The dramatically different manner in which we, as a nation, responded to the crisis presented by drunk driving and the crisis caused by the emergence of crack cocaine speaks volumes about who we value, and who we view as disposable.
There has been a banking crisis, a financial crisis, an economic crisis, a social crisis, a geostrategic crisis and an environmental crisis. That's considerable in a country that's used to being protected.
The crisis of the church is not at its deepest level a crisis of authority, or a crisis of dogmatic theology. It is a crisis of powerlessness in which our sole recourse is to call on the help and inward power of the Holy Spirit.
It is popular to call it a crisis of the Western world. It is in fact a crisis of the whole world. Communism, which claims to be a solution of the crisis, is itself a symptom and an irritant of the crisis.
In fact, the environmental crisis is related to the crisis of aesthetics, crisis of social cohesion and the crisis of spiritual values.
My idea, as the whole world knows, is that the capitalist system now doesn't work either for the United States or the world, driving it from crisis to crisis, which are each time more serious.
The policy that received more attention particularly in the past decade and a half or so has been the US cocaine policy, the differential treatment of crack versus powder cocaine and question is how my research impacted my view on policy. Clearly that policy is not based on the weight of the scientific evidence. That is when the policy was implemented, the concern about crack cocaine was so great that something had to be done and congress acted in the only way they knew how, they passed policy and that's what a responsible society should do.
In response to the advocacy of groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, most states adopted tougher laws to punish drunk driving. Numerous states now have some type of mandatory sentencing for this offense - typically two days in jail for a first offense and two to ten days for a second offense. Possession of a tiny amount of crack cocaine, on the other hand, was given a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison.
The experience of the '90s, whether it's the '94 peso crisis or the '97 crisis in Asia, the '98 crisis, even the 2001 crisis, is that we recovered pretty readily. There wasn't great consequence.
There is definitely going to be another financial crisis around the corner because we haven’t solved any of the things that caused the previous crisis.
Pecans are not cheap, my hons. In fact, in the South, the street value of shelled pecans just before holiday baking season is roughly that of crack cocaine. Do not confuse the two. It is almost impossible to make a decent crack cocaine tassie, I am told.
The planetary emergency unfolding around us is, first and foremost...a crisis of thought, values, perceptions, ideas and judgments. In other words, it is a crisis of mind, which makes it a crisis of those institutions which purport to improve minds.
During a national crisis, we as a nation become a single community and no one should take advantage of a crisis.
I'm not for drunk driving - however, the states ought to decide. Different states have different penalties for drunk driving because they're states and they get to do that. If people of one state want to be lighter on drunk drivers, they're wrong. That's their business.
Rock bottom is a crisis... and everyone wants to avoid crisis. But what 'crisis' means literally is 'to sift' - like a child who goes to the beach, lifts up the sand, and watches all the sand fall away, hoping that there's treasure left over. That's what crisis does.
Winston has written four volumes about himself and called it 'World Crisis'.
All people—all lives—are either in a crisis, coming out of a crisis, or headed for a crisis.