Why don't we forget about illegalizing specific substances and simply only allow those that our betters deem fit for us. Let's stop pretending there is such a thing as the 4th amendment and just let the constabulary rifle society at its whims, like it does now anyway. We could have them flashing, blocking traffic, tasing, insulting and threatening even more often than they do for our own good presently. Everytime a new gadget or unreadily recognizable object was found they could act ever more outraged and agressive. Innocent mothers on the way home to prepare dinner would find how little their status is valued, much like things are now, in the police state Slate, Democrats and most of all Republicans clamor for in their hate for humanity.

What's the use meeting the deranged standards required of the jackbooted, uniformed thuggery if you can't do harm to anyone you please? We should always maintain a pretense of "individual rights" that way authorities are never forced to face the fact of their violent criminality. This way nobody gets too smug or comfortable. A subliterate misanthrope can ruin anyone's life without warning and the media will call them heroes, no matter what depths of cowardice they stoop to.

Yeah, I want to live the way they do in Saudi Arabia. They have Fashion Police that take care of inappropriately dressed people. We can have Food Police that take care of people who inappropriately feed themselves. They can be stationed at WalMart, forcing people to buy veggies and arresting parents who buy their kids candy bars. Is this a great country or what?????

While I understand the libertarian streak in you that undermines your comments, I think your feelings on this matter are very exagerrated to the point where you are essentially making up a reality that doesn't exist so that you can attack it. Kind of like a straw-man argument.

Trust me on this, the law enforcement in the US is alot more just, and well-regulated than most people give them credit for. There are issues here and there, but for the most part the pendulum is swung too far the other way... law enforcement should be given more leeway to do their jobs, not less. If you have spent any significant amount of time in a crime ridden area just to see blatant crimes be constantly ignored, and criminals be re-released over and over you would change your mind about how authoritarian the US is.

FILO,

I disagree. I think the US is VERY authoritarian. For example, it has the highest incarceration rate in the world--and over half is for non-violent crimes (as I recall, the US is the only major country that sends people to prison for evading taxes, for example).

"Crime ridden" areas seem to exist not for a lack of authoritarianism, but for the FOCUS of authoritarianism on handing out speeding tickets or busting people for the personal use of drugs (or, in having HIGH-LEVEL, major-personnel investigation and surveillance of a guy like Spitzer--who was just trying to get laid).

Harry Anslinger's kid brother? Every single prosecution that gets post trial examination in this country exhibits some kind of misconduct. Straw man hmmn, you mean straw men like Sal Culosi? Or perhaps you prefer Abner Louima? For every one of like cases we know of there are scores of others. This is to say nothing of other abuses like arrest for challenging deranged egomania. And not to mention the outrage of putting people in jail for marijuana and similar "crimes". The police are a threat, nothing more than an overfunded motorcycle gang with a license to cover up its own criminal activity; which is quite extensive. Those who wrote the constitution never dreamed of the in your face, on every corner dragoons in the US. At that time this kind of "enforcement" excess was unknown then in the most despotic regimes in Europe. People in favor of such intrusions are traitors to a man.