Libertarian pot
This referendum might just pass: Tax Cannabis 2010, allowing the legalization of cannabis, allowing the selling and purchasing of small quantities (but each county can decide whether to allow sales or not) and taxing it.
I have never smoked pot, unless you count inhaling the smoke from some a certain relative of mine threw into a campfire once. I never plan to smoke or ingest it. You can put me on the ‘social conservative’ end of the spectrum when it comes to personal habits. I don’t smoke tobacco, rarely if ever drink alcohol or coffee even and have never taken non-prescription drugs (ok, so there was that time when I was 16 and drank some Jimson weed tea, which was really stupid). So I don’t have a horse in this race.
Yet on a policy side, I tend towards libertarian on this issue. Marijuana is relatively harmless when compared to two other legal drugs, alcohol and tobacco (though in comparison to eating vegetables, it’s not particularly benign either) and the enforcement of the anti-marijuana laws cause more problems than ever would be caused by legal use. I say, allow individuals to make the choice to use it or now, redirect resources to enforcement of laws against more egregious crimes, and perhaps save and make some revenue.
A SnapShot of Judicial Activism in its Natural Environment
The Washington Post today published a poll showing that a large majority of respondents opposed the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United.
While my own issues with the decision could fill many pages written in an insanely small font, there are some that can be quickly, if not thoroughly addressed:
1. The problems with the Citizens United decision go beyond its immediate probable effects on elections and campaigns. It demonstrates this Court’s willingness to stretch to bring issues before it that the Court itself wants to address, in order to overturn decisions and statutory law that it simply does not agree with.
Obama Was Right: A Response to Hatch and Others
Senator Orrin Hatch published an opinion piece at politico.com on February 3rd.
In it, he makes assertions that have become regular talking points regarding Obama’s State of the Union address and his characterization of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC. Obama was, according to Hatch, “flat wrong.”
Here’s Obama’s statement: “Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections…. I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities.”
In trying to demonstrate that Obama was wrong with his statement, Hatch first mis-characterizes it, implying that Obama was making an assertion about political contributions: “This case had nothing to do with contributions by anyone to political campaigns.”
What the Citizens United case did do was allow corporations to use general treasury funds as they wished in “electioneering communications,” that is, to run ads specifically advocating for or against a particular candidate for national office in the days leading up to an election. That is what Obama was addressing, and he was right. The ruling potentially turns federal elections –and soon state and local elections, because of the ruling’s impact on some state’s laws– into a corporate free-for-all.
