The third week in July, Republican Gov. Rick Perry said that the U.S. Constitution — whose 10th Amendment limits federal power — gives states the right to decide on such matters as abortion and gay marriage. The fourth week in July, the Texan recanted. He now supports a federal ban on abortion and gay marriage. Social conservatives told him they didn't cotton to giving states the right to defy their views on things they care about.
Perhaps it's time for progressives to pick up the freedom banner that was so quickly dropped in the mud of Republican primary politics. Here are examples of intrusive state and federal government, ripped from the headlines:
—"Gun Query Off Limits for Doctors in Florida." Florida recently passed a law forbidding doctors to ask patients whether they keep a gun unless the physicians find the matter "relevant." (Your guess of what "relevant" means is as good as mine.)
Questions such as "Do you wear seatbelts?" and "Is rat poison within your toddler's reach?" are still permitted in the semi-free state of Florida. But an inquiry as to whether Junior has easy access to guns — the source of thousands of children's deaths a year — is forbidden.
Some gun nuts apparently see stomping on the First Amendment right to free speech as necessary to protect their Second Amendment right to bear arms. The logical problem here is that a doctor's words can't take anyone's guns away.
As a practical matter, sensitive gun owners could find a doctor who doesn't care whether their 13-year-old can get his hands on Dad's loaded assault rifle. They can also ignore the doctor's advice.
This weird legislation stems from a complaint by a central Florida woman that her doctor refused to see her again after she wouldn't answer the gun question. Well, doctors also have the right to turn away uncooperative patients, don't they? The law was signed by Republican Gov.
Rick Scott — he who goes on about not letting government get between you and your doctor.
—"Authorities Seize $800 Million Worth of Pot in California." Last month, federal agents said they had uprooted $632,000 worth of marijuana plants in Mendocino National Forest. The raid also picked up 38 guns, 20 vehicles, trash, chemicals and 40 miles of irrigation lines in what's supposed to be a repository of nature in Northern California. The growers are said to be Mexican-based drug traffickers who threatened hikers.
So much wrong with this picture. If marijuana were legal, there would be no associated garbage in our national forests. It would grow freely on American farms. Thousands of drug traffickers would be put out of business, and the taxpayers would save the billions they spend on eradicating a natural plant.
Law enforcement officials have a habit of overstating the size of their drug seizures, but suppose the pot pulled up in the Mendocino National Forest raid were sold legally and taxed? Harvard's Jeffrey Miron, who specializes in drug war economics, told me that the state and federal government could have "plausibly" collected $250 million to $300 million on this haul "if regular taxes were collected at all stages of production, transportation, etc." That number might be large, he added. Some economic activity in growing pot, such as fertilizer, is already taxed. "But still, some non-trivial fraction would be collected in taxes."
And Rick Perry? Ten months ago, he said that medical marijuana was OK for California but not for Texas. But he said the same thing about New York state and gay marriage, before the social conservatives revised him.
What did Thomas Paine say about "summer soldiers and sunshine patriots" abandoning principle for political expediency? Rick Perry couldn't hold firm for one lousy month.
To find out more about Froma Harrop, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2011 THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL CO.
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5 Comments | Post Comment
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----Cut to the chase!
Sodomy and extermination of the unborn is the tried and true 'FAVE"
formula for elites in need of a nation ender and scene changer.
AGAIN, for the reality challenged:
'Sexual Liberation' = Ellimination VIA Sex = EUGENICS
Of course you'll never hear that from our several decades Rockefeller/EUGENICS
infiltrated church establishments.
Comment: #1
Posted by: free bee
Wed Aug 31, 2011 9:33 PM
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Individual liberty is not a high priority on the list of either Democrats or Republicans.
In addition to the Republican repudiations of liberty you cite, there are the myriad attacks on liberty implicit in such things as the mis-named PATRIOT Act.
But the Democrats don't seem to mind assailing individual liberty by things like the "individual mandate" of Obamacare, their relentless attacks on the right of people to own guns, and, most damningly, their willingness to rob people of their wealth in the name of "social justice," or whatever the Leftist buzzword-du-jour is. Here in Wake County, North Carolina, the Democrats think it reasonable to ignore the wishes of parents, and the welfare of kids, by requiring kids to spend hours every day on buses in order to pretend to achieve "socio-economic balance" in schools.
Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have any interest in the interests of the people of this country. All either party wants is to impose its misbegotten notion of Utopia on the country; for the most part, all the people of this country want is for the roads to be maintained and otherwise be left alone.
Comment: #2
Posted by: Henry Miller
Thu Sep 1, 2011 10:03 AM
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Re: Henry Miller
Thank you for a very concise and original post. The events you cite expose the strange and exceedingly poor leadership we have been dealing with for years. By the way, no element of society is more nisbegotten in its notion of Utopia than the press. They long ago stopped reporting about policy and now are all about shaping that policy. They have more than contributed to the stink. Not you, dear Fromma, your stuff never stinks.
Comment: #3
Posted by: Tom
Fri Sep 2, 2011 8:45 AM
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Re: Henry Miller & Tom
First of all, I, too, reside in North Carolina, and I can tell both of you that NO busing plan requires children to ride a bus further than 30 minutes out. Second, Nobody is curtailing anyone's right to smoke, drink, or carry weapons if they wish, provided they meet certain provisions (age, licensure--you know, the standard data stuff). North Carolina has enough roads--Just ask those living in western Wake County complaining about that stretch of NC 540 that might--MIGHT--come too close for their comfort.
But anyway, how does ensuring liberty for yourselves at the expense of everybody else reasonable? How is it reasonable that my healthcare costs are just as likely to go up because idiots who treat firearms as toys expect me to cover their non-insurance-carrying selves because they wanted to shoot bottles off their tree stumps and accidentally hit their kids? You complain about busing diminishing your children's welfare; well, I don't hear any of you complaining about the lottery subsidizing their public education (still free!) or their collegiate one (if it's state-supported, still cheap!) off the backs of the poor and desperate.
Just tell the truth: conservatives will always make nonsensical refersnces to Utopia because they can't define it as a consistent beneficial state to whites only. It's the same logic that allows you to complain about too many Kenyans in marathons, too many Asians in elite math and science programs, and too many blacks defining popular culture. If it's not benefitting white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants and them only, it's wrong.
Comment: #4
Posted by: Therren Dunham
Mon Sep 5, 2011 6:30 AM
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Re:Therren
30 minutes out + 30 minutes in equals one hour. A day. 5 hours a week. One of my children is very introverted, look up the real definition of that word before you leap, Is it truly to any one child's benefit to spend 20 hour a month on a school bus ride? Really? It's 180 hours over the course of the average school year, that is time taken away from a childhood to whose exact benefit? If you say "society" you are truly heartless.
How does ensuring liberty for yourself endanger the liberty of others if we are all in the same boat? You don't like your healthcare going up because of idiots who treat firearms as a toy, how about feeding people who treated school as a toy and dropped out? Or treated intercourse as a toy and and have many children to prove it. How do you feel about paying their way through life? Public education is not free, I pay property taxes for that privilege. Do you pay property taxes? Do yu have children? Are you truly invested in the future of our country? Quick - how much property tax did you pay last year? Only someone poorly educated would say that education is free. I paid my way through a State University, It wasn't free.
Your last paragraph is just namecalling, you would like to consider any opinion other than your own as rascist. I never mentioned whites, never mentioned Asians, Kenyans or blacks. You did, you are therefore an overcompensating rascist, Where ever you are getting all your rascist views from don't lay them on me because they are obviously yours. You own them because you brought them up. I'm not even white anglo-saxon protestant. But you would hate me if I were, you bigot. You are a the worst kind of bigot because you think you know everything when you only assume everything. Rascist bigot.
How's that feel, rascist?
Comment: #5
Posted by: Tom
Mon Sep 5, 2011 3:11 PM
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