The Coming Majority Favors the Legalization of Marijuana: A 420 Special…..

Percentage favoring Marijuana legalization by cohort, 2010 General Social Survey

Because Barak Hussain Obama has to capitulate to the conservatives, to the point of allowing some redneck, draft dodging fake “rock star” to threaten his life and get away with it (I’d be in Gitmo if I said that shit about Bush or Cheney), poor Barry, despite being a former stoner, hasn’t had the balls to back off  the war on weed (AKA, the war on brown people and hippies). This helps fuel the prison and law enforcement industries, wherein far right wing conservatives get cushy goverment socialist jobs to bust and incarcerate liberals and browns for smoking and selling weed. And, lest we forget, it’s weed that really drives the prison industrial complex. It ain’t about more seriously addictive drugs, and weed is NOTHING compared to alcohol in terms of its addictive influences and damaging effects. If it were legal and cheaper, people could eat it and make slushies with it and it would be virtually harmless.

On the eve of this 420 holiday, celebrating, well, we’re not sure what, but weed, I guess, it is heartening to note that support for legalization almost reached a majority in 2010 in the GSS (our only scientific study which tracks such things). AND, better yet, we can expect cohort replacement (the dying off of  tight-assed old farts) to push support for legalization over the top by the time the 2012 data are collected this year. Indeed, the trend in support for weed legalization has been upward, so even without old people dying, we’re seeing more and more Americans come to the realization that Nancy Raygun’s War on Drugs was a horrific mistake, and that we need to take a different strategy to examine how we regulate the product market for marijuana, alcohol, and other drugs.

So, Happy 420!!!!!

 

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Dying on Tulsa Time

It’s interesting that the Trayvon Martin case and the latest set of racist murders in Tulsa coincide so well, and yet the lamestream media (as Sarah Palin dubbed it) seems not to notice the clear connection. Both sets of murders were a direct result of lax gun regulation combined with “stand your ground” laws. This is obvious in the Martin case, where some nutjob racist stalked black kids in his neigborhood, and god only knows what his mental health record looks like (even though he was allowed to openly carry a handgun in public). And, of course, since everyone, especially fat conservatives, are afraid of black teenagers, this meant that Zimmerman acted perfectly within the law when he killed that kid. If Zimmerman wasn’t such a dipshit racist numbskull, he’d be exonerated on all charges. But, it looks like he’s rather go on Sean Hannity (whoever he is….I don’t watch TV), than avoid prison.

More complicated is this Indigenous kid England (he ain’t white, and is 19 years old). Apparently, his drunk angry daddy got shot by a black guy who also benefited from the “stand your ground” laws in Oklahoma. Given that the indigenous are accorded nearly white status in Oklahoma (One of my old buddies who is a current chief-level official of a tribe not to be named  used to put “KKK” on his football helmet when we played the “black schools”), the fact that a black guy got away with shooting one probably means that the indigenous guy was seriously up in his face–which these laws allow people to respond to by killing people, rather than calling the cops. And, as ALEC hoped, this means that there is often retaliation from others. The reason why ALEC supports the “Stand your ground” and other type laws is because they increase crime. Crime is at an all time low, and if we don’t have crime, then conservatives won’t have anything to whoop up on the minorities with. So, if we can just make guns more available and more public, then we’ll get situations like what happened in Tulsa. Protracted, violent, tit-for-tat conflict. And, this gives us more reason to hate the browns! No matter what they do! Protect themselves, not protect themselves, it doesn’t matter. We know it’s their fault.

It’s really unfortunate that both of these tragic events are being used to further fuel racial tension. Both were the result of ignorant gun laws designed to increase violence. I don’t want to see Zimmerman put away for life or England or Watts. They are nutjobs, who do need punishment and monitoring, but what really needs to be changed are the laws which enabled both of these events to occur.

Blogging Against Theocracy….The RELIGIOUS War Against Science.

% Very confident in science by religious beliefs and political identification: GSS 2000-2010

There is an interesting article in the latest issue of American Sociological Review outlining how conservatism has increasingly militated against science in the United States in the last four decades. While the article is fairly on point, it lacks theoretical and historical acumen necessary for accurately specifying the models predicting American’s confidence in science. What is clear is that in the last few decades, conservatives in the United States have become less supportive of science, but what goes unexplained is why. Mostly this is a function of model misspecification. The only measure of religion the author examines is religious attendance (which does have a globally negative impact of attitudes towards science), however church attendance is only the tip of the religious iceberg. What is grating about the entire article is that is explicitly touts the “Mooney Thesis” coined by the Templetonian journalist who claims that the problem with science in the US is purely political, and not religious. Any social scientist who studies politics, religion, and science should know that the reason why Republicans are at war against science is to court the vote of fundamentalist Christian simpletons who are opposed to science and reason. Of course, some Republicans (ie Cheney, Romney, McCain, etc), are opposed to science because the conclusions of scientists may clash with their own economic interests. But, those are a small minority of Republicans, and other Republicans genuinely are religious rubes (ie. Santorum, Palin, Bachmann, Jindal….).

Above, is a graph presenting the proportion of Republicans and non-Republicans who have “a great deal of confidence in science” by religious beliefs from the General Social Surveys 2000-2010—the period where “conservatism” became more associated with lost confidence in science. As you can see, across all of the categories of religious beliefs, Republicans actually have slightly higher levels of confidence in science than do non-Republicans. Ancillary analyses show that Independents drive down confidence in non-Republicans, and Republicans and Democrats are indistinguishable. In contrast to the lack of political differences, religious factors produce whopping differences in confidence in science. Fundamentalists have low levels of confidence, while people with secular religious beliefs have high levels of confidence.  What drives Republican opposition to science is that more Republicans are fundamentalists who believe that the Bible is the literal word of god (36% versus 32%), and substantially fewer Republicans believe that the Bible is a book of fables (9% compared to 20%).

It is a Religious war on science which has spilled over into our political system. Their aim is to vet science according to their religion, and they plan to do so by eliminating all government funding for science. Their wet dream is to establish a private system for funding, where only science that supports their worldview will be conducted or taught.

Institute for UnAmerican Values

We'll have this on our stationary!

Exciting times down here in Southern Ilinois. In a strong move to distance themselves from growing concerns about their funding agenda, the Templeton Foundations alternative funding arm, the Simpleton Institute, has just awarded me $6.6 million dollars to fund my Institute for UnAmerican Values. We’ll be using this cash to push the atheist socialist homosexual islamic agenda. In addition to promoting science (a key unAmerican value), we’re planning to branch out into beastiality and critical realism.