Early Day, Drugs and Portugal, Balanced Budgets
Hello everyone, sorry I took last night off but I am back now. I am writing this post a little earlier than usual, it is just after 9 am here. But I found something I would like to talk about and will get to that soon. So, my day, it has been good, I am lumping in yesterday also. Uber was really slow yesterday, which is strange for a Friday. I am still wraping my head around what I had seen on Thursday night, Infinity War. That was such a great movie and that was only the first time I will watch it. I figure I will do some cleaning today, probably mess with some cards, stuff like that. I will probably go do some Uber driving a little later but if it is slow like yesterday, then I will not drive until later in the evening or something. One last thing, I have been waking up a little later than usual, yesterday I woke up about a quarter after 8 am and today I woke up at 8:30 am so I am going to start setting an alarm like before. Don't like waking up late, feels like the day has already been halfway going without me. Anyway, let me get to it.
So, as I said before this is the thing I wanted to write about and hopefully get your opinions on. Please leave a comment no matter what country you are from. Portugal, a country not many of us think about, unless you live there. Back in 2001 they tried an experiment, I always like experiments, as long as they are not too crazy. They legallized all drugs, even hardcore ones and decided to treat drug use as a public health issue instead of a criminal one. It did not deter all drug use, as the following article will say but did lower a lot of drug related activities. Now the Libertarian in me says we should copy what Portugal is doing but then I think a little more and see that this could bring about a whole host of bad things with it. If you do not know what a Libertarian is, it is a political way of thinking like liberal and conservative, look it up. Anyway, I have thought for a long time that America was going at the drug situation in our country all wrong, at least in certain areas as addiction should not be treated as a criminal problem but should be treated as a health problem. Addiction is more of a mental health problem than some things that are now considered mental health problems such as Facebook addiction or smartphone addiction. The people that are said to have Facebook or smartphone addiction are treated and sent to special hospitals were people with a real addiction to drugs are sent to jail or even prison. That needs to quickly change in this country, we need to be first thinking of how to help before we think about putting someone behind bars. That is a reason why we have such a bad recidivism rate in this country, once we put someone in prison for something that they should not be there for, they get upset and look at ways to get back at the "man". Recidivism is the re-entry of criminals after they have been released from jail or prison. Anyway, here is the article about the situation in Portugal; https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radical-drugs-policy-is-working-why-hasnt-the-world-copied-it
As I have talked about before, I did do a political spectrum test to see what I am, if you are big into labels, which I am not that big into it. I came out as mostly libertarian, next was conservative and I did have a little leaning towards liberal. There is that old saying, I am fiscally conservative and socially liberal, I follow that old saying more than most anything. I think the federal government should have to have a balanced budget like we have to as citizens, if we don't then we might not be able to eat or get the medication we need. The last time the budget was balanced was under President Bill Clinton, he had republican majority in the House and Senate but the last time we had a budget that was totally balanced, where we paid off all of our debt was a very long time ago. Andrew Jackson, the president a lot of liberals hate even though he founded the democrat party, really balanced the budget by paying off all debt. The debt at the time that Jackson came into the presidency was only around $60 million, which at the time was a lot of money, and he presided over paying it off in full, which is something that would be great to see today. If you would really like to debate this fact then please send me a message and we can have a good talk. President Jackson was big on separating the banks and the federal government, which I think is a good way of thinking and I wish we would think that way in government now. Anyway, here is an article that talks about this from a few years ago, I do have to warn you that the person that wrote this article seems to be a hater of President Andrew Jackson so take it with a grain of salt. Here it is; http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/apr/21/ben-carson/andrew-jackson-debt-balanced-budget-president/
Well, that is all for me today, I am going out to enjoy this weather. I hope you all have a wonderful night or day, take care!
So, as I said before this is the thing I wanted to write about and hopefully get your opinions on. Please leave a comment no matter what country you are from. Portugal, a country not many of us think about, unless you live there. Back in 2001 they tried an experiment, I always like experiments, as long as they are not too crazy. They legallized all drugs, even hardcore ones and decided to treat drug use as a public health issue instead of a criminal one. It did not deter all drug use, as the following article will say but did lower a lot of drug related activities. Now the Libertarian in me says we should copy what Portugal is doing but then I think a little more and see that this could bring about a whole host of bad things with it. If you do not know what a Libertarian is, it is a political way of thinking like liberal and conservative, look it up. Anyway, I have thought for a long time that America was going at the drug situation in our country all wrong, at least in certain areas as addiction should not be treated as a criminal problem but should be treated as a health problem. Addiction is more of a mental health problem than some things that are now considered mental health problems such as Facebook addiction or smartphone addiction. The people that are said to have Facebook or smartphone addiction are treated and sent to special hospitals were people with a real addiction to drugs are sent to jail or even prison. That needs to quickly change in this country, we need to be first thinking of how to help before we think about putting someone behind bars. That is a reason why we have such a bad recidivism rate in this country, once we put someone in prison for something that they should not be there for, they get upset and look at ways to get back at the "man". Recidivism is the re-entry of criminals after they have been released from jail or prison. Anyway, here is the article about the situation in Portugal; https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radical-drugs-policy-is-working-why-hasnt-the-world-copied-it
As I have talked about before, I did do a political spectrum test to see what I am, if you are big into labels, which I am not that big into it. I came out as mostly libertarian, next was conservative and I did have a little leaning towards liberal. There is that old saying, I am fiscally conservative and socially liberal, I follow that old saying more than most anything. I think the federal government should have to have a balanced budget like we have to as citizens, if we don't then we might not be able to eat or get the medication we need. The last time the budget was balanced was under President Bill Clinton, he had republican majority in the House and Senate but the last time we had a budget that was totally balanced, where we paid off all of our debt was a very long time ago. Andrew Jackson, the president a lot of liberals hate even though he founded the democrat party, really balanced the budget by paying off all debt. The debt at the time that Jackson came into the presidency was only around $60 million, which at the time was a lot of money, and he presided over paying it off in full, which is something that would be great to see today. If you would really like to debate this fact then please send me a message and we can have a good talk. President Jackson was big on separating the banks and the federal government, which I think is a good way of thinking and I wish we would think that way in government now. Anyway, here is an article that talks about this from a few years ago, I do have to warn you that the person that wrote this article seems to be a hater of President Andrew Jackson so take it with a grain of salt. Here it is; http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/apr/21/ben-carson/andrew-jackson-debt-balanced-budget-president/
Well, that is all for me today, I am going out to enjoy this weather. I hope you all have a wonderful night or day, take care!
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