So Scott Walker is proposing drug testing Food Stamp recipients…
And while that in itself isn’t particularly surprising, given that there are 11 states with testing/screening for folks on public assistance, the fact that Scott Walker is on a lot of Republican short lists for President in 2016 makes his announcement (and certainly its implementation) something to watch in the coming months… but not for the reason you think.
In 1996, there was a bill in Congress that would have randomly drug tested Congress and publicized the results before each election. The bill died in committee, of course. (Money graf: As one GOP aide argued, since President Clinton doesn’t have to submit to a drug test, why should members of Congress?)
My advice to the Democrats would be to bring this bill back. Try to pass it as often as the Republicans tried to repeal Obamacare. Whenever they give an argument for why they shouldn’t have to, submit a second bill to Congress saying that the American people shouldn’t be subject to drug tests because (reason Republicans gave).
Imagine the fun you can have asking Scott Walker if he thinks that Congresscritters and Senators should be drug tested. Get him on camera, and you might be able to scuttle his presidential ambitions before 2015 ends.
He did campaign on this issue and said he would go for it re-elected.
I do think that part of the legalization/reform process is going to be drug warriors and conservative culture warriors making last ditch efforts at entrenching the status quo. I largely do think that social conservatives are on the ropes right now with an increase in legalized marijuana, the collapse of same-sex marriage bans and DOMA, and increasing awareness of the need for rights for transgenerdered people, etc.
They will not go quietly though. My brother noted on FB that the conservatives in Europe have largely accepted and made peace with the various social revolutions of the 1960s. The social conservatives in the United States have not and are largely still trying to fight the 1960s and reverse various changes. There are a lot of social conservatives who want to turn back Griswold v. Connecticut for pete’s sake!
So these sort of battles and issues are going to pop up a lot in the next few years. There is a new argument against the 9th Circuit decision striking down SSM bans and it is very silly and amounts to “Wah, you ruled against us and that is mean”Report
While I do not share it, I do understand the sentiment that says “I had to take a drug test to get a job to pay for your welfare, the least you could do is return the favor.”
Now, I’m not particularly interested in defending a position that I don’t hold (today, anyway) but I am willing to say that I can see that this position is one that seems to be perennial enough that we’ll probably have to argue against it, oh, next year and the year after that unless we find a really good argument against it.
From where I sit, “you don’t have to be drug tested anymore” looks like it might be sufficient.Report
If they’d use drug tests that look for current intoxication rather than intoxication at any time in the past month, that could be a good start. And of course, if they’d restrict drug testing to jobs where having a bit of a buzz on would actually endanger people.
In Canada, I’ve really only heard of people being tested for jobs with considerable danger and heavy equipment – construction, mining, etc. Some of the jobs I’ve heard of Americans having to be tested for are really puzzling.Report
@dragonfrog Hey man, you don’t want just ANYBODY making that sandwich. You don’t know if they are hopped up on goofballs.
@jaybird – as I explained below, I think that argument is actually glib shorthand for a more deep objection, and simply making drug testing go away for most of the non-welfare populace will not prevent people from pushing for drug testing for those on welfare.
There’s a reason panhandlers even bother with stories about how they “just need enough gas to get home”, or “get a hot meal” or whatever, when many people know, no, that dollar I gave them is really going toward maintaining an addiction (of course, there’s always the exception who letters his sign “I REALLY JUST NEED A DRINK”, and gets cash by being funny/honest – but he’s always the exception, not the rule, and the sign wouldn’t get money if he were the rule).
People want to believe their money is going towards giving a person a hand up; not assisting them in planting face down.
Some people don’t want to assist due to envy/resentment (“why should *he* have fun on *my* dime?”) and some don’t because it feels complicit/enabling to do so (I myself have wondered what obligation I might have to stop funding an artist who is known to be self-destructing on drugs or alcohol – you don’t want *your* dollar to be the one that bought his fatal shot, do you?)
I realize this also seems like arguing for a position I don’t hold, but I think assuming that we can get people to stop feeling this way is overly optimistic. I can understand those feelings, even if I suspect they ultimately bring their own costs and problems with them.Report
“Hey, I didn’t ask for banana peppers! Damn stoners.”Report
I expect a similar argument mutatis mutandis if the scotus rules against subsidies for federal health insurance exchanges. Not that I’d welcome such a ruling, mind, and not that I’m not pleased at striking down ssm bans. But sometimes the fairness or unfairness depends on whose ox(en) is(are) being gored.
My point is more than just to snark and lob a tu quoque. It’s also to warn against a counterproductive triumphalism that can work against maintaining those advances. (And they are advances. I strongly support ssm and legalizing marijuana and I do support recognizing the rights of transsexuals, although I confess I’ve been slow to jump on board.)
One way to entrench opposition against these advances–and thereby strengthen efforts to rollback or curtail further advances–is to adopt the attitude that the only reason one can or does oppose them is out of simple bigotry. Bigotry may play a role here, at least when it comes to those who oppose ssm or protections for transsexuals, but bigotry is usually not simple. People develop and are raised in world views in which gender and sexuality and marriage are seen as “natural” and based on certain norms and in which the state has a special obligation to protect those norms. I disagree strongly with those people and believe they are mistaken (and I believe that the history of such things would belie the “naturalness” of what they take to be natural) but it’s a little more complicated than simply waking up one morning and deciding to not like a certain group of people.
And some issues–like the social conservatives who wish to keep marijuana illegal or who oppose Griswold–are perhaps not as easily caricatured as bigoted. Marijuana may be, as I believe, generally less harmful, or only “as harmful,” as alcohol, but it’s not harmless across the board, and there are probably some people who would experiment with it if it were legal who otherwise would not, and some of those might become somewhat dependent on it, and some of those might find it does lead to some mental damage that’s not easily fixed. (In my opinion, very little of that is helped by keeping it illegal, but it’s not full-blown obvious either that there’s no legitimate concern whatsoever about weed.)
To the extent that social conservatives really do oppose Griswold–and I have my doubts that “a lot” of them do, maybe it’s only half a lot–their big target, I imagine, is abortion, a practice many of them regard as tantamount to murder. I suspect that if you asked such anti-Griswolders why they hold the position they do, they’ll probably point to that case’s identifying of a “right to privacy” and the use of that doctrine to justify the Roe v. Wade decision. They might not necessarily have any beef against legalizing birth control itself. (Some might, and I wouldn’t be surprised, for example, if the owners of Hobby Lobby would support making it illegal if such a policy were on offer, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d draw the line somewhere south of criminalization, either). And although I ultimately believe that women have a special prerogative to terminate or foster that life and even if I didn’t believe so I’d have grave reservations about making abortion illegal and although I don’t think recognizing a “right to privacy” necessarily means that abortion should be legal anyway, I do find the concerns of such social conservatives to be sincere.
When we’re on the cusp of victory, we need to express empathy for our opponents. I don’t mean sympathy, I mean empathy. I mean we need to show some appreciation for how it feels to be on the losing end of the battle. I tend to see this as an almost ethical imperative, but if you can’t meet me that far, I’m willing to fall back on the notion that empathy is a good tactical matter. No one “deserves” empathy, and I would probably have a different instinct if, say, my right to a legal marriage were limited because of whom I happen to love. Also, none of this means we shouldn’t still support change. The fight for ssm isn’t over, the fight for transsexual rights is barely begun, and legalizing marijuana is only one step in ending the drug war. But there is sometimes room for understanding others and not fueling their incentive to react against changes, and perhaps even winning allies in unexpected places.Report
@gabriel-conroy
I don’t think opposing Griswold is about simple bigotry or wanting to oppress women but I am a cis-gendered heterosexual male. It is not my place to tell someone who is gay or women that they should be more respectful to people who oppose same-sex marriage or access to birth control or abortion.
But there is an element of opposing Griswold which screams trying to turn back the clock and stuff everything you dislike into a box. Griswold was decided in 1965. The decision will turn 50 years old very soon. I don’t know how to describe it exactly but it does feel a odd that some social conservatives are still screaming in rebellion about Supreme Court cases that happened 50 years ago.
I also have to ask about why they think states will go along with banning contraception if Griswold is overturned. What is their ultimate aim? What kind of world do they want? It does not feel like a very welcoming world to me as Jewish person and I can’t see why it would be very welcoming or appealing to women, LGBT oriented people, and other minorities. This was published in the Atlantic this week:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/11/the-republican-obsession-with-restoring-america/382689/
“Here’s the problem. Unlike Reagan, today’s Republicans are generally shrewd enough to avoid identifying exactly which previous age they wish to restore. But for African Americans, Latinos, women, and gays and lesbians, idealizing any previous age means idealizing one in which they enjoyed fewer rights and opportunities than they do today. Pledging to “restore” America appeals to many older, straight, Anglo, white, and male voters, because it’s a subtle way of saying Republicans will bring back the good old days. The GOP’s problem is that to win back the White House, it must make inroads among Americans who know the good old days weren’t all that good.”
This paragraph is rather spot on and I don’t trust the opponents of SSM or people still screaming at Griswold to ever give respect to the viewpoints of their opponents. I am not convinced that I am morally, ethically, or strategically required to give them any charity or respect either. To a large extent, I simply distrust them.Report
@saul-degraw
First of all, this is a very good point:
And I should probably check my privilege at least a couple times before admonishing others.
But admonish I did, and while it’s not necessarily my place to do it, I really do think I have some ethical/moral obligation. You disagree. You also disagree that there’s a strategic “obligation,” as you call it. I do think that the tactical/strategic portion of my argument doesn’t rest on notions of “obligation” as much as on notions of what works and what doesn’t. And maybe you have enough faith on the power of your side and mine than I do. I guess time will tell.
As for this:
I think I tried to answer that, at least by implication. I think their ultimate goal, or the goal of most of them, is not to ban birth control. It’s to take aim at abortion. And again, I disagree with them, but I don’t doubt that they, or some of them, at least have sincere arguments.
Now, the empathy I advocate for goes only so far. And at the end of the day, we might have to rely on the markers of strength: fashioning a coalition, appealing to the courts when the laws don’t recognize the rights we seek, appealing to the legislatures when the courts don’t recognize those rights, seeking to change minds.
And again, and as you said, it’s probably not our place to tell transgendered or gay people, or gay people, or women that they need to show empathy (and I think “empathy” is different from “respect,” which is the word you used).
But the trouble with being right is the temptation to self-righteousness. And that’s what I’m trying to argue against.Report
Empathy. Show empathy. That’s such great advice.
Like I have some great empathy for my brother, who could only marry his partner of 27 years two years ago, and couldn’t marry him in many states, still. I have empathy for my daughter, who two weeks after beginning HRT to transition from male to female had relief from depression and suicidal ideation that had plagued her all her life as a male. I have a great deal of empathy for the woman I helped at the food last week. She has three children, her husband abandoned them, and she’s about to be evicted because she can’t pay her rent. I had to tell her she needs to go check into a shelter to get any help.
Empathy for the people who think she’s a moocher? Empathy for someone who would tell my daughter to spend the rest of her life contemplating suicide instead of living as a woman? Empathy for the people who don’t think my brother and his husband should have the same marital rights and my husband and I have? I’m certainly sorry that these things discomfort them; but I have nothing in the way of empathy for the harm they would cause others. And I don’t think I should, either.Report
Zic,
I’m leaving this conversation, but I just want to note that I hear what you’re saying and it’s not lost on me.Report
Like I’ve said before, I’ll support these once every employee of a company that makes more than 50.1% of their income from federal or state contracts or anybody who receives other forms of government support, such as Pell Grants, also has to take a drug test.
Oh, and of course, every member of the staff of the legislature and the legislature themselves. There, I just killed the DC nightlife. 🙂Report
Too late now, but that should have been a requirement for accepting TARP money. Not even a chemical test, just “You guys invested in what? Yeah, like you weren’t on crack.”Report
awesome.Report
@jesse-ewiak
I get your point (which seems to be mostly @jaybird ‘s point), but be careful what you wish for….Report
Jesse, I’ve never had a job since the restaurant that didn’t make me take a drug test.
Additionally, people who have drug felonies cannot get Pell Grants already (well, it’s a little more complicated than “cannot get”… for example, you can regain eligibility by such things as passing random drug tests, but still).
Extrapolating out from my experience, I’m willing to say that there are already a lot of employees (Federal, State, or otherwise) out there who have been asked to pee in a cup and who did so as a matter of course. I’m sure that they’d be proud to pee in a cup on demand.Report
I’ve never had to pee in a cup, though I think that if I’d stayed at my first job at Large Oil Company a few more years, I would have. That’s likely a combination of Northern California culture and the fact that tech companies compete for workers, which limits their ability to impose arbitrary rules.Report
Like I’ve said before, I’ll support these once … anybody who receives other forms of government support, such as Pell Grants, also has to take a drug test.
If I read this correctly, you’re more comfortable with making college unaffordable for the kid who likes to queef than you are with asking politicians to abide by the standards they impose on others.
I can’t say as I understand that impulse at all.Report
“Queef” doesn’t mean what you think it does.Report
Now I’m really curious as to what word he meant to use.Report
“Oh, and of course, every member of the staff of the legislature and the legislature themselves.”
Missed that part, James.Report
Reef? Ex: “Man, I was reefin so hard that pipe was glowin!”?
Leaf, maybe? Ex: “Nah dude, no bud for me. I’m leafin it tonight.”?Report
@jesse-ewiak
Clever way to avoid the issue, Jesse, but do you, or do you not, believe that student loan recipients be drug-tested before we drug test congressmembers? And if so, how does that make you a lefty instead of a right-winger?Report
@scarletnumbers
Yeah, but I knew some (female) college students who used it as a euphemism. I probably shouldn’t use private jokes in public.Report
@james-hanley – it’s definitely a euphemism, just not for drugs. Maybe they were messing with you. Were they also talking about jenkem?Report
glyph,
No, they were using the word in their own way. It was an inside joke. Students of a friend of mine at another college, with whom I was on a trip.Report
Sort of like how on HIMYM in the flashback sequences they use eating a hero as a euphemism for smoking up.Report
@james-hanley
“Students of a friend of mine at another college, with whom I was on a trip.”
Are you now admitting that you went on a “trip” with students?Report
Dude, they was queefin!!!!Report
Saul,
For professional reasons, I feel it necessary to clarify that I was traveling with my friend and his students, but never partook of any drugs. I assume some of them partook during this time, but I never observed them doing so.Report
@james-hanley
Sorry for my silly joke. I did not mean to get you in trouble professionally.Report
No worries. I’m probably just being paranoid.Report
@james-hanley
No your psychologist really is out to get you.Report
What about the government support of free elementary and high school? (and don’t think that just because you’re not in grade school now, you’re not benefiting from the grade school education you got as a youngster)
The tax shelter of a 401(k)?
Medicare/aid?
Insurance subsidies under the ACA?
FDA testing of the food they eat, clean drinking water and wastewater treatment on the city’s tax dime, the road network, emergency services, city tree pruning, access to public parks, do I need to go on, or have I covered everyone in the whole country yet?Report
Dragonfrog,
Following Jesse’s lead and your hints, I’m making my call right now for drug-testing of public school kindergartners. We don’t need any free-loading druggie 5 year olds! 😉Report
@james-hanley
I’d welcome that. Some of my kids seem to be tripping balls half the time.Report
Kazzy,
Are you sure they’re not just tripping on balls?
I know 5 year olds, man, and they’re not real coordinated.Report
What kinda drugs are we talking about? Soft stuff, like weed? Or the real stuff, like Viagra?
Though you realize the inevitable conclusion of this is a test for Congresscritters that excludes anyone on heroin, crack, and oral contraceptives… right?Report
I suspect that something as simple as “publicizing the results prior to an election” should be sufficient.
If we have become a country in which “Jennifer Smith is on THE PILL” would be sufficient reason to vote for the Republican, I haven’t noticed.Report
We are a country in which large parts of the media would report the fact that she was fitted for an IUD as “she had an abortion”.Report
I would oppose testing Congresscritters for IUDs.Report
Now this is a good one for the CBO to score.
We’ve just been through this stuff (to some degree, we’re in for me,) here. Some <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/01/08/3136631/lepage-welfare/"3,000 EBT withdrawals, made at bars and strip clubs, etc. Oh My. Get your angry disapproving on, and start up another expensive investigation to catch fraud. Because this is rampant:
Perhaps we should start drug-testing Medicare recipients, along with Congress, too. How much would it cost us to boot all the pot-smoking grannies (toking up while they get chemo for cancer,) and heroine-addicted grandpas (injured on the job and addicted via doctor-prescribed pain killers,) off Medicare?Report
Part of the problem is that many of the folks who support the policy see it as tax dollars well-spent.
The argument that it’s expensive (or spends more than it saves) is an argument that just bounces off this position because many of the people who hold it aren’t opposed to such things as government spending in principle, they just want to make sure that the money is spent on the “deserving”.Report
I always think it is, at least to some degree, an indication their own yard stick for committing fraud; because they might do it (or encourage family members to do it) if they have need, the expect the same of others, who, of course, aren’t as good as they are.Report
Nice try, but I honestly don’t think conservatives will feel the slightest ripple of shame even if confronted with their own drug test with a copy of their application for Medicaid/ Agricultural grant/ gummint assistance whatever.
The fact that so many Tea Party/ Fox viewers are on Medicaid but rail against “Welfare” usually means that government aid to rural white people is legitimate, while government aid to urban black people is welfare.
Yeah, it really does boil down to class and race, every time. No one seriously believes that welfare fraud/ voter fraud is significant. Drug testing is just a dog whistle, the handy smokescreen that conceals the desire to punish the illegitimate Other.Report
I’m pretty sure I don’t agree with this. From the article: But a number of Republicans–whom aides and other congressmen interviewed refuse to identify, saying they don’t want to hurt them politically–let it be known they considered drug testing an indignity unworthy of their elected positions.
Identify them. Get them on camera saying “this is an indignity unworthy of me”.Report
I like the spirit of where you’re going here, but I don’t think it would have the desired effect — and I think Republicans know that.
When people say they want drug screenings for food stamp recipients, it’s for the same reason they want harsh jail sentences for drug users, but are ok with the fact that they do/did occasionally take a hit of pot.
They aren’t really against the drugs; they’re against the picture they have of a certain class (and often times race) of people that they assume do drugs.Report
Yup.Report
Tod, you have this wonderful ability to get to the heart of the matter very easily.Report
I think that’s some of it.
I also think “Wait a second, I have to agree to pee in a cup for my job (where I work to get paid) and some schmo on welfare doesn’t?” actually has quite a bit of resonance. And not just among people who vote Republican. One of the first things I often hear when someone announces their support for these sorts of policies is that they, themselves, have peed into a cup (or have agreed to, if required).Report
In addition, I think that everyone knows that, well, drugs are fun. At least for a while. They are a rollercoaster for your body and brain. Which is why people do them.
There’s that old saw about “the fear that someone, somewhere is enjoying themselves…”, but in this case, the fungibility of food stamps/welfare with other income means that saw can be appended with “…on my (symbolic) dime, while *I* have to get up for work in the morning.”
People also know that drugs, especially the harder ones (but honestly, even the softer ones, via stupid decision-making) can kill…add that to the above, and people are understandably reluctant to fund that, even indirectly.
If there’s footage on the news of people on welfare, that somehow can afford to go to Drug Disneyland – and further, Drug Disneyland has a bunch of rickety-ass rollercoasters with regular injuries and fatalities – it’s not necessarily ridiculous (or racist, or classist) for people to say, “I’m uncomfortable with funding that (or assisting/subsidizing its funding), even indirectly.”
I don’t support drug testing myself, feeling it’s a waste of money and too subjective/invasive etc; but I think presenting all people who support it as racist/classist (instead of also, in their own possibly-misguided and unarticulated ways, compassionate and/or envious, two very human tendencies), is far too simple a narrative.Report
@will-truman, there are potential privacy issues involved with drug tests for welfare recipients and other benefits. The 4th Amendment, applied to the states through the 14th amendment, protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures without warrants. This generally includes body searches. A drug test by the government would most likely be an unreasonable search and seizure without a warrant. Getting warrants for everybody using food stamps or on welfare seems like a waste of time and inefficient.Report
I’m against it, myself, though I am skeptical that it should be a constitutional matter if pertaining to select benefits. (I’m not positive it should be a Constitutional matter if pertaining to broad benefits – such as the ability to drive – though that’s a closer call.)
I speak of my own views, though, and not the views of the High Court.Report
It seems a bit weird to say that intrusive searches and seizures are bad when it involves a criminal standard or broad benefit but not a narrow benefit like food stamps. People don’t have a right to drive either.Report
Will,
I also think “Wait a second, I have to agree to pee in a cup for my job (where I work to get paid) and some schmo on welfare doesn’t?” actually has quite a bit of resonance.
You may be right about this, but if so what does that reveal about people? Is this a fairness issue, or is something else at play (like punition!). I can’t help but think that privilege plays a pretty big role in all this drug-testing-for-food-stamps stuff, myself. But I think that you’re comment here (if correct, and I’m willing to agree that it passes the smell test) exposes something else: that privileged folks think their norms ought to be enforced (normalized, as it were) on those less fortunate than themselves. WHich is maybe a whole separate canaworms, but something that strikes me as in play on all this. Not to mention the fact that lots of people who are largely exempt from anything like criminal prosecution for all sorts of drug use are advocates for these types of laws. I dunno, tho. Just throwing that out there.Report
Is what it reveals about people something that is likely to change?Report
Yeah, I think so. Why not?Report
Lee, like I said I’m not actually sure about broad benefits like driving, either, though I think the argument is stronger.
The standard to justify intrusiveness to lose one’s ability to stay out of prison, though, is far higher than to drive or recieve food stamps.Report
If it’s a fairness issue, I’d point out a comment made by a friend in the last week. One of his kids had a two hour delay for school due to snow. The other kid had school start at the scheduled time.
The kid who had to go to school on time explained that this was not fair.
I am not certain that this was “privilege” operating.
In any case, if we’re dealing with people who are saying “I had to take a drug test to pay your welfare, it’s not fair that you don’t have to take one”, I’m thinking that we’re dealing with something ingrained in human nature (using the kids as an example of that).
Personally, I think we’ll move a lot more opinions by not making workers take drug tests for illegal drugs than by explaining to these same workers that it’s none of anybody’s business if people on public assistance are using illegal drugs or not.Report
Personally, I think we’ll move a lot more opinions by not making workers take drug tests for illegal drugs than by …
Jaybird, how do you expect to not make workers take drug tests without moving opinions on the issue?Report
Why, by suggesting that Congressmen and Senators be drug tested. When they refuse, and they will refuse, use their arguments in a follow-up bill saying that these arguments apply to Americans in general.Report
“a follow up bill”.
Hmmm. The underpants gnomes theory of law making, yes? Devilishly clever. No one will ever see it coming.Report
I suppose that the flaw in my plan is that it requires the Democrats to act.Report
So I guess we’re going to run with the plan that requires the Republicans to change?Report
Sure Jaybird. Whatever.Report
@will-truman
How many people have to pee in a cup for work? I never have. I’m not being snarky. I think you’re right about the potential resonance. I’m just curious how sizable a portion of the population this is.Report
@kazzy I’ve had to twice, though both of those were a part of the interview process. I had one employer that instituted screenings for current employees that I actually knew people who were tested and subsequently fired, but I didn’t draw the black bean and wasn’t tested.Report
Never had to. Worked a few different jobs, usually handling sensitive material and sometimes handling various degrees of classified material. Defense and intelligence work mostly. They *could have* tested me as part of an investigation if something struck them as suspicious, but it wasn’t done randomly or universally as part of the hiring process.Report
I suppose that the flaw in my plan is that it requires the Democrats to act.
I laughed.Report
Hating on people on “welfare” has a long tradition. St Ronnie got plenty of mileage our of his unproven statements about young bucks and welfare queens.Report
@greginak, The welfare queen was actually a real person, one of the most notorious cons in American criminal history:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2013/12/linda_taylor_welfare_queen_ronald_reagan_made_her_a_notorious_american_villain.html
Reagan’s crime was that he used one notorious and unrepresentative cheat and made every recipient of welfare out to be like her.Report
@leeesq
Hating on the recipients of charity goes back longer than St. Ronnie. The Victorians often talked about the difference between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor. There is also “Give a man a fish, teach a man a fish”. Large parts of the population will always believe that welfare and charity are fundamentally wrong because they encourage laziness. Nothing in the world will change this belief.Report
Saul,
In this grim world, you can get a man a glass of water. Or you can get a child a blowtorch and some beer bottles, and let him create works of art.Report
Why do liberals have to turn everything into a convoluted argument that Repubs do everything based on race? Personally I think you guys do it so you don’t have to do anything hard thinking and can reaffirm what you already think you know to be true.Report
I’ll admit that libertarians on this here blog have fundamentally changed the way I think about drugs, prohibitions, screenings, incarceration-rates and penalties, etc. Not only is the enforcement of prohibitory drug-related laws a monetary sink (no money in, lots of money out), but the rationalizations for writing and enforcing those laws reveal something really ugly about our culture and society generally and the role all-too-many folks think gummint ought to play in all this in particular.Report
I’ll admit that libertarians on this here blog have fundamentally changed the way I think
{Victory dance!}Report
To be perfectly honest, @james-hanley, the libertarians here (most certainly including you) have changed the way I think about libertarians more than the way I think about issues. But I’ve been in your camp on civil liberty issues all along.Report
Expanding drug testing to welfare recipients benefits the companies that do the testing and their investors. This benefits the free enterprise system and is good for America. Anyone who points out that welfare recipients have a much lower frequency of positive results than the general population and that results in increased taxpayer expense is obviously a socialist.Report
@crprod
“This benefits the free enterprise system and is good for America. Anyone who points out that welfare recipients have a much lower frequency of positive results than the general population and that results in increased taxpayer expense is obviously a socialist.”
You say this is like this is a bad thing….Report
Chalk it up to living too many years in post November 2010 North Carolina.Report
Professional concern troll Kevin Drum has a provocative blogpost:
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/11/can-we-talk-heres-why-white-working-class-hates-democrats
Interesting graf: So who does the WWC take out its anger on? Largely, the answer is the poor. In particular, the undeserving poor. Liberals may hate this distinction, but it doesn’t matter if we hate it. Lots of ordinary people make this distinction as a matter of simple common sense, and the WWC makes it more than any.
Check out the whole thing.Report
What’s Vince McMahon done now?Report
He’s practically retired. Believe it or not, he turns 70 next year.Report