I’m not really planning on spinning out an entire article on this topic, the title itself basically says all I want to say on it, as it’s the only conclusion one can draw from James Lankford’s recent comment that medical marijuana would be “harmful to the social fabric of Oklahoma”. Well, no. It wouldn’t. It would be enormously beneficial to this state, not only by granting citizens access to a safe and effective medicine that treats all sorts of ailments and afflictions, but in taking a highly profitable product out of the black market and placing it in the free market. Does Lankford not believe in free markets? He says he does, but only in the abstract apparently. When it counts, he shrinks in horror at what the unknown effects of a free market would be. He prefers control, because he naturally believes that not only can government control the market economy, but that the effect of that control would be more beneficial than the effect of giving us a bit more freedom.
Lankford’s opinion is based around the superstitious fear of the consequences of liberty, as well as the hope that his voting base shares that superstitious fear.
Lankford is a supporter of liberty only in the abstract. But where it counts, where the real litmus test resides, is supporting liberty in those specific instances when liberty is actually at stake. Whether war, spending, regulation, etc., those are the moments that prove who really cares about liberty. Sadly, unsurprisingly, Lankford is not an ally of liberty, nor of any ‘Liberty Movement’, if such a thing still exists. He’s an authoritarian, albeit one of the “it’s for the children” variety. But authoritarian nonetheless. He masks it with religion and sweet nothings, but the effect that it has on State power and the suffering of the civilian class is just as merciless.
