The Goat Pen

Who isn't doing hockey stick graphs now????


More fake news.

These things go in cycles. Find me a chart of crack use and deaths from the 1980's, I'm sure it spiked similar to how opioids are spiking now, and yet I bet those numbers are now far, far less than half of what they were in the mid 1980's (seriously, does anybody even smoke crack anymore?). On another note that I mentioned before, look at the response to the crack epidemic in the 1980's. Who was using crack back then? Overwhelmingly it was inner city blacks. And what was the response? War on drugs, mandatory minimums, throw anybody caught with a few grams of crack in jail and throw away the key. But now that it's Cindy and Bobby in the heartland, everybody, i.e., white people, have all of a sudden become "enlightened" as to the complexities of addiction and the idea that it's a medical issue that requires treatment, not jail.

But the real point is, these things always burn themselves out, mainly b/c so many of the drug users burn themselves out and everybody in the community notices it (how could they not?). People aren't dumb, they see crackheads pissing themselves in the streets or junkies dying and they think to themselves "hmmm, maybe this isn't such a good idea." That's exactly what's going to happen with this opioid epidemic. Like I said before, it sucks that it takes such extreme results to get people's attention, but such is the case. But like I also said, even if crack and heroin were "only" as deadly as tobacco, i.e., no danger of overdose, but just a life of gradual debilitation and slow death, people would still be against it b/c they associate it with inner city blacks and low life's. Can't have those folks enjoying themselves...

Freakonomics says Roe V Wade is the reason the crack epidemic ended.

I always picture white middle class families as being the primary users of abortion...

Re Tobacco: we pay for that shit ten fold with the end of life healthcare costs.

My first cousin died of a cocaine induced heart attack after twenty years of addiction. Maybe he would still be alive if cocaine was legalized and he had obtained clean coke. Then again, that dumbass was just bound to die due to natural selection...

The president also kept saying he was always going to “put America first,” which is of course true. But at a U.N. venue, it was a little like going to the first meeting of the PTA and repeatedly pointing out that you only care about your own kid.

exactly what his voters wanted him to do.

The only thing missing from that speech was Trump slamming his shoe on the podium.

Not to feed the hedgehog's ego in this argument, but he does have the supporting fact that heroine is illegal, now, and that doesn't seem to be an obstacle for people getting it.

People are going to get what they want irregardless. Demand creates supply. Hell, you can get whatever you want in prison, what does that tell you? The only effective alternative would be something like North Korea or some Islamic state where they execute you immediately. I suspect that before Cindy and Bobby started doing heroin, more than a few folks around here would've supported that method...

If anything, the illegality gives it some kind of subversive, underground allure. If it was legal, it would become passe, although as I've said, my prediction is that this whole thing is going to fall back into the usual pattern of where it was pretty much forever until this recent surge in interest (for whatever reason)...

bluetick wrote:The big takeaway, however, was that the president of the United States had threatened to destroy a country with 25 million people[/i]

That would be a good start. A VERY good start. With Iran next up to bat.

Trump's speech was precisely the kind of non-politically correct, non-diplomatic-gobbledygook bluntness that is part of the reason his poll numbers are up recently.

"up up up!"

WRT heroin, I despise that stuff. It is a blight on humanity. But in the end, it is what many people (foolishly) want. Whether legal or illegal, foolish people will find a way to get it. The only question is whether the government will expend enormous resources to stop it and dismally fail, or not. Either way, as long as millions of foolish people want it, it will be here. The Libertararian in me says legalize it, let the drug cartels go out of business, and let the Darwinian forces reduce the number of foolish people in the population.

That said, if my kid were hooked on it, I'm sure I'd become a Prohibitionist.

See, that's what I don't get. You admit that people are going to get it irregardless of whatever prohibition the government puts on it, resulting in all the problems of a dangerous activity made that much more dangerous, but then you say you'd be a prohibitionist if your kid was on it. By my way of thinking, if my kid or loved one was on it, I'd be even that much more desirous of it being legal and regulated. I wouldn't be happy that my kid was on it, but I'd feel at least somewhat better knowing that he was getting a regulated dose in a safe environment rather than trying to score on the street getting who knows what. That is, if he's not robbed and assaulted in the process.

Nobody is saying heroin is good or even slightly OK, I'm just saying if people are going to be able to get it and use it, which they undoubtedly are and forever will be able to, then why not make it as safe as possible in a place with medical staff available and information about how to try and get off the stuff? It's better for the addict and better for society in general and at least incrementally better for the family of the addict who at least have the assurance that their loved one isn't getting beaten or killed in the process of trying to buy a product that could be tainted and kill them...

I think the issue is that people have this idea that if they're in favor of legalized, regulated drugs, that that somehow equates to approving of it, which is ridiculous. Again, it's like Vietnam, we got stuck in a situation that wasn't going to end like we wanted it to, but instead of doing something to lessen the casualties, we just kept following the same losing path for years and years, with awful results. But nobody wanted to do anything different b/c they didn't want anybody to think they were soft on communism or whatever. Just wrong thinking which inevitably leads to bad results...

Despite global warming creating massive and more frequent hurricanes, people still want to live on the beach. When the hurricanes/heroin get bad enough, maybe the dumbasses will cease...





Rising sea levels and fierce storms have failed to stop relentless population growth along U.S. coasts in recent years, a new Associated Press analysis shows. The latest punishing hurricanes scored bull’s-eyes on two of the country’s fastest growing regions: coastal Texas around Houston and resort areas of southwest Florida.

Nothing seems to curb America’s appetite for life near the sea, especially in the warmer climates of the South. Coastal development destroys natural barriers such as islands and wetlands, promotes erosion and flooding, and positions more buildings and people in the path of future destruction, according to researchers and policy advisers who study hurricanes.

...During the same years, two of Florida’s fastest-growing coastline counties — retirement-friendly Lee and Manatee, both south of Tampa — welcomed 16 percent more people. That area took a second direct hit from Irma after it made first landfall in the Florida Keys, where damage was far more devastating.

Overall growth of 10 percent in Texas Gulf counties and 9 percent along Florida’s coasts during the same period was surpassed only by South Carolina. Its seaside population, led by the Myrtle Beach area of Horry County, ballooned by more than 13 percent.

Nationally, coastline counties grew an average of 5.6 percent since 2010, while inland counties gained just 4 percent. This recent trend tracks with decades of development along U.S. coasts. Between 1960 and 2008, the national coastline population rose by 84 percent, compared with 64 percent inland, according to the Census Bureau.

See, that's what I don't get. You admit that people are going to get it irregardless of whatever prohibition the government puts on it, resulting in all the problems of a dangerous activity made that much more dangerous, but then you say you'd be a prohibitionist if your kid was on it.

The logical Libertarian side of me is begrudgingly in favor of legalization. But if my kid got addicted to heroin, I know the emotional desire to make the person who sold my kid heroin disappear forever would probably overwhelm the logical side of me. That's the best way I can explain it.

hedge wrote: I wish you would disappear forever.

no shortage of opinions on why Hillary lost on the heels of her book but I thought this was a good read

an excerpt....

Clinton and the campaign acted as if “demographics is destiny” and a “rainbow coalition” was bound to govern. Yes, there is a growing “Rising American Electorate,” but as Page Gardner and I wrote at the outset of this election, you must give people a compelling reason to vote. I have demonstrated for my entire career that a candidate must target white working-class voters, too.

Not surprisingly, Clinton took her biggest hit in Michigan, where she failed to campaign in Macomb County, the archetypal white working-class county. That was the opposite of her husband’s approach. Bill Clinton visibly campaigned in Macomb, the black community in Detroit, and elsewhere.

The fatal conclusion the Clinton team made after the Michigan primary debacle was that she could not win white working-class voters, and that the “rising electorate” would make up the difference. She finished her campaign with rallies in inner cities and university towns. Macomb got the message. “When you leave the two-thirds of Americans without college degrees out of your vision of the good life, they notice,” Joan Williams writes sharply in White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America.


http://prospect.org/article/how-she-lost

Ironically, democrats have historically always done far more for working class whites than republicans ever have. Of course, Trump isn't really a republican, but i suspect any gains working class whites might make during his tenure are going to more closely approximate what they get under repubs than dems...

Trump truly is "President Provocateur." I read that term this a.m. and it fits the man to a 'T'.

He is one slight-avenging/score-settling SOB. And if something isn't going his way, he'll find a pot to stir elsewhere..just because he can. And it's soooo easy...laying in bed, reaching for his cellphone, finding the twitter app..

God I wish he drank. Or did drugs.

hedge wrote:Ironically, democrats have historically always done far more for working class whites than republicans ever have.

Correct. The fact that you used the past participle tense is why working class whites don't like Democrats anymore.

Of course, Trump isn't really a republican,

Also correct, which is why working class whites DO like Trump.

...but i suspect any gains working class whites might make during his tenure are going to more closely approximate what they get under repubs than dems...

Incorrect. At the very least, what working class whites get from Trump is a guy who is NOT openly hostile them, unlike the Democrats and Republicans.

hedge wrote:Ironically, democrats have historically always done far more for working class whites than republicans ever have. Of course, Trump isn't really a republican, but i suspect any gains working class whites might make during his tenure are going to more closely approximate what they get under repubs than dems...

Many of those pork barrel southern democrats moved over to the republican party after the civil rights act

bluetick wrote:Trump truly is "President Provocateur." I read that term this a.m. and it fits the man to a 'T'.

He is one slight-avenging/score-settling SOB. And if something isn't going his way, he'll find a pot to stir elsewhere..just because he can. And it's soooo easy...laying in bed, reaching for his cellphone, finding the twitter app..

God I wish he drank. Or did drugs.

To paraphrase Rat, how do you know he doesn't?