Comment by jsmeaton | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jsmeaton | Hacker News Reader

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> 1. Drugs should be legal and sold out of liquor stores to anyone 21 and older.

I agree (mostly), but they are not. Society has decided that certain drugs are illegal (for now). This point doesn't really have anything to do with anything.

> 2. His sentence isn't about trying to cripple the drug trade, but about punishing someone the government does not like.

How do you figure? Did they just pick him out randomly and decide to find whatever they could on this guy? I would probably think that the people prosecuting him believed he had significant impact in enabling certain drug trades.

> 3. The same motivation could someday be used to prosecute people who serve cheeseburgers to drug dealers at a restaurant under the theory that they were helping those drug dealers to deal drugs (you can't deal drugs if you're starving).

This is ridiculous, and completely undermines everything else you said.

24 years for building hidden compartments is a joke, even if he knew what they were being used for. Current drug laws are a joke. Governments enable a tonne of bad behaviour by denying people access to substances they want that rarely hurt others.

But making outrageous claims about serving food to a drug smuggler helps no one.

> Society has decided that certain drugs are illegal (for now).

An oversimplification, because government has decided that certain drugs are illegal.

> This is ridiculous, and completely undermines everything else you said.

Is it? Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project is a court case where the organization was accused (and ruled against) of providing material support to a terrorist organization because they advised the organization to not use violence. That's the government's other perpetual war, but it shows that something which sounds completely ludicrous can also be very real.

> An oversimplification, because government has decided that certain drugs are illegal.

I don't think it is an oversimplification. Society as a majority, at some point, wanted these drugs illegal. Government passed the law and society allowed it to happen (and to remain).

> because they advised the organization to not use violence

The law says not to aid terrorists organisations. They aided a terrorist organisation. That's pretty far removed (in my opinion) from serving someone a cheeseburger that walks into your store.

The "war" on drugs and the "war" on terrorism and the laws that support them are incredibly unjust and extreme in my opinion. I would bet lots of people here feel the same. But throwing out ridiculous statements as opposition harms more than helps.

> Society as a majority, at some point, wanted these drugs illegal.

Most likely, this is still the case. However, if you polled people on a case-by-case basis, I think you would find that a majority would not support a large number of cases regarding drugs. And, of course, if you suggested that only the people who oppose drug legality should contribute funding to the drug war, you would find a much smaller group of proponents.

> Government passed the law and society allowed it to happen (and to remain).

Isn't that just a blatant appeal to nature? Yes, society has "allowed" it to happen, in the sense that it has happened. But according to that usage, literally everything that has happened since society existed has been "allowed" to happen by society.

> The law says not to aid terrorists organisations. They aided a terrorist organisation. That's pretty far removed (in my opinion) from serving someone a cheeseburger that walks into your store.

They "aided" a terrorist organization by recommending that they cease being a terrorist organization. Giving food to a criminal is much more direct aid to criminal activity than urging a criminal to cease criminal activity.

> But throwing out ridiculous statements as opposition harms more than helps.

And I believe I have thrown out zero ridiculous statements thus far.

Then -- if people polled so believe -- they should get off their lazy goddamn asses and vote. We did have such a vote on marijuana recently in California, and we lost. We'll probably have another vote in 2016. But if all people are willing to do is run their mouths to pollsters, then we're going to have another 40 years of the war on drugs.

Showing that allowing people to smoke a bowl at will doesn't cause society to crumble will help when we discuss harm abatement projects for heroin, meth, etc.

The problem with voting is that the individual benefit of voting is almost certainly less than the individual cost of voting. To expect most people to educate themselves about political issues and vote is to expect most people to act irrationally.

If, on the other hand, individuals were able to choose to decrease their own taxes by whatever portion is used to the fund the drug war, I suspect people would be more educated about how the drug war works, and the drug war would have a lot less funding.

Conversely, if everyone voted on what car to manufacture, and only the winning car could be legally manufactured, I suspect people would do very little research of cars, and the winning car would be an awful car.

> The problem with voting is that the individual benefit of voting is almost certainly less than the individual cost of voting

I wonder if this has something to do with why Washington and Colorado are the first two states to legalize recreational marijuana? Washington switched to almost complete vote-by-mail a few years ago, so voting is pretty convenient [1]. In 2010, 98% of voters voted by mail, the highest percentage of any state. Colorado was the third highest vote by mail state, with 66% in 2010. (Oregon was second, with 97%). California was 45% (which was 4th place, behind Arizona at 52%, and just ahead of Montana at 41%...no other state has more than 25%).

[1] convenient if you have stamps. I have no outgoing mail except my ballot, and so do not stock stamps. For me, standing in line at the polling place has simply been replaced with standing in line at the post office to mail my ballot.

In San Mateo county, postage is prepaid, or you can drop the vote by mail ballot off at any polling location in the county. If you live here, you generally don't live or work far from a polling place.

You can drop vote-by-mail ballots off similarly in santa clara county. I'm not sure about sf.

I don't agree at all with your claim about voting, but even accepting it arguendo, voting to (and california has propositions so you vote directly on many things) legalize marijuana has clear benefits. You don't have to fuck around with stupid prescriptions (I have a serious illness: I don't think pop tarts taste good), and the cops can't hassle you about it.

That said, you can pretty reliably vote a democratic ticket in California and get the last bad option.

Also, CA has vote by mail.

> voting to (and california has propositions you can vote directly on many things) legalize marijuana has clear benefits.

You're conflating the legalization of marijuana, which obviously has clear benefits to many individuals, and the individual act of voting for the legalization of marijuana, which does not have much clear benefit.

> you can pretty reliably vote a democratic ticket in California and get the last bad option.

That's a perfect example of my claim about the irrationality of voting. People often identify with a party, and vote party lines. That's a far cry from actually being educated about each candidate or issue, which plenty of polls demonstrate is rare among voters.

> Also, CA has vote by mail.

That's nice, but the physical process of voting is only a tiny part of the individual cost. Most of the cost is educating yourself by researching issues and following the actions of candidates, which most people (even voters) do not do.

> Society as a majority, at some point, wanted these drugs illegal.

So? There's nothing magical about "the majority" wanting something. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

http://www.democracyweb.org/majority/principles.php

http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html

>Society as a majority, at some point, wanted these drugs illegal.

Can it be said that a heterogenous network of entities "wants" something if some particular clusters of entities inside the network are able to influence its consensus? I think that the phrase "society wants" is absolutely meaningless in overwhelming majority of contexts.

>I don't think it is an oversimplification. Society as a majority, at some point, wanted these drugs illegal.

Not really. There was an orchestrated campaign, with state support after some point, to get to this.

His punishment is either punitive or hysterically motivated.

In my experience, people who have been threatened by either federal agents or prosecutors feel like they are being punished for personal reasons outside of the crime. Asserting your rights or just merely not accepting a plea deal can be enough. Let alone engaging in a legal technical trade that subverts law enforcement's ability, thus thumbing your nose at them, which is similar to speaking out against them publicly.

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