Mandatory Minimum Sentences, War Crimes, and stephen harper

First of all, I've made a lot of hay about "the Rule of Law" with regards to stephen harper's war crimes in Afghanistan. I think I've also been careful to point out that I regard some crimes as worse than others, and that there's actually some leeway in law enforcement that's possible without smashing the rule of law to itty-bitty pieces.

For instance, smoking a joint, taking bribes and turning people over to be tortured, are all against the law.

The first crime in that sentence is a victimless crime and is the result of a stupid law. Taking bribes is serious, and tolerating it encourages systemic corruption. It degrades democracy. But the last action is despicable. It destroys lives. It is inexcusable. Any society that tolerates complicity in torture, that allows politicians to destroy people's lives, cannot lay claim to describe itself as moral, noble, or anything.

With lesser crimes I'm all for exercising discretion. Police use discretion all the time. They tell the teenager with the joint to throw it down the sewer and let them off with a warning. Judges have discretion. They can decide that a guilty person is genuinely remorseful, or that they do not constitute a threat to the general public, or that something was their first offence and that the individual is not likely to re-offend, and they can give lighter sentences to some people and not others.

stephen harper though, is an idiot. He believes that aping the failed so-called "law and order" policies of the USA is the way to deal with the Canadian crime wave that exists only within the heads of "conservative" idiots like himself. And so stephen harper wishes to take away judges' discretion and impose mandatory minimum sentences. (This will help congest our prisons, which will make it easier to argue that private prisons are needed to handle the overflow. As well, harsher "law and order" policies will make it easier to bully the poor and other victims and critics of his government's policies.)

Obviously, stephen harper and his government are guilty of war crimes. Unlike minor drug offenders though, stephen harper has some ability to withhold evidence and perhaps escape justice. We were getting close to exposing harper's criminality which is why the gutless fuck-head prorogued parliament. This chicanery has likely only saved him temporarily. It seems certain that he will be exposed and then we as a society are going to have to figure out what to do with him. Carelessly arresting people and callously turning them over to a government infamous for abusing human rights isn't something we can pretend never happened.

In this instance, the law must prevail. And we must decide on the mandatory minimum sentence harper (and company) will face. And harper, if he has any intellectual consistency, must submit to this mandatory minimum. And that will be that.