Fuck the Police State

[trish]

I’m very sorry your friend overdosed. You’ve clearly have seen and experienced the hard side of life.

While I might agree with you that Corporations are the Fourth Reich, and may bring down the entire world economy, I don't think it plays much in the struggle between cops and robbers.

Here is where we disagree, because Wall Street did nearly crash our economy and we’re still recovering. Employment has been rising, but the rise has been stubbornly sluggish. Poor economic conditions breeds more robbers and hence escalates the struggle to which you allude. Couple that with the nationwide passage of concealed carry, and you have nervous cops as well as more cops who have, at a young age, bought into the gun culture. Layer on top of that the age old racial prejudices, the inflammatory politics of immigration, the residual prejudicial effects of 9-11 and the recent militarization and privatization of the police and you got a recipe for violence.

[wearboots4me]

The latest excuse for officers shooting unarmed people seems to be that they had marijuana in their system. I say legalize marijuana for recreational use or at least decriminalize it. I think it would prevent a lot of people from being stopped on searched by police on fishing expeditions as well.

[buttslinger]

Legalizing marijuana would certainly keep butts out of jail, and would also give teens a sense that they can have fun with their friends and not be criminals.
Less people would "drop out" of a society that doesn't look down on them.
As for Narcotics, legalizing them would put a lot of criminals out of business. At least junkies wouldn't have to steal anymore. But if you thought cigarettes were bad.......

The economy didn't crash because of big business, the economy crashed because the people of the USA elected a President TWICE who clearly opened the vaults and let his business buddies come in and take all they want. CAVEAT EMPTOR.
The USA DESERVED what they got. The people ELECTED big business.

Obama has joked that maybe it should be a law that everybody has to vote. If the sheep actually voted, the wolves would get voted out of office.
I guess my point is ....big business actually gets off their ass every day and makes things happen. They are the movers and shakers. They have a clear motive, Working stiffs just want to get through the week. You can't just WISH people would build up million dollar businesses and then give the profits to the peons. That's dumber then the trickle down theory.

I assure you that my man OBAMA is in the catbird seat to make all of Trish's dreams come true. But by design, Wall Street has more money than Obama. MONEY TALKS. You get into a dangerous place when The Government starts telling people what they can and can't do.

Don't forget, as bad as it is, it could be worse. It could be the year 2000 and Scalia is casting the deciding vote on who becomes the next President of the United States.
Obama followed by Hilary? This is as good as it gets.

[wearboots4me]

Legalizing marijuana would certainly keep butts out of jail, and would also give teens a sense that they can have fun with their friends and not be criminals.
Less people would "drop out" of a society that doesn't look down on them.
As for Narcotics, legalizing them would put a lot of criminals out of business. At least junkies wouldn't have to steal anymore. But if you thought cigarettes were bad.......

I was talking only about marijuana legalization, not harder drugs. A lot of people who don't even use it get hassled on speculation they might be in possession of it. Any drugs stronger than pot should probably still be illegal.

[buttslinger]

I was talking only about marijuana legalization, not harder drugs. A lot of people who don't even use it get hassled on speculation they might be in possession of it. Any drugs stronger than pot should probably still be illegal.

Obamacare could conceivably be a gateway toward the Govt rewarding good behavior and punishing bad behavior before you get to the point where you're a junkie or diabetic. Raising the price of cigarettes has done a lot towards making cigarettes unpopular.In the future, if illegal drugs show up on your yearly blood work, you'd basically be busted. The whole idea of Obamacare is that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If mom and dad don't make you eat your vegetables, the government will. Obamacare could mean that a policeman and social worker visit Tyrone BEFORE he becomes a gangbanger. The future is too important to leave to chance.

[broncofan]

Obamacare is not analogous to preemptive incarceration. One has a fundamental liberty interest in not being incarcerated based on what people think they might do. Sickness and ill health on the other hand are an inevitability, and being forced to insure against this inevitability should be a civic duty where emergency care is already mandated by law.

[buttslinger]

Obamacare is not analogous to preemptive incarceration. One has a fundamental liberty interest in not being incarcerated based on what people think they might do. Sickness and ill health on the other hand are an inevitability, and being forced to insure against this inevitability should be a civic duty where emergency care is already mandated by law.

If you go to the hospital or the doctor and test positive for heroin, you are a criminal. What does a doctor do? Under Obamacare all those blood tests go into a national database that other doctors can refer to.
The Govt actually did a good job clamping down on all that oxy that was hitting the streets a few years ago. That's why you see so much heroin now. If prison populations continue to skyrocket, it might be an ECONOMIC necessity to start drug-testing teens and get a jump on the scofflaws. If you test a 16 year old kid's hair for drug use and it shows he's been getting high every day for a year, are drugs illegal or not???

[wearboots4me]

If you go to the hospital or the doctor and test positive for heroin, you are a criminal. What does a doctor do? Under Obamacare all those blood tests go into a national database that other doctors can refer to.

Are you sure about that? Anyone who's ever been to a doctor has medical records kept by Doctors and insurance companies. That system has been around as long as there's been doctors. Obamacare is private insurance companies. It's called the "Affordable Care Act", not the government provided healthcare act. Don't get me wrong, there are some things about ACA that should be changed, but let's not play up people's paranoia.

[broncofan]

If you go to the hospital or the doctor and test positive for heroin, you are a criminal. What does a doctor do? Under Obamacare all those blood tests go into a national database that other doctors can refer to.
The Govt actually did a good job clamping down on all that oxy that was hitting the streets a few years ago. That's why you see so much heroin now. If prison populations continue to skyrocket, it might be an ECONOMIC necessity to start drug-testing teens and get a jump on the scofflaws. If you test a 16 year old kid's hair for drug use and it shows he's been getting high every day for a year, are drugs illegal or not???

What provision of PPACA are you talking about? My understanding is that HIPAA protections would still apply to electronic health records (they are treated as protected health information). I am not familiar with all of the relevant provisions of HIPAA but I don't believe it permits doctors to disclose health information to law enforcement unless subject to a subpoena or required by statute as in the case of child abuse. Anyhow, that's what I gleaned from reading this. My understanding is that nothing in PPACA supercedes or pre-empts HIPAA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health...t#Privacy_Rule

I can't imagine police departments and prosecutors are randomly subpoenaing medical records so that they can charge people with possession based on old medical records. If they are, it's not something that PPACA enables them to do...it would mean they were already wasting their resources and doing it.

[broncofan]

"Covered entities may disclose protected health information to law enforcement officials for law enforcement purposes as required by law (including court orders, court-ordered warrants, subpoenas)".

This is the relevant provision. I traced it to HIPAA and it says the same thing in more detail. But my interpretation is that covered entities are permitted to disclose the information when it's required by law, such as when there's a court order or a subpoena. They cannot do so simply because they have dirty blood tests and want to help the prosecuting authority initiate cases. Notice how it does not even use mandatory language (may rather than shall), which means they can defy a court order and probably face other sanctions but not violate HIPAA.