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Here’s the kinda logic I’m trying to sell....

Hope you do better than the first time.

We don’t need more crap in the game!

The "crap" is already here and millions of people are doing it while millions of others have tried said "crap", so the "crap" is already in the game. By keeping the “crap” out of the game, the WOD has managed to create a violent black market, turned tens of millions of citizens into scofflaws, given a criminal record to millions of non-violent drug users, etc. I could go on and on. All this would never had happened if we'd never kept the "crap" out of the "game".

By keeping the "crap" you refer to out of the "game" you end up with inequality before the law. To discriminate between "legal" vs "illegal" drugs is to create injustice. The moral hazards and risks for legal and illegal drugs are the same, yet we treat people differently before the law based on the drugs they possess. That is injustice pure and simple.

A guy getting drunk every night is the moral equivalent of a guy smoking pot every night. If one is legal, then the other must be. If one is illegal, then the other must be. To have one legal and one illegal is unjust. Surely you can see that?

You’re the clown that introduced “the war on drugs” and then tried to pawn it off as though it was some inadequate concept that I’d suggested.

Now you're being obtuse. Let's see what you posted earlier:

I’ve seen enough lives and families destroyed via these “victimless crimes”. (4 siblings from a very “Leave it to Beaver” family.)

As this article was about changing the laws on pot and you took a position against it, I think it's logical to assume that you support the WOD as is. You mentioned some folks you knew affected by drug abuse as poster children for why the WOD is needed. I merely pointed out that WOD didn't stop them from abusing drugs. The fact that you point to a WOD failure as some sort of reason to continue with the failed policy is your logical flaw, not mine.

As for bogus logic, the idea that if they didn’t have access to drugs, they’d certainly be alcoholics, is just more crap!

This one sailed over your head. I was merely pointing out that even "legal" drugs can be problematic for some folks. I didn't say they would be alcoholics, I asked if that is what you'd prefer, since alcohol is in the "game". I'm sure you wouldn't, but if harm is a reason to ban any substance, then alcohol qualifies in spades. As there's no chance alcohol prohibition is coming back, the injustice between it and marijuana can only be eliminated by changing the pot laws to where they mirror alcohol.

No flawed reasoning, just cold, hard facts.

The cold, hard facts are that your friends are dead. They are dead because they abused drugs in some way that caused their death. The illegality of the drug(s) did not deter them. The WOD did not save them. They would be just as dead if the drugs they abused had been deemed legal. They are just as dead even though the drugs in question were deemed illegal. These are the cold, hard facts.

You point to your dead friends as a reason to continue the WOD, but the WOD didn't save them, they are dead in spite of the fact of the WOD's existence. The fact that you can't see the flaws in your logic are your problem, not mine.

The tack the libertines take that somehow doing illegal and harmful substances doesn’t HURT anyone or is some Constitutional right is beyond ignorant, it’s anarchic.

Please don't put words in people's mouths. I don't think anyone here has ever made the case that drug usage is risk free. We regularly make the case that shows folks like you typically over-estimating the risks of drug usage, especially with pot. As for the "anarchic" charge, the WOD causes more anarchy than legalization ever could. The WOD has led to violent black markets here and around the world, curruption of govt officials, has led the way in eroding constitutional protections, given criminal records to millions of non-violent citizens, increased the size and scope of the government, no-knock or knock and enter raids leading to death and/or injury to innocent citizens, affected banking privacy.... nice job....

I’ve seen enough lives and families destroyed via these “victimless crimes”. (4 siblings from a very “Leave it to Beaver” family.)

You are so right, if there'd only been a war on drugs, then these 4 siblings would have avoided ..... oops, wait a minute. There is a war on drugs and they had problems anyway. What kinda logic you trying to sell here mister?

Or maybe you'd be happier if these 4 siblings had just become alcoholics instead.....

My family was involved in the formulation of a charity for some men coming out of prison who were drug users.

My mother was involved all over the state regarding the subject and I have had first hand talks with many inmates myself who have gotten out into half way houses in an attempt to get over the drug dependence and they all mentioned the big role pot had.

Did it ever occur to you or your mother that they are telling you what you want to hear? Most likely it was pot use that led to involvement in the black market, which can lead to more serious criminal behavoir. Did it ever occur to you or your mother that its quite likely that these ex-cons you are dealing with might have never been on the "wrong" side of the law but for prohibition?

While I know explaining this ia a waste of time with you, others will read this and perhaps understand. The biggest problem with the drug laws is the inherent injustice between so-called legal and illegal drugs. The people punished for possession of illegal drugs are being treated unequally before the law. Both legal and illegal drugs share underlying moral hazards and risks, so to punish for one and not the other is to create injustice in the law and therefore in the land. Sadly, self-righteous folks like yourself pat yourselves on the back as you give political support to this injustice.

June 18, 1962. It was in all the papers, surprised you missed it .... LOL

It got out of hand I admit but you can't assume it was all the cops fault. I think they were both In the wrong.

Sorry, but it's attitudes like yours that allows stuff like this to happen. Even if they are both "wrong", the LEO's actions are much more problematic as he is the guy with the badge, handcuffs and gun.

Whether the woman here had an attitude is irrelevant to the situation as she can't arrest or handcuff the officer. The woman has no authority here, the LEO has all the authority here and he abused it. He arrested a woman merely because, in his opinion, she wasn't compliant enough. The fact that you don't seem to understand the difference here is disturbing.

It ALWAYS ends up harming, hurting, or killing the people around you. Just ask my former classmate and his wife. Oh, wait, you can't. They're dead. Great recipe for irresponsibility and total anarchy.

Your flawed reasoning leaves such a hole that one could drive the planet Jupiter through it. Basically, you argue that the WOD saves lives, then you use your deceased friends as the example as to why the WOD is necessary. Of course, it should be obvious to you that the WOD doesn't save lives, as the WOD was in effect when your friends used drugs and the WOD neither stopped them or saved them. Sadly, you are not alone, as this is what passes for "logic" by drug warriors such as yourself.

As to your comment that drug use is always harmful some way, some how, this just isn't true either. While it can't be denied that some percentage of users do suffer adverse consequences of various sorts, the truth is that for most users, their usage is pretty much benign in their lives. In general, the the most likely adverse effect the average drug user faces is getting pinched by the law, the tragic demise of your friends notwithstanding.

Darwin award nominee??? On Thursday the official high, in Spokane, WA was 101 with other areas going higher.

Please refrain from using "Darwin Award" in further postings until you know something about it. DW nominees are gleaned from (1) fatal accidents (2) of a highly unusual type (3) where the deceased is to blame for their own death and (4) they died before procreating. There were no fatalities here. If there had been a fatality here, the death would have been the fault of the parent and not the toddler, and of course, no one would expect a toddler to have procreated as yet. It is absurd to mention "darwin award" with this particular incident.

Sorry to come down on you, but I see "darwin award" applied to circumstances where they clearly don't apply on an almost daily basis around here. It has to stop.... LOL.

At least there's some equality under the law, harsh though it is.

As for the severity of the punishment: I have zero sympathy for philanderers and home-wreckers.

Harsh? That's all you can say? Harsh would be shunning her and her child, making them outcasts. Being stoned to death for bearing a child out of wedlock is a lot more than harsh. Tyrannical is the more appropriate desrciption for this. Harsh. Sheesh.

Yeah, I'm trying hard to figure out how The Producers was a gay-themed movie.

The movies aren't necessarily "gay-themed", but rather contain homosexual characters (or what may be perceived by some as homosexual characters). Certainly the character played by Chistopher Hewitt (TV's Mr. Belvedere) in The Producers was a homosexual character.

Watching Suddenly, Last Summer with Montgomery Clift, Liz Taylor and Kate Hepburn the other night, I was bemused when the unseen homosexual characeter Sebastian Venable (Hepburn's son) was described as a monster in the discussion before the movie was shown. While he was certainly a dispicable and immoral character, I found the real monster of the movie to be Kate Hepburn. She was so in denial about her deceased son's sexual predilictions, she was willing to have her neice (Taylor) lobotomized in order to keep the truth of her son being known.

Thanks for trying to bring sanity to an insane thread. The majority of the comments on this thread are shameful and sickening. Sheesh.

Perhaps “pulling back” and not engaging the criminals is something the police officers SHOULD be doing. After all, it seems that is what a lot want them to do.

At least you seem to understand the point I was trying to make. As I mentioned in my post, Officer McKay didn't deserve his fate, but given what is presented here he may have unwittingly contributed to it. To my knowledge the first act of violence exhibited in this situation was when Officer McKay forced Kenney off the road. It seems to me that action raised the stakes much much higher than what was warranted here. There may be facts unknown to me that might cause me to change my mind, but until then I have to call them as I see them based on what is before me.

Personally, I wouldn’t mind if my husband and other family members put their own safety above that of the “civilians”. If what they do and the professional manner in which they, and most OTHER cops, do their jobs is not enough for all of you, then it seems reasonable for you NOT to call 911 the next time you get offended.

Whether you believe it or not, I'm not "anti-cop". What I am interested in are just laws justly enforced, good relations between the police and ordinary citizens, and the safety of police officers. If Officer McKay did indeed make a mistake here which contributed in eliciting Kenney's violent actions, it's important that we recognize that fact so that his mistake isn't repeated in the future.

FWIW, I think much of the problem concerning policing today is a result of unjust laws that have been on the books for several decades, leading to unjust punishments for millions of people over that time. I'm specifically referring to the WOD. If these laws are indeed unjust, it should surprise no one that there is a lot of pent up anger toward the police as they represent the front lines of this injustice (through no fault of their own). If I'm right, changing the drug laws to where they mirror the laws governing alcohol could only benefit your family and friends who work as police officers. You and they might want to pay a visit to leap.org - Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

Fair enough. I'll close with two things.

First, whether drugs are a problem or eventually become a problem in a users life is ultimately irrelevant by the mere fact that "illegal drug" users are treated unfairly before the law as compared to alcohol consumers. Basically your position is that social engineering expediency trumps equality before the law. I say it doesn't, so you are right, we will never agree.

Lastly, it's my sincere belief that your side of this issue is committing a sin against people involved in "illegal" drug use. NIV Exodus 20:16 "You shall not give false testimony against thy neighbor". As there is nothing inherently criminal in buying, selling and consuming alcohol, by extension there is nothing inherently criminal in buying, selling or consuming "illegal" drugs. As both carry the same moral hazards, differing only in the relative risk factors to one another, they should be treated the same (equality before the law above). Yet you and your ilk choose to call one "legal" and the others "illegal", thereby slandering these other drug users by branding them criminals when the underlying moral hazards and risks are essentially equal to alcohol.

To put it simply, if one isn't criminal the other can't be. If one is criminal, the other must be. To straddle the fence and call one a crime and not the other is to put your side in the position of being morally vs. legally inconsistent, an untenable position. If you don't think alcohol a crime then you are sinning when you call pot a crime. If you call pot a crime, then you are being morally inconsistent by not calling for the same punishments for alcohol possession as pot and alcohol share the same moral hazards.

Moral consistency enhances moral authority. The hair-splitting done by your side on this issue is morally inconsistent and negates the moral authority you claim for your side. And because Christians have publicly supported these laws, they show themselves to be morally inconsistent as well. Sad, sad, sad. While you and those like you may not see your own moral inconsistency on this issue, I can tell you in no uncertain terms that the people who live in fear of the drug laws you support see the moral inconsistency and the injustice it engenders toward them as plain as day.

The moral vs. legal inconsistency espoused by Christians on this issue puts Christianity in a bad light. For this reason alone, Christians should tread lightly in politics. But sadly, most can't see it, being caught up in their own self-righteousness.

In a way we've come full circle from my post you first responded to. The big question in all this is whether Christianity should employ the coercive powers of the government to socially engineer things. I say no for all the reasons I've already posted. Your earlier responses speak for themselves.

It cuts through the cant and asks voters to consider whether an an unborn child is a human being. The truth may be too harsh but that's better than the way the abortion debate is now, which dances around the real issue.

While I agree, I would take it one step futher in that the heart of the issue is whether rights begin at conception or at birth, which, like it or not, is a political question.

I'm skeptical as to whether this legislation will achieve its goals. Even if R v W would be overturned it doesn't necessarily follow that a law passed by one state would entice the court to enshrine it as a Federal mandate outlawing abortion on demand.

Legal abortion won't end when (or if) R v W is overturned. It would merely remove the federal abortion rights guarantees. Abortion laws will revert back to state laws, and socially liberal states will have unrestrictive laws and socially conservative states the opposite. Pro-lifers had better be prepared to accept that, as any chances for a constitutional amendment at the federal level would be slimmer then than they are now.

War bill helps dairy farmers, airlines

This would never have happened under a Republican controlled Congress. /s

Life can be lived fully and freely without pot. You make it sound like a need.

Emergency! Emergency! Straw man argument alert... LOL

On a more somber note, in my post I hoped to prick your conscience by relating to you my sister's experiences that led to her switch sides in the WOD. Given your straw man response above, I obviously wasn't successful.

Good day.

Actually, it's you that is taking the narrow view in that you assume that all recreational drug use is somehow problematic for either the drug user or those around him in some way or form. While I certainly know that drug use can be problematic depending on the particular drug involved and the frequency of usage, the simple fact is that for the vast majority of drug users their drug consumption is no more problematic than alcohol consumption is to the average guzzler down at the local tavern, VFW, stadium, living room or bowling alley.

Some food for thought for you. My oldest sister shared your view about drugs until just a few years ago. What changed her mind was the close-up view of drug convicts' families she was exposed to after a new prison opened just south of the town where she taught school. It's a min security prison, housing mostly drug offenders and petty thieves. This brought in a number convicts' families to the area, many in her school district.

You see, she witnessed first-hand for the first time the destruction and hardship the WOD had rained down on these people and concluded that they were not deserving of such treatment. She learned how these folks wound up losing homes and personal property now that the bread winner was unable to make a living, how their credit was ruined for the same reasons, how they lost insurance coverage because Dad had lost his job, not to mention the fact that the wives had lost a loving husband and their children a loving father for several months or years.

They suffered all this for dealing in something that shares the same moral risks and hazards as the "legal" drug alcohol. Had there been no WOD, they wouldn't even have been dealers, just mere consumers. She recognized the inequality these people suffered before law vis a vis the legality of alcohol vs. the criminalization of these other substances. In light of all this, the drug war no longer made any sense to her.

Not that any of this concerns you in the least in that you, in your infinite wisdom and deep concern for the well being of all concerned, just know you have these people's best interests at heart.

You and your ilk focus on the worst-case scenarios, bemoan the tragedy, then extrapolate that worst-case scenario to the entire drug using population, rationalizing your way to prohibition. Then you turn a blind-eye to all the financial and personal damage inflicted on people prosecuted under the laws you support. You ignore the unintended consequences of the WOD, most notably a violent black market and the erosion of constitutional rights and safeguards. You ignore the inherent hypocrisy and double standard that the legality of alcohol poses. You and your ilk do Pontius Pilate proud. Your approach to drug use and drug abuse is akin to the "we had to destroy the village to save it" addage thrown about back during the 60's.

If you can tolerate a father or mother that likes to down a few beers at home or down at the tavern on a regular basis, then surely you can tolerate the same if they smoke a doob or two when the kids are at Aunt Sue's or already gone to bed. Until you're ready to jail consumers of alcohol for the same reasons you want to go after other drug users, please spare me your rationalizations for the tyranny that is the WOD.

However, there is a difference between sinning and repenting immediately (saved) and living a lifestyle of sin (unsaved).

No doubt. Something else to consider in all this is that sin has its own "rewards" and they usually aren't all that rewarding. While some folks are happy in their sin, at least for a time, usually in the long run they aren't or won't be. It seems that many Christians seem to forget this.

Illicit sex can lead to a string of shallow, meaningless relationships, heavy drug use and addiction can lead a person to ruin in several different ways, gambling addiction can lead to financial ruin, etc. They all provide immediate gratification in some way, but usually aren't excessively harmful if indulgence is limited and/or controlled. It's when vices become habits/addictions that the "rewards" really begin to manifest themselves in problematic ways.

When we have laws punishing people under various aspects of these behaviors, the law is merely "piling on" another level of problems to people or in many cases is the biggest problem that person has had to date regarding the vice. While some people whose lives may already be wrecked because of their excessive vices might eventually benefit from the state intervention in the long run, most are just merely hurt by the state's intervention in ways far more injurious than their vices have been. For instance, the casual drug user whose not an addict can have his life radically altered for the worse because of a drug arrest, while the over-the-edge hard-core addict might benefit from state imposed discipline in rehab.

I, for one, would not lose a wink of sleep if the police started UNrestrainedly "batonning" a few of these dirtbags.

Score - Injustice 1 - Justice 0

Unlike the author, I can understand the angst felt by the locals in all this. Two men lay dead because of a speeding ticket. While Officer McKay did not deserve his fate, the fact is that both men would be alive today if Officer McKay had not pursued Kenney after the first stop. After the stop, Officer McKay had all the info he needed to ticket the driver. He could have written it up at the end of his shift and the citation would be in the mail the next day. Was there really any sound reason for the second pursuit?

As the article notes, there was already a history between these two men. Chances are Kenney was seething during the initial stop, especially once he saw who the ticketing officer was, while Officer McKay was likley relishing the moment for the same reasons. It's possible that Kenney drove away to prevent his anger from getting the best of him.

The article states that McKay forced Kenney off the road after about a mile in the second pursuit. Did McKay give Kenney a chance to pull over in the short time the second pursuit lasted? Given the short distance covered and the short time that implies, that doesn't seem likley. Forcing another vehicle off the road could cause injury or even death to that driver. Given these circumstances, Kenney, rightly or wrongly, may have been in fear of his life and acted accordinly as so many Freepers say they would do if threatened for their lives.

Given the attitudes and demeanor of some police officers, it's not out of the realm of possibilities that McKay is now seething with anger over Kenney leaving his presence before he's finished the ticketing and whatever other minor indignities he may have wanted to inflict on Kenney. You know, the "Respect my Authority" syndrome that inflicts many police officers. This may explain Officer McKay's aggressive tatics in the second pursuit, which might be considered an over-reaction to Kenney's driving away.

What likely happened here is an unnecessary escalation of the stakes caused by personal animosity that may have been present in both men toward each other. If Kenney hadn't driven away early, both would be alive today. If Officer McKay had just let him go and had the speeding citation mailed, both would be alive today.

This is the 800 lb. gorilla that sails under most radars. Gigantic programs create gigantic beauracracies that provide a nice living for hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions. This is why rolling back unproductive and even counter-productive laws, programs and policies is nearly impossible as there is a built-in constituency for these things, the employees and private vendors who supply them.