r/politics • u/sweatycat New York • 1d ago

California to Negotiate Trade With Other Countries to Bypass Trump Tariffs

https://www.newsweek.com/california-newsom-trade-trump-tariffs-2055414
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u/PaulTheMerc 1d ago

Just one question. Its fucking weed. WHY is that worth 10+ years to so many fucking people? I don't get it.

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u/Mavian23 1d ago

Because it was originally used as a way of targeting anti-war hippies back in the Nixon era. The War on Drugs was political.

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u/PaulTheMerc 1d ago

Right, that part makes sense. So the war came and went, war ended, hippies kept it up, I get that.

Why does the next generation go "yeah, getting high is worth the clearly disproportionate cost?"

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u/GrunchJingo 22h ago

Things get instilled in the American psyche extremely quickly. Something can go from "atypical" or "unthinkable" to "how things have always been" in less than a decade.

Think about the 2nd amendment. When Reagan banned open carry to limit the ability of black activist groups to oversee police activity in their neighborhoods, the NRA was on his side. Legal scholars were on his side. Nearly every single article written about the 2nd amendment treated it as a right pertaining to state militias. Basically no one talked about an individual's right to have a gun. So when state militias weren't a thing, it stopped being a relevant part of the bill of rights.

In 2008 suddenly the 2nd amendment became about an individual's right to own a gun and everyone acted like it had always been that way. Now the majority of legal articles written about the 2nd amendment treat it as an individual right.

In 2000 it would be unthinkable that we would accept the US government spying on us. That's East Berlin shit. 9/11 happens and then people start saying "Well I've got nothing to hide." and acting like they were always ok with having their 4th amendment rights flagrantly violated.

So yeah, the war on drugs starts and it never ends and people think it's normal for the government to treat weed as a felony.