> Another reason to decriminalize drugs in favor of self-help programs.
Decriminalizing drugs may change which crimes are available to use to frame members of a disfavored group, but it is unlikely to change whether bigots in power seek to frame members of their disfavored groups for crimes.
While I agree with this statement - I would like to point out that drug possession is particularly easy to frame someone for, and it has a high payout (that is, long and severe punishment, easy to re-frame someone, etc) compared to other crimes. Making drugs legal would put a huge dent in a lot of problems.
Um, if it wasn't drugs it'd be something else. Stolen firearms, maybe? This is a racist domestic terror group using their position of power to target a minority.
Please don't shift the focus of this to some other vaguely related issue. The important part: a racist cabal formed a conspiracy to put young black men in jail. Because they hate them.
It's not "vaguely related" - drug laws are, simply put, the current form of jim crow.
Drug laws were made for this purpose, and openly so.
And it's ludicrous to say that "if it wasn't for drugs it'd be something else." So then abolish all criminal laws which prohibit common, consensual, adult behavior. But drug laws are the whale here, not anything else.
> And it's ludicrous to say that "if it wasn't for drugs it'd be something else."
When you've a police force that's planting evidence on marks, that knows about the planted evidence and chooses to cover it up, that has a DA that knows about the planted evidence and chooses to prosecute these cases anyway, and a system that chooses to promote those involved in the conspiracy to high office, then yes... if it wasn't drugs being planted, it's very, very, very likely that it would be almost anything else.
You can't have "something else" unless there are "crimes" which don't require victims. That's the only reason that planting evidence is even possible in most cases.
Well, I guess if you're hell bent on erasing the victims of this horrible conspiracy so as to make an argument for greater latitude in recreational pharmaceutical use... Congratulations.
This is like "all lives matter." The idea that black people were victimized because there exists a crime to pin to them seems to me like you're changing the subject away from the humans whose lives are stolen by long term prison time, or from the terrifying treason against the American people this agency committed.
The "war on drugs" is, and was created precisely to be, a way to legally oppress people of color, especially black, latino, and Chinese people.
And it's not just this iteration of the "war on drugs." Prohibition generally, as a policy, has throughout history been first and foremost a tool to legally oppress people who have managed to win a modicum of legal protection otherwise.
You are the one diverting the argument by talking about "greater latitude in recreational pharmaceutical use," which, again in concert with every instance of prohibition throughout history, has not been interrupted by this policy and was never the impetus for its imposition to begin with.
I absolutely agree the "war on drugs" and racial bias in enforcement disproportionately hurts people of color. No one disagrees with that in this conversation.
What we disagree with is your decision to blame the law in this specific case rather than a racist conspiracy.
The reason your actions are scary here is that they follow a pattern of dehumanizing the crime and divorcing the responsibility for said disgusting actions from the people who did them (people who deserve life in prison many times over) and instead saying it is the law itself that did this. I mentioned "all lives matter" intentionally. You're following a very similar pattern here, but ignoring the perpetrators instead of the victims.
People did this. Cops and judges. They were not following a racist law.
Prohibition is a racist law. It is designed to strengthen the institution of racism. It was openly created for this purpose. It seems that you are trying to act like this isn't the case.
> ignoring the perpetrators instead of the victims.
The perpetrators include not only those who participated in these acts in Alabama, but also those who conspired to pretextually pass these laws in the first place.
If you prosecute everyone who participated in this crime, which I hope will happen but almost surely will not, and secure a just verdict in every single case, which I hope will happen but almost surely will not, but you fail to repeal prohibition entirely, you won't have made much progress against racism.
They aren't two different things; prohibition (and its material form, the prison state) is the same thing as racism.
> The perpetrators include not only those who participated in these acts in Alabama, but also those who conspired to pretextually pass these laws in the first place.
Which law specifically legalizes planting evidence on people and then covering up evidence of it?
> They aren't two different things; prohibition (and its material form, the prison state) is the same thing as racism.
No. Prohibition is part of what racism is in the west, but it is not the "same thing." There are many forms of racism people struggle with every day that don't have anything to do with prohibition.
As far as I can tell, you're appropriating this argument to turn an important chance to remind people how brutalized black people are in America and turn it into a conversation about drug use and enforcement. I find this reprehensible and racist in and of itself, and I will no longer entertain a conversation with you.
> how brutalized black people are in America and turn it into a conversation about drug use and enforcement.
So, you keep making this mistake. I didn't change the topic; supporters of prohibition did when they argued for its passage.
You keep acting like prohibition is about "drug use" - it's not. It is about racial oppression, plain and simple.
Be reminded that "drug use" is almost completely legal. Of the tens of thousands of drugs in the contemporary pharmacopoeia, just a few are prohibited. These were selected specifically (and openly) because of their traditional use among non-white people.
Everybody uses drugs. Out of everybody, only poor people, and overwhelmingly poor people of color, suffer the effects of prohibition.
In fact, it's only recently (in the past 30 or so years) that prohibition (the "war on drugs") has even had a pretense of being race-neutral. From 1914 until ~1970, drug laws were open discussed as a way to perform racial oppression.
> "There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., 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."
> “Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men."
These are things that our current prohibition's earliest champion, Harry Anslinger, appears to have said whilst holding national office as the chief of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics.
So again: prohibition is not currently, and has never been, about drug use. It is a policy enacted in a spirit of racism, with a racist intent, and per its design, continues the institution of racism. It has no other goal.
No matter what other policy change may come to this land, if prohibition continues, racism will not have been defeated.
> That's the only reason that planting evidence is even possible in most cases.
Are you honestly saying that -given everything we probably know about this case and the extent to which people in power were involved and actively worked to support it, cover it up, and promote those involved to even higher positions of power- fabrication of complaints and testimony would be impossible?
Fabrication of complaints and testimony is, of course, possible, but it's not the same thing, nor is it in the same category of ease for a corrupt state official, as merely planting evidence.
The main benefit of prohibition, from the standpoint of the state, is that planting evidence against anybody is suddenly possible, and in fact in many communities the evidence is already planted.
In this particular case, we happen to have evidence of the former, but it is not evidence that fabrication of complaints and testimony, which require a far more elaborate corruption superstructure, are possible in this community.
Officials shut down a police IA investigation into the years-long scheme. The folks who were complicit in this scheme SHUT DOWN an active investigation into the scheme.
Why on earth do you think that fabrication of (or paid production of) testimony wouldn't be possible?
An internal investigation was shut down by those involved in the conspiracy!
I'm not saying that fabrication of testimony isn't possible - I fully acknowledge that perjurious conduct occurred in this very case!
What I'm saying is that fabrication of testimony and planting of evidence aren't the same thing.
You aren't going to be oppress an entire class ( / race) of people by producing "victim" after "victim" whose basis is perjurious. Some, sure. Especially when the stakes are high and the state needs a solid lie.
But in order to have this assembly line of false convictions, you absolutely need a victimless crime.
> What I'm saying is that fabrication of testimony and planting of evidence aren't the same thing.
Correct. Planting of evidence is more difficult and more unlikely than fabrication of testimony.
Fabrication of testimony is lying about the facts of a matter.
Planting of evidence is lying about the facts of a matter in addition to leaving physical traces that corroborate your lies.
> But in order to have this assembly line of false convictions, you absolutely need a victimless crime.
Negatory.
This crime has been ongoing since at least 1996.
The article mentions "hundreds" of cases. Let's say that that's 500 cases, which works out to ~2.1 cases per month. I wouldn't call that an "assembly line" of cases.
Dothan has -roughly- 60k people in it. Over ~twenty years, this conspiracy touched less than 1% of the area's population... and -to be frank- it's a segment of the population that is not well-liked by a lot of the folks in the area. Few locals would bat an eye if "Them $RACIAL_SLURs done hit Jim-Joe's Gun Shop again.". [0]
The article states that the police department called the DA's office in order to get the DA's office to actively block the IA investigation. I see no reason why the office wouldn't also fail to question periodic rashes of burglary against a few suspiciously unlucky business owners.
As has been demonstrated, all you need to run this scheme is a few corruptable (or corrupted) people in key positions and a pool of people who are too poor to raise a competent defense.
Alabama has both... in quantity.
[0] Citation: I grew up in the sticks in Alabama. There are lots of good people, but there are lots of terrible people, too. And, yes, there are many folks with names (or nyms) like Billy-Bob and Jim-Joe. :)
Where I'm a little lost is how you project this into a future where drug prohibition (and other consensual "crime") doesn't exist.
So, sure, you have a few gnarly guys who will perjur themselves for you - but what do you accuse people of? What is the crime that replaces drug possession?
Without victims, you can't really make this work...?
> What is the crime that replaces drug possession?
Theft.
(As I've explicitly mentioned at least once. :) )
Other possibilities: False statements to authorities. Possession of a (loaded or unloaded) pistol in the cab of your vehicle, without possession of a pistol permit. Trespass. Assault. Traffic violations. (And then arrest for failure to appear for the same, or jail for failure to be able to pay the fines for the same.) Parole violations. (Here's where evidence planting gets you back to the quick path to jail time.)
You've gotta understand. The criminals who were running this scheme were dedicated. There are a wide variety of crimes that could be used for a relatively quick frame-up.
When you know that the DA isn't gonna closely examine your case, you know that IA isn't going to expose your scheme, and you're fairly certain that the folks you're targeting can't mount an effective defense, you get to do all sorts of things that reasonable people would expect to be impossible.
What will this person have stolen? To whom will it belong? Someone will have to claim to be the victim.
I guess still, we're talking past each other.
We need to repeal laws against every one of those offenses except assault and theft (which will require a victim to come forward, again returning to my initial question).
My assertion (and one that I think it quite clearly backed up by the evidence in history on the matter) is that these victimless crimes are created precisely to target (typically racial) groups.
I don't view the unethical law and the racist enforcement as two different things, but as parts of the same motion.
> What will this person have stolen? To whom will it belong? Someone will have to claim to be the victim.
Property from a collection of property owners who -just like much of the Dothan police department and parts of the DA's office and who knows who else- believe in the ongoing quest to target, harass, and jail a disfavored group of people?
I mean, have you personally known a rabid dyed-in-the-wool racist? I've known many. Several of whom would -if they had the means- jump at the chance to participate in such a scheme.
> We need to repeal laws against every one of those offenses...
We need to repeal laws that make illegal and/or unsafe possession of a firearm, trespassing, parole violations, and traffic violations illegal because... such laws could be used to disproportionately target a particular class of people?!
That's definitely throwing the baby out along with the bathwater.
Look. Your continued assertion that the biggest problem here is nuts-as-shit drug laws, and this would have never had happened if it wasn't for them is (deliberately?) obscuring the real problem.
What's the real problem?
* For roughly twenty years, evil people in positions of power successfully harassed, jailed, and -effectively- stole money and property from targeted members of a disfavored class of people.
* These evil people occupied positions of power in both the police force and the judicial system.
These evil people used their influence and power to:
* Quash objections to their ongoing conspiracy.
* Terminate an official police investigation into their conspiracy -long after it turned up hard evidence regarding the nature and scope of the conspiracy-
* Promote those who furthered the goals of the conspiracy to higher office (including State Director of Homeland Security!)
* Demote or remove from positions of power those who attempted to dismantle or shut down the conspiracy
I get that you don't like drug laws in this country.
There's a much bigger and much more important story here.
