Totalitarianism and police states don't start by jailing the jaywalkers, but they do start by implementing the laws disproportionately against marginalized communities within the general population. This is generally overlooked by the remainder because they think, "Well, it's not affecting me."
The problem with this line of thinking, "they broke the law, they should be punished whatever it was" is that laws and morality, while sometimes intended to be aligned, are not.
Take, for example, "disobeying a police officer". On the surface of it, no one would argue that that is a problem, thinking, "of course I'll follow a police officer's instructions". However, the system has evolved to the point where someone who has initially committed no crime, stopped by the police under suspicion, can end-up dead or incarcerated due to a sadly more-and-more common sequence of escalations.
Asserting that the law is somehow perfect to the extent that all illegal behavior should be punished is also poorly framed because not everything is illegal everywhere, and in fact, what is legal and illegal is not universally known or clear. For example, to access some laws in some municipalities, the laws themselves are under private copyright and a fee must be paid and they are not accessible except directly in person, as in, not remotely (this was news a while back, not sure if there's a HN story about it).
So, I feel this viewpoint is missing some fundamental realities that may drastically change the underlying assumptions.
The problem with this line of thinking, "they broke the law, they should be punished whatever it was" is that laws and morality, while sometimes intended to be aligned, are not.
Take, for example, "disobeying a police officer". On the surface of it, no one would argue that that is a problem, thinking, "of course I'll follow a police officer's instructions". However, the system has evolved to the point where someone who has initially committed no crime, stopped by the police under suspicion, can end-up dead or incarcerated due to a sadly more-and-more common sequence of escalations.
Asserting that the law is somehow perfect to the extent that all illegal behavior should be punished is also poorly framed because not everything is illegal everywhere, and in fact, what is legal and illegal is not universally known or clear. For example, to access some laws in some municipalities, the laws themselves are under private copyright and a fee must be paid and they are not accessible except directly in person, as in, not remotely (this was news a while back, not sure if there's a HN story about it).
So, I feel this viewpoint is missing some fundamental realities that may drastically change the underlying assumptions.