Apparently I'm still part of the club...

I have, in the past, said that I was born a Republican. My political ideology was developed before I knew which either party really stood for. However, I find myself among the many that in recent years have discovered a Republican party that is drifting away from what we consider to be the importance of small government in order to appease its "base" of social conservatives. A government that is truly small stays out of the personal lives of individuals, and believes that by empowering them to make their own decisions we can improve society.

Today, the NY Times reported that Republican leadership is circulating a checklist of Republican stances that members should conform to. If those running for seats in this election cycle do not support 7 of 10 positions on the list, they can lose party funding and/or endorsement. The list is as follows:

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;

(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run health care;

(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;

(4) We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and

(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership.

As for me, I can approve of 6 of 10 strongly, and "loosely" approve of 2 more. I guess this means I can stay on the team. The question is do I really want to? I've written before in other forums about the importance of third parties in America, and how the political landscape will continue to be ugly, accusatory, polarized mess until a serious third party comes to speak for the true middle ground of America.

Have multi-party states been more effective in other countries? No. But unlike in the United states, these parties are often forced into some form of ruling coalition in order to appoint an Executive. Given our electoral structure, there is no reason to think that a multiparty legislature would not work in America. Coalitions could be formed around individual issues. This would have the added benefit that it is less likely an executive would veto legislation out of pure political posturing.

So, let this be a call to all third party candidates. Socialist, libertarian, slightly nutty TEA party conservatives (I'm talking to you, NY-23)... Given the polarization our country has faced the last 8 years, and will continue to do so for the next 3, now is one of those moments when people, with all their discontent at the current state of affairs, their anger at mudslinging campaigns instead of issue based debate, their desire to have a government that finally works for them and gets things done rather than push their own ideas on morality, that viable third party candidates, who have ideas to improve this country, will have a chance to make a difference.

For anyone interested in true third party reform, visit http://www.indymovement.com/ . It might not match everyone's needs, but Chris Daggett's campaign in NJ showed just how ready Americans are to listen to a real alternative, even if they didn't show it on election day.

Most hilarious interview ever!!!

So, I want to applaud this little kid. He's a little weird, but probably a thousand times more intelligent than that average American Voter. This is the reason we need to reconsider the constitutionality of literacy tests in voting.

Anyway, yes, I bad mouthed the little kid in the TV interview about Obama, because, honestly, his response was the same drivel that is spouted about by just about everyone else, and on top of that, he's just a nine year old kid. This kid's logic is at least somewhat more sound, the only reason I'm not totally emphatic about it is his arguments are presented a little weakly ("I have a lot of friends who are gay" Honestly? You're ten!) but then again we can write that off to his inexperience in public debate (in this case being 10 is a good excuse).

In re: to my last post, several days later, the AMA issued a report suggestiing further study be done on the medicinal uses of marijuana. They make the claim that I did that no large scale, long-term studies have been done to study the effects (both good and bad) of marijuana use (medicinal or otherwise.) Instead we're left to view commercials of kids shooting themselves or their friends that are based on stereotypes and puritanical public opinion, not science. Score one for me!

What are you going to do with your life?

After the recent elections and the (surprising?) results in the three “major” contests watched by the national media, I was intending to write on the “Obama effect” and whether or not it was wrong to discount the opposition’s portrayal of him as a “celebrity.” I’ll just point out quickly (since another, more riveting topic has arisen) that in the 2008 presidential election, the under 30 vote represented 20% of the total, in the 2009 elections, in which Obama actively campaigned for both Democratic gubernatorial candidates in NJ and VA, that statistics dropped to 6%. I don’t know what this signifies, to be honest. Yes, overall vote counts tend to drop in non-presidential election years, but would we expect this large of a shift in voter demographic? One has to question that the absence of a “rockstar” (yes, I said it) candidate had to lose some younger voters, even if Obama did participate in the campaigns. This begs the questions of whether or not the under 30 crowd (of which I am a part of) is actually involved enough to be trusted with voting. I have been removed form Virginia politics for the most part since I left the state after college, but in NJ we have serious budget issues that certainly affect the future of my chronological peers. Yet so few have deemed it necessary to participate this go around. During the ’08 presidential race, I once had to endure watching an interview where a 9 year old said he would vote for Obama if he could because he “thinks he is cool.” I can’t help but wonder if many of my contemporaries took the same approach to politics and we elected someone on the back of such faulty sentiment. One would hope that if my generation truly wanted to bring about change, they could get themselves to the polling place for every election and participate in how this country and states are run, but the data just doesn’t back that up.

Now that I had gone on longer than I had anticipated on that subject, on to another matter. This past week it became known that 2008 NL Cy Young Winner Tim Lincecum was detained when during a routine traffic stop in his home state of Washington, 3.3 grams of marijuana was found in his car. Taking one look at Lincecum, I am shocked, SHOCKED, that he would smoke marijuana. (See picture here if you don't sense the sarcasm) Yes, 3.3 grams is not much, he was only charged with a misdemeanor and worked out a deal with the prosecutor where he will only pay a $250 fine (like that matters to any professional baseball player, much less one of the best pitchers in baseball) for possession of drug paraphernalia. While I like to point out the insignificance of the fine to Lincecum, credit the prosecutor for treating his case like any other case of the same nature (read: the exact opposite of the pros. In Plexico Burress’ case.) Lincecum did not receive preferential treatment, nor was an example tried to be made of him, because of his high profile. Kudos, Grant Hansen.

I titled this post “What are you going to do with your life?” The after school special-esque nature of the title serves a purpose. This is now the second very high profile, very young, and very successful athlete to be caught using marijuana in the past year or so. (I’m not going to count Andre Agassi since I actually believe Crystal Meth to be a pretty bad thing). But here is the point, you find a joint or something in your kid’s room, you ask him the proverbial after school special question, he now answers you “I can be a Cy Young winner or a record breaking 7 time gold medal Olympian.” (The best he could come up with before was “I could be mayor.” Thank you Chris Rock and Washington, DC.)

Should we feign condescension towards Phelps and Lincecum because as athletes they should be better role models? Or is it time we begin to take a sensible approach toward marijuana in this country? For a minute we are going to forgo the standard health issue arguments towards legalization. (Marijuana can be addictive and dangerous, as much so as alcohol and tobacco. But yes it is senseless to allow those two to kill tens of thousands every year and put people in jail for marijuana.) We can also all agree that the taxes paid on legal marijuana would likely end our national deficit problem, and maybe the national debt problem shortly thereafter. And yes, marijuana is now the number one cash crop in a startling number of states, and contributes to the strength of borderline terrorist Mexican gangs, largely because of the illegality and therefore necessary underground nature of the drug trade.

So, if we all agree on the upside of legalizing marijuana, why is it not done? Or at least considered as plausible by more than just fringe groups? The fact is while many claims have been made about the safety of marijuana compared to alcohol and tobacco, no large studies (both short and long term) have been done to the scale that anything can be considered indisputable scientific fact on the issue. It’s been over 70 years since the first federal laws were passed seeking to regulate, then later to out and out outlaw, marijuana, and no one can dispute science has come a long way since then. One of the constant mantras during the current economic downturn has been that America needs to get back to “making things”, however the single largest money producer we have is currently illegal and thus not really factored into the overall picture. Coherent arguments that do not rest upon sentimentality and an insistence on legalization as a disruption of the “moral fabric” of our nation are hard to come by. Facts and figures are easily upstaged by those related to substances we have sheepishly acquiesced to over the years. I would hate to think the potential of the next Phelps or Lincecum is washed away not by the physiological effects of marijuana, but by the societal effects caused by a senseless government policy that has had little outcome on getting rid of the one thing it was trying to control.