The polls are opening up for early voting in the primaries. The Republicans and Democrats are joining together in their ritual of jumping up and down to shout who-can-be-"Toughest On Crime"-to-"Save the Children" most loudly.
It is the death rattle of civilization. (Read the Ancient Rome piece in the Reading Room; Empires always try to crucify their way out of decline.) Collective action in response to violence or fraud is an appropriate, adult, and inescapable consequence of the world in which we live. Without it, we would be prey. It is the responsibility of adults in a free Nation. State violence, on the other hand, to merely sustain the privileges of rentiers is a sign that a society has passed its apex, and faces a choice to renew or wither.
The galleries in every courtroom in which I practice are filled with brown-skin, tattoos, and worn work-clothes, that is when they aren't already stripped of their dignity and wearing prison garb. The benches are filled with white, stylishly dressed (for the most part) Baby Boomers, charging these people for the 'privilege' of living in 'their' communities, abetted by uniformed soldiers and Political Party-Favors.
We have to get back to knowing what a real crime is. Then we have to become, (in Utah County, apparently,) much, much more competent at prosecuting it.
Look into it for yourself.
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