I was surprised but pleased to see Drudge link to noted Libertarian Penn Jillete’s EPIC rant on the war on drugs and particularly Obama’s disgusting hypocrisy thereto, embedded below. This issue is where I, and many others, part ways with the GOP and the rather large Drug Warrior segment of the Tea Party. The very principle of prohibition is contrary to basic notions of self-ownership and liberty, see, e.g., Lincoln quote below. If the GOP had any brains, much less principled commitment to freedom, it would have a come to Jesus moment and plant the Gadsden flag on this issue, where it rightly belongs. But who am I kidding, tepid social conservatives such as Rubio, Christie, Daniels, and Jindal are the future of the party, while Gary Johnson, Mike Lee, Justin Amash, Rand Paul, and Ron Paul are dismissed to the children’s table where their antiquated notions of individual liberty, adherence to the Constitution, and Washingtonian (beware of foreign entanglements) foreign policy cannot harm the GOP’s stakeholders.

Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.

-Abraham Lincoln (1809-65) U.S. President. Speech, 18 Dec. 1840, to Illinois House of Representatives

I call an animal, a species, an individual corrupt, when it loses its instincts, when it prefers what is injurious to it.

Congratulations to the president for getting on the right side of this generation’s civil rights struggle. He can be an important leader for equality under the law.

But of course, this announcement does raise questions. Was he telling the truth to voters in 2008 when he said, “I believe that marriage is between a man and woman and I am not in favor of gay marriage” and when he told voters in 2004 that “My religious faith dictates marriage is between a man and a woman, gay marriage is not a civil right”? Or when he told voters in 1996, “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages”? Has he been wrestling with a conflict between his religious faith and his belief in the Constitution, or just with conflicting political pressures?

Rhetorical question, imo.

Nevertheless, he’s in the right place now. And he says he’s been “evolving,” so we know he sees his new position as the evolved one. Good for him.

[Updated at 5:04 pm] And here’s Chris Barron (GOProud), via Reason, weighing in on Obama’s sudden evolution:

GOProud’s Chris Barron reacts to Barack Obama’s late and somewhat tepid support for marriage equality:

“It is good to see that after intense political pressure that President Obama has finally come around to the Dick Cheney position onmarriage equality. I am sure, however, the President’s newly discovered support for marriage is cold comfort to the gay couples in North Carolina.  The President waited until after North Carolina passed a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.”

“This is hardly a profile in courage by President Obama.  For years now, President Obama has tried his hardest to have it both ways on this issue.

“The real kudos here goes to LGBT activists and their allies who finally forced the President into yielding on this issue.”

Zing.

The answer is to return to first principles. The government should protect us from force and fraud and then leave us alone. It must recognize that our freedoms come from our humanity, that our souls are immortal, that it is merely a temporary institution based on fear and force. It cannot spend more than it takes in. It cannot kill except in actual self defense and it cannot take our property and give it away. Freedom is the ability to obey your own conscience and free will. Government is fear and force telling you what to do.

Run your eye back over the list of martyrs, lay and clerical: nine tenths stood accused of nothing worse than the truth.