Seeing Green..

   Many people have posted arguments about legalizing marijuana, but my classmates blog "Understanding Politics...Hopefully" brought this hot topic to my attention today. Everyone's main argument with the marijuana issue is that it is a drug and it alters your perception of reality and affects your judgement. Well this all may be true, but does alcohol not do the same thing? And maybe even to a greater extent? Why is it ok for alcohol to be legal and marijuana not?
   If it is acceptable for alcohol to be legal and have its own industry, where it makes billions of dollars every year, than shouldn't they be able to do the same thing with marijuana? People are going to smoke and drink no matter what the law says, the prohibition era is a perfect example of that, so its time for people to get smart about it and make some money off of it. Instead of the government spending millions of dollars fighting the use of marijuana they could be making that amount of money, and more. I am not a user of marijuana so I don't have anything personally to gain from the government legalizing it, but even i can see the profit potential of this arrangement.

Go Arizona

In my government class we were recently asked to discuss the current issue between Congress and Arizona over the new Arizona Immigration Law. Arizona’s new law allows law enforcement officials to question citizens with “ reasonable suspicion,” regarding their legality to be in this country. I think it is completely wrong of Congress to be attempting to sue Arizona over this new law.  Arizona is simply doing what Congress should have already put into effect. The Fed’s argument is, "In our constitutional system, the power to regulate immigration is exclusively vested in the federal government." Arizona’s Governor Jan Brewer’s rebuttal is that it is ,"Wrong that our own federal government is suing the people of Arizona for helping to enforce federal immigration law." The Governor goes on to say, "Today's filing is nothing more than a massive waste of taxpayer funds," and that "These funds could be better used against the violent Mexican cartels than the people of Arizona." Governor Brewer I completely agree with you. Instead of using tax dollars to fight a law that protects our country, maybe Congress and the President should step up and admit that this issue would not exist if they would have taken responsibility for their inaction and taken care of this problem a long time ago. If you are not legally in this country than 9 times out of 10 you should not be here. If you want to be in this country, then go through the proper legal process. I’ve said this before, but I know people first hand who have had to go through this process, it took about a year, but I think that year is worth not ever having to worry about being deported because you are unlawfully living in this country.

We are Letting it Slip Away..

Political America, you make an extremely valid point in this post. Our country was founded on the idea of less involved government, but it seems the people have forgotten about that, and our government officials are in no hurry to remind them of their independence. Our government is supposed to be, "For the people, by the people." Our votes don't even count for goodness sake. How is that by the people? It may just be me, but I think we should have some say so in electing the person that is going to influence the people who control the major aspects of our lives. Elections have turned into a popularity contest, who can make the most promises and be the most convincing and charismatic. It is very distressing to see these things happening, and for the most part the general population doesn't even seem to care. The fact that the government is starting to take over our lives, I think, has a lot to do with the fact that so many people are absolutely uninterested. When you don't care, it makes it a lot easier for someone else to accomplish the things that they want. I think, in fact, that the blame rests a little on each of our shoulders. If we want to take back our government we need to be aware of the processes going on that are affecting our lives.