The Truth About Ron Paul

[Cali chronic]

no.

i think he's an idiot who's never met a heroin addict.

i've had family die b/c of aids contracted from sharing needles and have more than one friend hooked on the drug and given MY experience I can 100% assure Dr. Paul that HEROIN should not be legalized. PERIOD.

i believe his point of view is wrong and nothing you can do/say/show will EVER change that.

I think you missed the point of such a controversial item. Like Abortion etc.... Americans are here because our forefathers were tired of a dictatorship Allowing a choice by the people deviates from a dictatorship.

If heroin were legal BTW so would access to needles like Germany does in one of their notorious drug parks.. If your Brother did not willingly decide to use another persons needle he may have not contracted HIV. Too bad really, sorry you went through that. If the USA were not so held back by Religious superstitious non sense we may have had a cure already.
Along with the benefits of not buying drugs that come from countries that sell it to us to re-up their war chest. Pakistan for example.
Alcohol is as addicting as Heroin yet it is legal and most of us use it recreational as we know the dangers of alcohol. Hep C etc...job loss families torn apart. You cannot have the mentality the Government needs to protect you from yourself. America is for the free or used to be..... Having a President who says what I cannot do to myself or body has taken my rights away. Like making Suicide illegal or a crime Really Cmon?

 

[Mr Neutron]

Great Post. Simple to understand, and directly to the point. you have earned my first Like! congratulations.
but i do agree 100%. well stated.

Thank you. That is very kind of you to post that.

 

[Mr Neutron]

I just posted that on FB. As a quote, but leaving it anonymous.

What is FB?

 

[mame]

In other words, the government stat people just made a guess as to how much it costs, they have no ACTUAL proof. They used trends data and made assumptions to come up with the numbers. They also did not take into account the amount of money it takes to imprison someone for a year.. average incarceration cost for each prisoner is $30,000. Assume 50% of all prisoners are there for drugs. or drug related issues and you have a current prison population of 2,020,000. 1,010,000 X $30,000 = 30.3 Billion, subtract your 10 billion and we would have a direct net savings of 20 Billion.

Lets not forget the 2 drugs with the absolute greatest deaths attributed, the greatest amount of health risks for doing and Oh BTW they are legal drugs. Alcohol and Tobacco. Alcohol is the lead factor in over 80,000 deaths per year and tobacco is directly responsible for 450,000 deaths per year, and indirectly for an additional 600,000 ( just in the USA alone) yet they don't include these in the report, nor do you even mention them. Hypocritical of our system of government to allow the most dangerous drugs of all to be legal and killing people every day? You bet it is.


Tobacco is the most dangerous drug known to mankind, it is directly responsible for over 50 Million deaths worldwide each year. Yet its completely legal and kills 50 times as many people as heroin does. The cost of Tobacco to the economy is FAR FAR greater than all other drugs combined.

16,000 deaths related to heroin in the USA, even alcohol kills five times more than heroin.

Sometimes you have to wonder what they have planned for us, having the 2 most dangerous drugs available and legal, yet have the most harmless drug of all (Marijuana) ranked as one of the worst drugs possible.

Page 5 of this thread I mentioned tobacco and alcohol, so I did acknowledge the social costs associated with their legality ($193 billion for tobacco, and $235 billion for alcohol, compared to 180 billion for everything else).

For clarification, my argument is that the broader "war on drugs" against crack/cocain, meth, etc. has been successful because usage rates of these drugs has gone down. Because usage has gone down, costs to society are down(making the investment worth it). Marijuana and Alcohol are failures in that respect. Alcohol prohibition failed to reduce use, Marijuana prohibition, although obviously still active, has also failed to reduce use...

Tobacco is a whole other argument, because TBH I think they got tobacco and marijuana backwards. Although for tobacco prohibition to be successful now would not only take political will, but the will of the public and would likely need to be done incrementely in order to be successful(seems like some states have moved towards this already, banning smoking on publicly owned land in NY, etc...).

I believe that in the case of drugs and liberty, it's a fine line. I believe that we can be big kids and take care of ourselves but I also know that there are times when society should have the power to say certain things are not okay. I believe that hard line positions in this case are deeply flawed on both ends (authoritarian and libertarian) because they play to idealogy and morality instead of a simple "be free, as long as it doesn't cost me" - cost/benefit reasoning with respect to liberty is fair IMO.


Snorting cocaine is not an essential liberty, doing so results in lost economic activity and many other social costs - therefore we as a society can say no. Marijuana is not really an essential liberty either to be fair, but smoking weed isn't harming anyone. It isn't breaking up families, killing people, resulting in lost economic activity - it's prohibition is actually detrimental to society because the costs associated with throwing non-violent working class citizens in prison outweigh the benefits of letting them be free to generate economic activity(when was the last time you met a stoner who smoked himself so broke he's homeless or breaking into homes and stealing from family, anyway?).

Is this reasoning really so unfair and flawed? I love my freedom's as much as the next guy, but is it really too much to ask that the line be drawn somewhere(and that we as a society choose where that line is drawn)? I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle, arguing that some drugs be kept illegal on a drug forum.. haha

 

[Timmahh]

It's cheaper to keep heroin, meth, etc illegal. It's not the same for marijuana because stoners aren't fucking junkies. We aren't a detriment to society, most often we're nonviolent offenders and considering how many people smoke in the U.S. alone, I'd say it's safe to say most of us work for a living (or are at least self sufficient via the sale of marijuana, which is work

). Junkies are often violent, most of the time they're theives, they dont consistently work or care for their children, they're leeches... Many of them sucking up as much tax dollars as they can to support their habit. Why would we want to say this is okay? Sure, it sounds nice to let everyone be big kids and do as they please - but in reality it just doesn't work.

this i can agree with. except for the last line. in reality, if i stick a gun in my mouth and pull the trigger, my family and friends are left to deal with the results. sad, but that is reality. If a junky dies from aids contracted when using a dirty needle, sad, and their family and friends are left to deal with the results, again, reality. now i ask? where is the differance?

if herion can kill if abused, so it should be illegal, then how about a gun? or a knife? how about a pencil or Pen, or letter opener maybe?

perhaps plastic bags and ropes should be illegal, as someone can purposely use one to kill someone. perhaps even themselves.

see, the role of government is to stop Any person or Entity from doing ill will, whether physically, or finnacially (ie debtors prison ect...) from taking advantage of the peoples with in its borders in a free Democratic Society. That is to say, smart legislation, ie no 80% interest compounded bi daily, no murcury in our food, or lead in the pain, or dioxin in the water supply, air ect....

Reality check, a society of more than one idividual does need some smart regulation for the good of those that make up the society.
in the garden of eden, evil and all its co horts would be vanquished, so all would be dandy, but here in reality, greed, Vainity, Wanton Lust, and general Envy run rampant. Eventually it is up to we individuals to be responsible and think of not ourselfs, but our fellow man, when we make decisions that effect many others. but again in reality, some dont/wont/could care less, thus the need for some sort of regulation to help keep things at the minimum safe for all humans that breath air.
but that regulation must also be kept in check and have its own regulation.

as we can clearly see from the last 40ish years (im 45 and have lived thru the changes day by day and seeing them start from a young age) a society, even a "FREE" one can regulate itself into a noose with one leg left on a 4 legged stool, with 3 broken legs on it.

once we as a nation, return to a DEMOCRATIC society, and not a Capitolist society (more of that Reality Check, we ARE a Capitolist Nation, not a Democratic one (thanx to removing the gold standard)), Then we can return to an actual country its citizens can be proud to be a part of.

Ron Paul has spoken more truth as a Politician than ANY i have heard speak since Kennedy. Yes i wasnt even born when JFK was assasinated, but it was most appartent he was a Peoples President, and truely had his finger on the pulse of the nation, and what was needed to keep us a Proud, Free US, not a Capitolist US. I belive Ron Paul also feels that pulse.

 

[Timmahh]

Somebody had to vote those people in. Again, society made a choice.

sorry, the Electoral College made a choice, AMERICAN Citizens only get to vote out of curtosy (dont want the sheeple to find out they are not in control of things)

Your opinion. I've lived my life quite freely. Have you not? Compared to the rest of the world the U.S. is hardly a police state.
while you have a point, have you not seen whats happening in the last 30 years? we have 3 walls and a roof, and the gate is about to be shut and locked man. if we dont have a police state now, its only becuase they havent shut the gate quite yet.
to do that, they need to kill the constitution, most specifically the part that allows WE the People the free will to OVERTHROW a overzelous and UnConstitutional government. these are easy to find, just look at any of them that want to take your right to bare arms away, and you found someone trying to work for a Nazi Police state, willingly or not, they are doing it.

Prohibition failed to stop use of alchohol, just as it is failing with Marijuana but the broader war on drugs against crack/cocaine, etc has been successful. That's how we decide... Costs. Benefits. Very simple.
while i do agree Education of hard drugs has had some effect, you are simply over simplifying things here. What about the possibility people like myself, have made the concious CHOICE using our own FREE WILL, to NOT USE Hard Drugs.

the war and drugs education NEVER made me make this choice. what made me make this chioce was seeing fucking drugged out waistes of flesh thru out my life growing up. im sure im not the only one between the ages of 10 and 90 that made this same choice, regardless of the totally waisted morality check called the "war on drugs".

so your assuming we the people are un able to make our own Thoughtfull and GOOD choices, so it Must be the War on Drugs that has lowered the use of hard drugs, and not simple good education from the school of life? opposed to the waisted monies spent in the name of the war on drugs? way to bolster confidence in your fellow man.

Marijuana has been in the wrong basket for decades... That'll likely soon change though. I never said the system was perfect and unfortunately it takes a long time to fix mistakes...
its not perfect, and never will be, but its perfectly broken as it is. a long time is 4 yrs, not 40 years. its in place by design, not by some mistake made in the early 70s. wake up to that fact. it is the way it is, becuase you can not break the sheeple and close the gate on the pen if some of the sheeple are still awake and aware.


No, the drug war is not about power it's about preserving potential economic activity... What's so hard to see about this? Over 70% of those billions of dollars lost to drug use come from a loss in productivity. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying you can legislate away every bad behavior, it's just that the evidence clearly shows the broader war on drugs (non-marijuana related) has done well in discouraging use of "hard" drugs.


you are correct the drug war isnt about power.
Its about CONTROL (note: Control over the People IS a Police State).


You see, it's all about balance. There is no one size fits all approach to what should and shouldn't be acceptable in society. Following a libertarian model and legalizing all drug use would likely end up over time hurting society - but at the same time, a heavily authoritarian model obviously has the potential to unfairly infringe on liberties and would likely end up as a waste of time and money... As prohibition on Alchohol was and what Marijuana prohibition has obviously become.

again, i agree, it is about balance. but you miss what that balance really is. I ll let you know, that balance wanted by the powers that be, is just as they want it. that is, they have control, the gate is nearly shut, so the balance needs to be the same. the status quo needs to be maintained for only a few more years, then they can finialy shut the gate, and the balance you seem to think you will share of, will be finished, and you ll find your on the wrong side of the scale.

 

[Mr Neutron]

Is this reasoning really so unfair and flawed? I love my freedom's as much as the next guy, but is it really too much to ask that the line be drawn somewhere(and that we as a society choose where that line is drawn)? I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle, arguing that some drugs be kept illegal on a drug forum.. haha

Yes, it is unfair and flawed. I have faith in people and believe me, if anyone should NOT have faith in ANYBODY, it should be me. But, I believe that if people are set free to live their lives as they want, without infringing on someone else's rights (do no harm), MOST will flourish... and by flourishing will encourage more responsibility and respectful behavior. Lead by example and not by force.
LOL, loved your last line... very good.
It also occurred to me that another cost is all the money leaving this country because of international cartels, hell there's a lot coming right here. If made legal, that money, although the total amount would probably be less than the black market, would stay here AND I know your a big fan of taxes, so tax away. Just like tobacco and alcohol. Regulate it. No one under 18 can buy it. Com'on, you should be all over this.

 

[Dan Kone]

There's been a HUGE lack of personal responsibility in this country for quite some time now unfortunately.

My point being that the way Ron Paul supporters want to hold people/corporations "personally responsible" damages the entire country, most of the people who would get hurt are not involved in the bad decisions at all. When they invoke personal responsibility they want everyone to take responsibility for the acts of a few greedy people on Wall St. They seem to think events happen in a bubble and if a company collapses, that doesn't effect anything else. But they are wrong. The banks failing would effect everyone.

 

[mame]

Yes, it is unfair and flawed. I have faith in people and believe me, if anyone should NOT have faith in ANYBODY, it should be me. But, I believe that if people are set free to live their lives as they want, without infringing on someone else's rights (do no harm), MOST will flourish... and by flourishing will encourage more responsibility and respectful behavior. Lead by example and not by force.
LOL, loved your last line... very good.
It also occurred to me that another cost is all the money leaving this country because of international cartels, hell there's a lot coming right here. If made legal, that money, although the total amount would probably be less than the black market, would stay here AND I know your a big fan of taxes, so tax away. Just like tobacco and alcohol. Regulate it. No one under 18 can buy it. Com'on, you should be all over this.

TBH, I never put much thought into the prospects of legalization of all drugs until this thread... And a lot of my posting was playing devil's advocate to some extent... But I really do believe that it's fair to draw the line at crack/cocaine, meth, etc. I believe that when done right, a nudge in the right direction via government isn't always a bad thing... I mean lightbulb regulations aren't so bad are they? Did you know that by buying a CFL instead of a regular bulb you save ~3/4 of the energy for the same amount of light AND they last longer? By listening to the angry old people about having to switch bulbs you'd think they've gone blind since switching... But they really are better overall.

 

[Timmahh]

its a fact, once the GOLDEN EGG is no longer desireable, the desire to possess it or experience it is lowered.

that is to say, people want what thay cant have. and if they want it, and cant have it, they ll CERTAINLY Be sure to get it.

if they can have it, its no big deal.

take alcohol use in many Euro countries. you can have alchohol even as a child. and many do have wine with a meal thru the day.
to many of those, getting drunk is no big deal. but lets face it. people drink to get drunk to forget about their lifes drama. this is a fact of humanity, but in most of these euro countrys, alcoholism, and drunk driving are far far far less than it is here in the us. so our OWN 21 and over to drink laws, only goes to prove the fact, people want what they cant have, especially young adults.


so it is any wonder why we have such a high rate of alcholism in people under the age of 21, that by the time they are 21, they are full blown addicts?

yet alchol is more legal there then here in the US, so if leaving it up to the poeple is bad, they why do these euro states have less of a problem with alcohol than we do here in the US, where we have Socialistic and Politically Correct Alcohol laws.


and to top it off, you can die for your country fighting for the freedom of another nation, but you cant set on your own porch of a house you own and drink a beer if your 20 yrs old and home on leave?

all i can say is REALLY? WTF?

 

[Dan Kone]

If a business is scamming people, causing harm, killing people with bad or unsafe products or perhaps is fraudulently doing business and you want to make sure they never fail? You haven't really thought about this have you?

Sometimes choices aren't quite so black and white. If letting that corporation fail means letting hundreds of thousands or even millions of people losing their jobs that is not a good thing at all.

IMO the companies should have been seized by the government, broken up into smaller companies that were not too big to fail, and then sold off at a profit. But the bailouts did prevent a lot of job loss so they were an acceptable solution.

Sorry but we can't afford to be such a decadent society where we let political ideology take precedence over American jobs.

This country cannot have Nobility, no kings of any kind, no royalty whatsoever. That is the law.

Under Ron Paul we'd bring back the robber barons and nobility is exactly what we'd have.

 

[Mr Neutron]

TBH, I never put much thought into the prospects of legalization of all drugs until this thread... And a lot of my posting was playing devil's advocate to some extent... But I really do believe that it's fair to draw the line at crack/cocaine, meth, etc. I believe that when done right, a nudge in the right direction via government isn't always a bad thing... I mean lightbulb regulations aren't so bad are they? Did you know that by buying a CFL instead of a regular bulb you save ~3/4 of the energy for the same amount of light AND they last longer? By listening to the angry old people about having to switch bulbs you'd think they've gone blind since switching... But they really are better overall.

OK, well let's get mj legalized first and when you see how well that works, if you still feel the same way, we'll argue some more ; )
Actually, here in Mexico it's difficult to find incandescents. The electric rates are outrageous. But still, even that should be by choice. If people want to pay extra for using their favorite light bulb, let them.

 

[Timmahh]

TBH, I never put much thought into the prospects of legalization of all drugs until this thread... And a lot of my posting was playing devil's advocate to some extent... But I really do believe that it's fair to draw the line at crack/cocaine, meth, etc. I believe that when done right, a nudge in the right direction via government isn't always a bad thing... I mean lightbulb regulations aren't so bad are they? Did you know that by buying a CFL instead of a regular bulb you save ~3/4 of the energy for the same amount of light AND they last longer? By listening to the angry old people about having to switch bulbs you'd think they've gone blind since switching... But they really are better overall.

REALLY? you need to do some reading.

1. CFL bulbs are only made in what country??:

Hint, we owe them trillions for loans, yes China.

2. what about the Mercury in CFL Bulbs? you break one, you breath it. did you know mercury is used in them?

3. you do realize the production cost to produce a CFL bulb is way more expensive than the cost to produce an incondecent bulb?
not to mention, the amount of polutants to make CFLs is more than polutants made producing Incondencent bulbs?


now im not sure on this, but i also believe our Government Subsidizes CFL bulb manufacture, sale and use. ie, paying us with our own tax money to pay china for making the bulbs for us to use, again paid with tax monies for subsidies.

Watch and Believe if you DARE!
http://youtu.be/Tv59PJ30WeMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv59PJ30WeM

 

[Mr Neutron]

Sorry but we can't afford to be such a decadent society where we let political ideology take precedence over American jobs.

For over 20 years, a plant in Sealy, Texas made vehicles for the military. After the election, they were closed down and the contract went to a company in Wisconsin that had no prior experience in building these vehicles.

Under Ron Paul we'd bring back the robber barons and nobility is exactly what we'd have.

"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies, The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
--C.S. Lewis

 

[mame]

REALLY? you need to do some reading.

1. CFL bulbs are only made in what country??:

Hint, we owe them trillions for loans, yes China.

irrelevent, almost every bulb of every type is made outside the U.S..

2. what about the Mercury in CFL Bulbs? you break one, you breath it. did you know mercury is used in them?

The amount of Murcury in the bulbs is tiny, like the tip of a sharp pencil and it becomes a gas when the bulb is lit. The amount is very very very small and they've been working to make it CFLs with even less murcury (for the tubes Phillips "Alto" has less than the average tube). CFLs are transitory anyway, in 5-7 years LEDs will be much cheaper and they dont contain any harmful chemicals.

3. you do realize the production cost to produce a CFL bulb is way more expensive than the cost to produce an incondecent bult?
not to mention, the amount of polutants to make CFLs is more than polutants made producing Incondencent bulbs?

Do you realize that one CFL lasts 2-10 times as long as the common incandescent (depending on brand they'll last anyhere from 1000 to 5000 hours while CFL's are 8000-10000 hours), right? So ideally you'd be producing less bulbs to meet demand. Because of this, there is less material do dispose of, etc. I'm not sure there is a complete offset but if CFL's were a big source of pollution I'm sure somebody would say so(are there any studies on this? I honestly dont know the answer to this one).

now im not sure on this, but i also believe our Government Subsidizes CFL bulb manufacture, sale and use. ie, paying us with our own tax money to pay china for making the bulbs for us to use, again paid with tax monies for subsidies.

I've never heard of this at least at the retail level. Maybe manufactoring is subsidized but IDK.

As far as letting people have the choice... The free market has had over 100 years since the first incandescent lightbulbs were being produced to produce a more efficient bulb. There was hardly any, if at all, technological advances in the entire industry until the government started legislating incentives for a more advanced bulb and then flat out banning the old bulbs. This is an example of government intervention as a success. Pretty soon LEDs will be relatively cheap(atm they're like $20-50 depending on brand but they'll be like $10 each in 5-7 yeras).

BTW, lightbulbs used to be my day job. I had to explain this to people every day, blah blah blah...

 

[Mindmelted]

And the truth will set you free........

 

[Mindmelted]

Every cfl i have bought has lasted less than a year.But i have regular bulbs that are 2-3 years old.
And those figures are given by bodies that are more interested in money than the truth.

 

[deprave]

The U.S. spends ~5 billion on treatment and education each year and ~10 billion on enforcement(Obama proposed a 15.5 billion dollar budget for this year, 2010 was a total of $15 billion). Considering that a third of all Americans smoked marijuana within a month of taking a survey in 2001(whitehouse.gov recent-ish data on there) and only 4 percent of Americans reported smoking crack/cocaine in the same survey it seems fair to say a lot of the money spent on enforcement(and I guess to a lesser extent treatment...? lol) is spent on marijuana smokers.

So lets be fairly rosy here and say the total non-marijuana related yearly budget for the war on drugs is 10 billion a year (a third of the total costs removed)... that still seems like a lot.

But consider this, since their peak in 1979 non-marijuana drug use, although flucating throughout history, is actually down. Crack/cocain use at 4% in 2001 for example, is far below the 1979 peak of 15%... when the "war on drugs" started. This obviously isn't true for Marijuana, as use has flucuated throughout the years but there is no clear downward trend like in the case of Cocaine. So, despite the fact the marijuana prohibition has obviously failed... The broader war on drugs via enforcement, education and treatment has been fairly successful in preventing use of drugs like crack/cocaine.

Also, the economic costs to society from illicit drug use is estimated to have been $180.8 billion in 2002, despite the successes in terms of reduced use in the two decades of the war on drugs... How big do you think this number would be if the war on drugs never took place? With costs to society approaching $193 billion for tobacco, and $235 billion for alcohol - both legal substances(and with much higher usage rates than cocaine) - I think it's fair to say that the $180 billion number could easily be twice as large... So being cautious with those numbers(I believe the figure could have been at least double, possibly triple assuming non-marijuana drug use has generally followed the same trend as cocaine, downwards) and claiming $150-200 billion in net saved economic activity(compared to without the funding for the war on drugs) doesn't sound bad at all when the cost to the taxpayers (excluding marijuana) would be a mere $10 billion.

But to get to what your main argument is, that we're deprived of the choice... Sure, you got me. You dont get a choice in the matter. You know why? Because we, as a society, have decided that the costs to society outweigh the individual "liberty" that you would otherwise be afforded. If you don't like it, you can try and change the law (ala the marijuana movement)... But to argue that cocaine is in the wrong camp (illegal drug) like marijuana is in the wrong camp is going to be much more difficult - and ultimately, you'll likely fail in your campaign.

you know PERSONALLY I don't really care if crack and heroin are illegal or not to be honest because I despise both drugs, but to say our war on drugs works is just naive, and to base it on some statistics, who are you the drug czar?

POLITICALLY as an American, the war on drugs is wrong because its unconstitutional and it goes against everything America stands for.

here some street smart facts for your little government statistics:
1. Drugs don't commit crimes people do. The crimes and criminals will be there with or without the drugs.
2. locking people in a cell doesn't help them and it doesn't help society as a whole, if anything they should be in treatment.
3. What someone puts in their body harms only themselves
4. Cocaine/Heroin addicts visiting emergency room would be there with or without the drugs, they are desperate people in tough situations.
5. Cocaine/Heroin usually is not to blame for addicts and their lifestyle. It helps to keep them unstable sure but they arent stable to begin with. (there is plenty of legal opiates)
6. Most people are fully capable of experimenting with cocaine (and also heroin to some degree) without becoming addicts and destroying their lives (the ironic thing if they get busted that time it will destroy their lives).
7. The drug war destroys young lives and cost society quite a bit by not allowing this young people to get a good career and/or go to school or whatever and sometimes locking them up for long perioids of time and sometimes locked up for life.


Where did you get your stats from Whitehouse.gov Mr drug Czar? lol
It doesnt matter anyway where you got them they are just statistics, replace your statistics with common sense, no offense your a smart guy, smarter then me, but you lack common sense and street smarts mame, how old are you just curious?

really I could go on and on but I got to go for now

[video=youtube;Mjcvql6By4s]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjcvql6By4s[/video]

 

[UncleBuck]

"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies, The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
--C.S. Lewis

"Yes," said Peter, "I suppose what makes it feel so queer is that in the stories it's always someone in our world who does the calling. One doesn't really think about where the Jinn's coming from."
"And now we know what it feels like for the Jinn," said Edmund with a chuckle. "Golly! It's a bit uncomfortable to know that we can be whistled for like that. It's worse than what Father says about living at the mercy of the telephone."

CS Lewis

 

[Dan Kone]

"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies, The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
--C.S. Lewis

That's a bunch of crap. How the hell are we better off with a two class country with robber barons at the top, and everyone else part of a bottom peasant class? BTW, unless you're a billionaire, you'd be part of the poor plebeian class.