Freedom for who?

"The will of the people is the source and the happiness of the people 

the end of all legitimate government upon earth" - John Quincy Adams

 

Some thoughts on Denton City Council’s repeal of the low-level marijuana decriminalization ordinance.

I made the argument years ago as a member of the Frack Free movement in Denton that sought to ban fracking in our city, that the Texas Legislature was becoming the nanny state they so much protested against when federal legislation was trying to curb the corporate excesses that put profit over people.  An effort to make our air cleaner and by default reduce medical costs for Denton citizens that suffered respiratory ailments was being blocked then by a mindset that still puts self-serving interest over the legitimate will of the people .  The state then, as it’s doing now with the effort to decriminalize the use of marijuana, is guilty of over riding the judgement of a local municipality, based on some ideal that a smaller but more powerful group have the abusive power to force on others.

It not just citizens in Denton who favor legislation that decriminalizes the use of marijuana in small amounts.  A recent poll found that significant majorities in the state of Texas want such legislation.  But the governor and his coterie of like-minded legislators think they know what’s best for Texans.  This behavior demonstrates the hypocrisy that emanates from those who use the “nanny state” label when it serves them best.

About ten years ago, former Texas state senator Don Huffines bemoaned the efforts of federal, state and municipal legislation that dictated what could and couldn’t be in various areas of our daily lives.  But it wasn’t the fact that citizens of this country and state sought legislative changes that essentially wanted the government our of their lives in all things.  It was, as Don Huffines fashioned it in a March 29th, 2015 Op-ed piece, the legislation that came from “insidious … liberal local political subdivisions.”

Breathing cleaner air and indulging in the use of the “devil weed” as it’s adversaries see it,     were things that Huffines saw as an affront to his Tea Party conservative values then, those “rules and regulations that is eroding the Texas model”, Huffines claimed.  Liberal local political subdivisions that were forming in the urban areas of the state like Denton as part of the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex served as counter-forces to oft restrictive legislation that was either out of date for the times or represented pseudo-religious, capitalist views that didn’t want to see a future that was slowly changing by newer generations of Texans.

At 76 years old, I’m watching our world changing as a result of modern technology that has the unexpected result of isolating us rather than opening up the general narrative that includes a diverse cultural population.  It pains me to see people ignore evidence-based reality and justify their actions as supporting traditional norms but whose sole purpose is to keep their socio-political views as the prominent, and yes, the only, voice that needs to be considered.

We got to where we are today by gradually allowing those cultural changes that were more  inclusive.  “Freedom” may have been the catch word for Tea Party zealots a little over a decade ago, much as it is for the Trump-driven MAGA crowd today, but only if you are a 2nd generation or better, white, laisse- faire Christian and predominantly male.  All others need not apply.

Don Huffines lost his state senate seat 4 years later to Nathan Johnson, the first Democrat to represent his district 16 in over three decades.  Huffiness failed to read the signs that said people in his district at least were tired of the status quo, which too often excluded anyone who didn’t look and sound like him.

The four Denton City Council members, including Mayor Hudspeth, who failed to support the choice their constituents made 2 years ago does not represent a true sense of freedom but a fear that the future is too uncertain for them and that opposing the powers that be is not a risk they are willing to take.