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.
They only work if the prevailing morality [such as it may be] supports them.
Once upon a time, there were laws against sodomy and adultery, because everyone -- or almost everyone -- supported them.
Morality cannot be legislated.
But to try and re-introduce such laws today would prove fruitless. Society, whether right or wrong, no longer supports them.
Morality cannot be legislated.
But to try and re-introduce such laws today would prove fruitless. Society, whether right or wrong, no longer supports them.
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So does that mean that the pubbies should be ok with abortion.
Because doesn’t every child need a good nanny?
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Not if they have been legally aborted.
“Not if they have been legally aborted.”
And that has exactly what to do with nanny laws about pot and online poker?
“Not if they have been legally aborted.”
And that has exactly what to do with nanny laws about pot and online poker?
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You forgot to include nanny laws against prostitution and pedophilia.
“You forgot to include nanny laws against prostitution and pedophilia.”
No. This article was about pot and online poker.
“You forgot to include nanny laws against prostitution and pedophilia.”
No. This article was about pot and online poker.
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Maybe so but hey shouldn’t an old bugger have the right to his own boy while he’s smoking pot and playing online poker. And to be fair to straights —some guys will want to have their prostitute on their lap while they’re smoking pot and playing online poker. Now we’re talking multitasking. Of course some people will not be able to do all these things at the same time. Some people will only do them sequentially. Some people will want to pick and choose. People need choice you know. Oh heck I left out sheep and pigs. Sorry about that.
“Maybe so but hey shouldn’t an old bugger have the right to his own boy while he’s smoking pot and playing online poker. And to be fair to straights —some guys will want to have their prostitute on their lap while they’re smoking pot and playing online poker. Now we’re talking multitasking. Of course some people will not be able to do all these things at the same time. Some people will only do them sequentially. Some people will want to pick and choose. People need choice you know. Oh heck I left out sheep and pigs. Sorry about that.”
Your argument is a bit ridiculous. The thread article is about pot and online poker.
You support a nanny state so instead of commenting on the article you throw in bunch of things that nobody is talking about.
Sorry you had an issue with pot and/or poker. I never did.
I never was a habitual weed smoker or a habitual gambler.
I have had my share of beers though. Maybe the state should make those illegal again. You know, to protect me from myself.
Sorry you had an issue with pot and/or poker. I never did.
I never was a habitual weed smoker or a habitual gambler.
I have had my share of beers though.
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I’ve been all three. Like a lot of people, I addict pretty easily. Now I don’t even have beer in the house.
Its a fine self discipline that some people have—that enables them to do a little bit of the bad stuff and then stop. Heck its a fine self discipline that some people have to stop eating when they’re full. But most people don’t have that. You can tell because of all the fat people wandering around.
No need to ban food or beer or even cigarettes, though people with too much sugar or alcohol in their blood fill the hospitals—even more so than those with cigarette blacked lungs.
“I’ve been all three. Like a lot of people, I addict pretty easily. Now I don’t even have beer in the house.
Its a fine self discipline that some people have—that enables them to do a little bit of the bad stuff and then stop. Heck its a fine self discipline that some people have to stop eating when they’re full. But most people don’t have that. You can tell because of all the fat people wandering around.
No need to ban food or beer or even cigarettes, though people with too much sugar or alcohol in their blood fill the hospitals—even more so than those with cigarette blacked lungs.”
I can’t take credit for the self discipline. It just never was an issue for me. I didn’t enjoy weed or gambling.
I just don’t think govt regulation and prohibition is any kind of a solution for overindulgence of things that are harmless in moderate amounts.
I agree. I believe it should be left to the states.
It doesn’t feel like tyranny if you agree with it.
So you believe in individual liberty unless individuals take liberties you don't like.
Legal or illegal it still draws the same lost souls.
Exactly.
Exactly which part of the article is crap?
And why do you hate the 9th and 10th Amendments so much?
“just a desire to keep not to make the same mistakes I did.”
And another nanny stare busy body liberal reveals himself.
“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
Interesting topic, but even more so is the tone. As someone who’s sympathetic to the author’s points, the abrasiveness of his writing doesn’t convince me to join him. It pushes me away.
Thanks for the pings!
Wrong. You have convinced yourself that those days are lost to you. Those days BELONG TO YOU AND ALWAYS WILL. You may have spent those days doing something regrettable, but they still belong to you and YOU and you alone must use the tools God gave you to deal with that reality.
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.
And thereby DENY those younger folks their God-given right to LEARN from their mistakes as YOU did, and as I did, and as MILLIONS of us did. Look pal, SPEAK FOR YOURSELF. My struggles with drug addictions MADE ME STRONGER and CLOSER to God. It is MY job, not the Federal government's job and certainly not your job, to deal with temptation.
Just who in the hell are you to presume which trials and errors and lessons an individual should be able to undergo in life when it comes to giving in to or resisting temptation?
Comparing lack of Federal laws against pot and poker with Federal laws regarding homosexuality and polygamy, is comparing candy bars with pine trees. What government wants to do regarding homosexuality is to FORCE people to ACCOMODATE such pretend applications to "marriage." With pot and poker (I hate online gambling, by the way, absolutely despise it), no one is advocating using government to FORCE people to engage in it or even to accommodate it.
Look, if you want to whine and cry about the "lost days" of your youth, that's your problem, and I mean PROBLEM. It wasn't up to the Federal government to rescue you then, and it isn't up to the Federal government to rescue today's kids now. It is up to THEMSELVES, it always has been, and it always will be. With the Grace of God!
I want ZERO of my tax dollars to go for enforcing “laws” which have NO Constitutional basis or legitimacy, and which turn our once-free Constitutional Republic into a nanny, jackbooted rule of man democracy. Please show me where, besides your burnt out mind, the authority for ANY of these nanny laws exists. (Quick hint: read the WHOLE founding documents including the Tenth Amendment and the DoI before responding). Statist laws such as you advocate are what started our slide into the mass we currently are in. If you want more of the same, INCLUDING more of Obummer, keep on this track.
By the way, that whole “consent of the governed” thing? That right there is your biggest stumbling block. NO ONE CAN CONSENT TO SUCH OUTRAGES AS ARE CREATED BY YOUR WAR ON DRUGS. They are clearly amongst the very sorts of things the Founders took up arms against, as an absolute violation of one of their dearest principles.
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