We’ve wanted this for 50 years, Biden getting it done in under 2 years isn’t too shabby. Was it for political reasons? I hope so! It would be nice for the politically expedient thing to start lining up with what’s actually right and what people want for a change. As Milton Friedman used to say, “I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing.”

It's a stroke of a pen. There's no process or negotiation involved; he methodically slow-walked it for electoral considerations. That's not a principled thing to do with criminal justice; we're discussing human lives, not abstractions.

That's a very apt Friedman quote!

Right, my point is that while you bemoan what this says about Biden, I am encouraged about what this says about the electorate. Who would have thought this would have been a savvy political play 10 years ago? I will gladly take every other October becoming “get rid of laws we should have gotten rid of 50 years ago” month.

I cannot wait until someone says that future President X doesn’t really believe in copyright and patent reform, they’re only strengthening fair use protections and eliminating software patents because it’ll help them in the election.

(I would still prefer virtuous leaders, though. If such things exist. It's very unsatisfying to settle for "wrong people doing the right thing").

False. If you look at his student loan forgiveness plan, it was immediately challenged in the courts. And when he tried to suspend family separation at the border, it was challenged in the courts. And he's been fighting to change DACA rules for 2 years straight, in the courts.

Biden can't just write whatever he wants.. He needs to get legal opinions, and structure the order so it complies with existing law, to ensure it withstands challenges.

The idea that he can just waltz into the oval office and start writing his wish list on paper.. and have everything completed the first week of his presidency is a simplistic and naive view of how the presidency works, and the restrictions we place on the office. It contributes to the erroneous view that some have, that the president is some sort of king.

There have been large state mass pardons recently, but most of those are of a different political beast -- i.e. at the end of a term, and are (usually, I assume) on a case-by-case basis, i.e. 500 individually researched cases, not all 500 felony drug users. And that has its own political problems that aren't relevant to Biden's situation

[0] http://cup.columbia.edu/book/mass-pardons-in-america/9780231...

[1] https://www.wlky.com/article/child-rapist-pardoned-gov-matt-...

Fact check: Political ad saying Biden wants to defund the police is misleading https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-misleading-bide...

Biden to request $37B in annual budget to support police and prevent crime: https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/3568076-bi...

> I imagine there would be some cases where a real hardcore criminal was imprisoned for simple possession because that's the only thing they could get to stick, and releasing such people probably will prove unpopular.

No matter how popular and light a blanket pardon initiative, political rivals will always blame the president/governor if any of the pardoned do something bad, even if it's a statistical certainty that at least 1/1000 people will get arrested for a crime.

I'm sure the Biden people sussed out the numebrs and tradeoff, e.g. there's not a lot of simple possession convicts, but it's a lot less politically risky to do a bulk pardon for them.

https://maps.org/news/bulletin/making-mdma-a-medicine-ii-res...

And of course, pardons still cost political capital. We all saw how much Biden's people struggled with covid response and getting bills passed -- all of that would be worse if there were fallout from a problematic mass pardon

Would have been better if others had done it before, but no one did

I like that he encouraged governors to do the same thing at the state level, so an opportunity to do more good - hope all of them do it

It's literally a choice for Biden to make this an issue and successfully execute on it. But I don't know how it could be "principled" by your standards. For most of his career, Biden has outright opposed the legalization of marijuana, and still has health concerns about it. By the end of 2020, he and the Democratic party made decriminalization part of the party platform, i.e. he made a policy change right before the election, so even if he had the power to decriminalize on the first day of office, wouldn't you still cynically accuse him of doing it only for election reasons?

But in any case, while Biden made the promise to pursue decriminalization, that was never his main thing. I think he should've done it by end of 2021. But seeing how difficult and surprising it was for him to execute on his bigger plans, e.g. infrastructure, clean act, and student loan forgiveness -- it's possible that pushing for pot reform would have sidelined one of his bigger priorities. I don't see how perceptions of "sincerity" obviously outweigh the virtue of actually getting it done.

I think the real problem that some people have is that they were hoping to reduce the power of the Democrats in the next election, and they dont like that this is a clearly popular move supported by the majority of americans.

There were plenty of other topics at hand since Biden's inauguration. I don't know I can say that the order things have been worked on is optimal but I'm glad to see this done.

And if Biden and friends really wanted to serve their people, they would continually do things their populous wanted and then when election season comes, they would say “look at what we have been doing”, not “here is a crumb, pleb.”

It’s good that it’s being done, but, do more.

> Biden has backtracked since the ’80s and ’90s. Before he left the Senate to become vice president, he pushed to pull back tougher prison sentences for crack cocaine — an effort that helped lead to a law that President Barack Obama signed in 2010. And he’s recently acknowledged his mistakes.

> “I haven’t always been right,” Biden said earlier this year, speaking to criminal justice issues. “I know we haven’t always gotten things right, but I’ve always tried.” (Asked about Biden’s record, his spokesperson pointed to this speech, but did not respond to further questions.)

thanks for the pointer.

Same happened with the loan forgiveness, which is now being challenged in multiple courts. However, Biden doesn't have the power to push these issues through the proper process.

Do you want a state where "do more" means "more executive orders?"

I'm sorry, but most people have short memories and short sight.

It's good that it's being done, but Biden's doing it, and the Republicans are opposing it every step of the way, even policies that benefit their own people, in every way they can, even and especially by lying and cheating.

Oh hey, by the way, about that: didn't Trump say he was going to repeal Obamacare? How did that promise go? And what about building the wall like he promised he would do so many times, but the Democrats opposed every step of the way? How did that promise go? I'm beginning to get the idea he didn't really believe in the promises he made then broke. And how about that health care plan he kept promising to reveal next week for so many years, but never did?

>Biden still deserves the criticism that he does not believe in marijuana reform and may not follow through any further.

Trump still deserves the criticism that he does not believe in repealing Obamacare or building a wall, because he did not follow through any further, and he failed miserably. He didn't even lock Hillary up like he promised, but it looks like he's going to get locked up himself for espionage. While Biden actually followed through with his promises, and he succeeded, unlike Trump. And Biden accomplished all that without even violating the espionage act or getting impeached twice like Trump did.

So do you also believe the lie that the election was stolen from Trump and he should be immediately reinstated as president so he can pardon everyone who stormed the Capitol and attacked police and spread feces in the halls of Congress and strutted around carrying Confederate flags, and that the FBI planted classified documents at Mar-a-Lago even though he refuses to state that on the record in court, but that Trump also declassified those very same classified documents that the FBI planted with his mind?

Now are you going to claim "the other side does that too" again?

Trump does deserve full credit for convincing Republicans to kill themselves off faster than Democrats. Now THAT is leadership, convincing your followers to pointlessly and painfully die tragic preventable deaths by their own foolish behavior, by 78% higher rates! No Democrat ever inspired such loyal self destructive mass suicidal behavior in their base.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/covid-death-rates...

>Covid death rates are higher among Republicans than Democrats, mounting evidence shows

>Lower vaccination rates among Republicans could explain the partisan gap, but some researchers say mask use and social distancing were bigger factors.

>[...] Average excess death rates in Florida and Ohio were 76% higher among Republicans than Democrats between March 2020 and December 2021, according to a working paper released last month by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Excess deaths refers to deaths above what would be anticipated based on historical trends.

>[...] Indeed, his paper found that the partisan gap in the deaths widened between April and December 2021, after all adults became eligible for Covid vaccines. Excess death rates in Florida and Ohio were 153% higher among Republicans than Democrats during that time, the paper showed.

What about involving the United States in needless wars and now provoking a nuclear war? Or promising single payer only to provide a massive handout to private insurance companies? Or drag the country through constant investigations of political opponents based on false information from “intelligence” agencies? Or stabbing Bernie Sanders, who was the most electable candidate, in the back to support a corrupt, corporate drone, war monger candidate who just happens to be a woman?

Please take your head out of the sand and pay attention to more than the standard talking points fed to you by the main stream corporate media. It will be enlightening, but it will also be humbling. I was once in your shoes (to a much lesser degree), and it took quite some time to realize that both parties are not looking out for the rights of people other than the elite chosen ones.

Answer the question instead of deflecting by making shit up:

So do you also believe the lie that the election was stolen from Trump and he should be immediately reinstated as president so he can pardon everyone who stormed the Capitol and attacked police and spread feces in the halls of Congress and strutted around carrying Confederate flags, and that the FBI planted classified documents at Mar-a-Lago even though he refuses to state that on the record in court, but that Trump also declassified those very same classified documents that the FBI planted with his mind?

Or don't you want to admit that your side and your leader is batshit crazy and delusional, and there's absolutely nothing comparable on the other side? Or do you subscribe to the right-wing conspiracy theory that the mob of Trump supporters that stormed the capital and attacked police officers and set up a gallows with a noose and tried to murder the Vice President at the January 6 insurrection was actually all Antifa crisis actors?

And what the fuck is wrong with being anti-fascist anyway?

My suggestion is that both Democrats and Republicans are essentially the same when it comes to the critical matters for the general public. Your implying that I am a Republican who has chosen Trump as my supreme leader just because I provided some important counterpoints to demonstrate some faults of the Democrats.

Furthermore, I don’t think you know what fascism means.

It’s also only about 6500 people.

It is an empty gesture.

It's far from an empty gesture. But at the same time it is also a token, bare minimum gesture.

Yet it has less impact when there are other charges anyway. “But I was convicted of just 2 felonies not 3!”

It's good for business BECAUSE it's moral.

That only works for those doctors when there's no transparency that they're being paid for it.

Contrast that with doing bad things and then trying to prevent people from voting so you can cling to power.

A parole action, at the start of a term, incures low risk. It will be years until midterms, and the action will be dim, distant in people's minds.

Doing it now, means that any voter who is opposed, will have this very fresh in their minds.

Even if 20% is opposed, that's still a 20% potential vote loss! And contrary to what twitter and facebook media try to claim, there are swing voters.

So taking a stance now, is very much the most democratic thing to do.

That being said, Joe Biden has been a key player at the highest levels of US policy for decades. He only narrowly missed out on entering the US Senate to vote on the original Controlled Substances Act of 1970 that people are being pardoned for violating. 1973-2009 he was part of the exact group of people helping build up the war on drugs. 2022 elections he throws out a bone to deal with the symptoms.

You can see why people like Obama or Trump do so well vs incumbent politicians. These ex-Congress people are, by and large, responsible for all the messes they campaign on fixing. The internet is making it harder for them to escape their own decisions.

Nothing bad about supporting Afghanistan in itself, the problem was (the same as with Iraq...) that the US lacked a "post-invasion" plan to rebuild the nation.

The fine minds in Congress have to grapple with this sort of inscrutable mystery every day. Which is why their competence is a question of the debate.

Armies and random occupations do not build thriving countries. There was never any reason to believe it would. The only time that has worked is when the US invades global superpowers like Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan - more due to the locals rebuilding than the invaders. And they'd still have been better off without being invaded - armies don't build valuable things.

The reason why Germany is where it is now is that the US sunk billions upon billions into the Marshall Plan and had shown the commitment that they would stay in the country and provide it perspective and security if it would become and stay a healthy democracy that respects the rule of law.

The US had done everything precisely opposite in Afghanistan: they marched in and got rid of the Taliban government, but they failed to enforce a rule of law in the country and instead let local warlords and other undesirables deal with that. Corruption was rife everywhere, and there was no economic perspective for the people of Afghanistan to be a somewhat self-sufficient country. Hell even after 20 years, 75% (!) of the budget was foreign aid [1].

As a result of that lack of perspective, why should the Afghani people have any respect for its "government" that barely had any shred of legitimacy? At least Iraq has natural resources.

What the West should have done in Afghanistan was to do the same thing it had done in Germany half a century before: invest in nation building, in providing the citizens a path that is not violence, poverty and crime.

[1] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/taliban-takeover-...

They could have skipped that. Spent all the money directly on the good outcome that didn't happen at all. There is - I speculate, keeping to my rather thick sarcasm - a link.

Investment -> Prosperity.

Army -> Corpses and destruction.

I recommend not sending in an army when the goal is prosperity. Invasions are sometimes clever, but they don't make the situation better for the locals. And in the case of Afghanistan it was unnecessary.

The problem with dictatorships of all kinds is that there are very few foreign investors willing to invest money into them. Why should anyone invest into a country that can seize your assets for no reason at all, where female staff has virtually zero rights, where there is no educated populace that can be used for work or where there isn't any industry generating income to repay investments? Most dictatorships have a barely surviving 99% and a small elite that holds the power and skims assets for their personal wealth.

It's rare that revolutions are successful even in taking down the current regime, and the few that do succeed often fail very shortly afterwards because the security services like police and military are loyal to the old leader, too corrupt to be useful, the absence of a ruling power leads to a vacuum that draws in foreign warlords or other regimes or because the prior dictatorship has looted the country's assets and stashed the profit somewhere the post-revolution government can't access it. Additionally, some revolutions also fail and become autocracies of their own due to foreign influence (e.g. the US sanctions against Cuba).

Revolutions without an external force providing basic stability are doomed to failure and suffering.

And similarly now the opinion of the people has shifted, so the government representatives are adopting policies that match up with today's opinion.

I'm not saying this to defend any particular person you referenced, just that the logic of saying that in the past someone was against something and now they're for it isn't necessarily hypocrisy, or false pretense. If the opinion of the people they represent also changed and at both times were respected, that seems to be a great example of a functioning republic no?

As a practical matter, I don't think the US was ever in favour of locking a bunch of people up, destroying lives for nothing and the uncomfortably racial nature of where the hammer fell. They could have used methods to deal with drugs that worked. Even if the conscious plan is to vote for a chimera, it still makes sense to vote for one that implements good long-term policies as well as bowing to short term expediency.

If the policies as-implemented are so bad that he feels a need to pardon people for being charged under them, I can see why some people would be apoplectic at this bald-faced ploy. After some number of lives ruined by bad policy making, really these politicians should just resign. Although, again, I do think most people are making a show about it fright now are doing so for political reasons; there aren't a lot of people out there who care about principle. Any of the last 10 presidents would have done the same under similar circumstances.

I think you're giving mid-century Americans too much credit. I think they were widely ignorant of Black history and racial issues and really had no concept of institutional racism--of which the War on Drugs was certainly a scion. Crime--and let's consider all its racializations--was also pretty bad, and voters across races and political lines are generally in favor of full on human rights violations to get it under control [0].

[0]: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/08/16/212620886...

If you want to see a whole lot of people act truly apoplectic at a ploy, then just watch the MAGA mob's reaction to the earth-shattering fact that a fictional cartoon character named "Velma" finally came out as lesbian.

The left's reaction:

Fans cheer as Velma is shown crushing on a woman in the new Scooby-Doo movie:

https://www.npr.org/2022/10/05/1126838591/velma-lesbian-scoo...

The right's reaction:

Conservatives Are Now Freaking Out About [Spins Wheel] a Lesbian in ‘Scooby Doo’. The classic cartoon's Halloween special portrays Velma as queer, and right-wing pundits can't cope:

https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/conservatives-now-freaking-...

FOX News Goes Through the Motions Proclaiming 'Scooby Doo' is Woke Because Velma is Gay:

https://www.thebiglead.com/posts/fox-news-scooby-doo-velma-g...

Fox guest loses his mind over Scooby Doo’s Velma being gay & compares it to bestiality. He told Laura Ingraham that Velma being gay is "really offensive" to him because it "sexualizes" her.

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/10/fox-guest-loses-mind-sco...

If the racists want to hide behind a war on drugs, they obviously don't think they have the numbers to carry racist policy. This undermines this idea that the voters wanted the policies that were implemented.

It goes without saying that Black people aren’t inherently more likely to be drug dealers or drug users—there is no intrinsic connection between drugs and race. Prohibitions might have a disparate impact on them, but for reasons (discriminatory policing, etc.) that would apply to any prohibition. There’s lots of other laws that have discriminatory enforcement, but nobody accuses the proponents of those laws of being motivated by racism.

“You want to know what this [war on drugs] was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying?

We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.

Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

~ John Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/ronald-rea...

Ronald Reagan’s Long-Hidden Racist Conversation With Richard Nixon

In newly unearthed audio, the then–California governor disparaged African delegates to the United Nations.

The day after the United Nations voted to recognize the People’s Republic of China, then–California Governor Ronald Reagan phoned President Richard Nixon at the White House and vented his frustration at the delegates who had sided against the United States.

“Last night, I tell you, to watch that thing on television as I did,” Reagan said. “Yeah,” Nixon interjected. Reagan forged ahead with his complaint: “To see those, those monkeys from those African countries—damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!” Nixon gave a huge laugh.

“As you can imagine,” Nixon confided in Rogers, “there’s strong feeling that we just shouldn’t, as [Reagan] said, he saw these, as he said, he saw these—” Nixon stammered, choosing his words carefully—“these, uh, these cannibals on television last night, and he says, ‘Christ, they weren’t even wearing shoes, and here the United States is going to submit its fate to that,’ and so forth and so on.”

The president wanted his patrician secretary of state to understand that Reagan spoke for racist Americans, and they needed to be listened to. “You know, but that’s typical of a reaction, which is probably”—“That’s right,” Rogers interjected—“quite strong.”

Nixon couldn’t stop retelling his version of what Reagan had said. Oddly unfocused, he spoke with Rogers again two hours later and repeated the story as if it would be new to the secretary.

“Reagan called me last night,” Nixon said, “and I didn’t talk to him until this morning, but he is, of course, outraged. And I found out what outraged him, and I find this is typical of a lot of people: They saw it on television and, he said, ‘These cannibals jumping up and down and all that.’ And apparently it was a pretty grotesque picture.” Like Nixon, Rogers had not seen the televised images. But Rogers agreed: “Apparently, it was a terrible scene.” Nixon added, “And they cheered.”

Then Nixon said, “He practically got sick at his stomach, and that’s why he called. And he said, ‘It was a terrible scene.’ And that sort of thing will have an emotional effect on people … as [Reagan] said, ‘This bunch of people who don’t even wear shoes yet, to be kicking the United States in the teeth’ … It was a terrible thing, they thought.”

You can hear similar conversations openly in many parts of the world, especially Asia. Those countries often also tend to have harsh drug laws. But the two things are uncorrelated, given that those countries don’t have a significant domestic population of minorities that would justify drug prohibition as a pretext for cracking down on minorities.

The irony of all this is that recreational drug use is “Stuff White People Like.” Around the world, other than certain traditional plants, social acceptability and legalization of drug use is disproportionately something practiced in societies run by white people. Reading Donald Harris’s remarks about Kamala Harris impugning the dignity of Jamaicans by attempting to associate them with marijuana use is instructive.

That's a very popular quote, but it's not as slam dunk as you think. The veracity of the quote has been challenged. It was allegedly obtained 26 years after the nixon campaign, and was only published 22 years after that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ehrlichman#Drug_war_quote

The outcomes however are a matter of historical record. Jails filled to the brim with black people. Even though white people deal drugs and use drugs at a higher rate than black people. You don't even need that quote to see what Nixon quickly "achieved".

And we also know Nixon was a racist. That's on tape. Referring to Jamaica:

“Blacks can’t run it. Nowhere, and they won’t be able to for a hundred years, and maybe not for a thousand ... Do you know, maybe one black country that’s well run?”

-- Richard Nixon

Q: How many police officers does it take to kick a hippie down stairwell?

A: None, he just fell!

The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.

-- Former Nixon aide John Ehrlichman

> The PM’s cabinet in my home country

The drug war didn't start in your country, so you have no claim to what the initial and subsequent motivations were of those who started it and popularized it around the world.

> It goes without saying that Black people aren’t inherently more likely to be drug dealers or drug users

Black people in the US are less likely to be drug dealers, however they are searched and arrested at a much higher rate.

> There’s lots of other laws that have discriminatory enforcement, but nobody accuses the proponents of those laws of being motivated by racism.

Sure they do. Just as one example, the law that felons cannot vote has frequently been cited as racially motivated. Another example is stop and frisk.

Yes, and those accusations are stupid because e.g. the prohibition on felons voting in most states dates to before the civil war when most Black people couldn't vote. Iowa had some of the strongest felony voting rules in the country, which it adopted in 1846 when it had virtually no Black people.

Gun control laws were originally adopted to disarm Black people. Felon-in-possession and red flag laws disproportionately affect Black men. Do you go around calling contemporary proponents of gun control motivated by racism?

A major justification for abortion in the early 20th century was limiting the birth rate of minorities and poor people. Do you accuse abortion advocates of being motivated by racism?

No, you don’t because you recognize that there are independent reasons for those policies even if some advocates of those policies have (or had in the past) racist motivations.

Your original claim was "nobody accuses the proponents of those laws of being motivated by racism.". You were wrong. Now you are moving the goalposts.

> Do you accuse abortion advocates of being motivated by racism?

That is indeed something that conservatives accuse pro-choice people of quite often.

In all these cases you need to look at:

1. How recent the original motivations were and if they are still in place.

2. Outcomes.

In the case of the drug war, the motivations were recent and include several modern presidents from both sides of the aisle. Starting with Nixon but including Reagan and Bill Clinton.

And the outcome is jails filled with black people arrested on drug charges when the reality is that white people in the US both deal drugs and use drugs at a higher rate than black people.

With abortions you neither have recency or outcomes. The black population in the US is growing at a healthy rate. In fact, the black population in the US is young. Over a third of the U.S. Black population was 22 years or younger in 2019.

> you recognize that there are independent reasons for those policies

A policy can be motivated by both racism and other reasons. They aren't exclusive.

The phrase “those laws” refers to the immediately preceding “lots of other laws.” Not “all other laws.” The point is that people are selective about whether they throw around accusations of racism when a law has discriminatory impacts. Not that they allege racism only with respect to the drug war.

As to conservatives making accusations that abortion is racist, they’re dumb and wrong.

But the discriminatory impact of abortion on Black people is undeniable. According to Guttmacher, the Black abortion rate is five times higher than the white abortion rate. Black population growth as a percentage of the population has been stagnant for decades. That will directly lead to loss of Black political power as Hispanics have overtaken them as the largest minority group, and soon Asians will overtake them as well.

And the recency is there too. People point to the things Nixon said about the drug war. But read about Nixon’s Population Control Commission!

Of course they are. Not all discriminatory laws were put into place by racists like Nixon.

> the Black abortion rate is five times higher than the white abortion rate.

So what? The birth rate for black people is higher than the birth rate for white people. And the birth rate for Hispanic people in the US is barely higher than that for black people. Birth rate is what matters. Abortion rates are almost meaningless.

> as Hispanics have overtaken them as the largest minority group

Due to immigration... not birth rates. You're doing such a poor job with data and logic that I'm not getting anything out of this. I'm stopping here.

I thought the theory was that white people were generally racists?

> So what? The birth rate for black people is higher than the birth rate for white people.

So what is that most Black people themselves don’t think that an abortion is an inconsequential event. They are the reason for Clinton’s “safe, legal, and rare” messaging. They might support its legality, but many still think it’s killing a human life. When that happens five times as much to Black women as white women, that’s a significant burden.

> Due to immigration... not birth rates.

Hispanics have both immigration and higher birth rates. And if abortion rates between whites and blacks were equal, higher birth rates would offset both.

It's a particularly brazen stroke of message-boardiness to put words in the mouth of someone who just rebutted your first-principles argument with evidence.

If you've decided to carry the flag of "the drug war is, contrary to popular belief, not racist" --- and I fully respect your prerogative to do that --- you should at least come prepared to knock down a bit of evidence so popular it was featured on Adam Ruins Everything. There are other easy-pickings facts to whack your argument with; for instance, you can just search AskHistorians, where this has been covered (hint: I'm pretty sure you're wrong.)

Just for fun:

https://www.nytimes.com/1914/02/08/archives/negro-cocaine-fi...

(AskHistorians is really great).

It’s possible that the drug war is caused by racism in the US, and by entirely different reasons in Bangladesh, the Philippines, Nigeria, Japan, or China, or Russia. But the cited “evidence” hardly suffices to establish that.

“Historians” are, as a general matter, terrible at describing why things happen. They’re not data analyzers, they’re story tellers. The same few anecdotes from people in Nixon’s orbit get spun out to explain a decades-long social phenomenon. But was Nixon in Japan and all those other places that have drug wars?

The drug war happened because America is a rigidly moralistic society, just like Japan, and such societies almost uniformly condemn drug use as a moral failing. Nixon also happened to be racist, and a hallmark of racism is the tendency to attribute immorality and lack of character to out groups. But that’s not causation.

Did you take a second to search AskHistorians about this issue? There's a bunch more stuff like this, not just in the 1970s.

That reductive. Things can happen for multiple reasons.

> Nixon also happened to be racist... But that’s not causation.

Sure it is. If you are racist and you do things that have a racist outcome, it's racism. What kind of mental hoops are you jumping through to get to some other conclusion?

Like the people who defend Eric S Raymond's racist edge lord bullshit because they think he's just trying to show off how clever he is to say manifestly racist shit to provoke people and then trying to talk his way out of it by accusing everyone of being less intelligent and open minded than he is.

That's a sweeping generalization; it's not a rebuttal if the cancers in question have multiple causative factors — as you seem implicitly to acknowledge in your very-next paragraph about "entirely-different reasons" ....

> “Historians” are, as a general matter, terrible at describing why things happen. They’re not data analyzers, they’re story tellers.

Really? "I usually don't agree with historians' explanation of why things happen" is not an acceptable definition of "terrible."

(Oh, and as I'm sure you know professionally: Story-telling is often the best way to communicate a message.)

So you admit there is broad systemic racism, but insist it had absolutely no effect on the motivations of the people who started and supported the War on Drugs, and that it's unfair to call Nixon and Reagan racist, huh?

Then address my response to rayiner above, quoting their very own words recorded on tape, and John Ehrlichman's admission. And don't lie through your teeth.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33121939

I don't need to prove my anti-racist bona fides to you or anyone else.

As should be obvious from my comment, I am very much against the so-called war on drugs, and thinks it's awful in many ways, including in racist ways. However, I also don't think it would have gotten the support it did in early days unless many people, even the majority of people involved, had not felt that they were actually addressing a real problem with the sale and use of drugs. In addition, I don't think it's helpful to describe it in terms that put everybody into one of two buckets, where the only two choices are "be okay with any and all drugs" and "racist."

That drug policy in the US is horrifically racist, and has been since even before the so-called "war on drugs" began is clear. But the way out is not to pretend that the only basis for the policy from anyone, ever, is racism.

If you want to feel morally superior enough to call people you don't know on the internet liars, then go ahead. But you will probably fail to convince anyone not already convinced.

To be honest, I have no clue, maybe they were, maybe they weren't, but also maybe that's not anything they predicted or thought to consider as second order effects in their opinion at the time.

People's personal opinion are not always hours of deep analysis, reflections and evaluation. Often times, simplistic solutions win an opinion, I can very well see something as simplistic as: these drugs are a problem, let's make them all illegal and attach prison sentences to the sale and possession, problem solved! And a lot of people at the time, fearful of those drugs, not knowing much about them, and hearing what they do to people and who generally consumes them, just feeling like that's a great idea and being onboard with the policy.

And now, people have seen those second order effect first hand, they've also learned more about those drugs, their nature, don't fear it as much, and so are now of a different opinion.

The question is if your politics and support base means “being political” leads to you pardoning thousands of people for something pretty much everyone agrees is not a crime and making their and their families and kids’ lives immeasurably better, and therefore making the country and the world a better place.

Or, if your political environment leads you to illegally trafficking vulnerable people and leaving the completely stranded and in general making the world a worse place.

It's a geriatrics home. No one over the age of 70 should be allowed in elected office.

And if you want to make some nebulous argument about wisdom with age, a younger elected official can have an older, wiser, ex-politician as an adviser. But ultimately the important decisions are the younger politician's call.

I think it’s important for them to be reflecting the will of the people but for better or worse, the people are kind of old.

Older people tend to have shorter term thinking, basically not worrying about what happens after they die soon. Leaves a big mess for younger people to deal with when they are themselves older so they then just push off the problem to the next generation and the vicious cycle continues till everything is bad everywhere.

I don't know whether or not there should be bans on elderly politicians, but it would be very, very nice to have a stronger cultural pressure against old people trying to hang on to power so long past their expiration dates.

Otherwise, there will, certainly, be some value delivered, that can be accused of being political, as it coincides with elections.

Seems better to have a steady delivery, than having to stop the government for election season.

I’m not convinced that sending out such checks won’t largely result in the purchasing power of that money being instantly eroded by massive inflation.

Based on what evidence? The current inflation in the US was caused by both very high employment levels along with supply chain problems. Sending out unemployment checks went way down over the past few years.

People need things like UBI far more when the economy is not booming. The opposite of inflation. In a recession what you want is for people to spend money. You want to get back to normal levels of inflation.

> I’m not convinced

At the end of the day you don't need to be convinced. What matters is if all the top economists in favor of UBI are actually right or not. As machines automate more and more of the boring work we need done, there is no rational reason that people shouldn't have more leisure time and have to work far fewer hours.

Another example is hyper-low interest rates (essentially increasing money supply), which are largely responsible for the inflation of housing which is a major portion of inflation for consumers.

Therefore a better way to handle UBI (which I believe may be needed by the way) is to gradually phase it into the system to avoid shocks like giving everyone $10,000 all of a sudden. There would still be inflation, bit it would hopefully be less dramatic.

And then why limit it to elections. Why not ever?

The irrationality of this sentiment, combined with your assertion that President Biden is "inept," suggests to me that your statement is entirely political, since it seems to run contrary to the facts as I observe them.

Are there any other reasons that a statement could be political in your mind or are you the sole determinant for a politically driven statement?

I think you are. Your suggestion could only work well if there was a perpetual voting season. Otherwise parties will just abuse their leverage only once every four years just to get more votes.

Yes, it's good.

There's no chance a republican politician would do the same.

https://www.npr.org/2018/12/17/676771335/how-trump-went-from...

Why should anybody care about the reasoning behind a good decision?

You cannot play it "fair" with fascists and expect your nation to stay a democracy — at least not on such a minor level. And I am not a fan of the Democrats myself, but as an Austrian living in Germany I learned enough about the Nazi rise to power to know where this is heading.

If you didn't have the Dollar, you'd be neck deep in fascism already.

Motivation is a factor too? Who cares if he was motivated by the election, he did a good thing, he could’ve tried to rile everyone up and start a new war on drugs or something similar.

He gave people a break for something which should never be criminal.

I’m motivated to work, mostly by money, the chance of a bonus and all that the money I earn brings me, I’m not a bad person for this. Sometimes I take the money and donate it too, this is similar in my opinion.

It does suck a bit that the system incentivizes being strategic with the timing of key decisions, but politicians who didn't do so would be hurting their chances of reelection.

For some reason this reminds me of the old saw about the economist and the twenty dollar bill. “The $20 on the sidewalk doesn’t exist because the efficient market guarantees that someone else would’ve already picked it up!” the economist said, while walking past the twenty dollar bill.

I think in reality politicians have schedules and priorities and the constantly shifting demands imposed on them by world events. Sometimes the things they always wanted to do get left on the back burner until election season starts to loom over the horizon. Then they actually look for these sorts of quick fixes because it can give them a little boost in the polls for something they were going to do anyway. What’s wrong with that?

If you can’t manage to review your campaign promises until it’s time to campaign again, that gives me reason to doubt your competence or your genuineness as an executive. There are literally thousands of people working who support the President. None of them could find time to write up an executive order and put it on the agenda in the first 100 days? (Remember, they would be allowed to “cheat” and work on this before inauguration or even before the election.)

But because the frying pan is slightly more comfortable than the fire, people keep tolerating this and voting for the lesser of the evils they’re offered, so so long as this strategy is epsilon more effective than actually leading the country and aggressively delivering on your promises, we should expect to see more, not less of it. Ultimately, the voters are partially complicit in this nonsense.

Human beings also have their own schedules and priorities. People are more stressed out and busy than ever. Inflation is rampant due to a war in Europe that regular people (especially those outside of Europe) had no power to avoid. Every year technology and social media get ever-more complex and sophisticated, demanding more and more awareness and discipline from people to avoid collapsing into a black hole of time-wasting.

Likewise, the problems facing societies at the national level and humanity at the global level have become unbelievably technical and complicated, yet we expect voters to navigate them like experts and deliver a miracle in the voting both? How has this idea not become widely seen for what it is: an absurd fantasy.

As the chief executive of the country, the job is largely delegation. Sure, there's still going to be some limit to WIP, but it doesn't look or feel that his office is close to that based on what they've accomplished or are working on.

"Then they actually look for these sorts of quick fixes because it can give them a little boost in the polls for something they were going to do anyway."

For one, it can remove the pressure to create a proper fix. We can end up with a bunch of half measures that don't fit well. There's also an argument to be made around expansive executive power usurping the voice of the people (not on polls but elected congress members) as I doubt that blanket pardons were the intent of that power. Sort of like how executive orders can be used to say how a law can be enforced, but has started to be used to flat out ignore enforcing the law. Technically legal, but feels like a loophole (similar to how you can change senate rules requiring a supermajority by a simple majority vote).

So yeah, like many things in politics, the people that agree with the result are less likely to question the method used to get there. The people that disagree with the result will question everything. But... it might be wise for all of us to start listening to the people who agree with the result but question the methods used, lest we undermine the trust or perception of legitimacy in our system of government. I think unilateral actions further the win at all costs mindset and will continue to hurt us as a nation driving us apart.

Trump, the guy everyone loves to hate, actually tried to keep his campaign promises, even the stupid ones.

The timing is for political gain. It's strategically smart, but it's not principled. I see no issue with people pointing that out.

At one point congress agreed to give him almost $6 Billion to build the wall and he turned it down, never to be in that position again. If he wanted to build the wall he could have accepted that $6 billion or negotiated in good faith.

Also, his desire to build the wall was never a principled argument. "Build the wall and make Mexico pay for it" tested well with his audience so his campaign jumped on it (which was smart).

But to act like it wasn't strategic politicking from the beginning is not correct. Not to say that Biden's pardons are not politicking (they are). Just saying Trump and Biden are the same (and every other politician) when it comes to things like this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_wall

> In January 2017, Trump signed Executive Order 13767, which formally directed the U.S. government to begin wall construction along the U.S.–Mexico border using existing federal funding.[5] After a political struggle for funding, including an appropriations lapse resulting in a government shutdown for 35 days, and the declaration of a national emergency, construction started in 2018.

...

> Initially, on January 20, 2021, newly inaugurated U.S. president Joe Biden terminated the national emergency and halted construction of the wall,[6][15][16] but the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security later hinted that the construction of the wall may continue under Biden's administration.

...

> In March 2017, the Trump administration submitted an amendment for fiscal year 2017 that includes a $3 billion continuing budget for "border security and immigration enforcement". Trump's FY 2018 Budget Blueprint increases discretionary funds for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) by $2.8 billion (to $44.1 billion).[82][83] The DHS Secretary John F. Kelly told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee during a hearing the Budget Blueprint "includes $2.6 billion for high-priority border security technology and tactical infrastructure, including funding to plan, design and construct the border wall".[82]

> In July 2017, U.S. Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Austin, Texas, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives would seek to pass a special supplemental appropriations bill to spend money on initial construction of the wall, a demand of the Trump administration.[84][85] Such a supplemental spending bill was supported by then-House Speaker Paul Ryan.[85] However, _SENATE DEMOCRATS EXPRESSED CONFIDENCE THAT THEY CAN BLOCK AN APPROPRIATIONS BILL FOR WALL CONSTRUCTION_, with the aid of some Republicans who also oppose the construction of a wall due to its enormous cost.

...

> From December 22, 2018, to January 25, 2019, the federal government was partially shut down due to Trump's declared intention to veto any spending bill that did not include $5 billion in funding for a border wall.

...

> In February 2019, Congress amended an existing appropriations bill, adding language that specifically prohibits new funding from being used to build border barriers at several sites, including the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, the Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park, the La Lomita Historical park, the National Butterfly Center, and the area "within or east of" the Vista del Mar Ranch tract of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge.[116][117] Soon afterwards, however, Trump declared a National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border of the United States, which the administration claimed invalidated the restrictions imposed by Congress.

...

> Construction progressed during the final year of the Trump administration, including the filing of land condemnation actions in court and the issuing of waivers.

I'm no fan of presidents in general, and especially not ones who forget what they're saying mid-sentence. But isn't it worth noting Biden has historically been pretty anti-drug, he introduced the RAVE Act[0] FFS. Maybe it took some convincing to change his attitude towards marijuana laws?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAVE_Act

Being a good man doesn’t get you re elected. Reality is harsh and unforgiving.

The implication is that the best choice is to steadily do things like this, so the benefits are always forward in our minds. The issue is more just one off events not really matching our goals or expectations, I think.

And thinking politics is about sincerity and morality is the thinking of a politically inclined 12 year old.

It was like the people that watched Obama make a political agreement with Hillary Clinton to get her to stop running against him and then were dismayed when he was mostly just another politician.

It's just naive.

Are you serious? A president has one week to do it all and anything he does afterwards is insincere? How does this logic work?

By doing it now, he gains broad appeal going into an election season so that he is potentially enabled to enact more beneficial policies down the line. Never forget that the republican party is working against the interests of the people and the party that opposes them and will do whatever they can to twist public perception to their side. Being purely sincere and principled means getting routed by people who work against your sincerity without any regard for principle.

It can be both a sincere and principled choice and an action taken based on careful political calculation. In fact, I'd say that if it really were sincere and principled, it should be as calculated as possible for maximum beneficial effect.