Dobson no longer leader of Focus on Family

It has been reported that Christian Theocrat James Dobson has resigned as chairman of Focus on the Family. Focus on the Family's modus operandi since its founding thirty years ago has been to support religious and socially conservative politicians who will legislate morality to the public. From the articles I have read this really doesn't signal much other one fundamentalist steps down and another one will take his place.

News from the Drug War Front

With the current state of the economy most other issues have taken a back seat in the minds of most Americans. One issue that does tie into the economy would be the drug war. In the past many have proved that the Drug War has been nothing but a toilette for tax payer funds to be flushed down. While it doesn't seem that the national policy will be changing anytime soon with the Obama Administration there can be work done on the local level. I was contacted earlier today by a man who was in a Ron Paul meet up group I joined up with during the election season. He was interested in building a joint Libertarian-Conservative coalition in order to get cannabis in all it's forms decriminalized in the state of New York. We in New York still have that draconian Rockefeller Drug laws which can be explained here in the wiki article. Governor Patterson has said publicly that the Rockefeller Drug laws have been nothing but a failure but has yet to make any statements or actions beyond that. It seems that the good Governor will need a push in order to take action on these laws. I intend to join this organization in order to give my Governor the push that he needs. Although this is a group intended to reform laws in New York state, outside help is always welcome.

Citizens Against Marijuana Prohibition

Small but important victory against censorship

While that clusterfuck the Fairness Doctrine is still being whispered about in Washington another medium had gained a decent victory yesterday. Yesterday the Ninth District appeals court had ruled the video games are also protected by the First Amendment. The Gaming industry has been attack by big government liberals, social and religious conservatives for years. Sadly like clockwork they attack them after some horrible school shooting. It's always the same strawman arguments too; 1. Makes children violent, 2. De-sensitizes them to violence and so on. For people that actually think these arguments don't work and studies have proved many of these arguments false. In reality in all the evils that video games supposedly cause (along with the rest of the entertainment industry for that matter) all boils down to parenting. Parents are responsible for what their kids are exposed to day in and day out. Last time I checked it wasn't my job to keep an eye on my neighbor's kid. Of course these days it's easier to go after those who have deep pockets and squeeze cold hard cash out of them because of the supposed psychological damage that their product cause their child. Just like guns don't kill people, people kill people video games don't make kids go insane, kids go insane.

Here is the PDF of the ruling

http://www.videogamevoters.org/resources/CA_9th_Ruling.pdf

Utah Governor Huntsman supporting Civil Unions

While it's always refreshing to see a Republican taking a stance against the religious/social conservative base this one is especially interesting. Governor Huntsman is a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints aka the modern day Mormon church. Those who remember the LDS church and it's members were overwhelmingly supporting Proposition 8 in California. Proposition 8 was designed to reinstate the ban on same sex marriages that the Californian Supreme Court overturned back in late summer time. As most people know Proposition 8 did pass in November although there are current challenges to it's legality of being on the ballot in the first place.

One can look at Huntsman change of heart in a few different ways. One can dismiss this as just hot air for the following reasons. In the very conservative state of Utah the chances of even a civil union bill being passed through the state legislator is very small. Rumors float the Huntsman might make a run for President in 2012 and is just pandering. The last reason would be that Huntsman can't legally run for a third term so taking a side on a issue that many religious and social conservatives oppose wouldn't matter to him politically. These are pretty good reasons to believe that Huntsman doesn't believe what he says. I don't blame them either, especially how this does smell of a Mit Romney redux move. Romney was Governor of Massachusetts when gay marriage became legal in that state. He took a lot of flak for it when he campaigned for President this past cycle. Low and behold as soon as he started to campaign for the Presidency his views on gay marriage changed in split seconds. If Romney didn't pull that flip flop along with a whole host of others I probably would've voted for him instead of Ron Paul but whatever. Personally I'm going to take a wait in see attitude to Huntsman. Huntsman does bring alot to the table economically wise and does have presidential material written on him but only time will tell.

Reaction to Kristen Gillibrand replacing Hillary in the Senate

First of all, all New Yorkers should be proud that Governor Patterson did not buy into the nepotism that is the Clinton, Cuomo and Kennedy families. Patterson did something that is rare in New York state politics and in politics in general; he thought independently. This was a decent breath of fresh air, considering a few weeks ago he signed off on some new "fat taxes" in order to address the state's budge problems.

Kristen Gillibrand represented New York's 20th District in the House of the Representatives. She was currently on her second term as a member of the house. She has a 100% rating from the NRA, a 100% rating from the ACLU, believes in gay rights and was one of the few Democrats in New York to slam Former Governor Eliot Spitzer when he proposed to give driver's licenses to illegal aliens. According to her Wikipedia entry she is also a Blue Dog Democrat, which is a Democrat that believes in sane economic polices. Gillibrand is my kind of Democrat and I am proud to say that she is my senator. The question remains if she will run for a full senate term in 2012 but that would also depend on how good of a job she does. She has the potential to be a good senator especially after the fool that has been representing the state the past eight years. Only time will tell.

Israel and Palestine: Why should I care?

I really haven't been paying much attention to the whole Israel/Hamas situation because I really don't care. I'm neither an Israeli, a Jew, an Arab or a Muslim so my concern for what goes on in that powder keg that is the Middle East is next to nothing. The reason I am even writing about it today is because there was a protest against Israel at the job today. I didn't even notice it at first, until I wondered why there were so many cars in the parking lot. Then my answer came in the form of all the people with "We stand with Gaza" signs on the side of the road.

My stance on this current episode of the Israel/Arab conflict is that Israel has it's full sovereign right to defend itself against any attack on it's land and people. Hamas had a truce with Israel and they broke it so they have to reap what they sowed, or as my boss puts it "you poke us with a stick, we hit you with a mallet". My view on the conflict as a whole is that we as a nation need to stay out of it. Let the Israeli's and the Palestinains kill each other and God can sort them out. In addition after seeing time and time again how Israel can take care of itself I believe there is no need to keep giving them foreign aid. This also falls into my general view of foreign policy is that the US tax payer shouldn't have to subsidize other countries.

The groups that believe that we should intervene on Israel's behalf would be;

1. The Fundamentalist Christian Right
2. Neoconservatives
3. AIPAC

Now if you want to support another country for whatever reason, I have no problem with that. My problem is those who want the rest of us to do it with them with our hard earned tax money. America needs to take care of it's own people within it's own borders and no longer be the nanny to the world we cannot afford it anymore.

The Drug War must end

With the money problems the country has why are we continuing one of the biggest in failures in recent history? Like the War on Poverty, the War on Drugs has been nothing but a toilet that we as a nation have been flushing money down since Nixon started it. Not only does it take away resources police can use to instead go after rapists, murders, serial killers and the like it also wastes prison resources. It costs $50 million to run prisons in the country and 42% of the countries prison population are their for drug related crimes.

Those who support the Drug War say that it's for the public good. Remember the last time people claimed that banning a substance was for the public good? Prohibition was the last time we tried banning a substance people consumed on their own free will. Remember how well that turned out? Al Capone, politicians, police, judges and other local officials being bought to protect crime bosses and their allies from justice. All this corruption was for what? To prevent people from having a good time with alcohol. Well at the same things happen with the current drug war. Police, judges and local politicians are payed by organized thugs to look the other way and selectively enforce the policies.


Another reason to end the Drug War besides saving federal and state budges money is that the Drug is considered racist. According to recent statistics 72% of drug users are white while 37% of those arrested for drug related crimes are black. Many of those who support the war on drugs tend to have racist tendencies. True anti-racists like Ron Paul believe that the war on drugs is nothing but a huge failure. It has been proven that throwing someone in jail for having drugs. Drug addiction should be treated as a medical problem not as a criminal one. Would throwing an alcoholic or a gambler in jail help them break their addiction? NO it wouldn't, so why do pro-Drug War people think it would be different for a drug addict? The fact is that the drug war has been another social engineering experiment that has failed and has wasted enough of the tax payers money.

Here is a YouTube Video with Ron Paul explaining his views on the drug war