It's always taken a lot more than legislation to effect cultural change.
I'm not saying it will change everything, but it is a step in the right direction. Culture obviously plays a part in it as well, but California is very lax on marijuana as it is.
The only reason they are trying to legalize it is to tax it. the problem is people doing pot won't be paying taxes as they will get it through their dealer which will of course not pay tax.
Not everyone has a handy dandy dealer they can call up in a pinch.
For example, my mother has Rhuematoid Arthritis, and if this passes, she plans on trying it. And since she cannot handle the smoking aspect of it, she will buy edibles instead. Something she pretty much has to get from a pharmacy. It's the exact same with my father, as well. He has a debilitating illness and the only place he will buy from is a pharmacy.
You seem to make the assumption that everyone who will benefit from this prop passing are those who use the drug recreationally already, and those who obtain it from dealers they already know. Like I said, not everyone knows a drug dealer on hand, and not everyone will seek one out instead of just playing it safe and going to a pharmacy.
This prop will take away a lot of the stigma involved with marijuana, and make people who were hesistant to try it before more open minded to the idea.
The drug cartels are not going to pay taxes on it and it just makes it easier for these thugs to get to kids.
Actually, under prop 19, people will be able to cultivate marijuana for personal use. That aspect alone will make a humongous dent in the southern drug cartels.
Just Humboldt county by itelf has had a huge impact on the profibility of marijuana in the cartels, and thats only one county.
I have a feeling theres going to be a lot of misinformation in this thread. People really should check their facts before they post. (not meaning you mytery)
I don't believe opinion is that large a factor here. A law has daily ramifications on modern daily life if the courts are commonly prosecuting criminals for breaking that law, that's just common sense.
The only reason it is percieved as having a large impact in society is because many officers choose to prosecute for Marijuana. If many more didn't, people would not percieve it as such.
So, it's the officers opinions on the subject of Marijuana that is making the impact, not some inherent negativity on the part of said narcotic.
Archaic laws are not enforced on any level as part of the evolving social contract (to my understanding, such laws are inefficiently costly to enforce and too expensive to remove from the books, which is why they sit there with the implicit understanding of all in the social contract that they'll not be invoked) to the point that most citizens aren't even aware of these laws. That's not true of laws pertaining to illegal narcotics.
Again, you are missing the point.
The point made by Fade_to_Black that it is an officers duty to enforce ALL laws, regardless of cost/time/opinion. You cannot then decide to not prosecute for a law that is currently active, because most people view that law as costly/silly/archaic/what-have-you.
That's the point I was getting at: that officers have a very obvious selectivity when it comes to certain, lesser crimes.
If you view Marijuana possesion as an abhorrent thing, that really doesn't matter. What matters is what the officer thinks. And this officer could have VERY easily just let this slide. Instead, she chose to cost taxpayers even more money, and add another cog into the already ridiculously jammed-up court system.
I'm pretty sure there's a difference between police not enforcing archaic (but still technically on the books) laws like 'no playing dominoes on Sunday' (Alabama) and not enforcing laws that have daily ramifications on modern life. Such as drug possession.
But see, that last part boils down to just opinion. It's your opinion that Marijuana possesion and recreational use has daily ramifications on modern life. It may be someone elses opinion that playing Dominoes on Sunday is disruptive to their lives.
I don't see how someone can go by the book on one page, then throw it out the next. That's the very core of this argument: you can't use personal feelings to pick and choose which laws to enforce.
This argument would have to include all traffic violators as well. Even those that go 1 mile over the limit.
The stance Fade_to_Black has taken leaves no room for difference. He explicitly stated that it is an officers job and duty to uphold the oath they are sworn in with, which requires that all illegal activities, no matter how archaic and silly, must be dealt with.
I've lived in multiple states, and been pulled over/had friends pulled over and searched for narcotics.
Every single time, they made me smash it into the ground and sent me on my way. Same with my friends.
IMO, this officer should have just done the same thing in looking the other way. I think an officers priority should be ensuring public safety. Setting up a sting to catch a guy with a little bit of weed doesn't really strike me as taking a bite out of crime...
As for those who take the hardlined stance of 'it's illegal, she was doing her job,' you do realize that there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of old, outdated laws that no police agency enforces anymore? I can't see how you can defend ignoring those particular laws and enforcing this one.
It's my opinion that the illegality of Marijuana is far outdated anyway :/.
Nothing about the hypothetical sounds suspicious. I suppose if I somehow had information that would make it seem so, I would call the police. Maybe if I knew the car owner, and he wasn't with the guys working on the car; or if I happened by while the thieves sprinted off with their tires.
Again, you should re-read the OP a bit more carefully. He said tire(s), not tire. Like I said, it IS possible to blow out more then one tire at a time, but it is much more likely that those tires are being stolen.
And just to note, rims these days often come with high-priced low profile tires, which themselves go for several hundred. It's a great package deal for would-be thieves.
That and the fact that the OP said it was on a street, not a highway, where cars are usually allowed to park.
It is a pain in the ass when random passersby calls the cops on you while you're working. This happened at least once a month when I had a construction gig some years back.
The cops would MUCH rather people call-in potential crimes then ignore them. Not only is that the best way for them to catch people (since pro-active policing usually nets nothing), in the worst case scenario, they can stop by and lend a hand if need be.
Yes, people do change a flat every now and then. But flat(s)? That's quite a bit more suspicious. It happens, I'm sure, but I think it would be a much smaller stretch to assume they are up to no good then to assume they got multiple flats at once.
That seems to be what already happens. Check the brief wiki quote I supplied earlier.
It usually happens when an animal is introduced to an environment that it is not usually exposed to, or when an outside force routs the top tier predator from that ecosystem. It is certainly not the norm.
I think you vastly underestimate just how much of an impact top tier predators have in regards to population control. Herbivores tend to reproduce rather quickly, and it's very easy for a population of say, deer, to get completely out of hand. Herbivore populations will always try to grow in ratio to potential food sources. The main thing keeping that from happening is predation.
am making the argument for is a world without animals or people being eaten alive, clawed, torn open, infested by parasites, and so forth. That we don't have such a world is indicative of a less than perfectly benevolent god, if one exists. I think this is much in line with what the OP was trying to say.
I understand your argument. I just think it's illogical, and not possible. You can wax scenarios where it might work all day long, but in the end, an ecosystem without predation will never work.
Ah, but starving en masse already coexists with being eaten en masse.
Not every animal gets eaten.
And yes, some animals starve. But again, not all of them. A system with nothing but herbivores would make a situation where starvation would be the norm. How would that be any better then what we have now, where some animals starve, some get eaten, and some just die from old age?
I don't know about you, but dying a quick death by getting eaten sounds much more appealing then slowly wasting away into nothing. I think most people would agree with me on that one.
The idea I've put forth is just one example of how suffering could be reduced without disrupting much of anything else.
And thats what you don't seem to be understanding: that can't happen. Life does what life is made to do: flourish. So what you would have is a series of massive die-outs via starvation, every couple of generations, as the animal population regrows and eventually uses up all its resources, again and again.
The only way to circumvent this would be to have each animal be aware of its own breeding habits, something that would require a complete rewiring of an animals basic instincts.
Basically, it can't happen.
Plus, I think a lot of people are imagining a scenario where we take current animals and populations and simply remove the predators, which is not what is being suggested. Imagine a new ecosystem built from the ground up around animals who eat nuts, fruits, grasses, funguses and so forth, one that has grown to be in balance. In short, it'd be similar to (but different from) today's biodiversity, with the major difference being a lack of animals, uh, killing each other.
See above.
Why don't we remove all diseases while we're at it? Hell, if an animal population is smart enough to balance itself, why should they have to die in the first place?
I really don't understand why you don't understand that this would never work.
Yes, there would be starvation, much as there already is today. One source of suffering would be eliminated.
Again, unless you completely rewire basic instinct (which is there for a reason), mass starvation would be inevitable. Animals eat, and animals procreate. That's what they do.
Everytime I've asked god for a billion dollars, I've never gotten it. But it's certainly within his power. That must mean he doesn't exist...right?
Explain exactly what the problem is. Why is "deer running around unchecked" a bad thing? If it does become a problem, I'm sure the lack of enough food would cause populations to collapse again. Nature has a way of finding equilibrium.
So being eaten alive is a bad thing, but starving en masse is okay?
Is that the jist of it, or am I missing something?
The house I currently reside in is located right next to a large field, so we get all sorts of creeps and critters wandering into our house.
The worst of the culprits are the scorpions we get, the potato bugs we'll sometimes find on the patio, and, by far the worse creeper to ever walk on this planet, the Centipede. Not only are they notoriously fast and almost impossible to kill, if you don't crush the entire body at once, they will basically split and both sides will go running in opposite directions. They're also quite venemous; one sting can make your whole leg go numb for hours. They're also ridiculously ugly.
My two worst experiences with them involve one dropping down from the ceiling on top of my while I was in bed...it was about 8 inches long. Another time, one crawled up my pant leg and made a beeline towards my genitals while I was lying on the sofa watching TV. Thankfully I managed to get it off before it hit its destination. That one was about a half foot long.
I hate them with an unholy passion. I love the ants we get around here, though, because I sometimes see them jumping Centipedes and ripping them to pieces...go ants!
My worst experience with a creeper, however, was when my new kitten found a scorpion on the floor and started to play with it, and got stung. She died two days later :(.
I remember my friend winning half a box of Guildpact in a tourney. Every single pack had 4 rares inside. They ranged from junk rares to money rares, with more of the former than the latter.
Although he did rip a foil Steam Vents in one of them...
There is a phrase that describes the notion that a handful of primitive savages coordinated the commandeering of four airplanes, overrode their defense systems that normally prevent hijacking, and turned them around over Ohio and flew them back to New York City and Washington, D.C., without anyone in any military base-- bases which exist for the sole purpose of defending against such a thing-- being able to act against this... then all the evidence disappearing, and conjecture serving to placate the public. That phrase is: "conspiracy theory."
No, the word that comes to mind is incompetency. It's already been well documented that the military was notified of the first two highjackings only after they were crashed into their targets. The FAA only has one person that is able to call upon the military for assistance, and he wasn't present at that time.
Occam's razor, my friend. Where everybody else sees incompetency, you see massive world-wide conspiracy cover up.
Actually, at this point I'm 99% sure you're just trolling anyway.
I'm guessing the critics of this card don't fully understand the tension this creates.
Let's put it this way:
Equip it on an early-game creature and make the creature virtually unblockable.
When you've got multiple threats on the table, equip it on the creature you know will create a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation: the biggest threat. Let's say you're playing goblins, and have a 1/1 and a 2/2. Your opponent has a Wall of Omens. Equipping it on the 2/2 creates tension for the opponent: does he take 2 damage, or take 1 damage and let you draw cards?
Now, imagine if your threat is bigger. What if you've got a 1/1 and a 4/4? Is he going to take 3 more damage, or will he give up a creature and let you draw 2 cards? The former is more often than not the better choice, but consider that you've been pegging away with that 4/4 for a good amount of time. His life total is low enough that 4 damage is a major threat.
Now, what if you turn things around and equip it on the 1/1? Will he block the 4/4 and lose a creature to deny you the draws for a single turn, or will he keep taking 4 and hope he finds an answer soon enough? Is he going to even risk that, considering you may very well have your own countermeasures waiting in hand?
The decision's not so easy now, is it? Things get even more complicated with Infect and Deathtouch.
This card is a tester of your combat skills, plain and simple. You've got to adapt to your opponent's present situation, and even read your opponent's behavior, to use it right. And even if your opponent has established a good enough position to block your equipped creature, the Lens still brings you 2 cards closer to the card/s that can ultimately win you the game.
People straight-out saying this card sucks are too lazy to add some finesse to their attack. This is the intelligent player's equipment. If you want something that will help you bash your way to victory, I'd suggest Basilisk Collar.
Which, incidentally, Infiltration Lens makes easier to find.
So, we're what-if'ing now. Alrite, lets what if.
Now, imagine if your threat is bigger. What if you've got a 1/1 and a 4/4? Is he going to take 3 more damage, or will he give up a creature and let you draw 2 cards? The former is more often than not the better choice, but consider that you've been pegging away with that 4/4 for a good amount of time. His life total is low enough that 4 damage is a major threat.
If your in a position to swing with both without dire consequences. If they are low enough on life where a 4/4 would make or break the game. If they don't have any removal. If they don't have control of the game, making the two cards you draw much less effective (bird in the hand, ya know?)
...Or...you can eliminate a lot of those bad situations by just dropping another threat.
Now, what if you turn things around and equip it on the 1/1? Will he block the 4/4 and lose a creature to deny you the draws for a single turn, or will he keep taking 4 and hope he finds an answer soon enough? Is he going to even risk that, considering you may very well have your own countermeasures waiting in hand?
If he doesn't have a creature that will trade/kill your 'dire threat'. If he's at 1 where this will even matter at all. If you're able to even swing at all without losing advantage/the game next turn.
...Or...you can do much more than that and just drop another threat.
I'm not saying it will change everything, but it is a step in the right direction. Culture obviously plays a part in it as well, but California is very lax on marijuana as it is.
Not everyone has a handy dandy dealer they can call up in a pinch.
For example, my mother has Rhuematoid Arthritis, and if this passes, she plans on trying it. And since she cannot handle the smoking aspect of it, she will buy edibles instead. Something she pretty much has to get from a pharmacy. It's the exact same with my father, as well. He has a debilitating illness and the only place he will buy from is a pharmacy.
You seem to make the assumption that everyone who will benefit from this prop passing are those who use the drug recreationally already, and those who obtain it from dealers they already know. Like I said, not everyone knows a drug dealer on hand, and not everyone will seek one out instead of just playing it safe and going to a pharmacy.
This prop will take away a lot of the stigma involved with marijuana, and make people who were hesistant to try it before more open minded to the idea.
Actually, under prop 19, people will be able to cultivate marijuana for personal use. That aspect alone will make a humongous dent in the southern drug cartels.
Just Humboldt county by itelf has had a huge impact on the profibility of marijuana in the cartels, and thats only one county.
I have a feeling theres going to be a lot of misinformation in this thread. People really should check their facts before they post. (not meaning you mytery)
The only reason it is percieved as having a large impact in society is because many officers choose to prosecute for Marijuana. If many more didn't, people would not percieve it as such.
So, it's the officers opinions on the subject of Marijuana that is making the impact, not some inherent negativity on the part of said narcotic.
Again, you are missing the point.
The point made by Fade_to_Black that it is an officers duty to enforce ALL laws, regardless of cost/time/opinion. You cannot then decide to not prosecute for a law that is currently active, because most people view that law as costly/silly/archaic/what-have-you.
That's the point I was getting at: that officers have a very obvious selectivity when it comes to certain, lesser crimes.
If you view Marijuana possesion as an abhorrent thing, that really doesn't matter. What matters is what the officer thinks. And this officer could have VERY easily just let this slide. Instead, she chose to cost taxpayers even more money, and add another cog into the already ridiculously jammed-up court system.
But see, that last part boils down to just opinion. It's your opinion that Marijuana possesion and recreational use has daily ramifications on modern life. It may be someone elses opinion that playing Dominoes on Sunday is disruptive to their lives.
I don't see how someone can go by the book on one page, then throw it out the next. That's the very core of this argument: you can't use personal feelings to pick and choose which laws to enforce.
This argument would have to include all traffic violators as well. Even those that go 1 mile over the limit.
The stance Fade_to_Black has taken leaves no room for difference. He explicitly stated that it is an officers job and duty to uphold the oath they are sworn in with, which requires that all illegal activities, no matter how archaic and silly, must be dealt with.
Every single time, they made me smash it into the ground and sent me on my way. Same with my friends.
IMO, this officer should have just done the same thing in looking the other way. I think an officers priority should be ensuring public safety. Setting up a sting to catch a guy with a little bit of weed doesn't really strike me as taking a bite out of crime...
As for those who take the hardlined stance of 'it's illegal, she was doing her job,' you do realize that there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of old, outdated laws that no police agency enforces anymore? I can't see how you can defend ignoring those particular laws and enforcing this one.
It's my opinion that the illegality of Marijuana is far outdated anyway :/.
Again, you should re-read the OP a bit more carefully. He said tire(s), not tire. Like I said, it IS possible to blow out more then one tire at a time, but it is much more likely that those tires are being stolen.
And just to note, rims these days often come with high-priced low profile tires, which themselves go for several hundred. It's a great package deal for would-be thieves.
That and the fact that the OP said it was on a street, not a highway, where cars are usually allowed to park.
The cops would MUCH rather people call-in potential crimes then ignore them. Not only is that the best way for them to catch people (since pro-active policing usually nets nothing), in the worst case scenario, they can stop by and lend a hand if need be.
Yes, people do change a flat every now and then. But flat(s)? That's quite a bit more suspicious. It happens, I'm sure, but I think it would be a much smaller stretch to assume they are up to no good then to assume they got multiple flats at once.
It usually happens when an animal is introduced to an environment that it is not usually exposed to, or when an outside force routs the top tier predator from that ecosystem. It is certainly not the norm.
I think you vastly underestimate just how much of an impact top tier predators have in regards to population control. Herbivores tend to reproduce rather quickly, and it's very easy for a population of say, deer, to get completely out of hand. Herbivore populations will always try to grow in ratio to potential food sources. The main thing keeping that from happening is predation.
I understand your argument. I just think it's illogical, and not possible. You can wax scenarios where it might work all day long, but in the end, an ecosystem without predation will never work.
Not every animal gets eaten.
And yes, some animals starve. But again, not all of them. A system with nothing but herbivores would make a situation where starvation would be the norm. How would that be any better then what we have now, where some animals starve, some get eaten, and some just die from old age?
I don't know about you, but dying a quick death by getting eaten sounds much more appealing then slowly wasting away into nothing. I think most people would agree with me on that one.
And thats what you don't seem to be understanding: that can't happen. Life does what life is made to do: flourish. So what you would have is a series of massive die-outs via starvation, every couple of generations, as the animal population regrows and eventually uses up all its resources, again and again.
The only way to circumvent this would be to have each animal be aware of its own breeding habits, something that would require a complete rewiring of an animals basic instincts.
Basically, it can't happen.
See above.
Why don't we remove all diseases while we're at it? Hell, if an animal population is smart enough to balance itself, why should they have to die in the first place?
I really don't understand why you don't understand that this would never work.
Again, unless you completely rewire basic instinct (which is there for a reason), mass starvation would be inevitable. Animals eat, and animals procreate. That's what they do.
Everytime I've asked god for a billion dollars, I've never gotten it. But it's certainly within his power. That must mean he doesn't exist...right?
So being eaten alive is a bad thing, but starving en masse is okay?
Is that the jist of it, or am I missing something?
The worst of the culprits are the scorpions we get, the potato bugs we'll sometimes find on the patio, and, by far the worse creeper to ever walk on this planet, the Centipede. Not only are they notoriously fast and almost impossible to kill, if you don't crush the entire body at once, they will basically split and both sides will go running in opposite directions. They're also quite venemous; one sting can make your whole leg go numb for hours. They're also ridiculously ugly.
My two worst experiences with them involve one dropping down from the ceiling on top of my while I was in bed...it was about 8 inches long. Another time, one crawled up my pant leg and made a beeline towards my genitals while I was lying on the sofa watching TV. Thankfully I managed to get it off before it hit its destination. That one was about a half foot long.
I hate them with an unholy passion. I love the ants we get around here, though, because I sometimes see them jumping Centipedes and ripping them to pieces...go ants!
My worst experience with a creeper, however, was when my new kitten found a scorpion on the floor and started to play with it, and got stung. She died two days later :(.
Although he did rip a foil Steam Vents in one of them...
No, the word that comes to mind is incompetency. It's already been well documented that the military was notified of the first two highjackings only after they were crashed into their targets. The FAA only has one person that is able to call upon the military for assistance, and he wasn't present at that time.
Occam's razor, my friend. Where everybody else sees incompetency, you see massive world-wide conspiracy cover up.
Actually, at this point I'm 99% sure you're just trolling anyway.
So, we're what-if'ing now. Alrite, lets what if.
If your in a position to swing with both without dire consequences.
If they are low enough on life where a 4/4 would make or break the game.
If they don't have any removal.
If they don't have control of the game, making the two cards you draw much less effective (bird in the hand, ya know?)
...Or...you can eliminate a lot of those bad situations by just dropping another threat.
If he doesn't have a creature that will trade/kill your 'dire threat'.
If he's at 1 where this will even matter at all.
If you're able to even swing at all without losing advantage/the game next turn.
...Or...you can do much more than that and just drop another threat.