So, what do Lee and the Rev. Pat Robertson have in common? They both oppose the criminalization of marijuana:
“I’m not exactly for the use of drugs, don’t get me wrong, but I just believe that criminalizing marijuana, criminalizing the possession of a few ounces of pot, that kinda thing it’s just, it’s costing us a fortune and it’s ruining young people. Young people go into prisons, they go in as youths and come out as hardened criminals. That’s not a good thing.”
I don’t know if Robertson’s support helps or hurts the cause with rational people, but rational people aren’t generally writing these laws, so I’d call this development a net plus.
I was just coming here with the link. I’m going to stay indoors for a while to avoid the flying pigs…
Pat Robertson making sense: Whoda’ thunk!?
Yikes! I agree with Crazy Uncle Pat.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day?
It seems that just when the GOP was winding down their victory celebration, the wheels have started comming off their bus. A party which had commanded incredible discipline among it’s members with strict party-line votes keeping Democratic bills from even coming up for a vote suddenly found significant defections on DADT and the Start Treaty.
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC Insane Asylum) seems determined to make returning incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski (“Independent write-in”- Alaska) a mortal enemy, by funding Joe Miller’s continued efforts to cancel out Murkowski’s electoral win and clear voter intent. I’m thinking that there must be some sort of devel’s pact between Palin and DeMint. It’s going to be VERY interesting when DeMint has to ask Murkowski for support on a bill sometime over the next few years. I’m thinking Murkowski is going to be as frustrating for the Republicans as Leiberman has been for the Democrats. But if there is any state which deserves an “Independent” in Congress, it’s Alaska.
And now Pat Robertson is in favor of legalizing pot!!!! But knowing Pat Robertson, he’s probably just reacting to what someone told him at a dinner party the night before, arguing that his rich-kid offspring really shouldn’t be going to jail for selling pot. After all, it’s not like he’s a black pusher from the ghetto, right?
Robertson probably noticed that all the old people he preys oops I meant relies on for handouts are dying off and that younger people that he now needs to prey on are OK with people smoking pot.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
With this statement, Goldy is actually calling Obama his enemy.
Interesting.
@4
I think you are onto something.
I agree with Goldy, Obama is the enemy.
Pat huhn?
That should say something to Goldy and any other progressive about knee jerk decisions on political stands.
A fusion of interest of marijuana and Christian evangelicals, however scares me. We already read endless, sobbing posts about medical marijuana “patents” being tortured by doctors and cops. Those posts remind me all too much of O’Reilly’s claims that the poor American Christian is being persecuted by the government.
As a Jew, Pat and his ilk REALLY scare me, not just because of their nutty beliefs but because many Jews tolerate those beliefs in return for the Chrstian’s support for Israel as “our” holyland.
Before Mandela, Israel did the same thing, allying itself with Apartheid, and the uranium used for Israel’s bombs is likley the result of that alliance.
Frankly, I support legalization simply because the stuff is pretty harmless, perhaps totally so if it is not smoked. If chocolate or coffee had to met the safety standard of pot, the Dilletante and Starbucks could only serve me with a prescription form my doctor. Lee, and the Prophet Goldstein, are right about that one.
Like Pat, the fervent marijuana evangelicals, believe in miracles. They have successfully passed legislation, over the heads of the NIH and FDA, mandating use of marijuana to treat specific diseases. No other drug or scientific fact that I know of has a similar legislative stamp of reality. That should be the job of science.
For Pat and the radical religious right, however, scientific reality is secondary to their beliefs. Global warming is debatable, evolution is flawed, Jesus was born of a virgin but Krishna is a mythical blue man, the founding fathers were believers, God and Sperm touch Egg and a soul is born, …. In some countries, such facts are still legislated into truth.
So how should any rational person react to Pat on pot?
In a Montana case, the prosecutor exhausted the jury pool trying to find a jury that would convict some poor schmuck for possession of a couple of buds of pot. None of the prospective jurors said they would convict the guy.
The judge let the guy go after some minor fine or something like that.
The tide is changing if a Republican state like Montana and Pat Robertson are changing their minds about marijuana. Legalization is inevitable.
Pat’s opinions should be a topic for Pat’s dinner table, and that’s about it. He’s not a misguided crackpot, he’s a vile, power-hungry charlatan who made his name and bucks selling fear to the rubes. I personally don’t give a flying fuck what Pat thinks, and the sooner he is ushered off the public stage, the better, regardless of his opinions on pot. Moreover, as someone above noted, he got to this opinion only through an analysis driven by narrow self-interest – he’s never been any other way.
Not unlike Lieberman taking the lead on the second DADT – this is naked political self-interest, aimed at courting an otherwise alienated potential constituency.
I’m personally nauseated about the prospect of him running as a Democrat in 2012 and being taken seriously. Apparently he’s meeting with Patty Murray to discuss DSCC support.
BLECCCCHHH!!
LS
I would feel LOTS better about this if fanatics were not involved and willing to create bizarro laws, like the medical marijuana law, to attain their ends.
Can you imagine any similar effort by Pfizer to legalize sale of an impure plant materiel, lacking in clinical data as a prescription drug?
What is to prevent a similar effort to legislate homeopathic “drugs” as “medicine.” How do you feel about Medicare paying for pot or for the services of faith healers??
How about prayer in the schools? Should that be made legal since we “know” prayer prevent chidhood leukemia? m
The support from Robertson, I am afraid, is evidence that marijuana may well do us all great harm, not because it is dangerous but because its fans, like Pat are nuts!
I say legalize pot or illegalize chocolate!
He probably ignores the fact that the possession of a few ounces can easily turn into an addiction which can be very difficult to beat in advanced stages.
Crazy old Pat is in a diverse pool of people from various beliefs and interests who will continue to disagree except on this: it’s a plant. I’ll finish Pat’s thought. If we legalize, we drown the cartel baby in the bathtub. DEA. Gone. Why do we continue to allow a police agency to dictate medical use? Addressing the ruination of youth, what remains of Pat’s humanity is correct on this point: mandatory sentencing for a plant is ludicrous and destroys our human-capitol, i.e. souls.
The war is over. If you favor increasing DEA budgets, drug task force funding, and prosecutions (all in the name of terror, yeah, right), you’re on the wrong side of history.
The Reagan model of making money off drug prosecutions is dead. The new income stream lies in legalization. We needs roads and start-ups, not more SWAT teams invading the wrong houses, killing grannies and kids.
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