[quote name='mykevermin']Pardon me for the criticism, but it seems like your argument here is "now that meth is a problem in middle/upper-class neighborhoods, not it's a *real* problem." That mentality is a bit unsettling, but no more than the difference between sentences for cocaine versus crack felonies that many argue underlie class and race discrimination in the mid-1980's. [/quote]ummm, no. Not even close. What I'm trying to illustrate is that drugs are a problem for everyone. Too many say that they are limited to the uneducated and poor. That is simply not true. I was just pointing that out; no one is immune to the effects of illegal narcotics. I believe the war on drugs is necessary, no matter who is victimized. But what you thought I was saying is also true to a degree (but not in the exact way you implied). While every life is valuable, a little eight year old girl overdosing on candy is slightly more disturbing and distressing than a junkie "choosing" (at some point they did make the conscious decision, even though they soon become a slave) to buy drugs. While I was not saying it is more important because "rich" people are affected, it is true that it is more important to protect innocent children than to force adults to make responsible decisions... You don't have eight year olds going into "the rough areas" to buy a rock. But you do now have kids passing drugs in the form of candy around the playground that is just as dangerous (usually moreso) than the "hard" stuff. That is a more severe problem than we have ever faced. If you look at the numbers, High School use of drugs dramatically dropped in the early-mid 90's to the late 90's. The war on drugs was working! But now the numbers are slowly creeping back up. Adversaries of anti-drug campaaigns claim that the dip was just a coincidence. But if you pull up more numbers, you see that immediately following the drop in High School usage, drug cartels started marketing towards middle and then elementary school ages. And those numbers began to rise as High School usage had dropped off. No wonder five to ten years later High School usage is on the rise. They aren't new numbers. When older High School students turned their backs on drugs, drug lords turned to the children and that is why the numbers are up in recent years. If you want to take that bad and put a racist/class slant on it, then of course I sound evil. But the fact is our innocent children are being attacked by a foul, evil predator. Sue me, but I do feel that has a slight more urgency than we have ever seen before. But that's not saying by far that everyone isn't worthy of the same help.
And don't get me going on punishments. I believe in heavy handed punishments for all crime (reasonably, of course. I obviously don't think that a jaywalker deserves life in prison...).
[quote name='mykevermin']I'm trying to rid myself of what I've come to call the "professional wrestling-ization of politics." To me, Coulter is a buffoon with much venom but no substance. She is no different from Robert Novak, any of the radio elite, Michael Moore, or Jim Hightower. Trust me, it's a hard habit to break, and I haven't been successful at it. However, there are better philosophers out there, and better philosophers for you to arm yourself with as a political discursant (is that even a

ing word?). I recommend starting with Adam Smith if you haven't read much of him yet.[/QUOTE]You are very right in some respects. Coulter does have much venom. But I think she does have many very valid points. But it is also hard to take her completely seriously all the time. In some respects, she serves as a talking charicature orpolitical cartoon of the far left. And the reason political cartoons are so amusing is that there nearly always seems to be some truth within them, no matter how much spin or bias they contain (on either side).