The Burden of 4/20

While the reaction to 4/20 being rather unanimous in the cannabis using subculture, the situation out there concerning cannabis as a substance intended for recreational use was much more mixed. While the cannabis users celebrate every 20th of April, and drug law reformers on college campuses use the occasion to raise awareness on this social issue, many voting citizens in this nation are frowning upon the yearly tradition and the use of cannabis altogether. But for what reason?

In this article, originally published on the Daily Camera, a Colorado University representative was quoted saying "It's an event we don't like. We don't sponsor it or support it. We inherit it." And all I want to reply to him is : "Oh my God, what a burden!" In what way has 4/20 become such a difficult holiday to celebrate as a cannabis non-smoker? Are people loud? Are people being hateful? Are people becoming violent and aggressive? No. Because that is not what marijuana does to you. How does a pot-smoking crowd threaten the safety of an entire campus?

In comparison, I have chosen St. Patrick's Day, a well known drinking holiday on all college campuses all over the United States. Now, from experience, I can tell you that the day after St. Patrick's Day, the college campus can be unrecognizable in some areas. On the morning after St. Patrick's Day, it wouldn't be surprising to see a floor getting cleaned because of puke, it wouldn't be surprising to see posters torn off the walls because of drunk people, and it definitely wouldn't be surprising to see a line of twenty people buying Advil at the campus convenience store. Long story short, drinking has a very high social cost.


Well what about marijuana holidays like 4/20? With zero deaths a year attributed to marijuana, I can say with a certain amount of confidence that St Patrick's Day is a much more dangerous celebration than 4/20 is. And yet, campuses throughout the United States encourage St. Patrick's Day as a cultural holiday, when every one knows that most college students see it as an occasion to drink. And what do people do when they drink in excess? Sometimes they are loud, sometimes they can get aggressive, and often, if driving, they can become deadly.

Then where is the burden of having a bunch of people smoke pot? What do people do, when under the influence of marijuana? Generally, effects mentioned include relaxation, peacefulness, and those famous munchies. Which causes people to do what? Buy a lot to eat. Isn't that exactly what we are trying to get Americans to start doing?!? SPEND!!! Get high, and spend!

Do you see where I'm getting at? Shouldn't we encourage people to celebrate 4/20, for the economy's sake, for medicine's sake, and for freedom's sake? A celebration that never hurt or killed anyone, gets a whole bunch of people to be happy all together, and gets people to spend should be encouraged and subsidized by this government, not reprimanded and criminalized!

SGA Elections

This is an issue concerning mainly St Cloud State students, but after all, this is the SCSU Libertarian's Club Blog. Long story short, the Student Government is running elections in this month of April. While there are three candidates, the two major candidates are Travis Holmberg and Michael Jamnick, who differ on a lot of issues important to the St Cloud State community.

On one side, Jamnick and his Vice-President pick Sam Sterner advocate the abolition of "double jeopardy" situations, where offenses committed off-campus result in additionnal sanctioning with the University. Jamnick and Sterner claim they will "work to lessen the financial and legal implications." Jamnick claims in his platform that he will work to lower the drinking age, as a recent survey shows that St Cloud State students are in favor of the idea. In my opinion, there are low chances that this will ever happen, but in this kind of debate, silence is consent, and St Cloud State students do not consent to the drinking age being 21. Among the other issues on the platform, supporting legislation that enables availability of contraceptives, making it easier for Student Veterans to obtain Military Transfer Credits, and keeping the Night Bus, in opposition to the proposition of having a Taxi system, requiring more money from students and not guaranteeing instant availability.

On the other, we have Travis Holmberg and Birat Krishna Thapa, running together for President and Vice-President, respectively. Their platform is separated into five points. The main element of their platform and campaign as a whole is to increase pride in the University from the student body, their motto being "Bringing back the Husky Pride!" They seek to do this through making more events that celebrate the traditions of St Cloud and SCSU, and seek to measure the pride through polls and surveys. The second point of their platform is to "work more closely" with the administration and "various other organizations". The third point is to bring the Student Government Association "more fame" by increasing public relations. Their fourth point is to "help out the organizations with their financial needs", and their final point is to raise awareness about the SGA.

Now I've been pretty neutral so far, and this is where my opinion comes in place.

While Jamnick's platform isn't perfect (no platform ever is), Holmberg's and Thapa's has some serious flaws. First of all, it appears that the platform hasn't even gone through proofreading. For example, simple arithmetic is erroneous : " the top four on our list would be the Residential Life, University Program Board and Public Safety." That's three, not four. The positions are not all declared on the platform, which I find difficult for the transparency of the election. For example, while Holmberg/Thapa omit the issue of the Night Bus vs. the Taxi System in their official platform, Holmberg announced in a public debate to which no more than 25 people were present that their position was that of the Taxi System. If only 25 people out of 16 000 know what your position on the issue is, they might be voting for the wrong reason.

But hey, that's more a criticism on form rather than content. On the content of the platform, I will simply say that the positions are broad and vague. The candidates claim that "they will work with" administration, other organizations, and MSUSA, but do not explain in what way they will work with them. They claim that they "will extend a hand to help out the organizations with their financial needs," but again, don't describe in which fashion. Will they favorise certain organizations more than others? They fail to explain that to us. Their points are also quite redundant, points 3 and 5 being almost exactly the same. They claimed in their debate that they wanted to remove the University's party school reputation, which is something most serious students seek to do, but fail to explain how they will achieve that.

But what's even worse is their reaction to questions asked on their platform thread. Several students have expressed their discontentment regarding the vagueness of the platform, and questions have been asked, one student asking them to go more in depth. Thapa gave long, wordy answers to simple questions, and seemed to be avoiding the actual content of the questions. A student has asked him three consecutive times : "Should people who are present in a room where alcohol is being consumed be sanctioned even though they have not taken part in the consumption of alcohol?" No answer. Instead, long paragraphs describing their position to reduce hate crime and violent crimes on campus. We all want to reduce violent crimes, this doesn't answer the question.



(Left : Holmberg/Thapa ; Right : Jamnick/Sterner)
On April 6th, a student raised questions on various University issues, and kept his discourse formal and polite. By the next day, Thapa had marked the post as "irrelevant," making it hidden by default on the page. This is the equivalent of political censorship. When confronted by one of his personal friends on the issue, he canceled this action, but claimed he did this because he doesn't "see any reason why people should not understand what [he and Holmberg] are trying to say." Since that day, Thapa deleted three additional posts. When that student made a new post to ask additional questions and repeat unanswered ones, this was Thapa's response :

I have had enough of you, if you are in International Student I guess please tell your TOEFL or IELTS Score, you just fail to understand simple english [sic] or maybe you are not reading my post and being an ardent worshipper of JamSam.

This comes from the same person that said "I would love to answer more [questions]," "Please continue posting," and "I strongly urge you to write more if you are not satisfied with my answer." Another part of his response included the line "I am confident that I will win this election no matter what." Why, that's constructive! Why in the world are you making slogans such as "Change is coming!" and putting posters all over campus, practically begging for votes, if you know you are going to win this election?

When the Presidential candidate, Travis Holmberg, got involved on the question asked multiple times and yet remaining unanswered, he did not give his position on the issue. Rather, he asked the student what his position was, and whether or not it should be changed. He went further to say he will meet with the students "when I am President" to discuss policy. Again, no doubt what so ever that he will win this election, and an apparent apathy about some of the policies in place affecting all students living on campus.

So to summarize why I think you should NOT vote for Travis Holmberg and Birat K Thapa : a) they have an extremely vague platform, b) they practice active censorship, c) they refuse to answer questions, rather using their ink to assume bad faith about people interested in their platform.

Moral of the story is : Look beyond hopeful slogans, look into attitude and positions.

Freedom vs. Anarchy

As a libertarian-minded member of society, I tend to get into debates and arguments on current issues and the philosophy of government, generally with people who do not share my political views at all. Throughout the many, often heated discussions I have had with students on SCSU campus, I have noticed an irritating misconception on the libertarian philosophy, which is to confuse it with that of anarchism. Fact remains : freedom is not anarchy.

While I am an advocate of minimal government, I do not believe that a total lack of government would do much benefit for society (euphemism). In fact, removing any form of governance from society would be disastrous for the majority of the population. Without an appropriate law enforcement system, violent criminals would run around freely, committing crime after crime, with no remorse or punishment. People would spend much more time and energy trying to protect their life and those of their family rather than being a productive part of their community, and nothing would ever guarantee the safety of the population.

The proponents of anarchy claim that removing government from society would restore absolute freedom to the people. That’s not entirely true. While you will be able to do absolutely everything you’ve ever been forbidden to do, such as running around naked in the middle of Times Square, it is worthy to note that nothing can stop others from stepping on your freedoms as well. What would happen in a state of anarchy? The strongest, most vile and brutal individuals of society would gain control through terror and impose their policies on the people, without any legitimacy apart from the tyrannical fear they create. The idea of a successful anarchist state is pure utopia, and has historically led to more tyranny and oppression (take Lenin and Stalin, for instance).

(This little drawing made my day, thought I'd share.)

So what do I mean when I say “freedom”, in opposition to “anarchy”? I mean we should have a government that emphasizes economic and personal liberties, and works not to restrict them, but to make sure nobody will. The government should be there to protect you from violent crimes, to protect you from injustice, to protect you from those who want to restrict your freedom, rather than tolerate your way of life. The government should be the protection of your rights and freedoms, not a despotic authority figure that imposes its way of life on the population.

Long story short, anarchy leads to illegitimate tyranny by leaving the power to the mercy of the population’s ruthless and powerful. Freedom through legitimate minimal government will lead to the stable development of communities, in economic and social aspects, as well as the thriving of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Expanding the political spectrum (and getting to know the LP)

This is a followup on Jackie's last post. :)

One of the great myths in American politics is the "left vs. right" conflict theory. It's true that there are differences between the left and right, but this is a broad generalization that oversimplifies the political realities.

Often times I get asked whether I am a Democrat or a Republican--whether I am a liberal or a conservative. That there might be a compromise between the two ideologies does not even cross the mind of the questioner. It's either one or the other in this country and there can be no in between. And I think that's a sad reflection of this country's political system, what we call "American democracy." Indeed, you have two dominant political parties, the Democratic and Republican Parties, that have controlled this country for well over the past 100 years. Yeah, sure, you can say that's better than a one-party system, which was often characteristic of some countries we dare not mention. But it's only marginally better.

True, in theory, we have a very open and democratic system with a wide spectrum of political parties that we can vote for. But the established power--the Democratic and Republican Parties--have very tight control over the election process. In a recent Newsweek article, Evan Thomas describes establishments: "By definition, establishments believe in propping up the existing order. Members of the ruling class have a vested interest in keeping things pretty much the way they are." And this is precisely what the two parties do. An easy example to point out is the "Commission on Presidential Debates," which is essentially a bipartisan ("bi," meaning two, rather than nonpartisan, which would have no political affiliation) body that dictates how, when, where, and who gets to participate in presidential debates--an important process in electing our presidents. Naturally, they limit the access third-party candidates have (or even some members within their own party, with whom they may disagree), which I consider an affront to democracy. And that's just one example; there are countless more.

Anyway, I'm going a bit off course. We are aware of the two dominant political parties and ideologies that have monopolized politics in this country for a long time now. But, surely, this can't be all that there is. In American politics, we typically call a person who favors free markets and capitalism but regulation of personal and social issues a conservative. But what do we call a person who favors state control in both social and economic issues? We typically call a person who favors state intervention in the economy but little control over personal and social issues a liberal. But what do we call a person who favors no intervention in either the economy or social issues?

The simplistic model has a straight line to describe those on the left, liberals, and those on the right, conservatives. This model has been expanded, however, to include the vast political ideologies that are ignored in this model. One that I like is the political compass:


(Source: www.en.Wikipedia.org)

This comes from www.politicalcompass.org, a nifty little site where you can see where you fit on the ideological chart. As you can see, a vertical axis was created with the addition of Libertarian and Authoritarian. On the far right, you have neoliberals who believe in unregulated markets, and their position is moved up or down depending on how much regulation there should be with social issues (abortion, drugs legalisation, homosexual marriage, etc.). On the far left, you have communists or collectivists who believe in regulated markets, and their position would be moved up or down depending mostly on how much they believe the state should be involved in making decisions. People on the upper left, the likes of which include Stalin, believe in strong and totalitarian state control in their quest for "communism." People on the lower left would be advocates of stateless communism and voluntary collectivism, along with other anarchists.

The domain of the libertarian is the on the bottom half of the chart. Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to be a leftist libertarian, the likes of which include Noam Chomsky and Neslon Mandela, who oppose the state but do not necessarily agree with capitalist markets. However, in America, libertarians and the Libertarian Party are most closely associated with those on the bottom right. People who have championed the belief in free markets and personal freedom include people such as Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, Ron Paul, Ludwig Von Mises, Murray Rothbard, Friedrich von Hayek, most of the Founding Fathers, and many others.

The ideology of the Libertarian Party argues against state power (that is, opposite of authoritarians), and instead focuses on individual liberty. It strongly supports the U.S. Constitution, liberalization of the market, the expansion of civil liberties, and is against state aggression and interventionism. This is just a simple and quick description, but it should give you a feel for what we're about. Try taking the World's Smallest Political Quiz to see where you stand. ;-)

Benjamin Seghers