Are they now? Tell me, which political party is planning on decriminalizing drug offenses?
In fact, if attitudes are changing fast enough, you'd expect political parties to be notably behind the curve.
That's bullshit.
Attitudes regarding whether people should be jailed for substance abuse, and whether people are permanently morally tarnished for same, are loosening over time in the same way that gay rights, etc, have.
Just because it isn't the dem's top campaign promise doesn't mean it isn't making progress.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/08/01/cory-...
Correct me if I'm wrong but the bill you mentioned only seems to deal with marijuana, which I don't think is how most people get drug felonies.
So... I don't believe that "these attitudes are changing quickly."
1 - https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-pu... (top of page 9)
We aren't "making progress" when 90% of people surveyed want to physically put me in a cage for years for having a few hits of LSD in my pocket, or for selling steroids to gym buddies.
Suggesting the Democrat party wants to decriminalize drugs and drug offenses isn’t entirely accurate. Some people in both parties would like to see that happen.
States with vast Democrat majorities haven’t decriminalized drug offenses. Some states have to some degree, but you have to ask, when Democrats has the White House, House and Senate, they could have acted, but didn’t – even when they had a super-majority.
My point isn’t that Republicans are better, but the Democrat Party has had chances, but they failed to act, so the parent comment is correct – no party is actually doing anything when given the chance – just a few isolated people.
You'd be surprised. Lots of weed? Cash? Baggies? Scale? Intent. Felony. Civil forfeiture (State of California v. A bag of $25,000 in cash). Go directly to Chino. Do not pass go.
It's usually the intent to distribute that ends people, and that does happen a lot with marijuana. Simple possession is easier to wiggle out of these days, depending on where you are and if it isn't much. Over a half ounce of marijuana in Virginia used to be a few years in prison (not sure if it still is). I'm carrying over a half ounce on my person right now and it'd be fine. Jurisdiction sucks.
[1]: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-m-granholm/debunking-...
America is a country that enjoys persecuting people. Even better if they "deserve" it. A country once built on second, third, fourth chances, has now dedicated itself to the proposition that the tiniest mistake should destroy your entire life.
I am pleased to see that sometimes, we take a micro-step back the other direction. But I have seen no indication that the swing will ever go the other way. How could it? What lawmaker would ever advocate being softer on crime? What company would encourage what is "illegal"? And when the entire conversation is controlled by those who will never encourage those points of view because it would be unpopular, your average American will never have the conversation on any other terms either.
If your goal is to signal that you despise that party, then by all means keep using it here, but it seems closer to the kind of substantive discourse that HN encourages to avoid it.
To me the -an suffix on Republican seems to suggest the word is about a person where as the word Democratic seems like it is an adjective so Democrat in my mind just gives it a more personified feel.
Conservatives may use Democrat derogatorily but it's still a useful term and in my opinion shouldn't be banned outright from discourse. Maybe I'm missing the context you were speaking of though.
IMO it's an important point that needs to be better understood. I wrote about it recently at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14917723 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14912821 if anyone's interested.
