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Politics : For the Sake of Clarity and Meaning -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: one_less who wrote (64)	3/4/2005 1:39:16 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 777

Would you agree that it has been in a different context by the left than it has by the right? Yes. I hear 'support the troops' usually when attached to 'but' in an anti-war context. When I hear a left winger use the term I hear 'anti-war'. When I hear a right winger use the term I hear 'kick some butt'. That's fine, but I wouldn't call the lefty use "code." "Code" is when some in-group uses a phrase with a natural meaning to convey something other than that natural meaning, a meaning understood only by the in-group, a meaning with an imbedded wink. If a righty questions a lefty's support of the troops, he's conflating supporting the troops with supporting the war. So the lefty's response is "I support the troops but I don't support the war," making a distinction between advocacy for the soldiers and advocacy for the war. It is a defense against the implied charge of being unpatriotic for not supporting the war. The righty usage, support of the war, would be the coded one, IMO, although one could argue that it also has a natural meaning given that there's a lot of overlap between supporting the troops and supporting the war. The lefty usage is entirely natural. It is simply a more nuanced natural meaning. They're talking about the soldiers, themselves. The way you can tell that the lefty usage is not code is that they aren't trying to make any points about it other than in defense. You won't see lefty demonstrators with a rallying cry, "support the troops." If they have anything to say about it it's in the context of "I support the troops, too, in my own way, so stop thinking me unpatriotic." So, like 'states rights' that has a clear and distinct body of doctrine that stands alone, when some people use the term there underlying purpose has a more central motivation than generally wanting states to have rights to legislate on their own. State's rights only becomes an issue when their is a particular social agenda that is regionally uncomfortable and distinctive as a cultural value from the National outlook. "States rights" is an excellent example of code. I think "support the troops" is more an epithet and an anti-epithet. It's like the right staking a claim on "values" and the left arguing that they have values, too, although maybe not exactly the same set.

To: one_less who wrote (64)	3/5/2005 12:17:26 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 777

States Rights; that's what caught my interest in the header. It's undergoing a profound change in its meaning and application over the last several years. Growing up in the west, SR was always about segregation, the poll tax, B. vs Board, Orval Faubus with oatmeal dripping on his tie (according to my freshman English teacher), Bull Connors, Lester Maddux, George Wallace. Lately, it has come to mean something entirely different in the west. SR means Oregon's Right to Die, and about 9 states with medical marijuana. When the MedMar case went to the Supes recently, La, and I think one other traditional southern SR state, came in as Amica curie or whatever, with Cal, behind only the issue of SR. I'm not sure if they want the precedent so they can give stricter drug sentences, or behind gay marriages. I don't know if they have, or will appear on behalf of Ore. In fact, I maintain that, by constitutional precedent, the feds have no right to ban weed. The Constitution grants authority to the feds to regulate only one drug. In the early 20th century, in an effort to nationalize and internationalize the Mafia, the Constitution was amended to ban alcohol. A few years later, mission accomplished, the Constitution unbanned alcohol. No other drug is regulated by those words written on hemp. So, by all constitutional precedent, not to mention the 9th and 10th amendments, the feds have no authority to regulate intrastate commerce in either weed or hemp.