The Law is an Ass

[teddywolf]

Tonight I turned on my friendly Temporary Vegetating mental device to slow down to be ready for sleep. As Dragonball Z was a repeat I went to Politically Incorrect. I was quite glad to see Penn of Penn and Teller fame on the show. Social anarchist in the proper sense of the word, he was making it hard for Bill Mahar to disagree with him. Heh.

What got me up in arms was the guest Republican. The show always has a Republican and they try to book pretty young female ones as often as they can to show it's not all fat old rich white guys. This lady opined that people in jail on drug charges are there because they broke the law, if people want to change the law they need to vote for people who will try to change the law and the fact that people aren't doing so proves they want these laws on the books.

One of the principles of the US Constitution is that the laws of the land, while they are laws to be obeyed by Man, are also laws that are supposed to serve Man. Laws preventing murder are there to serve the community: they at least try to punish murdering somebody and do provide disincentive for doing so. Hurt somebody else, face jail time. Simple. There's an obvious victim, an obvious perpetrator and there's an obvious hurt.
This law that the cute young Republican gal nigh-worships doesn't punish actions that have a victim. So we lock up people who haven't hurt anybody with other people who have hurt people, ostensibly to "rehabilitate" them and prevent them from committing further crimes. This is supposed to teach people that hurting people is worse than not hurting people how??

As for choice of politicians... when there's a pro-legalization candidate running for office I'm going to consider that plank a point in that politician's favor. Funny how there *wasn't* one in the last Presidential election, or in my Congressional election, or in the Senate election, or the State officials election... should I go on? There might be some pro-legalization assistant dogcatchers somewhere but I haven't heard of them making it successfully to office.

I want representatives who'll try to clear up our prisons by getting rid of a couple million people out of there who don't need to be jailed.

Comments

[gingicat]

I agree that people who *take* drugs are not the criminals, but are in fact the victims.

What about people who sell drugs? What about people who are pushed into violent crime to support their drug habit?

--your sweetie, recognizing this may be a place where we agree to disagree

[nsingman.livejournal.com]

When it comes to drug legalization, neither Republicrats nor Democans are particularly enthusiastic. The Dems have been moderately more supportive of decriminalization of marijuana, at least, but not when they're tacking right in general elections.

Incidentally, in the "fault lies not in our stars, but in our selves" department, I blame the high counts of jailed drug offenders on the citizens who sat on the defendants' juries and voted guilty. When I sat on a grand jury, I voted "no bill" on every single drug offense - every one. On criminal juries, it would be a simple matter for an energized citizenry to use their right of jury nullification. Heck - enough hung juries, and the point would be made. Unfortunately, I'm not confident it will happen soon.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

Another problem with the WOSD is that it has resulted in mass disenfranchisement of African-Americans. A felony conviction means a lifetime disqualification from voting (and therefore from public office) in many states. For you second-amendment types, it's also a lifetime bar to legal gun ownership in all 50 states.

Then there's finding and keeping a job, a place to live, credit, etc. with a felony conviction on your record.

So what you have is broad based denial of civil rights by race, since the WOSD unfairly falls on African-Americans. It's Jim Crow all over again, and worst of all, they've gotten African-Americans to go along with it by getting them to believe "it's all for their own good."

TOTALLY off topic here....

[zebraartist.livejournal.com]

I saw your message in another's journal about FLIRTING....so.... I stopped by to randomly flirt with the handsome man depicted on the icon in that message!

*smile and a wink*