This is a great question.
Bill Oreilly wont shut up about Judges shunning the will of the poeple when it comes to gay marriage, but what about medical marijuana which has passed in just about every state that it has been up for vote?
Orielly doesnt bitch about the federal government cracking down on drugs.
This drug war is rarely talked about and the media timidity around it is a joke. This goes for all mass media outlets, left or right leaning. It also goes for most politicians left or right leaning. All the post nixon (sans Carter who did fight for marijuana decriminalization) presidents have been ignoring all evidence about the success of the drug war, and the cost still goes up for a fruitless endeavor.
Bill Maher is one of the few gusy who will bring it up, but even when he does, his panel seems to not jump at the oppurtunity to slam the point home.
Stattistics show that the drug war is an unmitigated failure. I have never heard a prohibitionist win this debate...the scales,stats, and facts make it impossible.
I will say that Stossel did a great, ballsy piece on this for 20/20. He gets mislabeled a face for conservatives, but he is really a liberterian, and is not in line with cons about drugs, gay rights, and defense budget issues.
Bill Oreilly wont shut up about Judges shunning the will of the poeple when it comes to gay marriage, but what about medical marijuana which has passed in just about every state that it has been up for vote?
Orielly doesnt bitch about the federal government cracking down on drugs.
This drug war is rarely talked about and the media timidity around it is a joke. This goes for all mass media outlets, left or right leaning. It also goes for most politicians left or right leaning. All the post nixon (sans Carter who did fight for marijuana decriminalization) presidents have been ignoring all evidence about the success of the drug war, and the cost still goes up for a fruitless endeavor.
Bill Maher is one of the few gusy who will bring it up, but even when he does, his panel seems to not jump at the oppurtunity to slam the point home.
Stattistics show that the drug war is an unmitigated failure. I have never heard a prohibitionist win this debate...the scales,stats, and facts make it impossible.
I will say that Stossel did a great, ballsy piece on this for 20/20. He gets mislabeled a face for conservatives, but he is really a liberterian, and is not in line with cons about drugs, gay rights, and defense budget issues.
States can't pass laws allowing citizens to opt out of federal laws that state lawmakers don't like. That's what most of these cases revolve around.
Medical Marijuana....the federal government has listed marijuana as illegal. Under powers granted to the feds by the Supreme Court and the Act setting up the FDA, they have the right to do so.
Assisted suicide...it isn't a states rights issue. The US government, when it went to court against Oregon, never tried to strike down the assisted suicide law. The federal government does, however, have the right to regulate narcotics. Oregon was allowing doctors to break teh Controlled Substances Act. That's a no can do.
Abortion: You have this one backwards. Before the Supreme Court created a law out of its ass, states had the right to regulate abortions. The Supreme Court took away this right.
Gay Marriage: 38 states have banned gay marriage. San Fran is ignoring state law, and Mass Supreme court has decided that legislatures have no say in what is legal and what isn't. I imagine if a state government says it is legal (Vermont), it will be in that state.
Of course, lefties didn't seem to understand that the state's right issue took a huge blow when the Supreme Court ruled sodomy laws illegal. Any state's right argument vanished with that decision, be it laws limiting/allowing sodomy, gay marriage, medical marijuana and so on.
Medical Marijuana....the federal government has listed marijuana as illegal. Under powers granted to the feds by the Supreme Court and the Act setting up the FDA, they have the right to do so.
Assisted suicide...it isn't a states rights issue. The US government, when it went to court against Oregon, never tried to strike down the assisted suicide law. The federal government does, however, have the right to regulate narcotics. Oregon was allowing doctors to break teh Controlled Substances Act. That's a no can do.
Abortion: You have this one backwards. Before the Supreme Court created a law out of its ass, states had the right to regulate abortions. The Supreme Court took away this right.
Gay Marriage: 38 states have banned gay marriage. San Fran is ignoring state law, and Mass Supreme court has decided that legislatures have no say in what is legal and what isn't. I imagine if a state government says it is legal (Vermont), it will be in that state.
Of course, lefties didn't seem to understand that the state's right issue took a huge blow when the Supreme Court ruled sodomy laws illegal. Any state's right argument vanished with that decision, be it laws limiting/allowing sodomy, gay marriage, medical marijuana and so on.
I'll grant you the abortion one (though I fully agree with those SC decisions) but others are just pretext arguments at best, and legally not even good ones but those are long arguments. The bottom line is the people of Oregon voted for assisted suicide and the people of Cali for med marijuana and the Feds are going out of their way to thwart the people's will. A true states' rightist would not favor that. And the idea of a Const amendment against gay marriage is obviously anti to states rights.
These are all societal issues, all of these issues you mentioned in your first post in this thread are drains on society. O'Reilly realizes that, and is using whatever argument he can to argue his point. Yes, alcohol is also a drag on society, as are cigarettes, but the majority of people support the right for citizens to partake in both, so they're not issues. I don't believe medical marijuana is that much of a slam dunk as far as public opinion goes, to be honest with you.
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by D2bets:
I'll grant you the abortion one (though I fully agree with those SC decisions) but others are just pretext arguments at best, and legally not even good ones but those are long arguments. The bottom line is the people of Oregon voted for assisted suicide and the people of Cali for med marijuana and the Feds are going out of their way to thwart the people's will. A true states' rightist would not favor that. And the idea of a Const amendment against gay marriage is obviously anti to states rights.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
What the hell does pretext arguments mean? States don't have the right to make laws in conflict of federal laws. Your argument would mean Californians would be able to buy cocaine if the state passed that law. To the feds, marijuana=cocaine=meth. If you want to legalize marijuana on a state by state basis, you have to get the feds to get it off the illegal list. Until then, the federal government has the jurisdiction.
There is no states-rights issue in Oregon. Oregon wrote a flawed law that again conflicts with federal law. If they pass a new law that is legal, then it may become a states-right issue. Until then, it is just a law that conflics with the Controlled Substances Act.
As for the gay marriage admendment, you and I seem to have different definitions of states-rights. The 10th admendment says "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
The Gay Marriage Admendment is attempting change the Constitution in order to outlaw gay marriage.If the Constitution forbids it, it isn't a state's rights issue.
I'll grant you the abortion one (though I fully agree with those SC decisions) but others are just pretext arguments at best, and legally not even good ones but those are long arguments. The bottom line is the people of Oregon voted for assisted suicide and the people of Cali for med marijuana and the Feds are going out of their way to thwart the people's will. A true states' rightist would not favor that. And the idea of a Const amendment against gay marriage is obviously anti to states rights.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
What the hell does pretext arguments mean? States don't have the right to make laws in conflict of federal laws. Your argument would mean Californians would be able to buy cocaine if the state passed that law. To the feds, marijuana=cocaine=meth. If you want to legalize marijuana on a state by state basis, you have to get the feds to get it off the illegal list. Until then, the federal government has the jurisdiction.
There is no states-rights issue in Oregon. Oregon wrote a flawed law that again conflicts with federal law. If they pass a new law that is legal, then it may become a states-right issue. Until then, it is just a law that conflics with the Controlled Substances Act.
As for the gay marriage admendment, you and I seem to have different definitions of states-rights. The 10th admendment says "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
The Gay Marriage Admendment is attempting change the Constitution in order to outlaw gay marriage.If the Constitution forbids it, it isn't a state's rights issue.
It depends on the issue. Considerations such as economic practicality, legislating morality, creating more government programs and protecting basic individual freedoms may be some of the factors I use before responding on a particular issue.
Believe it or not, in general, I'm opposed to most extreme positions when it comes to government legislation (Federal,State or local) of individual civil liberties. By the same token, I believe the word "civil" is one of the most abused words in the English dictionary.
Believe it or not, in general, I'm opposed to most extreme positions when it comes to government legislation (Federal,State or local) of individual civil liberties. By the same token, I believe the word "civil" is one of the most abused words in the English dictionary.
