Wednesday Open Thread [3.6.13]
“Each week brings a new diagnosis of the party’s woes. Karl Rove says it’s candidate quality. Mitt Romney chief strategist Stuart Stevens argues Democrats have won over minority voters through government programs like Obamacare. Some Bush White House vets say it’s the GOP’s trouble understanding how to approach a changing electorate. Techy conservatives blame the party’s inferior social media presence and outdated voter targeting and data-mining. […] With fault to go around for allowing a president mired in a weak economy to handily win reelection, the finger-pointing and blame-shifting from various corners are showing no sign of abating.”
And that has Booman getting a little impatient with the ongoing circular blame game:
If [the GOP] wants to solve their problems, they need to ask actual scientists. Thinking that the party of “Saddam has weapons of mass destruction,” “climate change is a hoax,” “evolution is a myth,” and “Romney is headed for victory” is going to be capable of correctly identifying even the cereal in their breakfast bowl is a recipe for failure. More seriously, all the interested groups will fight to make sure blame is assigned somewhere else. That’s why they need an independent group to take a look at it.
Marc Ambinder agrees with Jason that Jeb Bush will never be President (even though his moves this week clearly show that he is running):
“Bush is an ideal Republican presidential candidate. He has a national stature, an enviable record as governor, a solid temperament, and nothing significantly scandalous in his past. He is one of his party’s best voices on immigration. But he is a Bush. That’s going to be a problem. It’s not going to be an insurmountable problem, but the Republican base is definitely wary of the Bush brand and will not embrace him, no matter how hard he tacks to the right.”
It’s not the base that is weary of the Bush name. In fact, the GOP teabagging base loves them some George W. Bush. I am sure you have seen the billboards and the Facebook post with the Chimperor smiling and waving saying “Miss Me Yet?” The base loves Bush. What the base does not love is anyone that disagrees with them. And with Jeb Bush being a successful moderate Governor, that necessarily meant that he disagreed with the base over issues. Exhibit A was Immigration Reform, where until Monday, Bush was for a Path to Citizenship. Now he is not, all to appease the base, whose votes he needs in 2015 and 2016. It is the GOP Conundrum. Any candidate they have that is potentially a viable and attractive general election candidate cannot win the GOP nomination without abandoning that which made them a viable and attractive general election candidate.
Elizabeth Drew: “As the Republicans search for a new and more electable identity they have a fundamental problem. Ever since they took their major right turn in 1964, they have made a series of bargains in order to strengthen their ranks: the Southern strategy, which validated racism; the Christian right; the Sagebrush Rebellion, which represented big ranching and farming interests as well as the mining industry; and the Club for Growth, a highly conservative anti-tax, anti-spending group that can pour money into primaries to knock off incumbents who don’t vote according to their views. However successful momentarily, this series of deals ultimately cost the Republicans broad national appeal and flexibility.”
Tonight’s Progressive Dems meeting is cancelled due to the forecast.
It is ironic (and more than a bit sad) that in terms of electoral success, the Republicans are in terrible shape, but in terms of policies enacted – they are running the show.
If they could get President Obama to appoint Pat Buchanan to the Supreme Court, there would never be a need for a Republican to even run for President.
You’ve heard the radio ads, now we know: Cancer Treatment Centers of America are the charter schools of the medical industry:
A very apt analogy.
Their owner, Richard Stephenson, is one of the deep-pocketed teajadis behind Freedom Works.
I gotta say, I’m pretty ashamed of UD… and more specifically, The Review for deciding the Miss teen Delaware porn crap was worth putting on the front page. It’s basically an ad for the site and the movie. You’d think this was the first sex tape anyone has ever been in.
Somebody should tell folks in Dover to Stop sending marijuana to themselves via snail mail.
cassandra I think somebody should tell the folks in Dover, more specifically Legislative Hall, that it’s time to adopt the Colorado and Washington State view on marijuana use, decriminalize it, and stop making the United States of America one nation, under arrest.
Decriminalize it, tax it, clean it up.
a step further…. nationalize it.
I’m for that, anon. And maybe the USPS could create a special tariff for shipping the stuff which would help their financial situation.
click, spliff, ship!
Well, a big dope growing industry might use up some of the polluting chicken poop we’re now dealing with. Puts too much money into warm, and mostly red, states, though.
Yeah, just what we need … giving official sanction to a bunch of potheads. No, thanks. Send that shit somewhere else and lock up the imbeciles who are dumb enough to use it. Delaware doesn’t need that.
The desire to fill one’s body with consciousness-altering substances – whether alcohol or drugs – never fails to amaze me. What’s with the fixation on losing control of one’s faculties?
yeah! like all those junkies on Xanax, or Oxycodon, or lithium, or Prozac, or celebrex, or Adderal, or …………
The desire of some folks to control the body of other folks with the threat of jail- never fails to amaze me.
The problem with people like SW is that they want to treat a medical problem, as a criminal justice program.
Ahh, a pro-freedom libertarian purist! You loveable dipshits. Go ahead and shoot some heroin, then. Or give cocaine to your kids. That’s cool, right, man?
Just as there is a compelling societal interest in deterring people from inserting knives and bullets into other people’s bodies, there is a compelling societal interest in deterring ignoramuses like yourself from putting harmful substances in your own body.
And what exactly is the “medical problem” that would be solved by legalization? The fact that you don’t feel properly groovy until you’ve had your joint?
Medical pot supervised by a doctor I have no problem with. But that’s not what the jackhole above was talking about.
Speaking of ignoramuses I don’t recall advocating the use of drugs or alcohol. There is a compelling social intreats in banning much behavior. We could eliminate sugary drinks, television watching, etc. If I am a productive member of society, leave me alone.
“don’t feel groovy without a joint” I did not know this was 1968.
I was so hoping someone would answer Sussex Watcher so I wouldn’t have to….The answer popping into almost everyone’s mind to your question….“What’s with the fixation on losing control of one’s faculties?”
…is that when you are young, you get more and better sex….
there is a compelling societal interest in deterring ignoramuses like yourself from putting harmful substances in your own body.
The problem here is that the list of “harmful substances in your own body” can be pretty big. So where do you stop? Beef? Butter? Eggs? Foie Gras? Bacon?
The other problem is that this ignores that what is harmful for you, may not be for me. Who gets to decide “harmful”?
At the end of the day, the thing that people are discussing here is legalization of marijuana. Which doesn’t have much harm to most people who use in moderation. You were the one who went all reefer madness up in here and that kind of bullshit trying to scare the hell out of everybody is what got us this stupid war on drugs in the first place.
Oh, please.
If you can do the slippery slope thing, then it’s valid for me to ask whither heroin and cocaine and meth.
I think kavips has it right. Y’all want to get stoned and screw.
For real, though, what’s the attraction to pot?
We’re not doing a slippery slope thing. You are. We are talking about the legalization of pot only.
kavips is rarely right, but we’re still on you trying to pin your slippery slope argument on us.
I am also talking about the legalization of pot. The slope is part and parcel of that, whether you think it’s valid or not.
You used a slippery slope argument just a few posts ago! Are you that forgetful? “The problem here is that the list of “harmful substances in your own body” can be pretty big. So where do you stop? Beef? Butter? Eggs? Foie Gras? Bacon?” That is a slippery slope argument exactly.
I’ll ask again. What’s the attraction of smoking pot? I am honestly curious about the answer, about what would make normally intelligent individuals take up the legalization banner with such passion.
This is you before I challenged your slippery slope argument:
The desire to fill one’s body with consciousness-altering substances – whether alcohol or drugs – never fails to amaze me.
Alcohol is legal, and we aren’t talking about drugs. Just marijuana.
More slippery slope:
Go ahead and shoot some heroin, then. Or give cocaine to your kids. That’s cool, right, man?
And there’s the slipperiest slope of all:
there is a compelling societal interest in deterring ignoramuses like yourself from putting harmful substances in your own body.
Moderate marijuana use isn’t much different than moderate alcohol consumption. Yet there is a massive amount of law enforcement and other monitoring infrastructure arrayed supposedly to curb this. Stop spending money on this bullshit and spend it on something more useful.
Ya know how people without vaginas have no place regulating vaginas? You dont seem to know much about marijuana other than the info available in Reefer Madness.
I’ll tell you this about THE DEVIL WEED…. it aint Heroin… or any of the currently legal forms of Heroin. It’s not meth… or any of the legal forms of Meth. You wanna have a talk about all the hard core, highly-addictive drugs that we pump into our kids on a doctor’s orders, I’m right there with ya.
If you’re morally opposed to any intoxicants, I cant fault you for that. Nothin wrong with Straight Edge. It’s just another chosen form of lifestyle. But it is a chosen lifestyle.
Alcohol is legal yet marijuana is safer than alcohol… When people drink too much alcohol, they run stop signs. When they smoke too much grass, they still, even then, wait for them to turn green.
SB: Right, so I have to go get high before I can pass judgment on pot? Does a judge have to be raped before he can sentence a rapist to prison? Does a teacher have to fail a class before she can flunk a student? You’re a damn moron, son.
Cassandra, you need to seriously read this thread again. My POINT is that it’s a slippery slope. That is a large part of my argument. It is therefore instructive that you want to limit this conversation only to pot and refuse to consider the broader implications. You don’t get to define the debate unless you just want an echo chamber.
You also bash my slope argument while making one of your own with regard to other bad-for-you products. Hypocrisy, thy name is Cass.
I’m not straight edge anything. But when you make choices to put stuff in your body that put me and mine in danger – including booze – I will stand up and knock you the hell down. None of the drugs we have made illegal are harmless.
Now go eat your Doritos like good little potheads and stop trying to pretend you’re about fighting for freedom. You just want your next fix or a good shag.
ETA: Kavips, if I were alive back in the day, I’d probably have been a Prohibitionist. I have seen alcohol wreck my family. But that’s not a fight anyone can win nowadays.
I’m still waiting for a pot user to explain what’s so great about it, btw.
Nobody has to explain what’s so great about it. That’s ridiculous.
You’re coming at this as an abuser’s family member, and I feel for you, but we don’t legislate that way. If so… will you call to ban gambling and sex. Believe it or not, there are many people who drink who aren’t alcoholics. I’m very sorry for your personal experience.
Really? You want to legalize this addictive, mind-altering drug without explaining what’s so great about it?
C’mon. A little intellectual honesty here. Otherwise you all just sound stupid.
Y’know, at least Will McVay had the cojones to stand up for what he believed. He proudly used it!
And … Ohhh … Yeah. He ran his car off the road while under the influence.
Perfectly safe, this stuff is.
I’ve been in these discussions before and they’re a waste of time – if you drink and don’t admit you’re an alcoholic then you’re in denial. Again, I’m sorry for your personal experiences, and that’s all this really is about.
Yeah, you guys can’t debate worth shit. There are a hell of a lot of people who agree with me, and many are the cops, social workers and counselors on the front lines of this. You’re going to lose this one.
Still waiting to learn why you love your pot!!!!! Is it really so embarrassing to admit?
That is a large part of my argument. It is therefore instructive that you want to limit this conversation only to pot and refuse to consider the broader implications. You don’t get to define the debate unless you just want an echo chamber.
So you are using a slippery slope argument. This would be alot easier if you could manage some basic honesty. Since anon above started the pot decriminalization topic, it is pretty fair to expect that is what is on topic. Right? And there is a pretty big conversation in this country around legalizing pot — not so much the other stuff. So that would make those of us discussing decriminalizing or legalizing pot part of a larger ongoing conversation, while you who are trying to do what the reefer madness folks have been doing since forever are apparently in the echo chamber.
Alcohol is quite legal and more people have driven off of the road under its influence than under the influence of pot. Most folks who are interested in pot legalization make the argument I made above. The one you keep ignoring. And if you aren’t abusing the stuff or overestimating your skills while on the stuff, it is about as safe as alcohol.
“Really? You want to legalize this addictive, mind-altering drug…”
SW-Pot, unlike nicotine, opiates, and alcohol, is not physically addictive. Get your facts straight. Otherwise you just sound stupid.
I happened to be teaching about Prohibition, today. Apparently, before Prohibition was enacted, Americans were drinking the equivalent of 1.7 bottles of hard liquor a week, three times the current amount. I totally get why that might have been considered a problem.
I never said I wasn’t using a slippery slope argument. Fuck’s sake, you’re dumb. And I’m the one making this pot debate part of a larger conversation about broader issues. You’re the coward who wants to censor other points of view by telling them they’re off topic.
Roland: First page of Google nets these links, which say indeed it is.
http://m.usatoday.com/article/news/1751011
http://m.psychologytoday.com/blog/our-empathic-nature/201205/marijuana-addiction-today
According to SW, google info is erroneous and no good. Except when he/she uses it to prove his/her point.
Also, the usa today article cites exactly zero studies.
Also, please read what I wrote, then go read the articles you linked.
It’s not PHYSICALLY addictive.
Now go get your fucking shine box, Tommy.
SW, if you can’t keep up with the argument, you should just walk away and stop doubling down. You’re the one who looks dumb here. This is what you started with:
If you can do the slippery slope thing, then it’s valid for me to ask whither heroin and cocaine and meth.
And now you finally acknowledged my point — you’re the one with the slippery slope argument, not me. This is your stupidity on parade here.
If we’re all talking about decriminalizing marijuana and you come screaming in with SLIPPERY SLOPE!!! DRUG R BAD FOR YOU!!! BS, who, exactly, is not in this conversation? Seriously. Plus you ignore an answer to your question, while you keep waiting for a much more lurid answer apparently.
SW… I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I understand the Prohibitionist.
But there are so many layers to this argument. One, as I alluded to above, the effects are mild with pot, and perhaps even healthful. (although the data base is seriously small). Even if we completely disregard that fact, the idea that people who believe in Prohibition-ism can decree on those who wish to drink or smoke, means they are inscribing their moral values upon others.
As with prohibition in the 20’s when you make a necessary item illegal, a great criminal element rises up to fulfill that need. We complain about Wilmington’s shooting, but they are nothing compared to the gunfights of Al Capone’s Chicago…
I can’t speak for others, but decriminalizing marijuana and returning it to the legal marketplace is seen as a return to sanity. I like to use the analogy that if Walmart sold Marijuana, and it wasn’t that hard to get, the criminal element would no longer have the cash to keep afloat. They could not compete. Its investors would move on. Furthermore, we could tax it. We’d end the search and destroy missions into our National Forests, and since we could grow it domestically, the Mexican cartels would have to find something else. And most importantly, we could control its use by regulating it, now that it was legal.
Again your mention of Prohibition brought up the stories told by my old aunts. Things were bad after the First World War. Prohibition looked like a good idea for that time. That is why it was passed. ( We forget that looking backwards, that amendments take a lot of work to get passed.)… And with its repeal, a great many doomddayers were crying it would ruin the country, that people could not stop themselves from drinking….
However, they could. One drink, did not necessarily mean you were too drunk the next morning. It possibly meant the alternative, that you got to bed early and woke up refreshed and ready for a productive day. But basically, America realized that life and everything else went on as it had been, and there were no guns blazing on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago anymore…..
I know it doesn’t answer your question as to what the effects of marijuana are and why it would be nice for it no longer to be illegal, but… to be perfectly honest here, that is almost an impossible task to describe to someone who has Prohibitionist tendencies…
Fortunately quite a few people try these recreational drugs and can turn them on, and when needed turn them off. They do it with alcohol, and since Grass is milder, it probably means their would be even less loss of national productivity if it begin to bite into the alcohol market.
Personally I like the idea of it being legal, primarily so we can begin to control it, and control it well. If someone does have an apparant problem with addiction, by having everything above the legal level, I feel it is much easier to get them help…
And one more note. With the repeal of Prohibition, alcohol consumption didn’t rise spectacularly. It primarily stayed the same. All that happened was that what was being consumed illegally, could now be consumed legally…
Americans were drinking the equivalent of 1.7 bottles of hard liquor a week, three times the current amount
But now we make it up in beer.
Going back to the topic of the first comment, at 9:00 I’m calling it for John Bolaris.
The snow Gods have forsaken us.
Marijuana is a simple plant that grows out of the ground and the only processing it requires is drying it out. The only reason it can be a “slippery slope” or a “gateway drug” is because you have to buy it from a drug dealer, who will ultimately try to sell you other drugs. If people were able to buy it like liquor, that “slippery slope” argument goes away.
Taking something as benign as marijuana and turning people into criminals for smoking it is beyond the ridiculous.
I don’t think I would want my pilot or surgeon smoking it.
I wouldn’t want my pilot or surgeon doing anything intoxicating on the job. If they drink on their own time, in moderate amounts, that’s their business.
A few things you said…
“I’m not straight edge anything. But when you make choices to put stuff in your body that put me and mine in danger – including booze – I will stand up and knock you the hell down. None of the drugs we have made illegal are harmless.”
I assume either you don’t know what sXe is, or you drink… which makes your argument against pot hypocritical. Or are you the only person on Earth who drinks responsibly? You also are only bashing illegal drugs with no mention of the dangerous pharmaceuticals that ARE legal and are MUCH more harmful than THC. again, if you are also against Prozac and Ritalin and all those extremely mind-altering substances, I won’t dispute your argument. Just realize, THOSE drugs are far more addictive than weed and much more mind altering. We have legal “anti depressants” that list “suicidal thoughts” as a major side effect…. and you’re getting your back up about a plant that makes you hungry? Priorities, dude.
your next point.
“Now go eat your Doritos like good little potheads and stop trying to pretend you’re about fighting for freedom. You just want your next fix or a good shag.”
You sound like John Lithgow from footloose. Get out of 1950’s Kansas. Understand that all that outburst did was make me laugh at you…. and I’m guessing I’m not the only one here who had that reaction…. literally, I heard it in a sophisticated southern drawl complete with an “i say, i say” right before it.
Finally, a) I’m not your son, son. b) When I made my point about you obviously having never smoked, therefore having no place telling people how you assume they act while high, I realized comparing you to a Republican was very hyperbolic, but you slipped right down your slope to POT=RAPE or something. (as expected)
Based on your sour attitude, I don’t think anyone here should tell you what it’s like to smoke pot. You’ve already decided it’s horrible and people who do it are horrible…. why should such a square (hey look! I used a pot head word) be allowed to know “what’s happening” ( I USED ANOTHER!!!!!!!! LOCK ME UP!)
Yup, you got me. Bingo, dead-on.
Cassandra can’t read, you can’t write a coherent sentence, and Roland is Roland. Ladies and gentlemen, the effects of pot.
Go burn out your own brain cells, but don’t expect me to stand by and accept what you want to do to my state. The cops ought to be throwing your dumb asses in jail.
Studies show that the first gateway drug is tobacco usually followed by alcohol. Both are legal. Right on anon
Sorry SW but your personal issues do not equate to good public policy. The War on Drugs is a gross failure.
The war on drugs may be a gross failure, but that doesn’t mean smoking or legalizing marijuana is a good idea. Long term effects are still largely undocumented, but the studies that do exist seem to suggest more bad effects than good. I still wouldn’t want my surgeon, pilot, or employees smoking the stuff with any regularity whether on the job or not.
Also, I have read a study that shows physical withdrawal symptoms are predictable and repeatable especially with the higher levels of THC bred into varieties available today, which may be why “cannabis withdrawal” will be included in the DSM-5.