What a sad – and ultimately selfish and self-destructive – thing for Californians to vote down. Kevin Williamson says that along with the Harry Reid victory, this was the most depressing moment in the election:
You’d think a state that just reelected Jerry Brown would be ready to go in whole-hog on the pot-legalization thing, but, no.
Backers of the initiative said their polls showed it behind but within the margin of error right up until Election Day, but with support waning. Why? Maybe it’s a casualty of the Age of Austerity, though California certainly could have chosen more apt targets: Senator Boxer, for instance.
So California can go scraping around looking for money to interdict, try and lock up a bunch of harmless marijuana smokers, and continue for the indefinite future to needlessly impose politics on what should be a private matter.
Quite a midterm election all around. I certainly can’t recall any like it – even the 2006 Democratic takeover of Congress paled in comparison to the heat generated by this Republican sweep. And yet, amidst all of this, Prop 19 fails by double digits. I just don’t understand this country sometimes.
I’m inconsolable about this one. They’ll try again in 2012 I gather but still, this is a bitter blow.Report
Erik,
Last night as we were watching TV and seeing the results on Prop 19, I commented to my partner Daniel that Iwas surprised to see it going to defeat. Daniel then said, “this was the state that voted to ban gay marriage.”
I think most people tend to think of California as this liberal, libertarian playground, and in some ways it is- in the coastal cities. But as you move inland and away from the big cities, it tends to be more conservative culturally. I remember seeing a map of places in 2008 that voted for the ban on gay marriage and those that didn’t. The anti-prop 8 votes hugged the coasts and large cities, while there were large swaths of areas in the eastern parts of the state that voted against it. You also have to take into account that for as much as diversity is celebrated in California, persons of color tend to be more culturally conservative, so things like gay marriage and legalizing pot are not nearly popular as one might think to those groups.Report
@Dennis Sanders beat me to it. California isn’t quite as liberal as advertised. Its propensity to elect Democrats is the result of a) exquisitely well-machined politics, and b) the fundamental and perpetual incompetence of the California Republican Party and the drecky candidates it recruits. Conservatives can and do succeed here — on single issues, which of course lend themselves well to ballot initiatives like Props 8 and 19.Report
The numbers that surprised me were those that 6 out of 10 folks under 30 wanted to legalize it, and 7 out of 10 of those over 65 were against it.
I’m torn between thinking that we just have to wait for this particular generation of elderly to, ahem, stop voting and thinking that those 6 out of 10 will, through time, become 3 out of 10.Report
@Jaybird, “Ah, but now I’ve grown older and wiser/ and that’s why I’m turning you in!/ so love me, love me, love me- I’m a liberal!”Report
In other words, California’s continuing to vote Democrat is a lot like Illinois’s tendency – mostly the result of slave-enclaves set up by Democrats so that they can keep a brown underclass of uneducated dolts who vote as the poverty pimps tell them to vote, and outright vote-rigging a la the Daley Family.
Meanwhile, the “harmless marijuana smokers” are involved in an industry that is responsible for a ton of violence and corruption, and they wonder (in their drug-addled brains) why legalization is beyond their reach? They must be the only ones too stupid to figure it out.Report
@Good Grief, The Comedian’s Incompetent, you don’t think maybe there would be less reason to bribe and kill if you weren’t trying to hide what you do because it is illegal ?Report
@Matty,
I wonder if he realizes that he’s just made a pretty good argument for gun control?Report
@Francis,
I thought I was the only person that could yell at our commenters like that. I guess I didn’t get the memo.Report
Ordinaries, I submit for your consideration the possibility that GGTCI has herein violated the comment policy, of which I know he has been advised in the recent past.
If GGTCI wants to be critical of Democrats and attribute the accretion of a welfare state to them, and can somehow relate that to the subject matter of the post, that’s entirely cool with me. If he thinks exploration of the racial politics angle of particular governmental policies will be productive to a discussion of the subject of the parent post, or in some other post where that claim is more relevant to the subject of discussion, that’s cool, too.
But the name-calling, profanity, counter-factual claims about “slave-enclaves,” and off-topic diatribe against a disfavored political party is not up the intellectual standards I expect from this blog. I’m willing to use my own intellect to separate invective from argument when possible. I can’t do that here. This comment has nothing to do with the subject matter of the post, is devoid of meaningful intellectual or factual content, and quite obviously is intended purely to vent and provoke emotional responses from others. I disagree with posts and comments here all the time and I’ve never said anything about this before, and GGTCI has really crossed the line from civilized disagreement into trolling.Report
@Transplanted Lawyer, Agreed. Comments by Good Grief, The Comedian’s Incompetent and Francis have been removed pursuant to our commenting policy (http://www.ordinary-gentlemen.com/commenting-policy/).
Thanks for the note.Report
@Scott H. Payne,
Because, after all, only “those that agree with us” are considered to have a valid argument or comment.
“Trolling” – what the leftards call anyone who doesn’t agree with them.Report
@Good Grief, The Comedian’s Incompetent, Negative, I let various of your other comments that didn’t explicitly cross our policy stand. I could care less what your position on Prop 19 is. What I and the site do care about is how you choose to express that position in our comment threads. We have an agreed upon commenting policy that is clearly posted on the site. If you don’t like it or don’t want to follow it, then comment elsewhere.Report
@Scott H. Payne,
“free speech for only those who agree with me.”
Classic war cry of the leftard.Report
Even worse, I’m Canadian. So, you know, there’s that.Report
@Good Grief, The Comedian’s Incompetent,
If you’re on someone else’s property, you play by their rules. If you think the rules are unfair, you can always leave.
That’s not censorship. That’s the right to free association. You have no more inherent right to post at this blog than you have to eat out of my refrigerator or sleep in my bed.Report
@Jason Kuznicki,
that’s the same argument the leftard-wing media uses for its behavior, and has used ever since Cronkite started railing rather than reporting on the evening news.
The game you left-wing assholes play is all the same: take over as much space as you can and claim it is “private”, or not covered by freedom of speech. Then finish the rest off with thoughtcrime laws, “decency” laws run amok, “incitement” laws that are just smokescreens for political correctness enforcement, “human rights” laws that deem everything contrary to your fucked-up opinion to be “harassment” or bulling”, and onwards.Report
@Good Grief, The Comedian’s Incompetent,
I demand that you put my pink & white Hello Kitty branded banner that says ThatPirateGuy is way more awesome than me on your house.
If you don’t give in your violating my freedom of speech!Report
@Good Grief, The Comedian’s Incompetent, So then, it is your position that sites on the Right are perfectly tolerant of any and all opinions expressed thereon, lack commenting policies, and do not delete or ban commenters for consistently boorish behavior (much less for the expression of dissenting opinions)?
Moreover, I note that you have refused to respond to the empirical evidence that refutes your hypothesis. And, well, if you want to insist that our own Jason Kuznicki has a secret desire to “finish the rest off with thoughtcrime laws, “decency” laws run amok, “incitement” laws that are just smokescreens for political correctness enforcement, “human rights” laws that deem everything contrary to your fucked-up opinion to be “harassment” or bulling”, and onwards….” well, all I can say to that is you’ve clearly not been reading this site very long.Report
@Mark Thompson,
I’m in the pay of the Koch brothers, which makes me a PC liberal. I guess.
I’m so confused right now that I don’t even need pot to make my head spin.Report
@Good Grief, The Comedian’s Incompetent, So, you knowingly violated the commenting policy, and that has something to do with the person who wrote the policy being a “leftard”?
Sounds like you may want to give your head a shake. But then, bullying asswipes like you are the reason the right is so easy to laugh at. You spout off a stream of coarse, bullying invective and when it’s cut off you whine about how you’re being bullied. Makes sense. Do you guys on the right do logic at all? Thought not.Report
@Good Grief, The Comedian’s Incompetent, Yes, you are correct. Our policy is clearly “only those that agree with us are considered to have a valid argument or comment.” This is why, in nearly two years of operation, during which we have accumulated 60,000 comments, we have banned a whopping one commenter (a liberal, by the way) and deleted comments as violative of our policy on perhaps three occasions, if that. So, clearly, it is our policy to prohibit any comments or commenters who disagree with us.Report
@Mark Thompson, I blame the Koch brothers, personally. Don’t they fund this obviously glibertarian claptrap?Report
@Scott H. Payne, I thought it was George Soros! I always seem to get my Evil Rich Ideological Bankrollers mixed up.Report
@Scott H. Payne, I think we’re non-partisan in our propagandizing. If the givers be givin’, then we’re good for the takin’.
Note to Warren Buffett: you’re late.Report
@Mark Thompson, You are absolutely correct. If you had only let Mr. Cheeks and I scream at each other we would not have to meet in Clarksville to have a dual.Report
2 critical propositions did pass. Federal congressional districts join state districts in being drawn by the independent commission (yay! My house might finally be out of its gerrymandered hard conservative district). And the state finally joins the other 49 in adopting a budget by simple majority.Report
I’m not surprised in the least that Prop 19 lost. What is surprising and disappointing to me is that it lost by about 8 points when polls had it within the margin of error on a night where Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer won handily and in fact outperformed the polls by 5-7 points (going by the RCP averages), while Dems lost no more than 2 seats (which CNN still lists as undecided) in Congress in the state. So on a night where California appears to have been uniquely immune to the conservative wave, Prop 19 somehow nonetheless did worse than expected.Report
“…California can go scraping around looking for money to interdict, try and lock up a bunch of harmless marijuana smokers…”
Although I’m disappointed in the results, too, I think I should point out that recently the state of California changed marijuana possession of less than an ounce to an infraction instead of a misdemeanor, effectively decriminalizing (but not legalizing) pot.Report
@Aaron W, While I’m not for legalizing pot, I also recognize the absurdity of setting a “weight limit” below which it’s allowable.
When the question of whether you are “guilty” of an infraction, misdemeanor, or felony is based on some asshole cop with a loaded or deliberately miscalibrated scale, “justice” is meaningless.Report
@Good Grief, The Comedian’s Incompetent, can you say “breathalyzer”? This is nothing new.Report
Incidents like his are why I argue that modern conservativism is merely turn of the (other) century progressivism with a somewhat different list of virtues/vices.Report
Around the turn of the (other) century, temperance and/or prohibition were major issues.
These days, politicians pretty much have to drink a few beers with the locals for voters to trust them.
Do you think, in a century, pot-smoking will become an integral part of the campaign process?Report
@Katherine, in a century? Hell, it is now!
“Did you ever do drugs?”
“This is slander.”
“Answer the question.”
“I won’t dignify the question with a response.”
“Here’s a picture.”
“Truly the media is biased towards the inclinations of my opponents.”Report
@Katherine,
The critical who would you smoke a dooby with factor.Report
It might have been different if only Bud Selig had allowed California’s most beloved pothead to endorse Prop 19. (I can only conclude that anyone who wanted Sharron Angle to win is on something a lot stronger.)Report