redacted

[VooDoo6Actual]

redacted.

[Belmont31R]

The government needs a new war on ______ every so often to give a new excuse as to XYZ law has to be passed giving themselves more powers they were never granted in the first place that people will go along with due to sound bites and feel good notions.

[montanadave]

And the real bitch is there are legitimate uses for the prescription drugs being misused/abused and physicians, ever wary of potential legal and liability concerns, will become even more restrictive in prescribing these medications to patients in need.

[armakraut]

“Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction It is already happening to some extent in our own society. Instead of removing the conditions that make people depressed modern society gives them antidepressant drugs. In effect antidepressants are a means of modifying an individual's internal state in such a way as to enable him to tolerate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable.” ― Theodore Kaczynski

Illegal drugs are just self-medication, so is gorging on food.

We keep fighting the symptoms instead of attacking the root problems.

[P2000]

From my experience rotating in a few hospitals, and working in a few pharmacies, people are intentionally overdosing at a rate that surprised me. Some overdose on OTC meds, some on prescription meds and the others on meth or cocaine. Quite a few of those also have alcohol withdrawal. Generally, the OTC and prescription med overdoses are poor attempts at suicide or self harm. Once, I had a woman ask me "Why didn't I die. I took a whole bottle of tylenol last night". Crap like that all too often. It is sad. The ICU where I am rotating now has about 10-20% of it's capacity with some type of overdose.

ETA, it is a people problem, not a substance problem. People can do this crap with anything.

[ForTehNguyen]

we declared a War on Drugs, and drugs won

[Belmont31R]

Its funny but Denmark has the highest rate of personal happiness.



Of note is that one thing about scandinavian countries is there is a lot of land with very few people. I don't think there system would work here but I did personally find some aspects of European life to be very good and the people are generally much more relaxed and friendly than Americans who tend to be very guarded and not open to dealing with others.



Long story short my best friend and I went to Ferlach, Austria where they have a gunsmithing school, and Ferlach is like the capital of custom gunsmithing in Europe. Anyways we were walking down the street through the town the day we got there, and there were these two old couples on their front lawn of some shared housing type thing. They asked us where we were from, and at that point we were 18 and had only taken a basic German course in HS. We did our best but had to speak English which they understood. Said we were from California, and looking into the gun making school. They immediately invited us up, and we dug into some wine and greek salad they had going. Even though our age difference was 40-50 years we were there for like 4-5 hours drinking wine and eating food right on these peoples front yard. We had previously been invited to a party that night at a nearby lake by some current students from the school, and by the time we left the old folks place we were already drunk and had like 3 miles to walk to the party. Sounds chincy or whatever but that type of thing would never happen here due to our laws. In the US the old people would have been cited for distributing alcholol, we would have gotten public drunkeness charges, and once in a lifetime memories would be reduced to that time we got busted. FWIW a similar time in the US but we had a couple older guys buy beer, and went into a wooded area. When we came out we got lit up by spotlights from a police car. Parents had to come get us. Luckily I grew up in a libertarian household and my mom was not mad at me but the stupidity of having to come get me. Driver was not drunk or even intoxicated.


Some of my most fond memories are things that would be illegal here but was stationed in Germany where its legal to go out in the town, and have fun.

This was like 1 month before I came back to the US for the first "permanent" time in 4 years:

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj245/BM31R/Picture007.jpg

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj245/BM31R/Picture014.jpg

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj245/BM31R/Picture017.jpg

(and no...no one shot the kid for having a fake/replica gun)

Open container here is a misdemeanor.....:rolleyes::


http://s274.photobucket.com/albums/jj245/BM31R/?action=view&current=Picture023.mp4

[SteyrAUG]

“Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction It is already happening to some extent in our own society. Instead of removing the conditions that make people depressed modern society gives them antidepressant drugs. In effect antidepressants are a means of modifying an individual's internal state in such a way as to enable him to tolerate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable.” ― Theodore Kaczynski


Pretty scary when I can relate to the crazy bomb guy.

[obucina]

“Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction It is already happening to some extent in our own society. Instead of removing the conditions that make people depressed modern society gives them antidepressant drugs. In effect antidepressants are a means of modifying an individual's internal state in such a way as to enable him to tolerate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable.” ― Theodore Kaczynski

Illegal drugs are just self-medication, so is gorging on food.

We keep fighting the symptoms instead of attacking the root problems.

i never thought i would say it, but "unabomber for the win".

[armakraut]

Read the whole manifesto. He goes pretty deep down into the social rabbit hole, makes the naked marxist look like it was written in pidgin with a crayon. Brilliant man, but sanity wasn't in the cards for that guy.

What I wouldn't give to leave the doors unlocked and walk the streets of my town without running into the filth I'm forced to subsidize.

[Belmont31R]

Read the whole manifesto. He goes pretty deep down into the social rabbit hole, makes the naked marxist look like it was written in pidgin with a crayon. Brilliant man, but sanity wasn't in the cards for that guy.

What I wouldn't give to leave the doors unlocked and walk the streets of my town without running into the filth I'm forced to subsidize.





His case was quick and quiet. Just another guy locked upped, and when he dies is prison it will be a footnote on some back page. Not making him out to be anything just stating fact.

[obucina]

Read the whole manifesto. He goes pretty deep down into the social rabbit hole, makes the naked marxist look like it was written in pidgin with a crayon. Brilliant man, but sanity wasn't in the cards for that guy.

What I wouldn't give to leave the doors unlocked and walk the streets of my town without running into the filth I'm forced to subsidize.


after having my truck get stolen and found by me in the same night, im the only person i trust! the filth i see everyday is my personal inspiration when i go to work.

[ChicagoTex]

Propelled by an increase in prescription narcotic overdoses, drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in the United States, a Times analysis of government data has found.

Drugs exceeded motor vehicle accidents as a cause of death in 2009, killing at least 37,485 people nationwide, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It's cute how they make the obvious implication that all or most of these drug deaths are with prescription drugs used by the prescribed to individuals, but they don't actually say it - because it isn't true.
They made a totally unsubstantiated statement about an "increase in prescription drug overdoses" and then lumped all the heroin junkies, cocaine and meth addicts, and thieves of prescription meds in together to manufacture an "epidemic".

As someone who is forced to take narcotic pain medication almost every day in order to sleep, work, go out, or just plain live after a major auto wreck (Woman going the opposite way talking on her cell phone veered right into my lane on a 55mph road - I'm lucky to be alive), I grow increasingly tired of the media mischaracterization of narcotics as "hillbilly heroin" that everyone can get on the street corner. I pay a considerable sum every month to visit a pain specialist (who has to pay massive additional premiums on his insurance due to the risk of being held criminally liable for his patients use/misuse of the drugs he prescribes) and be randomly drug tested, at my own expense, any time my number comes up (generally averages out to once a year). My prescriptions are written on special supposedly super-difficult-to-duplicate paper that is thoroughly inspected and my pharmacist has to contact the doctor each and every time to verify the prescription despite the fact that they know me on a first name basis.

And don't even get me started on the side effects... I seriously don't understand how anyone who doesn't need this stuff can voluntarily take it on any kind of regular basis. But I digress.

As has been pointed out earlier in this thread, people prone to addiction and people who's idea of a "party" is to ingest mind-altering chemicals tend to wreck themselves with whatever they have handy, whether it's a bottle of hooch, an aerosol can, or a bottle of frickin' crazy glue. I really don't understand why the media seems so fixated on demonizing prescription meds; but then, I don't understand why the media seems so fixated on blaming the stolen and filed gun that a 12-time felon uses to shoot another gangbanger.

Realistically, those who gobble Xanax and Vicodin like it's candy are probably doing us a favor, Darwinianly speaking.

[montanadave]

His case was quick and quiet. Just another guy locked upped, and when he dies is prison it will be a footnote on some back page. Not making him out to be anything just stating fact.

In addition to his prescient and brilliant social analysis, Kaczynski was a domestic terrorist who murdered three people and injured a couple of dozen others. And attempted to blow up an airliner.

A busted clock right be right twice a day, but I still throw the ****er in the garbage.

[Belmont31R]

In addition to his prescient and brilliant social analysis, Kaczynski was a domestic terrorist who murdered three people and injured a couple of dozen others. And attempted to blow up an airliner.

A busted clock right be right twice a day, but I still throw the ****er in the garbage.



Of course.

[armakraut]

In addition to his prescient and brilliant social analysis, Kaczynski was a domestic terrorist who murdered three people and injured a couple of dozen others. And attempted to blow up an airliner.

A busted clock right be right twice a day, but I still throw the ****er in the garbage.

Thankfully he wasn't sane enough to cause more damage.


Almost everyone will agree that we live in a deeply troubled society. One of the most widespread manifestations of the craziness of our world is leftism, so a discussion of the psychology of leftism can serve as an introduction to the discussion of the problems of modern society in general.

The two psychological tendencies that underlie modern leftism we call "feelings of inferiority" and "oversocialization." Feelings of inferiority are characteristic of modern leftism as a whole, while oversocialization is characteristic only of a certain segment of modern leftism; but this segment is highly influential.
FEELINGS OF INFERIORITY

By "feelings of inferiority" we mean not only inferiority feelings in the strictest sense but a whole spectrum of related traits: low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, depressive tendencies, defeatism, guilt, self-hatred, etc. We argue that modern leftists tend to have such feelings (possibly more or less repressed) and that these feelings are decisive in determining the direction of modern leftism.

Those who are most sensitive about "politically incorrect" terminology are not the average black ghetto-dweller, Asian immigrant, abused woman or disabled person, but a minority of activists, many of whom do not even belong to any "oppressed" group but come from privileged strata of society. Political correctness has its stronghold among university professors, who have secure employment with comfortable salaries, and the majority of whom are heterosexual, white males from middle-class families.

Many leftists have an intense identification with the problems of groups that have an image of being weak (women), defeated (American Indians), repellent (homosexuals), or otherwise inferior. The leftists themselves feel that these groups are inferior. They would never admit it to themselves that they have such feelings, but it is precisely because they do see these groups as inferior that they identify with their problems. (We do not suggest that women, Indians, etc., ARE inferior; we are only making a point about leftist psychology).

Feminists are desperately anxious to prove that women are as strong as capable as men. Clearly they are nagged by a fear that women may NOT be as strong and as capable as men.

Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and successful. They hate America, they hate Western civilization, they hate white males, they hate rationality. The reasons that leftists give for hating the West, etc. clearly do not correspond with their real motives. They SAY they hate the West because it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric and so forth, but where these same faults appear in socialist countries or in primitive cultures, the leftist finds excuses for them, or at best he GRUDGINGLY admits that they exist; whereas he ENTHUSIASTICALLY points out (and often greatly exaggerates) these faults where they appear in Western civilization. Thus it is clear that these faults are not the leftist's real motive for hating America and the West. He hates America and the West because they are strong and successful.

Words like "self-confidence," "self-reliance," "initiative", "enterprise," "optimism," etc. play little role in the liberal and leftist vocabulary. The leftist is anti-individualistic, pro-collectivist. He wants society to solve everyone's needs for them, take care of them. He is not the sort of person who has an inner sense of confidence in his own ability to solve his own problems and satisfy his own needs. The leftist is antagonistic to the concept of competition because, deep inside, he feels like a loser.

Art forms that appeal to modern leftist intellectuals tend to focus on sordidness, defeat and despair, or else they take an orgiastic tone, throwing off rational control as if there were no hope of accomplishing anything through rational calculation and all that was left was to immerse oneself in the sensations of the moment.

Modern leftist philosophers tend to dismiss reason, science, objective reality and to insist that everything is culturally relative. It is true that one can ask serious questions about the foundations of scientific knowledge and about how, if at all, the concept of objective reality can be defined. But it is obvious that modern leftist philosophers are not simply cool-headed logicians systematically analyzing the foundations of knowledge. They are deeply involved emotionally in their attack on truth and reality. They attack these concepts because of their own psychological needs. For one thing, their attack is an outlet for hostility, and, to the extent that it is successful, it satisfies the drive for power. More importantly, the leftist hates science and rationality because they classify certain beliefs as true (i.e., successful, superior) and other beliefs as false (i.e. failed, inferior). The leftist's feelings of inferiority run so deep that he cannot tolerate any classification of some things as successful or superior and other things as failed or inferior. This also underlies the rejection by many leftists of the concept of mental illness and of the utility of IQ tests. Leftists are antagonistic to genetic explanations of human abilities or behavior because such explanations tend to make some persons appear superior or inferior to others. Leftists prefer to give society the credit or blame for an individual's ability or lack of it. Thus if a person is "inferior" it is not his fault, but society's, because he has not been brought up properly.


The leftist is not typically the kind of person whose feelings of inferiority make him a braggart, an egotist, a bully, a self-promoter, a ruthless competitor. This kind of person has not wholly lost faith in himself. He has a deficit in his sense of power and self-worth, but he can still conceive of himself as having the capacity to be strong, and his efforts to make himself strong produce his unpleasant behavior. [1] But the leftist is too far gone for that. His feelings of inferiority are so ingrained that he cannot conceive of himself as individually strong and valuable. Hence the collectivism of the leftist. He can feel strong only as a member of a large organization or a mass movement with which he identifies himself.

Notice the masochistic tendency of leftist tactics. Leftists protest by lying down in front of vehicles, they intentionally provoke police or racists to abuse them, etc. These tactics may often be effective, but many leftists use them not as a means to an end but because they PREFER masochistic tactics. Self-hatred is a leftist trait.

Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated by compassion or by moral principle, and moral principle does play a role for the leftist of the oversocialized type. But compassion and moral principle cannot be the main motives for leftist activism. Hostility is too prominent a component of leftist behavior; so is the drive for power. Moreover, much leftist behavior is not rationally calculated to be of benefit to the people whom the leftists claim to be trying to help. For example, if one believes that affirmative action is good for black people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action in hostile or dogmatic terms? Obviously it would be more productive to take a diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would make at least verbal and symbolic concessions to white people who think that affirmative action discriminates against them. But leftist activists do not take such an approach because it would not satisfy their emotional needs. Helping black people is not their real goal. Instead, race problems serve as an excuse for them to express their own hostility and frustrated need for power. In doing so they actually harm black people, because the activists' hostile attitude toward the white majority tends to intensify race hatred.

If our society had no social problems at all, the leftists would have to INVENT problems in order to provide themselves with an excuse for making a fuss.

[Redmanfms]

“Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction It is already happening to some extent in our own society. Instead of removing the conditions that make people depressed modern society gives them antidepressant drugs. In effect antidepressants are a means of modifying an individual's internal state in such a way as to enable him to tolerate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable.” ― Theodore Kaczynski

Illegal drugs are just self-medication, so is gorging on food.

We keep fighting the symptoms instead of attacking the root problems.

:sarcastic:

The Unabomber quoted without a hint of irony, nicely played!!!!

[Redmanfms]

Thankfully he wasn't sane enough to cause more damage.

I'm going to have to find the entire manifesto and read it, this section is remarkably cogent. I've avoided reading it because Kaczynski was a wacktard murderer and terrorist manifestos tend to be droll and as crazy and incoherent as the individual writing them, but this quote, wow.

[Irish]

Maybe we could win a war on poverty, a war on terrorism, a war on illiteracy, a war on obesity, a war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia...

[ThirdWatcher]

... but not the "War on Drugs".

[The_War_Wagon]

Drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in U.S., data show

Sooo... it's a WIN - WIN situation then, no? ;)