A Republican Who Likes Obama

I'm an elected Republican and I'm happy with Barack Obama ... sort of.

Of course I'm unhappy with him monkeying around with the economy, but he's not doing any worse than Bush on that stuff.

Here's why I'm happy:

1. Obama stepped up to the plate on medical marijuana. Under Bush (and Clinton), the feds would arrest people involved with medical marijuana even where it was legal under the laws of those states. For those who think Republicans are supposed to hate marijuana, that's missing the important principle. Republicans believe (or used to believe) in federalism and states' rights. If a state wants to allow medical marijuana, the feds should respect that. Obama does.

2. Obama is pushing to end the crack/powder disparity. Long ago the feds made the same stiff penalties apply to 5 grams of crack cocaine and 500 grams of powder cocaine. Many felt this was unfair since the drugs are essentially the same and since crack is used more heavily by poor blacks vs. wealthy whites using powder. Of course Obama should go farther, but he's done more than Clinton did on it.

3. Obama is right on the torture issue. I've been sickened by reading how some of our nation's top officials justify torturing people because 9/11 changed things. Baloney. Torture is wrong. We're better than that. I'm waiting to hear Bush answer the question: Who would Jesus torture?
Same on this point for Gitmo. Time to close it down.

4. Obama is right on opening up dialogue with other countries. Yes, I do think governments in places like Iran, Cuba and Venezuela stink. But we work with plenty of other countries that stink too. The talks probably won't lead anywhere meaningful - those leaders will stay rotten. But not talking is worse.

5. Obama understood that belt-tightening starts at the top - a view not shared by the Democrat leadership in Guilderland. On his first day in office he instituted a pay freeze for top officials in the White House. Grandstanding? Maybe, but good policy anyway.

There's more, but I give Obama credit for doing the right thing on some tough issues. Now if only he could get past that whole socialist mentality and start to recognize that capitalism is better ...

More Marijuana

This follows nicely on my last post. A brave California state legislator, Tom Ammiano, proposed that the state legalize and tax marijuana. This is all over the web, but there's a good start on it on The Lede on the New York Times.

I'm amazed at how tame the reaction is so far. Maybe it will finally happen?

The Drug War: Latin American Perspective

I couldn't say it better myself. Three prominent politics from Latin America on the drug war, from the Wall Street Journal.

Another Casualty of the War on Drugs

Just noticed this on the web. Rachel Hoffman was killed by our idiotic drug war policies. As a parent, this story is the nightmare I hope to avoid for myself and so many others. A newscast that gives some description is below:

The Drug War: Availability and Crime

Read two great bits about the drug war yesterday. First, from a letter by Ronald Shafer in the 12/30/2008 Wall Street Journal:

To believe that legalizing drugs would slash crime and violence is a pipe dream. Does anyone really think that the thugs and killers in the drug trade would suddenly become law-abiding insurance salesmen? Certainly drug addiction should be treated as a health problem. But it makes no sense to expand the availability of drugs that kill and, more often, destroy the futures of tens of thousands of young people every year.

Note the emphasis on availability. Now, from an article about Ecstasy (aka MDMA) the 12/20 Holiday Double Issue of the Economist (p133):

Ironically, once it became illegal, MDMA's recreational use exploded.

Making drugs illegal does not decrease availability. Instead it has turned our schools into distribution centers. Usage of harder drugs increases because they're more cost-effective for smugglers. During Alcohol Prohibition consumption shifted from wine and beer to hard liquor for that reason.

Most of the problems related to drugs, including the deaths, come about because drugs are illegal. Crime and violence a pipe dream? Look at alcohol prohibition:

Click on the graph to enlarge it. Do you see the huge drop in homicide after Prohibition ended? Do you see the jump in crime after Nixon declared the War on Drugs? The graph comes from Jeff Miron on Alcohol Prohibition.

What happened to the thugs and killers after Alcohol Prohibition? Apparently they stopped murdering people until the drug war gave them a reason to start again.

Mr. Shafer - I'm sorry your son died as a result of using LSD. But your answer is wrong. There are about 2 million arrests a year now, and 500,000 non-violent drug offenders behind bars. The drug war devastates poor communities, increases crime, and wreaks havoc on Latin America. It also wastes a huge amount of money. And like Alcohol Prohibition, it just doesn't work. It won't bring your son back. He died, in part, because drugs are illegal. Keeping them illegal will kill more like him.

The history of Alcohol Prohibition gives us a tremendous lesson. Why do we continue to reject it?

End Prohibition

I frequently write about how the drug war has failed. Here's a link to a great article by Ethan Nadelmann about ending drug prohibition. Ethan is the leading voice in the drug policy reform movement, and he's a good guy too.

John Stossel Again

Awhile back I did a post about John Stossel and the drug war.

Well, he's done it again. Click the following link to read John Stossel on legalizing drugs.

John Stossel Gets the Drug War

I went to a great event last week put on by the Marijuana Policy Project. The event was celebrating progress toward getting medical marijuana legislation passed in New York State. Montel Williams was probably the best overall speaker. He suffers from Multiple Sclerosis, and says that medical marijuana is the best treatment he has found for him. This is a common refrain in the movement, and of course it makes plenty of sense to me. Why would governments want to prevent people who are suffering from using what works best for them?

You can see some discussion of this on their site: Montel Williams and Rob Kampia on Fox Business News.

For me, the best speaker was really John Stossel. He's been a critic of the drug war for some time now - see his 2006 article: John Stossel - Rethinking the Drug War for an example.

Stossel got up on stage and attacked the theme of the whole event. I think he said we were celebrating mediocrity. Medical marijuana is the tiniest wedge of an issue in the overall drug war. The real problem is that prohibitions don't work. It didn't work for alcohol prohibition in the 1920s and 30s. It didn't work for cotton in France from 1686-1759. And it isn't working with today's drug war either.

Movements like this are prone to factionalization. Look back at the suffrage movement and you'll see those who were perceived as extremists while others tried to be moderate and work incremental change through the system. There were other fringes as well. The fights within the movement were often more bitter than the battles with their opponents.

Today's drug policy reform movement covers some vast terrain. My friends at Law Enforcement Against Prohibition fit with Stossel in the extremist camp, while MPP is in the moderates. There are a variety of groups pushing for incremental change in different areas. Needle exchange advocates are another example. Stossel's speech was an example of the infighting that one sees in these movements. Fortunately, no one took offense. Maybe everyone was too busy smoking? Well, I didn't see anyone smoking, but a couple of us did notice a scent. We were drinking a little.

My fear with the marijuana movement parallels what I saw in the suffrage movement. Around 1870 some perceived an opportunity to get suffrage for blacks. The extremists wanted to push for women and blacks to get suffrage together, while te moderates felt that it would be easier to get black suffrage first, and the women would be next. The moderates won, and the women waited 50 years.

I see marijuana activism in the same way. I agree that marijuana prohibition is bad policy. But I fear that once marijuana reform happens, the rest of the drug war will get left behind, and all those poor black and hispanic males will rot in prison on cocaine, heroin, and other drug charges for another 50 years or more before we finally get it all figured out.

Now if only we could get John Stossel to run for office. The guy's fantastic!

More about Ron Paul

I was responding to an e-mail discussion within my family about Ron Paul and figured most of what I wrote would make a good post about why I support him. So ...

For any of us looking at any candidate, there will always be issues with which we disagree. The difference between Ron Paul and most others is that he doesn't hide the positions he thinks others might not like. He is the real Straight Talker.

And his views actually have an intellectual root to them. Some Republicans used to believe in states' rights. Thus, the Republican position on abortion was that the federal government should stay out of it, and let the states have their own rules. Then the Republicans got power, and they tried, and keep trying, to make federal prohibitions on abortion. I'm pretty sure Paul stands by the old position (I saw him talking about this) and votes against federal regulation of abortion - even though he personally believes abortion should be illegal.

Of course, I disagree with him myself on this issue, and believe abortion is, and should remain, a part of the constitutional right to privacy. Interesting - if you check out his interest group ratings on vote-smart.org: http://votesmart.org/issue_rating_category.php?can_id=BC031929
He gets widely varying ratings from NARAL and the right-to-life groups. In 2005 he actually got a 75/100 rating from NARAL, but in 2003 he got a zero.

The big thing about Ron Paul is his belief in a small federal government. For more than a decade he has been consistent on this issue, basically the lone dissenter from the Republicrat/Demolican expansion of the federal government into everything it can get its hands on.

This view - that federal government should be much smaller than it is today - is at the core of Ron Paul and his campaign. He would describe it as returning the federal government to the role it is limited to by the Constitution. And this core view is the thing about Paul that Steve [my brother] and I really believe in. We may disagree with him on an issue here, or an issue there, but this fundamental issue is something that really motivates us.

One issue that might motivate you, however, is that Ron Paul opposed the Iraq war from the beginning - unlike John Kerry, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, etc. Consider, for example, his recent speech (it's short): http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2007/cr041707.htm

And you can see his original opposition statement in December of 2001:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/paul7.html
and his further statement in 2002:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul58.html

Ron Paul has been the most consistent, and the most outspoken, opponent of this war. Compare him to any other presidential candidate, and just about any politician at a national level, and you will find him far and away the closest to the position we all share on Iraq. We opposed it from the beginning, and have consistently opposed it throughout. Ron Paul is the only one who has consistently agreed with us on this. He also opposed the Patriot Act from the beginning, by the way. And on my pet issue, he has also consistently opposed the drug war- for example: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/paul4.html

My political prediction (okay, it's just a guess), is that Paul will focus on one or two early primary states, and probably just NH. He will not get much press coverage but he'll get his message out. McCain, Giuliani and Romney will split the mainstream Republican vote (the people who vote Republican because they're Republican and don't even remember why they're Republican), and Paul will win the rest. He might just win NH, or maybe come in #2, and then he'll finally get national media attention. If he is able to get national media attention on his opposition to the Iraq war, and if - a big IF - he can stay focused on that issue and not allow himself to digress and talk about all the 100 ways he's different from everyone else, he will become the leading candidate among anti-war Republicans. That would make him a contender.