George Will: Get Off My Lawn You Hippie Dope Fiends!

[marmar]

via AlterNet:



George Will: Get Off My Lawn You Hippie Dope Fiends!

Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet at 8:35 AM on November 30, 2009.

OK, grandpa crazy-pants, whatever you say.



I'm not sure when George Will completed the transition from acerbic center-right pundit to crotchety old fart whinging about the kids these days, but there's actually something reassuring about the fact that even in a world as crazy as ours is today a bow-tied moral scold like George Will can still find the time to get worked up over states passing medical marijuana laws.

Inside the green neon sign, which is shaped like a marijuana leaf, is a red cross. The cross serves the fiction that most transactions in the store -- which is what it really is -- involve medicine.

The Justice Department recently announced that federal laws against marijuana would not be enforced for possession of marijuana that conforms to states' laws. In 2000, Colorado legalized medical marijuana.

George Will's mad about it. But he was for states' rights before he was against them, of course. When? Oh, way back in ... last week, when the issue was a state's God-given right to refuse to participate in federal health-care schemes. Anyway ...

Since Justice's decision, the average age of the 400 persons a day seeking "prescriptions" at Colorado's multiplying medical marijuana dispensaries has fallen precipitously. Many new customers are college students.

Oh. My. God. College students smoking pot! What next -- people marrying trees?!?

Anyway, Will works in about six more ways to tell his readers the stunning truth that not everyone shopping at the pot store is really a terminal cancer patient. Perhaps that comes as news to some of Will's fans, but I can't imagine it would be a surprise to many.

Colorado's probable future has unfolded in California, which in 1996 legalized sales of marijuana to persons with doctors' "prescriptions." Fifty-six percent of Californians support legalization, and Roger Parloff reports ("How Marijuana Became Legal" in a September issue of Fortune) that they essentially have this.

It's a terrible tragedy that majority rule determines how we use a goddamn plant. Will thought this idea would bother people, as it bothered him.

Will finishes up his day by bitching about how revenues from taxing pot sales wouldn't balance the budget entirely anyway, and then wraps it up with my absolute favorite conservative lament about marijuana: people just don't smoke enough shit-weed anymore ...

is loath to see complete legalization of marijuana at a moment when new methods of cultivation are producing plants in which the active ingredient, THC, is "seven, eight times as concentrated" as it used to be.

But, Will's real beef is the way these potheads are undermining the rule of law, or something.

Furthermore, he was pleasantly surprised when a survey of nonusing young people revealed that health concerns did not explain nonuse. The main explanation was the law: "We underestimate the number of people who care that something is illegal."

But they will care less as law itself loses its dignity. By mocking the idea of lawful behavior, legalization of medical marijuana may be more socially destructive than full legalization.

Civilization will crumble, etc.

I'll confess I had a hard time making it through Will's column -- and not just because I was totally high. As I tried to feel Will's pain over the wanton ... lawfulness of it all, I just couldn't help thinking that people still aren't going home and beating the crap out of their spouses after smoking a couple of joints, as they do every Saturday night all across America after knocking back a few.


http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/144245/george_will%3A_get_off_my_lawn_you_hippie_dope_fiends%21/

[Laura902]

1. I read that article too

I read that article last Sunday, usually I don't think of him as too ignorant but not anymore..................... but maybe thats just because I haven't read enough of his work.

[juno jones]

2. Hey George!

Don't knock it 'til you tried it. :smoke:

And a republican talking about mockery of the law. LOL!

[marmar]

3. If anybody needs a hit of Amsterdam skunk, it's George Will.....

..... Is there anyone who comes across as more of a stuffed shirt than that dude?

[arcadian]

4. George Will needs to TBH

[Fumesucker]

5. George Will Won't..

'Nuff Said..

[Fumesucker]

6. Dupe, self delete..

[BakedAtAMileHigh]

7. Not as Good As the Blue Jeans Article

The one where he was furious about adults wearing blue jeans was frickin' hilarious. He doesn't understand that he is a joke...which helps make it really, really funny.

On Edit: Will hasn't bothered to do his homework. According the the CO State Health Board, the average age of the Colorado MMJ user is 40. Jackass.

Source:
http://www.cdphe.state.co.us/hs/medicalmarijuana/statistics.html

[me b zola]

8. Conservatives are quite selective:

"George Will's mad about it. But he was for states' rights before he was against them, of course. When? Oh, way back in ... last week, when the issue was a state's God-given right to refuse to participate in federal health-care schemes. Anyway ..."

Conservatives are quite selective when deciding when they support state rights, just as they are selective about:

~when, which, and whose constitutional rights should be respected/upheld

~what troops they support

~when they are "pro-life"

~when is someone being religiously persecuted/which religious theocracies they embrace

~which part of the bible they embrace/what they ignore

[4_TN_TITANS]

9. As with most of his subject matter

George Will has zero authority on which to objectively discuss MJ, only a bunch of misconceived preconceptions. Burn through a bag of Tennessee mountain skunk then get back to us, George.