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https://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/202...e-say.html

Easy solution, just ban fentanyl!

This isn't just a Kzoo problem. It's everywhere.

(04-13-2023 08:02 PM)ColinApocalypse Wrote:  This isn't just a Kzoo problem. It's everywhere.

Yep. Does anyone really pretend that Kzoo can't have urban ills?

Fentanyl is in every opioid and illegal pills and powder. Junkies and otherwise innocent people are dying everywhere.

(04-13-2023 08:10 PM)Charm City Bronco Wrote:  

(04-13-2023 08:02 PM)ColinApocalypse Wrote:  This isn't just a Kzoo problem. It's everywhere.

Yep. Does anyone really pretend that Kzoo can't have urban ills?

Fentanyl is in every opioid and illegal pills and powder. Junkies and otherwise innocent people are dying everywhere.

The thing is, the drug problem isn't even an urban ill anymore.

It's just as bad or worse in the small town rural areas.

(04-13-2023 08:16 PM)ColinApocalypse Wrote:  The thing is, the drug problem isn't even an urban ill anymore.

It's just as bad or worse in the small town rural areas.

No doubt about that. I have heard all the stories.

I lived near Nationals Park when I first moved to DC in 2008. Literally three blocks from the park in SW DC. This was when they bulldozed everything around the brand new park in SE but had established but poor and public housing dominated neighborhood adjacent to the west. I lived there for my first year in DC.

It had three people die and eight overdose in an hour in 2022. That's what poverty does to you.

https://wtop.com/dc/2022/01/8-suspected-...dc-friday/

It's sad that so many people are desperate to escape the reality of their day to day lives. I'm thankful I've never been driven to that. Hard drugs...dangerous drugs...I've never wanted to use them and I feel bad for the people that feel like they need to.

With our resources, we could be doing so much to uplift the poorest and most desperate in our society. Instead, we choose to do nothing. Crippling debt from medical and educational costs. Stagnant wages and cost of living that continues to rise. Terrible urban design (urban sprawl, suburbia, car-dependency) that isolates people, especially children, from one another and stifles independence. Underfunded schools that are essentially diploma mills. I hate that we're to the point where any spending on investments that will improve the lives of the people in this country is called "CoMmUnIsM" and immediately stricken down. Why even have a government at all if they're not allowed to protect and support the people they govern?

How poetic. But there are no solutions, only trade offs, that’s reality of government, and that’s how we got here.

Every program you create to “solve” something only creates a new problem. Every program you cut to “save” something only creates a new problem.

Dependency on government to solve all issues only creates less action not more.

I know a county sheriff, he told me 90% of ODs he's seen were from people coming out of rehab and getting their first high using same dose they were used to. Kills them instantly due to tolerance falling off in rehab.

(04-14-2023 04:48 AM)Doo Wrote:  How poetic. But there are no solutions, only trade offs, that’s reality of government, and that’s how we got here.

Every program you create to “solve” something only creates a new problem. Every program you cut to “save” something only creates a new problem.

Dependency on government to solve all issues only creates less action not more.

No one is talking about dependency on government, but we have a do-nothing government. Your attitude is uniquely American in that you think we're special and our problems just can't be solved by means that have worked elsewhere...or maybe that they can't be solved at all. That the government is the big, bad 'other' that will only oppress your freedoms. Well I'm sorry, but sometimes the government needs to govern. How else will these problems be addressed? Are YOU going to fix them?

This idea of American exceptionalism is so toxic and has created so many of the problems we're in. It's an excuse to just sit on our hands and make no effort to improve the lives of our citizens.

Are you really going to sit there and say "there are no solutions, only trade offs" and every initiative creates new problems? Wouldn't you say that some solutions in the past have had overwhelmingly net positive outcomes? The Civil Rights Act of 1964, The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, Clean Air Act of 1963, getting lead out of homes and cars, creation of the national parks, etc etc...

Almost all of our national issues are the fallout of previous government “solutions”. Almost all of our advancements have come from the masses, our ingenuity, our determination, and the private sector, in spite of the government.

(04-14-2023 09:35 AM)Doo Wrote:  Almost all of our national issues are the fallout of previous government “solutions”. Almost all of our advancements have come from the masses, our ingenuity, our determination, and the private sector, in spite of the government.

What about the Emergency Banking Act of 1933, Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, & the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

Yeah okay. Good luck with that. I really can't tell if you're serious. Look, "the government" can and does do bad things. It's a reflection and representation of our society as a whole. It's made up of millions of public servants including people WE elect. But it also has the capacity to solve problems and improve lives.

If you want to put all of your faith in soulless private corporations, that's on you. They don't give a shite about you, but whatever. Companies have the ability to innovate and improve lives as well, but they require regulation. There needs to be a balance, but for too long this nation has been run by private interests at the expense of public good.

There are things the government is better at (creating a fair playing field, consumer protections), and things the private sector is better at (economy). Instead of looking at examples of things the government does poorly and claiming the government does all things poorly, or the opposite and claiming the government can do no wrong by cherry picking examples, maybe we should expect the government to do the thing they are in fact good at.

(04-14-2023 09:51 AM)moe24 Wrote:  There are things the government is better at (creating a fair playing field, consumer protections), and things the private sector is better at (economy). Instead of looking at examples of things the government does poorly and claiming the government does all things poorly, or the opposite and claiming the government can do no wrong by cherry picking examples, maybe we should expect the government to do the thing they are in fact good at.

Who's claiming the government can do no wrong? That's a ridiculous thought if anyone is making it. But, likely just a straw man you created.

Any government makes a lot of mistakes. Some are self inflicted mistakes when they get involved in things they shouldn't. Other times it's local, state, & federal governments being forced to make very difficult decisions for very complex problems that don't have any simple solutions.

(04-14-2023 09:51 AM)moe24 Wrote:  There are things the government is better at (creating a fair playing field, consumer protections), and things the private sector is better at (economy). Instead of looking at examples of things the government does poorly and claiming the government does all things poorly, or the opposite and claiming the government can do no wrong by cherry picking examples, maybe we should expect the government to do the thing they are in fact good at.

I literally said several posts earlier that everything is a trade off. Government solutions as well as lack of government involvement, they both create just as much bad as good. It’s simply about deciding what you want to be good and what you want to struggle with as a society. Our “issues” are not accidental they are a product of previous decisions. But to pretend that we can create a society that doesn’t have just as many problems when the previously listed “problems” get fixed is absurdity. We will have new problems we have created out of those solutions.

Wanting to improve society is noble, but pretending there is some secret sauce is folly.

(04-14-2023 10:03 AM)BroncoMinor Wrote:  

(04-14-2023 09:51 AM)moe24 Wrote:  There are things the government is better at (creating a fair playing field, consumer protections), and things the private sector is better at (economy). Instead of looking at examples of things the government does poorly and claiming the government does all things poorly, or the opposite and claiming the government can do no wrong by cherry picking examples, maybe we should expect the government to do the thing they are in fact good at.

Who's claiming the government can do no wrong? That's a ridiculous thought if anyone is making it. But, likely just a straw man you created.

Any government makes a lot of mistakes. Some are self inflicted mistakes when they get involved in things they shouldn't. Other times it's local, state, & federal governments being forced to make very difficult decisions for very complex problems that don't have any simple solutions.

A LOT of people act that way. There is a very large segment of our population who immediately expect the government to "do something" the second something isn't right. And anyone who points out the flaws in that mentality is immediately roasted and labelled as something they're not.

As for the last point the opposite is often true; the government makes difficult, complex, and overly bureaucratic solutions to things that are actually quite simple and easy.

(04-14-2023 06:56 AM)GRBRONCO Wrote:  I know a county sheriff, he told me 90% of ODs he's seen were from people coming out of rehab and getting their first high using same dose they were used to. Kills them instantly due to tolerance falling off in rehab.

Yeah, that's a real tough thing where I don't know the solution. Rehab helps a lot of people. But, most addicts/alcoholics fail at Rehab.

(04-14-2023 10:12 AM)moe24 Wrote:  

(04-14-2023 10:03 AM)BroncoMinor Wrote:  

(04-14-2023 09:51 AM)moe24 Wrote:  There are things the government is better at (creating a fair playing field, consumer protections), and things the private sector is better at (economy). Instead of looking at examples of things the government does poorly and claiming the government does all things poorly, or the opposite and claiming the government can do no wrong by cherry picking examples, maybe we should expect the government to do the thing they are in fact good at.

Who's claiming the government can do no wrong? That's a ridiculous thought if anyone is making it. But, likely just a straw man you created.

Any government makes a lot of mistakes. Some are self inflicted mistakes when they get involved in things they shouldn't. Other times it's local, state, & federal governments being forced to make very difficult decisions for very complex problems that don't have any simple solutions.

A LOT of people act that way. There is a very large segment of our population who immediately expect the government to "do something" the second something isn't right. And anyone who points out the flaws in that mentality is immediately roasted and labelled as something they're not.

As for the last point the opposite is often true; the government makes difficult, complex, and overly bureaucratic solutions to things that are actually quite simple and easy.

I agree with a lot of what you're saying. But, I still think you're creating some straw man talking points.

Most reasonable people think there is good & bad to government involvement. I don't think "A LOT" of people think the government can or should solve all our problems.

Opioids don't kill people, people kill people. Right? All you have to do is not take the stuff and it's harmless. So all of it should be legal.