We’d like to thank all of you for your time, thoughts, and input, even when, or rather, especially when it got heated. But there’s some good (ed – ????) news, so turn that frown upside down.

If you’ve enjoyed this little exercise, we’re moving to a new space, with a bigger bullpen of writers, and more of the art, music, humor and photography we’ve started to develop here. The new site will be less policy-centric, more frequently updated, and more a celebration of the good life. I hope you check it out. The new site goes live on May 3rd, 2010, and we’ll throw the link up here then.

Recently, “Keep Pot Illegal” bumper stickers have been seen on cars around the county. In chat rooms and on blogs, anonymous writers predict that tobacco companies will crush small farmers and take marijuana production to the Central Valley. With legalization, if residents don’t act, “we’re going to be ruined,” said Anna Hamilton, a radio host on KMUD-FM (91.1) in southern Humboldt County.

Bruce Yandle might be proud that actual bootleggers have signed on to his theory.

Via Boing Boing.

To clear my mind, I had to rewatch this video.

On to the links:

Friend of the Blog Tate Watkins in the Christian Science Monitor on the evils of foreign “aid”.

Free speech/religious hatred watch: Southpark creators Matt and Trey were threatened by a radical Muslim website. Comedy Central heavily edited the offending episode. Matt and Trey released a statement. The threatening website was then hacked.

Three photoblogs to follow: Shutterboo, Close-Up Clarendon, and Vivid Corvid.

DCites: Georgetown is having a “French Market” Friday and Saturday. Sounds like a plan.

I was dreading last night’s Nat’s game more than usual, but fortunately justice prevailed.

That’s it. Take a break from policy for the weekend. Enjoy the spring.

Also, if you really want, celebrate with whatever this guy has. I can’t decide if it’s natural or man-made, but it seems awesome.

“The American Prospect’s Mori Dinauer is just a hair off in this post.

I don’t promote government failure, I expect it. And my expectations are met fairly often. What I promote is the idea that more people share my expectations, so fewer people are harmed by government failure, and so we can stop this slide toward increasingly large portions of our lives being subject to the whims, interests, and prejudices of politicians.

I will concede that there’s a problem, here. In the private sector, failure leads to obsolescence (unless, of course, you work for a portion of the private sector that politicians think should be preserved in spite of failure). When government fails, people like Dinauer and, well, the government claim it’s a sign that we need more government. It’s not that government did a poor job, or is a poor mechanism for addressing that particular problem, it’s that there just wasn’t enough government. Of course, the same people will point to what they call governmentsuccess as, also, a good argument for more government.

It’s a nifty trick. The right does it with national security. The fact that we haven’t had a major terrorist attack since September 11, 2001 proves that the Bush administration’s heavy-handed, high-security approach to fighting terrorism worked! But if we had suffered another attack, the same people would have been arguing that we need to surrender more of our civil liberties to the security state. Two sides. Same coin.

That Pew poll is also a pretty good indication that the more government tries to do, the more poorly it does it. Your usual caveats about correlation and causation apply, but the federal government certainly didn’t shrink over the period the trust-in-government trend line has taken a nosedive. Note too that during the Clinton administration, federal spending actually shrank as a percentage of GDP, and the federal workforce shrank by nearly 400,000, leaving it at its lowest level since 1960. And wouldn’t you know it, that’s one period in the last 50 years over which trust in the federal government took a sharp climb.

But in general—yes—I think the fact that more people are realizing that government isn’t capable of solving all of their problems is an encouraging trend. Because it isn’t.”

Even back when I did smoke pot, I didn’t understand 420. First, pragmatically, if a college students need an excused to get baked, they’re doing it wrong.

Second, and more importantly, there’s no good reason to continue the prohibition of pot. The ban rolls on like a bloated caricature of path-dependency. Tradition for the sake of tradition. It costs obscene amounts of money, criminalizes harmless behavior, and forces our government to lie to us and hold back medical care. If that sounds like all downside with no up, you’re hardly alone.

Beyond being path-dependent, I think a large part of what drives prohibitionists is a sense of deep mistrust of others. From the FOX/CNBC poll:

“I think it would be chaos if it was legalized,” said Shirley Williams, a 75-year-old retired English teacher from Quincy, Ill. “People would get in trouble and use marijuana as an excuse.”

I respectfully submit –

Conspiculously Peaceful 2009 4/20 Smoke Out - Colorado University

Less respectfully, Mrs. Williams is being dumb. Her entire argument is full of straw-men.

– People get into plenty of trouble with or without marijuana. Studies show pot calms, not incites, and the culture of pot smokers generally provides a communal, not adversarial, consumption setting.

– Intoxication isn’t a legal defense in any country. Why would pot be a valid ‘excuse’?

– Her distrust in people, the ‘madness of crowds’, is grossly overstated, as anyone who’s been to a peaceful protest, a carnival, a festival, a rock concert, or a university can attest. Of course there are tragic exceptions, but they are exceptions, not the rule.

This point about rules vs exceptions is important, far beyond the context of legalization. Laws strive to protect us from extraordinary circumstances; violence, theft, fraud, and all the tiny disasters of human nature that can and do happen. Law is reactive, punishes or makes-whole, replaces what’s lost or taken, or punish for what can’t be returned.

Law is not meant to order and prescribe, to marshal and number and automate social life, in the way Mrs. Williams is seeking. Within our realm of protected liberties, there is immense creative and cooperative space for commerce, art, production, consumption, enjoyment, and fulfillment to flourish. Regulating that affirmative space is a task uniquely unsuited for the blunt hammer of the law. Marijuana prohibition is destructive, divisive, and nonsensical, and a highly visible reminder that protection from each other is a poor way for a society to use it’s government.

And listen up, reform activists. Wikipedia notes how many major demonstrations around the country and the world are treated as a day off for marijuana enforcement. How about next year, y’all pile into the VW and do this here in D.C., and force the Fed’s hand? If you get arrested, maybe this attorney is licensed for the federal bar?

These little things are the copper insides of a stripping plate, in a column or ‘beer still’ at the Four Roses bourbon distillery in Lawerenceburg, Kentucky.

My question for pro-legalization liberals:

Can you reconcile legalization with food regulation? My contention is that centrists (of both parties) favor regulations that advance their desired world, without reference to the logical consistencies and assumptions underling their imagined preferences.

That is, their policy preferences are arbitrary bullshit.

Four Roses Bourbon Barrel. Lawrenceburg, Kentucky.

I’ll be out of town for a few days, but here’s some for body and mind.

DC Freedom 5K – for area runners, come out, have a great time, and mingle with other freedom loving folks. I’ll be there volunteering, so say hi. April 17th.

Tate confronts the ugly truth that foreign aid hurts more than it helps.

The ‘Stache calls on the President to make good on his own rhetoric. ‘Luck with that.

Bruce Yandle updates his fantastic paper, Bootleggers and Baptists.

Contra Keith Olbermann, black tea partiers exist. Also the demographics are surprisingly mainstream. (H/T Sometimes Right on the demos.)

Reason TV looks at 20 years of dumb alcohol legislation. The Hutt from MADD fits all my mental stereotypes for the organization:

I love women, I love drinks, by the transitive property, I love women who drink. Turns out, they might be worth loving!

I will spend much time here. It has already inspired me to try this, while in the land of Bourbon. If I live, I will report next week.

Job hunting? Enter the Ninja.

I think Douche Cat and I will get along just fine.