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Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

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351–360 of 583 posts

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#351
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People upthread are arguing about the senate as a system, but how much does that really matter when wildly popular things, like legalizing marijuana, are not even considered by anyone in congress? A majority of Americans are in favor of this, and have been for over a decade .

> wildly popular things, like legalizing marijuana, are not even considered by anyone in congress? Because it's not "not considered by anyone". Democrats have been demonstrably decriminalizing and legalizing weed all over the country, and the Democrats in the federal government have been pushing and submitting and trying to make it happen. It's republicans. They are the ones that continually stonewall a measure the v…

I'm confused, only 22 democratic senators tried to stop this, plus Paul and Cruz. They just did outlaw it only because it is not called "marijuana".

Is it necessary to recount how this entire split is partially due to racism, anyway?

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#352
post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vehemently disagree. I would much rather take our most contentious issues (abortion, M4A, etc) put them on a national ballot and let the general public decide. I don't agree with everything passed on ballot in my state, but I respect that at least the majority voted for it.

You have a huge, huge misunderstanding of how direct democracy turns out. Everyone with a job gets inundated with bullshit, even eventually stops showing up (or paying attention) because it’s impossible to live and actual do that. So then you end up with nut jobs doing whatever they want while having the votes because they are the only ones who show up at 11am on a Tuesday when the daily vote is happening. Apps just…

I'm not saying we put every insignificant little thing on the ballot, but lets say once every 4 years we take the real hot button issues that congress perennially uses as political football, and put them on a ballot. Abortion legal before the age of viability, yes or no. Medicare for all, yes or no. Legalizing cannabis, ditto.

I am sick and tired of congress basically ignoring the will of the people because some rich dudes with superpacs feel otherwise.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#353
post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like a hybrid system like we have in a number of states. A mechanism for nationwide initiative petitions would be nice. Then we can get nationwide consensus on the high-level issues and leave the rest for the people whose job it is to work out the details.

The worst laws come from direct amendments and petitions because only the stuff no lawmaker actually wants their name on (or could pass) goes there - and it gets gamed to hell. See the CA propositions - they turn into insane population wide gaslighting competitions.

I'd rather have CA's props than an elected congressman who ignores the will of the people

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

76/100 senators voted to keep this provision.

Legal weed senators were voting for it because their constituents include people growing legal weed. The hemp product market competes with these constituents. The anti-weed senators were voting for it because they are anti-weed.

Honest question but how is hemp competing with weed? Are these different plants?

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#355

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The ACA was literally dreamed up by The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank. This idea that it was some partisan thing Democrats forced on the country is hilarious. It was always a bending-over-backwards compromise solution to maintain the for-profit system.

There’s a reason that, after 15 years freaking out about it, Republicans still have no plan for replacing it. Virtually any change, outside of more socialization, will make health outcomes worse.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#356

The 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.

Since changing the constitution is difficult, maybe a reasonable remedy to this would be to significantly increase the number of states by population. In 1776 there were 13 states with a total population of 2.5M. There are now 50 states (3.8x increase), with a total population of 340M (136x increase). If we increased the number of states proportionally to the population in 1776 that would result in ~1768 states, almo…

Only takes President + a simple majority in the Senate to make every US citizen a Supreme Court justice - and the Supreme Court can conjure and erase legal obligations at will.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But who in bumfuck is going to stop you exactly? Are you talking about a grid-tie system, where you feedback to the power company? My experience in rural areas is that after the initial approval for utilities if needed, no one is coming back to inspect anything.

Oh the power company doesn't care. But counties use satellites to find solar panels or other unpermitted installations. If it's not noticeable via satellite imagery then yeah, probably nothing will happen.

Why is your rural county spending resources to find these unpermitted installations? Sounds like you should vote for better local representatives who don't do stuff you dislike.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#358
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the Greeks found, the only think worse than representative democracy is direct democracy.

Vehemently disagree. I would much rather take our most contentious issues (abortion, M4A, etc) put them on a national ballot and let the general public decide. I don't agree with everything passed on ballot in my state, but I respect that at least the majority voted for it.

> would much rather take our most contentious issues (abortion, M4A, etc) put them on a national ballot and let the general public decide

Those are actually great examples of where federalism plus direct democracy works better than aggregated democracy. There are fundamental worldview differencs on abortion that a plebescite can't reconcile. The failure of direct democracy is it short circuits deliberation. So to make it work, you need another layer where deliberation occurs.

The Swiss seem to have solved this neatly: the representative body deliberates, and then the population gets and up-down vote.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I don't, and never will, trust politicians (of any party) to actually represent their constituents accurately. I understand everything can't be a direct democracy, but we need some sort of a middle ground. It's really weird to think about. I am a straight white CIS male, with no extreme political or social views, my family has been in the US for 150 years, im financially well off, and I don't feel like I hav…

why do you write 'cis' in all caps? It's not any kind of acronym, initialism, or otherwise; it's a Latinate prefix.

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Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I don't, and never will, trust politicians (of any party) to actually represent their constituents accurately. I understand everything can't be a direct democracy, but we need some sort of a middle ground. It's really weird to think about. I am a straight white CIS male, with no extreme political or social views, my family has been in the US for 150 years, im financially well off, and I don't feel like I hav…

There's a widespread misunderstanding about what congresspeople do. They are not elected to represent the views of their constituents. Constituents, rather, elect those representatives whose agendas they most closely support. There's a subtle difference.

>They are not elected to represent the views of their constituents.

Yet another thing I vehemently disagree with.

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