So I just heard that Attorney General Jeff Sessions is rescinding the Obama-era directive that discourages local enforcement of federal marijuana laws in states that have legalized pot.
Wait just a doggone minute. Now that California, the nation’s most populous state, has legalized marijuana for recreational use, Jeff Sessions, the avowed segregationist and states’ rights advocate, is pushing to have a federal law supercede a state law. Isn’t it he, along with many other conservatives and southerners, who has claimed that the Civil War was not fought over slavery, but was all about states’ rights?
And wasn’t it John Kelly, President Trump’s chief of staff, who recently said about Robert E. Lee, that he was “an honorable man who gave up his country to fight for his state”? Kelly added that “150 years ago, fighting for one’s state was more important than supporting one’s country.”
Isn’t it interesting how the term “states’ rights” has become a convenient rallying cry used by conservatives in their opposition to federally mandated programs involving such areas as racial desegregation, same-sex marriage, abortion rights, and even Obamacare? Isn’t it states’ rights that is one of the main arguments to maintain the antiquated Electoral College?
“States’ rights” is the battle cry for the causes conservatives cherish. But when a state passes laws that they don’t agree with, they, like rats on a sinking ship, abandon the their beloved ststes’ rights mantra, claiming that federal law must be enforced. Such hypocrisy can be seen when it comes, for example, to sanctuary cities, environmental protections, and, now, to states that have legalized recreational marijuana.
What is going on? Does the Republican Party now require its congressional representatives to take a hypocritic oath when sworn in? Does Donald Trump demand hypocrisy in order to appoint anyone to his cabinet? Sadly, it seems so.
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