Springfield XD Forum banner

Wealthy Elites Freak Out As Homeless Hordes Take Over West Coast Neighborhoods

6K views 75 replies 18 participants last post by  Powerman 
#1 ·
#6 ·
Have any of you seen the old movie "Soilant Green" with Charlton Heston? We are headed that way now and most of you will actually see it happen in your lifetime. Overpopulation is going to be the downfall of civilization as we know it now. So you might want to prepare for it soon, if not tomorrow.
 
#8 ·
The global population growth rate is decreasing. And while there may be nearly 8 billion people on this planet, there are only 320 million here. And our growth rate is below the global and decreasing. The population will not grow unchecked.

As far as the homeless... I don't get it other than all the money we give to take care of it. The article was pretty weak, lots of hyperbole, short on facts. The "homeless" problems seem to be growing everywhere but no real reason. Growing up in Vegas there were pretty large shanty towns... then the cops would finally bulldoze the place... but right now... public drug use, intoxication, loitering, defecation, urination, trespassing, camping... all against the law. Not really sure why it's such a problem.
 
  • Like
Reactions: refugeepj
#13 ·
There are millions of useless humans roaming the planet in search of their next fix and a place to poop. The less personal responsibility we accept from these people, the less they provide. I certainly don’t know what the answer is, but simply warehousing them doesn’t seem to be improving things for anyone. About the best we can hope for is that they suddenly have enough pride in themselves to feed and house themselves? You know that’s never going to happen.

Soylent green may be the answer, whether it’s politically correct or not.
 
#14 ·
As George Carlin used to say
Everyone is for it until they are stricken with the NIMBY syndrome.
Not
In
My
Back
Yard!!

All the lefties are for socialism until the effects of be socialist start to infringe on them.

STOP letting 100k a month of illegals in would help Im sure.

They are building Tent Cities on the in Donna TX (Laredo) to hold them now.

We need to Roll up the welcome mat not Roll it out as we are now.

We have a large number of homeless (both legal and illegals) here in SATX


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#15 ·
My wife has said, for months, that if Nancy Pelosi really believes all the crap she spouts about immigrants she should open the gates on the walls to her house/property and let some set up tents inside the walls.

Don't expect we'll see that though. Those folks are above the rest of us and don't see the need to experience what they push on everyone else.
 
#16 ·
Illegals coming in from Central and South America that enter Mexico to come to the US should be made to stay in Mexico. After all it is Mexico's problem for letting them storm their southern border. Mexico needs to handle the consequences for letting illegals enter their country. This should not be our problem.
 
#21 ·
Well... Not really... When Regan signed the drug free workplace act in the 80s...in part because pilots were drunk and the a track pothead killed several people... They did a survey... 70% of the workforce... Blue collar... Was on drugs. They kept lowering allowable limits and today we are like 5%. We can find plenty not on drugs. Opioid abuse went up slightly, meth went up slightly, but still a very small percentage of workforce in safety sensitive jobs. Fry cooks at McDonald's and car washers... Who cares?

I never said make it cheaper and easier... I said stop giving profits to criminal enterprises. I said stop treating addiction as a criminal problem and start treating it as the the mental and physical problem it is. That's what I said. You have to treat addiction. If not... Then double our prison space and throw away the key and you still won't fix it... Because every since the drug war began... We have grown our prison population SIX TIMES... yet we still have a huge drug problem.... So criminalization and incarceration doesn't seem to be the answer does it?
 
#22 ·
Legalizing it makes it easier to get. Reducing the price from 100 to 2 dollars in your example makes it cheaper.

There’s really nothing to argue about, you either think drugs are a net gain to society or a net negative. I think net negative so anything that makes them easier to get or cheaper to buy I oppose.
 
#23 ·
The problem is that there isn’t an easy solution. Some people can be helped others can’t, period. Making all drugs legal and cheap will stop illegal profiting on drugs, but this “illegal” work force isn’t going to pick up and go get a real job and contribute positively to society. They will do other illegal things to profit in the same way. Human trafficking, weapons, robbery, etc. the product might change but the job won’t.

Making needles free to everyone like shown in the article = needles trashed all over the city.
 
#30 ·
The problem is that there isn’t an easy solution. Some people can be helped others can’t, period. Making all drugs legal and cheap will stop illegal profiting on drugs, but this “illegal” work force isn’t going to pick up and go get a real job and contribute positively to society. They will do other illegal things to profit in the same way. Human trafficking, weapons, robbery, etc. the product might change but the job won’t.

Making needles free to everyone like shown in the article = needles trashed all over the city.
Who gives a crap if they get a job? Ya, lots of ways to make money illegally... But why provide them with such an easy and lucrative way simply from a stupid law we chose to enact? And robbery weapons, human trafficking... Of actual human beings not a plant... Is already illegal... So that issue is done.

I mean FFS... The number one most costly to society, most destructive drugwe use is alcohol. Alcohol cost this country more than ALL ILLEGAL DRUGS COMBINED! I'll take a wild guess and say over half the people here drink. WTF should alcohol be legal? WTF did we not learn from prohibition? I will support prohibition of drugs 100% as soon as we add alcohol to the list. But we all know that sure as hell isn't going to happen. Every single argument made for the prohibition of drugs applies 100% to alcohol. Every single argument made for alcohol being legal applies to drugs. I've said 1000 times over either make it all illegal, or make it legal... But the BS policies we have now are exactly that.
 
#24 ·
I'm going to be the heartless asshole here;
Adicts used to get weeded out of society and the gene pool naturally. Now we keep theme in in a torturous purgatory out of "kindness". Let them die if they don't want to be productive.
 
#56 ·
For 2010 numbers, the cost from Healthcare to lost productivity and legal....
Alcohol costs $249 million
Illegal drugs cost $193 million
Perscription opiods cost $79 milion
So the cost to the US economy is $521 million per year.

Americans spend annually
$253 billion on alcohol
$110 billion on illicit drugs
$8 billion on Perscription opiods

In 2015, there were 1.5 milion arrests for drug law violations. 4 out of 5 were for possession. 60-80% of inmates in all facilities had drugs or alcohol in their system at time of arrest.

Drug use has gone up mostly for weed and opiods. Others were flat or slightly declining. From 7 million to 8 million total users from 2003 to 2013. In 2016 15.1 million Americans over 18 had "Alcohol use disorder". Drunks. So 23 million Americans... 7%, is who is causing all the problems.

The US accounts for 5% of the world population but we consume 80% of global opiod production. 330 tons of cocaine, 20 tons of heroin, and 110 tons of meth come into the US every year. Estimates put the global drug trade at $400 billion... We make up 25% of that.

We spend $50 billion a year on the drug war. When cost of incarceration is included, the US has topped $1 TRILLION over 40 years. Drug use has remained relatively flat despite dramatic increases in incarceration and spending to stop it.

So we spend $370 billion a year FOR drugs and alcohol.

It cost the US economy $521 billion

We spend $50 billion on the "War"
We spend $80 billion for incarceration and half of that can be attributed to drug use. So $100 billion a year for the "War on drugs".

Law enforcement sieze $12 billion a year.

Roughly $30 billion a year is spent on treatment.

Is there anyone that thinks that's "working"? Does anyone think that is a successful drug policy for the US?
 
#57 ·
For 2010 numbers, the cost from Healthcare to lost productivity and legal....
Alcohol costs $249 million
Illegal drugs cost $193 million
Perscription opiods cost $79 milion
So the cost to the US economy is $521 million per year.

Americans spend annually
$253 billion on alcohol
$110 billion on illicit drugs
$8 billion on Perscription opiods

In 2015, there were 1.5 milion arrests for drug law violations. 4 out of 5 were for possession. 60-80% of inmates in all facilities had drugs or alcohol in their system at time of arrest.

Drug use has gone up mostly for weed and opiods. Others were flat or slightly declining. From 7 million to 8 million total users from 2003 to 2013. In 2016 15.1 million Americans over 18 had "Alcohol use disorder". Drunks. So 23 million Americans... 7%, is who is causing all the problems.

The US accounts for 5% of the world population but we consume 80% of global opiod production. 330 tons of cocaine, 20 tons of heroin, and 110 tons of meth come into the US every year. Estimates put the global drug trade at $400 billion... We make up 25% of that.

We spend $50 billion a year on the drug war. When cost of incarceration is included, the US has topped $1 TRILLION over 40 years. Drug use has remained relatively flat despite dramatic increases in incarceration and spending to stop it.

So we spend $370 billion a year FOR drugs and alcohol.

It cost the US economy $521 billion

We spend $50 billion on the "War"
We spend $80 billion for incarceration and half of that can be attributed to drug use. So $100 billion a year for the "War on drugs".

Law enforcement sieze $12 billion a year.

Roughly $30 billion a year is spent on treatment.

Is there anyone that thinks that's "working"? Does anyone think that is a successful drug policy for the US?
That's a track record of failure, certainly we can't stop people from using illegal drugs. Well, there is one way we can stop the cartels and violence and murders, stop buying illegal drugs. How about we spend the money we seize from the drug dealers on campaigns to stop people from buying illegal drugs? We get commercials all the time about smoking, seems like that's been pretty effective, why not spend a bunch of money telling people that hey guess what, using illegal drugs is very bad for you, can ruin your life, and that spending money on illegal drugs means you're supporting murders around the world.

Seems to me we should be doing all we can to get people not to use drugs. Seems to me the evidence that using drugs is very bad for people and society is pretty plan. Seems to me we should do anything we can to make using drugs less acceptable and more rare.
 
#62 ·
Actually, people are Overdosing on weed and going to the ER having psychotic episodes.

They say the potency of the edibles, combined with the fact that it takes a while for it to take effect means people eat more than they should before they start feeling the effects, and then it’s too late.

Granted, not as bad as over doing it on alcohol or heroin, but it is happening.
 
#68 ·
I've seen that. Rookies... eating it is different than smoking it. I think newbies freak out. Fact remains you can't OD and you can only get so high. But I've seen news stories on increased ER visits... I'm like for what? The real reason behind it is a really poor wingman. You shouldn't fly without a buddy that can talk you down from a bad trip..... :)
 
#73 ·
Now I think you are just having a laugh... said several times I'm not saying it's good... I'm saying it's much better that booze... when you made the statement it's not. I got it... you are stuck in "Refer Madness". Weed makes people homeless, turns them insane, and makes black guys rape white women... pure evil. Cool. We actually have a lot of studies that have been done since that groundbreaking documentary.
Most people I know, including myself, have the occasional beer at a sporting event and a nice glass of wine at a business dinner. Lots of business execs, suppliers, even elected officials that I've spent time with drink in that manner. Social drinkers. You figure we should all smoke pot instead? Do you have any idea how dumb that sounds?

You're trying to compare heavy drinkers and the bad side effects of their behavior and say heavy pot smokers have it better. OK, sure, whatever. I really don't care if that's right or wrong. If it's better to be a wino or kill all your brain cells with pot, doesn't matter to me.
 
#74 ·
So what's your magic bullet? What's your solution... we're doing the best we can, 100% behind the drug war... we're too soft and it's time to get tougher on drugs... or keep doing what we are doing but everyone needs to go to church more? (that's not a dig, more church is a good thing) I know you are completely opposed to weed... got it. But I've said plenty of other possibilities and nothing...
I told you my solution multiple times. Look around you at the world we live in and the general stupidity that you see and that it's getting worse and tell me what we need is more people taking drugs?

There's things that are good in life, things that help you be successful, things that bring long term happiness. On that side of the ledger you won't find heavy drinking or drug use. Period.

There are things in life that hold you back, stop you from achieving all you can, bring long term unhappiness. On that side of the ledger is drug use.

That doesn't mean that ever successful person doesn't smoke weed, or that every failure does. But like the example I made with the Mormons, and it could be pretty much any group that follows a few basic rules for life like stay in school, stay off drugs, drink in moderation only, work hard, don't make babies until you're married, if married stay married. Look at any group like that and look at any group that has a lot of drug users, kids without fathers at home, single parents, and you tell me which group is going to be happier and more successful?

I know the answer so a simple way to look at things is encourage that which works and discourage that which doesn't. So anything that makes drugs harder to get I'm in favor of and beyond that I'd like to see a whole lot more push to discourage people from using drugs. Some will anyway, let's help them, repeatedly, but if that's not going to work they need to be removed from society until they can be with the rest of us without crapping on sidewalks and leaving needles everywhere.

I get libertarian impulses, I share a lot of them, but not when it comes to drugs. We have predatory LEGAL prescription drug companies that are IMO responsible for a lot of deaths from Oxy, why would we give them more drugs and more addicts to peddle to by legalizing drugs? They're worse than the friggin cartels. There's no reason why our society can't encourage and reduce the amount of drugs people take we just lack the culture to do it.
 
#76 ·
Yep, now we are just repeating. I've said many times the goal always has been and still is for less people doing less drugs of all kinds. You can keep saying different doesn't change what I've said and what I want.

Big picture is the drug war and exponentially increased incarceration model is not getting people to use less drugs. If it is, we have zero evidence to show how much. How effective our work is. If you can't measure it, then you have no control of the process.

What I have suggested, with numerous examples, is there needs to be a dramatic shift from supply side policies to demand side policies. To actually get people to stop using drugs, and provide means to do that. All we do now is punish them after the fact. Punish use, instead of focusing on and aiding the not using.

40 straight years we have used the hammer to control behavior. It's a cool old testament strategy. Nuke them all into submission. All we have to show for it is a police state with stuffed prisons and no reduction in use or even access.

So, I don't actually know if legalizing sloves that. But I've even said don't legalize, but change how we work on the problem. Spend our money and effort differently. Spend it on reducing demand, instead of on trying to end supply. With the money involved, it has been proven for 40 years there will always be a line of people willing to fill that need.

You might be right. Our culture may be past the point of fixing it. Too self centered, self absorbed, all for instant gratification. If our culture is that screwed up, maybe nothing will work. Who knows? I just know that the old testament fire and brimstone only works on those that have something to loose. Even God said wait... Maybe fire and brimstone isn't the answer... Then he gave us Jesus... And said here is a reason to live, instead of a fear of retribution. If you want people to stop coming over the border, then fix the demand, cause you can't stop the supply. Same with drugs. Same with God... You can't ever stop the supply of sin, you have to show the sinner there is a better way. If all you say is screw you into the lake of fire you go... Then you get a screw you back. It may feel good to say f'em all... But it doesn't actually solve the problem.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top