Such A Jolly Time Limiting Your Rights

So who limits government's claimed power to limit your rights...?

The NH House Criminal Justice Committee has so far this session heard testimony on 4 marijuana-related bills: HB1526, "decriminalizing possession of less than one ounce of marijuana;" and HB1527, "exempting cultivation of marijuana from manufacturing under the controlled drug act" (at 25:50 in the accompanying video), HB1615, "relative to industrial hemp" (41:35); and HB1705-FN-A, "allowing purchase and use of marijuana by adults, regulating the purchase and use of marijuana, and imposing taxes on the wholesale and retail sale of marijuana (55:00). Video from those hearings can be found, respectively, here, here, and here.

This past Tuesday, 2/21/2012, and this day, 2/23, the committee "exec'd" those bills (and dozens of others -- is society really still that chaotic that we need dozens of new criminal "justice" laws every... single... year...?), meaning they voted in "executive session" on what shall be their recommendation to the full House.The primary options are "OTP," or "Ought to Pass;" "OTP/A," or "Ought to Pass with Amendment;" "ITL," or the curiously artful "Inexpedient to Legislate;" or "re-refer for interim study."

Hey, here's some "inconvenient truth" they could start with. Or here. Or here. But remember, this is the same CJ Committee whose marijuana hearings I began recording four years ago. Yet the word "cannabis" had to be defined for them as recently as last month (in the hearing videos referenced above -- can't recall which one just now: look for educator Bob Constantine). So it would seem rational that even they ought to acknowledge that they're not gonna learn anything new with further study, wouldn't it?

The transparent, disdainful disrespect for basic guaranteed liberty and for purposefully limited government consistently exhibited by this committee never ceases to amaze, confound and sicken your humble chronicler. Why do obsequious police-state authoritarians like Rep. Berube or Rep. Pantelakos have more control over your body than you do? Are you comfortable with that? Just something to think about...