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> not expected to advance further as long as the Senate remains in Republican hands. > “This legislation does not legalize cannabis across the country. It stop

• jliptzin 6y ago
  Republicans don't actually stand for anything, other than "do the opposite of what Democrats want"
  • bbrree66 6y ago
    What a pea brained response.
  • justaman 6y ago
    Comments like this add nothing. By this logic, the inverse is also true.
    • stu2b50 6y ago
      Not really, the very idea of conservatism is based around not doing new things. Without passing judgement on whether or not that's a good policy standpoint, it's clear the parties are asymmetrical - one wants to pass new policies to change something , the other oppose that. The GOP policy website this election was literally copy pasted from 2016 - it infamously contained references to how they need to change things the incumbent president did.
      • free2OSS 6y ago
        Democrats want less tariffs? I would love a Neoliberal Democratic party.
    • chillwaves 6y ago
      Republicans literally did not run a platform in the year 2020. They did not have one. Democrats did. It's easy to say "both sides" but the facts don't match that platitude.
      • ceejayoz 6y ago
        That's not quite true. They just renewed the 2016 platform. Their resolution states "without adopting a new platform" and then attaches the full 2016 one below it.
    • titzer 6y ago
      It is actually true that in 2020 the RNC didn't even bother to adopt a new platform [1] but instead pledged fealty to Donald Trump and explicitly, in their own words, "reject the policy positions of the Obama-Biden Administration,as well as those espoused by the Democratic National Committee today". In their own words they define themselves by their opposition to democrats. [1] https://prod-cdn-static.gop.com/docs/Resolution_Platform_2020.pdf https://prod-cdn-static.gop.com/docs/Resolution_Platform_202...
    • anon73044 6y ago
      >By this logic, the inverse is also true. Except, it isn't. in Obama's memoir, he recalls he and Biden trying to explain the policy merits of a bill to Mitch McConnell, who responds "You must be under the mistaken impression that I care” https://mobile.twitter.com/jonmladd/status/1327652287519596549 https://mobile.twitter.com/jonmladd/status/13276522875195965...
• deleted 6y ago
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• deleted 6y ago
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• skrtskrt 6y ago
  A proper conservative position would be weaker central government. In the US both parties want a stronger central government, just with different priorities.
  • dragonwriter 6y ago
    > A proper conservative position would be weaker central government. That would be a proper minarchist position. “Conservative” is more about the aims of government than its size, though in an attempt to build a coalition with libertarians, American conservatives selectively use minarchist language when justifying their opposition to things that they really oppose for purpose reasons rather than government size reasons.
• twalla 6y ago
  At this point the whole "small government" thing seems to just be a dog whistle for the Republican base that roughly translates to "if it helps people I don't like we won't fund it."
  • mikestew 6y ago
    At this point? Nah, in my view it started with Reagan's "welfare queens" (demonize the recipients of "large government"), which is going on 40 years ago. And that's just because it happened within my lifetime. One can probably go back further, perhaps to Earl Butz from the Nixon administration.
• free2OSS 6y ago
  That unfortunately isn't the Republican platform. We are taught that in school, but their policy doesn't line up with that. There is a strong debate to be made Biden is more fiscally right leaning than Trump. Where Trump was big into economic intervention (higher taxes through tariffs and SALT Deduction removal, higher deficit, new government spending projects, tax credits, free money, and restricting commerce on bump stocks).
  • dragonwriter 6y ago
    > There is a strong debate to be made Biden is more fiscally right leaning than Trump. Despite having the word “conservatism” in it, fiscal conservatism isn't a Right position in that more of it makes you more right. It's basically a position whose apex is in center-right neoliberal corporate capitalism; go farther left or right and it becomes less of a priority. Biden is definitely closer to the center-right than Trump, but he's not more right-leaning.
• ogre_codes 6y ago
  The war on drugs has been a long Republican policy, right along with family values.
  • lotsofpulp 6y ago
    "Family values". Because I don't see them racing to help provide mandatory days off or sufficient wages for people with lower incomes to be able to spend time with their families.
    • ogre_codes 6y ago
      Yeah, I'm not entirely sure what family values means aside from the name. Mostly I think it's a euphemism policies that support straight married couples with kids. It seems to be more about small tax breaks, and making life as difficult as possible for people who are not married and straight. Actually helping people might be construed as socialism.
      • mrguyorama 6y ago
        "Family values" as used by republicans always has the implied but not said "of a white, christian, man, who lives in the 1950s" added to it
        • lotsofpulp 6y ago
          “Who doesn’t act according to Christ” should also be added to it.
          • ogre_codes 6y ago
            For certain definitions of Christ. The modern gun totting intolerant Christ is a lot different from the compassionate one who taught about "Loving your neighbor" and "Forgiveness" we learned about in bible school...
  • chillwaves 6y ago
• dragonwriter 6y ago
  > In all seriousness, isn’t the Republican platform weaker central government? In all seriousness, no. Though weaker central government is something they trot out tomjustify opposition to functions they don't like government doing, while cheerfully increasing central government power when the central government is doing things that they approve of, like regulating substances, for instance.
• Ancapistani 6y ago
  This is the problem with both parties, I'd say - the party platforms are somewhat consistent with the views of their voting base, but the actions of the politicians don't align very well with either. The general impression I get is that a majority of Republicans would support federal decriminalization of cannabis. Most of those support legalization as a specific goal, while others would support through their view of federalism. A supermajority of US citizens support legalization at this point - only around 1/3 poll as be opposed as of last year, and that number is consistently falling over time. It's honestly not a partisan issue at this point - it's a "politician" issue.
  • jacques_chester 6y ago
    It's an electoral system issue. Voting is voluntary, which causes highly-motivated single-issue voters to be overrepresented. Then there's the primary system, which is the same problem squared. It used to be that politicians could pander a little to the base during a primary and then "run to the centre" in the general. Those days are gone, because "being primaried" is a real and persistent risk. The practical upshot is that the system is structured to favour fringe voices rather than the median voter.
• headcanon 6y ago
  They see it as less of a "Big Government" thing and more of a "Tough on Crime" thing, which has traditionally had a home in the Republican party since Nixon and Reagan championed the Drug War. Its insane to me as well, but the traditional Republican base likes to see "dirty criminals" go away and support police efforts to do so, cannabis is still associated with them in their minds. Personally I think its changing amongst the voting base but theres still a strong cultural momentum around demonizing these drugs, especially amongst the Evangelical White Southerners that make up the core of their voting base. Edit: There's a cynical side to this as well - Neither party wants to "give" the party anything without getting something in return. Republicans allowing cannabis reform does nothing for them politically but makes the Democrats look good. Why would they allow that to happen without getting something back?
• aisengard 6y ago
  Because the Republican party is, really more than anything else at this point, the party of white supremacy. Marijuana laws help prop up the existing paradigm, where black people are disproportionally harmed, a leftover (intentional) remnant of Nixon's inherently racist War On Drugs. Repealing that would help black people more than white people, thus the Republicans are against it.
  • mindslight 6y ago
    It's unfair to say that. Everyone knows the Republican party is just really interested in checking people's birth certificates.
  • knaq 6y ago
    I wouldn't say so. Just looking at what Biden did as a senator: In 1983 he introduced the Comprehensive Forfeiture Act, which became law in 1984. That's the main piece of law that enabled civil asset forfeiture. That's how cops take property, alleging it to be drug money without any evidence. It's legalized theft, turning cops into gangs that prey on the people. Black neighborhoods are popular targets. Note that "defund the cops" will make them rely more on this source of revenue! In 1994 he introduced the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. This is the infamous law that put many black people in prison for decades, particularly for crack cocaine. (meanwhile his own son smokes crack with impunity, aside from being tossed out of the Navy) Kamala Harris used the law very often as prosecutor. She warned against leniency, saying that she needed the prisoners to fight California wildfires. In other words, she wanted black slaves. It took Donald Trump to fix this problem, with him signing the First Step Act in 2018. It really does seem that the facts are the other way around.
    • mindslight 6y ago
      The bounds of cognitive dissonance never cease to amaze me. First, you're dragging the argument into personal whataboutism, seemingly so you can include irrelevant jabs about family members. Even though cracksmoking by itself wouldn't have harmed anybody else, unlike say a nepotic and malevolent pandemic response that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. Second, even continuing in your celebrity framing, there is a huge difference between introducing establishment legislation decades ago that disproportionately affected minorities and overtly encouraging racist militias as part of one's ongoing campaign. The correct answer when a racist militia expresses their support is condemnation, not acceptance. That newly inflamed distributed bigotry will haunt us for decades. For context I'm a libertarian and shy away from ascribing racial motivations because racism begets more racism (aka "identity politics") and it's all just a form of collectivism. I see Breonna Taylor's murder as a failure to apply the rule of law to the police themselves, and not racism per se. But that bullshit about Harris's "birth certificate" was the straw that broke the camel's back for me, and I'm done steelmanning Republican talking points to explain away the elephant in the room as just some fading contingent. You too can either admit that and move forward, or be part of the problem dragging us back 50 years.
• defertoreptar 6y ago
  [removed]
  • mindslight 6y ago
    Acoustical gunfire triangulation would only affect the people Republicans want to prevent from having guns, so it's not that. I've given up trying to find coherent values in Republican actions. There are many conservative views that have merit, but they're not reflected in Republican policies.
    • defertoreptar 6y ago
      [removed]
• bosswipe 6y ago
  No, the Republican platform is for a giant central state but all the resources to be used only for military and police. (Though the policing is only for common people, policing of corporations or rich people is to be defunded and labeled as evil regulation. )
• jadell 6y ago
  That's not the modern Republican platform. Both major parties want stronger central government in some instances, and weaker in others. They just differ in which instances are which. And they're like that because most people (voters in particular) are like that. Everyone wants stronger government control and regulation over the things they personally dislike, and less control over the things they do like, and they vote for the party that matches those preferences. Most Republican voters like and dislike the same things, while Democratic voters tend to have much larger variability (outside a core set of things.) It's why the GOP has an easier time hanging on to power than the Democrats do.