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> If we had arrested everyone that used cannabis half the > country at least would have a record. That idea seems deeply troubling if you're a White American
by braythwayt 9y ago
> If we had arrested everyone that used cannabis half the
> country at least would have a record.
That idea seems deeply troubling if you're a White American. Meanwhile, this is the daily reality of Black Americans, because the police have been systematically enforcing these laws against people of colour.
Now we face a world where that same disproportionate enforcement may be applied to Democrats, or the young (who disproportionally vote against Republicans).
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- watwat1 9y agoSource?
- vog 9y ago> may be applied to Democrats, or the young (who disproportionally vote against Republicans). That doesn't make any sense! To affect elections, you'd need a really huge number of prisoners. Moreover, you'd need to deny prisoners the right to vote. Wait ...
- gamblor956 9y agoBlacks and Latinos are already overwhelming Democrats... And the overzealous law enforcement is usually at the hands of Republicans. Not sure why you feel the need to throw political affiliation into the conversation.
- braythwayt 9y agoConsider a hypothetical police officer who is against "leftists" (the police officer's definition is all that matters, not ours). Right now, said police officer can and does enforce laws disproportionally against Black Americans because to the police officer, they're all leftists. But if we give the police officer access to all sorts of profiling information about humans, when making a traffic stop, the police officer can be extra-zealous about performing a search if the person is profiled as being a "leftist." The point is, prosecuting people for their political views has existed for some time, but it didn't scale well. Now it will scale extremely well, up to the point of wearing glasses and tagging people with certain social profiles in real time.