In Sunday's New Ulm Journal, Fritz Busch reports in Hagedorn, Torkelson address county Republicans:
. . .Hagedorn said. “You have great leaders here in Southern Minnesota with Rep. Paul Torkelson and Sen. Gary Dahms. Paul worked hard on Highway 14 and everything else. Gary stands between you and a more socialist Minnesota. Gov. Tim Walz wants a gas tax, legal recreational marijuana, single-payer healthcare and 50 percent renewable energy, which isn’t feasible because we don’t have the technology.”
Bluestem is a bit baffled by the "socialist" ingredients in Hagedorn's dread stew. After all, cannabis prohibition is used by the defenders of free markets as the poster child of the terrors of what centralized government control can do to free people and the products they might wish to purchase. We need look no further than discussions of cannabis by adherents of various free-market economic theories.
At the Future of Freedom Foundation's Explore Freedom blog, Laurence M. Vance writes in Marijuana Wins Again:
But, ultimately, such ballot measures can expand Americans’ access to marijuana and therefore significantly increase marijuana freedom in the United States.
Why is that important?
It is important, but not because marijuana is necessarily healthy, beneficial, wholesome, safe, or harmless. It is important because the real issue here is personal freedom, not marijuana.
Americans who oppose the personal use of marijuana because they deem it to be harmful, addictive, dangerous, risky, immoral, or sinful should support ballot measures that increase marijuana freedom as much as Americans who want to use marijuana for medical reasons or simply to get high.
It is not the business of the American government — at any level — to monitor, regulate, or restrict what Americans put into their mouths, noses, veins, or lungs. What Americans desire to eat, drink, smoke, inhale, or inject is simply none of the government’s business. For as economist Ludwig von Mises has well said, “If one abolishes man’s freedom to determine his own consumption, one takes all freedoms away.”
We also recommend checking out Vance's article at the Mises Institute, Mises Explains the Drug War.
But one need not be an inflexible Austrian School economist to be a conservative free market guy landing on the side of legal recreational cannabis. In 2006, Forbes staffer Quentin Hardy reporter in Milton Friedman: Legalize It!:
A founding father of the Reagan Revolution has put his John Hancock on a pro-pot report.
Milton Friedman Milton Friedman leads a list of more than 500 economists from around the U.S. who today will publicly endorse a Harvard University economist's report on the costs of marijuana prohibition and the potential revenue gains from the U.S. government instead legalizing it and taxing its sale. Ending prohibition enforcement would save $7.7 billion in combined state and federal spending, the report says, while taxation would yield up to $6.2 billion a year.
The report, "The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition," (available at www.prohibitioncosts.org) was written by Jeffrey A. Miron Jeffrey A. Miron , a professor at Harvard , and largely paid for by the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), a Washington, D.C., group advocating the review and liberalization of marijuana laws. . . .
At 92, Friedman is revered as one of the great champions of free-market capitalism during the years of U.S. rivalry with Communism. He is also passionate about the need to legalize marijuana, among other drugs, for both financial and moral reasons.
As for Hagedorn's assertion that "50 percent renewable energy, which isn’t feasible because we don’t have the technology"? Perhaps he should contact Great River Energy with this insight. In 50% by 2030 renewable energy - Great River Energy, we learn that the dirty hippies at the Maple Grove-based electric transmission and generation cooperative decided to shoot for that goal even before Walz was elected governor of Minnesota:
In May 2018, Great River Energy adopted a corporate goal to achieve 50 percent renewable energy for its 20 all-requirements member-owner cooperatives by 2030.
Renewable energy has been a growing segment of Great River Energy’s power supply portfolio over the last two decades. In fact, the cooperative accomplished Minnesota’s 25 percent renewable energy standard in 2017 – eight years ahead of the requirement.
How much more renewable energy will Great River Energy need to meet the goal?
A year before Great River Energy adopted the 50 percent renewables by 2030 goal, the cooperative filed an integrated resource plan with the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission. That filing projected Great River Energy would need to add 600 megawatts (MW) of energy beginning in 2029 and selected wind energy as the lowest-cost option.
To achieve 50 percent renewables by 2030, under the same assumptions, Great River Energy would need an additional 100 MW of wind energy. Ultimately, the amount of renewable energy needed to achieve 50 percent renewables by 2030 will depend on how much energy members need. If there is a surge in energy sales growth, Great River Energy may need to secure additional renewable resources.
Perhaps Hagedorn understands renewable energy technology as well as he has a grasp on free-market economics.
Photo: State senator Gary Dahms, Via a recent constituent newsletter.
If you appreciate Bluestem Prairie, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. Those wishing to make a small ongoing monthly contribution should click on the paypal subscription button.
Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email [email protected] as recipient.
Comments