How often do the Homer J Stoner’s of the world get busted in their own house when they are just occasionally lighting up? I’d say that’s pretty damn rare as the cops don’t usually bother. It’s only if Homer has a few largish bundles (say 3 or 4 trash bags full) or when he and his buds (no pun intended) are out and about and decide to light up in public.
-XT
Perhaps I was limited in only using the word “hurt.” I’ll elaborate by saying a real possibility of harm to another person (or, in the case of animals, beings with limited rights, too).
don’t know about busts in home, however, state of MI now has ‘driving under influence of drugs’ law, result is, if cop ‘suspects’ you’re under influence of drugs, they can order a blood test. mj stays in the system for significant length of time, great exceeding the length of time you’re high. positive blood test = potential jail sentence (for which you’ll receive a bill, in one case I know of was about a grand per month), fines (about $500), plus mandatory ‘booting’ of any car you own (another $500 charge), and at least a $1000 ‘driver responsabiilty fee’. Odds are pretty good that persons of a certain age, ‘look’, etc probably would have some measurable amount of thc or other stuff in their blood. So, it’s not at all the case that some one just smoking dope occasionally at home as low risk of getting caught for it.
But in each of these instances no one was physically injured, and the OP seems to be of the belief that people should be able to do anything they want as long as no one is “hurt”, and that prison is right only for “dangerous” people who hurt others.
I’ve asked him twice to clarify his position (i.e., “victimless” crimes vs. any non-violent crime) and so far he’s avoided it.
With regard to your response to my questions, each of those offenses carry penalties of some sort, and I was using them to challenge his contention that people should be able to do whatever they want as long as they don’t hurt someone.
And there’s a very real case to be made that the figure should be higher.
Speeding and running red lights carries a very real risk of someone getting hurt or dying. Try looking at the stats for Vehicular Manslaughter.
Rape is considered a crime where someone gets “hurt”. It’s considered one of the most horrible and violent crimes out there, even if the woman isn’t actually left maimed or something.
I don’t know what you’re on about. The instance of rape that I described was statutory rape with a willing participant. No violence or unwillingness on the part of the minor was involved. Speeding and running red lights are penalized on their own with no harm to anyone being a prerequisite.
Again (and again and again), my question is whether the OP is of the belief that no one should be in prison unless they’ve physically harmed someone, and that barring that, they should be “left alone” and/or “ignored” and allowed to do “anything they want”.
That’s it. That’s all I’m asking. Why is it that you seem so determined to argue the obvious with me? Have you actually read my posts to this thread or just skimmed them and responded to a line or two? It appears that you don’t get what I’m driving at and that you’re looking at my comments in the wrong context.
If the person involved is unable to give INFORMED CONSENT then that person has been raped. I don’t see why you can’t understand that. Sure, a 5yo child will likely say “whatever you want daddy” and thus be “willing”, but that’s rape, and that is a violent crime where the victim has been very very hurt indeed.
Your examples were crappy, that’s my point. Your strawman doesn’t even hold straw. You were trying to start a hijack with the OP with poorly construed strawman arguments, taking what he said out of context. And, you know it.
So, let’s cut the crap and get back to the OP. The OP makes a very valid point- we have criminalized a fairly large % of our population that have harmed no one and whose acts aren’t dangerous. And although there are other crimes that are such, they rarely carry the huge prison sentences that Marijauna does. Speeding is dangerous but even so, you face modest fines- not *five fucking year in the pen.
*
So, pull the straw back out of your scarecrow there and stop the hijack, eh?
Thanks. I was hoping to avoid this getting into “pick apart what ForumBot believes” and stay within “wow, that’s not right.”
Something is seriously messed up if 1% of the population is in jail. We need to seriously reexamine our laws and punishments.
Or maybe our society? America has a whole different mentality from other cultures. Perhaps in order to have such a diverse group of cultures in one area necessitates a large amount of incarceration. I wonder if the incarceration rates in Western Europe have increased in the past few decades as immigration has shot up.
Perhaps you could explain just which of the following posts by ForumBot I have taken out of context. And while you’re at it, perhaps you could explain how asking someone to clarify their comments is a hijack.
No, I want to know whether he means what he says…and since he apparently doesn’t, given the fact that he’s chosen not to answer my perfectly reasonable questions, I would then like to know just what crimes that don’t harm someone he would feel would justify a prison sentence. Then I’d like to see if he doesn’t eventually come around to admitting the same thing everyone else in the world knows, which is that almost every crime someone is in jail for is a crime that in some way harms someone.
And on preview:
What makes you think your answer would lead to picking apart"what you say? I even gave you the answer I thought you were striving for (“victimless crimes, etc.”) and you still ignored it. We’re supposed to be at least attempting to fight ignorance here and I’m called upon all the time to explain my comments. I’ve done so in this very thread. If you don’t want to have to explain your comments, you might try to be more precise in what you say and/or be more willing to clarify what you mean if it’s not understood.
And finally:
And I’d like to make an equally if not more valid complaint that a fairly large number of our population is running around the streets with rap sheets a mile long and committing even more crime. I’d trade you ten pot-smokers (who, as has already been acknowledged in this thread, don’t really go to prison anyway) for every rapist, shooter, kidnapper and armed robber who was either allowed to go free to begin with or who served only a fraction of his sentence.
As I said, you’re the first conservative I’ve heard express this sentiment.
I think when Starving Artist is describing a “harmless” case of statutory rape, he was talking more about a situation where the victim is 17 years old, and in a place where the age of consent is 18. That’s a lot different than child abuse, and I suspect you knew that before you brought up the kindergartener.
In the case of the 17 year-old, the crime may well be harmless. The law is based on the fact that the day you turn 18, you are magically and suddenly able to reason as an adult, and that you completely lacked this capability the day before. But that’s not true…some 16 year-olds are certainly better able to reason like an adult than some 18 year-olds. Do you think the 17 year-old must certainly suffer lifelong harm by having consensual sex with her 20 year-old boyfriend?
I still think that someone caught for breaking this law should face the punishment…because that’s the law, and they knew it going in. But I also think it’s true many cases of statutory rape are victimless, not unlike how smoking marijuana is often victimless. That’s the point SA was making. And even if I think the law must be upheld, I’d hope the judge would see the circumstances and make the punishment minor.
the judge is restricted by the laws, and in these cases, the person then has to (in most cases) register as a sex offender.
Actually aerodave, the crime I described was more grievous than that. It was sex between a fifty-year-old man and a willing twelve-year-old girl (not that such would be likely). I was trying to describe crimes that I thought the OP would have to acknowledge were crimes where the perpetrator deserved prison time even though no one was physically harmed in the process.
Sometimes a person can hear things around here that are hard to believe. I thought for a while that the OP truly felt no one should go to jail unless they caused physical harm to someone and I was trying to illustrate the error in that kind of thought.
It appears now that what he’s really talking about are what is usually referred to as victimless crimes, so I’m willing to let it go.
Thanks for the support though. As it turns out, DrDeth was being deliberately obtuse because he disagreed with my attempts to get the OP to explain himself.
Starving Artist, you’re absolutely right that I’ve asked others to clarify their positions while not doing the same for my own. It’s a double standard and one I didn’t realize until you called me on it. I was hypocritical and didn’t examine my own posts thoroughly enough.
That said, neither of us want to hop onto the Crazy Express and explore my personal beliefs. I’m like Liberal on LSD. So let’s try to find common ground:
(1) As a general rule of thumb, a person should be able to do what they want. (autonomy)
(2) Everybody can’t always do what they want, because that would interfere with everyone else’s right to autonomy.
(3) A compromise has to be sought balancing each person’s right to do what they want with not taking that ability from others.
I think everyone understands and agrees with these principles. We may make different value judgments on what is an acceptable amount of give or take, but surely we can agree on the general principle.
To get more specific to the thread:
(1) Prison serves a few roles. In order of most to least important, IMHO:
(1a) To isolate dangerous members of society.
(1b) To serve as a crime deterrent.
(1c) To give society at large a feeling that justice has been done, that wrongs have been righted. Simply punishment.
(2) All actions operate on a continuum of how much they affect other people.
(2a) Some, like smoking marijuana or walking from my bed to my couch, can take place in a way that affects not a single person other than the myself.
(2b) Some, like speeding, present a potential danger but are not themselves violent.
(2c) Some, like murder, are at the end of the continuum, representing things that have the most effect on others.
Now, between all of these is a lot of grey area with lots of room for debate. I can’t address them all and it would be distracting to try. But this sounds like common sense, as well.
What we should consider in respect to the thread, purely my opinion: prison is too severe a punishment for many crimes it is currently used for. Prison should serve primarily as a way for society to protect itself from dangerous individuals. It may also serve the other roles I listed above, but the absurdly high number of Americans in jail provides strong evidence that locking non-violent criminals away from world and taking all their natural freedom should require much stronger justification than is currently required.
:eek:
(Just kidding, **Lib’**s one of my favorite posters)
Nice post and very well said. Thank you.
This makes me think he might get his feelings hurt from what I wrote. If Liberal is reading this, don’t take what I wrote as any sign of disrespect! Exactly the opposite, in fact.
Lib marches to his own drummer and I think that’s a point of pride with him. I imagine he’d be more likely to just get a chuckle out of what you said.