Posted on 11/24/2014 5:37:47 AM PST by TigerClaws
A funny thing happened in five states on election night. In Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota, a majority of voters surveyed their choices of candidates and ballot initiatives, and chose a Republican candidate along with a liberal position on a ballot initiative.
Alaska elected a Republican senator and passed a recreational marijuana initiative, along with an increase in the minimum wage. North Dakota elected a Republican congressman and rejected a Personhood amendment. Arkansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota elected a Republican senator and governor, and passed a minimum wage increase. This led Zachary Goldfarb to write: “Americans will vote for Republicans even though they disagree with them on everything.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Republicans don't have the police unions and could get behind a 'legalize pot' national movement. Huge waste of money and prohibition hasn't worked. Legalize and tax it. Win young voters.
Enough brain dead Americans out there. Enough is enough
These “author’s” simply put their names to stories written by the administration. Then they get a Pulitzer.
What's this author smoking? This is inane. If this were the case, Romney would have won in a landslide.In truth, values voters just stayed home.
Fact is, there is a large libertarian bent in the Republican party. These are the folks who just want big gubmint to stay out of their lives. That used to be the purview of liberals, but now liberals are, by and large, advocates of the nanny state.
Most of my neighbors are socially conservative, but economically liberal. Believing in family and traditional values, but buying fully into the line of garganzola from union newsletters past that Democrats are “for the little people and the workin’ man”.
I could fully see them pulling the lever for a Pro-Life Republican while at the same time voting to hike the minimum wage, or otherwise tinker with a free-market economy which they regard as “unfair”.
Not to mention the real CONSERVATIVE argument in favor of legalization: nowhere in the Constitution is the federal government granted the authority to regulate what the people ingest into their own bodies. The war on drugs has been used to trample many of the amendments in the Bill of Rights as well, most notably the fourth and fifth.
At least when Prohibition was passed, the Feds recognized that there was no Constitutional justification for outlawing the sale and consumption of alcohol. An amendment was necessary for this to be done. If we really want the Feds involved in a war on drugs, do it the right way. Pass an amendment.
BTW, before I am accused of being a dope-smoking hippie, or some such nonsense, please let me be clear. I am NOT a drug user of any kind (other than a couple of prescriptions from my doctor.) I am arguing solely from principle. I am also not arguing that drugs are not harmful, so please spare me the arguments about how much damage smoking marijuana can do to a person (or how harmful other drugs are). We make fun of Nanny Bloomberg in NYC for his ban on large sodas. Those are harmful to our health too. Other than the degree of harm, what’s the difference? Do we or do we not have the right to cause harm to ourselves via our own behaviors? Should it be illegal to smoke, drink alcohol or overeat as well?
No doubt it’s harmful, but do we have the legal right to engage in behaviors that are potentially harmful to ourselves or not? Do you really want the government to have the power to control what you can or cannot ingest into your own body?
BTW, I fully support laws such as DUI laws (which apply equally to drugs other than alcohol) that target behaviors harmful to people other than the drug user. I just oppose laws that make it illegal for someone in the privacy of their own home to engage in drug use.
Lemmings are a confused lot.
Funny....im too libertarian to be called a conservative and too conservative to be a libertarian.
There has to be limits to a what society allows if we want America to be a viable competitive western nation.
Well then they must have loved that turd Geo W Bush.
Don’t forget Montana. Voted in a Republican Senator for the first time in [what seems] forever. (Conrad Burns) Won Max Baucus’s seat (and, later the plagiarizer guy, Walsh).
“socially liberal, fiscally conservative” cannot exist,
because there are natural negative consequences for “liberal” behavioral choices,
and those of the leftist mindset would claim, in about two seconds, that they weren’t “free to choose” those behaviors unless the consequences were alleviated “through the gov’t” (ie, taxpayers & wealth transfer).
Take abortion as an example. “Have all the abortions you want but don’t make me pay for it” is always answered with “then you’re denying access to poor women”.
What you’re seeing is the manifestation of the religion of Humanism.
These people are trying to justify their own self-righteousness through their advocacy that “something should be done to help powerless people”.
They don’t really care about the outcome after that statement/belief makes them feel good about themselves.
I have a friend in MN who pretty much explained to me why people vote liberal when they live as conservatives.
She said, "I vote for democrats because they really care for the people."
She does not listen to talk radio.
Because prior to FDR,
the idea of “gov’t has to pay for the consequences or the freedom isn’t actually a freedom”
had no traction.
The left plays to people’s desire to help one another and their innate laziness to let someone else do the work
to expand the power of the gov’t.
You stated that socially liberal and fiscally conservative couldn’t exit. I referenced 150 years of our own history when it did. I guess your position is still unclear to me.
Since when have liberals been the ones to keep gubmint out of our lives? That’s not just what they do; it’s who they are, and always has been.
Funny. My personal fav. summantion RE: why I’m a (L) instead of (C):
I’m smart enough realize I don’t know the answer(s) that would apply to ALL Men that should trump their own choice(s).
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