The Wrong Answer

Crack CocaineThe Liberals in Congress led by Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) have passed the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 which will greatly reduce the sentencing guidelines for possession of crack cocaine and completely removes the five-year mandatory minimum prison term for first-time possession of crack cocaine.

Even the Republicans, sadly browbeaten by the incessant fraudulent claims of racism from the Left and its minority tenants, agreed to support it. So it now just awaits the signature of America’s First Black President in order to become the law.

It should come as no surprise to any American that the Democrat-controlled Congress, equally steeped in the pro-drug culture and ethno-guiltism, when faced with a very real problem chose the wrong answer to it and did so because that answer fit into their ethno-guiltism and cynical and desperate desire to curry the Black vote during the lead up to the 2010 Congressional midterm elections.

A saner and less ethno-guiltist governing body would have increased the penalty for powder cocaine to match or more closely resemble that for crack cocaine, especially given the worsening, violent, and destabilizing situation in Mexico right right now.

But it’s almost axiomatic that the Liberals will always support and endorse the wrong answer to real problems – when they even honestly understand the problem at all.

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6 Responses to “The Wrong Answer”

  1. zhann Says:

    Judging by this post, you definitely lean more towards Republican than Libertarian. This is perfectly fine, but why would you even sentence someone for possession? … at all? If you truly believe in a free country, which you advocate strongly, how do you justify being for punishing those that do what they wish when it has absolutely no impact on others? If someone wants to smoke crack, so be it. If someone wants to snort a line, good for them. What they do only enriches the dealer, but that is another story entirely. My understanding is that this ruling has little to no effect on distribution, only for possession (please note, I am not too well read on this new piece of legislation). I for one believe that people should be allowed to do whatever they want, so long as it doesn’t impede on someone else’s freedoms. Hence, drug abuse should be no more illegal than alcohol or smoking cigarettes. Or, to put it more harshly, no more illegal than freedom of religion. I take way more offense at people preaching at me than some lowlife smoking a crackpipe in their bedroom.

    Of course, those that resort to criminal acts in order to support their habbits need to be prosecuted for the criminal act, not for the drug abuse.

  2. jonolan Says:

    That’s a good but, to my mind, tangential point, zhann.

    In the long run it might be better to go somewhat closer to the route your prefer, though dealing with the ramifications of the distribution chain would be horrendously problematical – especially if we ended up legalizing the use of substances that the primary supplying nations still outlawed the production and shipping of…

    My point was that Congress chose to address the very real issue of sentencing disparity in a manner that I find wrong-headed and not based upon any sort of solid footing. It makes more sense to me – since America DOES outlaw such chemicals – to address the disparity by moving the lesser sentences (powder) upwards rather than the converse.

  3. zhann Says:

    I disagree. I understand you point, but taking into account numerous current factors such as: economic problems, packed prisons, repeat offenses, evidence that treatment has more effect than confinement, and so on … I would say that possession needs to hit the pocket, and not the jail cell. I understand that most users don’t have the funds to pay out high fines, but that can be worked out too. I am not saying that this is a perfect system, but anything is better than sentencing someone to five years for cocaine possession. Any more than a week is overkill.

  4. jonolan Says:

    It sounds like you favor the reduction in sentencing over achieving fairness by raising the other sentencing because you want all such sentencing reduced or even eliminated.

    If so, I give you full marks for logical consistency, zhann – and that is meant without a single iota of sarcasm.

    We do, however, disagree. That disagreement, however, is more based upon my views of international political and legal realities than upon any intrinsic disagreement on my part with your goals in this matter.

  5. JC Says:

    Fundamental misunderstanding of the insidious nature of crack cocaine on society, condoned by the media for fear of being viewed negatively with regards to race. People kill to acquire crack cocaine. People commit armed home invasions to acquire crack cocaine. People commit burglaries and larcenies on a daily basis to support this habit. It does not correlate with cocaine itself with regards to the violence associated with it. The only problem is, even from my libertarian perspective, we don’t prosecute the possession and sale of it enough. Nothing could be further from the truth to the comment that this is an individual drug, it’s a leach on all of society.

  6. jonolan Says:

    JC,

    There’s a flaw in your premise; while crack’s effects on communities is quite severe for all the reasons you’ve mentioned and those effects are not mirrored by powder cocaine users and dealers in America, they are almost perfectly mirrored by other drugs – meth comes instantly to mind – which never recieved the same treatment as crack did.

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