PaulL “You don't have a clue what you are talking about.”

See below

“Do you think that any of them have solved their drug problems?”

It has stopped those particular dealers from dealing in drugs.

“The Chinese execute thousands a year with little effect.”

A couple of hundred years ago, 1/3 of china was addicted to opium.

1/3 are not addicted today.

Maybe there has been an effect.

“Someone who sells drugs to people who want them, or someone who rapes or murders people?”

A drug dealer trades his wares indiscriminately. Not sure about rapists but of murderers, most murders are committed in a moment of anger or passion.

I am prepared to consider the killer who kills slowly, with callous indifference, to be worse than the one who acts rashly in the moment.

“See the Russian experience.” That is not an example of anything, other than the problem when the brakes come off too fast from a Stalinist inheritance.

As to your comparison between soldiering and drug dealing (the link being death), what a cynical and deceitful thing to suggest.

Most soldiers are motivated by a desire to serve, not a desire to kill. Obviously if that is the best you can do for depth of argument, you are trawling a paddling pool.

“you belong with the other self proclaimed experts who get all their inside info from "A Current Affair" and movies. Ever heard of fiction? Poetic license”

You know me?

You know my credentials, TV viewing / reading habits and experience?

You are the one who seems to be having trouble producing reasoned argument.

“Actually selling drugs was the least damaging of their crimes.” You must be a poet, “romanticism” becomes you.

I am prepared to engage in objective debate with anyone. I am not prepared to submit to the rambunctious arrogance of someone who judges me without knowing my background or me.

Back to the writing prose on toilet walls with you, PaulL, you have lost the debate when all you can do is trawl for reasons to dismiss my view instead of debating them properly.

Cevelia “Col, about the death penalty: as a Libertarian aren’t you worried that the government may be incompetent to make decisions especially when it comes to life-and-death of individuals?”

Governments do not execute people, processes of law do, governments merely enact legislation which solicitors, barristers, judges and juries respond to, each providing a different input.

I am prepared to suggest we have a legal system which is seen to work and be tested through appeal. It is a thing separate to government, typically the “separation of powers” is inherent in the democratic processes.

Pelican, thanks for the link to the Oasis website.

I have been in the room when a person, like the one at the end of the trailer, the tall fella, started to get abusive. It is not nice. The person tried it in my own house and I stamped on him (not physically) for his attitude and he quieted down.

I am not going to suggest what the tall fellas problems might be other than speculate

He may take drugs and alcohol, to his own detriment. He may have a mental disorder, I noted one of the girls said she was “off her medication” and I don’t think she meant for a heart condition.

I remain at a loss to understand how some parents damage their children so badly. Some parents do their best but somehow the kid turns out bad but far more often, the child is the victim of bad parenting.

To fix the parenting issue we would need to licence people to be allowed to become parents. That, to reinforce Cevelia’s question to me, I would find, as a libertarian, an intolerable intervention.

Ultimately we are all responsible for dealing with our own circumstances. Acting out might release “anger” but only at the price of someone else’s safety or dignity. What the charity workers do is obviously valuable but it is trying to fix the consequences, not the cause.

Addressing the substance abuse which fuels the child neglect and abuse cycle is a good place to start. It is about being accountable and responsible.

Not for the first time, I'm bemused by Col's somewhat OTT position on recreational drugs. As a purported libertarian, Col has to acknowledge the right of individuals to do whatever they like with their bodies, but if that includes using drugs for pleasure then he'd have those who supply such drugs executed.

Is it just me. but is this not just a tad inconsistent with Col's vociferous championing of, for example, violent pornography?

Further, I'd like to acknowledge that I largely agree with Paul.L on this issue at least :)

As a person deemed responsible for those working around and under me I am obliged to manage and care for those around me. This includes stopping people from working who have had even one alcoholic drink, or who are badly hungove, or who I know or suspect have been bonging on or who have had ectasy etc the night before.

Get real you '60's victims- OHS has destroyed your utoptian delusions.

If Billo arrives at work full of tales of derring do and excessive alcohol consumption and or any use of illicit drugs I am legally obliged to keep him from working(off the tools); lest he be injured, and I am deemed to have ignored my responsibilities.

This regime does not just apply to the construction industry, but to transport, aviation and whatever.

This scenario makes just about all the posts above irrelevant.

1. The education - information of people about the drugs and their consequences must be top priority of authorities and parents. More we know about the drugs, higher is the probability to avoid them.
2. Dealers and dealers. There are different kind of dealers and we can not put them in the same level, there are the users-dealers and there the importers, producers or national dealers. TOP PUNISHMENT FOR TOP DEALERS BUT NOT DEATH PENALTY.
3. users or users- small dealers, they are not criminals but victims. Authorities and society must support them, starting from supplying them drugs in low prices and assisting them to stop the drugs.
4. The whole process from the production, distribution of drugs must past on Authorities hands and available in low prices from authorities.
While we can not win the dealers we can make them USELESS.
More we know for users more we can help them.