I have been thinking about this, but it actually seems kinda weird.
So we see a country where there is capital punishment, but it's fine to smoke weed. It feels a bit like government are more in favor of drugs than they want to pretend, not only for the good of drugs being legal, but because someone who is under influence of drugs - any kind of - is less likely to be politically active or reject orders. This has been used in military and in many authoritarian governments.
It could be even worse. It's a topic, like many others that are mostly artificial. It's not a complex topic at all. It's a good distraction from other things.
When it comes to people dying, be it the death penalty or wars then the US looks like a one-party system. Republicans tend to be for death penalty, but even Obama is according to Wikipedia.
When it comes to war politics it remains the same. Most anti war movements are killed off in many ways: controlled media, violence and arrests at demonstrations, infiltration of social networks (as outlined by Edward Snowden releases), the suicide letter to MLK, that just was on the front page, COINTELPRO, overthrowing (democratic and non-democratic) governments, ... There has been no change in more than 50 years on these.
There doesn't seem to be strong opposition to marijuna, just it gives you a bad image to start out with.
I just don't think that politicians care that much about legalizing marijuana. Why would they?
And the other statement that I made is that legalizing marijuana isn't something successful politicians start out with alone. Usually that worsens there image.
Theories?
The other (unrelated) things I pointed out was that the US has a history of oppressing opposition, which is history. See the mentioned COINTELPRO. Known history.
Then I pointed out the the US overthrows governments in multiple ways. Also a well-known fact. Obama mentioned it once. The CIA released the documents on it last year. Nothing new. Known history again.
Martin Luther King Suicide Letters. That just was on HN. Official documents again. Again known history.
>It feels a bit like government are more in favor of drugs than they want to pretend, not only for the good of drugs being legal, but because someone who is under influence of drugs - any kind of - is less likely to be politically active or reject orders. This has been used in military and in many authoritarian governments.
As for the government being more in favor than they want to pretend: I live in Europe. Here every now and then the legalization of marijuana comes up. However when a politician or a political party agrees the public opinion about that person tends to go down, because he gets that "drug junky" image that has no important topics to talk about. Happened like three or four times in the last decade. Therefor if you are a politician you don't want to look like active supporters. I guess in the US it is similar.
The second part of the statement was that it has been used in military and to calm populations. If you think that statement is bold already then you probably don't know about various projects like MK Ultra.
Oh and the effect of drugs being illegal can again be read up in history. There has been prohibition.
If I sounded like marijuana was a conspiracy I am sorry. That's not what I meant. Like I said I just think that the image of a politician who publicly states that marijuana tends to drop. I think that is because a big portion of the population doesn't have a really strong opinion on that topic, but are careful about it. That's a theory now. ;)
There also was a something on political activism of population in relation to the state of legal (or cheap/available) drugs here on HN at some point.
The calculations on business lost to the Snowden revelations, is tallied in at least the tens of billions, and it's likely to get more dramatic over time by encouraging new European and Asian competition (to build matching scale replacement services) where there previously was not as much.
That comment should not have been downvoted like it was, there is a real problem with concussions and the science is clear. If I had a son I don't think I would let him play football.
A great comment on this from Jets linebacker Bart Scott back in 2012, "“I don’t want my son to play football,...I play football so he won’t have to. With what is going on, I don’t know if it’s really worth it. . . . I don’t want to have to deal with him getting a concussion and what it would be like later in life.”
In general, commentators are too quick to delete downvoted comments. Often, a comment that is initially downvoted will return to positive within a day or so, if only it is left alive.
Although my brothers and I played football (one of them professionally), I share your concern about concussions. If football doesn't solve this problem in the next decade it will deserve its eventual obscurity.
We need every cop to wear cams as soon as possible. Then all these "the cop is the perp and the perp is the victim" idiots can watch the videos and shut up.
A handful of browser add-ons exist that will update the visual design and generally make the site more pleasurable to use. Here's one for Chrome: http://gabrielecirulli.github.io/hn-special/
dang I like the current design (it is no nonsense), but could one change be made to the location of the vote arrows. Could the down vote triangle be moved to after the users name (e.g. ^ dang v)? This would make it so much easier to avoid accidentally down voting on mobile devices.
Didn't England experiment with never closing the pubs so people weren't all dumped on the street at the same time, with the idea it would reduce fighting?
>the veneer that it was still all about terrorism could at least be believed. Now, we know it's targeted specifically at us for the purposes of exploitation and domination of us.
The great thing about hyperbole is that it rebuts itself.
Is it really hyperbole when we know via Snowden that one of the projects of the NSA is to infiltrate, discredit, and disrupt any/all dissenting groups?
What about parallel construction, putatively started to help with terrorists but now usually used in drug investigations in order to sidestep civil rights safeguards?
You sure about that?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8601577