A cold civil war?

The 2017 Nevada Legislature approved the commercial cultivation of hemp. We are the first state to pass a law allowing commercial hemp cultivation. The federal government has prohibited the cultivation of hemp in the United States. If you buy a hemp dress in a boutique, the fiber was grown outside the country.

Hemp is cannabis but is not psychoactive. The buds of the hemp plant are, at best, worse than ditch weed. Instead, hemp is prized for the fiber taken from the long stalks, which are strong and water resistant. Hemp, as any fan of Jack Herer can tell you, has been used for rope, clothes, paper, upholstery and countless other industrial and home uses for thousands of years.

The U.S. is on the verge of civil war, or least a civil cold war. A deranged leftist living in a van by the river shot U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise while he practiced for a charity congressional baseball game, and if not for brave security may have killed many more Republicans. The government-controlled corporate media pretended a new Era of Good Feeling was upon us when the ball game was played. It didn’t last a week.

Having lost the election they were overwhelmingly picked to win, the Democrats are willing to risk war with a nuclear superpower to discredit the winner. They want to investigate their way back to power. The Washington Imperium and its satellites have hurled invectives at the president of a country who has the power to end civilization and maybe even life on Earth in a nuclear Armageddon. He was also elected by his people more than once, and he has largely kept his promise to restore to his people a sense of pride and patriotism missing since the implosion of the Soviet Union. He does not use nasty words against our politicians, but instead calls us “partners,” “friends” and “colleagues.” Hollywood filmmaker Oliver Stone produced four hours of relaxed candid interviews with Russian President Vladimir Putin. They even watched Dr. Strangelove together. The Russians say their diplomacy is designed to make enemies neutrals, neutrals friends, and friends allies. Our elite spies interpret this to mean Russians are genetically manipulative. Stephen Colbert never watched the interviews, but condemned Stone for his attempt to humanize someone the left prefers remain a caricature of evil.

Over 70 percent of Americans want an end to foreign wars, but always it seems there has to be a deadly enemy, a reason for “leadership” to maintain “international norms.” Washington continues to find reasons for wars and rumors of wars. The Congressional approval rating hovers around 20 percent.

If Nevada can simply defy the federal government and legalize hemp, what else could states do? President Eisenhower sent the 101 Airborne to desegregate the schools in Little Rock, but could something like that happen again? The governor of Arkansas and the American people respected federal authority because Eisenhower was a hero of the war against fascism and had the moral authority to enforce the Constitution.

Just what moral authority does the federal leviathan have now? The people despised medical marijuana raids under President Obama in California. Congress passed the Rohrabarker-Farr amendment that prevents any more federal raids against medical marijuana dispensaries operating under state law. This month Attorney General Jeff Sessions sent a letter to Congress asking permission to do medical pot raids again, but now there is a bipartisan marijuana lobby in Congress. I suspect they will tell Jeff to go pound sand.

What can the states accomplish if they decide to bypass the federal government altogether, not to discriminate, but to liberate? I expect we will see some answers to that question soon.