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I thought Utah was a GOP state? What happened to 'small government'? This seems like shoving gov't down your throat.

willis936 6y ago
UT has more overbearing regulations than any other state. They are also far and away the most conservative state. Not all conservatives in the US are aligned with them, it’s just that the cult majority have regulatory capture.
- umvi 6y ago
  > UT has more overbearing regulations than any other state Like what? Are you referring to alcohol laws? Because last I checked you could still by beer at the grocery store in Utah, but you cannot do that in Montgomery County, Maryland (most populous county of one of the bluest states).
  - arthurcolle 6y ago
    Hey I live in MoCo and yeah all the liquor stores are run by the county, and they aren't even open on Sunday. Such a joke
  - giantg2 6y ago
    Not necessarily taking one side ot the other, but they also have very restrictive fireworks laws. Also, I don't know about Montgomery Co, but PG Co (and others) has liquor beer etc in all sorts of small shops.
    - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      > Not necessarily taking one side ot the other, but they also have very restrictive fireworks laws. Utah is a really dry state. Fireworks have a bad tendency to start fires out here, fires that can get rather large. It's not that they're spoilsports (with respect to fireworks), it's that they have experienced some significant downsides.
      - giantg2 6y ago
        But if that's really the reason, then why not regulate it like burning rather than have only specific dates that they can be used? From what I remember, there's only 4 or 5 holidays/weeks they can be used.
  - navbaker 6y ago
    Haha, not being able to buy beer in the grocery store or Costco was one of the biggest culture shocks for me moving to MD!
  - bpodgursky 6y ago
    Honestly I like the 4% ABV limit on beer. It forces brewers to make interesting flavors, rather than just blowing you away with ludicrously high ABV masked in hops.
  - willis936 6y ago
    You cannot sell alcohol unless it is beer and served with food or you are a private club. You should also take a moment to review the state’s history of unconstitutional, and in some cases, atrocious, sexuality laws. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Utah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Utah
  - vinger 6y ago
    Montgomery has bars and they have liquor stores. Utah did requires a membership in a gentlemen club to drink in a public place. Perhaps this has changed. You can't buy beer in grocery stores in every province in Canada either. But the amount of alcohol in beer is double the US. Beer in grocery stores is a poor proxy for dem / rep
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      >Beer in grocery stores is a poor proxy for dem / rep I don't think umvi claimed as much.
  - Rebelgecko 6y ago
    Utah has actually made some interesting changes lately. Within the last few years they've legalized Budweiser and gotten rid of the Zion Curtain mandate (which seemed like an awful idea in terms of safety. One waiter told me they called it the "Cosby Curtain"). Maybe some day Utahns will be able to order a glass of wine at dinner before they've decided what they want to eat.
lotsofpulp 6y ago
GOP policies have never been “small government” (in my life). They just like to say it.
- jvanderbot 6y ago
  They're happy to regulate people, just not businesses.
  - MegaButts 6y ago
    They're happy to regulate businesses that compete with businesses that contribute to their campaign spending.
- jorblumesea 6y ago
  Everyone wants whatever type of government to push the issues they care about. Dems want small government when it comes to marijuana legalization, but also the Federal government should set education curriculum across the entire country or enforce country wide mask mandates. GOP wants states to be able to ban abortions and teach creationism, but chafes at the idea that states could legalize marijuana unilaterally. It's politics, everyone is a hypocrite.
  - IgorPartola 6y ago
    As a Democrat I want big government when it comes to marijuana. Why shouldn’t we have the FDA test cannabis products for impurities, set labeling standards, check that facilities that process it are safe, and that labor laws are abided?
  - giantg2 6y ago
    I'm not sure this statement is correct. "Dems want small government when it comes to marijuana legalization..." This isn't really true. The legalization involves local and state regulation and taxes. Sure, the law is more lenient in that one can legally sell and buy the product, but it comes with substantially more regulation (you now need a department to do inspections audits etc). "chafes at the idea that states could legalize marijuana unilaterally" Technically they can't legalize it. They can do so at the state level, but it can still be illegal at the federal level. The thing is, the feds don't have the resources to enforce all the laws they make. I do agree that most political parties and figures can be hypocritical.
jdxcode 6y ago
This is a clear violation of the first amendment, right?
- hyperpape 6y ago
  There is a lot of case law surrounding obscenity, and courts have ruled that bans on obscenity do not necessarily violate the first amendment (there are a variety of tests involved). The rationale never seemed sound to me, but somehow I have not been appointed to the Supreme Court. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_obscenity_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_obscenity_law
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    It's unlikely these filters will ban only a subset of pornography that qualifies as obscenity, though.
- munk-a 6y ago
  It might be a violation of the first amendment, but I think that'd be unlikely. Access to such is already heavily restricted based on the viewers age and the content (including the actors age) and that seems to be generally socially acceptable. I think that the "important" part of the first amendment is usually focused on government control of speech that is made in opposition to the government, this doesn't appear to violate that in any way so I'd guess that the supreme court would probably be okay with this law from a purely first amendment perspective. A more applicable law would seem to be Article 1 Section 8 (the interstate commerce clause) but that is also pretty weak - I believe that certain states already have widely differing views on adult content so even that might not stand up.
cortesoft 6y ago
No, the GOP wants a government just small enough to fit in your bedroom
mr_cyborg 6y ago
I think this is more of a state culture thing than anything else. Regardless, political parties tend to be pretty different from state to state and vs the federal overarching party.
johndevor 6y ago
This has probably more to do with the Morman church in Utah than the GOP.
- umvi 6y ago
  (FYI it's Mormon*, named after the Book of Mormon) However, (also FYI), adherents prefer if you refer to the church as "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" and members of said church "Latter-day Saints" or simply "Christians". I know "Mormon" is a long-standing nickname and most people don't intend to use the term derogatorily, but calling Latter-day Saints "Mormons" is like nicknaming Muslims "Mohammeds" or "Qurans" or nicknaming Islam "the Mohammed Church" or "the Quran Church".
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    Latter-day though.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    I don't agree that it's like nicknaming Muslims "Mohammeds" or "Qurans". There already exists a short word to refer to Muslims, which is Muslims. Mormon is an effective short form of "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints", which is a mouthful. And sometimes, you might want to refer to a specific type of Christian, such as Baptist, Protestant, Catholic, or in this case, Mormons.
    - umvi 6y ago
      > Mormon is an effective short form of "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints", which is a mouthful. I agree, but they've asked not to be referred to by that term. If we extend the courtesy to trans people who don't want to be referred to by certain terms, I don't see why we shouldn't extend the same courtesy to religious people who don't want to be referred to by certain terms.
      - ceejayoz 6y ago
        If trans people were asking to be referred to as "people who were assigned a gender at birth but do not identify with that gender now" instead of "men" or "trans men" or whatnot, one might object to the lengthiness of that, too.
foolfoolz 6y ago
the old saying is republicans won’t stay out of your bedroom, democrats won’t stay out of your wallet
AmericanChopper 6y ago
Many Republican voters would also like to know the answer to this question. Edit: If your point is that many Republican policies don’t represent the supposed political ideals of Republicans, then you don’t have to look very hard to find out this is a very popular complaint amongst Republican voters.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
heavyset_go 6y ago
It's only big government when they do it.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Rebelgecko 6y ago
I in the long run you're doing your worldview a disservice by simplifying political parties into a single axis. Especially for Utah, which can be a bit of an outlier on moral issues due to the state's large LDS population
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  > I in the long run you're doing your worldview a disservice by simplifying political parties into a single axis. Probably. But after years of being compared to socialists and communists on a constant basis, despite not ever having met a liberal who had any interest in socialism or communism for the US -- it's hard to avoid seeing politics in the USA as anything other than a two-team sport.
IgorPartola 6y ago
Small government means that when you see a family starving you don’t have enough to give them to get back on their feet because it’s all been spent on a military contract. It means that we can’t afford a healthcare program like every other civilized country in the world because we need to keep insurance companies from going under (except your kidneys; your kidneys have universal healthcare, did you know?). It means we can’t afford to build decent roads or pay for inner city schools because god forbid we educate people and they vote for their own economic interest. Small government means don’t regulate Wall Street because what if the stock market looks bad and boomers lose retirement portfolio value. And it means letting an 11 year old die in his own bed by freezing to death than forcing Texas to upgrade their power grid because companies saving a dime is more important and Texans would rather sacrifice lives than do anything about what had happened to them. But also no porn, no abortions, no disrespecting POTUS (unless he is black), no access to healthcare or safe policing for brown people, and no vote unless you are male, white, and uneducated. The GOP has been morally bankrupt since they took in the Southern Democrats and the parties flipped in ideology. They are the same party that thought owning human beings was justified as long as it padded profits and never really recovered from losing that argument. They are the party that unironically supports flying traitorous flags because it’s their heritage. They are the same types of people who would have sided with England in the American Revolution because you have to love your country no matter what. And they are the same people who are getting cozy with the people who fly swastikas because anything is apparently better than being a democrat. Are you really surprised at this particular headline coming from a conservative state?
dragonwriter 6y ago
> I thought Utah was a GOP state? Not just a GOP state, but specifically a politically-dominant-historically-persecuted-by-government-religious-group state. > What happened to 'small government'? The dominant faction of the GOP has never really been about small government, but tends to use “small government” as a slogan to avoid debating the role of government when opposing things they see as outside the proper role of government. It's dominantly a right party that seeks to appeal to libertarians to bulk up it's base of support, not a (even just right-) libertarian party (though they do have a right-libertarian faction, whose members—and even candidates—have a somewhat fluid interface with the Libertarian Party, which is a right-leaning libertarian party.) That said, you might think the politically dominant group in Utah would be keenly aware of the dangers of a dominant group imposing strict social controls through the power of government, but clearly they are fine with that as long as they are the dominant group.
kube-system 6y ago
Utah politics have a unique religious aspect to them. The majority of Utah residents belong to a religion which only 1.8% of the US population as a whole follows.

UT has more overbearing regulations than any other state. They are also far and away the most conservative state. Not all conservatives in the US are aligned with them, it’s just that the cult majority have regulatory capture.

umvi 6y ago
> UT has more overbearing regulations than any other state Like what? Are you referring to alcohol laws? Because last I checked you could still by beer at the grocery store in Utah, but you cannot do that in Montgomery County, Maryland (most populous county of one of the bluest states).
- arthurcolle 6y ago
  Hey I live in MoCo and yeah all the liquor stores are run by the county, and they aren't even open on Sunday. Such a joke
- giantg2 6y ago
  Not necessarily taking one side ot the other, but they also have very restrictive fireworks laws. Also, I don't know about Montgomery Co, but PG Co (and others) has liquor beer etc in all sorts of small shops.
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    > Not necessarily taking one side ot the other, but they also have very restrictive fireworks laws. Utah is a really dry state. Fireworks have a bad tendency to start fires out here, fires that can get rather large. It's not that they're spoilsports (with respect to fireworks), it's that they have experienced some significant downsides.
    - giantg2 6y ago
      But if that's really the reason, then why not regulate it like burning rather than have only specific dates that they can be used? From what I remember, there's only 4 or 5 holidays/weeks they can be used.
- navbaker 6y ago
  Haha, not being able to buy beer in the grocery store or Costco was one of the biggest culture shocks for me moving to MD!
- bpodgursky 6y ago
  Honestly I like the 4% ABV limit on beer. It forces brewers to make interesting flavors, rather than just blowing you away with ludicrously high ABV masked in hops.
- willis936 6y ago
  You cannot sell alcohol unless it is beer and served with food or you are a private club. You should also take a moment to review the state’s history of unconstitutional, and in some cases, atrocious, sexuality laws. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Utah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Utah
- vinger 6y ago
  Montgomery has bars and they have liquor stores. Utah did requires a membership in a gentlemen club to drink in a public place. Perhaps this has changed. You can't buy beer in grocery stores in every province in Canada either. But the amount of alcohol in beer is double the US. Beer in grocery stores is a poor proxy for dem / rep
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    >Beer in grocery stores is a poor proxy for dem / rep I don't think umvi claimed as much.
- Rebelgecko 6y ago
  Utah has actually made some interesting changes lately. Within the last few years they've legalized Budweiser and gotten rid of the Zion Curtain mandate (which seemed like an awful idea in terms of safety. One waiter told me they called it the "Cosby Curtain"). Maybe some day Utahns will be able to order a glass of wine at dinner before they've decided what they want to eat.

lotsofpulp 6y ago

GOP policies have never been “small government” (in my life). They just like to say it.

jvanderbot 6y ago
They're happy to regulate people, just not businesses.
- MegaButts 6y ago
  They're happy to regulate businesses that compete with businesses that contribute to their campaign spending.
jorblumesea 6y ago
Everyone wants whatever type of government to push the issues they care about. Dems want small government when it comes to marijuana legalization, but also the Federal government should set education curriculum across the entire country or enforce country wide mask mandates. GOP wants states to be able to ban abortions and teach creationism, but chafes at the idea that states could legalize marijuana unilaterally. It's politics, everyone is a hypocrite.
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  As a Democrat I want big government when it comes to marijuana. Why shouldn’t we have the FDA test cannabis products for impurities, set labeling standards, check that facilities that process it are safe, and that labor laws are abided?
- giantg2 6y ago
  I'm not sure this statement is correct. "Dems want small government when it comes to marijuana legalization..." This isn't really true. The legalization involves local and state regulation and taxes. Sure, the law is more lenient in that one can legally sell and buy the product, but it comes with substantially more regulation (you now need a department to do inspections audits etc). "chafes at the idea that states could legalize marijuana unilaterally" Technically they can't legalize it. They can do so at the state level, but it can still be illegal at the federal level. The thing is, the feds don't have the resources to enforce all the laws they make. I do agree that most political parties and figures can be hypocritical.

jdxcode 6y ago

This is a clear violation of the first amendment, right?

hyperpape 6y ago
There is a lot of case law surrounding obscenity, and courts have ruled that bans on obscenity do not necessarily violate the first amendment (there are a variety of tests involved). The rationale never seemed sound to me, but somehow I have not been appointed to the Supreme Court. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_obscenity_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_obscenity_law
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  It's unlikely these filters will ban only a subset of pornography that qualifies as obscenity, though.
munk-a 6y ago
It might be a violation of the first amendment, but I think that'd be unlikely. Access to such is already heavily restricted based on the viewers age and the content (including the actors age) and that seems to be generally socially acceptable. I think that the "important" part of the first amendment is usually focused on government control of speech that is made in opposition to the government, this doesn't appear to violate that in any way so I'd guess that the supreme court would probably be okay with this law from a purely first amendment perspective. A more applicable law would seem to be Article 1 Section 8 (the interstate commerce clause) but that is also pretty weak - I believe that certain states already have widely differing views on adult content so even that might not stand up.

cortesoft 6y ago

No, the GOP wants a government just small enough to fit in your bedroom

mr_cyborg 6y ago

I think this is more of a state culture thing than anything else. Regardless, political parties tend to be pretty different from state to state and vs the federal overarching party.

johndevor 6y ago

This has probably more to do with the Morman church in Utah than the GOP.

umvi 6y ago
(FYI it's Mormon*, named after the Book of Mormon) However, (also FYI), adherents prefer if you refer to the church as "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" and members of said church "Latter-day Saints" or simply "Christians". I know "Mormon" is a long-standing nickname and most people don't intend to use the term derogatorily, but calling Latter-day Saints "Mormons" is like nicknaming Muslims "Mohammeds" or "Qurans" or nicknaming Islam "the Mohammed Church" or "the Quran Church".
- maxerickson 6y ago
  Latter-day though.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  I don't agree that it's like nicknaming Muslims "Mohammeds" or "Qurans". There already exists a short word to refer to Muslims, which is Muslims. Mormon is an effective short form of "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints", which is a mouthful. And sometimes, you might want to refer to a specific type of Christian, such as Baptist, Protestant, Catholic, or in this case, Mormons.
  - umvi 6y ago
    > Mormon is an effective short form of "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints", which is a mouthful. I agree, but they've asked not to be referred to by that term. If we extend the courtesy to trans people who don't want to be referred to by certain terms, I don't see why we shouldn't extend the same courtesy to religious people who don't want to be referred to by certain terms.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      If trans people were asking to be referred to as "people who were assigned a gender at birth but do not identify with that gender now" instead of "men" or "trans men" or whatnot, one might object to the lengthiness of that, too.

foolfoolz 6y ago

the old saying is republicans won’t stay out of your bedroom, democrats won’t stay out of your wallet

AmericanChopper 6y ago

Many Republican voters would also like to know the answer to this question. Edit: If your point is that many Republican policies don’t represent the supposed political ideals of Republicans, then you don’t have to look very hard to find out this is a very popular complaint amongst Republican voters.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

heavyset_go 6y ago

It's only big government when they do it.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Rebelgecko 6y ago

I in the long run you're doing your worldview a disservice by simplifying political parties into a single axis. Especially for Utah, which can be a bit of an outlier on moral issues due to the state's large LDS population

rootusrootus 6y ago
> I in the long run you're doing your worldview a disservice by simplifying political parties into a single axis. Probably. But after years of being compared to socialists and communists on a constant basis, despite not ever having met a liberal who had any interest in socialism or communism for the US -- it's hard to avoid seeing politics in the USA as anything other than a two-team sport.

IgorPartola 6y ago

Small government means that when you see a family starving you don’t have enough to give them to get back on their feet because it’s all been spent on a military contract. It means that we can’t afford a healthcare program like every other civilized country in the world because we need to keep insurance companies from going under (except your kidneys; your kidneys have universal healthcare, did you know?). It means we can’t afford to build decent roads or pay for inner city schools because god forbid we educate people and they vote for their own economic interest. Small government means don’t regulate Wall Street because what if the stock market looks bad and boomers lose retirement portfolio value. And it means letting an 11 year old die in his own bed by freezing to death than forcing Texas to upgrade their power grid because companies saving a dime is more important and Texans would rather sacrifice lives than do anything about what had happened to them. But also no porn, no abortions, no disrespecting POTUS (unless he is black), no access to healthcare or safe policing for brown people, and no vote unless you are male, white, and uneducated. The GOP has been morally bankrupt since they took in the Southern Democrats and the parties flipped in ideology. They are the same party that thought owning human beings was justified as long as it padded profits and never really recovered from losing that argument. They are the party that unironically supports flying traitorous flags because it’s their heritage. They are the same types of people who would have sided with England in the American Revolution because you have to love your country no matter what. And they are the same people who are getting cozy with the people who fly swastikas because anything is apparently better than being a democrat. Are you really surprised at this particular headline coming from a conservative state?

dragonwriter 6y ago

> I thought Utah was a GOP state? Not just a GOP state, but specifically a politically-dominant-historically-persecuted-by-government-religious-group state. > What happened to 'small government'? The dominant faction of the GOP has never really been about small government, but tends to use “small government” as a slogan to avoid debating the role of government when opposing things they see as outside the proper role of government. It's dominantly a right party that seeks to appeal to libertarians to bulk up it's base of support, not a (even just right-) libertarian party (though they do have a right-libertarian faction, whose members—and even candidates—have a somewhat fluid interface with the Libertarian Party, which is a right-leaning libertarian party.) That said, you might think the politically dominant group in Utah would be keenly aware of the dangers of a dominant group imposing strict social controls through the power of government, but clearly they are fine with that as long as they are the dominant group.

kube-system 6y ago

Utah politics have a unique religious aspect to them. The majority of Utah residents belong to a religion which only 1.8% of the US population as a whole follows.