After the 1860s the Republican Party rose to power as the party who freed the slaves and (to a lesser extent) supported reconstruction.
Later, both parties had a lot more centrists and it was a time of great social progress around the world after the fall of right-wing fascist Nazi Germany in 1946, but there were also fears about the USSR and the Cold War becoming hot.
During the Civil Rights Movement which sought equal rights for its citizens and protections for segregated racial minorities to live and work freely a bipartisan bill (mostly Republicans of the time) passed congress called the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and later the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and to a lesser extent the Food Stamps program and several other welfare bills, but credit for it was mostly given to then Democrat President Lyndon B. Johnson aka “El Big Johnson”.
There were a lot of reasons for this, perhaps racist conservatives are just easily misinformed or perhaps Republicans thought to muddy the waters of the discourse of their opponents, but more civil rights activists started to shift to the Democrats side. Still, it was a time of little polarization and great centrism until over time political polarization made politicians vote along party lines more and more every year. You could still see widespread examples of Republicans being pro-union in the 70s and 80s, and Democrats still supporting bad crime bills into the early 2000s.
Ronald Reagan being the man to gut regulations and cut taxes for corporations from under 90% to under 20% was a huge instigator of the Republican Party’s shift towards conservatism.
So thats why Republicans then supported nearly opposite stances from Republicans now. Both Sides voting base hardly shifted at all, it’s just the banner they chose did.
It’s wirth noting that the majority of social indicators gave the impression that the “bad” crime bills of the 1990s were very effective and it’s only later that we realize the actual causes of the decline in crime were the legalization of abortion (USA only) and the removal of lead from paint/gasoline.
In other words were you alive at the time and not involved directly in social sciences you likely would have supported those same bills.
Yes and, for a very specific example, Joseph Biden went before congress in 2010 and 2011 to give a speech asking for congress to completely remove the Crack to Powder sentencing disparity that disproportionately effected African Americans, which he wrote in 1995, citing that expert opinions led him to the inaccurate conclusion that crack was more dangerous. The reason I bring this up is because clearly not every action was done out of hate or malice but simply because politicians can be less informed and lack scientific literacy.
Still, very saddening that the results of these actions have empowered a private prison system that bleeds this nation like vampires.
Yup, many people believed crack was much worse than cocaine. No one could ever answer my question “When making crack do I end up with a greater mass of crack than the mass of the cocaine I started with or do you get less?”. I always wondered this as I suspect 1 lb of coke makes more than 1 lb of crack so the penalty never made sense
When made into crack it should be a higher mass since you end up with salt residue from the process. The common use of sodium bicarbonate with coke, yields Coc-H+Cl− + NaHCO3 → Coc + H2O + CO2 + NaCl, where H2O and CO2 are removed by the heating process but NaCl remains, so effectively gaining Na ion. So for every gram of coke processed into crack you gain ~0.076 grams of sodium.
To clarify what happened for the unawares:
After the 1860s the Republican Party rose to power as the party who freed the slaves and (to a lesser extent) supported reconstruction.
Later, both parties had a lot more centrists and it was a time of great social progress around the world after the fall of right-wing fascist Nazi Germany in 1946, but there were also fears about the USSR and the Cold War becoming hot.
During the Civil Rights Movement which sought equal rights for its citizens and protections for segregated racial minorities to live and work freely a bipartisan bill (mostly Republicans of the time) passed congress called the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and later the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and to a lesser extent the Food Stamps program and several other welfare bills, but credit for it was mostly given to then Democrat President Lyndon B. Johnson aka “El Big Johnson”.
There were a lot of reasons for this, perhaps racist conservatives are just easily misinformed or perhaps Republicans thought to muddy the waters of the discourse of their opponents, but more civil rights activists started to shift to the Democrats side. Still, it was a time of little polarization and great centrism until over time political polarization made politicians vote along party lines more and more every year. You could still see widespread examples of Republicans being pro-union in the 70s and 80s, and Democrats still supporting bad crime bills into the early 2000s.
Ronald Reagan being the man to gut regulations and cut taxes for corporations from under 90% to under 20% was a huge instigator of the Republican Party’s shift towards conservatism.
So thats why Republicans then supported nearly opposite stances from Republicans now. Both Sides voting base hardly shifted at all, it’s just the banner they chose did.
It’s wirth noting that the majority of social indicators gave the impression that the “bad” crime bills of the 1990s were very effective and it’s only later that we realize the actual causes of the decline in crime were the legalization of abortion (USA only) and the removal of lead from paint/gasoline. In other words were you alive at the time and not involved directly in social sciences you likely would have supported those same bills.
Yes and, for a very specific example, Joseph Biden went before congress in 2010 and 2011 to give a speech asking for congress to completely remove the Crack to Powder sentencing disparity that disproportionately effected African Americans, which he wrote in 1995, citing that expert opinions led him to the inaccurate conclusion that crack was more dangerous. The reason I bring this up is because clearly not every action was done out of hate or malice but simply because politicians can be less informed and lack scientific literacy.
Still, very saddening that the results of these actions have empowered a private prison system that bleeds this nation like vampires.
Yup, many people believed crack was much worse than cocaine. No one could ever answer my question “When making crack do I end up with a greater mass of crack than the mass of the cocaine I started with or do you get less?”. I always wondered this as I suspect 1 lb of coke makes more than 1 lb of crack so the penalty never made sense
When made into crack it should be a higher mass since you end up with salt residue from the process. The common use of sodium bicarbonate with coke, yields Coc-H+Cl− + NaHCO3 → Coc + H2O + CO2 + NaCl, where H2O and CO2 are removed by the heating process but NaCl remains, so effectively gaining Na ion. So for every gram of coke processed into crack you gain ~0.076 grams of sodium.
Thank you so if you end up with more crack than the quantity if coke you started with the only reason for that law is racism.
By mass, crack is shitloads cheaper than coke. You do the math. :)
The point is if I can turn a lb of coke into more than an lb of crack than why does crack carry greater punishment per kg?
Because white people do coke and black people do crack. At least it used to be that way. It’s racism all the way down.