If you pick up a gun and point it at someone, and it goes off, you are responsible.
If you pick up a drug and take it, and end up addicted, you are responsible.
The problem is people run the risks. They take substances they know are dangerous and rationalize away the danger. They tell themselves they know what they are doing, that they won’t be the ones to end up addicted. Then lives fall apart, and somehow it’s never their fault.
I don’t care how miserable you are. I don’t care how fucked over you’ve been by the world. All you do by starting use of an addictive substance is fuck yourself over and make yourself miserable on top of everything else.
It’s not like anyone thinks addictive drugs are harmless. They go into it fully aware that they’re doing something monumentally stupid. But they make the bad decision, and then most of them spend the rest of their lives shifting the blame elsewhere and crying out about how they’re the victims of circumstance.
So when I talk about a culture of “denial of responsibility”? This is exactly what I’m talking about.
Don’t confuse my disbelief that a person’s situation justifies their irresponsible behavior with a lack of basic human empathy.
I’m simply arguing that people are responsible for their actions, not that they somehow don’t deserve assistance or humane consideration for their addictions.
We can still take pity on and render aid to those trapped in an existence of addiction and substance dependency, without having to exonerate them of all wrongdoing or otherwise fail to hold them responsible for their own choices.
Oh please! You have PROVEN that you have no empathy with every word you’ve written. You might be capable of sympathy, but not empathy. You should learn the difference. You outright stated that YOU were the authority on what [quote=“Glitch, post:43, topic:34304”]
All of “the gay folks you know”
[/quote]
actually experience. Your megalomania knows no bounds apparently. You lecture all up and down this page as if you are some kind of authority about being gay. You never answered my reply though so I’ll ask you one more time than set you on :
How do you reconcile your statement [quote=“Glitch, post:43, topic:34304”]
All of “the gay folks you know” live in the single most homosexuality accepting culture of this size and influence history has ever seen.
[/quote]with the rate of suicide among gay youth? Don’t bother equivocating about anything else in your reply, Just give some facts. Not “it’s obvious” or “they used to hang people”. SOME gay people in various places in this country have had total acceptance from their family and friends. I have know one or two that say they never had to come out to their family because their parents figured it out and made sure it didn’t matter. They are a complete minority. I know far more that were either completely disowned by their families, or they still remain in contact but their families make it clear they don’t approve of it.
My point here is you have a problem, you think you can know things with a certainty without ever experiencing them, and you have no room in your thinking for the possibility that you might be wrong. Thus the recommendation to join some Libertarian groups, you might want to specialize in the Ayn Randian types, they will assure you that you are 100% right and that the only problem with everyone else is that they can just decide to be perfect like you.
Have you ever faced addiction? Sexual abuse? Abuse as a child? Poverty? I would love to hear more on your wealth of experience from which you speak.
Just thought I’d provide some supporting links and ideas.
First a link to the Trevor Project. Quick facts from there: Suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people ages 10-24. Also, LGB youth are 4 times more likely, and questioning youth are 3 times more likely to attempt suicide than their peers.
Now, about those high rates of HIV. According to the CDC in 2010:
“In 2010, young gay and bisexual men (aged 13-24 years) accounted for 72% of new HIV infections among all persons aged 13 to 24, and 30% of new infections among all gay and bisexual men.”
I have a friend who works for Out of the Closet, a thrift store that is an nfp. They provide funding to AIDS research. At his store, they added a pharmacy and onsite testing. They’re doing anything they can to keep people healthy. It only takes one generation to forget, and today’s youth weren’t around for the original HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Meanwhile, in heterosexual sex, you can also get yourself killed - if you’re a girl. 40% of families are expected to not give their daughters the HPV vaccination already available. That vaccine can prevent a life-threatening cancer, but with ties to sex, many parents refuse it. Since it’s an ovarian cancer, males don’t have the same risk (but they are getting the vaccine to avoid genital warts).
