OK, Free Willie, But Free The Rest Of Them Too

It is amazing how many clamor for the release of some famous individual when they get popped for violating a stupid law while doing something negligent. Maybe some of those people should be making noise all the time for others breaking the same ridiculous laws. Many of the not-so-privileged have families who suffer, and our resources are much more strained by spending money to imprison the "offenders" and provide social benefits for the surrounding casualties.

Regarding Willie Nelson: First of all, it's not the smartest thing to go through the checkpoint at Sierra Blanca holding. Most would not cross the border with drugs, and this is about the same thing. This is not to justify the repressive action of having a police checkpoint on the road, but if you know it's there, you are pretty much asking for it if you are going to carry with you one of the main things they are looking for. Of course, if you are doing it to protest, get some mileage out of it, and speak courageously about your action. That doesn't seem to be happening in this case.

Many of us have no love for laws against substances. But the rich should not get special privileges.

The point here is not to rag on Willie, but to call attention to the many others who are less fortunate who don't have the resources to hire a good lawyer after getting caught for some ridiculous possession. Also, possession laws are perfect for a society that is looking to become more and more authoritarian, because they require no component of intent. Such laws makes it easy to plant illegal objects on people, and convict them on circumstantial evidence that is indistinguishable from direct evidence in the eyes of many onlookers. Nobody deserves that. And possession laws also can lead to potential corruption due to authorities stealing the valuable contraband...how much of it never makes it back to the evidence room? It's often impossible to say.

So if you're going to make noise about freeing Willie, please don't stop making that noise until all in similar positions with not as many resources are free too. Because Willie will be free; indeed, he probably already is. He even made it out from under the highly oppressive IRS debacle relatively intact (OK, he's probably got some wounds from that, and who would wish that on anyone, but on the whole, he's in good shape due to being able to marshal a heck of a lotta resources). Can the same be said about your average working-class pot criminal?