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> It's not typical for "kid[s]" to be put in prison for carrying "a few grams of weed." It might happen sometimes (in a country of 330 million people, everythin
by MichaelApproved 7y ago
> It's not typical for "kid[s]" to be put in prison for carrying "a few grams of weed." It might happen sometimes (in a country of 330 million people, everything that can happen will happen sometimes) but it's not typical.
First, this shouldn't be a "sometimes" thing, it should be a "never" thing. You get convicted for drugs, regardless of how much, and your life is forever changed.
Second, for all the made, think about how many times police used the bullshit excuse of "I smell weed" to violate and harass citizens.
OP was right, this country's justice system is broken but it's not beyond repair. We are finally seeing changes in the political landscape that will address many long standing injustices.
- rayiner 7y ago> First, this shouldn't be a "sometimes" thing, it should be a "never" thing. You get convicted for drugs, regardless of how much, and your life is forever changed. Communities have the right to declare certain things unacceptable and police their citizens accordingly. The regulation of vice and harmful substances is one of the core functions of state and local governments. In a country of 330 million people, that means that "sometimes" people will exercise that right in a way that you or I think is undesirable or even unjust. But the self-determination of communities is a more fundamental right than the right to consume whatever substances you want.
- urbanjunkie 7y agoOh please. Fuck off.
- dmos62 7y agoNo one is attacking a community's right to self-determination. It's the soundness of what the community has determined that is debated.
- dctoedt 7y ago> But the self-determination of communities is a more fundamental right than the right to consume whatever substances you want. Pretty sweeping statement there. What if a majority of a "community" decides its residents shouldn't eat meat?
- rayiner 7y agoI think California could ban eating and selling meat, both under its power to regulate health and the power to regulate public morality.
- honkycat 7y agoWhat if a community is begging you to stop murdering their sons in the street and harassing them for low-level drug crimes and sucking them into the criminal justice vortex? You don't have a leg to stand on here. Woefully ignorant.
- mrkstu 7y agoLike many states in India forbidding the consumption of beef? Or many entities forbidding dog/cat/horse meat? It happens all over, all the time.
- tptacek 7y agoYou mean like how most of the US has a de facto ban on horse meat consumption, despite the fact that horses are (apparently) delicious?
- dragonwriter 7y ago> Communities have the right to declare certain things unacceptable and police their citizens accordingly. No, they don't; communities don't have rights, individuals do. Communities have the legitimate power to do what you describe so long as no individual rights are violated. > The regulation of vice and harmful substances is one of the core functions of state and local governments. No, it's not. It may in some cases be an aspect of a legitimate core function (the protection of public health, for instance) so long as the manner of regulation is actually consistent with that function and with individual rights.
- tptacek 7y agoIsn't this analysis pretty much ancap-complete? All sorts of things communities have agreed to forbid impinge in some way on individual rights.
- dragonwriter 7y ago> Isn't this analysis pretty much ancap-complete? That kind of depends on whether you agree with ancaps on the scope and definition of individual rights; it is, certainly, ancap-consistent.
- tptacek 7y agoIs there another rebuttal to Rayiner you might have that would be persuasive to someone who is not sympathetic to ancap philosophy?
- dragonwriter 7y agoThe idea that rights are the sole domain of individuals and that groups (whether constituted as states or otherwise) have powers, but not rights (powers which are legitimate only so far as they extend from and do not contradict individual rights), is fundamental to classical liberalism, not a belief unique to those “sympathetic to ancap philosophy”.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago>First, this shouldn't be a "sometimes" thing, it should be a "never" thing. You get convicted for drugs, regardless of how much, and your life is forever changed. A lot of things should "never" happen but do. Life isn't fair. Some people have really bad luck.
- homonculus1 7y agoWhat an asinine response. Bad luck should happen in spite of the law, not because of it.
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoThe law specifically seeks to prevent these kinds of outcomes by giving the parties involved leeway in how they do their jobs. You need an asshole cop, a prosecutor looking to pad their performance stats, a judge that doesn't care and a lawyer not doing their job in order for someone to go to jail on a possession charge and in the rare event that does happen when the miscarriage is pointed out it can usually be corrected by downgrading the offense after the fact. At least four people need to do their jobs not only wrong but do them wrong in a specific way in order for someone to go to jail over drug possession.
- trickstra 7y agoshould we look at the numbers how many times it happened?
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoSure. But you'll need to figure out some way to model social acceptance. Going to jail for weed in 1990 was not considered a miscarriage of justice. Going to jail for weed in 2010 is.
- dang 7y agoCould you please review the site guidelines and not break them here? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Your comment would be just fine with just the second sentence.
- compiler-guy 7y agoNone of this changes the grandparents analysis that drug crimes are easy to prove vs the countefactual “but for” argument about satellites. Regardless of drug laws’ justice, proving things about them are fairly easy. Proving things about what happened outside the atmosphere is hard.