gdp's Comments

Atheist Revolution : Legalizing Marijuana

Sat, 1 Oct 2011 04:26:58 +0000

It's because it's socially acceptable and normalized in America. Look at how much booze gets glamorized in the media. Cigarette smokers are looked down upon but get a slap on the wrist compared to weed smokers. We're pretty much taught that cigarettes and alcohol are the facts of life, but it takes a certain kind of person to do drugs. Me personally, having lived in some pretty rough environments and part of the New York underground's underbelly, I don't classify marijuana the same as hard drugs like meth or cocaine. Namely because I've never witnessed someone do something incredibly stupid or violent as the result of smoking weed. Coke, yes. Booze, yes. Weed, no. It's just that the whole War on Drugs is reverse psychology at its absolute worst, especially for the youth. Being told that drugs and alcohol are bad just makes them 10,000 times more appealing. If marijuana gets normalized like booze and cigarettes are, then as time wears on and the novelty wears off that it's finally legal, people will definitely do it a lot less. Even imposing sales limits and specific excise taxes (or as they call it in economics, "sin tax") on federal, state, and local levels wouldn't stop vendors from making good money. Hypocrisy indeed.

Atheist Revolution : Legalizing Marijuana

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 23:29:14 +0000

Why thank you, but I prefer a blunt to a cigar ;) Even though the cigarette study didn't back up the economic tenet of "taxation + regulation = decreased behavior", it is still a good example of the government only being pissed about marijuana simply because THEY'RE NOT GETTING A CUT. If the moral guardians would shut their traps and the Dept of Commerce could open their freakin eyes and see just how many jobs the legalized marijuana trade would create, and how much taxes federal, state, and local governments could rake in...seriously, we could erase a major portion of the national debt. I say this as an EA and someone who's studied accounting and economics for waaaaay too long. It's also just the simple idea that reverse psychology kicks in when behaviors get demonized and illegalized-- Prohibition for instance? I mean, I remember when I went to England where the drinking age is 18, and more families have alcohol around their kids...yet the incidence of drunk driving fatalities from young drivers *and* youths who die from alcohol poisoning are nowhere near what they are in the US. I believe it's because schools and adults don't create this "abstinence porn" for alcohol like they do in the US, where kids are just told not to drink over and over again then they go batshit upon going to college and the frat mentality ensues. I believe it's no different with marijuana. When it's no longer taboo and readily available, and the government collects heady excise taxes from the sales while dispensaries happily rake in plenty of profits despite the tax, I think there'll actually be less people smoking weed once the novelty wears off. /rant

Atheist Revolution : Legalizing Marijuana

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 22:25:46 +0000

My public finance professor did this study on NY's cigarette taxes, to see if smoking decreased overall statewide and citywide, based on the economic tenet that if you tax and regulate a "bad behavior" it will decrease. Cigarette vendors weren't exactly crying over the tax. People were still buying cigarettes. I had to hear constant bitching from smokers about how cigarettes in my hometown go for $9, $10 per pack nowadays when it doesn't seem like that long ago that it was $5, $6. But were cigarettes till bought? Yes. The city raking in a lot of tax dollars, both in the form of the excise tax and income taxes from businesses that sell cigarettes? Yes. All it takes is for factory-made weed that is free of lacing and other outside intoxicants (then just wait, you'll get the organic weed dispensaries too...) to hit the market and it'll create jobs, create public revenues in the form of excise, payroll, and business income taxes, and follow the basic economic tenet that use will decrease over weed not being this exciting and illegal thing anymore. Case in point, look at Holland where nearly every drug in existence is legal, prostitution is legal, and the age of consent is 12: drug-related deaths and teen pregnancies are nowhere near the rates they are in the US. Because when something utterly demonized becomes normalized and not the government's business, people do it less as a result of it not being exotic and illegal anymore. Why can't these idiots realize that the legalized marijuana business would kick the "War on Drugs" industry flat on its ass?

Atheist Revolution : Has the Right Finally Adopted \'Kill the Poor\' as Their Official Slogan?

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 19:58:26 +0000

....this should be on a t-shirt!

Atheist Revolution : Mandatory School Prayer in Alberta

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 19:56:26 +0000

For many it isn't a matter of choosing to do nothing, but fear of backlash from hardcore Xtians and the like. Don't know how religious the community is where this Canadian family lives, but I'm glad for them for raising a complaint no less and that unlike in many Bible Belt regions here, the board seems willing to listen.

Atheist Revolution : Idiot of the Week: State of Georgia

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 19:49:25 +0000

The death penalty is an oxymoron in that the government wants to tell the public that killing is wrong...by killing. And it IS arbitrarily dealt-- arguably, I think there's people who don't get punished enough for their misdeeds and others who get too harshly punished when there was little to no constructive proof that a perp is guilty. In a perfect world, I believe that victims' loved ones should decide what to do with a perp who has been proven to be the murderer of that person. They should decide-- not the government-- if that person should die or rot in jail.

Atheist Revolution : Idiot of the Week: State of Georgia

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 19:46:00 +0000

Unfortunately, maintaining the status quo seems more important than real justice anywhere. Georgia needs more folks like you!

Atheist Revolution : Idiot of the Week: State of Georgia

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 19:43:39 +0000

Get out of jail if you attend church: Seriously? What about church and state being separate? Troy Davis: He gets killed while Casey Anthony walked free. Honestly, I feel really ashamed to be American sometimes because of crap like this. Tax dollars going to evangelical garbage: Funny, huh? I'm a tax accountant and can give many educated opinions about the exemptions churches receive and it truly nauseates me (like the ability to opt out of FICA when that should be granted to everyone.) See, the government has no problem with squandering our money to violate the Consitution but they see no problems screwing up my clients' operations with pointless paperwork when there's real white-collar criminals to catch. CNN: I don't even need to comment here. Ben & Jerry's: Are you freakin kidding me?!? Stop being so PC and get a sense of humor! I was always curious to try to Schwetty Balls after seeing it on SNL back in the day since they sounded yummy!

Atheist Revolution : Has the Right Finally Adopted \'Kill the Poor\' as Their Official Slogan?

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 19:31:23 +0000

I agree-- after all, it was in the medieval times that the poor got preyed on the most by religious wingnuts because they felt it would give them "salvation" from their living conditions and that "God would provide". Today it's even more disgusting how the poor get exploited by evangelists. I live in the poorest county in the USA (The Bronx) and see it all the time, I find it offensive that some of these organizations print up realistic-looking flyers that are supposed to resemble money and purposely drop them on the ground so someone will think it's money...but it isn't. In these crappy times, every dollar matters to individuals and families. It's scary to see adults who would otherwise be rational fall prey to extreme Judeo-Christian fascism, but even worse so when people do it out of their own extreme conditions like enduring unemployment and so on.

Atheist Revolution : Empathizing With Christians

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 16:16:21 +0000

"Religions are fundamentally death cults that portray life as a miserable thing to be endured, and after you die you will get sky pie in the sky pie kingdom, and sit next to the pie god. " Can I put this on a bumper sticker, but replace pie with "ice cream cake"? I'd rather enjoy my life, friends, family, music scene/community, and job (and ice cream cake!) than make myself miserable with these doctrines about a carpenter who may not have lived 2,000 years ago.

Atheist Revolution : Empathizing With Christians

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 16:13:34 +0000

I agree that a lot of hardcore Christians are really just confused and brainwashed, but why are people (individuals and groups) given this total forgiveness when they kill or cause mass destruction "in the name of God"? I have to be fair and not blanket every single Christian and church-goer as this conversion-happy slave; I've seen churches in my community step in to help people a lot more than the government and private foundations especially in the aftermath of events like Katrina and Irene. But if your "God" really preaches love thy neighbor and thou shalt not kill and all that, what excuses the cover-ups of child rape/abuse, bombing abortion clinics and killing doctors/patients (something I could go on about allll day), denying help to people unless they subscribe to their dogma... As a tax accountant, I would like to add-- why should only clergy get the option to opt out of FICA? Members of religious orders who take vows of poverty or simply don't want to participate, providing they don't claim Social Security or Medicare benefits at retirement age, are allowed to opt out by filing some paperwork and get their full paychecks every week...meaning that you're free to pour money into any other retirement plan you want, subject to some constraints. Shouldn't EVERYONE be granted that choice, regardless of faith or occupation? I am sometimes really shocked that adults who otherwise seem rational and in full control of their faculties really believe what they were taught is right.

Atheist Revolution : Empathizing With Christians

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 16:00:55 +0000

I really couldn't have said it better myself. Why must we go out of our ways not to offend Christians and other groups, but it's perfectly fine if we get offended for our beliefs (or lack thereof) to no end?