As we all know, there are many issues on which I have passionate, strong opinions. However, I’m wary of people who feel compelled to have an opinion on everything. It is not possible to be equally well-informed and interested in everything, which means that such people probably are just parroting the party line. Here are some of the issues that I don’t care much about one way or another:
1)The death penalty. There are good and idiotic arguments on both sides. The side that supports the abolition of death penalty probably has a greater number of good arguments. However, the opposing side has one very weighty argument that, at least, balances out anything that the abolitioners can come up with. This argument is: what if the death penalty helps the families of the victims? If I, God forbid, were a relative of a victim, it would definitely help me. Actually, it would be the only thing to let me keep functioning in society. Not everybody is like me, obviously, but some people are, and the idea of the entire society betraying them is unsettling. I wouldn’t suffer if the death penalty were abolished tomorrow but I wouldn’t celebrate either.
2)The legalization of marijuana. What I find annoying about this issue is the complete refusal of the drug’s users to recognize that it has a serious negative effect on them. Marijuana can turn a person extremely paranoid and violent in a single use and it does have very heavy effects on habitual users. This doesn’t mean it should continue being illegal (as I said, I don’t care either way) but I can’t avoid having an enormous amount of disrespect towards the defenders, not a single one of whom has recognized, to my knowledge, that they have an addiction to a substance that is destroying their brains and personalities.
3)Common Core. I tried figuring out what my opinion is but both the defenders and the detractors tend to be excruciatingly mumbly. Both sides present their argument in such a garbled, unconvincing way that I have given up on trying to figure out what is happening. Curiously, this is very common in discussions of secondary education. For instance, every argument in favor or against charters (an issue on which I do have an opinion) is delivered in such a mumbly, incomprehensible manner that the discussion soon grows painfully boring.
4) Cuban embargo. I’m glad that Obama pissed off Putin by offering diplomatic relations to Cuba. Other than that, the embargo is a total non-issue. Cuba’s only hope for a future resides inside the country. The decrepit Castro dictatorship should die off and the people of Cuba should begin working on eradicating the Soviet mentality that infected them. This will take about 100 years, give or take. What the US does or doesn’t do is irrelevant to this process. Keep the embargo, don’t keep the embargo, the only purpose served by either measure is to let Americans go on feeling how crucial they are.
What issues leave you cold?
Clarissa's Blog 
I think you’re confusing marijuana with meth. If you have some sort of documentation for your assertion, that would be interesting, but the drugs linked to violence and violent activity in these United States are alcohol and meth, FWIW.
You’re beginning to remind me of Megan McArdle, in a frightening way.
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I don’t have documentation. I have personal experience. And I have no idea who Megan McArdle is.
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McArdle is a horrible blogger who used connections instead of insight.
I’d be interested in hearing about the personal experience if you want to share. Again, I have no use for marijuana and the heavy users I’ve known were all paranoid and annoying as shit but I hadn’t heard of violence connected with it. Are you sure no other substances were involved?
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It’s no secret. I tried it once and it is by the grace of God that nobody suffered great bodily harm. I tried it again a few years later with the same result. The only other substance present was a huge cheeseburger. 🙂
My close friend experienced the exact same effect (on a different occasion and in a different place). And again, on another occasion, I observed this in a friend who normally is the quietest, nicest person ever.
Hispanic people seem to be aware that pot can either have a mellowing effect or the effect of making one violent and paranoid. So they are not surprised when it happens and have terminology for it.
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Very weird, I wonder if it’s cultural*… or if the pro pot people have simply managed to keep people ignorant of possible effects.
The time or two I tried it I couldn’t detect any effects one way or the other, it was like …. nothing.
*alcohol seems to have culturally scripted consequences to some degree why not other mood changers?
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That’s precisely what I’m saying. Potheads tend to have issues with maturity. And it seeps into their awareness of what effects the drug has. They get very cranky and petulant once anybody brings up any possible side effects.
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I think it heavily depends on the ratios of psychoactive substances in the pot – I don’t have the info at my fingertips right now but different strains have different ratios of different psychoactive substances with wildly different effects.
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I echo the marijuana feelings. Though I honestly can’t say I’ve heard of people turning violent, longterm heavy users are paranoid and reallly unpleasant to be around. The problem is that some people are addicted to marijuana and others are addicted to rebellion and/or disapproval and/or self-destruction so legalizing it will just make them search out something else. But I don’t care a huge amount.
My problem with common core is that I really don’t like one size fits all policies. As I read once, all education reform works in the short term and none works in the long term. The only reform I’m really interested in for schools can’t happen so I disengage.
My biggest (at least most scandalous) “can’t care” issue is climate change. I’ve read a lot on both sides and just. can’t. care.
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“Though I honestly can’t say I’ve heard of people turning violent”
“My biggest (at least most scandalous) “can’t care” issue is climate change. I’ve read a lot on both sides and just. can’t. care.”
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“The problem is that some people are addicted to marijuana and others are addicted to rebellion and/or disapproval and/or self-destruction so legalizing it will just make them search out something else.”
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If MJ lead to violence, half of my freshman dorm should’ve been behind bars before their junior year. There was a sign on a water fountain on my floor, “Don’t empty your bong(water-based smoking device) into the fountain, it clogs them up.”
I suggest you ask any medical professional who works in emergency medicine who they would rather deal with, someone on pot, or a drunk, or someone high on meth.
BTW, Reefer Madness is not a docudrama.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028346/
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“If MJ lead to violence, half of my freshman dorm should’ve been behind bars before their junior year.”
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I’ve neither doubted your veracity nor your anecdotal reports, nor the fact that pot can cause paranoia, especially in the first usage, Claire. But as far as violence goes, even the NIH couldn’t find a link to it, but you know better than them. Perhaps they should consult you on the methodology the next time they undertake to study this correlation you’re so sure exists.
Or, yeah, cliff, stoners have kept this secret from you straights until Clarissa here let the cat out of the bag.
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Who’s Claire?
Are these humorous comments aimed to enact an addict ‘ s memory loss and lack of concentration?
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Sorry, Clarissa.
Oh, and your remark about Hispanics and pot reminds me of this:
La cucaracha, la cucaracha
Ya no puede caminar
Porque no tiene, porque le falta
Marijuana que fumar
Ya la murio la cucaracha
Ya la lleven a enterrar
Entre cuatro zopilotes
Y un raton de sacristan.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2315/what-are-the-words-to-la-cucaracha
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Also, Israel and Palestine. That is I perceive a couple of possible outcomes that wouldn’t be disasters but everything is preventing any of them in favor of the status quo. And nobody can negotiate for all the Palestinians and enforce unpopular decisions on the ground. So I checked out of that one about 10 years ago.
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It’s yet another issue where defenders of either side are so overwrought and shrill that its impossible to support them. One such person, for instance, gas been sending me a barrage of very unhinged emails filled with insane accusations and crazy statements. And he is not an exception.
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You mention at least one of the subjects I do care about, but I get it. I think not having an opinion can have 2 reasons: 1. I really don’t care about it 2. I am not informed enough. I do have a lot of opinions, but I always try to learn before I speak or write about it. I think it is also a matter of filtering through arguments that aren’t arguments and reading about it in a general way before you can form an opinion. That doesn’t mean you can still have some subjects you just don’t care about. I have a few of my own, but not caring can be a sign of not knowing, which I think is going the easy way in life. If I don’t know I don’t have to care about a difficult or controversial subject. I don’t say you do that, but I will say you have to be careful about not wanting to know an confusing it with not caring about the subject.
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Regarding the Common Core: are you concerned at all about the gigantic role standardized testing will play in it’s assessment/enforcement? I support some things about the Common Core but the fact that ETS (Educational Testing Service) backed and lobbied for it’s implementation makes me very very nervous. That’s one of the biggest critiques that I keep seeing against the Common Core (from the left anyway.) You consider that a “mumbly”/unimportant critique? It’s fine if you do of course. 🙂 I was just under the impression that you were critical of multiple choice/standardized testing.
As for something I don’t care about? NSA surveillance. I understand the and have sympathy for the critique. But I have a hard time getting up in arms if NSA wants to listen to my inane phone calls or if NSA wants to monitor my banal shopping patterns. I don’t necessarily think it will reduce terrorism and don’t mind if surveillance stops. But it’s not something that really bothers me either way.
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I feel the same about the NSA. What a non-issue.
As for the standardized tests (which are stupid and useless and actually cause harm), I hate them but I I was under the impression that they have been around for a while, long before the Common Core. I’m against these tests whether they are part of Common Core or not.
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“As for the standardized tests (which are stupid and useless and actually cause harm), I hate them but I I was under the impression that they have been around for a while, long before the Common Core. I’m against these tests whether they are part of Common Core or not.”
Well standardized tests have long existed but the current practice of frequent, high stakes testing is a relatively new recent development: it’s an outgrowth of the No Child Left Behind Act (2001– under GW Bush.) I hoped– though wasn’t confident– that Obama would repeal or change this obsession with high stakes testing. Unfortunately he didn’t and the CC is thoroughly enmeshed in a model of education in which testing drives pedagogy.
So the CC is not worse than anything that Bush instituted and there are things I like about the CC. But many people–including me– were hoping for a push away from high stakes, standardized testing and we unfortunately don’t have that in the CC. Overall, Obama has been a disappointment on educational issues.
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Now that everybody – the politicians, the students, the teachers, etc. – have gotten addicted to multiple choice tests, it will take time to unlearn this dependence. Common Core is at least trying to insinuate the possibility that there might be some analysis before the mindless selection of a), b) or c).
Let’s be honest, has anybody met an educator who is willing to give up multiple choice? I know I haven’t. What the educators want is for this form of testing not to carry any consequences for them. But they still are more than willing to apply it if it has no consequences.
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I hate multiple choice more than I could ever hope to expres…..
When I was in public school we had the occasional non-school standardized test administered during classes but I don’t remember anyone taking them very seriously and they had no effect on our grades.
I don’t think we even saw the results that often though teachers did (judging by how I’d occasionally get lectured at about how it was a shame with my test resutls I wasn’t more interested in making more effort in class).
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“Let’s be honest, has anybody met an educator who is willing to give up multiple choice? I know I haven’t. ”
Maybe it’s because I teach English but I literally don’t know one person who assigns multiple choice tests. We all assign essay and short answer exams– even my friends who teach at large universities with large class sizes.
And I also know a fair amount of elementary school and high school teachers. And to a person, they assign multiple choice tests only in order to prep students for standardized testing. The teachers I know would love to cancel their multiple choice exams but feel too much pressure to prep students for these high stakes exams. With the elementary school teachers it’s particularly appalling because they are being forced to cut down on many enrichment activities (art, music, outdoor games etc etc) in order to make more time to drill for these exams. Horrible.
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Most people do multiple choice even in LANGUAGE courses. The questions go as follows: “The Spanish for “table” is: a) silla b ) casa c) mesa, etc.
And in higher-level courses: “Ha estado” is the following grammar tense: a) present b) present perfect c) imperfect, etc.
The saddest part is that students LOVE this kind of thing because it’s so easy and familiar.
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I teach STEM classes and even I never assign multiple choice. It’s short form answers or sketching something (trends of graphs) or calculate something, but not multiple choice.
As a saying from my home country goes, “Even a blind hen finds a grain by chance.” So does a kid who didn’t study for the exam at all if the exam is multiple choice.
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I thought you meant the Common Cold… When I have one I don’t give a damn about anything except where the Kleenex box has vanished to.
Sorry…
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I feel passionate about legalization but I do hate the utter lack of not only criticism of marijuana, but its promotion to a panacea from the legalization crowd. Yes it’s a pain killer and an appetite stimulant but the hugely different effects and difficulty controlling dosing make it very tricky for novices. I heard mentioned above that someone felt nothing – that was also my experience for years because some people don’t respond to low doses as much as others.
I have low blood pressure and apparently marijuana lowers blood pressure to potentially dangerous levels. I’ve found this out the hard way by literally passing out twice while high. As a former habitual user I could go on about the deleterious effects for days.
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No drug is without side effects, Ellie. I baked MJ brownies to help my grandfather sleep at night, because he had COPD and couldn’t use opiate-based pain relievers because they interfere with the respiratory system.
Of course, getting the munchies and being stoned can get old after awhile, but apparently you didn’t suffer any deleterious affects from getting off of it..
Stoners tend to claim that MJ is a catholicon, and it isn’t. It isn’t for everyone, medical or recreational usage.
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