08-11-2011, 01:05 PM
(08-11-2011, 10:00 AM)kandrathe Wrote: That is worse. Unenforced law is the path to arbitrary justice.
• A 12-year old girl arrested and handcuffed for eating one French fry on the Washington subway system.
• A cancer-ridden grandmother arrested and criminally charged for refusing to trim her hedges the way officials in Palo Alto, Calif., were trying to force her to.
• A former high-school science whiz kid sent to prison after initially being arrested by FBI agents clad in SWAT gear for failing to affix a federally mandated sticker to his otherwise legal UPS package.
• A 67-year-old grandfather imprisoned because some of the paperwork for his home-based orchid business did not satisfy an international treaty.
• A Port St. Lucie resident faces one count of criminal mischief, a second-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to 60 days in jail, for writing "Color fades and so does hatred" on the sidewalk with sidewalk chalk.
Arbitrary justice makes everyone a criminal, and the State can selectively enforce its power at will.
If arbitrary justice makes everyone a criminal, then anecdotes ("anecdata") make every proposition a truth. There is plenty of abuse of power on the part of the government, but a handful of exceptional cases that make the news indicates nothing more than the trivial "Noteworthy events will be noted."
-Jester