As I’ve oft said, I believe we all have a libertarian streak. We all have things we think the government should keep its nose out of. The width of that streak varies with issue and time and, like all humans, I ebb and flow on what issues I feel the government should regulate and which areas it should leave alone.

A recent Colorado Politics story is causing me to again reflect on my varying libertarianism, because once again, we the citizens are being asked to vote on marijuana sales here in Colorado Springs, this time with two ballot measures.

The first vote will decide if the roughly 115 “medical” pot shops – I’m told that using the word “pot” shows that I’m old, as the cool kids say “weed,” but as it turns out, I am old, having just started getting social security checks, but enough rambling (ed: agreed) – can convert to recreational sales. Currently, there are lots of places where you can get marijuana for alleged medical uses.

I know that many of those uses are legitimate, but I can’t help but wonder if our fair city really needs 115 locations to buy pot for medicinal purposes. But regardless of my musings, the voters here in my town will decide in November if they want to allow these business owners to convert their business to recreational pot stores.

Currently, if you live in Colorado Springs and want a marijuana product for recreational use, you need to drive to just barely outside the city limits, to the lovely town of Manitou Springs, where there are two different recreational stores. And if you look at the long lines that form outside those stores every day, you know there is a high demand for their services. It is also interesting to note that those lines are not filled with what many might think of as the “typical pothead” pot user. Rather, you’ll see dozens and dozens of middle-aged to older folks who just want to be able to get a good night’s sleep and to be able to relax in the comfort of their own homes.

There is a second ballot initiative which would apply a special 5% tax on recreational sales, should the first initiative be approved.

Now I admit, I come at this issue from an odd place. I’m 64 and have reached that age without ever being drunk or ever trying marijuana. I’ve never been high, but I hear it is nice. I just don’t choose to imbibe.

But I’m not sure that others shouldn’t be allowed to do as they please with their own lungs, and so I’ll vote in favor of letting our local stores drop the charade of medical pot to just sell people what they want. And I’ll also vote in favor of the tax, as that just makes good sense. Proponents argue that we in the Springs have missed out on about $150 million in lost tax revenues by keeping recreational marijuana shops from operating inside the city.

Those opposing the two ballot measures argue that the tax collected will not cover the costs of such legalization, though I’m not sure they make a good case. We have data from Denver that suggests things will work pretty well – not flawlessly from the start, but pretty well.

Over the years, when I am asked why I am a Democrat rather than a Republican, given my long military career which is usually a flag for being a GOPer, I have a long answer that involves how I was raised and how the great gains in our society (such as child labor laws, 40-hour work weeks, social security, Medicare, etc.) have come from Democrats, over the loud objections of the GOP back in the day. But I also have a shorter and admittedly more smarty-pants answer: because it takes far less hypocrisy to be a Dem.

As a Dem, I don’t have to pretend to care about the working class while passing tax cuts for the rich. As a Dem, I don’t have to pretend to be in favor of limited government while still making the government big enough to peek in your bedroom windows and to control the bodies of women. And as a Dem, I don’t have to pretend that pot is somehow a terrible thing that will destroy our society, while holding a scotch and soda as I tut-tut about the world today.

So as a Dem, it is far easier for me to say that even though I don’t get drunk or high, and even though I’ve never smoked pot (or anything, actually), I don’t have a problem with my fellow citizens making different choices. As legendary U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. once explained, the law exists on the principle that your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins. And you choosing to smoke pot in your home, to paraphrase Jefferson, neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket. My neighbor smoking a joint (do they still call them joints?) leaves my leg and pocketbook alone, and therefore is none of my business.

I hope the good people of Colorado Springs vote to free up the marijuana business, and to properly tax the new sales that will result. Unlike far too many of the GOP (cough… Lindsey Graham… cough) I don’t want my government to overreach and to “regulate” my private choices.

It’s about freedom, and it is not without a great deal of irony that the supposed party of small government wants to severely limit a legal business. I hope the voters agree that the government should stay out of our personal choices, including marijuana.

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.