education. People will still use them despite knowing the danger of course, but at least they're idiots and/or masochists, not just ignorant.

[GlyphGryph]

So my contention is that something doesn't have to be illegal just to spawn organized crime and weaponry that goes with it, but addiction seems to be the common denominator.

Just like how they used to smuggle tea and paper all the time, and they shot lots and lots of people and broke lots of laws over that stuff!

Violence and weapons are a side effect of black markets. And black markets aren't about addiction so much as desire and artificial (easily overcome) obstacles. When the benefits of operating in the daylight are less than those of operating in the shadows, even counting the violence, you're going to have yourself a black market.

And once you're operating outside the law, well... LEGAL businesses aren't friendly entities. Illegal ones have significantly less inclination to behave in a publicly acceptable manner.

A certain amount of black market business is to be expected anywhere - it's the quantity and accumulation of power the drug war has caused that's led to the REAL problems - most booze and tobacco smugglers aren't heavily armed lunatics taking hit's out on each other's groups and beheading people and whatnot.

[Bauglir]

@Truean

Hm, fair enough. I can certainly see an argument that were a law needs dodging (whether it's a flat ban or just high taxes), there's a side market for violence that gets spawned, though we all seem to agree that the magnitude thereof can be altered by the form the law in question takes.

[kaijyuu]

Really any sort of high demand commodity can do this. Addiction seems rather irrelevant, except for the fact that it boosts demand.


Blood diamonds, anyone?

[fqllve]

English is already very nearly gender neutral. Pretty much the only place where gender still occurs is in the pronoun system and they is pretty much already considered an acceptable third person animate neuter pronoun. I'd say within fifty years it either achieves its own form and becomes completely accepted or it continues to function in its present form with universal usage.

The only other place where gender occurs is in a few profession nouns, and those are already largely disappearing. English is one of the least gendered languages. The only languages I know off-hand without any grammatical gender are Mandarin and Finnish.

[Skyrunner]

What does 'universal usage' mean? O_o

[fqllve]

Some sticklers think "I don't think they like it when you assign them a gender" is grammatically incorrect. I've gotten into arguments with English teachers about it.

...Many more than I care to count.

[Skyrunner]

Oh, you were talking about 'they'?

... Hmm, I'd claim it is correct, espeially in that example. 'They' in your sentence can't be replaced with anything else without adding an 's'...

[Truean]

That's an interesting perspective that I had never been exposed to before, Truean.  So thanks.  I would need a bunch of time and extra reading to absorb this before I could even think about arguing.

Always a pleasure Salmon. [tips hat]

You don't see gang and cartel wars over alcohol anymore. Legalizing it severely cut down on the violence.

Corporations, evil as they are, are less evil than cartels. They do their fighting in court and with bribes. That's WAY better than doing their fighting with guns (and bribes).



Drugs being illegal does jack shit in keeping people away from them. I live in a quiet suburban neighborhood, but could definitely get some drugs if I wanted. Several kids are known for it around here. If we wanna fight drugs in a way that's not just symbolic, we should first minimize the damage done by distribution, then focus on education. People will still use them despite knowing the danger of course, but at least they're idiots and/or masochists, not just ignorant.

Seeing as my 3PM appointment also failed to show up.... God damn it people doesn't my schedule mean anything to you.... (no question mark).

No question legalization cuts down on violence related to distribution. Alcohol is still a major factor in perpetration of other violent crimes though. DoJ says 40%, whatever. Moreover it is a drug of incompetence whereby its addiction and abuse leads to massive damage (drunk driving cases pay my bills).

As for corporations, be it one of them or a sole proprietor (an actual person, screw you Scalia), while I will admit that bullets are not a good substitute for a syllogism and reasoning, that's just a symptom of the disease. You've traded one symptom (abuse by firearms) for another, admittedly lesser symptom (abuse by debt and market and client disability). Imagine Heroin incorporated.  Hell, imagine Meth incorporated. Even the pretensions we have about a free market revolve around voluntary purchase. Addiction is a compulsion that overrides volitional choice. Shit, I'm addicted to alcohol and I know the idea of my not drinking is laughable. You can't stop purchasing the addictive substance.... (or if you can, then it's a massive effort the likes of which few people can, and it certainly isn't easy). How do you reconcile a product that disables its clients ability generally and client's ability not to purchase it?

So my contention is that something doesn't have to be illegal just to spawn organized crime and weaponry that goes with it, but addiction seems to be the common denominator.

Just like how they used to smuggle tea and paper all the time, and they shot lots and lots of people and broke lots of laws over that stuff!

Violence and weapons are a side effect of black markets. And black markets aren't about addiction so much as desire and artificial (easily overcome) obstacles. When the benefits of operating in the daylight are less than those of operating in the shadows, even counting the violence, you're going to have yourself a black market.

And once you're operating outside the law, well... LEGAL businesses aren't friendly entities. Illegal ones have significantly less inclination to behave in a publicly acceptable manner.

A certain amount of black market business is to be expected anywhere - it's the quantity and accumulation of power the drug war has caused that's led to the REAL problems - most booze and tobacco smugglers aren't heavily armed lunatics taking hit's out on each other's groups and beheading people and whatnot.

My perspective is unavoidably altered given the sheer amount of criminal defendants I deal with on a regular basis, so consider that a point for me being biased. Not in favor of the current "War on Drugs," or really any "War on [insert in tangible idea here]."

Let's give you the benefit of the doubt and say weapons are a product of black markets. Fine, why are markets black? I say in the case of drugs and gambling, they are black because of addiction. Please see my response to kaijyuu above....
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I think I'll start a side project concerning stonesense and furniture placement. It's more fun than arguing. I do that too much.