Homosexual acts were illegal until quite recently (~50 years or less) in most of the western world. If we had, hypothetically, 100% effective law enforcement, t

Homosexual acts were illegal until quite recently (~50 years or less) in most of the western world. If we had, hypothetically, 100% effective law enforcement, there could have never been a social movement to change that - everyone would be locked up. Same with Cannabis - how could sufficient people have experienced it and realized that it wasn't as dangerous as promised, if everyone who tried it was locked up? It's hard to change an unjust law without breaking it in the process - and we want unjust laws to be changed. So therefore we should enforce laws, but not completely, and have some discretion in how they're applied. However, the alternate situation is also bad - if you have lots of laws, as we do now, which are rarely or never enforced, then you have a powerful hammer the authorities can bring down on anyone they like, since everyone is a criminal.