Try working as an LEO or prosecutor. We couldn’t even convict OJ of murder. Getting a conviction on most crimes is an impossible task even with eye witnesses. If the local burglar stealing my stuff never gets caught for stealing but gets arrested for possession and goes to jail at least he is not stealing my stuff any more. After 3 convictions he qualifies for lifer status. Feel free to substitute child molester and the act of molesting in this scenario.
We could make it easier still by making it illegal to wear clothes. That way, the police could see the perp's guilt without searching his pockets (because just having pockets would be proof enough), thereby streamlining the process yet further.
Getting a conviction on most crimes is an impossible task even with eye witnesses. If the local burglar stealing my stuff never gets caught for stealing but gets arrested for possession and goes to jail at least he is not stealing my stuff any more. After 3 convictions he qualifies for lifer status. Feel free to substitute child molester and the act of molesting in this scenario.
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You don’t understand. Pot smokers are highly regarded tax-paying productive members of society. They never break laws and are never on welfare roles. We need more dopers and we need to legalize pot so we can tax it. And this time - the higher taxes WON’T lead to more government.
(At least this is what the pro-dope crowd tells me)
I’m not disputing any of that. It is easier to convict on the “crime” of possession than others. The point is partly that your substitution game is against the dictates of justice. You cannot criminalize petty things as consolation for not being able to nab people for real crimes. Or you cannot and be a civilizef person, in my opinion.
The pony also was all the vast powers and wealth now expended on fighting drug use and trafficking could be redirected toward fighting real crimes like burglary, preferably on the state level. So that we may not ever convict enough, but at least we’ll get more of them. And not on other charges, but for the things which actually violate our rights and cause us harm.
I’ll never understand why you can’t see the shallowness of your own arguments when you defend it on uhf basis of what else it supposedly prevents instead of on the thing itself. The Drug War is constantly being defended because it supposedly helps prevent all manner of other wrongs. But that’s to admit, isn’t it, that those other wrongs are more important?
“at least he is not stealing my stuff anymore”
Why even bother with the drug charge, then? Lock him up or deport him. We know what he’s doing even if we can’t prove it, so it serves him right.
Oh, due process, you say? What’s the difference if criminalizing vices is unjust anyway? And it is.
This problem is not confined to drug laws, by the way. We have an anarchy of laws in this country. When a citizen can be charged at any moment for any number of infractions should the powers that be so chose, we have no justice. The tax code is a favorite. Look how they nabbed Caponr not for murder, extortion, racketeering but failing to admit he had committed crimes on his tax forms. Look at Martha Stewart, who is made an example of because she happened to get inside dope and wasn’t stupid enough not to act on it.
The king of these is definitely traffic law: the entry point for most citizens of the law onto your life. Where they get an awful lot of the evidence for drug violations, often in open mockery of the 4th amendment. But I guess it’s all okay with you, so long as we assume they were on their way to molested little children but for busybody cops.