Peterkin

Laws are not enacted on the basis of scientific study, or measured, well-reasoned analysis. laws are enacted on the basis of power distribution, expediency, patronage, political pressure, prejudice, custom, fad and panic. They're sometimes altered and modified by sober afterthoughts and to correct unforeseen negative effects... ad hoc, piecemeal, half-assedly, hoping enough tinkering will finally satisfy everyone - well, everyone who matters. Nobody knows. That was my point.

I see where that's not so easy. Do we have any statistics on the breakdown of hard-drug related offenses? How many are for possession and trafficking (directly because the drug is illegal, for which there are no counterparts for legal alcohol). How many for property crimes in order to get money to acquire the drug on which the user is dependent? (Indirectly because the drug is illegal - while alcoholics who hold up liquor stores are not counted as junkies) . How many are actions taken under the influence of a hard drug? Comparisons are not always straightforward: all we have is statistics compiled under the same system of legal disparity, by people with the same bias.

Nor does one need to be physically dependent in order to get drunk once in a while, even if he only consumes his 7-14 ration on Saturday night, and cause a multi-vehicle accident, or beat up his family, or get involved in an incident - say the celebration of a football victory - that leads to serious trouble. No, we don't all; most of us are reasonably restrained, some have simply been lucky.

Aha. Is that the same consideration a defective baby gets? Pretty much.

The law doesn't regard pain, infliction or tolerance thereof, as a criterion for any decision. It certainly is not under consideration by legislatures who forbid abortion to foetuses with serious birth defects or in-utero injuries that would condemn them, if born, to a short or long life of suffering. It is not under consideration by legislators who vote against assisted suicide for terminal patients. And obviously, legislators who send people to incompetent executioners don't give a flying concern.

I don't think that is a definition of self-awareness, let alone the comprehensive definition. This is not exactly a new subject for conjecture and discussion, a great many definitions have been proposed (for which I'm unable to go hunting right now.), some more satisfactory than others. Sez who? You mean man-made objects? Why? For a 15-year-old modern, urban human, mirrors have been a standard fixture of their environment for at least 14 years. For a 15-year-old native of the remote Andes, mirrors may be entirely unknown. They may be surprised and delighted by a mirror, or terrified of it, but the substance and function of it can be explained to them. They also have a considerably larger brain than the average cardinal. I'm not sure why you're so concerned about this cardinal behaviour. It sounds to me more like something a male would do than a female; I have to cover my mirrors in springtime from robins and redwings. They see a reflection and take it for another member of their species who is invading their territory and must be driven off - particularly if it's near their nesting site. The motivation and the behaviour are clear and logical in terms of bird life, but the artifact has no significance in terms of bird culture.

Just as we hope that the generals who send soldiers into battle, the judges who sent offenders to death row, the legislators who condemn defective babies to life, the families who refuse permission to turn off ventilators, etc. do not miscalculate. People live; people make decisions; people die. As a species, we don't exactly have a pristine record of correct decisions.

Yes... But.. This had probably been covered already; I have internet service problems right now, so it's hard to navigate back and find out what's been said; forgive me if this is redundant. Harm to others is very difficult to measure, especially from the POV of someone who finds life difficult to bear. Should he go on suffering for the sake of his children? If their survival depends on him, perhaps. If, however, they insist on his continuing to suffer his life rather then they should suffer his loss, who is doing the the harm to whom? Many suicides do it in order to save their loved from the burden of their own continued existence. Short term grief, even tainted with secret guilt, is easier to recover from than the long-term hardship and secret resentment of caring for an incapacitated dependent. Then again, some people (notably jilted lovers and frustrated teenagers) kill themselves out of spite, to punish somebody. They should stopped and given time, whether they want it or not, to reconsider. Because they usually do.

It's the only kind of opinion I have. Two. Maximum two - I swear.

Nobody can possibly tell anybody else whether their suicide is right or wrong. It's not a question of right and wrong; it's a question of being able or unable to tolerate one's life. Entirely subjective.

All I did was respond, simply, directly and succinctly, to your posts. Why make a federal case out of it?

I strongly recommend attempting both. Anthropocentric assumptions have kept us in ignorance about and indifference to everyone else - and pretty soon, there won't be anyone else. Really? The existence of a watch proves... what? God?

No.

Condemnation of all things carnal was ever dear to the religious zealot's heart. Loose women are the easiest target; female sexuality is the most dangerous thing in the bible.

In the 90's, I could get a pretty decent box of plonk for $7US in LA, compared to $21CD in Ontario, (Leave us not speak of the beer). And our income was almost double there. We must have been mad to come back.... Anyway, it's still legal and somehow even the homeless and destitute manage to get an excess of it.

This is largely true in Ontario, although recently some supermarkets and convenience stores have been licensed, fully or party (beer only or beer and wine). The down-side of restriction is inconvenience to the customer; the up-side is tight control. The Liquor Control Board outlets are very strict about age-checking and quality control. They also get some good deals on import items because of sheer size and volume, and in a position to feature local small breweries, wineries and distilleries. (and they've been very conscientious on Covid protocol) It's good, reliable tax revenue. Yes, most alcohilc beverages are more expensive than in the US, but I wouldn't say 'extremely' expensive. (Cigarettes, now... )

They don't miss a trick!

And a long-standing voter-suppression system now.

And renoted, should you deem it necessary.

OK. Your rejection is duly and solemnly noted.

It mean you lack sufficient other-awareness to put a bag over the damn mirror! Self-awareness does not require understanding of artefacts from outside one's natural environment. The natives of the Americas were conscious and self-aware, but gunpowder-unaware.

that was your word that was mine: other reliable sources can provide the historical documentation to corroborate the one I cited. You must, of course, please yourself.

And there is still the known but largely unaddressed problem of prescription drugs - legally available and harmful to the more prosperous and empowered; illegally available and harmful to the most vulnerable: the poor and the young. Another aspect of criminalizing everything in sight: once out of sight, the user still isn't safe, and neither is a previous non-user https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/prison-drug-problem-jail-uk-illicit-substances-reform-a9288616.html It's not just the UK, obviously: There was an interesting article, also, on the fact that only 11% of prisoners with drug addiction are getting any treatment. But my internet connection is playing silly buggers today, so I'm giving up on that link. Criminalization is just not working.

The spike in abortions was not due to the Supreme Court decision. It was merely the legal resurfacing of a practice that goes way back. Roe v Wade in the US, as had happened a few years before in Canada, merely meant that it happens on operating tables instead of kitchen tables. Of course, a great many abortions were already being performed in doctors' offices and private clinics, without documentation. Both the documentation and the patient survival rate in the lower classes increased dramatically (I don't have time to look up infanticide and abandonment stats). Everybody had known all along, but now they could know it aloud. In the post WWII decades, western society exercised the break with its Christian foundations - a break for which the philosophical groundwork had been laid between the world wars, by Huxley, Russell et al. At the same time, the great burgeoning of women's social, economic and political emancipation - also with its roots in the early 20th century, and its collision with existing power structure in the 1960's, at the same time that the single largest cohort the western world had ever produced entered its reproductive stage. At the same time that the Civil Rights Movement - not coincidentally - made substantial progress. In the 1970's, all of these forces converged. And they all threatened the the long entrenched, self-entitled power structure, social structure, legal structure. At the same time that some white factions feared desegregation (with the concomitant challenge from Black men for the jobs and positions white men considered their domain) they were also faced with a challenge for those positions of economic and political power from women, who, hitherto had been kept out of the fray by motherhood and dependency. Whipping up a moral backlash on behalf of the 'precious little murdered babies' had a triple advantage: it turned the decent, God-fearing women against the wanton Jezebels (dividing women for easy conquest), created a politically impotent underclass of shamed, impoverished unwed mothers (useful as football and whipping post) and, besides masking the unsavoury motivations of that faction, also concealed the building of the existential threat that is the GOP of today. (Side-note: Wouldn't you think that, if the moral Protestants were seriously concerned about unborn babies and their mothers' souls, they would advocate strongly for, rather than against family planning, sex education and birth control? ) The 'abortion issue' is indeed the biggest, most effective smokescreen since the 13th century witch-hunts... with much the same designated target. No, on second thought, that's incorrect. The great open-ended commie-hunt of the 50's was another. Similar motives, different fall-guy.

irrespective of what it contains, it's hard to believe. It's also readily verifiable from any number of historical sources. Here is another opinionated article. https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/four-decades-counting-continued-failure-war-drugs# Second circle. I don't. Maybe you're right. Maybe if something didn't work the first fifteen times, the sixteenth attempt will have different results. What is your 'stance'? I thought you were in favour of legal alcohol (the most dangerous) and illegal mushrooms (the least dangerous).