Comment by tolmasky | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tolmasky | Hacker News Reader

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The problem is not the American people. If a system requires nearly the entire populace to be as active (intellectually and financially) as every individual vested interest just to be successful, then it is a bad system. Its easy to call people dumb as rocks when they aren't rich and need to spend their time working really difficult jobs, and then choose low prices and tv for the leisure they have left as opposed to researching the complex web of interests that define the political actions of this country. The reality is that even the people that are "well informed" have wildly different beliefs about what is going on.

The government represents an entity capable of on the one hand restricting just about anything, and on the other hand propping up other things. It is thus a completely natural and logical result that thousands of vested interests will start vying for its favor. Now all of a sudden the entire population needs to go on defense for each of these issues. Its madness and completely unsustainable. You happen to care about and understand drug legalization, but I guarantee you that there are hundreds of other issues you aren't even aware of that are equally bad. Does that make you a bad person or dumb? Of course not.

"If a system requires nearly the entire populace to be as active (intellectually and financially) as every individual vested interest just to be successful, then it is a bad system."

We can't even get half of the country to make informed decisions. Americans are definitely the problem. They vote every couple of years to elect rich politicians that don't give a fuck about them. And they vote based off of arbitrary reasons. They find out we are being constantly spied on and they just don't care. Just like they didn't care when Japanese Americans were thrown into camps during WW2. Just like they didn't care when we were lied into Vietnam and then again into Iraq to make a few people richer. Americans are complacent.

With drugs it's even worse than that: otherwise intelligent and well meaning people have been brainwashed into thinking that we have to be protected from these dangerous drugs.

Lot's of people will say legalize pot but not the "hard stuff" (only because they want legal pot for themselves).

I'm not sure "brainwashed" or anything like it is right, or at least the one's I've discussed this with who were beyond thinking were terrified about their children. I pointed out the choices of liberty or a drug war, which they did not deny, and they preferred the latter.

Brainwashed is the right word. Have you seen any of thr old drug propaganda videos? Check them out on YouTue. Also look up and watch Referrer Madness. In D.A.R.E my brothers kid learned that LSD stays in your system forever and drips acid down your brainstem, among a whole slew of other non-factual information.

These were people around my age or a bit younger, pre-D.A.R.E (which was started in 1983), and Reefer Madness was considered camp at best by my time.

Never heard any outrageous things like that LSD stuff (can't say for sure about the people I talked to), but it was very well established by then, without any lies needed, that hard drugs are very bad news (by that time psychedelics weren't a big concern, they were long out of fashion).

Americans are the worst citizens, except when compared to the people of other countries, who are around as apathetic as we are, if not worse. You see this even in Switzerland's mostly direct democracy. It might even be human nature to not care about big pictures and only worry about immediate needs/comfort.

Blame evolution I guess. Thankfully, a few people look forward...they just aren't in the majority.

> We can't even get half of the country to make informed decisions. Americans are definitely the problem. They vote every couple of years to elect rich politicians that don't give a fuck about them. And they vote based off of arbitrary reasons.

Why would it be any different? The chance of their vote changing anything is one in several million. It would be irrational for them to spend much time, if any, learning about the consequences of their vote, because most likely there will be none.

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