I AM THE FORCE

Gene Hahn apprently wants to toughen criminal penalties for club drugs, sending kids to prison for up to one year for ecstasy possession. It should come as no surprise, since Republicans have been enhancing penalities and building prisons for decades. It's just all so mindlessly idiotic to keep heading down this path. We're tough on crime and drugs, so we need more recreational drug users to go to prison.

It's embarrassing to support a party that has been so wrong on both corrections and drug policy. We had to position ourselves as the alternative to lenient liberals, and we won elections by passing bogus anti-crime initiatives that have done nothing more than increase criminals and taxes. We can't, and shouldn't, incarcerate everyone who deviates from societal norms. Why does it matter to me if a high school kid chooses to get high, and is willing to take the risk of soft drugs like ecstasy?

Now that we know that hundreds of legislators have engaged in misconduct in public office, isn't it time we show some common sense compassion in how we treat nonviolent recreational drug offenses? Can't we just leave the consequences of partying to parents and local school boards? Protect me from the sex offenders and killers, but imprisoning ravers does absolutely nothing for me.

The tough-on-crime approach has gone too far. There is probably no more than a handful of Republican legislators who haven't authored penalty enhancers like Hahn's. What a proud legacy. Visit some of our overcrowded prisons and jails and tell me why I have to keep paying for all of these people to be locked away. Visit Chuck in the Dane County Huber facility and tell me how much safer we are with these losers off the streets.

State power should not be the Republican answer to all society's ills. Alcohol is bad, so we get prohibition. Drugs are bad, so we lock users away. Drinking and driving can occasionally be dangerous, so we prosecute the harmlessly drunk. Marijuana makes people stupid, so we sick the cops on them. Where does it end, and what are we getting out of this but more cops, more judges, more prisons, and more prisoners?

Consider me radical if you wish, but I think it's far more radical to keep heading down this path. Common sense is not on the side of Eugene Hahn and the tough-on-crime Republicans. Do you really think regular people are content with having to pay this bill? There may have arguably been a day when enhancing penalties was a good idea, but that day, if it existed, is long past.

Please people, show a little common sense and reassess the kneejerk Republican approach on crime. The land of the free could use a major dose of penalty reducers. And Wisconsin's overburdened taxpayers could use a correctional break.