nightsilver,
You may have put your finger on the problem, above.

"I would like to take a moment to just mention that I am not an expert in any of these subjects, thus why I would like to see a government run by people who know what they are doing."

None of us are experts, and yet every few years we're called upon to decide what is the best thing to do. Worse, the people who assure us they have the solutions are not honest about their positions.

Like the drug question you and Rhabbi are discussing. Nobody knows the answers. Hell, if someone knew the answers there would be no problem. It would be finished, cured, over and done with.

You were right to bring up the possibility of decreasing crime by legalizing drug, it's simply a good idea. But as Rhabbi pointed out, the data is all in and what there is not looking so hot.

One danger may be ideas which sound intuitively sensible, but whose practical application reveals complexities we didn't anticipate. Common sense approaches often have to be tested because they don't always work: the problem turns out to be a complex problem.

I think when we are dealing with any hot political topic, by definition, we're dealing with a topic on which there is no definitive answer. That we're in a guessing game. And our best option is to figure out which politician is 1, being honest; and 2, has proposed a reasonable solution to the problem.

Now we find out Bush had suppressed his Surgeon General's reports on the effectiveness of absinance programs, and both Bush and Clinton suppressed the reports on global warming by the heads of the EPA.

And in all this we have to pick out the best choice for the next time around. This is what discussions should be about. One of us get some decent info on as issue, and uses that to make the up coming decisions better.

To answer you question nightsilver, muggings. Some, I guess, random acts of violence by someone with a bug up his ass. The usual progression of such events tends to leave one of the two parties indisposed to further conversation, so I seldom discussed the event with the other person after the event terminated.

PS. I love this section of the forum. I think we should all be here discussing these issues as reasonable, respectful adults compared to what's characterized the country for the past few years