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Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill
241–250 of 583 posts
Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill
#242The Senate is fundamentally a ridiculous way of representing 350 million people and we’re going to continue to get absurd unrepresentative outcomes for as long as it remains a relevant body. There’s no getting around this and it will structurally just get worse and worse. Simply no way something like it exists 200 years from now, it is probably the biggest flaw in the US political structure right now.
The issue is that post WW2 (and perhaps Great Depression) gave the federal gov’t too much power (and money), resulting in a lot of low level meddling.
It’s why we have federal law on everything from drugs to creeks to porn, when these issues typically are better handled at the state (or even lower) level.
Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill
#243The Senate is fundamentally a ridiculous way of representing 350 million people and we’re going to continue to get absurd unrepresentative outcomes for as long as it remains a relevant body. There’s no getting around this and it will structurally just get worse and worse. Simply no way something like it exists 200 years from now, it is probably the biggest flaw in the US political structure right now.
My pet view is that the fundamental flaw in the Constitution is its decreasing ability to enable coordinated change as population grows and more states enter the Union. Thus, change becomes progressively more difficult over time, whereas changes are increasingly necessary as time passes. Yes, one of its main goals was to make change difficult. But political-party and legislator capture of the system has taken hold (e…
The problem is too much centralization of power in the federal government, when the entire purpose of the constitution was supposed to be to LIMIT the power of the federal government so that states could mostly govern themselves.
California should make it's own laws, Montana should make it's own laws - and the federal government should set out the rules on how they talk to each-other.
States Rights are supposed to be the protection against political-party and legislator capture at the federal level.
Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You need something that essentially represents each whole state as a unit. You can have a group of people that represent each state as a unit. Political power should absolutely be proportional to population represented though.
I think that's a very idealistic idea. The reality is that some people / land area are simply far more important than others. It's not to say that the individual themselves is more meaningful as a matter of state, but there positioning, role in society etc simply carries more raw value than others. The US is huge and you have a major divide from the producers and the benefiters, the most critical components of the US…
But per-worker productivity is higher in larger states - so there goes that maker vs. taker justification of up-weighting rural areas. Regardless, plenty of other countries continue to produce adequate amounts of food despite a much more central approach.
Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
Alaska is effectively a one-party state. At the federal level, you almost always need compromise to clear a filibuster, and it's easier to find compromise if you can draw on more subjects. Maybe the Democrats get cheaper health care while the Republicans get a giant bust of Trump installed on the former site of the Lincoln memorial. Neither measure would pass in isolation, but together they might.
You say that like everybody that is in one party agrees on everything. That is absolutely false. It is also an inaccurate portrayal of Alaska state politics. While historically the State Legislature has been majority republican it has been more even since 2015ish. Which is coincidentally when weed was made legal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_House_of_Representative... How we vote in federal elections has more…
Of course you don't have to agree on everything, but the whole point of joining a party is to coordinate action to maximize power. Whether you agree with the party policies doesn't matter if you vote for them anyway to gain political currency with your party that you can hopefully spend later on your own priorities.
That said, I guess the Alaska legislature is a lot more balanced than I assumed. If the single subject rule works there, bravo. Congress is a different beast, though.
Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm well aware of the reasoning for the design -- although I will point out that the notion of an extremely constrained federal government was controversial then, hardly consensus among the founding fathers. But the design clearly is not fit for where our society is or the direction it is moving, people have much more affiliation with the national entity than with the state entity, and it simply does not make sense t…
If you are from a smaller state, you would think it would still make sense. Otherwise the rural concerns just get steamrolled by the urban concerns. The point still stands about trying to level out concerns between smaller and larger states, which is why it was created with years of debate and a majority even if it wasn't consensus.
Urban concerns are steamrolled by the rural concerns. Rural people literally hate and attack urban living people and urban people are supposed to smile and treat them nicely.
Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill
#247The Senate is fundamentally a ridiculous way of representing 350 million people and we’re going to continue to get absurd unrepresentative outcomes for as long as it remains a relevant body. There’s no getting around this and it will structurally just get worse and worse. Simply no way something like it exists 200 years from now, it is probably the biggest flaw in the US political structure right now.
Senators represent their State government, not the people. Americans didn't even vote for Senators until sometime in the 20th century. Traditionally they were selected by the State legislatures. Similarly, the President is the President of the States, not the people. If you don't have this then you don't have a Federal Republic. The House of Representatives, on the other hand, is intended to represent the people.
Intended to, but due to the Permanent Apportionment Act, does not do so in actuality.
Congress is currently structured so that both chambers provide outsized representation to lower population states. With how the electoral college works, this also provides them with outsized representation in presidential selection, as well.
If it was reasonable to argue that the House should not invest so much power into higher population states, then it is reasonable to argue that the Senate should not invest so much power into lower population states as well.
Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill
#248As others mentioned, unfortunately the last bill allowed for some large loopholes and emboldened underground growers (also due to more lax state laws) to grow and flood the market with sub-par or even poisonous product. It’d a billion dollar market that state actors and cartels alike are using to launder money (and ruin lives). Very informative video on this: https://youtu.be/3qC4c-zNxTg?si=oy4ab6kuo27fJqcx
By that logic, we should ban lettuce[1] next
[1] https://www.science.org/content/article/e-coli-outbreak-trac...
Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill
#249[flagged]
Outrage about what? I know people whose hobbies cab generally be summed up as "drinking alcohol". We already decided prohibition didn't work once.
Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are from a smaller state, you would think it would still make sense. Otherwise the rural concerns just get steamrolled by the urban concerns. The point still stands about trying to level out concerns between smaller and larger states, which is why it was created with years of debate and a majority even if it wasn't consensus.
Of course the voters who have much more political power than is fair, would be unhappy if we transitioned to a system where all voters have an equal amount of political power. This point is always brought up as if it's inherently bad for rural concerns to get overruled by urban ones, but TOTALLY FINE if urban concerns get overruled by rural ones. Our current system is a crazy double standard, and inherently unfair.
Is it not obvious why this is the case. If rural dwellers are cut off from the outputs of a city their lives are mostly unchanged and not impacted. If the city dwellers are cut off from the output of rural areas their existence is wildly constrained. How much food / energy / and raw materials do cities typically produce? Obviously there has to be a balance but you have to look at it logically and recognize that one is far more critical than the other.