Rep Jason Chaffetz – “Imprisoning People For Weed Is Good!”

With Initiative 71, DC has legalized pot. This is great. A moneyed, conservative, political epicenter just endorsed jazz cigarettes with significantly higher public support than Oregon or Washington. Now, a small group of fascist congressmen are trying to prevent representative government from taking place. Anything involving marijuana always highlights to what extent everyone in our government is a hydrocephalic square. “Marijuana” is Mexican slang for Mary Jane. The plant is cannabis. It’s like hearing politicians talk about legalizing “boozeahol.” When the plant was originally made illegal, representatives didn’t even realize they were prohibiting hemp, because, more than being corrupt, more than being greedy, more than being negligent, the occupants of our most vaunted halls of power are always stultifyingly fucking ignorant of the world outside their oligarchic bubble.

Rep Jason Chaffetz, Republican chairman of the Oversight Committee, and representative from the state of magic underwear, is doing something the Republican Party is real fucking good at. Namely, throwing out that whole pretense of endorsing “limited government” whenever the opportunity arises for someone to threaten someone else with a gun. But of course Chaffetz wouldn’t say so, he’d claim he’s doing it because of the inviolate nature of the Constitution, in recognizing a law Obama signed which contained a pointless, infinitesimal rider. The rider states no federal or local funds can be used to eliminate or reduce penalties for weed, or for that matter any Schedule 1 substance. The blithe response to this “no take-backs” rider from the pro-pot crowd runs something along the lines of “how much does it cost to not enforce a law?” I’m sure this is just about conservative principle, not about perpetuating a cancerous civil war on the poor. No. I’m absolutely certain that if, say, a conservative state passed an initiative mandating prayer at the beginning of every public school day, and “Obama’s” government stepped in to try to rein that shit in, we’d have Chaffetz’s enthusiastic endorsement on that encroachment of federal power, as well. We’d hear his clarion call on the propriety of the feds superseding the will of the American people. Yes, that’s what we’d be hearing.

Let’s please dispense with the purity of principle which individuals hide behind to prevent talking about their own motivational priorities. “Big government” lefties consistently advocate shrinking the budget and influence of the Pentagon, as well as America’s militarized police forces. “Limited government” conservatives want full control over a woman’s reproductive rights, and an American assault rifle shoved into the temples of at least 7/8ths of the world’s population, in case they try anything funny like nationalizing their oil revenues or not believing in Jesus. If you really, really wanted to pigeonhole the two parties, I’d say it’s a battle of autocracy vs social infrastructure. Even then, you’d have to break down Republican voters vs Republican politicians, and the businessmen who own said politicians. The autocracy of wealth is already in place, and the tired appeals by the overclass to the “good old days” help it to remain that way, dog whistling to their gum disease-ridden base that they’re referring to some 1950s version of white purity, when in reality they’re referring to some 1950s version of being able to shout down any substantive argument against income inequality by invoking the specter of communism. What a decade that was.

 
Returning to scrotum twinge-inducing disingenuousness, Chaffetz announced to WaPo that he’s not “playing a little game here.” When you make empty, baseless threats to seated politicians over an issue that has no real bearing on your life as a human or a representative, and could, at absolute best, play a dishonest shell game with your motivations for this, an abundance of seriousness is not what I’d condemn you for. It’s another great indication of what exactly one of the two political bodies of power in this country lives for. While the nation bleeds out economically and intellectually, the prize this twat’s eyes are so lustfully fixated on, is the chance to be a momentary obstacle, a smallish rock briefly stumbled over by a miner making the trek towards prohibition’s dead canary. This is where his resources should go, this is where our attention should be aimed. For the Constitution, and all.

 
These threats constitute a great move. Not for Chaffetz, he’s a stupid asshole. If you’re on board with the spreading of cannabis legalization in this country, however, it is Miller Time, indeed. The following is a pretty comprehensive list of all the outcomes that can arise from his short bus intimidation tactics:

1. He can further alienate his own dopey fascist party’s ability to appeal to anyone who isn’t Sheldon Adelson or the kid from Deliverance. Spiritually speaking, DC is the East Coast’s ugliest city, excepting maybe Philadelphia. Anemic, sneering bipedal trust funds in boat shoes and pink chambrays complain about how Cheney was too liberal while eating at places where dress codes are enforced more stridently than health codes. This is the city you’re going to go to war with? No one’s under your tent unless they’re using it to hunt moose from? This is a political strategy?
Advantage: Stoners.

2. He can fold, like the little bitch he is. His minor act of brinksmanship will make whatever subsequent crusader for folksy fascism look even dumber when they complain that Nevada, or California, or whoever ends up being next, doesn’t have the constitutional authority to stop jailing quite so many poor minorities.
Advantage: Stoners.

 
3. He can actually go through with trying to jail the city government of DC. This is too stupid for fucking words, even by Republican legislator standards. It won’t work, you can’t just pull a junta on your own capital the way you can in Iran, or Guatemala, or the Congo, or Chile, or Brazil, or Greece, or Korea, or Nicaragua, or Vietnam, or Iraq. I have to imagine news cycles covering what would fundamentally be an invasion of a nation’s capital by that nation’s own government, to overthrow an elected official for agreeing to carry out a very popular public initiative, might just fucking well backfire on you a little bit. So, you oust an elected government, presumably prop up your own selected right wing replacement, nullify Initiative 71, and then, I guess, ban gays from talking with a lisp?
Advantage: Basically anyone not living in DC, but definitely not Chaffetz in the long run.

4. At best, he can deny tax money to a cash-strapped government by keeping it incapable of applying tax codes to the sale of a plant.
Advantage: Purely on the level of helping to keep the black market vibrant and tax free: Stoners.

So, ostensibly, this little straight edger cock waggling will fall apart like so much Mormon family structure. Arizona is going to be voting on a legalization measure in 2016, at this point you’d have to be pretty willfully blind to not see the writing on the wall. Yet, Mr. Chaffetz must’ve touched himself just often enough to be so. His dickishness is as the ocean; infinite, and full of dolphins. He bothered to remind us all just how venal and pointless power can be. You can embrace your own party’s professed ideology in self actualization, or the shifting winds of public sentiment, or every financial, civil rights, and moral pragmatism that demands the legalization of this plant. Or you can get your name in the papers by being a fucking dick about it.
Subject: In Defense of Being an Obstreperous Dick