From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Fri Oct 18 2002 - 11:15:58 MDT
> (Samantha Atkins <samantha@objectent.com>):
> As I am sure you know, our drug laws have almost nothing to do
> with this and will not be defeated so easily. We have the Feds
> denying the ability of states to make their own decisions about
> any drugs. We have a massive re-education problem about the
> entire subject. The folks at NORML can tell you how easy it
> isn't to get the people mobilized to vote against these laws and
> how seldom that turns out to be enough to change them.
It's simple economics; people dislike crime, and expect the
government to do something. When the odds of catching a real
criminal are very low, the only things the government can do
to lower the crime rate are (1) raise sentences to ridiculous
levels to hope for deterrence, (2) relax standards of evidence
for conviction, (3) criminalize related behaviors that are
easier to catch.
If it becomes easier to catch those who commit real crimes,
the benefit of long sentences and sloppy evidence and consensual
crime laws goes down; when it goes down low enough where the
injustices of them outweigh the benefits, both the people and
the government will be falling over themselves to repeal them.
The people don't consciously think that way, but that's the
way it has to work out--economics predicts the behavior of
even those who aren't consciously rational.
A transparent society would have greater respect for the
rights of the accused, fewer consensual crime laws, and more
lenient treatment of criminals, because it could afford to.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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