You countered about plea deals being coercive because the plea deal is generally much lower than the maximum or even average sentence of people who go on to be found guilty and ultimately sentenced after a trial on the merits.

I then countered that people who ultimately "become subject" are generally guilty and therefore the coerciveness, if you accept it as such, doesn't really matter.

I'll concede two things: 1. "become subject" is doing a lot of work there. What I meant is people who the state ultimately chooses to prosecute. There are plenty of people who are arrested and ultimately not charged for various reasons. So my assertion is really that if the state ultimately chooses to proceed with prosecuting someone, they have some evidence that a crime has happened and that you are connected to it in some way that implies some degree of culpability. 2. My definition of "the system" is just the adversarial trial of evidence in front of an adjudicator. I would not include the laws or legislative system in that, although it is obviously related and we both hate that.

So my whole point is really to say that because of overbroad laws, it really is more likely than not that a prosecutor can find a law for which there is evidence that you are guilty of breaking it. Hence, plea deals existing or not, you would have been found guilty in court, and therefore my assertion from personal experience is that most people who the state ultimately chooses to prosecute are guilty and plea deals are not the terrible coercive force on innocent people you claim it is.

The reality is that most people who become subject to criminal prosecution are guilty. The reason can often be attributed to overbroad laws, but that still means you are guilty and will likely lose your criminal case. The prevalence of plea deals is just a performance optimization on top of that fact - most people are guilty at that stage and we'll let you off a little easier if you avoid the time and cost of a trial.

Innocent people are coerced to plead guilty, but you also have to realize the number of "innocent people pleading guilty" also contains guilty people who convinced lay people, who never saw or reviewed the evidence, they were innocent. As a prosecutor during a plea negotiation I once almost dismissed a charge against a girl who convinced me that she was innocent until I actually looked a security tape before signing the dismissal. She was 100% guilty. This is another interesting point about how busy prosecutors are - i didnt even bother to review the evidence against her before offering her a plea deal.

All this to say, if you end up coerced into accepting a plea deal despite your innocence, you are not a normal person. Yes, there's at least one normal person out there who was coerced, but they're the exception that proves the rule.

Courts need more funding, laws need to be relaxed and fine tuned, we need to stop the school to prison pipeline, but even with all those problems the system works pretty damn well.

> We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

So as individuals we choose to fly the flag a lot.

But these words belie the fact that stare decisis is largely a social construct for the judiciary. The right case and (very) persuasive argument could and does overcome precedent of any level in any court. It's just a matter of framing this case as "different" enough in a way that your reviewers (whether a higher court or a political concern) will agree with.

In this way, people could act as backups for one another with plausible deniability of what's being stored.

The approach I take is that every law should expire after a standard, unchangeable time - probably several terms of Congress, say 6 years to account for one full Senate turnover.

Congress can just repass verbatim old laws if they wish - its already written and can be a simple, fast vote. Or we can have debate over outdated provisions like we should have.

There must be a word for this style of post where you take your own inadequacies and fears and project them on to others?

This is regional within the US and obviously differs by person even then. Just remember that the people you are talking to may be the kind of people that need articles like the above to teach them how to talk to people. Their defenses go up when someone approaches them and while they are well practiced at appearing relaxed, they are not. Conversations are short because its emotionally difficult to stay in a heightened awareness state while someone is trying to pull you out of it. But you can certainly provide offramps

Still not a great rendition of this thought, but closer.

Nobody cares about emoji except the poor folks who have to login to it everyday, and it makes their lives a smidgen better. Lets chill on the criticism of emojis.