01-31-2005, 10:36 AM
Drugs: For starters, you can't really lump them all together. Marijuana has one set of issues, but it's a completely different ballgame for some of the other things. If certain hallucinogens were legalized, for instance, I think I would stop walking the city streets at night. :ph34r:
But in any case, I look at our current regulation of alcohol and tobacco as an utter failure. We have so many issues stemming fromf these, but there is just no way you could make them illegal when they are such an accepted part of society. Personally, I'd rather not see marijuana added to that list. So then it's really a question of whether making it illegal is an effective deterrent at all, and it's difficult to find effective facts to support either position. You certainly can't say "Well, it works in the Netherlands, so it will work in Los Angeles too." Those locations are as similar as Kansas and Oz.
Public schools: We supposedly elect local school boards for a reason. I'd rather let them figure out the best way to run the school than you, me, Bush, Kerry, or the NEA. Really though, I'm not sure if education can be fixed in isolation. I wonder if the schools are really that bad, or if the family life is so bad that the kids don't really get a chance. Kids spend a lot more time at home than at school, and I can't imagine how teachers deal with entire classes of kids who start several years behind the curve, don't have any respect for authority, and don't care about anything in that is being taught to them.
School vouchers: I personally approve of the program (or at least certain versions of it), but it is not even close to qualifying as a "fix" for education. Compare the total capacity of private schools with the total number of school-age kids, and you will see that we either need about a million more private schools or we need to have decent public education. I don't think that private schools are inherently that much better than public schools, but moreso that it is easier to teach kids from families who would make sacrifices to send their kids to private schools (not to mention that if the kid still doesn't take things seriously, the private school can kick him out and dump him back on the public one).
But in any case, I look at our current regulation of alcohol and tobacco as an utter failure. We have so many issues stemming fromf these, but there is just no way you could make them illegal when they are such an accepted part of society. Personally, I'd rather not see marijuana added to that list. So then it's really a question of whether making it illegal is an effective deterrent at all, and it's difficult to find effective facts to support either position. You certainly can't say "Well, it works in the Netherlands, so it will work in Los Angeles too." Those locations are as similar as Kansas and Oz.
Public schools: We supposedly elect local school boards for a reason. I'd rather let them figure out the best way to run the school than you, me, Bush, Kerry, or the NEA. Really though, I'm not sure if education can be fixed in isolation. I wonder if the schools are really that bad, or if the family life is so bad that the kids don't really get a chance. Kids spend a lot more time at home than at school, and I can't imagine how teachers deal with entire classes of kids who start several years behind the curve, don't have any respect for authority, and don't care about anything in that is being taught to them.
School vouchers: I personally approve of the program (or at least certain versions of it), but it is not even close to qualifying as a "fix" for education. Compare the total capacity of private schools with the total number of school-age kids, and you will see that we either need about a million more private schools or we need to have decent public education. I don't think that private schools are inherently that much better than public schools, but moreso that it is easier to teach kids from families who would make sacrifices to send their kids to private schools (not to mention that if the kid still doesn't take things seriously, the private school can kick him out and dump him back on the public one).