Quote:
Originally Posted by the urban politician
^ Damn right it's my choice. You don't have to be a criminal and shoot other people.
Put them in jail. They are the scum of the earth. Stop feeling sorry for scoundrels.
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I never said they weren't scoundrels. I never said that we should go easy or excuse murderers. Don't make up my positions to avoid acknowledging your personal responsibility in allowing the current situation to continue.
The US already locks up a greater percentage of our population than any other country on earth. Less than half of all murders are solved. We need a different approach because yelling "lock them up" isn't working. We need a different approach because you can either believe that some huge percentage of our citizens are just naturally evil people, or you can look at the facts and realize that the current system is making people evil. You can acknowledge that without excusing the behavior of individuals. It isn't in anyone's best interest to excuse bad behavior of individuals, but it's also not in anyone's interest to allow the current situation to continue.
It's not safe. It's not fair. It's not, by any definition, the kind of freedom this country was founded for. Racism plays into it. Economic inequity plays into it.
We can't make a perfect world, but we can make this world better. But in order to do that, people have to stop pretending that making something illegal fixes things. It doesn't and sometimes, it makes things worse.
Stop saying that pro-legalization people are "excusing" individual choices. We're not. What we are saying is that the laws aren't working, aren't enforceable, aren't effective and are causing way more problems than they're fixing. Legalization cuts the profit motive away. It cuts away stigmas that put people into positions where making a bad choice may actually benefit them more than making a good choice.
And, best of all, it makes us all freer.