Idaho State Senator Loves States' Rights But Not For Demon Weed

If there's anything your wingnuts love, it's the hallowed concept of States' Rights. Your modern wingnut says the states should never have to knuckle under to Federal tyranny, because freedom! In the Great State of Idaho, one of the freedom-lovingest Freedomeers is State Sen. Chuck Winder (rhymes with "splinter"), who loves freedom so much that he supported a 2011 bill to nullify health care reform, and has also signed on to efforts to allow health-care providers to refuse to provide health care for slutty women. He loves states' freedom so much that he thinks states should be free to make slutty women undergo a transvaginal ultrasound before getting an abortion, because the state has an interest in making sure babbies get borned.

So here's a man who loves freedom for states, which is good for everyone else's freedom, too, except slutty ladies, of course. But Sen. Winder is also a deeply moral man, and he has serious concerns about what other states have been doing, particularly those stoners next door in Washington, where the voters got tired of having to guard their stashes with alligators and just plain legalized the filthy weed. So Winder has introduced two bills in the current session of the Idaho Lege, one of which will promise to keep pot illegal in the state forever and ever, and the other one a "non-binding memorial calling on the federal government to enforce federal anti-drug laws in all states," including those with medical marijuana laws. Because Chuck Winder would do anything for states' rights, but he won't do THAT.

Sen. Winder was one of those fine Republicans who jumped on the "don't trust ladies with their slutty bodies" bandwagon last year when he introduced that lovely ultrasound bill with no exception for rape or incest, because women may be having so much sex that they simply don't know whether they were raped or not:

“Rape and incest was used as a reason to oppose this," Winder said on the Senate floor. "I would hope that when a woman goes in to a physician with a rape issue, that physician will indeed ask her about perhaps her marriage, was this pregnancy caused by normal relations in a marriage or was it truly caused by a rape. I assume that's part of the counseling that goes on.”

So you see, that's not much of a reason to override the State's interest in making sure that the woman be properly shamed before she ends her pregnancy.

Winder has a similar sort-of logic in desiring to tamp down on other states' right to legalize loco-weed, because, in the language of the bill, “Legalizing this substance is a threat to all states and citizens, not just to the few states that have opted to violate federal law.” See? We don't need any Big Brother federal nanny state forcing us to get health insurance, but we definitely need that kind of benevolent assistance to protect us from patchouli-reeking hippies with their giggling at everything and craving snack foods.

The Boise Weekly notes that Sen. Winder's Facebook page has been deluged with pro-marijuana comments, much as it was besieged last year by people unhappy with his comments on rape and 'bortion. It is not yet certain whether he will be swayed by their impassioned arguments about the usefulness of hemp fibers in the manufacture of rope and fabrics.

[ Spokesman.com / HuffPo ]