Continuing Benzene's tradition of transplanting conversations that began elsewhere, this first exchange is one that began on the Finale List (for users of the music transcription software Finale). The list has occasional off-topic threads, but I don't think there's much appetite for political discussion there. As this thread wandered toward political, I noticed that the main participants were myself and a guy I've corresponded with a lot (mostly for Macintosh advice), so I thought I'd bring it here.

The whole exchange is more than a week old, but it's no less relevant now than it was then. It began when someone copied a letter from Drug Policy Alliance about the RAVE Act, a bit of legislation which seeks to fight illegal drugs by holding a host legally responsible if illegal drugs are used at a party or musical event. This was almost on-topic, because the RAVE Act is a threat to live music, and several on the list are professional musicians.

I'm now cobbling together a series of excerpts from various strands of the the discussion. I tried to make it coherent, though there are some references to others not quoted here. I've restricted the exchange here to just Darcy and I. Some others had interesting things to say as well, but I don't want to quote them without permission, and I don't know them well enough to invite them to join us here. As usual, messages previously written by me are in sans-serif but otherwise formatted like a letter. Indented and bracketed text is my additional comments now.

Me (April 2, on Finale List)

By the way, you and David have both mentioned Republicans. While it's true that the Republicans who control Congress have provided much of the support for the RAVE Act, it's really not a partisan issue. The sponsor of the bill is a Democrat, Sen Joe Biden of Delaware, and Sen Joe Lieberman is among the co-sponsors.

Sen Biden is the driving force behind RAVE. He wrote the bill, he introduced it, and he's the one who got it passed. It was Biden, and not any Republican, who attached RAVE to AMBER in the conference committee.

Personally, I think any bill with a cute acronym should be rejected on principle. It's almost always a disguise for something not so cute inside.

• RAVE = "Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy";
• AMBER = "America's Missing: Broadcaster Emergency Response";
• PROTECT = "Prosecutorial Remedies and Tools Against the Exploitation of Children Today";
• USA-PATRIOT = "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism";

Me (off list now)

I honestly don't know if you're referring to Ron Paul, Gary Johnson, or someone else. If it's just medical marijuana, then there are several more. Didn't Maryland's governor recently support medical marijuana? I know that California candidate Tom McClintock did.

Me (April 2)

Ron Paul was the Libertarian candidate for president in 1988. Years later he won a seat in Congress as a Republican, but he still votes like a Libertarian. He's very outspoken, and no one else in Congress even comes close to him in voting his principles over politics. I don't like all his principles, but you have to stand in awe of any congressman who will vote against pork for his own district, or any Republican who will vote against stupid partisan resolutions like the recent one praising the war effort on the anniversary of the Iraq invasion.

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