This is Your Constitution on Drugs
nationalaffairs.com
nationalaffairs.com
I read an article like this and the US legal system seems so completely arbitrary and full of holes to be exploited by whomever can put ideological judges (with essentially lifetime appointments) in place first.
Comparing this to technical systems, both laws and old legacy systems have "tech debt" that has accrued over long periods of time. But, with a technical system, you can remove pieces when they hinder the working of the system.
With legal systems, it seems like everything is based on precedent. Which mean decisions, good or bad, force future decisions in the same direction.
Is this a fundamental misunderstanding of the way things actually work? If not, is there any hope of fixing that trait of the US legal system, where our criminal justice system has so many flaws that impact so many people in such awful ways?
Identifying the appropriate level might be harder than actually formulating it on this level.
Keep in mind that this is not just an end in itself as this problem might occur in other situations, e.g. with colleagues, bosses or a customer not understanding what you are going on about.
The reason why this is actually important is that the amount of things we can achieve completely on our own are very limited and that for anything bigger, we need to interact and cooperate with others. The speaker is the one who wants to transmit the message. Therefore it is the speaker's task to make sure the message is clear enough and of an appropriate form (or even interesting enough!) for the receiver.
Give it another 50 years or so and statutory sentencing probably go away. It's a system that moves so slowly that it can take multiple generations to correct wrongs. I think that's considered a feature for long-term stability, but it seems like poor design to me.
If you look at a long enough timescale, we are trending in the right direction.
If it makes you feel better, you can think of the non-violent imprisoned as grains of sand on the scales of justice. Your persistent outrage helps push for change in the same way.
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The war on drugs has been fought largely with laws that were beyond Congress's powers to enact. Although it took a constitutional amendment to allow Congress to prohibit alcohol nationwide, the prohibition of now-illicit substances under the CSA took place without any such amendment. This is perhaps mainly a commentary on the Supreme Court's expansive reading of the Commerce Clause, but it should give pause to anyone who takes the Constitution seriously.
Beyond the modern drug war's legally dubious initiation, the strained legal interpretations and yawning exceptions officials have made to sustain the effort continue to warp our constitutional system. In prosecuting and expanding the war on drugs, the federal government has racked up colossal amounts of debt, fostered state protectionism, adopted countless new federal crimes, and invaded foreign countries without congressional authorization. Meanwhile, government actors at all levels have undermined Americans' freedoms of expression and religious exercise, deprived citizens of their rights to vote and bear arms, authorized warrantless searches and seizures of property without due process, and thrown tens of thousands of people — disproportionately racial minorities — into overcrowded prisons for sentences that are out of step with the crimes they've committed. These actions have changed our understanding of such foundational principles as limited government, federalism, and the separation of powers, all while casting doubt on America's commitment to the rule of law.
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