I couldn't believe my eyes when I read this headline:
Shock: Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson favors marijuana legalization
I read it to papabigdog in utter disbelief, and he posited that perhaps Robertson has glaucoma. I don't know if that's the case for this surprising turnaround, but it could open the doors to more people discussing the impacts of our current drug enforcement efforts and mandatory sentencing laws.
I thought perhaps I was getting punked- maybe an April Fool's type of story for a slow night on a holiday week. Raw Story has the actual video of the discussion that took place on Robertson's 700 club show on the Christian Broadcast Network (CBN). Robertson has been on the air doing his CBN thing since 1960, famously saying completely bat-shit insane things like Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for abortion policy in the US, also agreeing with Jerry Falwell that 9/11 should be blamed on pretty much every liberal minority in the country as punishment from God, and for saying that Hinduism is "demonic", Islam is "satanic" and that the founders of Haiti have "sworn a pact with the devil". I think that we can all agree these things are the musings of someone not connected to reality.
So believe me when I say I am no fan at all of Pat Robertson. However, lots of other people are. Lots of people in very red states watch his show every day and give unseemly amounts of money to his "charity". So when Pat Robertson up and says something like:
"We're locking up people that have taken a couple puffs of marijuana and next thing you know they've got 10 years with mandatory sentences," Robertson continued. "These judges just say, they throw up their hands and say nothing we can do with these mandatory sentences. We've got to take a look at what we're considering crimes and that's one of 'em."
... you sort of have to wonder if you've fallen down the rabbit hole and are seeing that stopped clock be right twice a day.
And then he says this:
"I'm ... I'm not exactly for the use of drugs, don't get me wrong, but I just believe that criminalizing marijuana, criminalizing the possession of a few ounces of pot, that kinda thing it's just, it's costing us a fortune and it's ruining young people. Young people go into prisons, they go in as youths and come out as hardened criminals. That's not a good thing."
And you know that all of those people listening to him are sitting up and taking notice, and maybe the little gears are turning in their minds because they've been so well trained to take the words of men like Robertson as gospel. You start to wonder if this keeps up, maybe there will be some real life support for overhauling the drug enforcement and mandatory minimum laws in this country that are helping our cities, counties and states go bankrupt.
All because this normally bat-shit crazy person actually says something that makes sense for a change.
One can hope, right?