Like the one convicted of three counts of armed bank robbery?
She was sentenced to 48 years in jail for those offenses. The appeal court upholding the sentence ( https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/unpub/92/92-5666.0.wpd.pdf ) said:
So even the judges in her case thought the sentence “harsh”, but could do nothing about it.
The ‘Drug Laws are GOOD!’ folks have a better case if marijuana had not been placed on Schedule I of the US narcotic laws.
Sch I is defined as ‘having no medicinal value’.
Most opiates, by contrast, are on Sch II.
Much of the US ‘War on Drugs’ was a result of Nixon’s failures - he needed another boogey man (he was an old-line Red Baiter, as in Joe McCarthy Red Baiting) and the Commies weren’t up to the task.
He chose to come out ‘Hard on Drugs!’
His presentation of a Plaque to Elvis Presley for his “Contributions to a Drug-Free America” was hilarious - Elvis was (reportedly) coked to the gills during the ceremony.
That would make sense, except that he seems to think those he did pardon do not qualify as political prisoners.
I invite him to come back and clarify.
I agree thAt those imprisoned for drug laws would qualify as political prisoners, indeed I would go further than that in my analysis, but I didn’t think a board so thoroughly saturated with statism would go for that. Congrats.
I was drawing the attention to more traditional political prisoners currently locked up, like those Obama has ruthlessly crushed under the espionage act. I would also include tax protesters locked up as traditional political prisoners. For example, Irwin Schiff was denied access to medical treatment and died in prison an old man because he was the most famous tax protestor in modern times. The state is ruthless with those who threaten their paychecks. The prisoners in Guantanamo are examples of political imprisonment.
Schiff was a Sovereign Citizen type. Nothing more than a wannabe freeloader.
I will agree on the Guantanamo Bay prisoners. Though that was Bush’s doings and Obama can’t shut it down without Congress.
:dubious:
You know, if you’re going to try to have a discussion, it helps to have some fundamental ground with your opponents. If I start crowing about political prisoners, and then later explain that I think anyone in jail for embezzlement, theft, and bank fraud is a “political prisoner”, and then only later explain that I think money is a social construct that has no business being respected by law, the fact that people are confused and irritated is entirely my fault. I am the one with a bizarre, non-conventional position that virtually nobody in the modern world agrees with; I am the one who should be clarifying the philosophical position that I am arguing from.
It’s not statism to acknowledge that taxation is necessary, or to acknowledge that it cannot be optional. It’s not statism to acknowledge that sometimes, the government needs to keep secrets, or to acknowledge that there is some legitimacy in locking up people selling addictive, life-destroying substances. If you’d like to have an argument based on your particular philosophy, then present that philosophy first, then make wild-ass claims based on it.
Uhh no he wasn’t a sovereign citizen. Attempted ad hominem on your part. Reason to dismiss you.
Obama can indeed do whatever he wants to do with Guantanamo. You are making use of his boosters’ excuses.
Anyone who favors a state is a statist. Definitions.
Ok, then please explain to us why Schiff should be viewed as a political prisoner rather than a clown who refused to his taxes and as a result got jailed?
Read his rationalizations for not paying taxes. Same shit as the S.C/FMoL.
‘Disappointed’ Obama signs defense bill making it harder to close Gitmo
Oh, okay. So, in other words, a good 99.99% of the world’s population belongs to that category. Not sure why it seems like you’re using it as a perjorative.
And as long as it remains that way, he can continue to object while enjoying the services provided.
WillFarnaby can correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m guessing because statists don’t adhere to the Non-Aggression Principle..
But as already noted, this could apply equally well to cigarette and alcohol dealers. Would you support long sentences for those as well, if it was entirely up to you?
Cigarettes, yes. Alcohol, no.
Huh? Why the difference? Alcohol is at least as addictive and kills more people. 
Tobacco kills the smoker from cancer and such, but alcohol causes also accidents on the roads and at work, is often a cause of domestic violence, etc… So, if anything it’s a worst social ill than tobacco (and I suspect even than heroin or any other drug).
I’m sure that by some extremely broad yet simultaneously extremely specific and narrow reading of the non-aggression principle that has absolutely nothing to do with reality, you can find some way to attack the quite frankly embarassing number of people who disagree with you. But it is phenomenally self-defeating to apply the non-aggression principle to the concept of a state, and then pretend that everything will just work out on its own.
Well, that makes sense.
“Tax protestor” is hardly less pejorative than sovereign citizen, but it still refers to the same sort of idiocy.