The Curious Case of Scott Pruitt
That said, this lawsuit is a minor story, something to throw on page G-28 of a Wednesday edition, next to the ads in the Post for yet one more smoke-shop on Colfax Avenue. People in Colorado, who are generally surprised to learn Oklahoma is a neighboring state, use this lawsuit as further proof that peoples elsewhere are backward hicks with seriously puritanical hypocrisies -- its delightful to live next to.
But the pot-heads do have a point, broken clock being right twice daily and all. There is a serious hypocrisy and potentially foot-shooting legal fallout should this particular case defy all odds to be heard and sway five justices.
The argument in Pruitt vs Potheads is simple, Colorado violated federal law when it voted by referendum to expand medical marijuana laws to allow for recreational consumption of the wacky weed. This act should, according to Pruitt, activate the supremacy clause of our Constitution, allowing the federal giant cane to reach out and pull the intoxicated clowns off the stage. Then, the bong smoke will stop billowing across the border and Oklahoma will go back to not having a pot problem -- officially. Oklahoma, while not seeking damages, is seeking to shut down legalized pot because the legal substance leaves Colorado and becomes an illegal substance when it resurfaces among the wait-staff in Oklahoma City's Bricktown.
Should this effort prove successful, it would seem that states with Lenin-inspired gun laws could use this template to sue Oklahoma into submissively changing the Sooner's interpretation of the Second Amendment to include a lot less Boomer. Likewise, Oklahoma could find its challenges to ObamaCare end up being in violation of a federal law; can you say the most smug application of the Supremacy Clause in history. What if the EPA decided cow methane or refinery activities produced something similar to bong-smoke, and the winds blew it across state lines and into New York? In that brave new world, progressives would pull on the rope which Oklahoma sold it to strangle the Sooner state.
Readers of this paper know this. By instinct and by experience, conservatives know that actions like these are nothing but a tool in the hand of progressives all hopped up on fundamental transformation. In normal times, I would push back against Mr. Pruitt, but would still vote for him because of his track record. This is the guy who has taken the national lead in dismantling ObamaCare, fighting the EPA, defending marriage, you name it -- I really like Scott Pruitt. I like a good number of Republicans, I just get let down by them a lot.
In a preceding section of this paper, you can read a much better and more complete examination of this lawsuit, federalism and states rights -- all excellent. But let's keep this section on something you won't read elsewhere, Republicans lighting up like Bob Marley.
You see Republicans, despite their anti-drug stands and general puritanical disposition like to get ripped. I should know, my name is Andrew; I'm a recovering Republican. I lost a few brain cells in those wild GOP years, but I'm still mostly all there.
Lest you think I have shared a ski lift with one too many snowboarders and have given myself over to the state flower; let me assure you, unlike Bill Clinton I have neither tried pot nor inhaled. It may sound strange coming from a Coloradan who voted to legalize recreational pot, but I have no interest in it. I have lived in inner-city Philadelphia -- which has a major pot problem. I have lived in southern California, lot of surfers who partake. I have lived in somewhat rural Oklahoma, biggest pot fields I have ever seen -- right off the highway usually.
I now live in Colorado, I pass by 10 pot shops a day and my neighbor has a grow-house. In each place, in each occurrence it is the same, pot ruins lives. I have yet to meet someone who uses regularly and still has higher level brain function exceeding the apes Darwin claims we descended from. It has been illegal in every circumstance, save my present, and has been widely and readily available. You see, pot isn't a legal matter, it is a spiritual one. It is a mind numbing escape from a harsh and overwhelming reality. It is broken people, be they gangsters, rednecks, professionals, housewives, surfing or snowboarding stoners -- they are all hurt people filling a void. They kill brain cells, causing more profound loss and hurt -- thus the swirling cloud.
Republicans fit this pot-user profile. Some years ago, when our Puritan culture became a bit more rock and roll with a side of adultery, Republicans sought refuge in institutions of the Right. God, Guns and tax cuts, we found escape in Any Rand, the Moral Majority, Rush Limbaugh, whatever did the trick. Slowly over time, these substances lost their ability to help us escape, and we began to kill off brain cells. We began to understand things like pot not as the complicated moral issues they are and began to toke the reefer of big government -- the right laws will make these problems go away. Arguing in-front of the Supreme Court to rid the land of the evil weed is the ultimate high for someone of this persuasion. Enter Scott Pruitt.
Despite the ridiculousness of this suit, Scott has a bright future in Oklahoma politics -- he is doing something. Right now, there are churches in Oklahoma who are praying over his suit while ignoring the people caught up in Oklahoma's thriving pot industry. Tea-party groups are putting money together to aid his next campaign, forgiving this one freedom sin. He is respectable and established, but on this one he is as high as a kite.
I-35 is a drug pipeline, and it doesn't even go straight to Colorado. People waiting tables in Bricktown move more pot than respectable people care to mention. The farmlands in every direction have groves of pointed leaves obscured by wheat and cattle. Ever go to a Sooner game or a Thunder game? Lots of pocket transactions going on there. These are uncomfortable realities in an otherwise comfortable place.
There is no solace to be found in laws fighting societal stains, only escape. There is a temporary high to be had when we evoke a legal authority over the icky things in life -- but there is no freedom. There is no freedom for those trapped in the drug world, only a big system waiting to gobble them up. There is no freedom for those who use the principles they oppose to defend themselves in this one case -- because it's pot. Freedom is very rare, but when you get it you will find it just as messy as it is wonderful. Sometimes the bong smoke wafts your direction -- if you will.
I live in pot-city USA, and its tough. My kids are growing up exposed to pot way before I was -- officially. We have to answer questions when we drive by some converted gas station now called the Green Dragon, but I'd rather they hear it from me. Our church addressed the issue from the pulpit last week, because some members of the church smoke pot -- openly. Its messy, like life -- but its real, not like a GOP convention.
It is easier to explain freedom and responsibility in a place like Colorado than it is to explain it to a room listening to a Scott Pruitt speech. In official Republican spaces, unlimited freedom does not conflict with suing another state because their drug laws differ from your own. Freedom does conflict with out-of-state anti-gun crazies sue you to try and change your gun laws. Freedom is in peril when the federal government tries to force the Sooner citizenry to buy crappy "insurance," but is our ally when the shipments of pot say Made in Colorful Colorado. Just learn these things, not Freedom, and you'll be just fine.
My present State has an official pot problem, Oklahoma officially does not. This is the Curious Case of Scott Pruitt; finding escape in the federal government he argues against himself in the name of conservative principles and Puritan reservations. If successful, he will maintain Oklahoma as officially pot free, and the rest of the state will continue as it is. In the process he will remind young people that Move-on-dot-org is more honest than the Tea Party, and that freedom thing is just what Republicans use to get high.
Freedom in the hands of Republicans is much like a joint in the hands of a snowboarder -- up in smoke before you reach the top of the mountain. I'll go ahead and pass on that grass; may I suggest Mr. Pruitt ,that you also don't inhale that nasty joint being passed around the GOP table.
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