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The medical cannabis advocates suing the state after Monday's passage of a Proposition 2 replacement bill are seeking to overturn that law, yes — but they also want to contest what they see as government overreach in muting the voice of the people in an election.
In the lawsuit, filed Wednesday in 3rd District Court by former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, the heads of the Epilepsy Association of Utah (EAU) and Together for Responsible Use and Cannabis Education (TRUCE) accuse the Legislature of abridging the rights of voters in an effort to appease The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And they argue that the Utah Medical Cannabis Act violates the state constitution's provision for ballot initiatives by sweeping aside the plan approved by a majority of voters.
"For three years, we advocated on the Hill," said Christine Stenquist, president of TRUCE. "For two years, we've been in a campaign for the proposition. And when I saw it undermined so quickly on the first business day, I started to wonder: Is the initiative process in Utah just a suggestion box? Are our votes really meaning anything in this political process? How long do we just have to let politics happen to us?"
The state constitution vests legislative power equally in the Legislature and "the people of the State of Utah." Some of the architects of the Proposition 2 replacement law, however, say the lawsuit stands on shaky legal ground.
Previously: Mormon Church, Politicians, and Advocates Back Medical Cannabis Compromise in Utah
(Score: 5, Insightful) by NewNic on Saturday December 08 2018, @01:12AM (9 children)
Utah is controlled by Republicans.
Is there any greater example of authoritarianism than going against the wishes of the population as expressed through a ballot measure?
Yet, time and time again, people post here that the authoritarians are on the left.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 08 2018, @01:19AM (5 children)
Unfortunately for your narrative, Utah is controlled by highly atypical republicans that trend heavily to the nanny state idea. They're more republicans because they hate the democrats than because their hero is Reagan. If there's any one state where you could get republicans to nod soberly, rub their chins and agree to state oversight, it's Utah.
Try the same thing in, say, Kentucky and see how that flies.
(Score: 3, Informative) by NewNic on Saturday December 08 2018, @01:22AM (2 children)
"No true Scotsman".
Look it up.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 08 2018, @01:47AM
We all know that it's atypical of Republican politicians to be authoritarian. That's why the vast majority of them support unconstitutional wars, the Unpatriotic Act, the NSA's unconstitutional mass surveillance, the TSA, the drug war, and other authoritarian policies. Just accept it.
But what about Democrats, huh? You said something bad about Republicans, so you therefore must be in favor of the more authoritarian Democrats!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 08 2018, @04:07PM
Oh, right.
Sorry, this just in from NewNic, everybody:
all republicans are identical, everywhere, and goosestep together. Anything that looks like regional variations is a delusion.
Thanks, back to your regularly scheduled evening news WASP and bimbette.
(Score: 2) by dltaylor on Saturday December 08 2018, @01:58AM (1 child)
Republicans have ALWAYS been authoritarians, starting with Lincoln, who used the US Navy to suppress free trade and enslaved free men at gunpoint in the first-ever forced draft to make the Northern industrialists richer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 09 2018, @03:36AM
Washington's army during the revolutionary war engaged in forced conscription (at the point of a musket). And, yeah Washington was just another rich parasite*; the revolutionary war, as war always is, was for the benefit of the rich.
* Washington's wealth was at the expense of a great army of men and women he claimed as his property. He lived off the labor of these slaves-- a parasite.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday December 08 2018, @01:28AM
Republican/Democrat hardly matters. People have to vote for politicians that will uphold their initiatives. Seems only logical. It's no different than bowling, you gotta follow through.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Saturday December 08 2018, @03:49AM (1 child)
No, of course not all on the left. It's just been so surprising to see leftists, self-labelled (inaccurately) liberals take up authoritarianism so quickly and gleefully. Do people naturally fear freedom? Many people seem to fear a free person walking among them. With freedom comes responsibility, and so possibly they believe your typical person is not responsible enough to be free. Therefore, in their mind, a free person represents a real danger. I believe it's a fundamental breakdown of culture; our failure to adequately teach each of the last few generations what it is to be free and how to take up the responsibility required of them as an adult in a free society.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by HiThere on Saturday December 08 2018, @04:11AM
I'm sorry you were surprised. You must not have paid attention in history classes. Authoritarianism is orthogonal to the left-right spectrum. Both sides contains anarchists and both sides contain those that worship power. IIRC the first socialized medicine policy in the modern world was initiated by Count Bismark. A noted authoritarian. (If not the first, he certainly pushed one.) In most policies, however, he was distinctly right-wing. (What do you expect of an aristocrat?)
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