Tag Archives: needed laws

February 13, 2010

The 28th Amendment

By wise sloth

Picture of an old piece of parchment that says, "Amendment XXVII"

 

The American government needs a new amendment to its constitution that states, no state or federal government shall pass or enforce any law that prohibits people from harming themselves or behaving in ways considered indecent unless the actions of the individual directly or indirectly hinder another person’s right to the pursuit of life, liberty, ownership or happiness. You might also make an exception that people can harm others if the person being harmed has given full consent because there are some exceptions like euthanasia and selling tobacco where people want to be hurt.

Here are 6 reasons why we need this amendment:

 

1. Without this rule, we have no way to systematically limit what kind of culturally relative laws will be passed that will oppress people. 

Look throughout history. People were locked in stocks for gossiping. Women have been killed for doing pretty much anything, including eating bananas. Today countless laws are enforced that don’t actually protect anyone. All they do is reinforce cultural norms to the detriment of the individual’s right to the pursuit of life, liberty, ownership, and happiness. Women still can’t take off as many clothes in public as men. Blasphemy is still a crime in many countries. Alcohol prohibition was a disaster, and marijuana prohibition is currently destroying countless lives. Censorship laws reinforce an oversimplified explanation of reality that debilitates people’s minds.  People who just happened to be naked at the wrong place at the wrong time are being jailed as sex offenders. Curfew laws are blatant oppression. If you look long enough you’ll find countless minor local laws that are just ridiculous and only serve to fill the police coffers.

None of these rules should be brushed off as exceptions and mistakes. They were inevitabilities in a system that has no fail-safe to limit the control of moral fanatics, and as long as no fail-safe exists you leave open an avenue for laws to be passed in your country that legalizes oppression.

 

2. The cost-benefit analysis of these kinds of laws doesn’t add up. 

It would be one thing if these laws actually protected society from itself, but as it stands they do more to tear society down and hold it back. What happens after a woman gets thrown in jail for smoking a joint on her front porch while not wearing her shirt? How is society protected? Since these are victimless crimes nobody has been protected. The only way society has been affected at all is this woman has been made to live in fear, been blacklisted with a criminal record and had her money stolen from her by the police to pay unjust fines. Now, what happens when this isn’t just one woman? What about when it’s 2 million people? That’s systematic oppression. That’s living in a terror state. There’s no cost-benefit analysis here because there’s no benefit. There’s just cost in the form of destroyed human lives.

 

3. Victimless crime laws waste resources. 

Every time someone is jailed for a victimless crime the labor they could have devoted to improving society is temporarily eliminated, and the labor used to apprehend and incarcerate these people is wasted when it could have been used to apprehend and incarcerate actual criminals.

Everyone who knows anything about criminology knows that locking up criminals is an ineffective way of reducing repeat offenders. Rehabilitation would be more productive, but at this point, rehabilitation isn’t even an option because our resources are stretched too thin by apprehending, prosecuting and locking up people for victimless crimes. If we ever hope to reduce real crime it’s vital that we stop wasting our resources enforcing subjective, victimless taboos.

 

4. Victimless crimes contradict the Constitution of the United States and the Universal Bill of Human Rights. 

These documents don’t place conditions and exceptions on the manner or extent to which people can choose to pursue life, liberty, ownership or happiness except to say that our actions may not infringe another person’s own pursuit of life, liberty, ownership or happiness. Victimless crime laws do.

 

5. One of the big arguments against the idea of legalizing victimless crimes is that society will break down; society won’t break down.

People do what’s in their best interest, and it’s not in anyone’s best interest to sleep with every whore in every brothel and shoot up heroin at work. The people who would do such things are in such dire positions in their lives that these actions appear to be in their best interest. If this is truly unhealthy behavior then the causes need to be addressed. These people need to be given what they’re missing in their lives and rehabilitated, not punished and have more of their life taken away from them. This will only push them further past the limit of desperation and increase the chances that they’ll actually harm other people.

Furthermore, most of the people who want to sleep with hookers and do heroin are already doing it. The only difference is that we’re wasting our resources and theirs by trying to stop them when we could just let them do what they’re going to do anyway and get on with solving real problems.

 

6. It’s not our place to play God. 

If we allow people to disobey the various mythologies humans have created to explain God then we would be denying the sovereignty those mythological deities have over mankind. While atheists would applaud this step, others fear it. However, even if one of these mythological deities were the real one then by passing judgment for Him we’re playing God. Therefore, it would be more blasphemous to enforce God’s will than to leave judgment to God.

 

If you enjoyed this post, you’ll also like these:

 

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November 9, 2009

My Theory On Age-Based Accountability Laws

By wise sloth

Definition of the word, "Discrimination," The prejudicial treatment or consideration of a person, racial group or minority based on category rather than individual merit, excluding or restricting members on the grounds of race, sex or age."

 

The way things work today, you reach certain ages where you’ve given certain rights you didn’t use to have, like driving, drinking, having sex, and voting. At some of these milestones, you’re held to a higher level of responsibility. At the age of 17, you can be tried as an adult in a court of law. At other milestones, you’re held to a lower level of responsibility. At age 18 you’re free to smoke all the cigarettes you want and watch all the porn you can because you’re all of a sudden mature enough to handle it.  And then there’s the age of consent, which is just confusing. If you’re 17 years old you can have sex with all the 17-year-olds in the country. If you’re 18-years-old, it’s one of the worst crimes you can commit.

This is a broken system that isn’t based on any solid logic. The reason it’s still being used is because it involves taboos that nobody wants to touch with a 10-foot pole. Plus, it seems to be generally accepted that the system works well enough. So why mess with it? The reason is because the system works well enough…except for those it doesn’t work for.

Here’s what I propose. Get rid of all age restrictions as they stand. Then make it to where you can start applying for rights around the age of 14 or 15…because honestly, we all know what’s going on by 14 or 15. At that point, you can apply for the right to drive, the right to sexual freedom, the right to vote, the right to use mind-altering substances, etc.

There’s three catches though. First, you have to prove you’re responsible enough to use these rights. To drive, you have to pass a driving class. To vote, you have to pass a government class. To have legally consensual sex under the age of 18, you have to pass a sexual awareness class. To use drugs, you have to pass a drug awareness class. etc. etc.

The second catch is you’re held to a higher level of accountability. You can be tried in adult court. You’re no longer protected by statutory “rape” laws. The penalties for drinking and driving go up. Health insurance goes up. Stuff like that.

The third catch is that you can have your rights taken away if you demonstrate that you’re not responsible enough to use them…responsibly…just like how you can get your driver’s license taken away.

 

If you enjoyed this post, you’ll also like these:

 

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October 30, 2009

How To End Corruption In 3 Steps

By wise sloth

Cartoon of four men facing away. Behind their backs, each one is handing another papers in exchange for stacks of money.

 

1. Hold all government officials to the same level of screening used when hiring school janitors and the lowest level enlisted military troops.

That includes a drug test and a criminal background check. If it’s too dangerous to have a janitor on drugs then why don’t we make sure our leaders aren’t on drugs? If it’s too dangerous to give a soldier with a felony conviction a gun then why give members of Congress with felony convictions the ability to control our troops? About two weeks ago Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska got convicted of 7 counts of felony corruption. Guess who got re-elected to the Senate two days ago? Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska. Guess who couldn’t vote for Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska because he has a felony conviction on his record? Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska. What the fuck? Is this any way to run a government? This is shit you expect to hear about in the Philippines, not the most powerful country in the world.

 

2. Make corruption a treasonous offense. 

(Political) corruption is defined as:

“the use of governmental powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain.”

Treason is defined as:

“1. the offense of acting to overthrow one’s government or to harm or kill its sovereign.

2. A violation of allegiance to one’s sovereign or to one’s state.

3. The betrayal of trust or confidence; breach of faith; treachery.”

If George Bush stole the 2004 election, then he overthrew the government. He’s also violated his allegiance to the nation by selling out our safety to big business, and by lying to us about the war in Iraq which has resulted in the deaths of thousands of American soldiers and 1 million Iraqis, he has betrayed our trust, our faith, and committed atrocious acts of treachery. It would be impossible to argue he’s not guilty of treason.

When a politician uses government powers to for illegitimate gain, treason is committed. The punishment for treason in America is death. I’m usually not all about the death penalty, but when George Bush lied to us and Dick Cheney handed the keys to our treasury to Halliburton, they both committed treason. Anybody who is given as much power over other people as our leaders on Capitol Hill should be held to the highest level of accountability, and if they abuse that power, they should be punished not only for the wrong they committed but also for the good they failed to accomplish. Once you have to worry about being killed for a bribe I’ll bet you’re not going to be likely to take it. At the very least, make corruption punishable by life in prison… and certainly don’t let people who’ve been convicted of corruption run for public office again.

 

3. Outlaw campaign contributions and lobbyists.

Our government already gives money to political campaigns. Take all that money and make a couple of websites/television stations devoted solely as a platform for campaigning. If it’s illegal to spend any money on campaigning you automatically accomplish two things. First of all, anyone can run for office. You don’t have be a millionaire or well connected. As it stands, those are the two most important requirements to run for office…as opposed to be qualified. Secondly, politicians won’t have to pay back their campaign contributors with political favors. If lobbying is outlawed then they can’t do under-the-table personal favors for politicians in return for political favors.

If we can do at least these simple, common sense things we can eliminate the vast majority of corruption in our government and begin to head away from the fate of Rome, Russia, and every other corrupt nation that has fallen from glory. Then we can begin to move towards Utopia and the glory that we ignorantly boast so loudly about having today.

 

If you enjoyed this post, you’ll also like these:

 

Barack Obama
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October 30, 2009

5 Reasons To Legalize Gambling

By wise sloth

Graphic of a slot machine with the words, "LEGAL GAMBLING USA" displayedin front of it

 

It’s bullshit that gambling is illegal in most states. And I blame Nevada for that. I heard once that the reason online gambling in America was shut down was because the big casinos in Las Vegas were losing money and lobbied Congress. I don’t have any proof, and it’s not important enough to me to look up, but it sounds plausible. Anyway, here’s my reasons why it should be legal:

 

1: Freedom

This is a no-brainer. Don’t tell me we live in a free country is I’m not free to play or own a slot machine. Yeah, with freedom comes anarchy, and with anarchy comes destruction. That’s why they won’t get the lottery in Hawaii. People there are so desperate the government knows they’d all go broke buying lottery tickets if they could. That’s they’re fucking choice. Plus, if that’s your big hangup, ration the tickets. You could even enforce spending limits or time limits in casinos.

At any rate, if we make the choice to make gambling illegal for the Hawaiians or anybody else, then we’ve set a precedent to make other choices for them. Maybe if we didn’t have so many freedoms already taken away from us willingly, the Patriot Act would have never passed. As it stands, the Patriot Act wasn’t an anomaly. It was a step in the same direction we’ve been headed for years.

 

2: Economic stimulation

Gambling makes money, which stimulates the economy and creates jobs. A vote against gambling is a vote for a weaker economy and higher unemployment rates.

 

3: Tax revenue

I don’t want my tax money to go to busting illegal casinos. I don’t give a fuck if people play Texas Hold’em. We’ve got bigger problems in the world that all that tax money desperately needs to go towards fixing. Look around you. Our economy is a big pile of shit right now and gambling is illegal. Coincidence? I think not. If nothing else, just legalize gambling and give me back the money you would have spent fighting it.

 

4: Not being a hypocrite

Texas is so back-asswards. We have drive-through liquor barns, but you can’t buy liquor on Sundays. We have the lottery, dog racing, and offshore casinos, but gambling is illegal. I feel bad for children growing up today. Reality must be one big clusterfuck for them where nothing means anything and everything contradicts itself. Why don’t we just end the hypocrisy starting with legalizing gambling? It’s already legal. It’s just limited. We’ve already stuck our dick in. We may as well finish fucking now.

 

5: Progress or Crime? Take your pick.

When gambling legalized the money spent on it goes to legitimate businesses that can use that money to grow and actually provide a service to the world. Las Vegas casinos how major intellectual conferences every year. Casinos have contributed greatly to improving computer software hardware technology. In the states where gambling is illegal all that money goes to the mafia and petty criminals. Then it helps their crime rings grow. When they get big enough the branch out. Then you’re paying “protection” fees on your car in your driveway. Way to keep us safe by making gambling illegal.

 

If you enjoyed this post, you’ll also like these:

 

Barack Obama
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October 30, 2009

5 Reasons Why Prostitution Should Be Legal

By wise sloth

Picture of protestors marching down a city street carrying a banner that says, "SEXWORKERS RIGHTS = HUMAN RIGHTS"

 

1. Security

Prostitutes need security more than a designer clothing store. So much so that illegal prostitutes get pimps who extort them. As horrible as that is, it’s better than not having a pimp. In Holland, the prostitutes get big, bad bouncers. One guy told me about a brothel he went to in Cologne, Germany where they had pit bulls. Now, who do you think has more dead hookers, New York or Cologne? But America doesn’t care whether or not a hooker dies because they’re immoral. Good ol’ Christian values at work there… that do more harm than good.

 

2. Sanitation

You’re more likely to get an STD from someone at a club than from a porn star or a Dutch prostitute. They get medical checkups so often it’d make a hypochondriac cream his pants. Seriously, abortion is legal and prostitution isn’t? The only reason abortion was ever passed in a country that won’t let you cuss on television is because too many women were getting backroom abortions and were dying from any number of medical problems.

That’s horrible seeing as how I suspect one of the main reasons prostitution is still illegal in America is because the American women don’t want the competition. Imagine this commercial for the brothel that may someday open up down the street from your house:

 

3. Women’s dignity

How bad would your life have to get to risk getting arrested for going to work every day, risking getting murdered, beaten, humiliated, and infected with a disease? These women aren’t immoral fluzies. They’re desperate. Their lives suck on levels you and I can’t even imagine. And be keeping prostitution legalize we’re supporting that. We spend millions of dollars a year oppressing prostitutes and destroying their lives. Their tears and blood on our hands. Fuck that. I don’t that responsibility laid at my feet. Somebody wants to make a little money, mutually consensually, making lonely people happy in a safe and sterile environment what do I care? I don’t want my tax dollars going to keeping those two people unhappy and unsafe. And quite frankly I’m disgusted at anybody who would.

 

4. Reduce rape

Why risk going to jail and destroying your conscience by raping someone when you can go buy a hooker with no hassle? A veto for prostitution is a vote for rape. Make a campaign button out of that.

 

5. Economic stimulation

Prostitutes make more money. Businesses make more money. The economy grows. With the economic problems we’ve got these days and the amount of people wanting a little relief now’s the perfect time to legalize prostitution. Here’s my campaign slogan: “PROSTITUTION: IT’LL DO YOU GOOD!”

 

If you enjoyed this post, you’ll also like these:

 

Barack Obama
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1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in American Laws

October 30, 2009

8 Reasons To Legalize Marijuana You’ve Already Heard

By wise sloth

Graphic of a green, black and white American flag, with a large outline of a marijuana leaf in the middle

1: Freedom

This conversation should really be over after that one word. How are you going to argue with freedom? But people do. Just don’t tell me we live in a free country when I’m not free to grow a plant and consume it in the privacy of my own home. Freedom doesn’t get much more basic than growing a plant. And if we don’t have that simple freedom and we take it for granted that simple freedoms like that are okay to take away then we set a precedent for any other rights to be taken away. All the government needs now is a good sounding reason. A vote against legalizing marijuana is a vote against your children’s freedoms.

 

2: Reduce organized crime

Look at what happened in Chicago during prohibition. Politicians made alcohol illegal despite the wishes of the majority of the people. If you think of dollars as votes and cash registers as ballot boxes you’ll see that people voted for alcohol with their dollars. Unfortunately, since alcohol was illegal the only people you could get it from were criminals. And being criminals they did other illegal things to keep their business running, like killing people. Do liquor store owners today kill each other? No. Do people selling weed today kill each other? Yes. Do innocent people get caught in the crossfire? Yes. Do the owners of “coffee shops” in Holland that sell weed kill each other? No. Legalizing marijuana will put criminals out of business. Then they’ll have to get jobs.

 

3: Drug laws hurt people more than protect them

This is the warped logic of the laws. Using marijuana will destroy your life. Therefore, it’s illegal, and if you get caught using it then in order to protect you from yourself you’ll be thrown in jail, which will cause you to lose your job. You’ll be slapped with a huge fine that you won’t be able to pay because you lost your job, and you’ll get a criminal record equal to shooting or raping someone that will guarantee you never get a good job again. And you’ll probably get your ass kicked, raped, and possibly killed while in jail. So basically, the government protects you from destroying your life by destroying it for you far worse than smoking marijuana could have. Oh, and by the way, everybody knows that there are millions of people who smoke weed every day and live productive, not destroyed lives…until they’re arrested. So the government isn’t actually saving you by destroying you. It’s just destroying you.

 

4: Reduce stress that leads to hard drug use

That would be a good argument if it were true. The reason people use drugs is because their lives suck. That’s the real gateway. Legalizing marijuana would make life suck less. Therefore it would actually reduce hard drug use. Plus, who do people get hard drugs from? The same criminals they buy their weed from. If people didn’t need to buy weed from criminals then they’d never meet said criminals to know where to buy the hard drugs from. If marijuana were legalized, we’d probably see a drop in hard drug use.

5: The precedent has already been set

Morally there’s no difference between drinking alcohol and smoking or eating marijuana. The effects are slightly different, but the morality isn’t. If we can have one we should be able to have the other. Anything less is hypocrisy.

 

6: Reduce overcrowding in prisons

All across America right now there are ex-con rapists, thieves, murderers, and brawlers going about their business in quiet little neighborhoods like yours raping, stealing, murdering, and fighting when they should still be in prison. You know why they’re not in prison? Because the prisons are overcrowded with potheads who are guilty of victimless crimes. That’s how sick in the head America is. We can actually say the contradictory nonsensical meaningless phrase “victimless crime” with a straight face and pretend like it means anything less than, “You don’t live in a free country.” Let me tell you about a crime that has real victims. It’s a crime that the government and the police force allow real criminals to get out of jail early to hurt more innocent people. Plus, if the penalties for real crimes are lowered across the board because the prisons are full of pot heads then there’s less incentive for real criminals to obey the law. Let’s rob this gas station. Fuck it. If we get caught we’ll only do two years. Good thing there are too many potheads in jail. Otherwise, we might have to serve a real term that would actually discourage us from robbing this gas station. Ha ha ha.

 

7: Increase funding for addiction treatment

Someone once said that the war on drugs took a minor medical problem and turned it into a major legal one. How much money has the war on drugs cost the American taxpayers? We know the government lost that war. Even the government admits it. So how about we just legalize everything, give people the freedom to screw up their own lives if they want, and take all the money we’re flushing down the toilet fighting victimless criminals and spend that money on medical treatment for these people with a medical problem. Is there anyway possible that could work worse than what we’re doing right now?

8: Reduce wasteful government spending

Still not convinced? Still think marijuana should be illegal? Fine. But you’re going to pay for it literally. The potholes on your street aren’t going to get fixed. Your children’s school isn’t going to get new textbooks. Your public library is going to be closed. And your taxes are going to go up to build that big new prison on the outskirts of town. So you don’t like the idea of hippies getting stoned at concerts. Fine. I don’t like kids on my lawn. But I don’t think we should spend billions of tax dollars on a war on kids on my lawn when that money could be used for education. Shit. Just end the war on drugs and give the money back to the people. We’re fucking poor. We need money more than we need the kid who lives across the street from me not smoking out on his roof after his parents go to bed. If I paid you $10,000 would you support legalizing weed? I think most people would. Well, if marijuana were legalized and taxed we’d probably all see more than $10,000 in some form or another from the increased tax revenue and decreased need for taxation.

I think we should let children run our government. They call it like it is. If a lobbyist came up to a kid and said, “Instead of medically treating people with medical substance abuse problems let’s take away their jobs, give them a criminal record, lock them up with real criminals for a long time, and let the real criminals go free. At the same time, we’ll spend trillions of dollars in a futile attempt to cut off the supply and demand of the goods the people are voting for with their dollars and having huge protests about every year. And as long as we allow the war that we created to go on people will needlessly get hurt and killed by competing drug cartels.” Only an adult could have an idea that stupid and commit trillions of dollars and millions of lives to perpetuating this cancerous, destructive plan. Any child could see how retarded that plan is and how seriously, really, in real life hurting real people. And since children are going to have to live in the world we create they might pass laws that will take care of themselves in the future. Whereas currently, we make laws that fuck over our children’s future because fuck it. Our kids are going to have to deal with most of the consequences, not us.

 

If you enjoyed this post, you’ll also like these:

 

Barack Obama
The 2016 Presidential Election
Donald Trump
Voting
Corruption and Election Reform
American Laws
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Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in American Laws

October 28, 2009

Bikinis Are The American Burqa

By wise sloth

Woman wearing a bikini with a burqua draped over her face and half her chest

Why isn’t it a federal law that Muslim women in America have to wear their burqas? Anyone can answer that. Separation of church and state. It’s not the government’s responsibility to enforce religious taboos with fines, jail time, or permanent criminal records. Plus, as far as the issue of enforcing the burqas go, every American knows that being able to wear what you want is such a basic human right that it should go without saying. That’s why Americans were so disgusted that the Taliban government in Afghanistan was forcing women to cover themselves.

But the majority of Americans don’t seem to feel any disgust for their own hypocrisy.  If a woman walks down the street with no shirt on she’ll be arrested, fined and given a criminal record. Why? Is there a functional reason why a woman’s chest is dangerous? No. There’s just a religious taboo again’st women’s chests that’s enforced by law.

So much for basic human rights, freedom or separation of church and state. Ladies, next time you go to the beach take a marker and write this across your bathing suit top in big letters, “AMERICAN BURQA.”

If you enjoyed this post, you’ll also like these:

 

Barack Obama
The 2016 Presidential Election
Donald Trump
Voting
Corruption and Election Reform
American Laws
My Tweets About Politics

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in American Laws