• NegativeLookBehind@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    282
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    8 months ago

    Meanwhile, Trump’s a free man, goose stepping around in his fucking lift shoes, with 91 Federal charges against him. This country is so backwards.

      • stoly@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        57
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        8 months ago

        I once mentioned to my father that most people are likely felons without realizing it because everyone will have violated a whole slew of laws they are unaware of or that are obscure/unenforced. He, being a conservative, became angry with me.

        • tsonfeir@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          21
          ·
          8 months ago

          I can probably come up with a dozen felonies and goodness knows how many misdemeanors I’ve committed in my life, and I’m definitely not a menace to society.

          None of these are violent or sexual in nature.

          • stoly@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            13
            ·
            edit-2
            8 months ago

            Exactly. The worst thing that most people do as far as common laws are concerned is speeding.

            The real bad things that happen that are rarely enforced is spousal and child abuse, religious abuse, abuse from certain authorities, etc. These destroy lives.

        • shani66@ani.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          11
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          8 months ago

          God it feels good knowing we can actually say the solution to the world’s ills out loud here. You’d get banned from Reddit and YouTube for saying the people ruining our planet need to stub their toes.

          • Zamotic@lemmy.zip
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            9
            ·
            8 months ago

            You say that, and poof, 2 hours later that post is mysteriously “removed”.

            • shani66@ani.social
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              4
              ·
              edit-2
              8 months ago

              Weird i can still see it. Does lemmy save comments on a per instance basis or something?

              just checked it on a different device, fucking hell. people need to leave .world, its just another reddit and has been since i started browsing lemmy.

              • JonsJava@lemmy.worldM
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                8 months ago

                Could you tell me the post you’re referencing? I would like to investigate this further for you.

          • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemmy.cafe
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            edit-2
            8 months ago

            !benjamingetthemusket@lemmy.cafe

            Feel free to say #eattherich rhetoric all you want there. I don’t put up with .world’s blatantly obvious corporate shill shit.

            EDIT: From the modlog, here’s the deleted comment.

            If by breaking laws you mean setting the financial district on fire with executives still in those soulless highrise pieces of shit than yes, it kinda does. Imagine the world without what we are told to call “elite”.

      • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        8 months ago

        You wouldn’t download a car, a House, two beautiful women or their chi…you know a highrise I mean. You wouldn’t download a highrise or a jet plane or two really hot babes. right?

        • tsonfeir@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          8 months ago

          I think the voting system has established that you’re the troll.

          • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            4
            ·
            8 months ago

            I still think it’s you. A lot of foreign actors want the U.S. system to collapse. Maybe you’re not, but your earlier comment sure sounded like it. People are downvoting me bcz they misunderstood what my comment was directed at. I actually agree with the sentiment, but ignoring all of our laws outright is a good way to have no government at all.

            • tsonfeir@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              3
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              8 months ago

              Doesn’t it make you feel like the law is less important when all these rich cunts are breaking laws left and right, that would send you to jail real fast, and no one seems to do anything about it?

    • Verdant Banana@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      26
      ·
      8 months ago

      and biden is out running for president too after promising to legalize and police reform and firing staffers for using cannabis

      people seem to still support him too

      US elections are fucking insane

      like watching clones dressed in different skins begging for votes with whatever empty promises they think and know the populace will eat up

      • NegativeLookBehind@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        29
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        8 months ago

        Empty political promises are one thing and par for the course. Literally getting away with high treason on several documented accounts and still being able to run for president is another.

  • I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    118
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    8 months ago

    It’s a flower that makes people happy and hungry. God fucking damn it. There is no fucking reason to destroy people’s lives over this.

        • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          11
          ·
          edit-2
          8 months ago

          I don’t even think that article adequately conveys how thoroughly racist the roots of it is. They don’t even quote the awful things Anslinger said to justify cannabis prohibition.

          “There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.”

          “…the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.”

          “Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death.”

          “Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.”

          “Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing”

          “You smoke a joint and you’re likely to kill your brother.”

          “Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.”

          https://fee.org/articles/the-racist-roots-of-marijuana-prohibition/

           

          And then there’s this from Nixon staffer John Ehrlichman:

          “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people,” former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman told Harper’s writer Dan Baum for the April cover story published Tuesday.

          “You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said. “We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

          https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html

    • frezik@midwest.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      25
      ·
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      Reminds me of the Ballarat Bandit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-gBErW4aoY

      To put it short, he was a guy who led federal officers on a chase through the desert. They didn’t know who he was, but he was stealing from travelers passing through. It wasn’t far from some US government facilities, and this being not long after 9/11, they’re super worried he’s a terrorist.

      Spoiler: he was a Canadian who started growing weed to help his wife’s medical issues. He apparently made some primo bud and started selling it. Naturally, he got caught and was thrown in jail. When he got out, he moved out to the desert and tried to survive on his own.

      Jail changed him. He became more paranoid and detached from his family, friends, and society. He wasn’t the least bit dangerous until they threw him in prison.

      • EssentialCoffee@midwest.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        8 months ago

        I’m all for legalized marijuana, but going into another country and breaking their laws is never a good idea. There are places in the world that would be a death sentence.

        • frezik@midwest.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          edit-2
          8 months ago

          The guy was clearly mentally unstable after he left prison. He never would have done that in the first place otherwise. And he effectively did get a death sentence for it.

          • ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            edit-2
            8 months ago

            According to the article titled ‘Ballarat Bandit’ lost to family for years, August 4, 2006 for Pahrump Valley Times, Johnston was living in Canada when they were arrested and charged with trafficking marijuana.

            Eventually, the couple left Anarchist Mountain and returned to Prince Edward Island, where Rob Johnston had been born and raised. After the birth of her fourth child, Tommi was diagnosed with leukemia and access to medical care became vital. Johnston began cultivating marijuana, discovered he had a knack for it and turned it into a cash crop.

            In 1997, when the crop was discovered by Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Johnston was sentenced to two consecutive four-year prison terms. It was then that the couple was legally married, in what Tommi described as an ultimately futile effort on her part to convince him that she would not abandon him.

            Edit: HTML linking

  • vortic@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    113
    ·
    8 months ago

    I don’t understand how 40 years of prison for a non-violent crime isn’t considered to be both “cruel” and “unusual”. It is objectively cruel. I certainly hope that it is also unusual. I certainly hope that there aren’t many more like him, imprisoned for decades for what amounts to personal-use levels of pot. 5.5 lbs of pot when you include the stem and roots isn’t that much and certainly sounds like a personal supply to me.

    • marxistsynths19@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      62
      ·
      8 months ago

      These people are kept in jail to be used in labor. It’s not about being cruel. It’s about making money in the cheapest way possible. Since Alabama is a hellhole with no workforce they turn to modern day slavery.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        24
        ·
        edit-2
        8 months ago

        Oh it’s both. It’s definitely both, the cruelty and the slave labor, which is cruel in and of itself as well.

      • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        8 months ago

        Yeah, when you read the article you see that the parole board has stopped issuing paroles almost entirely in the last couple of years. This is 100% about manufacturing cheap labor and keeping the oligarchy running smoothly.

    • JustMy2c@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      18
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      8 months ago

      It is the most cruel people in the world that hide behind a law book and the pretense of being fair and worse even: past cases.

      But since you first have to study for a decade, then kiss ass for a decade or two before even beginning to qualify for ‘JUDGE’ it is not more as normal you will have lost ALL BONDS WITH REGULAR SOCIETY.

      If you think 15$+tax+tip is fine for a glass of wine with lunch on a daily basis; you are NOTTTTTTT qualified to speak for the benefit of society : in contrary!

      • BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        8 months ago

        Yeah I think you’re mistaking what a Judges role is. It is merely to uphold the law. The problem in the US is that the role is so politicised that the idea they are legal experts rather than representatives of parties is being lost. They should be representative of society to an extent but ultimately the main qualification is legal experience.

        The issue is the law itself and that comes back to the elected politicians in Alabama. It’s a problem of one party rule, and first past the post electoral system plus gerrymandering which means a stagnant political system dominated by one segment of society. The US increasingly looks like a it’s just a large collection of failed democracies.

        You don’t specifically need representative judges. You need electoral reform so you have an actual representative democracy, and everything else comes from that.

        • Pat_Riot@lemmy.today
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          8 months ago

          Judges are “supposed to be” impartial, not representative. That’s one of our many problems. They shouldn’t be conservative or liberal, they should be judges, but people don’t seem to be capable of impartiality, especially ones with any degree of power. Just like men who claim to want to lead really wish to rule. Those who would judge really just want to decide.

        • JustMy2c@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          8 months ago

          The MAKING of the law favors the establishment. I say use the guillotine first, then new laws. Slave master still a slave master now, only the slaves believe they’re free

        • JustMy2c@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          8 months ago

          I’m stating it’s the WRONG ROLE law should NOT be upheld in the same way for poor and rich. For uneducated and the wise.

          IT SHOULD NOT BE THE SAME favoring the poor and weak.

          HOWEVER IT FAVORS THE EXACT OPOSITE.

          • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemmy.cafe
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            8 months ago

            It shouldn’t favor anybody.

            If anything, it goes to show why legal systems are plain and simply bad ideas and why people need to have the ultimate authority to handle business on their own again. That way, at least, it’s fair, for every man is provided for by either victory, ingenuity, or death.

            • vortic@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              8 months ago

              Okay, I’m genuinely curious, can you elaborate on what you’re advocating? What time in human history do you think we should return to? Tribalism?

              I don’t think there has ever been a period of time where there wasn’t some form of social organization. Humans are naturally social and tend to create social groups with rules and enforcement mechanisms. Even if we were to start with a blank slate where there were no governments, companies, tribes, or social groups, humans would quickly recreate them because we have evolved to make use of social structures. We are stronger as a group than individually and groups only survive by having rules and methods of enforcement.

              • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemmy.cafe
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                8 months ago

                You’re not genuinely curious or here in good faith, you’re derisive, vindictive and guilty of every moral failing you’re about to accuse me of having for not thinking the way you do.

                So you do not get the luxury of a debate with me.

                Now I said that legal systems are plain and simply bad ideas, and that sadly is not going to change no matter who does what. It’s just the reality of the situation.

                So move on from this conversation like you would have told me to had I wasted your time arguing with you about it.

                • vortic@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  8 months ago

                  If I came across as derisive, I didn’t mean to. I was genuinely trying to ask what you meant.

                  I don’t know how it is possible for me to be vindictive when I don’t know you. I don’t want revenge against you. You’ve done nothing to me.

                  I wasn’t going to accuse you of any kind of moral failing and am not sure why you took my response as a personal attack on your moral character.

                  You stated that “legal systems are plain and simply bad ideas” and that “people need to have the ultimate authority to handle business on their own again”. That sounds like you are advocating a return to something that existed in the past where people could act autonomously, without regard for the legal system.

                  I am responding that I don’t think that people have ever had the “ultimate authority to handle business on their own” and am wondering if you can give an explanation of what you are suggesting. I’m arguing that, when presented with anarchy, humans will always tend to create social structures and legal systems.

      • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        20
        ·
        8 months ago

        Wtf. If they were growing five hundred plants, 40 years is too much. It’s fucking pot. People get rich selling that shit legally now. Growers should be released.

      • Rooter@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        8 months ago

        Bullshit, reported for spreading false information.

        there is no record of any previous arrests or charges for Leon Bud Hotchkiss in Alabama¹²³. He was a first-time offender when he was convicted of marijuana trafficking in 2013². He has maintained a clean institutional record since then².

        Fucking trump supporters are the worst, you can’t get anything right.

  • SuperDuper@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    110
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    Life sentence for growing some pot. Meanwhile the Jan 6th insurrectionists are getting maybe 2 years, or if you’re a card carrying proud boy terrorist you might be looking at up to 20 years.

    • Jerb322@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      58
      ·
      8 months ago

      Some guy beat someone so bad they need 24hr supervision, and he got 7 years. Cops get of with paid vacation for shooting or running over: dogs, unarmed adults and children, flash bang babies, drunk driving, beating their SO, planting drugs on innocent people. Did I miss anything?

      War on drugs, no, it’s a war on personal freedoms.

      • stoly@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        15
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        8 months ago

        There are actual recordings from the Nixon Whitehouse where they decided that since they could no longer legally discriminate against people based on race, they’d have to find another way and drugs was it.

      • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        12
        ·
        8 months ago

        It’s not even just a war on personal freedoms. It’s a war on anyone the people running the system don’t like. The US has been at war with its own citizens longer than I’ve been alive.

        • stoly@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          8 months ago

          Well since before it was a country. Remember tar and feathering as a form of political discourse?

    • Masterblaster@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      8 months ago

      i guess we should take justice into our own hands instead of waiting for someone else to do the right thing.

            • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              8 months ago

              The Jan 6 people made the one critical mistake that a revolutionary must never make: they failed to win. Every other mistake they made was recoverable, but that one damned them.

              • Masterblaster@kbin.social
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                3
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                8 months ago

                not sure if your comment was meant with sarcasm, but you’re 100% correct. you have to set every other concern aside and understand that you do whatever it takes to win. whatever. it. takes. if you weren’t prepared to do that, you should have never tried in the first place.

                the J6 people were idiots. they thought that there was some magical lever that, if pulled, would grant them their wishes - kinda like some moron sovereign citizen that thinks magic words will get them out of jail or consequences.

                it just doesn’t work like that. you can’t just capture the capitol and think that wins the game. it’s much deeper. the real revolutionaries will fight thousands of unseen battles in clandestine ways using different tools than torches and pitchforks.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    97
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    8 months ago

    Try to overthrow the government- 18 months. Grow plants- life sentence.

    America (for the time being), fuck yeah!

  • appel@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    74
    ·
    8 months ago

    This stuff just makes my blood boil. Those 3 assholes on the parole board are complete sociopaths. There’s absolutely no justice here.

    • kool_newt@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      29
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      8 months ago

      Someday we’ll learn that these types of positions are only ever occupied by sociopaths, psychopaths, sadists, and those full of hate. Then we’ll realize that the institutions they are part of were designed by the same type of people. Then hopefully finally we’ll realize that every state institution was designed by this same group that believes they know the right way for everything and feel entitled to force their ways on everyone else.

    • stoly@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      18
      ·
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      It’s actually a requirement I think.

      In WA during lockdown, they requested compassionate release of someone who was paralyzed on half his body and confined to a chair. The DOC decided that he was a threat to society and needed to be kept in the COVID greenhouse.

  • roguetrick@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    50
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    That law provides several different levels of trafficking, and Hotchkiss was convicted under the lowest level – having between 2.2 lbs and 100lbs. That weight includes all parts of the plant, root and stem and all.

    40 years, jesus fucking CHRIST.

      • stoly@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        8 months ago

        Many–there are people whose lives REALLY suck and they can’t imagine them being better so they want to make others’ lives worse. This is how a significant portion of the population votes.

    • ElleChaise@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      18
      ·
      8 months ago

      An old pot grower’s adage goes something like: if the sentencing minimum is for between 1-99 plants, you might as well grow 99.

      People like Bud serve as the real life example for this kind of saying sadly.

  • scottywh@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    29
    ·
    8 months ago

    Alabama has an incredible climate for growing outdoor Cannabis, too…

    It should literally be everywhere there.

  • BruceTwarzen@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    26
    ·
    8 months ago

    Dude should try to overthrow the government and attack some police officers, he’ll be back home in 2 to 5 years

    • Wrench@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      8 months ago

      Or, you know, you could vote Democrats into a super majority, and we could legally remove all the insanely corrupt politicians and judges, and do things like federally legalize weed and pardon non violent weed convictions.