The Conservative Political Action Conference is a big deal each year, and this year’s is already generating some controversy. Turns out that they’re not ready to accept teh gays.
Two of the nation’s premier moral issues organizations, the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America, are refusing to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference in February because a homosexual activist group, GOProud, has been invited.
Well, maybe they need to embrace another issue. The New York Post’s Abby Wisse Schachter has a suggestion: Note to CPAC: Have a pot session
Pat Robertson and Vice President Joe Biden have provided conservatives an opportunity to start a conversation about marijuana legalization. Robertson came out earlier this week favoring if not wholesale legalization of pot, then a reexamination of the current broken system of punishment and prison for possession. […]
On the other side of the aisle, Biden was asked to respond to Robertson’s remarks and reverted to language that has been in use for decades. Biden called pot a “gateway drug” and said he doesn’t agree that legalization is the way to go. […]
Biden’s answer to the question was old hat indicating that Democrats aren’t ready to evolve on the issue. Republicans should beat them to the punch and there’s no better labratory for new ideas than the annual CPAC gathering. Conservative leaders and politicians will gather with thousands of the faithful, in Washington in February where much of the focus will be on 2012 and the rise of presidential contenders. It would serve the purposes of the conservative movement and those who want to run for president to start a conversation about legalization.
Excellent suggestion.
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Not gonna hold my breath.
Gosh Joe, a gateway drug? Did it escape your attention that your boss smoked pot and still became POTUS?
F*** these f***ing prohibitionist Democrats. Latest Gallup poll has support for legalization at 55% among registered Democrats.
It is time for a full-scale purge. Every one of these jackasses who think they can criminalize us and still count on our votes needs to face a primary challenge in 2012.
I’m looking around for Spock with a beard. Gotta be in Bizarro-world when Pat Robertson makes more sense than a Dem VP. Or maybe the real world is not like I thought…
“Biden’s answer to the question was old hat indicating that Democrats aren’t ready to evolve on the issue.”
Not quite. This isn’t a partisan issue. Biden’s answer isn’t indicative of a democratic failure of leadership, but of the federal failure of leadership.
No. It’s a democratic failure of leadership. And it’s another failure to exhibit a spine.
Timid. Feckless. Unworthy and unable to lead. The current crop of democrats are the most pathetic political party ever. And I’m sorry to say I not only voted for Obama, I gave that campaign money. To everyone here I’d like to say: Sorry, I just should have stayed home. And I won’t make that mistake again.
I wouldn’t worry about a second term though, because most of the other Democrats I know won’t be voting for him either. Everyone is waiting for a primary challenger to get behind. I’m already looking for a third party to support, since I’ve lost all faith in democrats. Can’t support the Corporatist, er, Republican party either, so it’s of to some as yet to be determined fringe party for me, or I just won’t vote in ’12. I’ve never, in more that thirty years of voting missed an election, but there’s a first time for everything.
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“Biden’s answer to the question was old hat indicating that Democrats aren’t ready to evolve on the issue. Republicans should beat them to the punch”
Be warned! The Republicans have beaten the Democrats to the “fiscally responsible” punch, and the “tough on crime” punch, and also the “protecting democracy” punch and many other items.
What good did it do? None.
What harm did it do? A great deal.
Don’t fall for the Republicans (or Democrats) saying they are anti-prohibition (or whatever language they use to capture the cannabis crowd’s vote). It will only be another example of the lengths our morally-bankrupt politicians will go to in order to remain in power.
Well, Dante, there in lies the rub: Are we to NOT support politicians who are pro-legalization? If not, how are we going to make our point in the electoral process? If we don’t vote for prohibitionists, and we don’t vote for the Pol’s who claim to be for legalization because we (rightly) don’t trust them, then where does that leave us? Sitting on the couch eating Cheeto’s and watching re-runs of Baywatch on election night? Not an option, I like to feel like I’m actually a participant, rather than an observer. Find out where candidates stand and vote for them on that basis. And if they fail to deliver like Obama did, write ’em letters and let them know why you are going to run them out of office in the next election. Then vote ’em out. They’re slow, stupid animals, alot like Hamsters, but after the first few get slaughtered, the others eventually catch on and run around the cage shrieking….
Joe Biden enters his gateway from the wrong direction. The earliest (and most authoritative) gateway theory originates in 19th century English literature:
“…if once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing, and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once you begin upon this downward path, you never know where you are to stop. Many a man dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time.“—Thomas De Quincy, taken from “On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts†(1827).
It is the most dangerous drugs on the menu, alcohol and tobacco, which lead to the use of all others, and not the least harmful, unjustly persecuted cannabis plant.
this is from an article in Counterpunch by Fred Gardner
http://www.counterpunch.org/gardner09062008.html
As for the war on Drugs, Zeese says, “Pick a drug law you don’t like from the last 25 years and thank Sen. Joe Biden. He deserves a lot of the credit for the U.S., with 5% of the world’s population, having 25% of the world’s prisoners —-and the racially disproportionate impact of the drug laws.â€
As Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden was responsible for the mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines passed in 1986. “The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 had forced judges to harshly sentence within a narrow range,†Zeese recounts. “So Biden knew in ’86 that mandatory sentences were not needed… But he pushed for and passed mandatory sentencing anyway, because that’s what the narcs and prosecutors wanted. He held hearings at which they got opportunity to testify while opponents of mandatory minimums were kept out.â€
Biden also pushed for much harsher penalties for possession, use, or sale of crack (prevalent in the ghettos) than for powder cocaine (favored by white folks). Zeese notes: “In the past year Biden has said that was a mistake based on lack of information. He said the same thing about the Iraq war approval. In that case, as in many others, he helped ITAL cause END ITSthe lack of information. As Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee he put on phony hearings where only pro-war viewpoints were heard. He would not allow testimony from weapons inspectors, former military officers opposed to the war, or foreign policy academics opposed to the war. He used the hearing to mislead his colleagues and the public.”
Biden was also instrumental in creating the Office of National Office of Drug Control Policy and takes credit for coining the phrase “Drug Czar” to describe its director. He introduced the “Reducing Americans Vulnerability to Ecstasy (RAVE) Act of 2002,†which, Zeese called “an election-year bill, sloppily written and overbroad, based on exaggerated fears.†Zeese says, “Biden also beat the drug-war drum for escalating penalties for methamphetamine. He never sees drug absuse as a medical problem, only a law enforcement problem. His heart is always with the cops and prosecutors.â€
Government says support isnt there for legalization, yet they know demonizing anyone who supports or consumes cannabis IS the reason support isnt higher.
RAVE? Whats next? How bout this, Stopping Lawmakers Unjust Treatment act which would jail any lawmakers that refuses to use common sense or fairness or ignores state laws.
Matthew Meyer, please don’t worry so about reality. You see the fact of the matter is that I’m in a persistent vegetative coma and all this stuff is just my mind amusing itself. There’s really no other rational conclusion to be reached upon hearing that Pat is in favor of re-legalization.
Once you become aware that you’re nothing but a figment of my imagination your life will be much easier.
Duncan, How can Mr. Meyer be a figment of your imagination, when you are just a figment of mine? I don’t remember allowing my imaginings to have imaginings of they’s own..
The weak legislation put forth by this White House that has bent toward favoring the corporate interests has been predictable considering this White House’s failure to take seriously the concerns of those who wish to see cannabis law reform. The “little people” just don’t count.
This White House is Republican (center right) in it’s sympathies anyway. If an actual Republican came forth with positive cannabis law reform support, I would vote for that Republican in a minute, for the first time in my life.
Maybe if the “leadership” could find the integrity to end the Wars, including the War on Cannabis, they wouldn’t be seeking to cut social programs because of their pretense of “concerns about the deficit”.
If CPAC wants to endorse legalization, and the Repubs run on it, I’ll be voting Refiblican too. Just until they reneg on the promise, as I expect they would, then I’ll be back to the same old-same old…kicking myself for ever being so stupid as to give one iota of credibility to a politician’s rhetoric. I have found the most cynical possible interpretation is probably the safest in this country. And this has been borne out most harshly by Obama, who’s lies were so attractive, and his rhetoric so seductive, that I actually dared hope for something more. I hope he loses by a landslide, and I expect he will.
darkcycle wrote:
“I’m already looking for a third party to support, since I’ve lost all faith in democrats. Can’t support the Corporatist, er, Republican party either, so it’s of to some as yet to be determined fringe party for me”
A case of libertarianism having happened to you? I suggest you begin to read over at Radley Balko’s The Agitator, I think you’ll find many of like mind there in the comments section. And, judging from your comments here, I think libertarianism’s self ownership and live and let live philosophy should suit you just fine.
Well then, darkcycle, perhaps you’re in the area of “civil libertarian.” That’s pretty much what I consider myself. The idea is that government has some role in taking care of the weak and less fortunate, and some role in keeping a check on monopolistic corporate practices, but really shouldn’t be spending any of its efforts in our bedrooms or bodies. Civil libertarians accept some of the socialistic-type programs to help the poor, but don’t accept nanny-state-ism on either the left or the right.
Bang on target, Pete.