TheAgitator.com
John McCain: We Must Stop Coddling Criminals
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008John McCain gets all 1983 on us with a get-tough-on-crime speech:
Lax enforcement policies, judges who legislate from the bench and lack of support for law enforcement personnel all continue to force our innocent citizens behind the barred windows of their homes and allow criminals to roam free.
And now drugs are bringing waves of crime and organized gang activity to rural areas thought to be nearly immune from such problems. The federal government must both support state and local law enforcement and effectively enforce federal laws designed to root out violent crime, organized gangs and other interstate criminal activity.
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I will appoint judges who will hold criminals accountable.
Huh. You’d never know from such speechifying that a record 1 in 100 Americans is behind bars today, including 400,000 for nonviolent drug crimes. Or that prosecutors win convictions in 90-95 percent of their cases. The “judges are letting criminals off on a technicality” line is a canard.
Unfortunately, Obama is no better on criminal justice policy.
Red Meat. Period.
I wish more judges let people off on “technicalities.” Judges in this county still pretend that Crawford v. Washington never happened so people spend a year in jail waiting for trial (or take ridiculous suspended sentences just to get out of the hellhole that is the Oklahoma County jail).
The people, for what ever reason, eat this stuff up. Neither Obama nor McCain can afford to be seen as “weak” on crime even in the slightest bit or they would get drubbed next week.
I doubt either of them are as “hard line” as their rhetoric.
Prosecutors may win nearly all of their cases, but that’s only because they pick and choose. If prosecutors went after everyone, their records would be terrible and would be shown the door by those “tough on crime” folks.
It’s the executive that’s weak on crime, but they only wish to blame the judicial.
With the amount of people in jail for victimless crime ,it shows how out of touch he is.Maybe,if his drug abusing wife was in prison he’d feel this way.The wars on drugs and D.U.I. are ensnaring far too many innocent people,from drug raids on the wrong house to fraud in BAC machines[Miami and Texas latley} and and police arrests in D.U.I..
I fully expect to make some progress on the drug war with Obama in office. If not, i think he will get far too much heat from the black community, among many other groups. Yeah, it may be wishful thinking. Im allowed to dream. :-|
Getting tough on crime is the reason why they treat everyone like a damn criminal and terrorist. They aren’t getting tough on crime, they’re getting violent towards the innocent.
Good point, #7.
I’m all for getting tough on crime once we have a fair, and sensible definition of crime in this country and an accurate, objective way of figuring out who’s committed one.
Tough on crime = Tough on poor people
claude, progress from Obama is just a dream. I really expect that Obama will be, if anything, more of a drug hawk than McCain. He can’t afford to be seen as pandering and, if it looks like he is changing policy because of ‘heat from the black community’, he is cooked. Moreover, Obama is still a nanny stater at heart. People like to think that the left is better on civil liberties issues, but that’s an anachronistic notion. Whatever tendency in that direction is balanced (if not outweighed) by the tendency to think that wise government bureaucrats should decide what’s good and bad for people and restrict their choices accordingly.
This is a Nixon-going-to-China issue where, even if it seems odd, Republicans can more easily take a moderate stance because they aren’t as worried about being accused of being soft-on-crime, dope-smoking hippies. Not that I see McCain moving in that direction, but if either could do it and get away with it, it would be easier for McCain.
Realistically, neither big candidate has made a case that they will implement reasonable federal drug policy. I think expecting any progress from either of them is unjustified.
Actually a quick Google will turn up that Obama does have at least a SLIGHTLY better record of being willing to examine the drug war. He favors eliminating crack vs. cocaine sentencing disparities, among other things.
And a party that wants to amend the constitution to keep certain citizens from getting married, and to force pregnant citizens to bear children, not to mention the whole Patriot Act thing, is not a party I see expanding anyone’s freedom any time soon.
As if either party gives a damn about protecting freedom.
As for getting criminals off on technicalities, that rarely if ever happens. Hell, its hard enough getting INNOCENT people off on technicalities or otherwise. Ive been in front of judges with rock solid motions that, if granted, would gut the prosecutions case; the judges almost always pass on such motions, since they would rather let the appellate courts take the heat for letting a prosecution go bust.
Its cool though. I like writ work.
Neither of these guys will take the logical approach to stopping drug violence. Taking away the profitability of drugs by systematic legaization = Nothing to fight over. Ofcourse they cant do this because the general public has drank the kool-aid of anti-drug rhetoric. And ofcourse less money for them and their cronies.
Someone in a previous post said “its not a ‘war’ on drugs if both sides arent fighting. Its a slow massacre.” Absolutely.
[...] John McCain: We Must Stop Coddling Criminals John McCain gets all 1983 on us with a get-tough-on-crime speech:. Lax enforcement policies, judges who legislate from the bench and lack of support for law enforcement personnel all continue to force our innocent citizens behind the … [...]