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Want in on the game? A look at investing in American real estate while serving
I have a lot of respect for the men and women in our armed services.
Each day, while I'm out there picking up rent, recording an episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast, or watching the latest episode of The Walking Dead – they are working to ensure I can continue living this lifestyle in peace. So before I move on: if that is you – let me just say a very sincere "Thank You."
This guide is meant to serve as a starting place for those looking to invest in real estate while serving in the U.S. Military. Just to be 100% clear – I've never served in the military, so only writing from the perspective of one who has a pretty good view of the U.S. investing world and enjoys explaining things!
Obviously, there are numerous branches of the military, as well as numerous different jobs, duties, responsibilities, pay scales, and locations for those serving. You might be located within the States, or you may be serving abroad. You may have a family, or you may be living alone. Maybe you are full time, or perhaps you are a "weekend warrior." Maybe you've been in the military for years and make a great salary, or maybe you are fresh out of boot camp.
The possibilities are endless – therefore, I will not attempt to say "This is exactly how you should start investing." This would be pointless – every investing strategy should be designed around the place where your abilities, your finances, and your goals meet.
Instead, this will attempt to be as "general" as possible while offering additional resources that you can use to dig in deeper and build your plan based on your specific situation.
The greatest focus of this guide will be on investing in real estate when your location is not guaranteed to remain the same, as this seems to be the greatest hurdle for those looking to invest in real estate while serving in the U.S. Military. Although it is helpful to live in the same area you invest – it is not required, and this guide will show you numerous strategies you can use to keep your personal location and your investing strategy separate.
If you have any questions while reading this guide, I invite you to ask me any questions at BiggerPockets.com. However, as someone who has not served in the military, I also encourage you to jump into the free BiggerPockets Forums to ask questions to the BiggerPockets community – many who have served in the military and are willing to share their experiences with you. That's the true power of BiggerPockets and this incredible family.
With that, let's get to the guide.
Why invest in real estate while serving in the Military?
For all the great things that can be said about "Uncle Sam" – few would use the word "generous with compensation" to describe our government. I doubt very much that you joined the military to get rich (after all, there is a reason we call it "serving in the military.") However, if you are like me – you probably have hopes, dreams, and ambitions for your family and its future that will require more income than you'll likely make from your career.
However, while typical personal finance advice is to simply "save more" – it's not enough to simply save money unless that saved money has a higher purpose. After all, you won't build wealth until your money is working to earn you money.
Let me show you two simple charts. The first shows the results of a person starting with $10,000 and saving $200 per month over the course of 30 years. The second graph shows the results of that same person, starting with that same $10,000, and investing that same $200 per month and earning an average of 12% each year on their investment.
Notice the graph below… after 30 years, the person has a grand total of $82,000. However, looking at that same $200 per month, but invested at 12%, shows a final total of $938,301.33. (Notice – the scale on the left side of each graph. The left side goes to $100,000 total, the right graph goes to $1,000,000!)
The difference is astonishing, is it not? A difference of over $850,000 just by investing that money rather than saving.
By investing your hard earned money, you can parlay your small investment into far greater amounts later on.
Now, clearly, no one is arguing that you should simply bury your money in the backyard like the first graph represents. So where is the best place to invest that money?
Obviously, there are a lot of choices. Stocks, mutual funds, index funds, whole life insurance, and more. Ask 10 financial planners what you should invest in… and you'll likely get 10 different responses (and… conveniently, those ten responses will likely correspond perfectly with whatever investment is going to make the planner the highest commission!)
However, of all the investments out there, I firmly believe the best is real estate. I believe no other investment on earth offers the same potential for building lasting wealth than real estate investing.
For starters, real estate investing offers:
- The ability to use leverage to maximize your results (applying a small down payment to control a huge asset)
- Historical stability and growth,
- Various different ways you can generate wealth (monthly cash from the rental income, appreciation when prices go up, tax benefits and more)
- The ability for YOU to have a direct impact on the results of your investment (unlike other passive investments, like mutual funds, where your financial destiny lies in the hands of unknown employees on Wall Street)
However, real estate is NOT the same as most other investments either. Real estate requires a certain set of skills and commitment to achieve the incredible results you are looking for. Investing in real estate for great returns takes planning, patience, and knowledge. It takes work.
However, I believe the end result is worth the effort because of the potential of greater profits.
However, the fundamental question exists: are consistent 12% returns possible?
Lucky for you, in the middle of writing this article, I decided to spin off a completely separate article rather than making this longer than it should be. So to see the answer to this question, and a detailed walk through of exactly how 12% can be obtained, check out How to Achieve Consistent (and Legal) 12%+ Returns Through Passive Real Estate Investing at BiggerPockets.com
So one final question remains: is real estate a great investment for those in the military?
I believe yes.
The rest of this guide will show you different strategies you can use to achieve incredible results while keeping your investment passive enough to be location independent from your investments – so you can continue serving your country in the Military or wherever life takes you.
Job vs. investment
A common problem among those looking to get started with real estate investing involves the confusion between investing in real estate as a job and investing in real estate as an investment. It gets even more confusing because the two are not always easily distinguishable – even to those involved every day in this industry.
Perhaps you've seen the television shows where investors buy a cheap house, fix it up, and sell it, hoping to make massive profits? This practice, known as "house flipping" is very popular and potentially lucrative… but is generally considered a "job." When the "flipper" stops flipping, the money stops as well. An investment, on the other hand, continues to produce income when the producer stops producing.
There is nothing wrong with real estate as a "job," but I want to encourage you to keep the two separate in your mind. You don't need to devote 40 hours a week to real estate in order to invest.
After all, if you are in the military, you probably don't have the time!
However, by focusing on the "investment" side of things, you can build wealth and passive income for your future. The rest of this guide will focus on the "investment side" of real estate, specifically buying and renting single family or small multifamily properties.
Take control of your finances while in the military
Before I venture into the actual practices needed to invest in real estate while serving in the military, let me first discuss a very important point:
If you don't have solid control on your personal finances, you have no business investing in real estate.
Real estate is not, despite what the late-night TV gurus may imply, a magic pill to solve your money problems. Money problems start in the heart and soul, so be sure to take steps to fix those before attempting to invest in real estate.
If you need help getting a better handle on your personal finances, I invite you to dive into some of these excellent personal finance blogs:
- TheMilitaryWallet.com
- HullFinancialPlanning.com
- DaveRamsey.com
- JeffRoseFinancial.com
- The-Military-Guide.com
On a recent episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast, Jason Hull (a military vet) advised those in the military overseas to use their time while enlisted to save as much money as possible so they can invest when they return to the States. I think this is a great suggestion! While I mentioned earlier that saving money won't give you great returns … it still does take money to invest in real estate, so start saving so you can put that money to work as soon as possible.
Getting your education
The first investment you make should not be a property… it should be in your education. As I said earlier, real estate investing is not something to get into lightly. You need to understand what you are getting into clearly – or you could lose a lot of money.
However, I'm not referring to the "late-night, big hair, big promises" salesmen who offer courses for tens of thousands of dollars. I believe information has been democratized with the explosion of the internet, and you can learn nearly everything you need from free sources like BiggerPockets.
I don't need to go into a lot here, because I've already done it with the Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Real Estate Investing that you can read, for free, on BiggerPockets. This 20,000+ word online book will give you the foundation you need to discover the best way to get started. When you finish this post, immediately head over and check it out.
In addition to the Ultimate Beginner's Guide, I want to invite you check out the BiggerPockets Podcast. This weekly show (which I am lucky enough to co-host) is perhaps the greatest thing to hit the real estate world since the invention of the house. Each week, we sit down with real life, successful real estate investors to hear their story of how they got started and built their portfolios.
They say you are the average of the five people you most associate with… so come hang out with us on the Podcast and learn from our guests.
As an additional Military benefit: podcasts are free, and completely online, so you can listen from anywhere in the world. Whether you are stationed in Afghanistan, Korea, Germany, the USA, or anywhere else… use your time to invest in your education.
How should you invest while in the military?
As mentioned previously, there are numerous different ways to invest in real estate. I think it's important to understand a few different strategies, so you can best determine what fits in your lifestyle and with your life's current situation – so allow me just share a few of the most common strategies used by those in the military.
Owner occupant investing
Chances are – you've heard of the VA loan. One of the coolest benefits for active and former U.S. Military members, the VA loan is a subsidy (well, it's technically loan insurance for the bank, but that's not important to know right now) provided by the U.S.
overnment that can help you obtain a home mortgage with no money down. Yep – 0% down. You can even get the seller to pay most of the closing costs, so you can get into a property with almost nothing out of pocket.
However, as you are probably thinking, what does buying an owner-occupied house have to do with investing? After all, a house isn't really much of an investment (at least not in the conventional sense. Yes, the price could go up, but that's only an assumption.) However, there are two common situations which can turn a home owner into an investor:
- Home to Rental: Many U.S. Military members find themselves moving… a lot. For a variety of reasons, you and your family may find yourself at a number of different bases in the U.S. while you are not serving overseas. Therefore, many military families become real estate investing families almost by accident- by simply turning their existing home into a rental each time they move.
- Small Multifamily: A small multifamily property can be either a duplex, triplex, or fourplex and most loans, including the VA loan, consider these properties to be the same as a single family house. In other words, you can live in one unit and rent the other units out to cover the mortgage payment or more.
Both of these strategies can be used by members of the military (or anyone, really) to get started investing with almost no money down. To learn more about this strategy, be sure to check out How to Use a VA Loan to Purchase Investment Property from VeteransUnited.com as well as my recent article, How to "Hack" Your Housing and Get Paid to Live for Free.
One of the most popular options of investing in real estate, while maintaining location independence, is through a "Turnkey" real estate company (aka "Turn key.") Although there are differences in how each company operates, they all exist to provide a "one stop shop" for buying and leasing residential real estate. In other words, they can find the property for you, help you obtain financing, manage the tenants, and take care of most of the bookkeeping.
Sound too good to be true?
There is a lot of debate on the effectiveness of a turnkey real estate company, which is usually based on individual experiences with certain turnkey providers. Obviously, the turnkey company needs to make a profit, so you may pay a higher premium for the property than you might otherwise pay on your own. On the other hand, turnkey companies tend to negotiate better deals because they are trained to understand their market and their business model is tied to repeat customers and successful investments for their clients.
If you plan to keep things simple and go with a turnkey provider, don't use it as an excuse not to do your homework. You should still evaluate the numbers the same as if you were doing it all on your own. Never simply accept what the turnkey provider says as gospel truth; trust… but verify everything.
Also, interview several turnkey companies to see which will make the best fit for you. Ask for references and actually call those references. This turnkey company will largely be responsible for the success of your investment, so treat it like a business and do your homework up front.
Turnkey investing can be incredibly helpful for someone looking to invest in real estate while in the military, but carefully weigh the options and analyze each deal for yourself to make sure you are getting a great investment property.
DIY rentals
If turnkey rentals are not your thing, you can always choose to "do it yourself" and simply invest in real estate from a distance. You can choose a location, do your homework from a distance, sift through properties online, interview property managers over the phone, hire a property inspector to check out the property, arrange financing, and sign the papers… all without ever stepping foot in the same state (or country) as the property.
The largest drawback to this kind of investing is simply, you don't know the neighborhoods. You've heard the old cliche that real estate is all about "location location location" and this is especially true with rental property investing. Online, most properties look amazing because the real estate agent who is listing the property has a fiduciary responsibility to present the property in the best light. In other words – the listing is not going to mention the meth house next door, the late-night traffic on the street, or the pedophile who wanders around the neighborhood with a creepy look on his face.
Therefore, if you plan to "DIY" it and invest in real estate while living out of the area, here are a few tips to help:
- Try to Visit – If at all possible, try to take a vacation to this area to see first-hand what you are getting into. Make as many connections as possible and tour as many properties as you can so you can get a good feel for the area.
- Build Your Team – You don't need to be physically present if you can build a strong enough team on the ground. This team should consist of, at a minimum, a great real estate agent (preferably an investor-friendly agent,) a property manager, and a property inspector. Additionally, if you can build relationships with active BiggerPockets members in that area, you will have a fantastic source of information and contacts – which will be invaluable to you as you begin investing in a new area.
- Use the Internet – The internet is an amazing thing, isn't it? In just minutes, you can discover the crime statistics of any neighborhood in the country, as well as virtually drive down any major road in the U.S. via Google Street View. Utilize online tools to make sure you know the neighborhood you are investing in.
If you plan to DIY it, I highly encourage you to really dig into your education before you do. I know a lot of experienced investors who won't invest this way because the risk is too high – so be sure you fully understand what you are getting yourself into. However, when you do your homework and invest intelligently, investing in rental properties the DIY way can be a very lucrative way to invest while serving in the military.
Partner Up
If you want to get started investing – but don't have the time or knowledge to do the previous methods outlined in this guide, you may consider partnering with an experienced investor who can help you put your money to work.
You see, as a member of the armed services, you have a very valuable trait: you are employed. In other words, you probably have the ability to obtain mortgages and you probably even have a bit of cash saved up. While you may lack the location-aspect of putting together a deal, there may be another investor out there who has the location but lacks the cash or credit or job history.
Great partnerships bring together multiple parties with different strengths to accomplish goals that they could not do alone. Look at what traits you have… what can you bring to the table?
A great way to find a partner is by engaging on the BiggerPockets Forums. It's easy to quickly sift through those who seem to know what they are talking about versus those who don't. Start building relationships with different BiggerPockets members today. You never know where those relationships may lead someday.
Crowd Funding
A recent phenomenon in the real estate investing space, crowd funding for real estate, is the process of bringing together hundreds of investors to invest in real estate together. Several portals, such as RealtyMogul or Fundrise, have begun gaining traction as profitable, yet passive, methods for investing in real estate without needing to get your hands dirty.
Crowd funding is a relatively new addition to the real estate world, so the rules are still a bit fuzzy on where the industry is headed (and what, exactly, is legal to do) – but society does, indeed, seem to be moving to allow more and more crowd-funded deals.
Finally, one more avenue that you may want to consider if you find yourself with some extra cash is through notes (mortgages.) Typically, when you buy a home, you sign a "note" with the bank and this note states that you will pay a certain interest rate for a certain time period. However, what many people don't know, is that you can buy and sell these notes just like properties.
There are several large note investing firms out there, including several who write regularly here on the BiggerPockets Blog. Be sure to do your due diligence on any company before handing over your hard-earned money, asking for referrals and getting all your questions answered openly and honestly.
You do not need to live and invest in the same location, which is great news for those investing while serving in the military.
Yes, it helps, but with a solid plan, a good team, and proper education – long distance real estate investing can produce a great future for you and your family.
If you are serving in the military, it is my hope that this has served you in some small fashion and has given you a starting place to start investing in real estate while stationed overseas or at home. As I mentioned above, I encourage you to ask any questions you want – either here or in the Forums – and we'll do our best to help you out and get you on your way to a positive real estate investing experience.
Once again, thank you for your service to our country. If there is any way BiggerPockets can help you succeed, don't be afraid to ask.
BiggerPockets is the largest online community and resource for real estate investing. No matter where you are on your path to investing, BiggerPockets has tools to help you succeed. These tools include a weekly webinar, a #1 real estate podcast, an educational blog with thousands of posts, and active community forums. Visit BiggerPockets.com to get started!
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France - Picturesque Seine Valley Cruise - Sat 16th June 2018
- Trvanie: 6 Dní
- Poloha: Honfleur
- Kód produktu: PGE9XY
It's not hard to see why river cruising has been and remains so very popular. It's a great way to relax, enjoy the sounds and nature of the river and soak up beautiful scenery. As well as countryside, you'll pass through historic towns and cities along the way plus enjoy time on shore at various places of interest. Modern cruise boats offer excellent quality accommodation and facilities. In 2018 we have secured space with CroisiEurope who enjoy an excellent reputation for quality cruising.
After being collected from your home around 6.00am we travel to Folkestone for our lunchtime Eurotunnel to France. We head for Paris with comfort stop on route before embarkation. We are introduced to the crew over a welcome drink in the lounge/bar. After dinner in the on-board restaurant, we have a traditional evening of entertainment with a "Titi Parisien" theme. The ship sets sail during the night.
This morning will be spent cruising towards Les Andelys, an occasion to enjoy the magnificent view of the Roche Guyon. Excursions included - Fantastic excursion travelling through historic villages to visit the Château de Martainville. We return to the boat and continue cruising towards Honfleur.
Excursions today with a walking tour of the beautiful town of Honfleur. In the afternoon we have included an excursion to the Cote d'Albatre - a beautiful coastline popular with famous artists.
After cruising to Duclair we depart for an excursion to enjoy some of the beautiful religious buildings in the area including the stunning Jumieges Abbey built in 654AD. After cruising on to Rouen we disembark for a walking tour of the historic city centre. So much to see here with timbered medieval houses, Notre-Dame Cathedral and the Gros-Horloge. Tonight it's a special gala dinner on board. Our ship will cruise through the night.
This morning will be spent sailing towards Paris along the banks of the Seine which have been beautifully landscaped. We'll cruise past the impressive concrete and glass buildings of the futuristic business district of La Défense, reaching Paris in the early afternoon. We have a superb excursion with a panoramic coach tour through Paris exploring the city's legendary places including The Louvre, the Opera Garnier, the Champs Elysees and Arc de Triomphe. Tonight, we'll set out for a cruise through Paris by night (depending on the water level.)
Enjoy one last buffet breakfast on board before disembarking at 9.00am and heading home. We board the early afternoon Eurotunnel and should arrive back in the local area around 5.00pm. Returned to your home by our home collection service.
What's Included?
All meals from dinner on the first evening to breakfast on the final day - Drinks included in this price are water, wine, beer, fruit juices during the meal and coffee after both lunch and dinner for meals eaten on the ship - Drinks from the bar, except for champagne or wines from the special list - Double-occupancy cabin with shower in bathroom - Assistance from the onboard multi-lingual host/hostess - Welcome cocktail - Gala Dinner - All onboard entertainment - All port fees
We have included all excursions as detailed + a member of Highcliffe Coach Holidays staff will be onboard. All excursions operated by Croisi Europe.
Due to the nature of river travel some excursion details may be adjusted or amended. If this occurs there will be no refund for these changes. Although all efforts will be made to run the itinerary as above - some changes may be made due to water levels.
Meal Plan - Full Board
4* MS Seine Princess
The 4* MS Seine Princess is a spacious and light river boat offering a refined setting. All cabins are located above the water level and have panoramic views with either twin or double beds, bathroom with shower, satellite TV, hairdryer, safety deposit box and air conditioning/central heating. Public facilities include a lounge bar, souvenir shop, sun deck and gourmet restaurant offering sophisticated cuisine. Entertainment includes Cabaret & Gala night.

subset: commoncrawl


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Friday, 22 July 2011
One Man's Poison
(My comments about Hitchens's position are inevitably somewhat sketchy; one could go on for thousands of words attempting to cover every fine gradation and distinction in the positions it is possible to take. An advantage of adversarial debate is at least that I can rely instead on Hitchens to clarify which positions he wishes to appeal to.)
A successful appeal to moral principle in this debate should establish two things: that the principle is valid, and that it has certain consequences so far as the criminal law is concerned. That is not, however, to say that either of these things must be established to any particular standard or by any particular method: perhaps the most that can be said here is that good reasons must be supplied. If they are not, the argument won't go through. And if a (supposed) moral principle can be shown to be invalid or legally inconsequential, then arguments invoking it can be rejected outright.
The relationship between moral principle and the law is a complex matter. I will suggest three main approaches:
First, judgements of value feed into the assessment of costs and benefits: for example if something can be established to be of little value, it should be accorded little or no weight in assessing possible outcomes. Questions of moral duty might in turn feed into judgements of value - the benefits of, to use Hitchens's example, cruelty to animals might be discounted since although a sadistic animal torturer may derive subjective pleasure or other benefits from his activities, these benefits are of such a morally defective kind that they are considered to have no value. That is not so say that the analogy between animal cruelty and taking cannabis is a close one - enjoying cannabis certainly does not depend, either in intention or in fact, on the suffering of other beings (though of course, like almost any activity, it might under certain circumstances bring about such suffering). In any case, on this approach, moral issues are relevant as one of an open-ended set of inputs to a policy decision. Call this the 'value-based' approach.
The second approach to these issues is to draw conclusions about legal status directly from moral considerations. In particular, one might seek to justify punishment of certain behaviour by direct reference to its immoral character. Certain conduct, being intrinsically wrong, should be banned, regardless of whether the consequences of such a ban are entirely desirable, all things considered (such a view might of course allow that very severe or perverse consequences might be sufficient to overturn the presumption in favour of a ban - an example might be Hitchens's remark:
...'regulation' of something fundamentally bad doesn't get rid of its fundamental badness. Sometimes we may have to accept it as a compromise while we try to remove a poison from our culture, or at least greatly restrict it. But that is a defeat...).
I'll refer to this as the 'enforcement of morality' view.
Yet a third way of bringing in issues of personal morality combines certain elements of both these. In common with the first method, immorality is held to 'downgrade' a certain kind of action. In a similar fashion to the second approach, though, this is applied directly to principles about just punishment. Here I have in mind in particular the position that would make an exception of cannabis use: while normally behaviour should be permitted under the criminal law even if it is potentially harmful, there is something about cannabis use which means it is an exception to this general principle. We might call this 'withdrawal of protection'.
Unearned enjoyment
I'll consider first a moral principle that I think fails on its own terms, so that it is unnecessary to consider whether it is legally consequential. In comments on this blog, Hitchens suggests that using cannabis is immoral in itself:
There *are* strong moral arguments against the legalising of stupefying drugs, which I happen to think are over-riding.We should live our lives truthfully according to our senses, and not seek to hide from the truth by blurring those senses. Nor should we cheat our brains into rewarding us with artificial joy, when we have done nothing to deserve it.
One element here seems to be a variant of the objection based on 'self-stupefaction', here taking the form of self-deceptive retreat into distorted perceptions. For now all I will say about his is that this is not a good description of the way in which most people use cannabis - while heavy use may have a sedative effect and if prolonged perhaps lead to a degree of separation from reality, it is not an inevitable nor a widespread, nor, even when it occurs, a particularly pronounced effect of cannabis use. I will look more closely at 'self-stupefaction' later.
A second element, which I've emphasised, has been expressed in more detail elsewhere:
...morally - the pleasure and joy and exaltation provided artificially by drugs, and naturally by the human body are rewards for effort and courage. You may believe this is a created fact or the consequence of evolutionary biology, but the arrangement is beneficial to humankind because it limits this reward to those who have earned it. If you haven't delivered the Gettysburg address, or won the Second World War, or designed St Paul's Cathedral, or written Beethoven's Violin Concerto, you shouldn't be able to feel as if you had. If you can, then people will stop doing these things.
The final sentence seems to suggest that the idea here is that people taking cannabis will derive such joy and exaltation that they will lack motivation to achieve great things. To scale this idea down, we may express it as the concern that cannabis supplants the will to create, to achieve. This seems misguided, since many who take cannabis report that they experience an enhancement of creativity or of the ability to concentrate. Certainly an altered state of consciousness may be inspirational - one need not make New-Agey claims about the mystic properties of cannabis to see that the change in perspective delivered by cannabis might have benefits.
The idea that cannabis provides 'artificial' rewards is hard to pin down. Much of the subjective benefit to those who take it in moderation seem to consist in enhancing, rather than supplanting, real experience and achievement. 'Artificiality' is of course a rather common feature of the daily benefits (as well as disadvantages) of modern life. That a certain contrivance - the relatively natural one of consuming a herb - operates by way of direct effects on the central nervous system does not seem to me to constitute a good objection in itself.
Of course for some, cannabis is used in heavy doses as a euphoriant sedative. Of those who seek something approaching oblivion, the real question is why, not how, they do so. Fixating on cannabis as a source rather than a symptom of the problem is natural enough - as in the case of parents whose children develop mental illness or behave badly - is misguided. I don't think it at all far-fetched to suppose that the availability of this 'crutch' may have saved lives by providing an alternative to more permanent ways of escape. (Perhaps this is more likely to apply to opiates, a much more effective route to sheer disembodied world-excluding pleasure.) This is something of a diversion, since what 'dependent' and very heavy users get up to does not provide an objection to cannabis use in general.
So I'm led to consider the point relating to earning or deserving one's pleasure. Even granting that cannabis doesn't generate pleasure or satisfaction from nowhere, but instead enhances real enjoyments, isn't there a 'free lunch' being enjoyed here, like manna from heaven? And shouldn't this be stopped? If people are going to have more fun, shouldn't they be made to pay for it?
I don't accept the notion that if people are going to enjoy themselves, they should be made to pay a price. The idea of joy without compensating toil or hardship is not offensive to me at least, even if it is to Hitchens (and it's rather hard to believe that it really is). But in any case it's not clear that this rather excessively puritanical attitude can supply an objection to cannabis use.
I've mentioned previously that cannabis can of course be cultivated by the individual - and that such a case makes clear the essential privacy of cannabis use. This paradigm also serves to illustrate that cannabis use does involve work - we need not fear that benefits are being gained without a price being paid. Of course the price paid is generally a literal price - cash. That fact reflects division of labour: people don't have to grow their own cannabis, but instead pay for it with money, just as they do for other sources of enjoyment, like chocolate biscuits.
The example of chocolate biscuits ought also to see off a plausible and somewhat more sophisticated way of understanding Hitchens's argument here: one which combines and unifies the elements of artificiality and earning. Taking cannabis, the argument might go, involves a failure of reward and effort to be integrated as an organic unity: one's efforts ought to be closely coupled in some way with the rewards one gains from them. This seems to deny the benefits of interpersonal division of labour, so that one may only legitimately enjoy chocolate biscuits that one has made oneself, for example (and must one also make the chocolate, grow the wheat? So far as this has any plausibility, it still seems unable to provide an objection to taking cannabis that one has cultivated oneself.
This line seems unpromising, and I won't pursue it further. If Hitchens has a good point to make here, this surely isn't it. He may of course wish to clarify or refine his position, in which case I will respond.
One might try to fit the following remarks into the enforcement of morality approach:
I contend that it is morally wrong to stupefy yourself, and morally wrong to damage yourself or take a conscious risk of damaging yourself, with the aim of getting physical pleasure...
This might be the right place to locate an earlier discussion of Peter Geach's moral philosophy: Geach says that there is no duty to remain maximally alert, using the example of drinking hot toddy in bed. Hitchens replies:
What if the man, having gone to sleep drunk, is woken at two a.m. by the screams of his children, trapped in a fire? Or not woken? Or not woken until far too late? Where then is his duty? Was the drinking or the (tee hee) consumption of 'cannabis indica' morally objectionable if the children, as a result, were not saved? Yet he could not have known the house would catch fire -only that there was a remote chance that it might. And a remote chance that he would be too stupefied to act with courage and decision. Even if he was alone and therefore (according to the utilitarian 'libertarians') nobody's concern but his own, he would have been more likely to burn to death, and others would have had to turn out to scrape through the ruins for his charred bones, or even risk their lives trying to rescue his already lifeless body.
An obvious objection to this is that Hitchens, in substituting his own example, has introduced the issue of harm to others - which I previously suggested can be adequately controlled by targeting especially risky or irresponsible behaviour such as becoming significantly intoxicated while in charge of a child, or while driving. But perhaps Hitchens is suggesting that intoxication carries with it such a general risk of danger that it merits a total ban on policy grounds. This doesn't seem sustainable in the case of cannabis intoxication.
However we are to understand the supposed legal consequences of the immorality of 'self-stupefaction' (a characterisation I've rejected as inaccurate to describe the effects of cannabis), the idea that there is an obligation to remain at maximum alertness at all times is hopelessly over-strict. People occasionally become tired, or choose to lightly doze, perhaps while lying on the beach, when they could instead remains vigilant. I don't think we could claim that they are always acting immorally.
Since being asleep always makes one less alert than being awake, even if every tired, perhaps we should resist sleep, or at least seek a cure for it. Similarly, is there a moral obligation to take performance-enhancing drugs? The proliferation of such questions I think illustrates the implausibility of this view.
Once we factor in the need for the moral principle to have consequences for the criminal law, I think it becomes clear that this approach is no good. No-one would accept this totalitarian attitude to mental alertness if it were consistently applied.
Now I have addressed some main strands of argument offered by Hitchens. But it is always possible that moral considerations interact and combine to create complex position, with exceptions to exceptions and so on.
A commenter on Hitchens's Blog, 'beaufrere', has suggested the following distillation of an argument provided by Hitchens:
An activity should be prohibited by law if the following conditions apply:
C1: the activity is known to be harmful to the health, safety or well-being of those who participate in it or who are affected by it, or it is reasonable to believe that there is a significant risk that the activity is harmful
C2: both the risk of harm from the activity and the extent of that harm are significant or substantial
C3: participation in the activity would become (or remain) widespread if the activity were to become (or remain) lawful,
but the activity should not be prohibited if at least one of the following exceptions applies:
E1: the activity has been lawfully pursued for a substantial period of time (and still is being lawfully pursued) by a significant number of people, as a result of which it has gained widespread acceptance as part of the nation's customs or culture
E2: the activity is capable of being pursued or applied for beneficial purposes, and where the sole or main beneficial purpose is the pleasure, entertainment or self-gratification of the participant(s), the pursuit of the activity requires or promotes self-discipline, courage, skill or other moral virtues in the participant.
As beaufrere goes on to suggest, this has the appearance of an ad hoc position tailored to Hitchens's preferred outcome. To try and dissect and evaluate this position would be rather time-consuming, but I am certainly inclined to agree that the position seems to lack antecedent plausibility. If Hitchens endorses this characterisation of his view, or wishes to formulate a similarly clear statement of his position, I will of course address it.
Cognitive Rights
Hitchens states (http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2011/07/depraved-new-world.html):
Pro-legalisation spokesmen often suggest that there's something anti-liberty about those of us who want the law on drugs enforced, as if smoking dope were the equivalent of free speech.
Wheil I am not a spokesman or indeed a campaigner, I would certainly agree that there is an important question of liberty here. I've previously suggested that there may be an innate or at least unavoidable desire or tendency for people to seek to alter their state of consciousness. I would certainly consider that there is a right to do so, just as there is a right not to have one's consciousness altered by others without consent. I've previously drawn attention to the essentially private nature of cannabis use. But it may well be that to prevent or prohibit people from using cannabis is indeed to impinge upon a basic right, one which may be more fundamental than freedom of speech.
The central component of non-medical cannabis use alteration of one's consciousness - and what could be more private a matter than that? To prohibit people from altering their consciousness is to impose what may be a significant burden on them, locking them inescapably into a standard mode of thought which in the context of the quotidian reality of their artificial environment may become intolerably tiresome and restrictive. Control over all aspects of one's own mind is surely a basic interest - and the use of tools such as cannabis for exploration of this internal frontier is a part of exercising that control to the full.
If we accept that cognitive rights include the right to alter consciousness - and I think we must - then we should not be erecting insurmountable obstacles to people's exercise of that right - there may not be a right to be supplied with cannabis, but that the state forebear from closing off the supply altogether and from punishing exercises of cognitive freedom may be an indispensable element of any attempt to take cognitive rights and liberty seriously.
Hitchens seeks to force people to be free - but his understanding of freedom is not mine. He seeks to remove any fleeting release or refuge that use of cannabis might offer those who are trapped in a dreary and grinding existence. He hopes that this will lead them to rise up in revolt, but confinement to an unremittingly uniform experience of reality may only draw tighter the chains of a life which for many is neither chosen nor easily escaped.
Revolt requires that one see not only the intolerability of one's situation, but the possibility of something different. Perhaps cannabis can help to deliver a kind of freedom that, glimpsed in the inner realm, can provide a template for independence in all areas of life.
This concludes my current round of responses.
46 comments:
- Anonymous22 July 2011 at 16:51
WHich moral absolute is smoking cannabis supposed to violate? If it the same one that, e.g. the Catholic Church has held is violated by drunkeness it's hard to see how smoking one joint could be seen as equivalent to becoming seriously drunk. If it isn't a question of moral absolutes, then one certainly can't justify a complete ban simply from a view as to the inherent wrongness of smoking cannabis. Such a ban may of course, reasonably be justified on other grounds (that's what's being argued about) but not on the 'reading off of positive law from moral law' approach.ReplyDelete
Yes, at this point I'm still trying to establish exactly what the moral objection(s) is/are supposed to be and how it/they have consequences for penal law.ReplyDelete
- Joshua Wooderson22 July 2011 at 18:25
PH's moral views seem decidedly inconsistent, and it's hard to know what to make of them.ReplyDelete
On this issue, he's written disparagingly of 'utilitarian libertarians.' Yet when arguing for the death penalty, he uses utilitarian arguments to gloss over the potential for execution of innocents.
It also seems as though many of the arguments he directs against cannabis legalisation would apply equally, if not to a greater extent, to gun legalisation, which he's in favour of.
Here, the dangers to other people are more obvious, and, if he doesn't think regulation would work with cannabis, I see no reason why it would with guns.
This is probably a distraction from the debate, but I thought it might be worth bringing up.
- Anonymous22 July 2011 at 20:13
P Hitchens, as so often, giving me a right good laugh:ReplyDelete
"If you haven't delivered the Gettysburg address, or won the Second World War, or designed St Paul's Cathedral, or written Beethoven's Violin Concerto, you shouldn't be able to feel as if you had. If you can, then people will stop doing these things."
No but you could go away and write Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, instead.
- Anonymous22 July 2011 at 20:20
P Hitchens:ReplyDelete
"If you haven't delivered the Gettysburg address, or won the Second World War, or designed St Paul's Cathedral, or written Beethoven's Violin Concerto, you shouldn't be able to feel as if you had. If you can, then people will stop doing these things."
The corollary of that being that due to never being able to get my hands on quite enough meth crystal I've not yet achieved my dream of taking Moscow in the winter.
- Anonymous22 July 2011 at 20:40
Tim Wilkinson:ReplyDelete
"The idea of joy without compensating toil or hardship is not offensive to me at least, even if it is to Hitchens (and it's rather hard to believe that it really is). But in any case it's not clear that this rather excessively puritanical attitude can supply an objection to cannabis use."
Perhaps the wretched Hitchens might want to contemplate for a moment on the unearned, undeserved terror, agony and death experienced by many young men on the first day of the Battle of the Somme before he prattles on more about the supposed "deserving" attributes of the human senses.
- Anonymous22 July 2011 at 22:43
Philosopher Michael Tanner (and currently Opera critic for the Spectator) wrote a fascinating paper called Sentimentality, which argued the case as to why this disposition is morally troubling. He sees the essence of sentimentality as indulgence of feelings that one hasn't earned. http://www.jstor.org/pss/4544903ReplyDelete
I offer this in case anyone thinks the case against sentimentality has any similarities with the point made about cannabis and 'unearned' pleasure.
- Tarquin23 July 2011 at 08:41
I've even said his arguments for religion are utilitarian
He replied that there's nothing wrong with that (or words to that effect)
I guess there has to be a line with utilitarianism somewhere, but I'd like to know where...
- Joshua Wooderson23 July 2011 at 14:52
Absolutely right. And he seems to think that because it's convenient if everyone believes in Christianity, that somehow makes it reasonable to do so.ReplyDelete
As others have pointed out, his moral arguments seem to fluctuate according to which position he's trying to defend - an ad hoc moral code in order to promote all of the traditional conservative causes: capital punishment, drug criminalisation, legal gun ownership, etc.
But I don't want to derail this thread by discussing this if it's not relevant, nor to attack Mr. Hitchens behind his back. I know that he reads these comments sometimes, so I'm happy to be corrected by him if he feels I've misrepresented him.
- Anonymous23 July 2011 at 16:47
"Hitchens seeks to force people to be free..." Even with your caveat - "...but his understanding of freedom is not mine" - I think you're conceding too much here. Every political group and ideologue ever, from the Left to the Right, from the anarchistic to the fascistic, from the oppressed freedom-fighter to the oppressive tyrant, employs the rhetoric of Freedom. "By their works shall ye know them" - what Hitchens seeks to force people to be is servile to the political and theological viewpoints that happen to be held by Hitchens.ReplyDelete
sentimentality as indulgence of feelings that one hasn't earnedReplyDelete
Yeah, I've come across that idea in aesthetics; can't remember if it was in connection with Tanner. The idea involves a certain kind of self-deception (self-indulgence) - else all emotional response to fiction, music would be morally (in the broadest sense) suspect.
Also, tends to be directed at melodrama, puppy pictures etc., but should certainly include confected outrage too. (And Dragon's Den-style self-congratulation).
re: self-deception. This doesn't generally apply to deliberate consciousness-alteration by way of pharmacueticals. Quite the opposite if anything - looking at your own consciousness and personality in the third person, so to speak, as controllable other than from the inside.
E.g. Odysseus, anticipating irresistible temptation, taking external steps to alter his own future behaviour (H. Cornwell allusions off topic though - we don't want any confusion here).
I think you're conceding too much hereReplyDelete
Maybe a touch understated, but it should be clear that I don't agree that what he wants to force people into constitutes freedom, which is what I'm interested in establishing at this point.
Inflammatory rhetoric is very much not what the debate could do with an injection of.
Nice work Mr Wilkinson, I look forward to Mr Hitchens reply.ReplyDelete
Unlike PH's work I cant seem to find any fault in your articles.
I'm reading the whole thing with great interest.
- Anonymous23 July 2011 at 19:48
A relevant 22 July comment from Peter Hitchens at his blog:ReplyDelete
Mr Platt suggests that I deliberately avoid difficult questions here. Perhaps he, or anyone else, could give an example? I generally avoid questions that bore me. I would never knowingly avoid one that was difficult, because that would be more interesting. I am sometimes simply busy on other matters.
He also requires ( he is *so* peremptory) ' An unequivocal statement that he (me) would consider it *immoral* (as opposed to simply wrong) for a B&B owner to discriminate against homosexuals, given that the law has now been clarified.
No, it would be immoral for the B&B owner to *break the law* . It is the alw-breaking, not the nature of the action which is prohibited, which is udner discussion here.
It is the lawbreaking that I regard as immoral. There are undoubtedly several actions which I would regard as inherently immoral as well as illegal, but this isn't one of them. In fact, I think the law is wrong in this case, and wish it to be changed. That is how these things are conducted in a free society. We are free to *oppose* laws, and to seek to change them (which could not be the case if the action was automatically made inherently immoral by being made unlawful) but not free to *break* them.
It may also be immoral to oppose certain laws, but not illegal to do so..
The courts have ruled that discrimination in favour of marriage is classified as 'discrimination against homosexual indivuiduals' which it is actually not, and so made the action unlawful. That means it is immoral for them to break the law by continuing to act in this way. It is not immoral for them to continue to believe that marriage is the only proper sexual relationship, or to protest at their treatment or to campaign for a reversal of the law.
Posted by: Peter Hitchens | 22 July 2011 at 05:46 PM
- Anonymous23 July 2011 at 23:05
Some points that haven't, as far as I can see, been addressed by PH or TW.ReplyDelete
Firstly, it's worth mentioning that teleology hasn't been mentioned thus far. Drinking wine etc. seems to be a teleological activity in a way in which smoking cannabis (or tobacco) isn't. A question arises as to whether, in terms of good usage of our functions, the ateleological nature of smoking should count against it? Of course, this doesn't rule it out morally or legally, but it might perhaps account for some of the uneases people have about such activities when compared to wine drinking etc.
Secondly, and more seriously, TW states, in the section on Cognitive Rights
"To prohibit people from altering their consciousness is to impose what may be a significant burden on them, locking them inescapably into a standard mode of thought which in the context of the quotidian reality of their artificial environment may become intolerably tiresome and restrictive. Control over all aspects of one's own mind is surely a basic interest - and the use of tools such as cannabis for exploration of this internal frontier is a part of exercising that control to the full.
If we accept that cognitive rights include the right to alter consciousness - and I think we must - then we should not be erecting insurmountable obstacles to people's exercise of that right - there may not be a right to be supplied with cannabis, but that the state forebear from closing off the supply altogether and from punishing exercises of cognitive freedom may be an indispensable element of any attempt to take cognitive rights and liberty seriously."
Would TW also hold that I have a 'right' to hack my arm off if the fancy took me and that any state would be acting illegitimately in seeking to prevent self-mutilation. Assisted suicide remains (thank goodness) illegal in this country and there is no 'right' to suicide as such. There appear to be strong reasons for keeping things like this because of what the practice of suicide does to a society and the message its practice (and the message imparted by those assisting suicides) sends to others (ie that some lives are not worth living/lack even minimal value - life not worthy of life etc). There is a common good that needs to be considered in thinking on these questions - and I'm unconvinced that the libertarian arguments take other than a very thin view of what that good might amount to.
I offer these considerations because I think the stuff about cognitive freedom needs more thought. Am fascinated by the debate thus far.
- Anonymous24 July 2011 at 11:00
Of possible interest re legalizers:ReplyDelete
- Joshua Wooderson24 July 2011 at 12:32
Presumably, the point of the teleology argument is that appreciation of wine depends only on our natural sensory faculties, whereas cannabis and tobacco somehow distort those faculties beyond their natural limits?ReplyDelete
I'd question whether the use of cannabis is actually unnatural in this sense, or just using our faculties to their full potential. To paraphrase Alfred Kinsey, the only unnatural act is that which you cannot perform.
Apart from this, I don't really see the moral relevance of 'teleology', nor do I think that humans have any in-built natural purpose to speak of.
I don't know whether TW would agree, but I do think people should probably have the right to self-mutilate, and certainly the right to an assisted suicide, with certain caveats, so as to minimise the risk of abuse.
I don't see how one person's judgement that his or her life isn't worth living is a message to others that theirs aren't, any more than other differences in personal preference indicate that one sort of preference is somehow wrong.
Judgement about the value of one's own life is essentially subjective, and if people want to go on living, they're unlikely to be persuaded otherwise by the fact that someone in a similar situation chose not to.
As for the sentimentality argument, I'd make a comment about this approach - virtue theory - to ethics generally. Namely, that it doesn't seem to have much weight when discussing an issue like this.
Even if cannabis use were sentimental, this would hardly constitute a reason for its criminalisation, or at least not as much as the consequentialist and libertarian arguments already discussed.
I suppose it might if cannabis use indicated or led to a deficiency of character as great as, say, that of someone who tortured animals for fun.
But even here, our principal objection to the act seems to be its intrinsic cruelty, not the moral character of the torturer - which is, I think, an objection to virtue theory as a whole.
- Anonymous24 July 2011 at 13:16
On teleology - agreed, it's not sufficient to settle whethere something is morally permissible or not. However, Kinsey is wrong (as on everything else, as well as fraudulent - see J. Reisman). There are appropriate and inappropriate uses of faculties. As to sentimentality - I only bring it up because it might be seen as a moral failing - as I said it doesn't settle any moral argument here (and certainly not a legal one!).ReplyDelete
On assisted suicide I recommend: http://www.carenotkilling.org.uk/pdf/Keown_report.pdf
If a state is seen to efectively agree with a person's assesment of the worth of their own life when it is in a certain state then that cuts against a central idea of justice - namely that human beings possess inherent dignity regardless of the state of their faculties.
As to virtue theory - depends - the virtue theory I favour merely posits that are key/fundamental moral terms are virtue terms - this in no way rules out the relevance of acts as such.
- Joshua Wooderson24 July 2011 at 14:59
My feeling is that our faculties are used inappropriately only if such cause causes harm. I'm not sure what else would constitute an inappropriate use, since describing some acts as serving our telos, based on what is deemed 'natural', is fairly arbitrary. In this respect Kinsey is correct; I wasn't endorsing any of his other research.ReplyDelete
I've had a brief look at the link, thanks for that. I'd make a few quick observations.
Firstly, that there was widespread support for NVE, both among the public and medical profession, before the legalisation of VE in the Netherlands, and there still is. As far as I'm aware, there's no evidence of risk of NVE, nor of pressure on the elderly, in Oregon. The Wiki article mentions a study which found this to be the case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Death_with_Dignity_Act
Secondly, the report's considerations about practice in the Netherlands and Oregon don't necessarily make for a compelling case against VE or PAS, since they could be seen simply as indicators for how an act in this country could improve on the situations there, unless it can be shown that *no* assisted dying act could be enforced properly and have sufficient safeguards.
Thirdly, the report doesn't (as far as I saw) comment on the practice of passive euthanasia in this country i.e. the removal of medication and food, which is widespread and legal. I see no moral difference between this and VE/PAS.
I accept that a sound ethical theory should probably include some talk of virtues, but not just that.
- Anonymous24 July 2011 at 16:30
Thanks Joshua. Well, teleology is a huge topic but this is a reasonable summary of why it isn't just arbitrary: http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2009/09/teleology-revisited.htmlReplyDelete
Oregon is a place where there has been no adequate surveys, unlike the Netherlands and Belgium.
Removal of tubes witht he intention of bringing about death (the Mental Capaciry Act taks of 'with the purpose') is still illegal - though, of course, it is, in all likelihood, breached by less than moral doctors. Obviously, the distinction implicit int he act is the principle of double effect - another huge topic.
Looking forqward to PHs reply - I presume he'll be putting up a notice to his blog readers that TW's final two parts (and most interesting ones) are now up.
- Anonymous24 July 2011 at 18:56
If Hitchens is really against the idea of people experiencing undeserved emotions then know one should listen to music that moves them, look at a painting that stuns or enjoy a horror film that scares the bejezus out of them.ReplyDelete
And that is to say nothing of rising to ones feet and with heart swelling solemnly with undeserved pride earnestly listen to the National Anthem.
Hitchens is a pratt, who after reading him so often fills me with a sense of unwarranted but not entirely un-enjoyable rage.
- Joshua Wooderson24 July 2011 at 19:59
AM, thanks. An interesting blog post, but that sort of teleology is fairly trivial, unless, as Feser suggests, it can be used to prove God's existence or some moral duty.ReplyDelete
I find the argument that for a final cause to be efficacious it must exist an odd one, if I've understood the argument correctly. Final causes clearly aren't like causes in the usual sense of something on which the effect depends (and which the effect usually follows temporally). A final cause is simply, as I understand it, a natural disposition in things to do certain things.
It's a disposition which we can notice, but that doesn't mean that it actually exists in any form; it's simply an observed pattern. And I struggle with the idea that something which exists in a mind can be causally efficacious.
Probably I'm showing my ignorance here, but I'd welcome any clarification of this.
Another issue is, of course, what moral conclusions we're to draw from this. Those who argue, based on the Thomistic Natural Law tradition, that homosexual acts are wrong because, essentially, they're not natural, could equally argue that they are natural, for why would gay people have the sexual inclinations they do if it's not part of their telos?
Equally, you could argue that the natural possibility of expanding our experiences through the use of drugs is just as much a part of our natural telos as the appreciation of wine through our natural senses.
- Anonymous27 July 2011 at 18:58
Earlier up thread I suggested that P Hitchens ran his War on Drugs thing passed the just war standards.ReplyDelete
Any war should not cause more harm after being started than existed before.
I know this comes from America but I think it is still worth considering:
More Black Men Now in Prison System Than Were Enslaved
Law Professor Michelle Alexander says the shocking incarceration rate is due to the War on Drugs, a war waged almost exclusively in poor communities of color.
- Anonymous29 July 2011 at 00:18
Just seen Peter Hitchens' 'final' response to this. How disappointing! Peter Hitchens writes: "'I've failed to communicate two of my fears – one my fear of the destruction of the link between effort and reward, and the other my fear that the general legalisation of mind-altering drugs produces passive and easily manipulated citizens."ReplyDelete
Yet reading Tim Wilkinson's post (above)at 'Surely Some Mistake' I found that he took these concerns on board and provided arguments as to why such fears may be misguided. Indeed I was struck by the cogency of the arguments he put - and I say this as someone who is against the legalisation of cannabis. It is a shame that Peter Hitchens, who was so insistent on the importance of the moral case has now chosen, when reasonably and politely challenged on it, to respond in this manner. There was no failure to communicate. There was a failure, on his part, to engage in the most important arguments re reward/stupefaction/Brave New World worries - arguments put up by Tim Wilkinson in response to a challenge. Perhaps part of the problem is that Tim Wilkinson's posts are not easily dismissable. I can't think of any other reason as to why, when it comes to the crucial moral arguments, the claim is made, falsely, by Hitchens, that he failed to communicate his fears. He did, however, fail to address TW's respectfully put arguments.
I must admit, I too was disappointed in Hichens reply, his arguments have already been countered not only by Tim but also by various contributors in the comments on his blog.ReplyDelete
I see that as a defeat on PH's part and Tim can easily respond to every point highlighted in PH's 'rest my case' article.
However I would disappointed if PH doesn't come out of this with the understanding that supporting a government policy that promotes the funding of organised crime and allows innocent members of the public to be placed in harms way is incredibly immoral.
- Tarquin29 July 2011 at 14:36
Well, that was disappointing, in a way, Hitchens retreated to his subjective moral position and quite happily admits to thisReplyDelete
Whether that's considered a 'loss', I don't know, he's made this argument into one of morals, so nobody can win, but the ultimate aim of an argument is persuasion - if anything I'm now even less sympathetic to Mr. Hitchens' arguments, so I hope Mr. Wilkinson doesn't feel he's wasted his time - a lot of people came here to read his points even if a lot of them were overlooked in the responses
The point that Hitchens made at the end is an excellent one, though - as assertive and forthright (or just plain arrogant) as he comes across, he's just one man with an opinion, and we're better for having such people, I don't see why his opponents need to get so angry, let the debate speak for itself
- What a shame29 July 2011 at 15:18
"he's made this argument into one of morals" - and Wilkinson responded challenging Hitchens to show the cogency of his positions (nb he didn't deny that they might have moral force, merely asked for a coherent position to be held). Hitchens ducked out in a rather cowardly way - disappointing as he's clearly a man of character. Wilkinson deserved better though.ReplyDelete
- Anonymous29 July 2011 at 23:25
Tarquin said:ReplyDelete
"The point that Hitchens made at the end is an excellent one, though - as assertive and forthright (or just plain arrogant) as he comes across, he's just one man with an opinion, and we're better for having such people, I don't see why his opponents need to get so angry, let the debate speak for itself "
We get angry because long before this debate a few of us already had Hitchens down as a right tosser that's why.
And once again he has proved it.
- Anonymous29 July 2011 at 23:29
As well I might add some of us had Johann ruddy Hari down as a right tosser as well.ReplyDelete
- Tarquin30 July 2011 at 13:10
So why waste your anger?ReplyDelete
I have mocked Hari for years and laughed at those who brought his articles into debate as some sort of serious commentary
It's a nice feeling being right, be happy, no need to be angry or rude
- Anonymous30 July 2011 at 14:13
Hitchens's last post on the deabte with Wilkinson is poor precisely because he isn;t a Johann Hari-type. Having agreed to engage in a civilised and probing debate on cannabis legalisation he ends up ignoring most of Wilkinson's points and focuses instead on what some commenters may think. Look at how he dealt with the Peter Geach point (and then failed to deal with Wilkinson's follow-up) or even his comments on chocolate biscuits in his most recent comment post - it's clear he doesn't understand the point of the analogy. It's a shame because I think those who challenge cannabis legalisers need to be thorough and robust in their critique. Sadly, on this occasion, Hitchens has not shown that he's up to the intellectual challenge. An honest reading of the exchanges shows that Hitchens does little to counter ANY of the criticisms made of his position. That's poor, not least because there is, to my mind, a strong case to be made for prohibition. For Hitchens ticking off rude dopeheads is easier than engaging with thoughtful arguments - aa shame, because it will lead people to think, wrongly, that there is something behind the crude caricatures of his positions. And this time the fault is his.ReplyDelete
- Anonymous31 July 2011 at 09:37
Anonymous saidReplyDelete
"Hitchens's last post on the deabte with Wilkinson is poor precisely because he isn;t a Johann Hari-type."
What, you mean T Wilkinson would have done better debating the matter with a man on a dreary high of fey war support guilt and regret and prescription anti depressants for a depression that isn't there and who indulges in a cut out quote collage form of writing that would have made Burroughs blush?
Nah, he'd have done better just couching out, skinning up and have done with it.
We should have moved on by now.
This is 2011 for god sakes not 1967 with all that butterfly broken on wheels crap.
"Hitchens does little to counter ANY of the criticisms made of his position."
yes indeed, as you say, with an honest reading of what he says, this is glaringly evident
his blogs are largely self-referential hot air, prejudice reinforcing prejudice, ad nauseam - it's easy enough to see why Hitchens runs scared from the evidence -
"there is, to my mind, a strong case to be made for prohibition."
I'm yet to read one, do please share if you happen to know of one, I am genuinely interested --- Hitchens is bright enough but seems to have failed --- could it be his problem is the facts all point the other way?
for example, prohibitionists are famous for presenting their failures as successes - "vast cannabis 240 acre cannabis farm found in Mexico" etc.
and likewise famously fail to address the central point that as a drug control policy, prohibition has thus far never resulted in the ever-decreasing market in controlled drugs it is supposed to...
Mephedrone was recently banned and has just surpassed ecstasy as the most popular drug among the UK's clubbers
see Guardian on July 17th 'Mephedrone More Popular Among UK Clubber"
at the core of all PH's rants is that central unchallenged belief, that prohibition either does or can result in an ever-decreasing market in controlled drugs
with it goes the same unquestioned article of faith, that repealing prohibition must surely result in burgeoning drug use --- again, this is never substantiated, for the simple reason that it can't be...
countries such as Portugal, which have decriminalised possession of drugs have not seen an explosion in use
likewise countries such as the Netherlands which even tolerate supply of cannabis have substantially lower levels of cannabis use than those with tougher enforcement such as UK, Denmark and France - see the EMCDDA cannabis info, available online
France has just recorded one million new regular or occassional cannabis users in the past five years - see the article in Haaretz 'Pass the Joint S'il Vous Plait' on 3rd July
the US spends some $40 billion a year trying, and has locked up 500,000 or so of its citizens for breaking drug laws... south of the border there are some 40,000 Mexicans dead in the last four years, north of it another 10,000 or so dead each year, in Milton Friedman's estimate --- these deaths mostly occur in gang violence over control of the black market... yet drugs are as available as ever in the US
fortunately the debate in America is moving on a pace, and voices such as Hitchens' are getting moved out to the distant margins - exactly where they belong
there are countless legislative options on the table between the two extremes of blanket prohibition and a free market in harmful drugs
it's a pity Tim Wilkinson didn't take the time to discuss that aspect of this discussion
an alternative to cannabis prohibition is already underway in Spain and Belgium - to my mind the Cannabis Social Club system is an excellent form of self-regulation and a preferable alternative to simple 'legalisation'
see the article "Drug Club: Spain's alternative cannabis economy" available on the TNI website
- Anonymous31 July 2011 at 10:49
No - I meant that because, unlike Hari, Hitchens is a man of character it's all the more disappointing that he's behaved in this way when faced with carefully reasoned criticism.ReplyDelete
- Tarquin31 July 2011 at 14:09
'No - I meant that because, unlike Hari, Hitchens is a man of character it's all the more disappointing that he's behaved in this way when faced with carefully reasoned criticism.'ReplyDelete
I don't know how long you've been reading the man, but that's what he always does
He comes across as respectable and intelligent but the more you read his arguments, the more you will despair, occasionally he makes a good point, but he'll soon follow it with a populist rant about something and essentially resort to saying 'I'm right'
Eventually any respect you had for him will ebb away and you will come to see him as a 'proll', or liberal baiter, the reason why I questioned this whole 'debate' when he first started it was because he's done it all before, hence I stayed out of it, knowing full well he would resort to the arguments you so succinctly pointed out
I actually found it baffling that he would engage with TW as he was bound to get shown up as dry scientific debate has no place on his blog, seems he was happy to preach to his choir and was, in my view, merely drumming up business for his new book
Anyway, welcome to the club, I think a certain Mr Wooderson will be in it pretty soon as well
- Anonymous31 July 2011 at 16:26
Anon wrote:ReplyDelete
"Hitchens is a man of character"
You've got to be joking!
Hitchens is some sort of cardboard cutout caricature of a fifties golf club bar bore.
The man is preposterous only just this side of dementedness reached by Melanie Philips.
Its not just phone hacking that one needs to worry about. The press is filled with these deadbeats plying their particular brand of schtick.
And what is singularly odious about such figures is that their schtick relies heavily on creating and nurturing fear about much that not need be feared, and is used by proprietors as a way to divert attention from what should be concerning us.
- Joshua Wooderson31 July 2011 at 22:50
Tarquin - which club, sorry?ReplyDelete
- Joshua Wooderson31 July 2011 at 23:06
Ah, I'm guessing you mean the 'PH is a proll' club. Well, if he is a proll, I don't think he means to be. I'm sure that he's sincere. But committed to serious and open-minded debate, no. At least, not on issues which matter to him. His refusal to acknowledge that pro-legalisers aren't just selfish, wicked or deluded is frustrating, to say the least.ReplyDelete
the spam filter appears to have cut out my two previous posts to this page, I'm not sure whyReplyDelete
- Tarquin1 August 2011 at 14:10
I suppose he could just be genuinely pig-headed and annoyingReplyDelete
But he seems to revel in it so much, he would surely get angry and frustrated
For my money, the fact that he writes for the Mail is the proof, if it was just the blog (and the foreign adventures) then maybe I could see him as genuine - but the fact that he ramps up the rhetoric in his proper columns, picks up weird Mail hobby-horses and writes some downright nasty things says to me that he's doing all this for hire, not principle
I actually started to take note of the differences between the MoS columns and the blogs - I found the columns were invariably the most infuriating, and most likely to contain shoddy arguments
But that's just my conclusion, I think that if you don't join the 'he's a proll' club, you will start to see him as quite pitiable - right now he's frustrated you with a poor argument, properly - normally he's infuriatingly tricky with his debates, but occasionally he gets shown up and you stop taking him seriously, think of the gradual effect of that after you've experienced it a few dozen times
Hitchens also ignores the fact that the US has achieved across the board reduction in tobacco use over the past decades - without use of SWAT teams and no-knock raidsReplyDelete
a World Health Organization study shows that the U.S. -- despite being the home of the global "war on drugs", with 500,000 of its citizens behind bars from breaking drugs laws -- has the highest rates of marijuana and cocaine use in the world. Indeed, Americans use drugs at a higher rate than people in other countries that have modernized their laws by treating drugs as more of a health -- rather than a criminal -- issue.
excellent article today from
Neill Franklin of LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition)
Understanding Obama's "War on Drugs"
- Anonymous5 August 2011 at 15:50
Will Tim Wilkinson be commenting on Peter Hitchens' 'final' post?ReplyDelete
- Joshua Wooderson15 August 2011 at 23:07
I'd like to reiterate the question above. I think there are a few rather bold statements, to say the least, in PH's last few responses which shouldn't be allowed to go unchallenged. Pretty please?ReplyDelete
- Anonymous19 August 2011 at 15:06
Yes - why no response to Peter Hitchens final statements. I think they need one, if only to wrap this up.ReplyDelete
- Anonymous21 August 2011 at 13:48
Why the odious Hitchens isn't worth talking to. In his latest comment in the Mail he tells an outright lie:ReplyDelete
"The Misuse Of Drugs Act 1971 decriminalised cannabis, with huge results for behaviour."
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2028283/PETER-HITCHENS-The-picture-tells-you-need-know-Great-Faker.html#ixzz1VfPVbDZq
The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.ReplyDelete


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Enter the Soiree Case, dressed to impress with its ultra slim, anti-slip design, fitting like a glove instead of a winter coat: real protection without sacrificing functionality and range of motion.
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text:
Joining the ranks of those whose home prices were pummeled during the housing bust is Sharon Stone. The actress just sold her palatial place in the 90210 ZIP Code for 40% less than she paid for it.
The "Basic Instinct" star bought the secluded five acres in 2006 for $10.995 million, then spent much of the last six years with the contemporary Mediterranean on the market for sale or lease until she unloaded it this week for $6.575 million.
Among other celebrities hacking away at their asking prices are Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, whose Malibu beach house is now listed at $9.95 million — nearly 33% less than it was last summer.
Back on the market, too, is Alan Thicke's tennis court estate in Toluca Lake. Priced at $4.8 million two years ago, it is now set at $3,824,500 — about a 20% drop. No worries, however; public records show he bought the Spanish Colonial house in 1986 for $627,500.
Home prices fall in September, the first drop in months
Celebrities and the wealthy find ways to keep home sales secret
Sellers' return to housing market could be slow, surveys indicate
Follow me @LATHotProperty


text:
Lil Wayne and Drake Rap in French Montana's 'Pop That' Video + More
- Drake, Lil Wayne and Rick Ross all appear in French Montana's NSFW 'Pop That' video. So do a bunch of bikini-clad babes, at whom they each yell, "Pop that p—-, b—–!" Sigh. Where were their fathers? [YouTube]
- Speaking of Ricky Rozay, he revealed the track list to 'God Forgives, But I Don't.' [Idolator]
- Carly Rae Jepsen will perform on '90210.' Call that drama. [Ace Showbiz]
- Niall Horan of One Direction may be romancing a lovely lady in Spain… But him and Demi Lovato would be so cute together! [Entertainment.ie]
- 50 Cent realizes that autism isn't that funny, and he's sorry. Rick Ross probably doesn't forgive him. [The Daily Mail]
- Mel C. of the Spice Girls and her boyfriend of 10 years, Thomas Starr, have split up. Hopefully she's not too sad to do more backflips. [Us Weekly]
- Despite rumors, Marilyn Manson is definitely not dating Avril Lavigne. Good. That'd be way too much angst and eyeliner for one room. [Loudwire]
- '90s one-hit wonders Chumbawumba got knocked down, but it looks like they won't get up again: the group has officially called it quits. [Exclaim]
Watch the French Montana 'Pop That' Video Feat. Drake, Lil Wayne + Rick Ross [NSFW]


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July 10, 2017
No introduction yet
As the name suggests, Internationals in Wien is a group of people from all over the world who share at least two things in common: we love Vienna and we love meeting new people.
We would ask you to please sign up with your first name, along with a photo of yourself and to add a short profile. Please use your real name, we are not a dating web page. "Meet-up" means attending events, sharing time together and creating community. Bearing this in mind new members should be real people, not organizations or enterprises.
Anyone can suggest a meet up event, but please remember to add a location, date, time and a clearly defined meeting place (see here for more details). No membership fee is charged and there is no other duty connected with your membership other than to respect your fellow members and the places where we meet. Please note that just writing random emails to other members is not appropriate – we are about meeting up in person and having fun together.
Please note that we are non commercial! Therefore it is not allowed to run a business via the Internationals-In-Wien MeetUp group. All events should be free of charge.
Looking forward to seeing you at an Internationals in Wien MU soon!
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text:
Staffers at the Lenoir County Tax Department are seeing shorter lines of people paying their year-end property taxes in person � as more taxpayers use the mail and online payment options � but it doesn�t mean they are any less busy this time of year.
Staffers at the Lenoir County Tax Department are seeing shorter lines of people paying their year-end property taxes in person � as more taxpayers use the mail and online payment options � but it doesn�t mean they are any less busy this time of year.
�We still have to process the payments,� Collections Supervisor Amanda Lovett said Friday.
Lovett, who has been with the tax department since 2006, noted the traditional long lines have decreased each year for the past five years, especially since the department�s online payment system debuted several years ago.
�We do have a lot of mail to process and we do have more online payments. � The majority of people prefer to do it that way,� she said.
Owners of real property, business personal property and personal property in Lenoir County have until Jan. 7 to pay taxes owed on that property.
Tax Administrator Darrell Parrish said the deadline is traditionally Jan. 5, but it has been pushed to Jan. 7 since Jan. 5 falls on a Saturday.
�Legally, after Jan. 7 the tax office can enforce collection action,� Parrish explained.
Collection actions can include garnishment of wages and foreclosure.
�That�s a last resort in most cases, but we can and there may be some that we do,� Parrish said.
Interest is also charged on late payments � 2 percent for the first month, and 0.75 percent for each additional month.
Any payment sent by mail that is postmarked with a U.S. post office stamp by Jan. 7 is considered timely, Parrish added.
The tax office will also send out listing forms for 2013 beginning Monday. Anyone who purchased property for business or personal use, such as industrial equipment, a boat or mobile home, after Jan. 1, 2012, must list it with the tax office before Jan. 31, 2013.
Taxpayers can begin listing property Wednesday.
Parrish said the forms also have space to list any personal property that was sold or disposed of in 2012 �so we can take it off and not tax you for it.�
Parrish noted the tax department�s entire four-person staff for collecting and processing tax payments turned over in 2012, meaning all-new employees are helping taxpayers this year.
�They�ve done a good job, they really have,� he said. �With any employees in a new job there�s a bit of a learning curve, but they�ve done very well.�
Lovett also praised her four new charges, who include three people working at the customer service counter and one as a tax collection specialist.
�They�ve all done an excellent job,� she said.
David Anderson can be reached at 252-559-1077 or email@example.com. Follow him on Twitter at DavidFreePress.
LenoirCountytaxpayers have three methods of paying their property taxes by Jan. 7:
In person:
Lenoir County Tax Department
Lenoir County Administration Building
101 N. Queen St.
8:30 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday-Friday
The office will be closed Tuesday for New Year�s Day
By Mail:
Lenoir County Tax Department
101 North Queen St.
P.O. Drawer 3289
Kinston, North Carolina 28501


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Low Elo Podcast EP. 18 - Teamwork is Magic
On this episode of Low Elo: the only League of Legends podcast, we cover our updated Hecarim impressions, talk about a 2500 elo twitch player, the ethics of champion selection and a whole lot of teamwork. It's just Dave and Jeff tonight while we let Jax and the yordle sleep. We also talk about map awareness and what it could mean to the team.
For this week's game or if you have feedback for us let us know with an email to firstname.lastname@example.com, email@example.com or email@example.com.


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State Capitol
Cheyenne, WY 82002
Ph. (307) 777-7437
June 20, 2013
Renny MacKay
Communications Director
Wyoming to Lead Further Investigation of Water Quality Concerns Outside of Pavillion with Support of EPA
CHEYENNE, Wyo. – The State of Wyoming is announcing that it will further investigate drinking water quality in the rural area east of Pavillion, Wyoming. This will be done with the support of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality (WDEQ) and the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (WOGCC) will lead the scientific investigation and will seek to address water quality concerns by evaluating the water quality of certain domestic water wells, the integrity of certain oil and gas wells, and historic pits in the Pavillion area. The State of Wyoming intends to conclude its investigation and release a final report by September 30, 2014. The State's investigation seeks to clarify water quality concerns and assess the need for any further action to protect drinking water resources. Wyoming will continue its work to assure residents have a clean source of drinking water available.
"It is in everyone's best interest – particularly the citizens who live outside of Pavillion – that Wyoming and the EPA reach an unbiased, scientifically supportable conclusion," Governor Matt Mead said. "I commend the EPA and Encana for working with me to chart a positive course for this investigation. I commit that Wyoming will work in a thoughtful and productive manner as further investigation is initiated."
In 2009, at the request of citizens living outside of Pavillion who reported objectionable taste and odor in their well water, EPA began working with the State of Wyoming and the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone Tribes to identify the source and extent of impacts on domestic well water quality. To date, after five phases of sampling, EPA's domestic water well sampling results have documented constituents of concern; however a source of those constituents has not been determined. EPA efforts to evaluate potential migration pathways from deeper gas production zones to shallower domestic water wells in the Pavillion gas field are inconclusive.
Wyoming, through the WOGCC and the WDEQ will conduct a comprehensive review of all relevant data and initiate an additional science-based investigation. The sampling data obtained throughout EPA's groundwater investigation will be considered in Wyoming's further investigation. The WOGCC and WDEQ will retain the services of an independent expert or experts to assist staff with the reviews, investigations, analyses and preparation of final reports. EPA and Encana Oil and Gas (USA) Inc. will have the opportunity to provide input to the State of Wyoming and recommend third-party experts for the State's consideration.
While EPA stands behind its work and data, the agency recognizes the State of Wyoming's commitment for further investigation and efforts to provide clean water and does not plan to finalize or seek peer review of its draft Pavillion groundwater report released in December, 2011. Nor does the agency plan to rely upon the conclusions in the draft report. EPA is conducting a major research program on the relationship between hydraulic fracturing and drinking water in different areas of the country and will release a draft report in late 2014. EPA will look to the results of that national program as the basis for its scientific conclusions and recommendations on hydraulic fracturing.
"In light of this announcement, we believe that EPA's focus going forward should be on using our resources to support Wyoming's efforts, which will build on EPA's monitoring results," said EPA Acting Administrator Bob Perciasepe. "We applaud the leadership of Wyoming in conducting further investigation and assuring safe water and look forward to partnering with the State as it conducts its investigation."
"Encana has chosen to make a grant in the amount of $1.5 million to the Wyoming Natural Resource Foundation to be used for further investigation by the State of Wyoming and for a statewide education and awareness program through the Wyoming Association of Conservation Districts related to best practices and permitting guidelines for the benefit of Wyoming's citizens and industries in conjunction with initiatives that support and protect rural water supplies," stated Jeff Wojahn, President of Encana Oil and Gas (USA) Inc. "The Wyoming Association of Conservation Districts, among other things, provides leadership for the conservation of Wyoming's soil and water resources and also promotes the wise use of Wyoming's water. Additionally, Encana will continue to provide interim funding to the Wyoming Association of Rural Water Systems, an independent entity that has been providing water for certain Pavillion residents."
Wyoming retains the discretion to allocate the grant from Encana to the Wyoming Natural Resource Foundation to support the State's efforts as the next phase of this investigation is initiated. "Wyoming and Encana understand the importance of water in this state and I am pleased to see their continued commitment to the scientific investigation and to provide interim funding for water to the residents while that investigation progresses," Governor Mead said.
In 2012 Governor Mead and the Wyoming Legislature appropriated $750,000 for the design, construction and installation of residential cistern systems and a water loading station in the Town of Pavillion. Installation of 20 cisterns and the water loading station should be finished soon. There will be other opportunities for residents who live outside of Pavillion and have not yet requested a cistern to do so. Wyoming will work with residents to identify acceptable means of providing water to their rural homes for years to come. Wyoming will continue to strive to meet one of its highest priorities – finding solutions to drinking water concerns.
As part of the State's investigation, fourteen domestic water wells located in the Pavillion oil and natural gas field will be further evaluated for water quality and palatability concerns. The WOGCC will also prepare a report concerning the status and reclamation of historic production pits in the Pavillion Field. In addition, WOGCC will prepare a report concerning the integrity of all oil and natural gas exploration and production wells within 1320 feet of the fourteen domestic water wells identified for further investigation.
The WDEQ will evaluate the data, conclusions and recommendations contained in the WOGCC's well bore integrity and pits final reports. In its review the WDEQ will consider all relevant data for each of the fourteen domestic water wells. The WDEQ will then conduct two rounds of sampling of some or all of the fourteen domestic water wells. The WDEQ will determine if further investigation, including additional sampling, is necessary using exceedances of EPA primary and secondary contaminant levels and WDEQ Water Quality Rules and Regulations as a trigger.
Activities in the Pavillion gas field highlight several considerations including the importance of collecting baseline water quality data and proper water quality information and education. Wyoming has initiated a process for establishing a uniform regulation for the collection of baseline water quality data prior to and after oil and natural gas development.
Attachment – Investigation Document
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