Something else that should be mentioned is the _economic analysis_ of silly proposals like Oregon's to make fairly minor transgressions or just associations into life sentence felonies: It costs a _lot_ to imprison a person. A lot per year, a lot over 25 years, and a lot over a life sentence. It costs a lot in direct costs of operating a prison, it costs a lot in terms of the lost economic production and taxes of the incarcerated person, and it costs a lot in terms of intangibles for the society to have prisons filled with nonviolent, minor convicts. If local communities had to pay directly for the upkeep of prisoners things might be different. If a small town with a thousand residents and maybe 400 tax-paying households had to pay the $150,000 per year (rough estimate, could be low) to incarcerate Theresa Treehugger, they might complain to their legislature. "Yep, we were required to build an extension to our jail to house the Terrorists from our community. Theresa Treehugger, over there in Annex B, used to be a programmer down in Silicon Valley. But she joined a protest march against the logging company, saying they had used imminent domain to seize a ranch. Someone in the protest dropped a tree across the Old Redwood Highway, shutting it for 3 hours. We never did find out who. But all 150 protesters were convicted under the Protection of the Environment and Safe Forests Act of 2003, so she's doing life without the possibility of parole in our little prison. We can't get fire sprinklers for the school cuz of her! And I hear that Annex B is filled up now and we've got four of those kids from the community college who participated in a frat party that got out of control and forced a delay in classes the next day. Yep, they were all convicted and got life sentences. Now we've got to come up with another $600,000 a year to deal with _them_!" (Note that in actual small towns where local criminals actually _are_ incarcerated at town expense, instead of by some nebulous "society pays" system, it takes a fair amount to incarcerate a person. Drunks are released after one night in jail, village idiots are just that, and so on. Even a shoplifter probably ends up doing a few days's worth of hot, sweaty work on the County road crew and then thinks twice about whether stealing a pair of sunglasses is worth it. No small town would dare to incarcerate a college kid or Green Party activist for 25 years in their own jail for the "crime" of having been at a rally where someone went too far. The Oregon bill does not give the courts any such discretion, though, if the law is applied consistently.) The issue is decoupling costs of the actual from abstract proposals. California, for example, is building or subcontracting the building of numerous new prisons: the costs of felonizing more and more behaviors is not being felt directly. Rather, "everyone pays." A small town would likely not pay to put a pot smoker in its jail for several years, but by making the crimes "state" or "Federal" crimes the costs are transferred and obfuscated. It's like the familiar example (used by me for many years, independent of the Wall Street Journal's nearly identical usage some years ago) of a party going to a restaurant and agreeing to split the check evenly. Diners are incentivized to order more expensive items, as their incremental cost is 1/N. Diners who might be trying to save money by ordering less expensive items find themselves screwed. Net result: the overall bill goes up. A classic game theory situation. Even worse is when society pays for the meals, as with health insurance (combination of subsidized health care and mandatory employer insurance, for example). When paying for a choice is decoupled from the choice, mischief occurs. Market economics 101. In the case of Oregon's proposed new definition of terrorism and the draconian sentences intended to be meted out, those making the proposals and those voting to approve them don't have to _pay_ for incarcerating college kids and Green Party marchers for the rest of their lives. This is the real act of terrorism. --Tim May