Opinions on policies matter based on who does it

It turns out that our opinions on policies have less to do with the policy itself than who supports it.

Here's a report on a study that points out that self described liberals are more likely to to support targeted killings if Obama does it. Presumably conservatives are less likely to support them as a results.

This is not a surprising result, and may well fit theories that suggest people defer opinions on some issues where they may be conflicted to opinion leaders they either trust, or feel favorably towards. I also don't think that the Madison who wrote Fed 10 wouls have found this surprising either.

Are we at a tipping point in the War on Drugs?

The successful marijuana initiatives earlier this year may have started something.
Here's a look at the impact a new documentary - The House I Live In - is having on attitudes about laws that treat non-violent drug criminals like violent criminals and send some to jail for life sentences for what seem like relatively minor offenses. It has led to the development of a caste system in the US since those convicted are burdened with a criminal record. The conspiratorially minded think that's the point.

But when opinion leaders like Pat Robertson think we should decriminalize marijuana, things have changed. Majorities of Americans now favor legalization (not that that always matters). The media is more likely to publish editorials favoring legalization as well.

As of yet, this only applies to marijuana, not harder drugs.

One sticking point mentioned in the story is the financial benefits that certain people and institutions receive from the status-quo. Drug laws give law enforcement something to do. And the rise of privately owned prisons means that the incarceration of large numbers of people - for whatever reason - produces profits.  I would guess that policy shifts will not really occur until powerful interests see more money to be made when marijuana is legal rather than illegal. Tobacco companies are apparently ready to go producing marijuana cigarettes (will we still call them joints? Doesn't seem appropriate.). They have tremendous political pull.

The Doves are Hawks and the Hawks are Doves

The New Republic Reports on an interesting observation. Members of each party seem to have flipped their positions on the use of American military power. Democrats who had been critical of Bush's aggressive activities in Iraq are now supportive of Obama's similarly aggressive activities in Libya. Republicans have reversed their positions on the military and are calling for bringing troop how when three years ago they derided such actions.

The obvious difference is which party controls the White House.

Is Violent Rhetoric a Threat to the Republic?

An appropriate question considering our 2301 topic this week.

David Frum (former W Bush speechwriter) wonders:

The problem is, rather, the construction of paranoid narratives that might justify violence to a violent-minded person. When scruffy protesters drew swastikas on photographs of President George W. Bush, that was obnoxious. It was not likely to incite anyone. But when eminent persons argued on the public airwaves that the United States had been lied into a frustrating war in Iraq by a cabal of Jewish conspirators? That’s a very different matter.

Likewise, it's grossly ill mannered for a member of the House to shout "You lie!" at a president during a State of the Union address. Yet the republic staggered on somehow. What does do damage to the fabric of democracy is the charge made by prominent conservative broadcasters that the president is deliberately wrecking the U.S. economy to advance his scheme to overthrow the constitution and transform the nation into a Marxist or Leninist or even Maoist tyranny.
Its the opinion leaders more than the general population he suggests, among other things.