Posted on 04/16/2014 8:57:26 AM PDT by Kaslin
Mike Lee calls for "a new conservative reform agenda" based on "three basic principles," one of which is federalism. "The biggest reason the federal government makes too many mistakes is that it makes too many decisions," the Republican senator from Utah explained in a speech at the Heritage Foundation last year. "Most of these are decisions the federal government doesn't have to make -- and therefore shouldn't."
So why on earth is Lee co-sponsoring a bill introduced last month that would ban online gambling throughout the country, instead of letting each state decide whether to allow Internet-assisted poker? The contradiction illustrates one reason the GOP seems destined for permanent minority status: Too many of its members are unprincipled killjoys who do not understand that federalism requires tolerance of diversity.
The bill Lee supports, which would ban "any bet or wager" placed via the Internet, was instigated by casino magnate and Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, who would prefer not to worry about online competition. The motive for the bill thus violates another of Lee's three basic principles: opposition to "dispensing political privileges to prop the well-connected up."
But the blatant disregard for federalism is especially striking because the bill's backers brazenly claim it is necessary to protect state autonomy. They have even enlisted Texas Gov. Rick Perry, an avowed fan of the 10th Amendment, to testify that a national ban on Internet gambling, which would override the policy preferences of states such as Delaware, Nevada and New Jersey, is what the Framers would have wanted. The National Conference of State Legislatures sees things differently.
Poker is not the only subject that turns Republicans into advocates of a meddling, overweening federal government. Pot also brings out their inner centralizers.
Republican legislators have repeatedly criticized the Obama administration's response to marijuana legalization in Colorado and Washington, arguing that the president is constitutionally bound to crush these experiments. "Federal law takes precedence" over state law, Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., told Attorney General Eric Holder during a congressional hearing last week. "The state of Colorado is undermining ... federal law, correct? Why do you fail to enforce the laws of the land?"
Republicans like Smith not only accept the fanciful notion, which is no less absurd for having been endorsed by the Supreme Court, that interstate commerce, which Congress is authorized to regulate, includes marijuana that never crosses state lines, down to a bag of buds in a cancer patient's drawer. They also argue, as Smith does, that "state law conflicts with federal law" if it does not punish everything that Congress decides to treat as a crime.
This insistence that only one policy -- prohibition -- can be allowed with respect to pot and poker is not just unprincipled, but also politically perilous. Polls indicate that most Americans think marijuana and online poker should be legal, and that view is especially common among young voters.
According to a Reason-Rupe public opinion survey conducted in December, 65 percent of Americans think the government should let people play online poker. That includes 70 percent of respondents younger than 45 and 69 percent of respondents younger than 55.
In a Gallup poll last fall, overall support for legalizing marijuana was 58 percent, including 67 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds and 62 percent of 30- to 49-year-olds. A CNN poll conducted in January put overall support for legalization at 55 percent and found a similar breakdown by age: Two-thirds of 18- to 34-year-olds said pot should be legal, and nearly as many 34- to 49-year-olds agreed.
How do Republicans respond to these tolerant majorities? They do not merely express their distaste for pot smoking and online poker playing or argue that both pastimes should be illegal at the state level. They say the two activities should be banned at the national level, even though that position contradicts their professed commitment to federalism.
That is a "conservative reform agenda" of sorts, I suppose. But it is not at all "new," and it aims to reform us rather than the government.
Answer: Sheldon Adelson pays the bills.
I noticed that redefinition of marriage wasn’t brought up. A lot of people say, “I think the government should just get out of marriage, period. “You hear that a lot. I can’t get my mind around how it’s supposed to work.
As far as things like marijuana and gambling go, I hope that these wouldn’t be ploys to attract a younger demographic to the party. These things seldom go well. If a candidate or politician actually has a principled case for the position, then state it. If things are bumped down to the state level, and some certainly should be, then politicians at that level will have to deal with them. Those people, state legislators, for example, have party affiliation. So whatever it is will still become associated with one party of another.
Using that logic you must want to bring back the 18th amendment.
good question for Goober Graham ,too.
Using that logic you want to bring back opium dens?
There is no logic in this topic. It is 100% emotions.
True. What’s that have to do with adults smoking pot?
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I was in the first generation of pot smokers at my high school back in 1970. It came through one summer. There was a big cultural change. Suddenly half the school kids were smoking pot.
I don’t know how it was in the 1990’s.
But these days the kids at my old high school are back to smoking pot again.
It did me no good in the 1970’s. It took me two decades to kick the stuff and beer and cigarettes and such. Those days are lost to me.
I regret the time I wasted on cheap thrills.
Pot will do the newest generation of pot smokers no good.
My desire to keep the laws firmly set against pot smoking is just a desire for younger folk not to make the same mistakes I made.
Do you draw the line of illegality at heroin? Or cocaine? Or LSD? Or Mescaline? Or crack? Or are those ok too.
This is an important question. Once you redraw the line in the sand. It make the new line even tougher to hold.
For example, the liberals have all but normalized homosexual marriage. Next up is polygamy. Are you ok with polygamy?
I don’t like pot and gambling but Republicans look old when they tell people under 30, sorry, you’re not allowed to do that on our watch.
That is what conservatism passes for these days - telling locals Washington is always right.
Point is, when you delegate this issue to the Federal Government citizens have no say in what will be legal and what won’t. So arguing which pallet of drugs citizens should be allowed to partake in is irrelevant. We don’t make that decision. Bureaucrats do.
If there is enough political pressure, yes heroine would be legalized. Alcohol might be made a prescription drug.
So arguing which pallet of drugs citizens should be allowed to partake in is irrelevant. We don’t make that decision. Bureaucrats do.
All I’m saying is we should keep this power to ourselves. The decisions should be made in our respective state legislatures.
>>>>It did me no good in the 1970’s. It took me two decades to kick the stuff and beer and cigarettes and such. Those days are lost to me.
I regret the time I wasted on cheap thrills.
Pot will do the newest generation of pot smokers no good.<<<<
Having been in the same neighborhood, I agree with your sentiments. And I witnessed the same changes you noticed in my small town in Connecticut circa 1973. I also regret my pot smoking period. I feel grateful to have gotten out as well as I have.
However, pot emerged despite stringent laws against it. The famous Rockerfeller laws in New York did not stop it. What is needed is strength of will and a change of attitude, such as what is happening with tobacco. The culture has to change. Of course, that ain’t happening with the current push towards legalization and relaxed standards for pot use. The predictable (and unpredictable) consequences will emerge to curse our descendants. Until then, though, those of us with sad experiences will have to pave the way for the eventual realization that the stuff is crap.
Those days are lost to me.
Presumably what you were doing was illegal. Would your life have been better if you’d been caught, convicted, and spent time in a Federal or State penitentiary?
Hmm... I’m pretty sure when the Feds wanted to ban alcohol, it required a Constitutional amendment to do so. What makes marijuana any different?
Presumably what you were doing was illegal. Would your life have been better if you’d been caught, convicted, and spent time in a Federal or State penitentiary?
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Now there is a tough one.
I finally quit at age 40 by coming to Jesus. But I was motivated to quit because I knew I would die by age 50 if I didn’t quit. I was afraid of dying.
However, if I’d had the crap scared out of me at a younger age I might have stopped at a younger age.
Hard to say.
My pastor says most young pot smokers won’t stop until the crap gets scared out of them by some close encounter with death or a close encounter with the law.
I tend to agree with him because that was my experience.
We have Executive Orders for that now.
Mine is based on facts, logic and personal experience. Although, emotions aren’t bad, per se. They have their place in debate.
libertarians hold up a mirror to that is hard to look into for Republicans and some tea partiers. Mostly because those two don't really have a problem with big, intrusive, in your face abusive government...just so long as it's not goring their oxen. Those two seem content to use all that power to punish their political opponents and people who aren't living the way they think they should. Leaving people alone and minding their own business just aren't part of the approved script.
Nooooo! America was a wasteland of drug crazed, zombie rapists! It was so awful that the zombies ate all of the photographers, which is why there are no pictures of the drug crazed zombie rapists sacking cities and towns across the country! (sorry, no sarcasm tags provided to the retarded)
Blah, blah, blah....
Libertarians are less relevant than even pro-amnesty RINOs.
But the fact this site is becoming less and less tolerant of you people is comforting.
“My desire to keep the laws firmly set against pot smoking is just a desire for younger folk not to make the same mistakes I made.”
Right. It’s for the children.
Because doesn’t every child need a good nanny?
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