Category: crime and punishment

Categories
crime and punishment ideological culture media and media people too much government

Show Me the Way to the Next Hookah Bar

I could never emulate the economist Irving Fisher — and not just his use of index numbers. He was a perfervid purist. He didn’t just defend “the success” of Prohibition, he looked forward to the day when coffee, tea and bleached flour would be outlawed, too.

Hey, I love my coffee. You’ll have to pry my cup from my cold, dead fingers.

Of course, many forms of purism are obviously hygienic. But take purity beyond persuasion, into force, that’s not safe for anybody. And fraud? Weasel-​wordy purists aren’t against lying for the cause, either.

Take the hookah.

Hookahs are to tobacco-​smoking what bongs are to marijuana-​smoking: A water-​filtration-​based, easy-​to-​share drug delivery system. In “Putting a Crimp on the Hookah,” the New York Times quotes one hookah smoker as saying he’s unconcerned about the health effects, since he only smokes it about once a month. The author then states “But in fact, hookahs are far from safe.” As Jacob Sullum of Reason magazine points out, both can be true. Tobacco smoking isn’t exactly healthy. But occasional imbibing of water-​filtered smoke is almost certainly better for you than regular cigarette use.

The New York Times focuses on the next leg of the “ever-​shifting war on tobacco,” the prohibition of “hookah bars.” Though there’s some talk of protecting second-​hand smoke victims, it’s pretty obvious that this war is really about squelching a “vice” by force.

Which is itself worse than vice.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
crime and punishment

For the Birds

Thanks to the intrepid action of swift-​footed (and even swifter-​brained) British bobbies in High Harrington, Cumbria, a dastardly mother-​daughter duo was arrested and taken off the streets for several hours, time enough in the clink for cooler heels (and heads) to prevail.

The duo’s crime? Feeding pigeons. Monica and Janet McIntosh had a horrid habit of casting crumbs to Patagioenas panhandleria. Neighbors say the sky would blacken when the birds swooped to get their handouts. People couldn’t leave their homes when the critters came. It was like being in an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

Fed up with the feeding, Cumbrians called the cops. The Telegraph’s news story doesn’t report whether anybody first tried to speak to the McIntoshes. In any case, though, it’s what the police then did that’s really egregious here.

Officers phoned the women to say they’d be coming over to discuss the matter. And, presumably, a simple chat over tea and scones could have fixed the problem without any more feathers being ruffled. Instead, four officers arrested the pair. Not only that, they “seized house keys, bank statements and cheque books.” Huh? Let’s just say it ain’t Mayberry over there.

The women were let out on bail. Eventually, they were informed that no further action against them would be taken.

So this is what the world is coming to. You can feed pigeons, and apparently not be sent away for life. Can the sceptered isle ever be safe again?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
crime and punishment too much government

A Cool $90,000

Is American life now best described by the plot of a Nathanael West novel?

Maybe. In West’s A Cool Million, the young hero meets calamity after calamity, often at the hands of America’s authorities. I stopped after a prison official had all the hero’s teeth ripped out to “prevent infection.”

Most American punitive “overkill” is not as gruesomely funny. If you ask John Dollarhite, it’s not funny at all.

Dollarhite, who runs a computer store in Nixa, Missouri, inherited his son’s rabbit-​breeding business, which Dollarhite describes as being on the order of a lemonade stand. When his son reached 18, Dollarhite took over Dollarvalue Rabbitry, and sold over 600 little furry creatures in the space of a year and a half. 

He closed the business after the USDA got involved.

You see, the USDA licenses the selling of animals in this country. And neither Dollarhite nor his son were licensed to breed and sell rodents. Dollarhite says he wasn’t aware of such a requirement.

So, of course, the USDA came down. Hard. Like a starved puma on a vole.

The USDA demands he pay over $90,000 in penalties. Dollarhite says the government might as well demand a cool million — or, as he put it, a “$1000 or $100 million. I don’t have it.”

The blogosphere is up in arms about this, and rightly so.

Meanwhile, I’m thinking this isn’t American justice. More like that Nathanael West novel I never finished.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
crime and punishment general freedom initiative, referendum, and recall

A Bad Sign

A Centerville, Virginia, man made news when he agreed to his wife’s demand that he stand at a busy intersection wearing a sign emblazoned “I Cheated: This is My Punishment.” His merciful wife ended the punishment after just a couple hours.

In recent years, a few judges have sporadically sought to shame criminals in similar fashion. Back in 2007, several people convicted of shoplifting opted to avoid a longer jail sentence by donning a sign outside the store they had ripped off, which read, “I Am a Thief, I Stole from Wal-​Mart.” But Wal-​Mart soon opted out of such spectacle.

Now, the California State Senate has passed new legislation to force folks to wear similar signs. But not for committing any crime.

Unless petitioning one’s government is now criminal.

State Sen. Mark DeSaulnier’s Senate Bill 448 seeks to harass and belittle the citizens who circulate petitions by making each wear a sign “on his or her chest” that reads “PAID SIGNATURE GATHERER” or “VOLUNTEER SIGNATURE GATHERER.” The sign would also inform the public which county the petitioner is registered to vote in, or must say, “NOT REGISTERED TO VOTE.” The lettering must be in at least 30-​point type.

Sen. DeSaulnier calls this “transparency.” But transparency isn’t necessary for all petitioning, apparently: SB 448 doesn’t require those collecting signatures to put a state legislator on the ballot to wear such a sign. 

It applies only to those who dare use the citizen initiative.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
crime and punishment national politics & policies

The Next War to End

I don’t know if David Schubert is guilty. You don’t either. But it wouldn’t shock me if a jury convicted him, or if he pled out. You probably wouldn’t be surprised, either.

The fact that we aren’t shocked is what is shocking about the story.

You see, Schubert is the Nevada prosecutor who has handled many celebrity drug prosecutions — Paris Hilton, most famously. He has now been arrested for possession of cocaine.

Common story: The people in charge of prosecuting America’s ongoing War on Drugs are often drug users themselves. Many are “on the take” to drug gangs and warlords and kingpins. Or themselves embroiled in the drug trade. 

The evidence for mass corruption, up and down the criminal justice system’s chain of command, is massive itself. It reminds me of the stories of Inquisitors themselves accused of heresy, in the Middle Ages. It’s a very old story.

And now it’s become a way of life in America. Corruption is endemic, and that says something about the drug war itself. About our drug laws.

Which could be repealed.

Did you know that Portugal has had great success decriminalizing pretty much all recreational drugs?

Last week, Rep. Ron Paul castigated House Republicans for overlooking America’s foreign wars as targets for cutting America’s overblown budget. I agree with him, but really: We should look close to home, too. 

It is high time for a complete cease-​fire in the costly War on Drugs. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
crime and punishment national politics & policies U.S. Constitution

Indefinite Detention, Definitely Wrong

“No western government has ever claimed the power to do this,” said Judge Andrew Napolitano, on Fox’s The Plain Truth. “Not the King of England, not Hitler, not Stalin, not even the Russian and Chinese Communists.”

Hitler comparisons are a dime a dozen these days, but Napolitano was not referring to something minor. He was talking about the power to hold someone for the whole of his or her natural life, even after being acquitted in a U.S. court of law. 

By a jury. 

Yes, on March 7, 2011, Barack Obama, President of the United States, signed an executive order detailing how detainees will be held. Key word: “continued” — which is code for Indefinite.

The president’s supporters squirmed. Obama had promised to close the Guantánamo Bay facility during his campaign. On AlterNet the story was covered as a “step forward.” The Washington Post, on the other hand, quotes Republican Representative Peter T. King saying the order vindicates George W. Bush, whose administration had established the practice of indefinitely holding suspected terrorists at the site.

The order does affirm the right of habeus corpus for detainees. But its aim is to merely provide a review of cases. It doesn’t question “the executive branch’s continued, discretionary exercise of existing detention authority” — which is what rightly bothers Judge Napolitano. 

The order is legalese; non-​lawyers may nod off. It’s hard to see the Hitlerian element.

But that’s what the “banality of evil” is all about.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.