"Unfortunately that's about the only resource I can think of when it comes to drug legalization/decriminalization in an actual real world environment."
Marijuana is effectively legal in the Netherlands. (Technically illegal, but "tolerated")
"The parallel construction wouldn't work if the suspects were not actually committing crimes."
See "Three Felonies a Day"[1]
Also, note the following quote from the original article:
"most drug-trafficking defendants plead guilty before trial"
In fact, something like 90% or more of people accused of crimes in the US never get a trial, because they plead guilty. They plead guilty because prosecutors pile on so many charges that the defendants are afraid to risk life in jail if they happen to lose (in a judicial system that's usually stacked against them). Defending a case in Federal court is also incredibly expensive and traumatic. See the Aaron Swartz case for good examples of all of the above.
First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.
"Information wants to be free. Information also wants to be expensive. Information wants to be free because it has become so cheap to
distribute, copy, and recombine – too cheap to meter. It wants to be expensive because it can be immeasurably valuable to the recipient.
That tension will not go away. It leads to endless wrenching debate about price, copyright, 'intellectual property', the moral rightness
of casual distribution, because each round of new devices makes the tension worse, not better."
-- Stewart Brand [1] - spoken at the first Hackers' Conference, and reprinted in the May 1985 Whole Earth Review. The quotation is an elaboration from his book,
The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at MIT, published in 1987.
Unfortunately, it's a much more systemic problem than can be solved by ousting a politician here or there.
I encourage everyone who cares about this to get politically involved at a level beyond merely voting for congress critters now and then.
There's a lot that you can do, from joining and supporting organizations like the EFF and the ACLU to getting involved in local politics, which is usually the level that can be most affected by relatively small numbers of individuals.
It is hoped that this rally will inspire others, and make more people aware of the issue and the opposition the people have to living in a surveillance state.
The effects of protests might not be immediately obvious, and perhaps might never be publicly acknowledged. However, they can have a serious impact.
Here's one important example:
"Many people don't know it, but Nixon was considering using nuclear weapons in Vietnam. At that time, Nixon was also repeatedly saying that he
didn't care what the American people thought about Vietnam, and that he was going to escalate the war anyway. However, according to a
biography by a well-known historian, when Nixon saw hundreds of thousands of protesters on TV, he dropped his secret plan of nuking Vietnam."[1]
"Waiters get paid an atrociously low salary because it is anticipated that their real pay will come from tips."
I think it's rather that employers aren't willing to pay more, and waiters usually can't afford to turn down work that pays them these salaries, and there usually isn't another alternative that pays any better.
Regardless of the reasons for this state of affairs, the fact is that watiers in the US do get paid atrocious salaries and can't afford to look down their noses at "an extra few dollars" in tips.
I'm sure plenty of waiters would trade in the tip system for a guaranteed higher salary, but it's usually not up to them to decide.
"Does your boss pay you a few extra dollars if you were extra productive and cheerful today? No? Would that be kind of demeaning, actually?"
It may be demeaning to you, as you probably make far more money than a waiter. But waiters in the US typically get paid an atrociously low salary, and make most of their income from tips.
"Do you do a good job because it it's what you want to do?"
Few people consider waiting tables their dream job. They usually do it because they consider it a temporary job, not a career. Some may take pride in doing an exceptional job, but they're probably the exception rather than the rule.
"What incentive does a cook have to give you a good meal if she's making a standard wage and no tips? What incentive does a dishwasher have to do a proper job washing your dishes if she's making a standard wage and no tips? What incentive does a fast food employee have to good service if she's making a standard wage and no tips? What incentive does a barista have to good service if she's making a standard wage and no tips?"
From what I've heard, in the US it's standard practice to split the tip among the staff in a restaurant. The cook, host/hostess, even the other waiters get their share of a single waiter's tip.
I'm not sure about the dishwasher. But it's pretty obvious what incentive the dishwasher has in keeping the dishes clean: if they're not, he/she will get fired.
Minor nitpick: Lisp is not a purely functional language. It's a multi-paradigm language.
You could, of course, program in a more functional style in Lisp (and that style is encouraged more in some Lisps than others), but you're not forced to.
While your point about small-scale violence and theft of physical goods is well taken, the ultra rich have the opportunity to steal and commit violence on a scale undreamt of by the poor -- and these crimes are rarely the subjects of police statistics.
As the old saying goes, the best way to rob a bank is to own one. The elite and ultra-rich commit theft and fraud on a scale that would bankrupt entire countries, and start wars with hundreds of thousands if not millions of casualties.
They get laws written in their favor, buy off politicians and judges, hide their gains in off-shore tax havens, and hire armies of high-paid lawyers to protect them -- with the effect that few of them suffer any consequences (rarely anything like the SWAT-style raids and hard jail time routinely inflicted upon the poor for far smaller offenses).
If anyone has any experience with any of these and could comment on how they compare to mailinator, that would be very useful.
[1] - http://10minutemail.com/10MinuteMail/index.html
[2] - https://anonbox.net/
[3] - http://anonymouse.org/anonemail.html
[4] - http://trash-mail.com/
[5] - http://www.dispostable.com/
[6] - https://www.silentsender.com/