Yesterday, something amazing happened in my home state: medical marijuana was legalized, and the authoritarian incumbent Senator Ervin Yen lost by a large margin to Joe Howell. Needless to say, the prairie Political Class received dual blows by a citizenry sick and tired of the galloping approach of authoritarianism, one that has bankrupted our home state.
In Yen’s case, with such a large margin of defeat of Yen to Joe Howell (20 percentage points!) thanks to a true grassroots ‘Yank Yen’ campaign, intelligently organized and relentlessly executed, the authoritarian EX-Senator must be feeling literal whiplash this morning from what was less of a yank and more of a cannon blast.
But a warning to all those who supported these victories: the Political Class is already gearing up for Round 2, and you know they’ve got plenty of tricks up their sleeves. Namely, they’re working overtime to prepare a completely gutted version of 788, one that will bear little resemblance to what all the activists fought so hard for.
Getting to vote for medical marijuana in a state so hostile to change in the direction of greater liberty was a wonderful experience. Not a vote for a politician who has made oblique paeans to working toward medical marijuana sometime in the distant future, but a direct vote for change now. For once I didn’t feel helpless in the face of a political system that seems to reward only the politically connected, a system that caters to the powerful, with only a few beans tossed to the voting masses now and then. With 788, we bypassed the Political Class entirely, and made a desperately needed change ourselves because our government has proven too corrupt and cowardly to do it.
Taking my children along as I voted was a symbolic and literal reference to my small power in that moment to alter their future for the better in this state. Parents are their children’s shield, standing between them and the State. We must never relinquish that power, something that Yen insisted was his right to take. No free society can last long when government comes between parent and child. And no politician or bureaucrat that attempts to weaken or remove that shield should ever be trusted.
Liberty won yesterday, but the battle isn’t over. 788 must not be allowed to be crippled, mutilated, and transformed into just another crony pay-out. It should be given the force of law as is. Anything less would be a betrayal of Oklahoma’s citizens, and the future of this state.
