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| Source:Such is Life Videos- Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart, talking to MSNBC's Thomas Roberts. |
"Thomas Roberts talks with Jonathan Capehart (The Washington Post) about Sam Arora's disgraceful wavering on marriage equality in Maryland. Final vote on same-sex marriage bill this week."
From Such is Life Videos
I'm a native Marylander and have lived in the State of Maryland my whole life and love my State. It's a great State and has been probably its entire existence, with a high quality of life, education, economy employment, infrastructure, recreation, physical beauty. 6M people roughly within a few hours drive, so you are never that far away from anything. Great food, the best crab cakes around and other great seafood, great places to eat. Short winters, long hot humid summers with a lot of sun and of you are from New England or the Northwest, Maryland and the broader Mid Atlantic is probably not the best climate for you.
We are a high taxed state though compared with the rest of the country, but we get a pretty good bang for our buck with great schools roads, parks and so-forth. So myself who who believes in low taxes, I'll accept that for now. Maryland in nicknamed the Free State, which is also what I call my blog.
One reason because I'm a Marylander, the other because it fits my politics like a glove: I believe in the idea of Free State the ability for people to live freely in a free society. The ability for people to live their own lives as they see fit as long as they are not hurting anyone else with their freedom. I've been described as a Libertarian or a Classical Liberal. But I prefer liberal or even Liberal Democrat, because one I know what those terms mean unlike a lot of others.
But also because I believe in Individual Liberty but thats not my point of this blog.
My point is if you are actually going to have the nerve to call your state in a liberal democracy of 310M people with forty nine other states, the Free State, then you have an obligation as I see it, to live up to that nickname as much as possible and give your citizens and residents as much freedom as possible.
The voter registration in Maryland is something like 70% Democrat and have had one Republican governor in that last forty four years. But even with all of that, gay marriage is still illegal, gambling until recently was illegal, we now have slots at our race tracks, that I voted for on a ballot as well as casinos. Marijuana of course is still illegal like in the rest of the country, but that could change in California and they came close to decriminalizing marijuana in 2010. Prostitution is still illegal like in forty eight other states, only Nevada has legal prostitution but they regulate and tax it.
All of these personal activities are all illegal in the Free State of Maryland. All these activities that go on anyway in Maryland but in the dark. All of these activities that have consequences including negative but we can say that about a lot of other activities that are currently legal: alcohol and tobacco come to mind, but we regulate and tax them.
If you are going to call yourself the Free State and forty nine other states could've picked that nickname and you live in a free society, you should live up to that nickname as much as possible because it's a lot to live up to. Instead of trying to prohibit how people live their lives, even though you know those activities are going to go on anyway.
Maryland should regulate how these personal activities happen and have some control over it to make it as safe as possible. And regulate how people interact with each other and put in some rules to prevent and punish people when they abuse each other. And then you can bring down your overall tax rates, because now you've broaden your tax base.
I'm glad Governor Martin O'Malley has finally come on board in supporting gay marriage in the Free State of Maryland. But Maryland should be freer in other ways as well and be as free as possible and live up to its great nickname.
