andy wrote:I think that is an instance, a classic instance, of not being able to acknowledge that what you did in the past, although irreversible, wasn't really that smart.
whether or not it was 'smart' is irrelevent. what matters here is if i committed the crimes with a willingness to suffer the consequences if i were caught. and i did. i had an understanding of the crimes and the risks involved in committing them, and chose to take those risks, presuming that if i were caught, i would suffer the consequences indicated by the law.
if i were caught, and did suffer the consequences indicated by the law for the crimes i committed,
i would have no objection, as i knew in advance and chose to take the risk. i would have pled guilty to the crimes without hesitating, because i certainly commited them.
but what happened was, i committed crime A, and
was charged with crime B, which i did not commit. this changes everything.
it cannot be said that i shouldn't have committed the crimes i committed because there was a chance i would be charged with crimes i did not commit, instead of crimes i did commit. this, taken to its logical extreme, would become ridiculous. it would mean that we shouldn't speed because we might be charged with conspiracy to commit murder if we get caught, or that we shouldn't jay walk because we might be charged with seditious acts.
a citizen trusts his government to say what it means, and mean what it says, when designing the rules and laws for civil order. if the government violates this trust, in principle, by wrongfully convicting a citizen of crimes he did not commit, it loses all credibility.
the crimes i willingly and intentionally committed were misdemeanors, the conviction of which would not result in becoming a registered sex offender. but the crimes i committed were changed, by ambiguous technicality in the interpretation of statutes by the prosecutor, into felony sex crimes.
this means he interpreted the statutes in a way that was not intended by the general assembly when they devised the statute. he manipulated the terms of the statute so that my crime would appear to fit its criteria.
this is very complicated and i don't want to bore you with explaining it all. i need only to show you the fundamental error, the fundamental game changer that changed my entire relationship to law and government, was the lie told by the criminal justice system for my conviction.
in doing so, my 'social contract', in principle, was nullified, canceled, voided, because the government did not uphold its end of the social contract.
i do not regret anything i did. what i regret, or rather find unfortunate, is that the government's integrity should be compromised by the act of a single prosecutor, who represents its judicial branch, and practices law unjustly.
the government has made a formidable enemy because of what has happened. just as there are consequences for the actions we citizens commit, there are also consequences for the actions that government commits.
to place this on topic, what it means is that the terms of my relationship to society and government have radically changed. i am no longer bound by the same social contract as you, and others, are bound by. i am an essentially different kind of person now. the rules of your society no longer apply to me.