Students for Sensible Drug Policy has been doing a great job getting out to the candidate events in New Hampshire and trying to force the GOP candidates to say something about drug policy (with sometimes bizarre results). This was clearly their easiest one.
- DrugWarRant.com, the longest running single-issue blog devoted to drug policy
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How can a political candidate be “soft on crime” when prohibition is a crime against humanity?
Gary Johnson 2012… he’s a much more centrally positioned on many subjects. Paul is against abortion, social security programs, and the like….He’s a Rethuglian in Sheep’s clothing.
Hysterical rhetoric makes me sick. It doesn’t even matter which side of the table regurgitates it.
Oh, man, I’ve been following that brouhaha in ‘Progressive Land’ about the embarrassment of Ron Paul raising issues that should be the province of the so-called ‘progressives’. It’s getting downright vicious…on the so-called ‘progressive’ side.
I can’t help but laugh. The DrugWar elephant in the living room that been trumpeting, smashing things with its’ trunk and generally been trashing the place, the one that had been ignored by the so-called ‘progressives’ for so long…is slapping them in the face with that trunk, courtesy of this latest dust-up.
Not directly, of course. Not specifically, either…yet. But the very fact that it’s taking a sworn enemy of liberalism to advocate what are essentially liberal positions is downright Kafka-esque.
Where’s that little blond girl Alice when you need her?
The entire Establishment is throw its weight against Paul. The press, eternal cheerleaders for the State, obviously consider him a nightmare that would turn the whole system upside down.
In particular, simply winning the nomination would change politics forever. I’m actually surprised Republicans who want to win support Romney. If you’re not a hard core Republican, why bother voting for Romney? Romney will lose to Obama…but Paul will steal away Obamas voters for sure.
Obama has given his own voters almost nothing of which he promised. Actions speak louder than words, and Obama has failed–nay, betrayed them. His base will vote for Paul. Paul will end the wars, end the drug wars, and halt the river of money flowing to the banks. He’ll also cut a lot of domestic programs, programs I think are financially doomed anyway…so if you’re a liberal, you’re going to have to choose–Obama and no agenda items, or Paul and half the agenda.
OT
A Lansing medical marijuana dispensary owner this morning was acquitted of a misdemeanor charge of offering free marijuana products in exchange for registering to vote.
A six-member jury found Shekina Pena, owner of Your Healthy Choice Clinic, not guilty of influencing voters with money or other valuable consideration, a violation of Michigan election law.
The state attorney general’s office charged Pena, 34, after a posting turned up in July 2011 on the dispensary’s website offering a free half-gram of marijuana or edible marijuana product in exchange for registering to vote.
Thud!
Pete, we share a lot when it comes to policy.
But.
Ron Paul would smash a single (abusive) War on Drugs into fifty versions… all unaccountable to any ultimate law of the land.
Imagine it is 1964. Imagine Ron Paul on civil rights and drug policy. Imagine that the real life 1964 Civil Rights Act never happened.
That’s what Paul is all about. There’d be nothing to stop California from going going full on legalize.
And nothing to stop Mississippi from life imprisonment for suspicion of owning a single plant.
Calling out Ron Paul as a “fresh voice” to “raise awareness” is simply another way to undermine what we want to see – instead we get a full bore racist who would happily turn over all individual rights to local politics.
Imagine Dukes of Hazzard where Boss Hogg can put the good old boys away on life just on his say so. Ron Paul is cool with that. He is ok with local corrupt politics.
Pococurante — Welcome to America.
You see, here in the United States, we have both state laws and federal laws. There’s nothing to stop Mississippi right now from life imprisonment for suspicion of owning a single plant. They can pass that law. They can pass any law that isn’t prohibited to them by the Constitution.
Now at this point, they can’t pass laws outlawing abortion or allowing slavery or most of the other fear-mongering things you worry about. Because the Constitution restricts what the federal government can do in certain areas (and also the states) and the President can’t take those away (although Obama is certainly trying).
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has not accepted drug use as an inalienable right, and so the federal government can outlaw it, AS CAN THE STATES regardless of who is President.
You really should read up on some basic stuff regarding the governmental structure of this country.
You’re worried about individual rights and expect the federal government to protect them for you? Wake up.
Sure, leaving more to the states means more chaos (and probably more people choosing their state based on its laws), but at least it prevents an authoritarian government like we’re seeing now at the federal level.
Indefinite detention, anyone????
I’ll take Boss Hogg over that any day.
One more thing, Pococurante. I would hope that you would be open-minded enough to listen to a good position that is articulated by someone whom you don’t like for other reasons. If not, you’re nothing more than a partisan hack and destructive to political growth and change.
Um Pete. You missed across the board.
I’ve followed your blog for some years now and I forward and share your links on Facebook. I like your work.
Your opinions on what can be done now are clearly wrong or we would have seen them before hand. Like we did up before Tricky Dick.
If you’ve forgotten I can post laws and even pictures of billboards from before the 1970s what it meant to have 50 Jim Crow states all with their own drug laws.
Maybe you are not old enough to remember what that meant, when even well meaning white boys wound up on chain gangs for what is considered today to be minor possession.
You didn’t read carefully, you misunderstand what Ron Paul really is advocating, and you managed to piss off a long time supporter of yours.
Maybe you wish to live by a Ron Paul world. But I suggest you really do not want to live under what the USA really was prior to the 1930s and 40s.
Go read and really analyze what he is saying. He has no problem with destroying lives as long as it is done at the state level.
Pococurante….Huh??? I’m sorry, but you are so far off the mark that I think you better start at the beginning and try again. That’s nonsense.
Please read this post of mine, along with the linked posts at the bottom by Glenn Greenwald.
There is only one candidate for President in the two major parties that is advocating responsible action regarding the drug war, foreign wars, detention, secrecy, foreign policy. There are plenty of things that you might not like about that candidate, and a reasonable person could weigh the pros and cons and decide not to want to support that candidate.
It is unreasonable, however, to shoot the message because of the messenger.
I, personally, would prefer Gary Johnson, but he’s not the one getting the press right now.
darkcycle is a master of understatement.
Ron Paul’s Justice Dept. may not enforce the 1960s Civil Rights Acts. That would mean there would be no federal opposition to things like the state voter ID laws, which the Obama Justice Dept. is opposing by invoking the civil rights laws. But Paul’s shortcomings don’t change the fact that he is the only candidate talking about the drug war, the importance of due process, and a less aggressive foreign policy.
Paul is a southerner, and maybe his views are rooted in the South’s historic grievances. How do you reconcile that with the fact that ending the drug war might help minority communities more than the policies of our black president? Paul is the only candidate talking about this stuff, so even hardcore liberal Yankees shouldn’t get their panties in a twist over him. Anyway, at this point it’s all academic because Romney is going to be the nominee.
Dear Mr, Guither,
This comment isn’t about this post but is more a general idea for you. Could you consider having more bloggers here at the site? I think it would be interesting to have more debate, with multiple poinst of view.
Respectfully
Austin
Good idea. I’ve often thought of it (and had a little on rare occasions), and have offered the to a few who were interested at the time, but then had other commitments. If you know of someone who is interested, let me know.
boy, doesn’t that bring up some interesting guest blogger ideas…
Doubt tho’ that there’ll be many takers. From the Prohib side I mean…
I was hoping Sabet or Fay would start one.
see clay, there is a problem with having those kinds of people blog here… Pete allows comments. And you know the Prohibs suffer tremendous commentaphobia (curable with regular cannabis use). It has something to do with intellectual constipation I believe. It is virtually epidemic among the excrementalists.
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allan, perhaps we could agree to disable the comments under their guest post. That just might do the trick. Little would they know of our plan to denigrate their ideas and gratuitously insult their persons with absolutely atrocious ad hominems in the subsequent and/or preceding thread.
Go ahead, blab it Sabet!
At least Dr.Paul gets some press here,positive or negative.It’s uncanny how the MSM dodges and slides around his very being.I just watched a news report on New Hampshire and the announcer began with:”now if we eliminate Ron Paul’s second place finish”?Ya,Just pretend he doesn’t exist.That’ll really be democracy at work,American style.
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I read that Dr. Paul had to cut short a planned campaign stop in NH because he was mobbed by over 100 reporters who may have had too much coffee. Things change. Even stuff you could never before imagine even in your wildest dreams, e.g. Dr. Paul having to cut short a planned campaign stop in NH because he was mobbed by over 100 reporters or having support in excess of 3%.
They may have mobbed him but their intent was not to treat him favorably, they wanted to take his words out of context and use them to drive people away from thinking he is a good candidate or “electable”. About the only people telling the truth about him in the mainstream media are Jon Stewart, John Stossel, Judge Napolitano, Neil Cavuto and Jim(?) Cafferty, can’t think of any others right now, there may not be any others.
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They couldn’t do any of that and ignore him at the same time. My point is that he’s not being ignored anymore. But I do find it amusing that you know the minds of more than 100 people of whom you were most likely unaware existed before you read my post. I’ve noticed that you very much enjoy presenting baseless speculation as if it were actual fact. That doesn’t do our side any favors.
There’s no such thing as bad press as long as they spell your name right.
Part of the reason why the prohibs have for so long avoided any actual debate with reformers is that to do so is to be seen as granting legitimacy to our position. They’re terrified of that, for to do so is to admit that such legitimacy existed all along, and that their reluctance to debate was intellectual cowardice…which, of course, is precisely what it is.
And with regards to the ONDCP and their false cachet of being ‘authoritative’ on the subject, it’s solely due to having government offices and salaries (not to mention academics willing to pimp themselves for a Gub’mint paycheck, such as Volkow) that have shielded them from the opprobrium that they so richly deserve.
That false cachet would vanish like an ice cube in a blowtorch flame the moment they climbed down out of their taxpayer-provided Ivory Towers and had to mix it up in the trenches with reformers. The moment they were publicly, embarrassingly caught in one of their myriad lies, the taxpayers would begin to realize that what they’d been funding was the American version of the Nazi’s Ahnenerbe, which was full of nut-cases and crack-pots pushing all manner of looney-tunes pseudoscience and outright fraud. Their meal tickets would be immediately threatened, and they know it.
I hope Pete gets a chance to write an article on this. Just look at this disgusting disregard for the health of a person,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9cn0M_AFWg
Ron Paul also addressed this gentleman’s question here…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CHVI8Q-OXQ
Regardless of what side the fence you may reside on(granted on this site, most are on the greener side) sluffing legitimate well-being questions like this tells me all i need to know about a person, or candidate in this case.
It was definitely the perfect way to end the week. Thanks for posting, Pete!