Oregon Backlash To Decriminalizing Hard Drugs

Seanchaidh

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As if communists have never propped up a military dictatorship. As if Russia didn't invade Ukraine (with your support) because they ceased to be puppets of Russia. As if the people you support and agree with have never exploited anyone.
Russia hasn't been communist for over 30 years. Capitalists took it over; you won, have some pride in your victory! It's your mess now. That doesn't mean you or the United States is within rights to conspire to destroy it, but it does mean you don't get to blame communism for that foreign government's attempts to defend itself from the-- at least viewed through the lens of the cold war-- bizarre aggression and machinations of the US Empire (including its hapless "allies").
 

Seanchaidh

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That hardly changes your support for it.
Much as you might contend otherwise, it is nonsense to equate opposition to US meddling and destabilization abroad with support for any particular state.
 

tstorm823

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Much as you might contend otherwise, it is nonsense to equate opposition to US meddling and destabilization abroad with support for any particular state.
You constantly frame your positions as support for particular states, and people have to point out that your principle is just opposition to the US.
 

Silvanus

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Because I've spent over a decade actually interacting with people who believe these things, and it took Russia invading Ukraine for you to pay attention to the tankies here.
Ah, so you're thinking your arguments with online randos constitutes expertise.

I've seen you routinely misrepresent what i think on these forums, so I have no faith that you're accurately relaying what these communists think either. Especially since I've also interacted with them.
 
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tstorm823

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I've seen you routinely misrepresent what i think on these forums.
But I haven't. I've accurately described your positions using different terms than you would have because you have those terms all wrong. You don't say I've got your positions wrong, you just won't describe those positions as conservative because you've trained yourself to see conservative as the other team.
 

Silvanus

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But I haven't. I've accurately described your positions using different terms than you would have because you have those terms all wrong. You don't say I've got your positions wrong, you just won't describe those positions as conservative because you've trained yourself to see conservative as the other team.
No, you've utterly misunderstood and misrepresented my positions quite frequently. You often tell me I believe things that I simply don't, and refuse to accept when i tell you otherwise-- and do the same to others. You believe-- quite arrogantly-- that you know the minds of others better than they do themselves.

So no, I don't believe for a moment you're accurately representing what communists believe. Not least because I've also interacted with them for years, and academically studied the movement, but also because your notion of communism is built primarily to denigrate communists.
 
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tstorm823

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No, you've utterly misunderstood and misrepresented my positions quite frequently. You often tell me I believe things that I simply don't, and refuse to accept when i tell you otherwise-- and do the same to others. You believe-- quite arrogantly-- that you know the minds of others better than they do themselves.
Name one thing.
 

Gergar12

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I will never elect a progressive DA ever in my life.

 

Phoenixmgs

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Uh-huh, but you cut out the line immediately preceding that, in which you very clearly said it was making things worse:



Honestly, why do you even try to fib about stuff like this?



No, Tstorm was the one here arguing that having conservative elements of thought and being conservative are exactly the same thing.
People high on the streets all over isn't making things worse (regardless if drug use itself is the same)? You get less tourism, less locals just out and doing stuff, etc.

Uhh...
Honestly, I'm just waiting for the moment Phoenix drops this whole "but both sides / I voted for Bernie" shit and realises that he is, in fact, conservative.
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I might implore you to slightly change your perspective. "What makes the most sense" is a dangerous standard because people have flawed perspectives just as part of the human condition. Sometimes the thing that seems to make most sense to people is a terrible idea that leads to immense suffering. I far prefer the option that leads to the best results, even if it doesn't make sense to people that it does so.

But seriously, you can agree to the premise that you're somewhat conservative. Pragmatism requires a certain amount of conservative thinking. Agema agrees to thinking that way, and Silvanus definitely thinks that way whether willing to admit it or not. This is the sort of thing I try to get people to see the distinctions between philosophies. Even a staunch progressive has more philosophically in common with me than they do a communist, assuming they are genuinely progressive and not just coopting that word as cover for their revolutionary leftism. Likewise, conservatives have more in common with progressives in their reasoning than they do with theocrats or even libertarians. An American conservative and a libertarian will often find common ground in their conclusions, but the reasoning to get there is infinitely different. And instead of appreciating that, society as a whole has just drawn a line between right and left (where that line is drawn may vary), and treats one side of the line as one team and the other side as the other team, even though the line typically takes the whole ball of pragmatic people, cuts it in half down the middle, and hands each half over to fringe idealogues.
That's what I meant by that and why my initial post in the thread is a lot of these policies have good intentions with the thought process basically stopping there and not actually thinking it past that point (aka the Cobra Effect). I couldn't care less about labels, I think they're stupid for the most part. I will work whatever problem through to what seems like the best solution. I couldn't care less if that solution is say a conservative or liberal talking point or what have you. The fact is that basic way of thinking just not happening any more because everything is so tribal. Debate is basically ad hominem attacks of this person said XYZ and they're on the other side so what they said is wrong because they aren't on my team (and vice versa) and nobody actually cares about the actual debate/argument. The Kyle Rittenhouse thing is a perfect example. I didn't pay attention to a thing concerning that until they released the actual video footage, watched it, so it was clear self-defense and I'm like "What are you all b!tching about? This is such an easy fucking trial." I've been on a criminal trial before, I know how it goes in instruction and in the jury room. There's a reason why it was an unanimous vote and they didn't have to do another trial.

a lot of anti-capitalists are more looking at reform towards something moderate like social democracy.
That's still capitalism...

Why do people just straight up use words wrong? A friend during the early phase of the pandemic posted a video where the guy said covid was an existential threat and I responded that covid is not an existential thread because that's not what existential means and the guy was using the word plain wrong, and my friend wouldn't even agree with me on that point.

Using results data to support conclusions is absolutely not conservative. I'd say it usually stands in stark opposition to the conservative position.
Liberals were horrible with using data to support conclusions during covid... Everyone needs to get vaccinated, yet no data supported that. Everyone needs boosters, yet no data supported that. Everyone needs to wear a mask, yet no data supported that. Schools need to be closed, yet no data supported that.
 

Silvanus

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People high on the streets all over isn't making things worse (regardless if drug use itself is the same)? You get less tourism, less locals just out and doing stuff, etc.
It's already been explained multiple times that decriminalisation is perfectly consistent with laws against public consumption.

We've been able to avoid people having sex in the streets without criminalising sex, you'll notice.
 

Phoenixmgs

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It's already been explained multiple times that decriminalisation is perfectly consistent with laws against public consumption.

We've been able to avoid people having sex in the streets without criminalising sex, you'll notice.
Yes, but the Oregon law makes it so you can't do anything to people using drugs publicly... That's the policy they put in place.
 

Silvanus

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Yes, but the Oregon law makes it so you can't do anything to people using drugs publicly... That's the policy they put in place.
No, it doesn't, as evidenced by the fact Portland has been aiming to ban public consumption without contravening the state law.
 
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Phoenixmgs

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No, it doesn't, as evidenced by the fact Portland has been able to ban public consumption without contravening the state law.
They can't ban public drug consumption, which I pointed out several times.

The Oregon statute outlaws local governments from adopting a policy that penalizes public consumption of alcohol or controlled substances. The 1971 law was established to address substance abuse as a health problem, rather than a crime. While that law does allow cities to prohibit alcohol consumption in specific areas – as with Portland’s public alcohol consumption ban – it does not allow the same exemption for drugs. That’s likely because illicit drug possession was considered illegal in Oregon until 2020.
 

Silvanus

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They can't ban public drug consumption, which I pointed out several times.

The Oregon statute outlaws local governments from adopting a policy that penalizes public consumption of alcohol or controlled substances. The 1971 law was established to address substance abuse as a health problem, rather than a crime. While that law does allow cities to prohibit alcohol consumption in specific areas – as with Portland’s public alcohol consumption ban – it does not allow the same exemption for drugs. That’s likely because illicit drug possession was considered illegal in Oregon until 2020.
Hm, there's a bit of complexity to this-- it's true Portland City Coucil was blocked from a public usage ban (my mistake there), but the barrier wasn't the new law-- it was a decades-old statute that clearly needs updating.

Update the statute (as they already did for alcohol), and public usage can be banned while drugs remain decriminalised.
 

Gordon_4

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Hm, there's a bit of complexity to this-- it's true Portland City Coucil was blocked from a public usage ban (my mistake there), but the barrier wasn't the new law-- it was a decades-old statute that clearly needs updating.

Update the statute (as they already did for alcohol), and public usage can be banned while drugs remain decriminalised.
Again, this needs to be paired with things like safe injecting rooms and needle exchange. Normally I’d suggest putting the injecting rooms on hospital campuses because then it’s just one more medical function and it keeps them more or less away from places like schools. However the risk there is doctors may see patients there and refuse certain treatments, or the cops might just camp the place for easy collars.

So the injecting rooms ideally need to be somewhere reasonably isolated for the privacy of addicts and staff but also peace of mind of the general public. My first thought is an industrial sort of area because tradies tend to be less skittish than us white collar folks. Maybe also hire a private security firm to safeguard the staff.
 

Satinavian

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Again, this needs to be paired with things like safe injecting rooms and needle exchange. Normally I’d suggest putting the injecting rooms on hospital campuses because then it’s just one more medical function and it keeps them more or less away from places like schools.
In America, where "going to the hospital" is associated with such ridiculous costs that even many sick/injured avoid it when possible ?

What you discribe sounds like some kind of taxpayer funded public service to the benefit of drug users. I don't think that is likely over there.
 

Phoenixmgs

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Hm, there's a bit of complexity to this-- it's true Portland City Coucil was blocked from a public usage ban (my mistake there), but the barrier wasn't the new law-- it was a decades-old statute that clearly needs updating.

Update the statute (as they already did for alcohol), and public usage can be banned while drugs remain decriminalised.
The problem is that they never think out any of these policies. For example, the issue right here. And, also the fact that the new law that decriminalized drugs made it so drug use in a $100 fine but can be waived by calling a drug hotline. Do you not see how ridiculously dumb that logic is?

It's like when a company does some promotion for black history month (or whatever) and it did have good intentions but is just so blatantly bad. You know that all they had to do to avoid that happening was just to ask a single black person beforehand. That's the kinda logic that went into writing this Oregon law, they took all the teeth out of what other countries had done because they view the world so idealized, they don't understand why you need the teeth.