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Find out more about Eric: Eric Earling has been blogging at Sound Politics since 2006. A Puget Sound area native – excepting a sojourn to Virginia for college - he lives in Lynnwood, Washington. He writes on politics from a unique, conservative perspective. |
More proof Seattle is one:
Seattle has always had an identity conflict. Gay bathhouses are allowed, street protests are legendary, and marijuana is, by voter initiative, the police department's lowest enforcement priority. Each summer a two-day event called Hempfest draws some 150,000 people who openly smoke weed in a city park with the blessings of the cops and the local government, which regards the festival as protected speech.
Yet Seattle has long had an unhealthy strain of nannyism as well. Washington was one of the first states to prohibit alcohol in the last century, and the city's restrictions on strip clubs and card rooms are legendary. In the last five years, the nanny impulse has gone into hyperdrive.