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Termyn8or -> RE: "States may free inmates to save millions" (4/7/2008 12:58:16 PM)
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The problem is of course the legal system. But the legal system is partly a reflection of the population. Let's take the pot issue. I think it should be legal.
But consider this, you couldn't get me to do heroin at gunpoint, but I think it should be legal.
You see people will clamour for their rights but care not for those of others'. In Ohio, voters made smoking illegal in just about all public places. If anyone were to be held accountable for protecting the rights of the people, it would be the people. If I own a bar and I choose to let my customers smoke, that should be my own business. If you want to tell me how to run MY business, then YOU come down here and pay the bills and employees.
I have not been to a bar or restaurant since the ban took effect, and I won't be.
Then there is the opposite end of the spectrum. When I was in jail I was talking to a guy who said drinking might as well be illegal. He had some good points. He said just about anything you do drunk is illegal, drive a car they lock you up, stagger down the street they lock you up. You drink at home unless you live alone you can be considered dangerous and be locked up. The way he put it "Why don't they just come out and say it ?". Not that I agree, but I can understand what he said.
In my view all drugs should be legal. No exceptions. If we live in a society in which the law is the only thing keeping all the people from becoming heroin addicts, we are in worse shape than I had imagined. After all, booze is legal and there are plenty of people out there who do not drink.
I think we need to take a look at the prohibition era. A huge and lucrative black market popped up, and the treasury dept had it's hands full with a feeble attempt at enforcement. They even poisoned people in the name of the "law". How the fuck can that be right ? And it was just as bad for them to spray pot fields with that paraquat (sp).
The fact of the matter is the are running game on the people, it is a big game, cops and robbers. I guess they just couldn't catch enough robbers to fill up the jails or something.
Before the Harrison act, there was cocaine in Coca-Cola. Do I think this is OK ? NO. I think it would be OK if it said right on the bottles "Contains cocaine, do not serve to minors". Sales restricted to adults.
I really am alright, the world really is all wrong. They draw a line on cough syrups, narcotics are illegal, but not in certain things. I know a guy was in a hospital. He had quite a bit of pain and they gave him basically what I would call a "morphine-o-matic". Dude was high all day. So why is that OK, but if he did it at home it's not OK ?
He literally had a button he could push that would pump a dose of morphine into his IV. I've known him for thirty years and he has tried every drug out there except for the ones you use a needle to administer. He just stopped. He had a problem with rocks for a time, but he quit that as well. I used to really like PCP, but after a while I started thinking "This shit is frying my brain" and I stopped. I have another buddy, "Yes I am a drinker, I just choose not to".
This kind of people do not need drug laws. However everybody is not like that. I will concede that point which runs afoul of my view on the matter but I will diffuse it forthwith. They do interventions on alcoholics.This is a prime example of the trampling of the rights of the alcoholic, and it happens usually when they have a family that supports the action and the alcoholic is given the choice of quitting, going into rehab, or simply being put out on the street, which is easier said than done in some places.
Yes alcohol is a drug. Just so happens that it is not illegal at the moment. Some people will drink themselves to death without intervention. So how is it different ?
One plan to fix this mess would be to make recreational drugs legal, and the sales would be recorded. This would be public, just like when people see me walk out of a store with cigarettes and beer. However the sales add up. If you are convicted of a crime, those records can help make a determination in your sentencing. If you bought ten grand worth of cocaine in the last year, use the information.
If you could just walk into the store and buy any drug you wanted, the black market would be destroyed overnight. Believe me the drug traffickers would be the first ones against legaization. They love that tax free money.
But we have to have some perspective here and just realize who is running the world. For example LSD25 was invented in a government lab. Dr. Timothy Leary was on the government payroll, directly or indirectly when he invented it. Anybody who needs proof just type in "Mars to Earth", or you been living in the fabled city of Atlantis or something. This is common knowledge.
But we have been taught not to look beyond the surface of an issue. Well I had a different teacher. What made the government finance research on such a powerful psychoactive drug ? Were they looking for a cure for boredom or what ? I think they were doing mind control experiments and looking for something to enhance the power of hypnotic suggestion. Would you put it past them ?
Their motives for causing this whole mess are highly suspect to say the least. They seem to want to bust everybody and through early release and the parole system get people to sign away their rights for that release. That is coersion.
I was on paper in Ashland county. Right there in the paperwork it said they had the right to come and search my house at any time without a warrant. This was for a DUI. And it did not matter whether or not I lived alone. A buddy of mine got a DUI in Utah. Let me tell you the Constitution does not apply in Utah. If you are on paper there they can not only search your entire house whether or not you live alone, you must submit to a drug test at their whim, and that applies to anyone else they find at the residence, who will all be checked for warrants when they show up. I mean they raid your house, at will, without a warrant. He finally got flopped nack in and when his next hearing came along he said "Fuck you, I'll stay in and max out the sentence". And this is for driving drunk, no accident, no nothing. And his brother got a DUI without being drunk. He was in a park with a car and some beer, he hadn't even had one ! They call it a "precursor".
OK, people should not drive drunk, but in Indiana your SECOND DUI is a FELONY. Does that sound right to you ? If you get into a wreck and cause damage or injury they have plenty of laws in place for that.
If I get stopped for a minor infraction, say rolling stop or speeding, but not unreasonable, I could be tripping on LSD and seeing blue elephants and who knows what else, but if I can keep my mouth shut I get my license and my ticket. I go on my merry way.
Later down the road say I get into a bad wreck and hurt somebody. How do you deal with that ?
Personal responsibility. No crime without injury. But if you clearly fucked up and hurt somebody, go to jail. Intoxication has never been considered a mitigating factor to any great degree. They want to lock people up BEFORE they hurt someone, and while some may view that as a positive thing, it is not. There is no tenet of any fair and just system of laws that would allow for that.
What was that joke where the Woman called the officer a rapist and said something like he should arrest himself then because he has the equipment to be a rapist ? Something like that.
The fact of the matter is that jails do not work.
In my world there would be alot less people in jail, there are some that need to be locked up. Robbery, rape and murder, well what can I say. But let's say you hurt someone in a car wreck, whether because you drank too much or were simply screwing around and driving like an asshole.
Say you put someone in a wheelchair. What would a fair sentence be ? I think you should be forced to care for the person you injured as long as necessary. You learn by on the job training how to tend for the injured, changing their diapers and whatever else is required, for as long as required. You might have to live with the person you hurt. You are given a stipend for basic necessities and that is alot cheaper than warehousing you.
While technically a bill of attainder, you are watched, you are sober. You take care of the person you hurt and one day they might say to you "I used to be a dancer". Just what would you say ? What if the injury is permanent ?
But what if you kill somebody ?
There are no easy answers, of that I am certain. Each society must tailor their body of laws to reflect the specific problems in that society. But churning out millions of words in the law is the government's response to everything. They see tighter control over individuals as more successful governing. And we see more meddling in our private lives as a result. And government is not the only culprit. Big business does it as well.
I got one buddy who refused a promotion at his job, he said straight out "I don't want to drive, because if I smoke a joint with my olady on Saturday night and something happens, I come up dirty, keep the raise and forget the fact that I have a valid CDL, just forget it".
And my next door neighbor got fired for pissing dirty. He was there for years and never screwed up, it was random. A factory job, so you really don't want to be high at work. I would have told him a few things, but they did not have health insurance to cover the rehab, he would have to pay for it out of pocket. If they had insurance I would have told him to go to the rehab, and to relapse any time he wants. At that point they can't fire you. Alot of people don't know that, but it might be peculiar to Ohio.
Thing is the THC in pot stays in your system for like a month, it stores in the fat cells. If you do coke, cocaine hydrochloride is only in your system for two days. Other drugs dissipate more quickly even.
But I have digressed too much into the drug thing. It is only one aspect of this whole mess. I think insider trading should be legal. But it should be known to all that a small investor might get their balls crushed by a big investor, because that is the way it is anyway. Most of the unfair insider trading actions are never detected. On top of that we have selective prosecution.
The whole thing sucks. We need fair laws that are enforcable. We need that enforcement to be carried out in an even handed manner. Until we get that, these problems will continue to get worse.
I have a few stories of people incarcerated for some of the most unusual things, such as importing lobsters. One is about a US gun dealer who failed to know that a certain clip was illegal in Mexico and shipped it. Not only did they intercept the shipment, he faced charges over it. In this country, for something that was illegal in another country. Not only did they lock him up, they sent him to Mexico to be locked up.
Where is our sovereignty ?
This whole fucking thing is a mess.
They can't find all the real criminals but they insist on disarming Citizens of their Constitutionally protected right to self defense. And then they have the media constantly portraying those who break the law as heroes.
Take something as innocuous as Crocodile Dundee. In one case a robber shows up with a knife, he pulls out his knife and says "That ain't no knife, THIS is a knife". The would be robber runs away. But his knife was clearly illegal to carry in NYC. Then, he is blowing off sticks of dynamite in the river and gathering up fish. Come on. You know what would happen to him in real life ? Not that he hurt anyone, but illegal is illegal.
They have laws against almost everything and enforce them selectively, and apparently make no secret about it. The sheeple might swallow this hook, line and sinker, but I do not.
The roots of these problems are very deep.
With that I yield the floor.
T
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