Lawbreaking is one of the means that people have to fight against an unjust system.
I don't think most people have the innate sense of wanting it to be possible for everyone to commit crimes; I think it's much more selfish in that they just want themselves and their associates to get away with committing crimes.
Who are those people, exactly?
I run in mostly right-wing circles (online especially), and the vast majority of people on the right seem to be opposed to the "War on Drugs" on the grounds of individual liberty. I can't imagine many on the left are in support of it - am I wrong?
I don't think it's nearly as popular as it might seem.
You might run in right-wing libertarian circles, but I'd speculate that if your experience was based on the religious right you may perceive higher levels of support.
I do agree with you though, it's lost a lot of momentum over the years and now opinion seems to be that it's clung onto by law enforcement and the lobbyists of the companies who supply them because it allows for their continued militarisation and supports a significant portion of their budgets.
I think the OP is calling some these people out as hypocrites who demand "touch on crime" policies that disproportionally affect poorer communities, while they themselves break laws.
That aside, I find the hypocrisy elsewhere, namely the people who want small government but who want everyone to pay billions for mass incarceration (and raise taxes for more police) as a result of these policies.
Sometimes things are illegal, and society changes and decides they shouldn't be illegal (interracial marriage, homosexuality, alcohol, marijuana, etc)... if people couldn't 'dabble' in the illegal thing at all, there would be no way for people to learn enough to decide that the laws are wrong and need to be changed.
What am I supposed to do if I ever come across a cache of information revealing the literal Holocaust 2.0 happening in China?
If the Holocaust had been discovered by a US citizen who broke intercepted German communication, would we have allowed Germany to persecute the civilian for hacking their infrastructure?
The ability to break the law, and get away with it is not just vital for the functioning of society, but for social progress to keep advancing.
Gay rights would never have been won if it were possible for law enforcement to jail all gay people for existing (sodomy laws, etc.), for example.
"Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime" - Lavrentiy Beria
So the right to privacy (and therefore the ability to break the law) is one of the most important checks against government.
It's said out loud all the time (or maybe my filter bubble is less authoritarian). The problem is that politicians seem to be using the cesspools of Twitter, Reddit, etc. as their primary data feed.