Yeah, but conservatives really hate hippies. You sure that doesn't trump everything else when it comes to pot? Most conservatives I've talked to recently are extremely emotional/cultural on their reasons for being a conservative.
They aren't dueling teenage street gangs, The Conservs and the Hippies. You've talked to a strange little subset of conservatives. I'm a liberal, and my next door neighbor is an extremely emotional/cultural liberal too.
Maybe hippies is a bad way to put it, but how to explain "Take OUR country back" without hippies and race?
Not saying it's all conservatives, just a significant chunk. And, yeah, cultural liberals exist too but we don't have the anger level, you never see liberals get angry about the heartland the way conservatives are angry about "libs".
EDIT to reply since I'm heading out the door: Yeah, signs at rallies, plus Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, several people I met while canvassing, every outspoken conservative in my hometown that I've heard from..
Yeah, SF contrarian-libertarians don't talk like that. But a significant subset of the conservative movement does. We'll see if it changes now that they don't feel so emasculated after taking the house.
My conservative friends don't talk like that. You know what talks like that? Crazy signs at rallies. Consider whether that's where you're getting your facts from.
I'm a midwesterner, by the way. And libertarians kind of drive me nuts. I'm talking about Republicans.
Even a lot of the "Take OUR country back" folks — who are not anything close to the majority of conservatives — resent the government telling them what plants they can grow and what they can do with them. The fact that this happens to coincide with something hippies enjoy is subordinate to the fact that the ban on pot represents the government sticking its nose into free commerce and their individual liberty.
Always keep in mind that these guys (and yes, their equivalents on the Left) are not experts in political science and philosophy. They are entertainers first and foremost, and their job is to be provocative. The day they say "You know, today everything is copacetic" is the day people stop listening and they lose their jobs.
Yeah, but is the average conservative (or liberal or just plain "voter") an expert in political science or philosophy? You ever talked to an undecided voter 24 hours before election day?
Whether or not those guys are stupid (and I agree that they are), they certainly have a constituency and are representative of a big chunk of the Republican party. Heck, anytime a Republican politician says anything bad about Limbaugh they wind up apologizing for it.
