Rick Santorum put up one of those statements on Newsmax that was equal parts brilliant and asinine all at the same time. Of course, it is only brilliant if he was fully cognizant of what he was saying. If he’s not then it is the most ironic statement of the year as it pertains to elective politics.

 

The video you see above summarizes the GOP in a nutshell. For those that don’t want to go down the rabbit hole, Santorum is essentially saying that the Democrats only won because they put sexy issues like abortion and marijuana on the ballot. That statement highlights the electoral issues that the GOP has in one sentence.

The first part of the statement basically admits that the GOP counts on low turnouts to win. So, a large part of the irritation is that they brought out voters by putting those measures on the ballot in Ohio. This is what all of the voter fraud stuff is all about. They can’t really justify taking voters off the rolls that they want to remove without a built in excuse. So, we will talk about fraud.

Absentee balloting has been a thing for over 100 years in this country. The states have combined to prosecute fewer than 1000 people for voter fraud. That’s in over one billion ballots cast. My calculator says that is somewhere around .01 percent of ballots cast. I’m overestimating it in fact. Voter fraud is not a problem. In other words, if you can’t get the voters to choose you then you choose your voters.

Of course, the issues themselves are obvious. He was admitting that a majority of the population is for abortion. We could parse out exactly what that looks like. It all depends on what conditions you put on it. The right always puts it in extreme forms. They always want to bring up partial birth abortion because that is the one form of abortion a majority is against. No one in the Democratic party is banging the drum for partial birth abortion. It really isn’t a thing in terms of a talking point on the left. So, when you boil it down to its basic level, a majority of the population wants some abortion rights.

A majority of the population wants marijuana legalized in some form. You could call it decriminalization. You could call it medicinal marijuana. You could simply say it is legally available but heavily regulated. Any way you slice it, a majority of the population is over heavy criminalizing marijuana use. So, Santorum is saying it is the fault of the Democrats for putting something on the ballot that the people find popular.

So, in that statement Santorum is admitting that the GOP is on the wrong side of those issues and that they only win if people don’t vote. Imagine the honesty and direct analysis that we are getting there. I don’t think he has the self-awareness that such a statement would say he does. He is blissfully unaware of what he just said.

If you look at Republican politics since 1980 they have been about two things: abortion and tax cuts. They have been remarkably successful at both. They have played the long game on both. They have packed the courts and played the grassroots game about as well as it could be played, but you are talking about two issues that are losers with the changing demographics in the country. That’s the whole point and the whole ballgame. Thank you Rick. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

The last week has demonstrated so much about the battle lines in America. In many ways, I suppose it makes so little sense to those outside of the United States. It barely makes sense to those of us here. We are simultaneously becoming more open and more tolerant of activities that might be considered on the edges of societal norms while others desperately pass laws to prevent those things.

Some people call these things victimless crimes. That designation obviously depends on multiple perspectives. Often times there are victims but they are not necessarily a victim of the crime itself, but all of the danger surrounding the so-called crime.

As everyone knows, we were settled by Puritans. I liken them to the Southern Baptists and non-denominational Evangelical Christians of today. Nearly everything pleasurable was a sin. Therefore, it was strictly prohibited. I don’t think most people have thought about how this played on our collective psyche even to the present day.

You cannot drink. You cannot dance. You cannot read strange books. You cannot partake of other substances. You certainly cannot have sex outside of marriage or participate in any activity that might nudge you down that road. Since this is the case, you cannot have access to anything that would promote safe sex, access to safe drugs, or allow anyone to make responsible choices.

What we understand today (and I imagine even then) is that when you deny someone anything pleasurable and tell them that doing that thing is a sin they will begin to crave it. They always joked that the best way to keep a Baptist from drinking your beer is to invite a second Baptist. As silly as the notion is, some people still think that if no one sees them do it then they never did it.

This has produced some widespread problems. I’m not sure how one measures such a thing, but it has been reported that the United States sits behind only Russia in the rate of alcoholics in society. That’s not total alcohol consumed. It’s not even alcohol consumed per capita. It is the percentage of people that have a problem with the amount of alcohol they consume.

We can extend this to other situations. One of my daughter’s friends nearly died from an overdose. It seems she bought some marijuana and still is not sure what it was laced with. Some dealers love to do that. I suppose that even if it were legal universally, some people would still try to find it cheaper or without the hassles of acquiring it legally.

All that being said, we can’t help but wonder how much making it legal and available through traditional means would prevent things like that. We can’t help but wonder how many fewer people would have addiction issues if our attitudes towards alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana were healthier. We can’t help but wonder how many fewer people would need abortions if they had access to birth control measures and helpful education about sexual activity in general.

Unfortunately, we can’t have these things because we are still stuck mentally in 17th century New England. These things are bad. You cannot have those things and we certainly can’t talk about them. Furthermore, if we allow those things then the slippery slope comes in and we would then see an increase in those other things that all of us find abhorrent.

Instead, we could discuss things like adults. Legalizing marijuana doesn’t necessarily mean a sharp increase in the use of harder drugs we all agree should be illegal. Allowing for and helping children understand safe sex doesn’t mean a sharp increase will definitely occur. If you give someone a bowl of ice cream they won’t devour the carton. If you show it to them and them tell them they can’t have any, you might wake up to find the carton empty. This is our collective American experience.

Okay, so there’s our new Attorney General Jeff Sessions.  He’s all about trying to put Willie Nelson in jail.

And I am astonished to hear people suggest that we can solve our heroin crisis by legalizing marijuana – so people can trade one life-wrecking dependency for another that’s only slightly less awful. Our nation needs to say clearly once again that using drugs will destroy your life.

He also wants you to know that masturbation causes blindness and leaches can cure polio.

Marijuana – slightly less awful than putting your head in the blender.

Just say no worked so damn well that we need to try that again.