Rand not pro marijuana?wth?

[NorfolkPCSolutions]

Bunch of goddamn hippies all of you.

Slutter McGee

i dont even

wut

[bubbling sound] [cough hack wheeze cough]

 

[devil21]

While marijuana is still illegal, a Senator doesn't want it to happen. Im not a fan of the comment he made and thought it was unnecessary but marijuana production, while illegal, hurts all those that get involved if the laws are used against them. It's not always about "omg think of the children!". The law comes crashing down on the grower in the hemp field and his life is tossed upside down. I can't speak for what Rand meant here but sometimes what politicians don't say is as important as what they do. It's a state issue and Rand may be opposed to use and that's ok too. Im gonna bet Ron is too. So hard to measure anyone up against Ron Paul, even his own kid.

 

[kcchiefs6465]

Nor do you have be 'pro'-marijuana, as suggested by the OP. That is the whole point. But I am sure you know that.

The point is Rand Paul has apparently different visions of Liberty. Not being for people to ingest what they wish is a very statist view. [albeit, a popular statist view] The only way you can enforce that is with a swelling prison industrial complex and with an ever increasing [un]funded war on drugs. Now, I would assume Rand Paul knows this and is against industrialized slave labor, and militarized pigs beating on your door for any 'probable cause' they see fit. (AF recently posted a story of a home ransacked by these thugs after aerial pictures of sunflowers were determined to be marijuana) I would very much like for him to state these things, personally. You want rhetoric that appeals to more people? State decriminalization and our out of control prison population of non-violent drug offenders. State the addiction is a medical ailment and should be treated as such. (a self-inflicted medical ailment, usually, but an ailment all the same) Believe it or not, the people that are against that are dwindling yearly. The young people see the problems with our current system [or can be awoken to see] and are [or could be] by and large against locking up people for non-violent mainly victimless crimes. I don't believe I have to be an asshole and state, 'But I am sure you know this' again, do I?

 

[Southerner]

He's a Senator. Senators represent their constituents. ... Glen opposed it because he didn't feel the government has a role in marriage. However, his vote reflected his constituents. Don't like what Rand is doing then get his base to support legalization.
Politicians aren't elected to "go their own way" after election. They are elected to do what their constituents wish.
...

AMEN, EXACTLY, SPOT ON & THANK YOU!!!

 

[GunnyFreedom]

Um. Ron Paul isn't "pro-marijuana" either, he's "pro-Constitution." It was always a neocon trope to label Ron as "pro-drug" no matter how much of a lie it was. You can be hard-core anti-marijuana and still believe that the Constitution should be obeyed and people have a right of ownership over their own bodies.

I think what we have here is much ado about the same concept described with different dialects of the English Language.

 

[GunnyFreedom]

He's a Senator. Senators represent their constituents. An interesting case study is our own Glen Bradley. In N.C. we had Amendment One to keep gays from marrying. Glen opposed it because he didn't feel the government has a role in marriage. However, his vote reflected his constituents. Don't like what Rand is doing then get his base to support legalization.
Politicians aren't elected to "go their own way" after election. They are elected to do what their constituents wish.
If you are from KY then let him know your views. Every email and phone call counts. It's the only way a politician knows what "the people" want.

I'm officially counted as a "no," actually. I only went so far as to ensure that it landed on the referendum like I promised my constituents I would. Once it had a demonstrable 10 vote margin for passage, I no longer felt like I had to vote for the thing to keep my promise to my constituents that I would make sure it landed on the referendum.

However, my opposition to the Amendment is why I am not in the GA today. When people voted for the guy who won the primary, he was lying to them. They actually thought they were nominating a Bradley clone who also loves the marriage amendment. Turns out he is literally NOTHING like me in any way of course lol. A LOT of voter's regrets have already came up to me to tell me this stuff exactly.

"If I had only known.... he said he was just like you in EVERYTHING but unlike you he opposes gay marriage!" (another lie, of course, I don't support gay marriage, I support getting government out of marriage altogether.)

It is my experience that the electorate prefers a liar over a truthteller every single time.

Not gonna stop me from telling the truth, but I'm a LOT more cynical here than I used to be. Seeing the back end of a sick elephant spew all that feces everywhere has had an effect.

 

[kcchiefs6465]

Um. Ron Paul isn't "pro-marijuana" either, he's "pro-Constitution." It was always a neocon trope to label Ron as "pro-drug" no matter how much of a lie it was. You can be hard-core anti-marijuana and still believe that the Constitution should be obeyed and people have a right of ownership over their own bodies.

I think what we have here is much ado about the same concept described with different dialects of the English Language.

Must spread some reputation around.

 

[Occam's Banana]

The point is Rand Paul has apparently different visions of Liberty. Not being for people to ingest what they wish is a very statist view. [albeit, a popular statist view] The only way you can enforce that is with a swelling prison industrial complex and with an ever increasing [un]funded war on drugs. Now, I would assume Rand Paul knows this and is against industrialized slave labor, and militarized pigs beating on your door for any 'probable cause' they see fit. (AF recently posted a story of a home ransacked by these thugs after aerial pictures of sunflowers were determined to be marijuana) I would very much like for him to state these things, personally. You want rhetoric that appeals to more people? State decriminalization and our out of control prison population of non-violent drug offenders. State the addiction is a medical ailment and should be treated as such. (a self-inflicted medical ailment, usually, but an ailment all the same) Believe it or not, the people that are against that are dwindling yearly. The young people see the problems with our current system [or can be awoken to see] and are [or could be] by and large against locking up people for non-violent mainly victimless crimes.

Oh, Jesus H. Christ on a hopped-up Harley with a Satan in a sidecar!

The man said "If I thought this was going to allow marijuana to take off in our state I wouldn't be for it" and "we don't want that to happen".

He was testifying at a hearing on the legalization of hemp in Kentucky. NOT marijuana. Hemp. His remarks were an attempt to dismiss the baseless concerns of those critics who want to spread wild-eyed nonsense about how legalizing hemp will somehow result in the state being overrun with marijuana traffic. How the hell anyone gets from that to the notion that Rand is somehow tacitly supportive of the WoD-fueled Prison-Industrial Complex is utterly beyond me. Why the hell should he be expected to stump on behalf of marijuana legalization under such circumstances (and thereby play right into the hands of the opponents of hemp legalization)? Why? Just for the sake of scoring some Libertarian Macho Flash points? Replace the word "marijuana" with "prostitution" in what Rand said and the reason for the absurdity of the criticisms being directed at him in this instance becomes even more abundantly clear than it already is.

Get it through. Rand was not trying to educate people on the evils of marijuana criminalization. He was trying to convince people of the virtues of hemp legalization.

I swear, I don't know which group is more unhinged: the Rand defenders who run around excusing him for every position he takes and every word he utters on the basis that Rand is some sort of "super-secret infiltrator who is just using lies and pandering as a tactic in order to trick his way into the White House, where he'll suddenly throw off his stealth cloak and reveal his true identity as a hard-core-Ron-Paul style truth-bomber" - or the Rand critics who run around parsing molehills into mountains because Rand doesn't sieze every opportunity to hop on one or another of the Liberty Movement's favorite hobby-horses and ride it into the ground (no matter how tangential it is to the matter actually at hand - which in this case is HEMP legalization).

I don't believe I have to be an asshole and state, 'But I am sure you knowthis' again, do I?

Apparently, you do.

 

[Feeding the Abscess]

Um. Ron Paul isn't "pro-marijuana" either, he's "pro-Constitution." It was always a neocon trope to label Ron as "pro-drug" no matter how much of a lie it was. You can be hard-core anti-marijuana and still believe that the Constitution should be obeyed and people have a right of ownership over their own bodies.

I think what we have here is much ado about the same concept described with different dialects of the English Language.

Ron used moral and medical arguments for marijuana more frequently than legal and constitutional arguments. He also has stated numerous times that it's safer than alcohol. And he drinks alcohol. It's pretty safe to say he's pro-marijuana.

 

[GunnyFreedom]

Ron used moral and medical arguments for marijuana more frequently than legal and constitutional arguments. He also has stated numerous times that it's safer than alcohol. And he drinks alcohol. It's pretty safe to say he's pro-marijuana.

Yes, by all means, despite the several hundreds of times Ron Paul has insisted that he is against recreational drug use of any kind, including marijuana use, we should absolutely stick to what we wish he thought instead of what he actually says he thinks. Since our own preferences for what we want Ron Paul to think are obviously so much more accurate than what he, himself, says.

Good lord. What Occam's Banana said times a million. The entire liberty movement seems to be losing their minds.

 

[Southerner]

"You can be hard-core anti-marijuana and still believe that the Constitution should be obeyed and people have a right of ownership over their own bodies."

You and I can believe that, but the VAST majority of older and "establishment AND moderate" GOP voters do not, will not, ever. THEY TALK the "constitutional talk", but walking it is something very different indeed. Might even find millions of them willing to not give EGYPT 3.5 billion$ of military hardware every year, but when you also talk about stopping that aid to ISRAEL, they go ballistic. nutso. whacko.

 

[GunnyFreedom]

"You can be hard-core anti-marijuana and still believe that the Constitution should be obeyed and people have a right of ownership over their own bodies."

You and I can believe that, but the VAST majority of older and "establishment AND moderate" GOP voters do not, will not, ever. THEY TALK the "constitutional talk", but walking it is something very different indeed. Might even find millions of them willing to not give EGYPT 3.5 billion$ of military hardware every year, but when you also talk about stopping that aid to ISRAEL, they go ballistic. nutso. whacko.

Well, we've won about 60% of NC Tea over to eliminating Washington DC from any and all drug policy, and as you may know, the Tea people are more difficult to move on this point than establishment.

But then we've specifically stayed engaged with NC Tea since 2009. A LOT of the stuff where Liberty and TEA disagree, we've reconciled here in NC, and agreed to "the Constitution or bust" in order to form a coalition larger than the establishment.

I even sent a mass email discussion where I spoke about WHY coming together around the Constitution works for this type of coalition, because it worries us ALL equally. See, for the social conservative, it's a bit nerve-racking knowing that Washington DC isn't allowed to set drug policy, while for the Libertarian, it's not a repeal of prohibition because the State WILL be setting drug policy. Both parties compromise around a common goal - government that obeys the Constitution, the WHOLE Constitution, even the parts that make us nervous.

And I had social conservative Tea people cheering THAT because we were able to find and build a Liber-TEA coalition that will overwhelm the establishment.

By making the rallying point "strict construction of the US and NC State Constitutions" full stop, it has compelled even the wacky Tea people to climb on board because they know innately that to oppose that is hypocrisy.

I still SMH when I see all the angst between liberty and Tea around the US. We just don't have that in NC. If more people had listened back in 2009-2012-2011 when I was screaming 'stay engaged with the Tea people' we'd probably have such a coalition NATIONWIDE today.

Still, if you start NOW, we we WILL have such a coalition by 2016 no sweat.

You just have to ask yourself, do you want a Constitutional Conservative President (like Rand Paul) badly enough to suffer through engaging with your local Tea Parties?

We can win this. if you want it.

 

[GunnyFreedom]

And here is a bit of a rant, but you want to know what REALLY burns my shorts?

OK, so we work for four years and manage to build a REAL and effective electoral coalition with social conservative Tea Parties without compromising on basic principle. I'm all happy and giddy that we've been able to pull off some kind of miracle bringing libertarians and social conservatives into a coalition around the common principle of restoring the Constitutional order.

So then I come back home to my Paul people.....

and we are all at each other's throats over bullshit.

straight up superficial bullshit.

It's time for a f'n gut check.

We still have time to make an enormous difference, and a big part of that difference is the 2014 primaries.

Then the December 2014 / January 2015 dollar collapse.

And then the 2016 Primaries.

It's all good though. If you want Rick Santorum as dictator of America - keep it up!

Or we can take Ben Franklin's advice and Join or Die.

When I see NOOT lovers and SANTORUM lovers displaying more tolerance acceptance and unity than Paulers -- friends let me tell you, it drives me to weep.

 

[juleswin]

Drugs are a freedom of religion issue not a states rights issue.

Rastafarians are being discriminated against by anyone who wants to leave it to the states - which is just a smaller version of the federal govt. But this is very low on my priority list to be worked up over it.

But now if I hear that Rand supports the federal war on drug, then I will be bring out my pitch fork and will be coming for Rand

 

[Brett85]

Rastafarians are being discriminated against by anyone who wants to leave it to the states - which is just a smaller version of the federal govt. But this is very low on my priority list to be worked up over it.

But now if I hear that Rand supports the federal war on drug, then I will be bring out my pitch fork and will be coming for Rand

I don't think Rand even supports the state war on drugs. He made statements before he ever ran for the Senate where he said that there shouldn't be "non violent crimes." He's willing to bend his views in order to get elected and to make himself look more "reasonable," and a lot of people don't like that. But going by his statements before he ever ran for political office, I think that Rand secretly has extremely libertarian positions on these kinds of issues.