It was then that it became clear to me: the reason for the tickets wasn’t that these Lisa Davises were petty criminals. The reason was likely that they lived in highly policed areas where even the smallest infractions are ticketed, the sites of “Broken Windows” policing. The reason, I thought, was that they weren’t white.I spent some years homeless. Being a "homeless person" is a category you can stop being a member of from one minute to the next by getting a home.
Similarly, some crimes are basically crimes because we SAY they are. No one was harmed by it but for whatever reason we have a law saying "If you do THAT, we can arrest you for simply DOING THAT." and so those people are "criminals" because we SAY they are and that can potentially change if we decide to stop SAYING THEY ARE officially in our written rulebooks of statutes and such.
Illicit drug use is one such area. It's your body. If you get high and aren't hurting anyone, why SHOULD that be illegal?
We seem to criminalize drug use based on the idea that people using certain drugs behave badly. Well, if they ACTUALLY behave badly, that's presumably ALREADY a crime. There is no reason we can't charge them for the behaving badly part -- stealing, assaulting people, whatever -- and let people who imbibe as they see fit IF they can do so and still behave.
Can drug use per se negatively impact other people? Sure.
If you have respiratory problems, second-hand cigarette smoke can harm you. AND we have laws that -- for example -- you can't smoke within X feet of a bus stop.
We have not made it a crime to simply consume tobacco products, yet we recognize that cigarette smoke can be harmful to OTHER PEOPLE and we have rules to try to account for that fact and protect other people.
I believe most illicit drug use is compelled by unidentified medical issues. Currently, if you can't find a legal, effective means to fix X issue, you MAY resort to illicit drugs because some illicit drug works for your issue and you haven't found an effective remedy that is legal.
This strikes me as potentially a terrible injustice. It's your body. If you aren't harming anyone else, you should be allowed to imbibe what you want.
So, right now, some people are "criminals" simply because we say they are though they aren't hurting anyone. They just are doing something to their own body that we have said "It's against the rules and if you are caught, we can arrest you for it."
Food for thought:
- Whenever there is a revolution overthrowing a corrupt government, they promptly release all the prisoners on the theory that whatever they are charged with, it's a bullshit excuse and they are really POLITICAL prisoners.
- In the US today, there are a ridiculous numbers of Black Americans in prison and we KNOW laws have historically been intentionally written to criminalize Blacks in this country simply for being Black. Those laws have not been all overturned. Furthermore, even laws NOT intentionally written to criminalize being Black can be biased in a way that harms Blacks and others of color and isn't an issue for Whites, PLUS the way laws get administered in practice can make it a hardship for one population but not another.
- If the US government were ever overthrown by something other than a White Supremacist group, it would NOT be unreasonable to let all the prisoners out -- or at least all the people of color -- on the theory that a LOT of them are ONLY really guilty of being born Black in America.
He got his way and played the venue. The resulting album was very successful.
We live in an imperfect world. We make rules to try to cope with inevitable social frictions of various sorts and those rules are not perfect and tend to unfairly penalize some people but not others.
Some enlightened individuals realize that and try to understand the humanity and motives of those unfairly penalized. THAT is called morality.
There is a long history of moral individuals actively objecting to specific laws and trying to get them changed. In the US, that includes people who helped slaves escape the South and Freedom Riders.
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions Morgan v. Virginia (1946) and Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional.The Federal government said one thing. Local government and culture enforced something else. People who felt -- as I do -- that Federal law was in the right in that case protested the local laws and practices.
What's legal and what's moral are frequently different things. Taking a moral stand somewhat often requires one to think deeply about this fact and may lead to one deciding some laws do not belong on the books.
There is currently a somewhat similar legal situation in the US with regards to Federal and State laws conflicting. Some states have legalized or decriminalized use of marijuana and the Federal government has not.
In this case, I think the states are in the right and I hope Federal law eventually agrees with them.
Footnote
For the record, I do not use marijuana and never have. In fact, I'm allergic to it and can break out in hives when exposed to second-hand smoke or residue on surfaces where it is used frequently.So, NO, this is NOT me saying "I just want to get high and wish you people would stop bothering me."