Lemmy sucks. You’re whiney fucks. Enjoy the win. Both sides are not the same. This is an unfathomable event previously. Anyone remember Jeff Sessions first months in office? Stop bitching and show some fucking gratitude. Thousands of people are being pardoned. Is it perfect and everything we want? No. Does that take away from the achievement? No.
Purity tests all the way down and it’s why populism never actually works. You can’t be happy, even a little bit, about incremental progress if the “real problem” hasn’t been dealt with. That problem will always be broad and impossible to truly achieve outside of theory. You end up with an ideology just centered around anger and despair.
People who do this shit maintain positions they know are practically unworkable because the thing they fear most is actually having to govern and make difficult choices in the real world and then answer for the consequences of those decisions. It’s much easier to just loudly state a preference for fantasy.
It just rings extremely hollow after he spent the last three years shoveling money at state police departments that are going to keep on harassing and brutalizing people by the tens of thousands for marijuana possession, not to mention the fact that he could reschedule and effectively legalize marijuana on a federal level but chooses not to do so
More generally speaking, you just can’t be surprised that people are skeptical of Biden when his supporters constantly ignore context and straight up lie to pretend that he’s someone he’s not
As opposed to fucking what? Trump? Because more and worse Trump is what you’d get if you didn’t have Biden.
He’s not perfect. But he’s managed to keep this crumbling nation together for at least a few more years. Every single option on the Republican side is a nightmare compared to Biden. If the Democrats can come up with someone better than Biden who can also defeat the Republican nominee, great, let’s do it. Until then, we should all remember that there’s a huge fucking cliff from where we are now vs where we’d be without Biden.
Don’t get complacent. Don’t take it for granted.
the fact that he could reschedule and effectively legalize marijuana
No he can’t. He can direct the DEA to look into rescheduling the drug, a process he has already started. But he doesn’t have the authority to unilaterally force them to reschedule it. He could theoretically Saturday Night Massacre the DEA into doing it, but they really wouldn’t be a good look.
“Lemmy sucks.”
You are top comment. I always hated this “reddit sucks” attitude that everyone always adopted, especially when taking the most common and popular opinions on the platform.
Like all the people bitching about the reddit hivemind just because they have an opinion that isn’t literally dominant.
There are a lot of right wing Poe’s law trolls here pretending to be leftists, and a handful of people who get caught up in their privileged contrarian virtue. It’s shocking to me that this isn’t extremely obvious to more people here.
I think there’s also a lot of far left people here accusing left people to be right wing.
For sure. Actual leftists often criticize the Dems, because the Dems aren’t leftist. They are mostly just centrists and they are in bed with Corporate America. That being said, I don’t understand why some people have to criticize every little thing. I have been pretty critical of the Democratic party, myself, as a self identifying Socialist (begrudgingly still vote for them, because the other 1 option is way worse). These pardons are a good thing, though, and I don’t see what the problem is for some people.
Some extreme leftists just turn into such contrarians that they end up sounding the same as right wing fear mongerers. It’s like the political spectrum is a circle, with both of the left and right ends meeting up in a bubble of authoritarianism and hate.
And it still doesn’t. Not everyone has to fake an orgasm over every incrementalist baby step just because you want them to.
I don’t think you can blame people for being sick of the negativity. It’s everywhere these days. You can’t get away from it. You’d be forgiven for thinking that this smallish move on Biden’s part would be greeted with indifference rather than outright boos, but no, nothing is ever good enough, this is the world we live in.
Enjoy the win.
No. The political racketeers that caused this problem tacitly admitting that they’ve destroyed hundreds of thousands of lives for no reason at all is in no way or shape any kind of “win.”
When they start paying reparations to all the people they’ve victimized through these self-serving laws throughout the decades, then we can start talking about “wins.”
are you genuinely politically impressed by this
at least our complaints are encouraging momentum rather than dusting off our hands and doing a smithers esque very good sir! because he pardoned people with fake charges that should’ve never existed that he and his VP gleefully enforced and implicitly defended for years and years
I completely disagree that your complaints spur a single thing. Every heard the phrase “you catch more flies with honey than vinegar”? Or how about if I get your thoughts on how to rear a child? Do you beat them, complain about their accomplishments constantly, or do you encourage and support them? Encouragement, support, and excitement do more to inspire change than any amount of complaints.
Incrementalism is the only bloodless way to achieve true progress. I embrace it, and celebrate these wins.
You catch more flies with honey than vinegar
That’s not always true. Like the literal case linked, politicians dragging their feet is one of the exceptions to the rule that positive reinforcement works better than loudly stating that you’re not satisfied and why you’re not satisfied.
Or how about if I get your thoughts on how to rear a child
Politicians aren’t children and shouldn’t be coddled as if they were.
Encouragement, support, and excitement do more to inspire change than any amount of complaints.
Again, politics is an exception. A politician who is informed of a problem or the inadequacy of their solutions will perform better than one who receives praise and adulation every time they affect a tiny fraction of the positive change within their power.
Incrementalism is
the only bloodlessa truly feckless way to achievetrueextremely limited progress
Fixed that for you. Here’s what Martin Luther King thought of your Incrementalism:
“Politically impressed”? Go away.
Momentum is incremental progress towards a goal, this is that. You’ve said nothing convincing to a rational adult. We don’t put flags on our trucks that show him riding a dinosaur with his shirt off, we don’t agree with everything, but it’s general progress and we accept that. We accept AND we push for more.
Grow up.
Thanks! That’s pretty much my entire feelings about the DNC. I live in the most liberal county in America. Obviously I’m not satisfied with federal laws. But whining about Biden while an autocrat is on the doorstep of the WH is pathetic. Wannabe progressive losers on the Internet gaslit by Russian, Chinese and right wing propaganda. A fucking thread about releasing marijuana convictions flooded with Biden is basically the alt right. We have fought for this inch for DECADES.
Fuck off Lemmy. Your holier than thou bullshit is sad and transparent. You’re thinking no more critically or analytically than on Reddit.
Cool. Now stop allowing companies with federal contracts to do drug testing for cannabis unless they also test for alcohol.
I get what you’re saying, but if you are, for instance, a heavy machinery operator, it is worth making sure you are not using substances that could potentially impair your judgment. Those people usually are tested for alcohol, which is why I find it acceptable.
I think the primary difference here is that Marijuana tests detect thc going back months and months while alcohol is a much shorter duration. When those people are tested for alcohol, is that to stop them from being actually drunk on the job or to actually forbid them from drinking at any point while they’re employed?
They only test for alcohol after a reportable incident. Nobody cares if you drink on your own time. Source; I have been through OSHA 30 training. They do screen for MJ though, which is bullshit since it’s legal in so many states now. IBEW, UA and a few other powerful trade unions are currently leaning on the feds to end the screening requirements in states where it’s legal, so we may see real progress relatively sooner than people think, unless Trump wins.
This could, conceivably, be the hold up at federal level tbh. We have no current means by which we can objectively test for active impairment caused by THC…
Testing for alcohol is rare, and incident specific, because it’s a measure of actual impairment. You aren’t tested for alcohol to see if you’ve had a beer in the last 30 days, you’re being tested to see if it’s dangerous for you to be operating a vehicle, provide healthcare, carry a gun…
The basic principle behind alcohol testing is to determine actual impairment. The premise is that an agency is protecting others from dangers inherent in your being impaired.
The basic principle of drug testing is that the same danger from impairment is prevented by preventing impairment, but the premise is that any use is illegal. It’s a “just in case” premise vs an actual matter of being presently impaired.
That fundamental difference is hugely notable in the case of DUI. How exactly do you mitigate the risk of DUI with THC? The current arguments in favor of legalization trend towards “it doesn’t impair people as much”, but that’s a total cop out that doesn’t address the issue, exactly the same way prohibition is.
We seriously need a solution to that, and I suspect it could very well be the “mystery cause” of federal legislators on the liberal side dragging their feet. They don’t want to open the floodgates and make it unprosecutable to get in your car impaired, because even with an easy means to prosecute that if alcohol is the cause, it’s still a huge issue… How bad will it be if it’s effectively undetectable?
You want cops deciding based on how well you perform the little monkey dance? I fucking don’t. I can’t dance for shit perfectly sober…
That does make sense. I wonder if we can figure out a way to test if people are currently under the influence of THC rather than having possibly done it days before?
It sucks here in Indiana- if you have more than a nanogram THC in your system and you get in a serious auto accident, it counts as an OWI. I use medically, so I’m basically fucked if I ever get in a serious accident. Thankfully, I’m a good driver who has never been in more than a very low-speed fender bender when I was at fault and I wait until I’m not high anymore before I drive, but it really scares me. I refuse to drive at night unless it’s a real emergency because I’m really scared of getting into a serious accident because my vision is impaired.
If you have more than a nanogram THC in your system and you get in a serious auto accident, it counts as an OWI.
That is entirely unenforceable if gets descheduled… It’s questionable as is, but there’s a vague implication that there’s a federal violation involved despite the obvious.
How do they prosecute someone for impairment they can’t prove though? There exists a shadow of a doubt, inherently… It’s a complete non-starter…
I feel like if you have gone through with getting a prescription, at least you’ve shown good faith. But if you’re going to shoot someone down for following through with the legal system it’s kind of creating excuses to discriminate not on the basis of merit, but by imagined nonconformity, and that is really not the true point of either policy or law and order.
Just legalize marijuana at the federal level and admit the “war on drugs” is lost and was lost before it even started. That it really was yet another racist policy and the government is really really sorry for being shitty, again.
Even if they don’t admit they were wrong, they can demonstrate it. Legalize mj, at a minimum (maybe let’s do psychedelics next so those of us with mental health disorders can get some promising treatment some day soon). Pardon all people convicted of possession of said drugs. Set up a national program for addiction treatment. Hell while I am at it let’s socialize mental healthcare. And establish UBI. I could go on…
the government is really really sorry
What gives you that impression? They aren’t sorry, they’re upset people said “fuck you” just like prohibition.
They’re saying the government should walk it back and at least pay the lip service to that effect.
You’re just describing politics. Monied interests push Y, People say “fuck you” eventually and demand Z as a response to Y. Politicians resist, at varying degrees, until they say, “okay, we’ll start to do Z”.
Moneyed interests are 100% pushing for marijuana legalization, not the other way around.
Drugs should all be legalized at the federal level, but I think the damage is already done. There is a defacto narco state from the US southern border to the southern tip of South America and it’s largely been created out of US social policy. Now that “state” has actual state levels of funding, and in some cases weaponry, and it isn’t a physical state so you can’t exactly just go bomb it out of existence.
Americans don’t have the wherewithal to address addiction as a health crisis. Just take a look outside in any American city and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Addiction, poverty - half the country thinks we can just free market our way out of this, some part thinks we can just make all drugs illegal and the problem goes away. We’re doomed.
Drugs should all be legalized at the federal level,
We should but it’s unlikely anytime soon.
…but I think the damage is already done.
Very much so. The war on drugs has done wonders to continue the joys of Jim Crow under yet another name. Even if there was a full stop now it would be generations before those affected were back on level. Unless the government went nuts and actually approved something like reparations but that’s a pipe dream.
Gramps should legalize it.
If only to take the carrot away from the libertarians.
That requires federal legislation.
Biden is bound by the Controlled Substances Act, same as anyone else.
It doesn’t require federal legislation actually. Biden could simply order the AG to deschedule marijuana which would effectively legalize it nationally.
The United States Code, under Section 811 of Title 21,[24] sets out a process by which cannabis could be administratively transferred to a less-restrictive category or removed from Controlled Substances Act regulation altogether. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) evaluates petitions to reschedule cannabis. However, the Controlled Substances Act gives the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), as successor agency of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, great power over rescheduling decisions.
After the DEA accepts the filing of a petition, the agency must request from the HHS Secretary “a scientific and medical evaluation, and his recommendations, as to whether such drug or other substance should be so controlled or removed as a controlled substance.” The Secretary’s findings on scientific and medical issues are binding on the DEA.[25] The HHS Secretary can even unilaterally legalize cannabis: “[I]f the Secretary recommends that a drug or other substance not be controlled, the Attorney General shall not control the drug or other substance.” 21 U.S.C. § 811(b).
Biden could theoretically pressure the HHS secretary to do that, but that would directly be a Trumpian act of a guy who ran on “look how not-Trump I am” and just is not going to happen.
Biden will use the system, as designed, and hope the chips land his way. If they don’t, and public backlash is strong, Dems can safely run on it.
We can not like how the political sausage is made, or even like that said sausage is made, and still live in the reality in which one does have to make sausage in politics.
Maybe if the world didn’t catch fire right before his election, this could be a thing, but with the past four to six years I just don’t see it taking anything but an act of Congress
Even without de- or re-scheduling, I think the very fact that most stoners and your average casual user of marijuana is not a hardcore criminal gives people in government a bit more to think about.
If they were to allow the DEA and police to apply discretion on an individual basis, rather than simply seek to create punishment for the sake of tax dollars, you’d see our better angels shine through.
Even if you worked for the DEA, day in day out with a MDF board with pins and string lines of whose who, bank statements, phone tracking, GPS car trackers like in NCIS, and had to hunt some evil ass people/drug traffickers, terrorists and spies everyday, your average stoner guy isn’t big fish to fry.
Hell if anything, for the average guy on the street or even just a news reporter, it’s probably a joke of a case to be thrown out along with the lead investigators.
If you really wanted to find criminals just go to East Europe or the middle east and pretend to be a photographer or reporter, you’ll probably not manage to arrest a single person, and maybe even die, but you’ll sure as hell learn more about how the CIA and others in power keep accidentally creating war zones, and why both USA and China has so far done a good job to avoid getting involved in the Israel Gaza conflict.
be creative. play the damn game like the republicans. simply put out an executive order saying ‘why would you arrest anyone for weed in this day and age’. no one with true power and will is bound by a piece of paper. the republicans aren’t; the democrats should consider doing the same with saner policies
The federal government is already doing this, and has been doing it since the first state legalized it. The FBI could theoretically raid any weed dealer at any time, but they’ve been directed to not exercise that power since Eric Holder first enacted the policy.
https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/dea-position-marijuana
Merry Christmas!
