This country is thoroughly screwed up. Compare these two stories.
A man was found guilty of a $2 robbery, released on parole, then sentenced to life in prison after he tested positive for marijuana. It was in Texas, and the sentence has been commuted (after he’d served 16 years for smoking pot), but still, that’s insane.
ExxonMobil was fined $5 billion for their negligence in the Exxon Valdez tanker accident, which they haven’t paid and probably plan on never paying. They just got a friendly judge to cut the penalty in half.
Both sentences occurred at about the same time. Tyrone Brown got to sit in jail for half his life for a petty crime. Lee Raymond got to grow fat and obscenely rich after poisoning the environment, and his company lawyers get to play games with the law.
That’s America.
“That’s America.”
Yes, it rather is. Pretty fair comparison of the priorities currently at play. May well get worse before it gets better, but there seems to be some awareness stirring in the comatose electorate.
Thank goodness there’s Georgia holding up the sodomy laws by putting a guy in prison for 10 years over receiving a consentual blowjob from a minor [i]while being a minor[/i].
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/19/us/19georgia.html
I hear you PZ. Did you also hear that marijuana is worth $35 billion per year in the US? Yup, it’s true. The war on drugs has helped make pot gardeners rich.
Link
Astounding. He’s pardoning a bunch of business people who were given probation as a sentence. Probably all born-again Chistian Republicans.
On the pardons list were:
Charles James Allen of Winchester, Virginia, conspiracy to defraud the United States. A former federal employee, Allen was convicted in 1979 for approving payments to James Hilles Associates Inc., a Virginia firm, for office supplies that were never delivered. In return, Allen received car parts, a radio, a freezer and other gifts from the firm. He was sentenced to a year of custody to be served by 30 days in jail, 90 days in a work-release program, and the remaining period on parole.
William Sidney Baldwin Sr. of Green Pond, South Carolina, conspiracy to possess marijuana. Sentenced October 27, 1981, to six years’ imprisonment.
Timothy Evans Barfield of Cary, North Carolina, aiding and abetting false statements on a Small Business Administration loan application. Sentenced July 17, 1989, to three years’ probation, including 96 hours of community service.
Clyde Philip Boudreaux of Thibodaux, Louisiana, borrowing money from enlisted men, accepting a non-interest-bearing loan from a government contractor and signing and swearing to a false affidavit. Sentenced December 2, 1975, to a Navy reprimand, loss of numbers on the promotion list and a $1,000 fine.
Marie Georgette Ginette Briere of Gatineau, Quebec, possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. Sentenced July 9, 1982, to three years’ imprisonment and three years’ special parole.
Dale C. Critz Jr., Savannah, Georgia, making a false statement. Sentenced July 13, 1989, to three years’ probation.
Mark Alan Eberwine of San Antonio, Texas, conspiracy to defraud the United States by impeding, impairing and obstructing the assessment of taxes by the Internal Revenue Service and making false declarations to the grand jury. Sentenced February 1, 1985, as amended April 23, 1986, to two years’ imprisonment.
Colin Earl Francis of Naugatuck, Connecticut, accepting a kickback. Sentenced May 7, 1993, to two years’ probation and a $2,500 fine.
George Thomas Harley of Albuquerque, New Mexico, aiding and abetting the distribution of cocaine. Sentenced November 30, 1984, to nine years’ imprisonment and five years’ special parole.
Patricia Ann Hultman, of Kane, Pennsylvania, conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and to distribute cocaine and other controlled substances. Sentenced October 28, 1985, to one year of imprisonment.
Eric William Olson of Ojai, California, conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute, possession with intent to distribute, possession, and use of hashish. Sentenced February 21, 1984, by an Army general court-martial to confinement at hard labor for one year, reduction in pay grade, forfeiture of all pay and allowances and a bad conduct discharge.
Thomas R. Reece of Cumming, Georgia, violating the Internal Revenue Code pertaining to alcohol. Sentenced May 2, 1969, to one year of imprisonment.
Larry Gene Ross of Indio, California, making false statements in a bank loan application. Sentenced August 15, 1989, to four years’ probation and $7,654.20 in restitution.
Jearld David Swanner of Lexington, Oklahoma, making false statements in a bank loan application. Sentenced December 6, 1991, to three years’ probation.
James Walter Taylor of McCrory, Arkansas, bank fraud. Sentenced October 18, 1991, to 90 days in jail, followed by two years and nine months’ probation.
Janet Theone Upton of Salinas, California, mail fraud. Sentenced May 23, 1975, to two years’ unsupervised probation.
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/12/21/bush.pardons.ap/
You may as well get used to it, because it’s never going to change.
You may as well get used to it, because it’s never going to change.
Nice strawman.
You idiot, you can’t just call every argument you don’t like a “strawman” – that refers to a specific type of fallacy that wasn’t committed here.
***
The people in this country have been completely indoctrinated with the idea that working within the system is the only moral option, and political systems inevitably lead to this kind of behavior. You’d better get used to it, because it’s never going to change.
Ni Hao! Kannichi Wa!
This is nothing compared to what is going on in Canada, see The Travesty of Canadian Justice and the Trial of Trevis Smith. It won’t be long until this moves south into America.
All because he tested positive for HIV and erred in his “sociological behavior” that has no more evidence for criminilization than testing positive for marijuana.
Not to mention the poor nurses and Palestinian doc that are sentenced to death in Libya because of accusation they deliberately infected poor Libyan kids with the same potentially harmless virus.
America, Canada, Libya—HIV positive, marijuana positive, what’s the difference in regard to this issue?
MOTYR
Well, if the Exxon Valdez damages award is finally set, John (“Hindrocket”) Hinderaker of Powerline will finally get HIS payoff as the law partner of the lead plaintiffs’ counsel.
for those of you who haven’t figured this out yet, the “war on drugs” has been a total failure, good money thrown at a bad cause. With all of the money spent you would think that if it were worth the effort, there would be some sort of “victory”. Perhaps it is time to reevaluate the intent and outcome of this “war”, too. The “war on drugs” is a feel-good name given to an effort that will never end. There has been and will always be a segment of the the population that is genetically inclined to substance abuse. Time to change the strategy because this one isn’t working, but damn, it sounds good on a politician’s or judge’s resume (“tough on drugs”).
You idiot, you can’t just call every argument you don’t like a “strawman” – that refers to a specific type of fallacy that wasn’t committed here.
It was, actually, since no one claimed it would change, nor that they weren’t used to it. Of course, in addition, the assertion that it’s never going to change is unsupported and absurd, since it will change some time before the heat death of the universe.
The people in this country have been completely indoctrinated with the idea that working within the system is the only moral option, and political systems inevitably lead to this kind of behavior. You’d better get used to it, because it’s never going to change.
Since you’re the one complaining about people being indoctrinated, and claiming it will never change, it seems that you are the one who needs to get used to it. You idiot.
MOTYR
Got a credible source for the claims made on that site?
Remind me again. Why is it considered a Union victory, that the traitorous states were forced to rejoin the United States? If nothing else, let’s give Texas back to Mexico. W was born in Connecticut, and therefore would still be simply an undesirable citizen, but fortunately he claims to be a Texan, cowshit accent, pseudo ranch and all, so he could be deported for his many crimes.
“Remind me again. Why is it considered a Union victory, that the traitorous states were forced to rejoin the United States?”
The theory is that a successful successionist movement would have rendered the federal government essentially moot. This would likely have presaged a rapid disintegration of the nation. An argument can be made for the opposite, however, that the demonstrated weakness of a federal government on which increasingly interstate commercial interests required to do things like give them massive amounts of land for railroads and maintain infrastructure would create an impetus to strengthen that government considerably at the expense of the states. The particular form this strengthening would have taken would, of course, have been quite different without Reconstruction and the white supremacist race war that answered it framing the issues.
This kind of absurd “justice” makes me so mad! Don’t the disproportionate punishments of Brown and Wilson violate their Eighth Amendment rights?
MOTYR
There is a big difference between essentially victimless drug crimes and having unprotected sex with women when you know you are HIV positive. The site you linked to is unavailable so I can’t tell what you are talking about specifically, but even if the news accounts are wildly inaccurate, there is no comparison between the actions of the Canadian government and the Libyan government. There may be questions of fact, whether he was the one who transimtted the infection to the woman, whether he knew he tested positive, etc. but nothing like the case in Libya. It’s not even like the case of the kid in Georgia who had no idea he was doing something illegal. If the news reports are true, he certainly should have known what he was doing was despicable.
As far as I can recall from my keeping a weather eye on the news here, the main difference between the Trevis Smith case and the Tripoli Six case is that Trevis Smith actually did infect people with HIV on purpose. That and another similar case here that involved a man who raped a woman with the intent of giving her HIV are about the only times I’ve ever felt maybe there was something to this execution nonsense.
Up until Stephen Harper (*pfui*) got elected, marijuana was decriminalised in Canada.
The link given by MOTYR is a website dedicated to HIV denial.
Aniko said:
The link given by MOTYR is a website dedicated to HIV denial.
Precisely my point above. Credibility isn’t its strong point.
It wasn’t, because my statement wasn’t an argument.
It’s called ‘idiom’. Idiot.
It’s MOTYR big thing… HIV does not cause AIDS. I’ve seen those comments on SciGuy as well and I have absolutely no respect for people who come out with that kind of rubbish. I’m sure there is some dark corner of the internet they can all hang out and complain about the great science conspiracies.
It’s instructive to compare Tyrone Brown’s case to that of Sean Timoney, who was arrested in Florida trying to buy 400 lbs(!) of marijuana from a DEA agent. He managed to plead the original charge–conspiracy to possess with intent to traffic–down to a simple conspiracy to possess (despite the ridiculous amount of weed involved) and was sentenced to 18 months, mandatory drug treatment and four years’ probation. The kicker: Timoney is the son of John Timoney, the chief of the Miami Police Department.
Why do I have the feeling, incidentally, that severity of the sentence imposed upon Brown may have had something to do with his first name being Tyrone?
I agree with Caledonian on this one. The roads to change that are acceptable to the institution don’t lead to change; at least not any more. Political dissent has been tucked neatly away into free speech zones (although they’re problematic, they’re nothing compared to the general ineffectiveness of a sit-in style protest.) We need to stop marching and start smashing malls. Taking over busy intersections. We should pour into the stock market en masse and start kicking the asses of those tired little weasels.
I blame Gandhi. Nonviolence was the downfall of dissent.