Is it left wing to tolerate crack dealers?

[Pickman's model]

Well I did manage to expose you as a consumate hypocrite, bigoted buffoon and in all probability ideological (and perhaps biological) kin to Pickman's Model. You must be very proud.

you haven't yet proved your case.

 

[phildwyer]

You rest your case on what? That I took the piss out of your ridiculous panacea for the drug problems in places like Manchester?

No fool, the fact that you think Giuliani's crackdown on the Lower East Side offers a model for Manchester's estates.

 

[LLETSA]

No fool, the fact that you think Giuliani's crackdown on the Lower East Side offers a model for Manchester's estates.

Do I?

Where have I said that?

 

[likesfish]

sarcasamn quite be tricky to do on a debate on the net actually I thought lettasa was making some rather dodgy point about the estates around manchester
phil your the only one to bring race into this debate

 

[LLETSA]

sarcasamn quite be tricky to do on a debate on the net actually I thought lettasa was making some rather dodgy point about the estates around manchester
phil your the only one to bring race into this debate

In future I will add the word 'Joke' to every wisecrack....

 

[Harold Shand]

Giuliani's crackdown on the Lower East Side offers a model for Manchester's estates

Well, that's not as odd as believing that open crack dealing is a price worth paying to keep rents cheap which was your position.

It may be that crackdowns only move the problem on, as has often been observed. But if you lived in the most acute area, that would still seem worth doing. I think it's far too easy for people at a safe distance (in which I'd include the police and politicians) to let those areas round there be "sacrificed" so that the rest of us know where to avoid.

 

[Harold Shand]

Btw, Phil, I presume you want massive investment in these estates, like I do. Well, don't you think that the criminals have to at least be cracked down on first? Most of the builders, healthcare professionals, social workers and youth workers won't be too keen on going to work in places where they feel threatened by crack dealers.

 

[snadge]

if you take plill's anology a little further you could say

It's rascist to smoke crack

 

[phildwyer]

Phil, crack and coke are different forms, taken differently, bought by different people and often sold by different people too. That's two different markets in my book.

Now you're right that coke users on here and elsewhere turn a blind eye to the broader effects of what they buy, like drug mules and turf wars. But you weren't talking about that. You were saying it was hypocritical to buy coke from someone who dealt discretely and then to condemn people who deal in something different in a different way.

You're right that crack and coke sell to 'two different markets.' One of those differences, obviously, has to do with *race,* and another has to do with class: crack is the poor man's coke. But you're wrong to say that coke is 'something different' from crack. Its the same drug. For coke users to condemn crack dealers is thus completely hypocritical. Its a bit like customers of prostitutes deciding that they hate hookers. As I've said, it someone who never uses coke takes that attitude, that's one thing. But I wonder how many of our drug warriors on this thread fall into that category?

 

[LLETSA]

You're right that crack and coke sell to 'two different markets.' One of those differences, obviously, has to do with *race,* and another has to do with class: crack is the poor man's coke. But you're wrong to say that coke is 'something different' from crack. Its the same drug. For coke users to condemn crack dealers is thus completely hypocritical. Its a bit like customers of prostitutes deciding that they hate hookers. As I've said, it someone who never uses coke takes that attitude, that's one thing. But I wonder how many of our drug warriors on this thread fall into that category?

You seem to think that everybody has to be the drug addled moron that you make yourself out to be.

Most people aren't.

 

[phildwyer]

I agree with your point about a disproportionate amount of the black working class being convicted of (low-level) drug dealing (and other, to use the new phrase, "street crimes"), that's a matter of long record (as is the significantly lower conviction rate of those white/and or middle class people charged with the same group of offences).

I also agree with your statement above, but I feel it's necessary to point out that a large part of both problems reside in institutional and structural causes rather than in your accusations of racism against specific groups within communities (which may or may not be valid but appear to me to be beside the point)

As you say, the drug laws are applied differently to different 'races.' The most egregious of those differences being the higher sentences doled out to crack users as compared to coke users. The *real* differences between those two groups are those of race and class. My accusations of racism are not designed to neglect what you call the 'institutional and structural causes' of this disparity, but to show how the racist assumptions of lawmakers filter down into the feeble minds of our anti-dealer posters who--for *fuck's* sake and for the last time--TAKE DRUGS THEMSELVES. Honestly, if people can't see the hypocrisy, and the racism that legitimates that hypocrisy, making it seem acceptable, I don't know what the world is coming to.

 

[phildwyer]

sarcasamn quite be tricky to do on a debate on the net actually I thought lettasa was making some rather dodgy point about the estates around manchester

That's what I thought too. A *very* dodgy point, in fact. An authoritarian, pro-police-state and repressive point, in fact. A point, in fact, inspired by deeply repugnant, prejudiced assumptions about different groups of drug users of which poor LLETSA seems genuinely unconscious--obvious as they are to the rest of us.

 

[LLETSA]

That's what I thought too. A *very* dodgy point, in fact. An authoritarian, pro-police-state and repressive point, in fact. A point, in fact, inspired by deeply repugnant, prejudiced assumptions about different groups of drug users of which poor LLETSA seems genuinely unconscious--obvious as they are to the rest of us.

I am pro-police state and racist but only against charlatans like you phil.

To the fucking salt mines with you! Now, rather than later.

 

[LLETSA]

That's what I thought too. A *very* dodgy point, in fact. An authoritarian, pro-police-state and repressive point, in fact. A point, in fact, inspired by deeply repugnant, prejudiced assumptions about different groups of drug users of which poor LLETSA seems genuinely unconscious--obvious as they are to the rest of us.

'Obvious as they are to the rest of us', says slack-brained phil, apparently (or maybe not) oblivious to the fact that nobody in the entire thread has any time for almost anything to come out of his pseudo-hippy gob.

Got any answers to the questions put to you earlier yet, phil?

 

[phildwyer]

I am pro-police state and racist but only against charlatans like you phil.

To the fucking salt mines with you! Now, rather than later.

See, anti-Welsh as well, is there no end to your bigotry? You probably want to organize vigilantes against peddlars of Brains SA.

 

[LLETSA]

See, anti-Welsh as well, is there no end to your bigotry? You probably want to organize vigilantes against peddlars of Brains SA.

When Anne Robinson said 'What are the Welsh for,' she really meant, 'What is that Welsh internet gobshite phildwyer for?'

 

[LLETSA]

By the way, I have advocated vigilantism nowhere.

 

[Herbert Read]

its gone quiet

Phil-the-pill-0 Sanity and common sense-1

 

[likesfish]

we just have to lure phil within range of the border then he's fair game with a long bow

 

[ViolentPanda]

we just have to lure phil within range of the border then he's fair game with a long bow

I thought that only applied if you were withn the "town bounds" of Shrewsbury?

 

[Jo/Joe]

phil, should anti social behaviour be tolerated just because it comes from drug dealers who might possibly be black? If so, what of the concerns of people who, unike you, want this behaviour addressed so that they can feel safe?

 

[likesfish]

read some where it was open season on the welsh if you could see them from the border probably wrong.
my old music teacher thought the only suitable use for wales was as a bombing range first graduate of the royal academy of music to break the sound barrier

 

[phildwyer]

phil, should anti social behaviour be tolerated just because it comes from drug dealers who might possibly be black?

Of course it shouldn't, idiot. But arrest and imprisonment are not the solution, still less vigilante justice. Criminalizing drug use merely perpetuates the cycle of anti-social behavior you find so objectionable. As well as providing an outlet for authoritarian and racist impulses, as we have amply witnessed on this thread.

 

[Jo/Joe]

Dear me phil, your manners are awful. Why don't you answer questions clearly straight away, instead of being more concerned about your image, and then we wouldn't have to repeat ourselves or ask seemingly patronising questions.

 

[snadge]

Of course it shouldn't, idiot. But arrest and imprisonment are not the solution, still less vigilante justice. Criminalizing drug use merely perpetuates the cycle of anti-social behavior you find so objectionable. As well as providing an outlet for authoritarian and racist impulses, as we have amply witnessed on this thread.

would you mind pointing them out please?

if there are "ample" it won't be a problem.

 

[Jo/Joe]

Don't hold your breath snadge.

 

[Chuck Wilson]

Of course it shouldn't, idiot. But arrest and imprisonment are not the solution, still less vigilante justice. Criminalizing drug use merely perpetuates the cycle of anti-social behavior you find so objectionable. As well as providing an outlet for authoritarian and racist impulses, as we have amply witnessed on this thread.

 

[Hanoipete]

if you are fed up with dealers then...

1. dont buy drugs
2. move - as you are free to do.

 

[snadge]

I see phildwyer still hasn't appeared to back up his claims....

then again, I knew not to hold my breath.

 

[snadge]

if you are fed up with dealers then...

1. dont buy drugs
2. move - as you are free to do.

what happens if you don't buy drugs anyway and haven't got the money to move, if you paid a price for your house and it's worth less due to the area?