Topic: Donating to the Zimmerman Defense Fund - page 2. (Read 8593 times)

It looks like we should have kept our off topic drug conversation going on here since no one seem to care about the OP.

I think it's amazingly hyperbolic to compare police officers trying to save people from addiction to Nazis. It's also very historically off base, alcohol prohibition was a policy of progressives and advocates for women's rights, for example, not of fascists or similar right wing groups.  They famously met in German beer halls.  Concern for the well being of our fellow men is a hallmark of the left.


I don't really agree with this at all.  I am not aware of any prohibitions that have been created by prison investors, as private prisons themselves are a relatively new concept.  Or by cocaine dealers or pharmaceutical/material companies fearing competition.  Foreign invaders have been more likely to promote addiction as a tool of oppression, see the opium wars as an example where the British used the opium trade to their advantage creating an outbreak of addiction for the Chinese to deal with.  Or consider the role of alcohol in the American triangle trade --  Molasses from the Caribbean to make rum in New England, rum to Africa to buy slaves, slaves to the Caribbean to grow sugar, sugar and molasses to make rum in New England...A cycle of oppression powered by alcohol.

Thanks for your replies.  It is helpful to hear the mindset from somebody who truly believes in prohibition as a potential help to society (I take that at face value).

So often the prohibitionists are the ones motivated by corruption, short term personal wealth, or fear, and represent the height of hyposcrisy, and so such a voice as you present is unusual so thanks again for your posts.

As you probably know from the history of drug prohibition, it is usually created as a policy for other political ends, e.g. prison investors who want more customers, cocaine dealers who want competition eliminated and profits increased, foreign invaders who wish to imprison certain segments of the population and control markets, as a mean to eliminate competing medicines or raw materials, etc. etc.  

Your point about previous prohibitions and decriminalizations is well taken: while anecdotal evidence may be overwhelming to suggest that lifting prohibition immediately decreases violence and benefits society immensely these are not controlled experiments, and harm from the prohibited substances was not eliminated.  One cannot point to this as "proof".

Consider instead a purchase you have made in the last few days.  Now imagine that I claim this contains "poison" and suggest that you be arrested, comparing your purchase to murder or child porn.  Ridiculous?  Yes.  Angry?  Yes.  Guess what.  It doesn't matter.  My argument that the plastic, the carbon released, the addictive nature of the behavior it spawns, might be right or wrong, but in the end it doesn't matter because when the police come to your house they don't care if the plastic was really bad, or even if you really made that purchase!  

You may think it is OK that they go after the nicotine users, rip apart their families, and steal their posessions, because you are not a nicotine user.  But in the end, when you or your children are facing uniformed young men with weapons, your cries that you are "not a user" will be treated the same way as cries of women in who said "we are not witches" or germans who said "we are not jews".  They will be ignored, and then you will join the again increasingly large segment of society who are victims of fascism.  And you will be able to do nothing, because you didn't stand up against it when you had the chance.  

Best of luck to you -    


  

Move your comments about drugs to other topic please!

It gets even worse when you consider the addicts that are still living, but in misery while blowing a significant amount of money on their addiction and/or living with associated diseases.  Or think about all the alcoholics who have endangered everyone by drunk driving, or even killed people.  Or those who lost their job and relationships due to their addiction. 

Imagine if heroin addicts (and impressionable kids and teenagers) had to see professional ads for heroin, see it in the stores, see people using it openly.  It's not a recipe for getting people off it.

Those are amazing statistics. Not trolling but something should be done to reduce those deaths, I honestly don't know what and don't believe in banning things.

The study, by experts, is looking at the evidence to find the consensus.  They conclude there are considerable risks, like all the other experts do.  As I said, any time I point to the experts views on the studies you go "NUH UH THEY AREN'T EXPERTS!" so this is entirely pointless.  You think you know better than the scientists, you are making a faith based argument it is impossible to debate.


The scientists disagree with you, and state there are considerable risks to using this drug.  Your opinion is not a substitute for scientific fact.


Food is necessary to sustain life.  People who are allergic to a food product simply avoid it, as milk and eggs are not addictive drugs like Marijuana.  This is what separates the two products.  As for your "bet", I think we should stick with what the scientists say, that there are considerable risks to using the drug, instead of your opinions.


And yet the experts say there are considerable risks. 


Pretty much any look at all the studies leads to the conclusion that pot can cause paranoia and panic attacks, which can easily make someone make aggressive bad decisions about someone who has no ill intent towards them.


It's common knowledge dude, even outside England.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_use_of_firearms_in_the_United_Kingdom


Right, which is why we need to get rid of those guns first. I'm okay with waiting on that to stop having the cops carry them.


Exactly, it's better to put users in mandatory inpatient treatment programs.  You can save some money over imprisonment and have a better chance of not having to arrest them again.  The distributors though, should definitely be in jail.  They are knowingly harming the addicts for profit and it can't be tolerated.  Even places like the Netherlands don't tolerate the trafficking.


I don't believe helping someone to solve their drug problem is punishing them, addiction is not a consensual behavior.  It's a compulsion brought on by a poison, and it harms the children and other family members of the addicts as well as the addicts themselves.


I see one person who has exploited another person by selling them an addictive product that will compel them to by more even if they want to stop.  Addicts routinely end up selling their bodies to get more drugs, the connection between sexual exploitation and drug abuse is real and scary.

http://baynews9.com/content/news/baynews9/news/article.html/content/news/articles/bn9/2012/5/25/pinellas_sheriff_tee.html


Legalization has still left us with 75,000 deaths a year from Alcohol and 443,000 yearly from cigarettes so I'm not exactly impressed with your claims that legalization is going to solve anything. 

Selling to the underage is rampant:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_consumption_by_youth_in_the_United_States

Underage drinking is a major public health problem.


I said I'm originally from Clearwater, my work took me to England.


Pure denialism, the scientists who have looked at the bulk of the evidence have identified considerable risk.  Cherry picking out lines from studies does not change that.

Thanks.  I didn't intend to go so far off topic.  I just can't stand when someone presents a truck load of evidence and then don't actually read it and a bunch of it ends up supporting the other sides argument.

Rarity, I thought you said you were in Florida? I guess that must have been someone else.

mlawrence, you don't know Zimmerman didn't need a cop! Both sides of this debate need to start using words like "allegedly"


Back on Topic:

Does anyone know if the money hidden by Zimmerman and/or his wife was the money donated to the defense fund?  Did anyone here donate to it? How do you feel about your money being hidden instead of being used to actually defend him in court (if that is in fact the case)?

It's very sad to see how many people will just believe everything Ryan Julison wants them to believe without doing any research or fact-checking on their own.

Zimmerman didn't need a cop - he just judged and murdered that boy on his own.

I started another topic on the drug war in an attempt to help this thread stay on track.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/are-we-winning-the-drug-war-87810

Cheers.

Exactly my point thanks.  Putting 3 million people in jail as political prisoners (thats what you call it when there is no victim) makes things worse as you say, and costs a lot.  The people who suffer are often the children and families as you point out.   

I can see people have ganged up on you here so I'll cut it short.  You said at one point you like to help your fellow man.  And yet you are also saying we should arrest people for consensual adult behavior, in which no victim has come forth to complain, and punish them harshly.  Don't you see the contradiction?  Do you see two satisfied people who have done business together with no complaints and this reminds you of child porn or murder?  I hope not. 

You seem to have the need to point out that drugs are dangerous.  That is -my- point.  Of course they are.  Too dangerous to leave in the hands of criminals.  Prohibition makes them still more dangerous and eliminates our ability to regulate, put age limits, quality limits, volume limits, etc. 

Do you really want to help your fellow man, or would you rather see your fellow man locked up, families broken up, and corrupt politicians and drug dealers running your prison? 

   

 

Here in parts of America everyone carries a gun. I would be very unwise for a cop to do their job unarmed. Of course since we are all armed we don't really need them much.

P.S. I would not donate to GZ as I think he was trying to get away with taking his paypal donations.

Did you dry your piss and smoke it? WTF...

Guys this is getting really off topic, the question is what is the best way to donate to Zimmerman's defense fund? (Not that I think he isn't guilty, which he is...)

The scientific consensus of the experts is that marijuana poses considerable health risks.  You are the one claiming it is safe, not them.  You can't cherry pick lines from studies and say that means the experts agree with you when they are clearly saying otherwise.  Every time I point to such experts, you claim they don't count, so I'm not sure why I should continue to do so, but here you go:

http://www.narconon.org/drug-information/marijuana-faq.html


http://www.globaldrugpolicy.org/Issues/Vol%203%20Issue%202/Review%20of%20the%20Research.pdf


Looking at all the evidence leads to the conclusion that some of the users will have their lives severely disrupted by the drug.  Recreational use is not worth the cost of sacrificing the lives of some of the users and the harm it will do to their families.

You will note that what the experts conclude about potential damage to the heart is that more studied is needed because they are not confident it is safe.  What you do with a study is cherry pick out a line and say it means marijuana should be legal.  Nope, the experts have their concerns because they also look at the parts of the study that you want to ignore.

There are just too many potential dangers and no medical benefits to allowing recreational pot use.  

Lie of omission? What?

I don't take this one study alone to mean marijuana use is safe.  I take it to mean that scientists are trying to figure it out and so far according to all but ONE of the studies linked here (that now both of us have at least read the abstract of), moderate use is not dangerous.  According to some of the secondary sources that you directly linked to that reference the actual science, marijuana is dangerous.  However those people making the claims ARE NOT THE EXPERTS.  The scientists who published the articles are the experts.

I still say that one man being potentially killed because of being high when AT LEAST 1/3 of the country has smoked pot is a fringe case at best and not worthy of prohibition.  Most of California and the 10 (I think) other states with medicinal marijuana would be full of kids being shot on their walk home from 7/11 otherwise.

Not only that, but it has not been proven at all by the courts. It looks to me that the pot is just as likely to have caused this tragedy as the skittles in his hand or the hoodie on his back.

You are alleging that Martin attacked Zimmerman.  I have yet to see proof of this. This is something that the courts have not said.

But Hey! Look at that! Back on topic (kinda)! We did it Rarity!

If you take it to mean that marijuana use is safe, you are definitely misinterpreting it.  It was a lie of omission. 

The reason addiction is a problem is that it short circuits people's ability to moderate their use.  If you just smoked a few cigarettes you would be perfectly fine, but they are still rightfully regarded as a deadly product.  Marijuana can also lead to poor decision making and paranoia and aggressive tendencies that led to Martin attacking Zimmerman, even one use is dangerous and the only benefit is short term fun that you can find in healthy activities instead.

Not probably not. There is ZERO chance that is being misinterpreted.  Maybe those scientist's data is wrong and so their conculsion is wrong.  But I am 100% guaranteed that I am not (even without being called an expert) misinterpreting their conclusion.

I literally just copy/pasted the conclusion as written by the original scientists.

Heavy use of ANYTHING is dangerous.  They use the terms CAUTION and MODERATION, not abstinence. You see that right?

EDIT: I wasted my "leet" post on this