'And I know they killed our heroes too..'
The title comes from a song by Marilyn Manson called The Death Song (from his Holywood album). Last year two Albert Hein (one of the biggest supermarkets in the Netherlands) employees raced after a man who had just robbed their store. The robber was carrying a knife, yet these two employees ran after and eventually caught up to him. A fight followed which was won by the two employees, who then held on to the man for the cops to arive and take the robber away. Well not quite. It seems the two employees hurt the robber in the process. While not getting a thank you for your efforts is fairly common but getting prosecuted over it is new. This offcourse had pretty much the entire nation in an uproar since when people actually decide to not put up with crime anymore they get branded as criminals. The high point came when prince Bernard said he would pay the price these two brave employees would have to pay. It ended with a 300 euro fine, which the prince paid. It happened again this week. Same two employees though different robber. They spotted a man stealing a beer and went in pursuit. This time one of the employees punched the robber in the stomach while trying to apprehend him. The robber pressed charges against him for abuse. On a side note this beer robber had a quite extensive history of criminal offenses. Offcourse a politician has already said he'd pay any fine resulting from this.
Just how far gone are we when we start punishing our heroes for being heroes? The police is too busy writing out parking tickets to handle the crime on the street. However they can be bothered to arrest two people that help capture a criminal. Did you ever stop a criminal by politely asking him to wait for the police to arive? Probably not. While the gesture is a nice one by the politician (and not in the least a way to get good publicity for a few hundred euros) it isn't enough. If they really support employees actively protecting their company then a change in the law is required. Make it so that anybody can stop a criminal while not killing him. If you're going to stop a criminal you'll have to fight him it's that simple. If you wanna win that fight you'll have to deal out quite a few good, hard punches or kicks. This will hurt the criminal pretty bad otherwise he'd just run off. Change the law so that instead of getting a fine these people get a reward. While your at it make it so that these repeating criminal stay behind bars for the the rest of their lives since they obviously haven't learned from their stay.
posted by Erik at 04:41
Drugs, Alcohol & Smokes (ciggies, pipe, cigars etc.)
All three of these substances are highly addictive and very bad for your health (at least that's what they want you to believe). However only one of these is illegal, the other two can be bought quite easily. For arguement's sake I won't make a difference between hard and soft drugs just like I won't make a difference between a beer and 160 proof Stroh Rum. Both get you either high or drunk it's just the speed and severity that differ. Now the most logical one to be illegal would be smoking. This because when you drink alcohol the substance goes into your body. Same goes for most of the drugs. However with smoking you're releasing those harmfull to the body substances in the air and the ones near you. The harmfull effects caused by your smoking affects others. These are all things the government acknowledges to such a point even that it is now illegal for the industry to advertise and all sorts of rules are imposed about where one can and cannot smoke. The thing is that if it is as bad as they say it is why isn't it illegal? There's two answers to that one. The first is that the government does want to make it illegal but won't since the population that smokes is way too big. Think what happened when alcohol was illegal in the USA in the 1920s that did NOT go over well. The second option offcourse is that they don't want to make it illegal at all. They simply balance the half of the population that does smoke and the other half that is complaining about it. While earning around 6 billion euro's from tariffs in the process (recent budget cuts were 15 billion, imagine if they'd have to come up with an additional 6 billion as well). So that covers smoking.
Moving on to alcohol. This can cause some rather problematic behavior hence that commiting crimes when drunk are punished more severely. Trying to make this illegal will be rather hard to do considering the aforemention USA attempt didn't work. That and most people only have two or three beers a night or a glass of wine with dinner and there isn't much harm in that. So the government compensates it again with tariffs (not as high as the smoking ones, but consider that 4 off the 6 euros you pay for a pack of cigs are tariffs). All things considered alcohol is treated fair enough. A small tariff to pay for that liver operation down the line, no drunk driving and an age limit. The one thing that is interesting to me though is that alcohol releases your inhibitions. Basically when drunk enough you'll actually become your true self and act the way you would. While sober we are limited by all the rules society, family and we ourselves have imposed on us. Maybe we should all be drunk and see what happens?
Then comes drugs. Frankly I don't see the difference between drugs and alcohol. Both can make you act a little different than normal depending on how much you use and both are just as addicting. Like the people that drink a couple of beers there are people that smoke a joint. Which can have a similar effect. Sure there are the hard drug addicts but don't forget that there are quite a few alcoholists too, should we ban it just because some people can't control themselves? The biggest problem the government and ignorant masses seems to have with drugs are with the addicted ones and the crime that comes from it. The simplest solution would be to legalize drugs. If you'd allow people to grow/make the drugs professionally (you can set rules for this just as with any other type of industry) and have stores sell them it would solve crime. How many beer mafia families are there? Or triads controlling the fine french wines? The prices would drop considerably and this will allow the more addicted people to still get enough without having to resort to stealing. The big gain for the government would come in the form of tariffs so they can earn a few extra billion euros to cover the gaping holes in their budget. Considering the large amount that uses drugs and the lack of control there is now this might be a viable solution. Offcourse I could be ignorant and the government has already done this just hasn't informed the public about it.
posted by Erik at 06:32
