L.A.’s Pot Revolution

Reason Magazine ^ | May 2010 | Brian Doherty

[AmishDude]

Congratulations.

What have you done to roll back the welfare state?

If I may quote you, “I’ll wait”.

[Ken H]

My point is clear. You are showing contempt for the Constitution by supporting a policy that violates both the Tenth Amendment and the original Commerce Clause.

By supporting this violation, you have no principled constitutional argument against the welfare state or fedgov control of health care.

[Lurker]

Obama's driving this country into full-bore socialism and the self-appointed leaders of the vanguard of liberty are wasting their effort on pot

And your guys are selling our Liberty off piecemeal. The Republicans are the Party of "Us too, just not soo fast" anymore.

Let's run it down, shall we? TARP 1, TARP, 2, Prescription Drug "benefit" (Bush and Republican Congress), No Child Left Behind (Bush and Republican Congress), the Bush Highway Bill (that was a real beauty, thanks Republican Congresscritter Hastert), Campaign Finance Reform ("Don't Worry SCOTUS will stop it and to Hell with the Oath I took" Bush)

The list goes on and on and on and on.

And all you faux Conservatives can fault the Libertarians for us that they advocate the legalization of people smoking a plant they can grow in their own damned back yards.

Interestingly, Moore county, TN is dry. Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey is distilled there.

Only for distilled liquors. Beer and wine have been legal there for over a decade. So the citizens of Moore County, TN can be trusted as to whether or not they'll allow the sale of an intoxicating liquor which kills thousands of Americans a year but they're not to be trusted with the decision to allow people to possess a weed.

It must be awful to live in your head with all those logical inconsistencies flying around. Decision about booze ok...decisions about plants no ok.

No wonder we haven't been able to solve all those deep mathematical mysteries of the Universe, Doctor. You're obviously incapable of logical thought. That's a serious handicap for someone who works in the hard sciences.

You think people will take away money from the poor child of the pothead mom?

I will, in a heartbeat. It's called "action, meet consequence". I think some mathy type guy first postulated that sort of thingy a few hundred years ago. They named a cookie after him if I remember correctly.

[Lurker]

What have you done to roll back the welfare state?

I was elected to a local office as a Republican.

Twice.

We ended several giveaway programs and returned those monies to the local taxpayers in the form of lower property taxes.

Now remind me again how many times in the last 10 years the Republicans did that on a Federal level?

And would you mind pointing up to me where in the US Constitution the Feds are given the authority to regulate what I chose to grow in my own back yard for my own personal consumption? Article and Section if you please. Thanks in advance.

I'll wait.

L

[Vendome]

Sure I have healthy friends. Some smoke I don’t.

Drink, I do.

[AmishDude]

You ... you ...

It's all about me, isn't it?

[AmishDude]

And your guys are selling our Liberty off piecemeal.

No. I take what I can get. There is nothing to be gained about folding your arms and huffing. You push against the stone. You'll complain about the impurities in the party. Complain, complain, complain. But when somebody tries to do something, you'll say it isn't enough, just to prove to your ego that you were prescient.

Don't just do something, sit there!

It must be awful to live in your head with all those logical inconsistencies flying around. Decision about booze ok...decisions about plants no ok.

No inconsistencies. We have a welfare state. As long as we do, then intoxicants of any kind will have spillover ramifications on society far beyond their user.

I say, get rid of the welfare state first.

You say, the welfare state isn't so bad, let's legalize plants and all their uses like marijuana, poppy and coca.

You're obviously incapable of logical thought.

Of course I am. I am also insane. I cannot hear the voices that you can, that's for sure.

You think people will take away money from the poor child of the pothead mom?
I will, in a heartbeat.

Well, I suggest you make it your campaign slogan. Keep in mind that the child did not choose his pothead mother.

Your fantasies here are not reality.

But I will note that you are proving my point: Drugs animate you, you'll deal with welfare later. And you don't even have a plan for how to do that.

[AmishDude]

We ended several giveaway programs and returned those monies to the local taxpayers in the form of lower property taxes.

Now remind me again how many times in the last 10 years the Republicans did that on a Federal level?

I'm sorry, Congressman, didn't you make the attempt?

There isn't some cabal in the Republican party. If you are active and work your way up the ranks, you have more and more influence. If you whine and complain and fold your arms, they won't listen to you. Nobody will listen to you. That's why the internet warriors are perpetual whiners.

As a successful candidate and officeholder you must have won a Congressional seat and lobbied for what you suggest here.

That winning personality and debating style can charm anyone. And you're such a team player.

But maybe the GOP ought to get together and advocate the full legalization of all drugs (and deal with welfare programs later). At least that would animate you. Giveaway programs can be priority number 15 or 16.

[Bokababe]

If only there were a way to deliver asthma medication without resorting to pills. If only...

There are inhalers.

The only advantages to Marinol is that it is in a pill form and can have a longer duration of effect than smoking marijuana.

That sounds like a pretty good advantage to me.

It is, but it takes up to four weeks to build up in your system.

Look, I'll tell you the truth. I am a law-abiding citizen who does not take illegal drugs and hasn't since my twenties (thirty years ago). But if I got cancer or some debilitating disease that only marijuana seemed to help, all bets would be off. I wouldn't be asking anyone for permission for what I needed to do -- and I wouldn't give a good damn whether it was legal or not, or whether people approved or not. I'd do what I had to do to survive and/or make my dying a little less painful.

Do I think that recreational users are trying to use "medical needs marijuana" as a wedge to open the door to legalizing pot? Sure, I do. That doesn't mean that there isn't a medical need for marijuana, just that recreational users are pretty cunning.

I just think that we have been fighting a 50 year war on pot that shows no sign of relenting and it's just not worth it to fight it when so many people are just asking for the freedom to do what they want without damaging anyone else.

I believe in God, but God gave us free choice and it's not my place to take it away. And I don't like social engineering in either direction -- not to force liberalism down anyone's throat and not to force social conservatism down anyone's throat either. People always want to do precisely what you tell them that they can't do, precisely because you tell them that they can't. Let them do what they want and deal with the consequences. It will force people to act like adults, instead of acting like "the government's children".

[Bokababe]

A quote from your homepage seems to fit this topic rather well:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. — C. S. Lewis

[Ken H]

Let's make it about what the "experts" are saying, then. These are the people that the MSM will go to as Obamacare makes its way to SCOTUS.

Charles Fried is one such heavy hitter. He was Solicitor General from 1985-1989, and is now a Harvard law prof. He was on Greta's show the other night defending the constitutionality of Obamacare. He did so by citing Justice Scalia's opinion in Raich. I've snipped out a few excerpts for brevity, but you can see the full transcript at the URL that follows:

______________________________________

VAN SUSTEREN: And does the constitution in your opinion, sir, enable them?

FRIED: It certainly does. The statute which I have front of me, I bothered to read it, says that the health insurance industry is an $854 billion dollar industry. That sounds like commerce.

The Supreme Court just five years ago with Justice Scalia in the majority said that it is all right under the Commerce Clause to make it illegal for California for residents in California to grow pot for their own use, because that has affect on interstate commerce.

Well, if that has affect on interstate commerce, what happens in an $854 billion national industry certainly does.

-snip-

FRIED: I daresay that, because I looked at that 2005 lawsuit about the pot in California. If somebody growing pot in their basement is interstate commerce and Scalia said so, I don't know where you are going to get five votes the other way.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,591103,00.html

_______________________________________

I personally think Scalia will find some reason to vote against it, but it's hard to argue with Mr. Fried's points regarding the outcome. Scalia did indeed endorse the New Deal Commerce Clause in Raich. Agreed?

[backhoe]

and you would the word joint in your response. LOL

Some say I have a nasty sense of humor, but it was an unintentional pun...

Just for the record?

I hate to stick my nose in the DOPER WARZ posts, because they seem to degenerate into name-calling, pointless arguing, and bizarre pretzel logic-- I've always felt the "medical MariJewWanna" contingent wants to smoke dope, and disguise it as compassionate care-- I just wish they'd be honest about it.

That said, when my sister-in-law was dying from that cancer they misdiagnosed ( and, dear God! The "treatment" was at least as bad as the disease... they gutted her, and she died anyway. )she was taking every opiate you can name, and guess what the only thing was that gave her some relief from her misery?

Yep- that Ole Devil Weed... and I had no problem with her tokin' and smokin'-- nor do I with anyone else sick and suffering.

I just believe the whole thing is being run under false colors.

[Lurker]

I just believe the whole thing is being run under false colors.

I don't do that. I think adults should be able to put whatever they wish to in their bodies so long as no one is pointing guns at me to force me to pay to clean up their mess.

L

[grand wazoo]

You're being intellectually dishonest.

There is a whole list of items that certain states regulate more heavily than others.

Alcohol

Tobacco

Firearms

Fireworks

Pornography

Gambling

Prostitution

etc.

Marijuana would just be one more item on the list. I think that many people who oppose legalization are closeted Puritans that if they could would ban alcohol and tobacco. They desire to force others to live by the same strict moral code that they do. A sort of Victorian morality with an excessive amount of snobbery and prudery.

I tend to prefer a live and let live moral code, where negative behavior is handled/corrected through social ostracism instead of the heavy and expensive hand of government which ultimately limits the liberty of all Americans.

[backhoe]

I think adults should be able to put whatever they wish to in their bodies so long as no one is pointing guns at me to force me to pay to clean up their mess.

I can go along with that, L.

[Bokababe]

I tend to prefer a live and let live moral code, where negative behavior is handled/corrected through social ostracism instead of the heavy and expensive hand of government which ultimately limits the liberty of all Americans.

I completely agree. Adults treating adults like equals, not moral superior/inferiors. I resent any government that thinks that it has a right to be my conscience no matter which side of the fence -- Liberal or Conservative -- they are on. I have a conscience of my own that I am answerable to God for, and no government has the right play intermediary, whether to fleece my pockets or force some puritanical nonsense down my throat.

And I agree that this (social acceptance/ostracism) is where social conservatism really belongs -- in the social realm, not the government realm.