RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:Vaping I don't know if I quite equate the current Democratic candidates to the rise of the radical left. I'm reluctant to buy into the wild theories from either side, but with the irrational of political discourse in the current climate, some things are certainly amiss. It's wild to see some of the ideals most candidates support today, compared to just a few years ago. However, both sides are guilty of consistantly separating themselves across party lines.
In a time of such extreme partisanship, one thing you can say about Trump is that he has still managed to keep the machine rolling. As long as the Senate has a republican majority, it's hard to see this remaining the case for most of the current candidates. Other than ubiquitous democratic control of the branches of government, my greatest fear is the continued trend of worsening deadlock.
One thing that has me scratching my head, is how people see the distributions of policies in the nation. Many still think that the U.S. is a conservative leaning nation, and that's simply not the case anymore. Maybe compared to the population centralized states, or European nations, sure, the country might seem relatively conservative. With the consistant bloat of federal branches, however, we are far from the ideals that were held in the not-so-distant past.
I'd love to see the nation shift back to more moderate and conservative ideals, but currently see no realistic path of this happening. Even under Trump, our deficit has grown to record levels and that will likely only get worse, regardless of who is elected. Our path towards sustainability should be focused and reducing the influence of federal branches, allowing states the freedom to be as socialist or conservative as they like.
I'm on the same page with your concern, but regardless of who's in office, little is realistically being done to stay off this long-term time bomb that has been getting kicked around for decades. I'm far from convinced by the economic theories stating that a ballooning debt and deficit is not signficant. At the very least, Trump has managed to inject enough capital into the economy to keep the wheels from falling off, at the expense of continued debt burden.
It seems more like, no matter what happens, we're going to keep pushing forward until we see signficant hardship. Only then are people able to reevaluate their ideals, and by then I can only hope that it's not the cold dead arms of, "democratic," socialism that is there to embrace them. Like a herd, we all migrate down the same path until we completely forget about how long it was since we crossed the border -- blind, and lost.
I don't know that I really have much to add when it comes to politics, so I'm going to hope that this was enough to address the points your raise. I hope that the thoughts are worthwhile and I intend to leave it there as this is a bit off-topic here, but I personally appreciate the discussion. One question, though, how much press has candidate Buttigieg gotten internationally?
Now with that said, I'll at least add a small tidbit that's a bit more on-topic if anyone hasn't had enough reading yet. I found a great, but very lengthy and detailed paper to elaborate on the position and struggles of the FDA and their interstate jurisdiction regarding Cannabis enforcement. Full disclosure, so far I've only had the time to skim it a bit; "The Surprising Reach of FDA Regulation of Cannabis Even after Rescheduling,"
https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1508&context=faculty-articles
As usual, JMHO,
-Dubby