Barney Frank Zings George Will, Paul Ryan on Marijuana Legalization
Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) told columnist George Will and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) on Sunday that Republican opposition to marijuana legalization was "a great embarrassment to the conservatives."
During a town hall-style debate on ABC, Frank demanded a response from Will about decriminalizing marijuana.
"I mean, personal liberty, if someone wants to smoke marijuana who's an adult, why do you want to make them go to jail?" Frank asked.
"With regard to marijuana, I need to know more about whether it's a gateway drug to other drugs," Will replied. "I need to know how you are going to regulate it, whether you're going to advertise it."
"Anything is a gateway to anything," Frank said, dismissing Will argument. "That's the slippery slope argument which is a very anti-libertarian argument. The fact that if somebody is doing something that's not in itself wrong, that it might lead later on to something else then stop the something else. Don't lock them up for smoking marijuana."
"What you're calling a cop-out, I'm calling a quest for information," Will insisted.
"How long's it going to last, George?" Frank asked. "We've been doing this for decades."
"I understand liberalism's aversion to information because it often doesn't go in their direction," Will quipped.
"No, I'm not averse to it," Frank shot back. "I've been studying this for a long time. You know, you're on Medicare. How much longer are we going to have to wait for you to make up your mind?"
"Let's get off marijuana," Ryan interrupted, eager to move to the next topic.
"It's a great embarrassment to the conservatives," Frank pointed out. "They want to tell people who they can have sex with. Come on, all this is big government! Who can I have sex with? Who can I marry? What can I read? What can I smoke? You guys, on the whole -- not all of you -- but the conservatives are the ones who intrude on personal liberty there."
...because he knows conservatives have no answer to Frank's question.
Unfettered from the need to raise money and run for re-election every two years, Barney Frank is going to be a much more powerful voice for people on the left than he was able to be in Congress over the last several years. He simply doesn't brook stupid people.
Barney Frank needs his own TV show.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
...as a free agent. He can go wherever a "token Liberal" is required that way.
Except Frank is no run-of-the-mill Beltway blue dog. He's both entertaining and able to rip some unsuspecting conservative a new one. And makes no apologies for doing it.
Instead of being stuck on Current TV someplace, I'd like to see Frank on the teevee every place.
That he is more valuable as a free agent. When I first heard about his retirement, I was pretty pissed with him leaving when we needed him most. Now ...not so much. I think retirement from the totally dysfunctional Congress will be a very liberating experience for him and us.If the media doesn't shun him for speaking the truth, he'll be a much more powerful influence working on the outside of the system. It's gotta be better and more fun for him than to be working on the maddeningly frustrating inside.
How many more months has Will got before he kicks off?
Seriously, Will's wife should get him a black hooker with a bag of weed and lock 'em in a motel room for a weekend. Would have to be a big win for society, IMHO.
Will must've bought Ryan a drink after saving him from big, bad Barney after that.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
"demanding that women not do this or that to their own bodies..."
The list would go on and on. Big government for ALL except the wealthy.
Same difference, I guess.
that more debates would be carried out like this one was. If the possible winners would be questioned as these were, the debate could be much more informative. I didn't see it but I would bet there were more than one subject that the republicans couldn't respond to..
"I understand liberalism's aversion to information because it often doesn't go in their direction," Will quipped.
Sure George. Just like we understand implacable Neocon paranoia for continuing to believe phony propaganda made up about marijuana over 70 years ago. Your paranoia and willful ignorance of facts make our alleged "aversion" very palatable in comparison.
When the direction your information takes is backward looking and relies on lies, I'd say YOU are the one with the problem. I'd say snap out of it but your fossilized brain is too dysfunctional to comprehend present realities.
"We will find fulfillment not in the goods that we have, but in the good we can do for each other."
Robert F. Kennedy
Good thing Will will not read what you wrote. He would have to go have a double Scotch.
If Will ever visited here he would realize that he is intellectually outmatched by all of us here and that we would see right through his paper thin veneer of erudite and condescending snobbery that covers up his simplistic Luddite beliefs.
He should stick to commenting on baseball and Newt Gingrich, which he seems reasonably well qualified to do.
"We will find fulfillment not in the goods that we have, but in the good we can do for each other."
Robert F. Kennedy
George Will, and Paul Ryan for that matter, are not for things like legalization of marijuana because they are not libertarians. They are Plutocrats who want to rule with conservative ideals because that will keep the same elite white power structure in place. Things like the legalization of drugs help incriminate people of color which both feeds the prison industrial complex and maintains a corrupt judicial system which is unfair towards minorities.
George Will is one of the worst offenders of using things like "history" and journalism to enhance his own plutocratic interests. A disgusting propagandist of the worst kind.
how ryan was basically asking the press for help keeping the issue muddy rather than face a rational argument. and then got it.
People on the left need to expose the weaknesses of those on the right. Learn how to fucking fight. The anthrax is a weakness. These policies like Barney Frank is pointing out are weaknesses. Go for the fucking jugular and beat them. That is if you aren't a corporate lackey in it for the money and security. Same goes for bloggers and journalists.
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
In 2011 we send adults to jail for possessing.....a plant.
Barney Frank's term is up at the end of next year.
It's been wonderful how he's upped his critique of the 'Repubs gone wild' lately.
He's always been there, providing a reasoned & questioning voice...but with no longer having to worry about garnering votes, Barney has lately really stepped up his game.
He obviously cares about the American people at large...knowing that he's there to represent them.
He speaks with intelligence, passion & is clear & succinct in what he says...and he puts those right-wing nutbars in a position where it highlights that they have no coherent responses.
I look forward to the next year of Barney Frank getting all over those in government who ignore why they are there & who they represent.
George Will would be the last person I'd like to share a joint with.
In just about every instance, it's been the so-called 'conservatives (actually NeoCons) that have shelved every study on cannabis the government ever did...when those findings did not match the ideology.
For example, Nixon's Shafer Committee. Nixon made it plain to Shafer he wanted a whitewash, but Shafer was a man of conscience, and produced the 1972 study that stated that cannabis should be legal. Ol' Tricky deep-sixed the study, and that has been the pattern ever since.
Study after study after study, at no small expense to the tax-payer, has recommended ending cannabis prohibition, but Administration after Administration have ignored them, and continued the increasingly expensive mess, so that now we have spent over a trillion dollars since 1968 on this idiocy, when we could have used the money for better things...like right effin' now.
It isn't the liberals that embrace bad science and reject facts. NeoConservatives do that.
The problem the supposed liberals have is they let the NeoCons get away with it, every time. Liberals voting in lockstep with the Rethugs in favor of ever more restrictive, repressive drug laws, to make themselves look just as tough as their benighted opponents, doesn't help much, either.
often doesn't go in their direction," says the man who thought Reagan was a great president, trickle down supply-side economics creates a utopia, tax cuts increase government revenue, and that Star Wars is a viable defense system.
I would LOVE to see Barney as the VP for Obama's second term...
-ec
A Sanders/Frank ticket in 2012!!!
Freedom Isn't Free, So Stop Whining And Pay Your Taxes.
That there's some spectacular IMAX level projection, with a beautiful topping of no self-awareness.
another gate way drug...but Will would need to do some more research before we hear his worthless opinion.
Conservatives and their inability to see hypocrisy would be extremely comical if it were not so sad and pathetic.
I'd pay to see Barney Frank browbeat a republican into submission on their own terms. I think it's an honorable profession. VP for Obama? Fuck that. He serves better as an agitator speaking truth to power.
Conservatives will keep it illegal as long as they can for simple purposes of revenge. Hippies laughed at Nixon! and Reagan! The new generation of conservatives knows all about how the hippies still need to be punished. Punish rich drug users? Well, only if they're liberals. It's still a handy club to wield.
One must ask Mr. Will who has no real job, if he has ever drank milk, due to the fact I am positive that 98% of all hard drug users started with milk. So I would assume that Mr. Will is hooked on hard drugs. If we were to make pot legal, 1/3 of the depression drugs would go bye bye and that is the reason the corporate puppets do not want to make it legal and sorry to say Obama is on the same team as them now.
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