Charities Upset Over Chase Facebook Contest 464
ssv03 writes "The New York Times is reporting that Chase Community Giving of Chase Bank recently held a contest on Facebook in which users were encouraged to vote for their favorite charities. At the end of the contest, the 100 charities with the most votes would win $25,000 and advance to the next round to have a chance to win $1 million. Initially, the vote counts for each organization were made public, but two days before voting ended they were hidden, and the final totals have still not been released. While Chase had no official leader board during the voting, several organizations were keeping track of projected winners. Those projections were almost identical to the final results, yet several organizations including Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), Marijuana Policy Project and several anti-abortion groups were not finalists. They had been performing very well (some within the top 20) until the vote counters were removed. Chase Bank has so far refused to discuss the issue with the organizations. SSDP has spoken out in a press release (PDF) and is calling for a boycott."
Charities? (Score:5, Insightful)
Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), Marijuana Policy Project and several anti-abortion groups were not finalists
In what ways are these charities? I thought charity is about giving to people in need, not supporting political organisations.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Charities? (Score:5, Informative)
It's simpler to refer to 501c as a tax status and leave the charity part off.
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All being registered as a 501c means is that you are a non profit/not for profit, it has nothing to do with whether or not you are a charity.
Re:Charities? (Score:5, Insightful)
Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), Marijuana Policy Project and several anti-abortion groups were not finalists
In what ways are these charities? I thought charity is about giving to people in need, not supporting political organisations.
Plenty of anti-abortion groups are about helping and educating pregnant women, not advancing political change. Anti-abortion doesn't always mean anti-choice (as strange as it sounds). The MPP probably believe they're helping glaucoma patients. I don't know what the SSDP does.
Re:Charities? (Score:4, Funny)
I imagine they're in the business of getting you high as fuck, bro.
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Re:Charities? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Charities? (Score:5, Insightful)
You need an education to be blue-collar these days. Marijuana convictions create a growing class of criminal entrepreneurs, not blue-collar workers.
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"Because of course taking someone's education away"
What, it's impossible to go to community college, then pay the rest yourself?
It's still denying a person the same opportunity based on their personal choices, which in my mind is in the same league as denying a person a student loan on the basis of religion (another personal choice). People should not be judged by what they choose to do with their own bodies, only actions as they relate to other people.
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"It's still denying a person the same opportunity based on their personal choices, which in my mind is in the same league as denying a person a student loan on the basis of religion (another personal choice). "
Religion isn't agianst the law.
But if it was, you're saying it would be ok? If it were legal to deny a person a student loan because of their religion would it make it right? It would still be prejudice based on a personal choice. You simply don't see it that way because you do not personally approve.
Seems to me to be a pretty big difference, I suppose for the purpose of making your point, you chose to ignore it.
Legality is irrelevant to the point I was making. What is legal and what is not has little to do with what is right and wrong, what is ethical and what isn't.
"People should not be judged by what they choose to do with their own bodies, only actions as they relate to other people."
They chose not to follow the eligibility guidelines.
I'm not debating that. I'm simply saying the guidelines are unjust and prejudi
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My education involved no student loans. I suspect there is a significant amount of the audience that is in the same boat.
If by 'significant amount' you mean '1/3', then sure.
2/3rds of college graduates have student loans.
But, incidentally, that's incorrect for the point you're trying to make.
The drug laws bar all federal aids, not just loans, but grants also.
Almost every college student has Federal grants. Just the Pell grant alone went to about 7,000,000 people in 2009, which is half of all college
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You seem to believe that public health is the motivation behind today's drug laws. That is a mistake. If you're sincerely interested in reducing consumption, you would allow people to be productive in their own personal ways, instead of penalizing them for attempting to tune out their miseries after stealing their land and enslaving them(yes, this economic system IS slavery).. You need to focus on less authoritarian methods.. prison is not the answer.
It is a shame that you are not willing to put your name - or even a fake name - behind your reply; we'll never know if you ever bother to read this or reply to it.
That said, I urge you to take a more balanced look at the issue of drug enforcement. If you step back you'll find that the enforcement of drug related offenses in reality rather closely mirrors those of alcohol related offenses. Sure, the pro-pot lobby loves to conjure up horror stories about brutalized old ladies but when you actually get to
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As heard on the news about a year ago, "I think we can all agree that there are too many abortions".
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As heard on the news about a year ago, "I think we can all agree that there are too many abortions".
But other than that, opinions vary a lot.
The people who are pro choice, would typically talk about the importance of sexual education in school, the importance of condoms and other contraceptives.
Those who want to make the choice for the woman based on their own values, usually also wants to minimize sexual education (as it should only be done in the context of marriage) and minimize access to contra
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If you mean "helping" make sure they don't get an abortion by whatever means necessary (including lying to them and setting up "pregnancy resource centers" that pretend to offer abortions but really just string women along for long enough they can't seek one elsewhere), and by "educating" you mean misleading for ideological reasons, then yes, exactly that. Seriously, the anti-choice movement is quite evil.
Re:Charities? (Score:5, Insightful)
They believe abortion is murder. They are willing to go all the way to murder of their own if they think it will stop them. They try to distance themselves from the clinic bombers, but rarely do you actually hear full-out condemnation. And yes, they'll lie to stop abortions. But what I think is most horrible is that one of the proven most effective way of stopping abortions is sex ed combined with free available contraception. And the anti-choice people object to that. That makes then not pro-life, but evil anti-choice people that do not have the best interests of children at heart, but want to push their personal and religious beliefs on others against their will in a manner that they know harms others. It's not lying to prevent murder that makes them evil. It's lying to cause the situations that cause abortions, then calling abortion murder.
The few principled ones who want to stop abortions and think abortion is murder usually end up pro-choice because they realize that pro-choice pushes education and doesn't push abortions. They realize that making it illegal will still result in abortions, but that the illegal ones jeopardize not just the baby's life but the mother's as well, and they realize that a parent that wants to kill their kid before the child is even born may not be the best environment for the child, and that aborting this one so the next, when the time is right, will have a family ready to receive it and a better life is the best thing for all involved (and of course, the hind sight to realize that education and contraception would have prevented the whole situation).
Pro-"Choice" (Score:2, Insightful)
And the problem with all "pro-choice" organizations and individuals is that they only care about the adults. They never consider that the baby, could it speak, might rather live even if it's car seat wouldn't be loaded in an SUV and mom wouldn't get to have the perfect, 2.4 kid household with the perfect husband and the perfect career. Instead, they declare on rather spurious grounds that the baby isn't a baby and say, "just excise it!" And many of them have the audacity to call themselves Christian, or
Re:Pro-"Choice" (Score:4, Insightful)
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If you believe in something strongly (and forcing women to harbor a parasite for 9 months / killing children, depending on which way you see it, is an emotional subject), you tend to think the other side is made up of assholes.
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Like anything, both sides are filled with extremist assholes.
When pro-choicers start threatening, murdering and blowing up clinics that refuse to carry out abortions, then you may have a point...
Re:Pro-"Choice" (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, please do invent the absolute worst kinds of inhumane treatment to prove that women must have no control over their own bodies. A shockingly vast majority of abortions are performed in the first trimester, and if you can make out an expression on a fetus that's less than 12 weeks old, you've got an imagination too vivid to be anonymously yelling on the internet. Of the vanishingly small percentage of abortions that are performed when the baby has passed the normal age of viability, the vast majority of those are performed to save the life of the mother, or to prevent the infant from having a short, brutish, and pointless life. The misogynistic organizations are attacking a strawman that was never relevant in the slightest.
The abuses you've imagined are not because a mother suddenly decided, two weeks before her due date, that she didn't want a baby. Late term abortions are performed to save lives and limit suffering. We find it sane to put down a dog that's been grievously injured, but for some reason ending the suffering of a child born without a brain is some gross unjust cruelty, and you somehow believe that a child cursed to die before their first birthday should be forced to live through a year of brutish suffering, rather than being given the only kindness we have.
Finally, statistics demonstrate that women will still get abortions, regardless of how stringent the theocracy is that you place them under. Legalized abortions mean fewer women die. Which do you want, brassy moral superiority and thousands of women dead, or an unpleasant feeling and those women still alive? That's the only 'choice' offered.
Re:Pro-"Choice" (Score:4, Interesting)
The abuses you've imagined are not because a mother suddenly decided, two weeks before her due date, that she didn't want a baby.
These abuses are not imagined, they are real. Even if 2 weeks after she found out she was pregnant, that doesn't make it OK. I also think many people may be OK with abortion in the "logical" instances you use in the defense of abortion. A shockingly vast majority of abortions are simply "choice".
Finally, statistics demonstrate that women will still get abortions, regardless of how stringent the theocracy is that you place them under. Legalized abortions mean fewer women die. Which do you want, brassy moral superiority and thousands of women dead, or an unpleasant feeling and those women still alive? That's the only 'choice' offered.
I fail to see how you can justify something as "right" because,"They were going to do it anyway!" Michael Vick would still be fighting dogs if we held that standard to everything with any sort of "moral" argument to it. People still fight dogs, every day. And perhaps you are right, less women die. But they kill more babies since it is easy and legal. I am not going to be for heroin being legal just because it may save some lives from bad needles. (I know they can be attained free in places, but you get the point.)
I choose the pleasant feeling of the right choice, and not advocating murder. There is no way around it, that is what it is. Saying a child is not "born", and therefore not alive well, you might want to reserve a nice spot in hell with the rest of the lawyers and lobbyists that deserve to go there. Whatever you vision of hell may be.
One must see the forest from the trees. Abortion for choice is undeniably wrong to anyone if you can concede that a child is alive (refuse to debate that right now) except to anyone who is blinded by selfishness. Killing, or more specifically murder, is wrong. There is no moral way to justify murder. What gives you the right? Would I be justified in killing 2 members of your family to save all 6 of mine? If you can not answer that question in the negative, then you are delusionally on the "moral extreme" and fail to see that "making the hard choice" will only allow whoever setup that dilemma to win.
[ Is it all about not letting a bad guy win? No, it is about staying pure and not succumbing to wrong choices simply because they are easy. Anything less will taint you, and allow you to taint others. I for one, do not wish to welcome our tainted overlords. : ) ]
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...ending the suffering of a child born without a brain ...
A child born without a brain can't possibly be suffering.
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Don't be stupid.
The vast, vast, vast majority of abortion cases have absolutely nothing to do with mitigating significant risks to the mother or mercifully euthanasing a non-viable foetus. Vast. It is a convenience issue - the mother doesn't want it, so she kills it and gets on with her life. Often it's documented as "risk of severe mental anguish" or some such to get around legislative issues but that's not relevant here.
Please stop saying that anti-abortionists think women should have no control over t
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Merry Christmas Everyone!
Abortion is a very emotional issue.
May I please suggest that we all keep the peace!
We all must treat each other with love and respect.
Luv you all!
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It is similar to saying, if plastic bottles could talk, they'd ask to be recycled. That statement is meaningless because plastic bottles like fetus' have no desires. Sinc
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So you say that deciding to end the life of a fetus is immoral. Animals in nature have been practicing infanticide [wikipedia.org] since animals began walking the earth. Is it immoral to destroy a non sentient fetus versus a developing infant? If God created all things then he also built this into all animals, the only difference between us and the animal kingdom, is we do it earlier in the childs development.
Is it moral, or immoral neither is relevant. All things on earth do it, all have done it for thousands of y
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To your point about most abortions around the 9th week.... take the tumor out then & see if it's a human.... not likely. Will it survive then outside the womb & develop? No... so it's not a human yet.
How do you define human? A fetus at 22 weeks development can survive to adulthood. Would you define that as human, then? A newborn baby can not survive without help. Is that newborn baby then not human as it can not survive without help?
Oh Come On (Score:2, Interesting)
The anti-choice side just want full control over a woman's body. To them a woman is nothing more than livestock that they own.
The anti-life people are just in it because, frankly, killing babies is fun and they can't quite figure out how to legally have Friday night baby killing parties.
Now... figure out which side I'm on :-P
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As a long time progressive pro-lifer I must say that the type of groups you are talking about to my knowledge have not existed since the 80's. Most pro-life groups I know of that do outreach have people that help with getting a job, getting into school and very often helping with childcare. The last one I volunteered at even had a licensed therapist come in that treated issues like having an abortion, domestic violence and post-partum depression. Show me a Planned Parenthood that does counseling for grie
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What is actually going on there is the tacit assumption that a developing baby doesn't count as a human. If that's your argument, you should say it.
A fetus doesn't count as a human being. And even if it did, the adult counts more.
There. Happy?
No, not happy. What is a fetus, but an unborn human baby. (unless it is an alien fetus) So it does count.
And no, my feelings that everyone who believes in abortion should die (joking) does not count more than your's that you are right just because you hadn't been born yet. You would then argue that your opinion doesn't count at all, but then I would say please see above.
Now I am happy.
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My reasoning is sound and well founded.
Your reasoning is sound but it's not well founded because plenty of people would disagree with your assumptions, particularly:
My starting assumption was that it was the presence of a mind that defines the presence of a person.
Why not differentiate between incomplete but developing minds and "empty human tissue" as you call it?
Consider that my liver is never going to become a sentient being without the intercession of some advanced technology. But if a woman is pregnant, her undeveloped fetus will probably become a sentient being with no external interference at all. Isn't that an important distinction, ev
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That's the trouble with all anti-abortion groups: they only care about babies being born, after wards, the mother is on her own - even if it means they starve and are homeless. And many of them have the audacity to call themselves Christian.
Your ignorance of the anti-abortion movement is hilarious. My parents/family have (for 20+ years, now) been very involved in supporting multiple organizations in SoCal whose primary concern is taking care of single mothers who choose not to have an abortion - providing a home for them (often for the first couple years), while also helping them find a job, including providing professional skills training and support for taking college courses, as well as paying for food, baby needs, medical expenses, etc. He
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The number one way to prevent abortion is to educate and make contraception available. Organizations that claim to want to reduce the number of abortions that don't address the number one preventative measure seem to either be irrational or to have some other goal other than the st
So disqualify them... (Score:5, Insightful)
Amex did it better... (Score:5, Informative)
American Express (AmEx) did something similar in the Boston area. However, they thought it through first. An organization that wanted to participate had to submit a proposal on what they would do with the money and description of the organization's misson. AmEx selected about 40 (all worthwhile) organizations to vote on. AmEx got a reasonable selection of charities to participate--some of the really large ones, and a few highly specialized. The organizations used their participation to encourage their members to vote and become engaged to the organiztion goals.
I think every organization that was selected got some funding (perhaps at the $1000 level) so there weren't hard feeling from the losers.
Goes to show you that Chase != American Express.
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That's what I would do. There are too many charitable organizations with really good PR and really shitty records of actually helping anything, like PETA.
Also, a lot of organizations do good work, but don't really need large amounts of cash. Like the Red Cross. They need volunteers, not money.
And plenty of organizations do good work, but are perceived, rightly or wrongly, as having a political bent, so for maximum PR, you'd want to leave those out.
Re:Charities? (Score:4, Insightful)
Try telling a zealous anti-abortionist they're not helping people in need. That'll go over well.
Also ask the ~600,000 Americans arrested for possession (not trafficking) of marijuana if new law is or isn't required. That's 600k *annually*.
Re:Charities? (Score:4, Funny)
Silly rabbit. A charity is just a corporation with tax exempt status.
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If drugs were legalized, it would do a hell of a lot more good for poor communities than any sort of handout.
On the other hand, if abortion were criminalized, many more women would die and the crime rate would spike 15 years later.
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When life begins is a scientific matter, not moral or religious. The fact that egg and sperm comprise living cells means it's alive from day one. Hell, people argue viruses are alive and they lack many of the properties of living cells. However, you can definitely argue that in those early days while the genetic material is all there to form a human it's still a clump of cells. But the first few months in, when you've got a brain forming, a beating heart, a nervous system, limps and other identifiable organ
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When life begins is a scientific matter, not moral or religious.
However, that is not the relevant issue. Only the strictest of vegans actually condemn any taking of life whatsoever (and most will reluctantly admit that their own immune system or simply cleaning their cookware kills some form of life).
Clearly, we do not oppose the killing of any human cells whatsoever, that happens all the time no matter what we do. My individual cells have no rights to themselves. A pint of my blood extracted into a plastic bag is not a human being. When the surgeon sends a human append
Regulation drops prices and usage (Score:3, Informative)
Read about what happened in Portugal.
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html [time.com]
The paper, published by Cato in April, found that in the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.
"Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success," says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. "It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does."
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Since people could vote for them, at the very least they are charities as defined by this competition's rules.
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"Students for Sensible Drug Policy" sounds like a bunch of douchebag college kids trying to game the system for 25k in free pot money. God forbid Chase dumps them for another Susan G. Komen or some such.
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In what ways are these charities? I thought charity is about giving to people in need, not supporting political organisations.
Tax deductible charitable donations are a little broader than that. The IRS defines it here: http://www.irs.gov/publications/p526/ar02.html#en_US_publink100049599 [irs.gov]
The interpretation must be rather broad, since Students for Sensible Drug Policy IS registered as tax-deductible (which you can find here [irs.gov]
So I guess I'm about as confused as you are. I certainly understand Chase's position
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SSDP is about repealing the law passed by an anti-drug crusading republican which denied student loans to anyone with a marijuana defense. Because of course taking people's education away is certainly going to lead them on the rigth path in life. That's sarcasm, in case you couldn't comprehend it.
Re:Charities? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Charities? (Score:5, Informative)
If that's Chase's policy, they should just explain that and be consistent about it, and far fewer people would be complaining.
Chase did explain their policy, both upfront and after these groups started whining. They simply weren't eligible in the first place and got culled out after the first round of voting. Wikipedia describes SSDP as a "non-profit advocacy group", which is not the same thing as a charity. Below are some relevant quotes from the articles.
Chase opened its contest to any charity whose operating budget was less than $10 million and whose mission “aligned” with the bank’s corporate social responsibility guidelines.
"Chase’s eligibility rules make it clear that the bank can disqualify any participant."
Mr. Evangelisti said the 100 finalists “reflect those organizations that received the most votes among eligible participants.”
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Chase opened its contest to any charity whose operating budget was less than $10 million and whose mission "aligned" with the bank's corporate social responsibility guidelines.
Which basically reads as: Any charity Chase corporate management do not like is not seeing a dime.
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But coming back to the original point, is that a charity? Just from reading the summary, it seems like all the groups that were removed were activist groups endorsing a specific change in laws.
Most activist groups still on the list do.
Its one thing to ask Chase to endorse the charity of your choice, its another to ask them to make a political donation to support your pet cause.
They put it up for a vote. When they didn't like the results, they excluded certain organizations and refused to give a reason. That's what people are upset about and I don't blame the organizations excluded for promoting a boycott.
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Oh wow, so anyone using marijuana is a drug addict. You ever drink coffee or alcohol, ya addict?
Yep! But I can give it up anytime I like!
That's sarcasm, in case you couldn't comprehend it.
Ah, I see what I did wrong in my original reply ;)
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Alcohol is in fact the only drug that I know of that has withdrawal symptoms that include death. If you are a severe alcoholic, you should not go cold turkey. From about.com [about.com]:
However, within six to 48 hours after not drinking, hallucinations may develop. These usually are visual hallucinations but they can also involve sounds and smells. They can last for a few hours up to weeks at a time.
Also within this time frame after quitting, convulsions or seizures can occur, which is the point at which alcohol wi
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No, it can't. You might wish you were dead, but there are no cases of heroin withdrawal killing anyone.
Free abortions for minorities. (Score:3, Funny)
As for the anti-abortion, they just *need* to be dragged screaming and kicking into the century of the fruitbat.
--
You are 100% right. I think we should start with a comprehensive national program to provide free abortions for everyone who is not of the sinful white race. We would educate all the mothers of minorities that they have rights, provide for them, with a special tax on white people, perhaps, because of their sinful state, to pay for it.
In fact, knowing that our planet is so terribly overpopulate
Re:Free abortions for minorities. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Charities? (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? Slavery, abortion and infanticide is all centuries old. Unfortunately only two of these barbaric practices were stopped.
That has got to be the stupidest argument against abortion I have heard yet. Let me try another triplet. Stoning, religion and castration are all centuries old. Unfortunately, only two of these barbaric practices were stopped.
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(NSFW Image)
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/12/2009_in_photos_part_3_of_3.html#photo37 [boston.com]
A man was stoned to death just this year.
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Pretty sure there's a sizable chunk of the middle east where all three of those are still accepted by mainstream society...whether or not that's a refutation of your argument is up for debate, though...
No debate. I could have written "in US" or "in the civilized world" or similar, and it would have been the same "argument". It's not an argument at all, just a lame attempt to condemn something by associating. Like condemning Christianity by linking it with child abuse/sex, or linking Islam and terrorism.
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It is the pro-abortion folks who need to be dragged into the "century of the fruitbat".
As a pro-abortion folk, I'm pretty sure I got dragged into the "century of the fruitbat" nine years ago...
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I know many people who are adopted (and who adopted children themselves). Adoption is never easy (and it is a lifelong commitment). And yeah, the only orphanage in my town is run (and funded) by one of those evil churches who are opposed to abortion.
Re:Medical use (Score:5, Informative)
I'm a member of SSDP. I'm also a member of Amnesty International - and I've been with AI much longer, and am much more involved with them - I've worked with the regional office in D.C. on a couple campaigns even. But I don't think it is at all fair to say that Amnesty's cases are any more important than those of groups like SSDP. And even if you think they are, in this specific case Amnesty wasn't one of the organizations SSDP was competing against. Neither was the Red Cross. Or Doctors without Borders. The organizations that _won_ this contest included things like the "Stella Adler Studio Of Acting". Now, I'm not going to get into what organizations are more worthy of the money, but seriously, if it's worth giving to art education programs then surely it can be worth giving to drug education programs as well.
Now, as for SSDP and similar organizations not being worthy in general - it sounds like you are thinking we are NORML or other legalization organizations. We aren't. We are not a "weed pushing organization", we are a drug policy reform organization. Look at cases like University of Michigan student Derek Copp - he was shot, through his lungs and liver by a police officer over what was later described as "a few tablespoons" of marijuana. A _misdemeanor_ offense in the state of Michigan. He nearly died over it. Look at our prisons - how many hundreds of thosands of people are in prison for no reason other than minor drug offenses? These are not violent people, these are people whose crimes are far less severe than those that Amnesty tries to free. I mean honestly, Amnestly works to help people proven guilty of murder in some cases. So what, we should try to save those people, but if your crime is just smoking a joint, you deserve to rot in prison forever for it? SSDP fights to restore financial aid to students convicted of drug offenses. I have a friend, who's extremely intelligent but from a very poor family. He had financial aid covering his entire college expense. And he got caught once smoking weed. Now he's working at McDonald's trying to save up enough money to go back. SSDP works to help people like him. SSDP works to promote _real_ drug education - the amount of people addicted to illegal drugs hasn't changed at all in nearly a hundred years - yet in just a decade, through _education_ not incarceration, we managed to cut the number of people addicted to nicotine (one of the most addictive substances we know of) in half!
So tell me this - why is saving lives lost to drugs not worth anything? Why is providing a good education to good kids not worth anything? Why is keeping nonviolent offenders out of prison not a worthy cause? I mean ok, I can accept you ranking the red cross up there higher than groups like SSDP - I mean they're purely about saving lives. But things like Amnesty International - they are only different from SSDP because of their size. They're both extremely political organizations trying to save the lives and freedoms of people who _they_ feel haven't done anything wrong.
Non-embarassing charities (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously Chase meant the top "non-embarassing to a big company" charities. Can you imagine if Chase had to donate $1M to the Marijuana Policy Project? I'm sure the board freaked out at the thought of "chase" and "MJ" being in the same sentence and said, "do whatever is necessary to make sure we don't get that association."
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Marketing, not charity (Score:5, Insightful)
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> Can you disprove that this is solely the reason why individuals do so as well, that it is only because it will boost their status and provide them personal benefits?
Individuals are minus the marketing department.
So claiming this sort of thing for "individuals" is rather questionable.
Although that sort of claim is probably very much the case for the type of people that get onto the society page.
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I've never donated to any charity with the knowledge that my name would become public.
I mean, for all I know, it does. I don't really bother to check. I just don't know or care.
The only non-profit I've donated to that I knew such knowledge would become public is the local theater I volunteer at, and I did that to become a member, which I know is public.
Like Darth Vader said: (Score:5, Insightful)
" I am altering the deal, pray that I do not alter it any further ".
Banks, Ugh!
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" I am altering the deal, pray that I do not alter it any further ".
Banks, Ugh!
I draw the line at where they ask me to wear a dress and bonnet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtKkyrZtUaM [youtube.com]
A Credit Card company changing the rules? (Score:5, Funny)
Wow, a credit card company changing the rules in the middle of the game.
How Shocking!
501(c)(3) defined by the IRS (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Nothing outrageous... (Score:4, Informative)
Chase’s eligibility rules make it clear that the bank can disqualify any participant.
Pretty straightfoward really, no lawyer techno-bable there.
Re:Nothing outrageous... (Score:4, Insightful)
And as others are saying, they -should- have disqualified them, instead of changing the game mid-stream and hiding things. The hiding is why people are -really- mad right now.
Don't get me wrong, the pro-MJ people would be pissed either way... But now -everyone- is pissed instead.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The thing that I can't get over is that Chase is not required to do anything at all. Chase might not have gone about it the best possible way, but they did give a lot of money to charities, which they are under no obligation to do. I can't help but feel a little embarrassed for people who complain over how someone else gives their money away to charities.
Why can't we at least look on the bright side and be thankful that there are charities out there that now have more funds than they had before, rather
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, not everyone is pissed, most of the world doesn't give a shit.
The only people i see that are 'upset' are the douche bags they disqualified, and angsty emo kids/adults who just have to lash out against them man.
Normal everyday people not only don't know about it, but those of us who do, don't actually give a shit.
Re: (Score:2)
Disqualifying some of these would be quite simple. For instance, pot is still illegal, and the bank should not support illegal activities. Other groups likes to display pornography around schools and ot
Re:Nothing outrageous... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
And of course, doing so when they are visibly ranked in the top 20 is really bad PR... and this is generally a PR stunt so they are trying to keep the spin positive while becoming political. So much for caring for the community.
Re: (Score:2)
Aren't the "participants" the voters?
Re:Nothing outrageous... (Score:4, Insightful)
Chase is donating 3.5 million bucks to charities, and the result is a bunch of fucking assholes with the nerve to bitch and complain about how they are doing it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
chances are it goes "....Judges decision is final..." ;)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not the point. The point is that Chase, after making the results highly public, made them vanish without explanation from public view as soon as they started trending in a direction that Chase didn't care for.
If they'd actually come out and *said* "We're disqualifying these organisations on the grounds of _______..." and then removed those groups from the tally, that would be one thing, but this is quite another.
Chase should at least be honest about what they're doing and why.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
As I see it, they made the current votes public. As any fule kno, if you don't want to bias your election/survey/popularity contest you don't publish the votes as they come in since that will either encourage the losing parties to have to rally their troops or lose heart and give up, or cause the winning parties to get over-confident. Sure, these effects may cancel each other out but it's no longer a simple question of how do the people who can be bothered to think independently want to vote.
See that last s
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good for Chase. (Score:4, Insightful)
And the thought of people's lives being ruined over doing something that did no harm to anyone doesn't sicken you?
Re:Good for Chase. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, like the many people dead or wounded due to gang violence fueled by the street drug trade, or the many people addicted to drugs who can't get medical or treatment help because they will get arrested or simply ignored, the people dying in Afghanistan and Iraq due to terrorist groups funded largely by the heroin trade.
I could go on, but you're an idiot if you think the current US policy toward narcotics doesn't cause starving, dying and suffering.
People who think caring about drug policy is for bong-toting fratboys sicken me.
Re:Good for Chase. (Score:4, Interesting)
The thought that people are putting giving someone a hot meal over say giving a good professional education sickens me.
The fact is that most of the people whose lives have been destroyed by drug-related arrests are not bored college kids looking for recreation. If your dad is rich enough your arrest will be stricken off police records. If you can pay a good enough lawyer you'll get probation. If you are poor you'll get a rap sheet that will haunt you forever.
Disclaimer: I have never used drugs, not even marijuana. But I support total legalization of all drugs.
Re:Good for Chase. (Score:5, Insightful)
It actually makes much more sense to complain and try to fix things where society is proactively hurting people than when society is just ignoring people or where some natural problem is.
I mean, an organization trying to figure out why someone is homeless is hard. Getting them off street is hard, as is making sure someone just doesn't show up to take their place.
Likewise, curing a disease is hard. We can spend millions on research that doesn't go anywhere.
Compares to those, not locking people up for drug us and not spending money to do so is incredibly efficient. We don't actually have to solve some biological or social problem. We just have to stop doing something.
It's like, if your house is falling apart, due to termites, random vandals, water damage...and a guy you're paying to run around punching holes in the wall with a sledgehammer.
Which problem are you going to address first to fix your house? I dunno about you, but I'd get the sledgehammer guy to stop, even if the other problems are 'worse' in some objective sense of how damaged your house is.
Hold on (Score:5, Informative)
At issue here is their social agenda, not their efficient use of bailout monies.
This is highly reminiscent of when Obama asked for input from Americans for issues they wanted to see addressed; the very highest rated issue was legalization of marijuana and amnesty for those imprisoned or otherwise punished.
So what happened? When the time came to address the issues, Obama laughed it off, literally laughing about it in public, during the program for talking about these issues, and acting like it was "crazy talk."
The people running this country - and you'd better believe that includes the people running the banks and other major players in the financial system, such as the insurance companies - are completely out of touch.
Re:Hold on (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hold on (Score:5, Interesting)
Even if most people support marijuana law reform [drugpolicy.org], they aren't actually proponents, just not opponents. In both the Obama survey and the Facebook survey, results that seem to show that marijuana law reform has a lot of proponents are skewed because the style of survey trends towards over-representing the young and the vocal. It still remains that most Americans just don't care enough for anything to come of it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe you live in an echo chamber, but show me public opinion polls claiming support for legalizing Marijuana. If you're so confident, why don't you run for Congress on it, where you can bring it to the floor for a vote?
Fact is, it's a political death sentence. More people would likely oppose it than support it, despite the few rallies of college students. Any politician outside of california who openly supports it would get attacked immediately, and their opponent would be able to raise more money.
If you t