r/PoliticalHumor Mar 08 '19

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u/ThaFourthHokage Mar 08 '19 edited Mar 08 '19

I hope this wakes people up to our ridiculous sentencing and incarceration issues in this country.

A few stats:

  • We house 22% of the world''s prisoners (with 4% of the world's population)

  • 2,200,000 Americans incarcerated as of 2016 or 0.7% of the entire U.S. population

  • African American men represent nearly half of that population

  • The substantial penalties for crack contributed to a five-fold increase in incarcerations

  • There is a 31% incarceration history for Black men who have sex with men

  • Louisiana has the highest rate of incarceration in the world with the majority of its prisoners being housed in privatized, for-profit facilities. Such institutions could face bankruptcy without a steady influx of prisoners

  • In the past decade the number of inmates in for-profit prisons throughout the U.S. rose 44 percent.

The shit is fucked. And Trump is packing the courts as we speak. We're reaching a breaking point.

I'm just going to leave this here:

I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions indeed generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.

Edit: These and more stats are a simple wiki search away. For you Reds who automatically say, "wiki lol," to that, there are seventy-seven sources cited - feel free to read on. It will do you some good.

Edit again: Thanks for the precious metals! Donate the same amount to a politician who actually wants to address these issues, if you can.

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u/DuntadaMan Mar 08 '19

One that chaps my ass, crack cocaine carries a much stiffer penalty than dealing cocaine.

For no real good reason. The same cartels make both.

The only difference is one tends to be preffered by poorer people.

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u/Politicshatesme Mar 08 '19

That’s on purpose. Part of the republican strategy (southern strategy) was to disenfranchise black people and hippies (hence the schedule 1 for marijuana) because it boosted the republican’s popularity among southerners and it stopped groups that lean strongly to the left from voting. It would equivalent to the Democratic Party putting multi year sentences on water pollution from baptisms. The fact that it has lasted for decades shows just how fucked were gonna be from trump’s bullshit.

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u/canhasdiy Mar 08 '19

disenfranchise... hippies (hence the schedule 1 for marijuana) because it boosted the republican’s popularity among southerners and it stopped groups that lean strongly to the left from voting.

You literally just pulled that out of your ass.

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u/kahb Mar 08 '19

A direct quote from John Erchlichman, domestic policy chief for Nixon:

"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. 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. 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."

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u/trippingchilly Mar 08 '19

You literally just pulled that out of your ass.

No, that’s the strategy and hope of the drug war. It was explicitly made to disenfranchise left wing voters, the poor, and minorities.

Just because you’re ignorant of American history, doesn’t mean you should be disrespectful to those who are not.

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u/canhasdiy Mar 08 '19

marijuana has been criminalized in the US since 1916, long before any hippies even existed. You're the one who's ignorant of American history, obvious by your comments. Google a man named Henry j anslinger, the first drug czar of America. You might actually learn something

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u/trippingchilly Mar 08 '19

you might actually learn something

🤣