God and Tokers, Reconciled?

In case you missed it, Pat Robertson, yes that Pat Robertson, is questioning the wisdom of cannabis prohibition. I’m amazed it took this long for a Christian Conservative leader to come out against arresting and prosecuting adults for smoking weed. It seems to violate the Golden Rule/ “love your neighbor as yourself” ethos to lock said neighbor in a government cage and steal their money, children, and freedom for consuming a plant.

It also speaks to the glaring inconsistency in mainstream Republican thought. Fiscal conservatism is based on the idea that individuals should be responsible for their own behavior and decisions, and that central planning and oppressive government regulations are bad for America. Free markets, free trade, Adam Smith, self interested rational actors, invisbile hand etc all speak to the idea that individuals, not the State, make better decisions on how to spend money.

Unless you spend that money on “drugs”. Then fiscal conservatism Hulks out and becomes the evil twin, big government social conservatism.

Social conservatism embraces the polar opposite set of values as fiscal. Oppressive government and central planning are great (DEA/FDA), and individual responsibility is to be found by locking individuals up for a few years. Liberty is to be found in home invasion SWAT raids to protect “family values”. The best decisions are made by bureaucrats, cops, prosecutors, and the DEA, not individuals.

Really, it never made sense to me that you could be against Obama Care, but for a War on Drugs. I’ve never met a conservative who could satisfactorily explain how that is anything less than a bipolar cluster of incoherence.

On to the video-