usenet/Two_Singaporeans_Executed_in_Ta.html
From our archives of Tom's USENET posts. Some of these posts are over a decade old. The author may have mellowed with age since these were written, but the basic views remain. (Please note that web links inside this document may be broken.)
<![CDATA[From tms Thu Jan 19 12:36:48 EST 1995
Newsgroups: soc.culture.singapore,soc.culture.taiwan,soc.culture.
netherlands,talk.politics.drugs
Subject: Re: Two Singaporeans Executed in Taiwan
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jackc@chao.ttay.tun.ttt writes:
>
>Wonderful logic and elegant words. So what I have learned so far is
>westerners and Chineses have totally different value system
>on these illegal drugs such as Opium, cocain which will wipe out
>your brains like the eggs on the frying pan (remember ?).
Maybe your could actually go out and reasearch the effects of opium
and cocaine and find out that they don't "wipe out your brains", instead of
getting your drug education from TV commercials made by lying hypocrites.
Try getting some actual facts to argue with.
>Westerners
>do believe they have right to abuse their own body
If it is _my_ body, then I have the right to do with it as I please,
whether you think it's abuse or not.
>At least the points are made very clear that "Chinese countries
>do have very tough laws on these illegal drugs
Which do very little to curb drug abuse.
=Tom Swiss/tms@tis.com======"Born to die."=======Keep your laws off my brain!==
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" - Nick Lowe
"The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not
for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence." -- H. L. Mencken
From tms Thu Jan 26 11:30:00 EST 1995
Newsgroups: soc.culture.singapore,soc.culture.taiwan,soc.culture.
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Subject: Re: Two Singaporeans Executed in Taiwan
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jackc@chao.ttay.tun.ttt writes:
>On the other hand, can I take 1 shot cocain a day to achieve any of these
>things I did ? Can I still be alive if I take 10 times of the shot a day
>all of sudden ? I really doubt about it. Prove me wrong.
The Indians of Peru and other South American countries chew coca
leaves regularly, ingesting small amounts of cocaine, and have little
problem with it. Thomas Edison and Sigmund Freud were full-blown cocaine
addicts, yet seem to have accomplished a significant amount in their lives.
=Tom Swiss/tms@tis.com======"Born to die."=======Keep your laws off my brain!==
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" - Nick Lowe
"Under any conditions, anywhere, whatever you are doing, there is some
ordinance under which you can be booked." -- Robert D. Sprecht (Rand Corp)
From tms Thu Jan 26 11:35:39 EST 1995
Newsgroups: soc.culture.singapore,soc.culture.taiwan,soc.culture.
netherlands,talk.politics.drugs
Subject: Re: Two Singaporeans Executed in Taiwan
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jackc@chao.ttay.tun.ttt writes:
>
> So, Rolland, I will raise several supreme court judges in my family
>who firmly beleive the illegal drugs are bad because "I told them".
I see. Not because of any actual facts, but because you told them.
Always a convincing and rational argument.
"How do you know other races are inferior?" "Daddy told me!"
"How do you know other religions are inferior?" "Daddy told me!"
"How do you know the world is flat?" "Daddy told me!"
I'm so glad my parents taught me how to read, took me to the library
often, and taught me to learn things for myself.
=Tom Swiss/tms@tis.com======"Born to die."=======Keep your laws off my brain!==
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" - Nick Lowe
"Under any conditions, anywhere, whatever you are doing, there is some
ordinance under which you can be booked." -- Robert D. Sprecht (Rand Corp)
From tms Fri Feb 3 10:51:22 EST 1995
Newsgroups: soc.culture.singapore,soc.culture.taiwan,soc.culture.
netherlands,talk.politics.drugs
Subject: Re: Two Singaporeans Executed in Taiwan
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jaskew@maths.adelaide.edu.au (Joseph Askew) writes:
>In article <1995Jan25.093804@poug01.nor.chevron.com> gtsc@poug01.nor.chevron.com (Greg Schorr) writes:
>
>>I have no problems with honest differences of opinion. The problem
>>I have is that the opinions of most of the people from Singapore
>>that have responded to these threads are not based on ANY facts.
>
>It is a fact that Singapore does not have any real drug problem.
Singapore kills people who have harmed no one. I think that's a problem.
>Not at all. Some drugs, even those that are not harmful in themselves,
>have bad social consequences. They mean people don't go to work.
Please provide some evidense for this assertation. If I recall
correctly, no correlation between work days missed and use of currently
illegal drugs has been shwon.
=Tom Swiss/tms@tis.com======"Born to die."=======Keep your laws off my brain!==
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" - Nick Lowe
Winston Churchill: "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs
treat us as equals."
From tms Fri Feb 3 10:58:31 EST 1995
Newsgroups: soc.culture.singapore,soc.culture.taiwan,soc.culture.
netherlands,talk.politics.drugs
Subject: Re: Two Singaporeans Executed in Taiwan
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jaskew@maths.adelaide.edu.au (Joseph Askew) writes:
>
>Noone is asking you to agree the law is justified. Only for you to obey
>it.
Man, the government just _loves_ drones like you.
"The contemporary message - the subtext of contemporary life - is keep your
fucking mouth shut and be a drone." -- Frank Zappa, 1992
>As for "victimless" crimes, how do you go no the following. Incest.
If both parties are consenting adults (e.g., adult brother and sister
with unusual longings for each other), no victim and no justified law
againt it. On the other hand, if by incest you mean sexual abuse of
children by parents, then there clearly is a victim.
> Sex
>with children.
Victim - the child.
> Prostitution.
No victim and no justified law againt it. (Assuming that the
prostitute is not under coercion.)
> Polluting the Colorado River.
Victims - those affected by the pollution.
> Clear felling
>the entire NorthWest. Shooting every last African Elephant. The eating of
>pandas. The use of Tiger and Rhino parts in medicine.
Victims. The animals themselves. The future generations whose environment
and resources are destroyed.
> All (within reason)
>as victimless as drug use.
Nope.
>Yet in Singapore there is essentially no chance your children will get
>killed in a crossfire and a very small chance they will get a dependence.
And a significant chance they will be imprisoned, tortured, or killed
for acts that harm no one.
=Tom Swiss/tms@tis.com======"Born to die."=======Keep your laws off my brain!==
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" - Nick Lowe
Winston Churchill: "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs
treat us as equals."
From tms Fri Feb 3 11:28:43 EST 1995
Newsgroups: soc.culture.singapore,soc.culture.taiwan,soc.culture.
netherlands,talk.politics.drugs
Subject: Re: Two Singaporeans Executed in Taiwan
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jackc@chao.ttay.tun.ttt writes:
>By the way, where did you learn about "Thomas Edison and Sigmund Freud
>were full-blown cocaine addicts" ? I am just curious that how they
>could afford and how they got it ? Especially Edison, if this is the same
>simple and busy Edison I read about. I wonder how those high flying
>dealers would be interesing to deal with him. Or he was addicts after
>he accomplised all of those inventions. Please enlighten me. Thanks,
You've got to remember that this was before cocaine was probitited,
and it was available cheaply. We're talking back when Coca Cola still had
small amounts of cocaine. There were no "dealers" to deal with, one simply
went down to the local pharmacy.
Let me dig around here a little...
From the appendix of _Ceremonial Chemistry_ by Thomas Szasz:
1884 Sigmund Freud treats his depression with cocaine, and reports
feeling "exhilaration and lasting euphoria, which is in no
way differs from the normal euphoria of the healthy person. . .
You perceive an increase in self-control and possess more
vitality and capacity for work. . . . In other words, you
are simply more normal, and it is soon hard to believe that
you are under the influence of a drug." [Quoted in Ernest
Jones, *The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 1, p. 82]
And while we're on addicts who did important work, here's another from
the same source:
1889 The John Hopkins Hospital, in Baltimore, Maryland, is opened.
One of its world-famous founders, Dr. William Stewart Halsted,
is a morphine addict. He continues to use morphine in large
doses throughout his phenomenally successful surgical career
lasting until his death in 1922.
I think I orginally read about Freud and Edison in Weil and Rosen's
_Choclate to Morphine_ - recommended reading.
=Tom Swiss/tms@tis.com======"Born to die."=======Keep your laws off my brain!==
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" - Nick Lowe
Winston Churchill: "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs
treat us as equals."
From tms Fri Feb 3 17:26:36 EST 1995
Newsgroups: soc.culture.singapore,soc.culture.taiwan,soc.culture.
netherlands,talk.politics.drugs
Subject: Re: Two Singaporeans Executed in Taiwan
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jaskew@maths.adelaide.edu.au (Joseph Askew) writes:
>
>It is not a fact. Alcohol is at best mildly to not addictive. The opium
>that they were selling the Chinese was and is strongly addictive. Nor
>was it relatively mild. These are simply facts and are not open to debate.
No, they're not simply facts. I don't know much about opium, but
alcohol is the classic addictive drug. It is one of the few drugs so
addictive that withdrawl can kill.
If you don't know this, you aren't capable of meaningful discussion
about drugs and drug policy.
=Tom Swiss/tms@tis.com======"Born to die."=======Keep your laws off my brain!==
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" - Nick Lowe
"Anybody who doesn't cut his speed at the sight of a police car is
probably parked."
From tms Thu Feb 9 11:42:06 EST 1995
Newsgroups: soc.culture.singapore,soc.culture.taiwan,soc.culture.
netherlands,talk.politics.drugs
Subject: Re: Two Singaporeans Executed in Taiwan
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jaskew@maths.adelaide.edu.au (Joseph Askew) writes:
>>>Incest.
>
>>Kinda disgusting, but I suppose if it's between two consenting adults
>>then that's their own business.
>
>And you would support legalising the marriage between any two adults even
>if brothers and sisters were marrying and producing children with serious
>genetic defects?
We don't prohit marriges between non-related persons whose children
have a good chance of having genetic defects. Or does your lust for power
over the bodies of others exend to wanting to implement a eugenics program?
>>>Sex with children.
>
>>Nope, one or more of the parties involved is not a consenting adult.
>
>So? It is a "victimless" crime.
No, the child is a vicitm (assuming an appropriate definition of
"child" as an individual insuffientently mature to give informed consent.
If we merely mean a person who has not yet reached the current legal "age
of consent", that's another story.)
>Suppose I own half the NorthWest forest area, on what
>grounds would you argue that I can't clear fell it - that someone might
>like to walk into my land and camp out?
Because land "ownership" is a sometimes-convenient legal fiction,
nothing more, and your use of land is therefore subject to many constraints.
>>>Now if legalised the chances of a habit go up.
>
>>Care to provide any reasoning behind this assertion?
>
>Price reflects the costs of circumventing the ban.
Yes.
> Legalisation means lower
>prices.
Yes.
> Lower prices means increased use.
No. If they started giving away rotten roadkill meat at your local
supermarket, would your comsumption of it increase?
=Tom Swiss/tms@tis.com======"Born to die."=======Keep your laws off my brain!==
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" - Nick Lowe
"When I grow up, I want to be an honest lawyer so things like that
can't happen." -- Richard Nixon as a boy (on the Teapot Dome scandal)
From tms Thu Feb 9 12:13:55 EST 1995
Newsgroups: soc.culture.singapore,soc.culture.taiwan,soc.culture.
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Subject: Re: Two Singaporeans Executed in Taiwan
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jaskew@maths.adelaide.edu.au (Joseph Askew) writes:
>> If both parties are consenting adults (e.g., adult brother and sister
>>with unusual longings for each other), no victim and no justified law
>>againt it. On the other hand, if by incest you mean sexual abuse of
>>children by parents, then there clearly is a victim.
>
>Even if the child consents?
(I addressed this in another post, but let me repeat it.) Assuming an
appropriate definition of "child" as an individual insuffientently mature
to give informed consent, the child's "consent" is meaningless. If we
merely mean a person who has not yet reached the current legal "age of
consent", that's another story.
> Besides think of the children of any such
>incestuous marriage (or not as the case maybe) Are they victims too?
Why? If you mean the possible genetic consequenses, let me repeat:
We don't prohit marriges between non-related persons whose children
have a good chance of having genetic defects. Or does your lust for power
over the bodies of others exend to wanting to implement a eugenics program?
>>> Sex
>>>with children.
>
>> Victim - the child.
>
>You mean you think that children can't consent to sex?
See above.
>>> Shooting every last African Elephant. The eating of
>>>pandas. The use of Tiger and Rhino parts in medicine.
>
>> Victims. The animals themselves.
>
>Quick ban the beef industry. Meat is murder.
Yes. It is.
> The drug trade has victims
>too - all those plants cruelly plucked at a young age.
Plants have no complex nervous systems, no minds or consciousnesses or
internal experience or subjectivity, they are not "subjects of a life". The
idea of "cruelly" plucking plants is as meaningless as "cruelly" breaking
rocks.
>>The future generations whose environment
>>and resources are destroyed.
>
>And who is to say what the effects of legalised drugs are? I would say
>that my environment is degraded by elderly hippies smoking marijuana.
Unless you're being exposed to the smoke against your will, this is
nonsense.
=Tom Swiss/tms@tis.com======"Born to die."=======Keep your laws off my brain!==
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" - Nick Lowe
"When I grow up, I want to be an honest lawyer so things like that
can't happen." -- Richard Nixon as a boy (on the Teapot Dome scandal)
From tms Thu Feb 9 12:38:40 EST 1995
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Subject: Re: Two Singaporeans Executed in Taiwan
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jaskew@maths.adelaide.edu.au (Joseph Askew) writes:
[Of alcohol:]
>It might be one of the few drugs with serious side effects on withdrawal
>but that does not make it addictive.
Withdraw is just about the defining condition of addiction.
Does anyone happen to have the DSM-IV definition of addiction handy?
> Everyone and their dog has had a
>drink or two in their lives. The number of people who would die if they
>stopped drinking is minimal. On many ratio of users to serious addicts
>alcohol comes out pretty well I would think.
So what? That doesn't change the fact that is is addictive. The
question is not "how many", but "if at all". Alcohol, barbituates, nicotine
are; cannabis and LSD aren't.
>If you think the Singaporean police torture you aren't capable of any
>meaningful discussion about that country.
Where did I say that the police torture? I don't know if they do. But
that the government of Sinapore does use torture as a punishement for
certain crimes is inarguable. Or did you miss all the hype about caning?
=Tom Swiss/tms@tis.com======"Born to die."=======Keep your laws off my brain!==
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" - Nick Lowe
"When I grow up, I want to be an honest lawyer so things like that
can't happen." -- Richard Nixon as a boy (on the Teapot Dome scandal)
From tms Wed Feb 15 13:33:07 EST 1995
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Subject: Re: Two Singaporeans Executed in Taiwan
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jaskew@maths.adelaide.edu.au (Joseph Askew) writes:
)) We don't prohit marriges between non-related persons whose children
))have a good chance of having genetic defects.
)
)I have always wanted to know why Americans have to have a blood test
)before they get married. Just why is that anyway if not to test for
)defects.
STD testing, when it occurs. I don't think it's done much anymore.
Pretty sure it isn't in Maryland. It's certainly not genetic testing.
) And no the government does not ban it. Not even here. So? Does
)that make it less or more of a "victimess" crime?
If the govenment doesn't ban it, then it's not a crime at all!
))Or does your lust for power
))over the bodies of others exend to wanting to implement a eugenics program?
)
)Neat piece of emotive but meaningless crap.
No, a serious question. If you want to tell me what drugs I may or may
not put in my body, you are displaying a desire for power over my body. If
you want to tell people who they may or may not mate with, you are
displaying a desire for power over their bodies.
)))Suppose I own half the NorthWest forest area, on what
)))grounds would you argue that I can't clear fell it - that someone might
)))like to walk into my land and camp out?
)
)) Because land "ownership" is a sometimes-convenient legal fiction,
))nothing more, and your use of land is therefore subject to many constraints.
)
)So what? There is still no victim here at all. I notice that what you call
)rights when it suits, you also call "sometimes convenient legal fictions"
)when it doesn't. Do you support clear felling on the basis it is a victimless
)crime?
<Sigh.> Do you _really_ want to get into a long involved discussion of
the concept of property? The short version: future generations and humanity
as a whole have an legitmate interest in preserving forests, and
clear-cutting thus victimizes them.
=Tom Swiss/tms@tis.com======"Born to die."=======Keep your laws off my brain!==
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" - Nick Lowe
Fifth Law of Procrastination: Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has
the feeling that there is nothing important to do.
From tms Wed Feb 15 13:37:24 EST 1995
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Subject: Re: Two Singaporeans Executed in Taiwan
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jaskew@maths.adelaide.edu.au (Joseph Askew) writes:
>
>> Where did I say that the police torture? I don't know if they do. But
>>that the government of Sinapore does use torture as a punishement for
>>certain crimes is inarguable. Or did you miss all the hype about caning?
>
>No the Singaporean government does not. It canes. It does not torture.
>I did not miss the hype over Fay.
Ah. So a whipping that cuts the flesh deeply, that leaves permanent
scars, that is administered by an expert, isn't torture.
I believe Amnesty International disagrees with you...
Sheesh. I'm beginning to beleive that this whole thread is a troll. No
one can be this ignorant.
Can they?
=Tom Swiss/tms@tis.com======"Born to die."=======Keep your laws off my brain!==
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" - Nick Lowe
Fifth Law of Procrastination: Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has
the feeling that there is nothing important to do.
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