Supreme Court upholds Obamacare

Yeah, you showed me, calling me an ass. Great work. You are always right and probably the smartest man I've ever heard - how dare anyone on here not agree with you?

I listen to what you say all the time - and it's always the same anti-government rants backed up by your facts and figures and polls and diatribe. I listen because I am interested in this stuff, but I never like what I hear you say.

You just want to live in some non-government free-for-all country where anything goes - why don't you just move? Form your own nation of nothing for all I care - and please tell us how it goes.

Because for all your histrionics, Obamacare passed and some people support it. And all your self-righteous indignation ain't gonna change that.

That type of kindness isn't going to fly here, mister! Prepare to be berated and badmouthed! That's crazy talk!

Why does it have to be one or the other? Can't we not be forced to pay for other peoples' crap AND not be in wars in the Middle East?

I know this concept is strange to some people, but we don't HAVE TO be doing these things.

If you have "no problem" helping others, then why don't you just do it? Why do you need the government to force you to do it?

YOU HAVE ZERO FACTS TO BACK UP YOUR CLAIMS THAT DRUGS ARE MORE DEADLY THAN FOOD. I HAVE FACTS TO PROVE MY POINT. WHAT PART OF THIS IS SO HARD FOR YOU TO UNDERSTAND?

I'm not "twisting" any statistics. America has a very serious obesity problem that is almost entirely due to our eating habits and the terrible quality foods that we consume.

Would you like to debate that statement? If not, then off about it already.

I never said that any of it should be banned. Only that, if you're making an argument that something is dangerous and thus should be banned, then you need to be consistent in banning things that are proven to be more dangerous.

And no, not everyone who disagrees me is a liberal ass and wrong. HULK and I disagree constantly. Slappy and I disagree sometimes. TRW and I disagree on things pretty regularly. Hell, even Timoteo disagree on some things. There are TONS of people who I disagree with on this forum. but at least they attempt to back up their claims with facts.

You're sitting here, claiming I'm wrong, while providing zero factual evidence to your claim whatsoever. You're saying that countless scientists are wrong.

I don't go into threads and say, "I'm right and you're wrong" unless, like you did, someone makes an absurd claim that can be proven to be wrong. For the most part, we're debating philosophy which cannot be proven unless tested -- thus, there's no reason for me to say, "you're wrong," again, unless someone says something that can be proven wrong.

You're right - the majority of the country doesn't agree with me. Then again, the majority of the country doesn't agree with anyone. The difference is that, once someone becomes a libertarian or an anarcho-capitalist, it is EXTREMELY rare that they go back. Can that be said about any other political ideology? Not really. We've seen Ron Paul's popularity steadily rise. Will it be enough to become President? Probably not. But we never saw any significant drop-off in his support at any time during the past eight years. His popularity only rose... This is because once someone said that they supported Paul's libertarian views, the vast majority of those people never went to another candidate. This cannot be said for anyone else, including Romney and Obama.

Again, facts here...

Portugal decriminalized drugs and has seen not only a decrease in spending, less violence and more money being used for treatment and education versus confinement... But they have also seen a significant decrease in drug usage.

"Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success," says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. "It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does."

The Cato paper reports that between 2001 and 2006 in Portugal, rates of lifetime use of any illegal drug among seventh through ninth graders fell from 14.1% to 10.6%; drug use in older teens also declined. Lifetime heroin use among 16-to-18-year-olds fell from 2.5% to 1.8% (although there was a slight increase in marijuana use in that age group). New HIV infections in drug users fell by 17% between 1999 and 2003, and deaths related to heroin and similar drugs were cut by more than half. In addition, the number of people on methadone and buprenorphine treatment for drug addiction rose to 14,877 from 6,040, after decriminalization, and money saved on enforcement allowed for increased funding of drug-free treatment as well.

Source: TIME Magazine

You take the government out of the drug game and you put violent drug dealers out of business. You take little kids off the streets who are currently selling drugs for said drug dealers. Most importantly, you take people out of prison who there for crimes that do not affect other people.

In 2008, 90.7% of Americans in federal prison were there for non-violent crimes. 90 PERCENT!!!!!!! The majority of these were due to drug-related crimes.

You legalize drugs, you massively decrease the prison population, thus easing the burden of taxpayers who are currently paying for every bit of these prisoners' lives when they are behind bars.

Four years ago, I got married four months after both my wife and I lost our jobs. We were both able to scrape by - she eventually returned to an old employer, and I temped for eight months before taking on a low paying retail position, but at the time, every last dollar was important and precious to us. Paying the rent would typically leave us with a balance in the double digits on which to survive until payday came around. Health insurance was right out of the question. Our employers offered it, but it simply wasn't in our budget.

Suppose the us of then existed today, when this mandate was set in place. We can't afford the health insurance, but to refuse to buy it would leave us with another expense in the end - say, a $95 tax per person. Rent has just been paid for the month.

The way I see it, we'd best take up religion, because we'll be praying that no one's car runs out of gas, and we'd better have enough food in the fridge, 'cause payday isn't for another week, and we're still gonna have that tax taken out.

I could very easily say that if this was passed four years ago then yes, it would have placed an undue burden on my life.

I still think the issue is less health care, and more "if we can be forced to buy this, or anything for that matter, then what next?".

What happens though Nick whenever a drug deal goes bad that leads to violence. What happens if you do take a drug such as PCP which makes a nice, calm, quiet every day citizen turn into a madman?

Legalizing drugs is not the answer. You say that it's our right as Americans to be able to do that, but if crime rates soared you would be saying "It doesn't link to drugs!"

And to the guy who said I was wrong, I am TELLING you I have seen my cousin lie, cheat, steal, abuse (mainly to his girlfriends) just to get the next hit, and he just started with beer and pot. I've seen close friends who have told me that beer doesn't even phase them anymore. What do they do? They hit the hard liquor. I've also seen friends who started weed and have eventually turned to things like crack and meth.

Comparing junk food to dangerous drugs like meth is, quite frankly, intellectually- disabled. If I order a pizza, I'm taking a chance at my own health. If my neighbor decides to cook meth, he's taking a chance of blowing up his apartment, my apartment, and the surrounding apartments around him.

As for facts, here are some facts about some meth findings right here in Mississippi:

www.wlox.com/story/18732760/significant-meth-bust-made-in-jackson-county

Here's the video:

www.wlox.com/category/194069/video-center?clipId=7376469&autostart=true

www.wlox.com/story/18618487/biloxi-police-arrest-3-suspects-on-meth-charge

oceansprings.wlox.com/news/crime/55576-5-arrested-after-authorities-find-meth-lab-car-and-hotel-room

lucedale.wlox.com/news/crime/56222-agricola-man-arrested-meth-charge


And these are just a few since May of this year. Every single article said how they had to send a clean up crew in quick enough to clean the area to make sure that it didn't affect other areas of the community. The first article and video said he had 9 meth labs and 16 HCl containers. Hydrochloric acid is extremely dangerous because if you inhale the fumes, a person can get pulmonary edema and die. A family member of my girlfriend just died because of pulmonary edema.

So, no, in a sense, I am not wrong. Weed may not necessarily lead to the use of other illicit drugs, but Nick there has to be a line. If you legalize weed, fine. It's legalize. What happens when people want meth legalized. That's okay? Because of our individual freedom?

People want to also say weed should be used for medical purposes. Fine. But why does a 16 or 17 year old proceed to smoke it on his couch with his friends if he is not sick? Makes no sense to me.

While Kliq and others are right that there should be no problems if the addicts just sit at home, the problem is way more complicated and complex than that. Some guy sitting at home mainlining crack cocaine harms no one but himself. The problem is that that's not what happens. The guy mainlining cocaine is likely to have a hard time holding down a job. Someone will have to support him. Even if we assume that he can support himself, his habit has a huge negative affect on his health. Thus, any career he has is likely to be shortened and it's very likely that at some point in his life, he's going to become a burden. It'd be nice if society would then kick him to the curb and let him starve in the streets as the end consequence of his decision, but we won't . Some one is going to feel the obligation to take care of him and someone is going to be forced to pay for it thus the system is taxed even more.