Exactly!
How can a nation that has the highest rate of incarceration per capita in the world call itself "free"? The US has 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's prisoners. This began to happen when the War on Drugs was escalated in the late 1980s, when petty victimless drug crimes could sometimes earn greater punishments than crimes of violence.
All of this has not made us a better nation, or a freer nation. And from what I sometimes read in the comments section of political websites, there are plenty of people who would gleefully incarcerate more of their fellow citizens for petty infractions if they had the power. How did we ever get so hateful of each other?
