8 ms·

As usual, mostly western commentators sitting on their high horses pointing and pontificating with no idea of local context or understanding. First of all, Dut

As usual, mostly western commentators sitting on their high horses pointing and pontificating with no idea of local context or understanding. First of all, Duterte was elected overwhelmingly with a clear mandate of using brute violence to clear out drug dealers. He was clear about it and he is delivering on that mandate. I have to accept, he has made a PR error by not calling them terrorists. At which point, he will be sold drones that can also wipe out families in addition to the druggies. The fact is, you do not get radical progress pandering to western styled hypocritical democracy or "human rights". It's the reality. A harsh one. Of course, I will not be so "logical" if I happen to be at the receiving end of such needed reform. But hey.. it's what life is. At least, no set of drug dealers are at greater risk because of the colour of their skin. PS: I am speaking like a man living in a country where some not so nice things will be needed to be done if we are going to ever progress.

joe5150 10y ago
hard for me to imagine how any of that makes it right....
zouhair 10y ago
Hitler was also democratically elected. What will happen in the Philippines now is that anyone who any grudge with anyone will just kill that person and label him a drug dealer.
- nindalf 10y ago
  Labeling him a drug dealer won't be easy because its difficult to prove that he dealt drugs. The logical thing to do would be to label your victim a drug user instead. Far easier to simply plant some drugs in their house, kill them and collect your medal for saving society.
  - masklinn 10y ago
    > Far easier to simply plant some drugs in their house Isn't the normal procedure to just sprinkle some crack over their body?
  - restalis 10y ago
    "simply plant some drugs in their house, kill them and collect your medal for saving society" Hmm.. No addict's blood testing confirmation necessary, huh?
- rubber_duck 10y ago
  You really think the main reason people aren't grudge killing each other because they are afraid of getting caught ? Look at the murder case % that goes unresolved even in the US - IIRC it was ~40% ? If you wanted to kill someone and were smart about it's probably not that hard to do - unless it's your spouse or something similar that makes you an obvious suspect - in which case it will also look suspicious to anyone investigating if you killed your wife because she was a drug dealer.
  - thomasfoster96 10y ago
    I suspect that very few murderers study the murder case solve rate in their local area before murdering someone they hold a grudge against. On the other hand, if the President of a country says to kill drug dealers and addicts, quite a few people will go ahead and do that, thinking that it's now justified.
- aedron 10y ago
  So like the U.S. drone regime in the Middle East.
- ralfd 10y ago
  To be fair, after being elected Hitler made it impossible to unelect him. Election ballot 1936: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahlrecht_in_der_Zeit_des_Nationalsozialismus#/media/File:Wahlzettel-3.-Reich.jpg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahlrecht_in_der_Zeit_des_Nati...
  - zouhair 10y ago
    Something tells me this guy will do the same.
- fsloth 10y ago
  "Hitler was also democratically elected. " Actually his final rise to power came through back room shenanigans with Hindenburg when the popular support of the national socialist party was way below 50% of the voters.
  - spacecowboy_lon 10y ago
    And Extrajudical killing of opposing deputies as well as having socialist deputies arrested. Its easier to get a quorum if you can kill your opposition
- tluyben2 10y ago
  The article title says drug addict. Which is far easier. Drank 2 beers instead of one every day => shoot. "I loved my neighbor (not) but he was an addict." Sad face.
kristiandupont 10y ago
>But hey.. it's what life it. Once you start arguing like this, any political stance is valid as long as your group is not the one being killed.
thomasfoster96 10y ago
> The fact is, you do not get radical progress pandering to western styled hypocritical democracy or "human rights". It the reality. A harsh one. So what's the progress towards then? A totalitarian dictatorship that murders people? That's hardly progress of any sort. I'm quite happy to stay on my high horse if that means arguing for the rule of law and basic decency, both things which Duterte has thrown out the window in his quest to rid society of 'problems' by getting vigilantes to murder people. Hating on democracy and human rights because they're 'Western' (and usually by extension 'Imperial') really annoys me. It's a stupid, petty argument that is continuously peddled by figures in non-Western countries as a justification for doing whatever they like.
- OoTheNigerian 10y ago
  >It's a stupid, petty argument that is continuously peddled by figures in non-Western countries as a justification for doing whatever they like. Thomas, you may not not realise you have just written a one line thesis for the justification of colonialism. "You brutes have no idea to run a society. We'll come show you how" Of course, you most likely do not think in such nasty terms however, that is the translation. You're a 20 year old Aussie (I checked your website). You know the history of your country so I will not have to educate you on the result of preventing people "doing what they like" with regard to their culture and customs. Are you/your ways superior to the people that voted him to do EXACTLY what he is doing? You called his one week old government "totalitarian". Forgetting he was elected for a 6 year term. Is that system they like stupid and petty too? Or should they come take instructions from you? Your country?
  - discordianfish 10y ago
    He doesn't talk about superiority or not letting people handle their shit. But that doesn't mean you can't criticize them.
  - tomp 10y ago
    > "You brutes have no idea to run a society. We'll come show you how" That's quite an irrational leap from what he said... It could also be: "We've tried all this before, we know democracy works better, so we suggest you implement it as well."
jacquesm 10y ago
> As usual, mostly western commentators sitting on their high horses pointing and pontificating with no idea of local context or understanding. Or maybe they do understand but simply do not agree with either the methods or the goal. > First of all, Duterte was elected overwhelmingly with a clear mandate of using brute violence to clear out drug dealers. This goes well beyond drug dealers (and even then it is not the way). > He was clear about it and he is delivering on that mandate. Could not care less about whether or not he was clear about it. Wrong is still wrong. > He was clear about it and he is delivering on that mandate. I have to accept, he has made a PR error by not calling them terrorists. Hard to tell if you're sarcastic or not, going on the assumption that you're not. > The fact is, you do not get radical progress pandering to western styled hypocritical democracy or "human rights". No, you'll get progress by giving everybody a license to go out and kill anybody they don't like on a pretext. That's going to make life so much better. > It's the reality. A harsh one. Of course, I will not be so "logical" if I happen to be at the receiving end of such needed reform. But hey.. it's what life is. It need not be. And if you're already hedging your position then I guess you too understand that this is not a solution, only more trouble. > I am speaking like a man living in a country where some not so nice things will be needed to be done if we are going to ever progress. Mass murder of citizens is never 'progress'. Especially not if the context is a corrupt police force that makes other avenues less likely to work. Then you go and fix the police force, you don't hand out a 'license to kill' to the population at large.
- OoTheNigerian 10y ago
  If a people vote for autocracy, is that democratic? Should it be respected?
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    That's a local affair as far as I'm concerned. But you're taking issue with us on our 'high horses' criticizing it and that should be respected. People have voted for dumb things many times in the past, in my opinion this is one of those times. Might or majority do not automatically make right. If you 'clean up' a city or a country by extra-judicial killings that makes the cure no better than the disease. If the country has a corruption issue the solution is not to go and kill people without due process. This is attacking a symptom, leaving the root cause un-examined and so will not solve the problem in the longer term.
pedalpete 10y ago
Ok, let's look at this on an even playing field, which should be very doable with the atrocities befalling the US and somewhat indiscriminate killing of African Americans. Note: I'm not American and don't live in the US. African Americans have been killed by police, imprisoned as almost a racial policy (often resulting from petty drug offenses). So let's say there are an equal number of people killed on each side. 30 African American's in the past week (not true, but let's just make it simple) and 30 Philippine Drug Dealers. Two wrongs. Why is America better? It is attempting to face the tragedy and stop the killing. In the Phillipines, what is preventing somebody from killing their neighbor, and saying "he was a drug addict" with no evidence? What 'radical progress' are you expecting from the killing of drug addicts? Unless, you consider a pile of dead bodies 'progress'. If the Phillipines were 'drug free', would that be 'radical progress'? If so, how? How would it change the rest of the country? The lives of the people?
- tajen 10y ago
  > Why is USA better? It is attempting to face the tragedy and stop the killing. Is America attempting to stop the killing? I must have missed a chapter. Last time I've checked Obama was mourning the police officers who were killed and no national mourning was declared for the 500-600 corpses left by the police. And last time I've checked there is also still no trial for which Arabs get to die in Middle East under drone strikes. And 95% inmates in USA have used a plea bargain, which means no trial has occurd to prove whether they were guilty or not. Did I mention the Civil Asset Forfeiture program? Did I mention that even if we right the 3 examples above, the financial imbalance means that the poorer people are not properly representated in legal situations, in votes, and in the economy? I'm flummoxed the we, in the age of the full information, still take USA as a mere candidate when we talk about human rights. We can't compare USA to anything, their track record is too low.
  - obj-g 10y ago
    No national mourning has been declared for "500-600 corpses" because we don't mourn criminals, thugs, people who reach for guns when confronted by police, people who resist arrest, etc. You act as if the police did a raid on Google and pulled all the black employees out and shot them execution style. That sort of thing is definitely not happening.
bubuga 10y ago
> As usual, mostly western commentators sitting on their high horses pointing and pontificating with no idea of local context or understanding. Pray tell, what context justifies arbitrary lynchings, summary executions, extrajudicial capital punishment, and an overall disrespect for human life? Perhaps it's the view from the high horse I'm sitting on, but when I look throughout europe I don't see nations with major drug problems, and they haven't fixed any problems they had with assassinations. Could you please provide any insight on what makes this sort of rampant uncivilized behaviour necessary or even remotely justified?
- evgen 10y ago
  Pray tell, what context justifies arbitrary lynchings, summary executions, extrajudicial capital punishment, and an overall disrespect for human life? Probably the same one that justifies invading countries on flimsy excuses, setting up your own local dictator, and then continuingto bomb the shit out of people when things do not go as you promised your subjects. Shall we roll the clock back a bit and talk about the wonderful "arbitrary lynchings, summary executions, extrajudicial capital punishment, and an overall disrespect for human life" that were the hallmarks of European colonialism? Perhaps it's the view from the high horse I'm sitting on, but when I look throughout europe I don't see nations with major drug problems, and they haven't fixed any problems they had with assassinations. Your high horse stands upon a hill of corpses. When I look throughout Europe I see nations that have spent millenia creating problems for other people outside Europe, then washing thier hands of the problem when no one is looking, moralizing to each other about those poor stupid brown people, and then repeating the process. Physician, heal thyself or STFU.
s_q_b 10y ago
Societal change, or "needed reforms" are accomplished regularly without indiscriminate use of force. See e.g. India, South Africa, the Civil Rights movement... This isn't even mentioning the regular and continuous reforms that happen as the institutions of mature democracies manage change.
fsloth 10y ago
Violence seldom leads to anything productive. Crime at the level in Philippines is not there because there are a few bad apples. It's because there are structural reasons which drive crime. Sadly, in Philippines case the only method to put a permanent end on the crimelords would be to petition legalization of drugs in UN.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  From TFA: > He (the new president) placed trust and confidence in friends and acquaintances who are outsiders of the traditional power and social blocs. That's one of the structural reasons right there.
  - fsloth 10y ago
    I'm not savvy enough in philippine daily matters to figure out if that's a plus or minus. One could also describe many coups that way.
chatmasta 10y ago
The US military kills "terrorists" abroad, in a war zone. If the US were giving its citizens carte blanche rights to label fellow citizens "terrorists" and execute them on behalf of the government, then your analogy would make sense. But as it stands, this is a wholly different situation from drone strikes, as reprehensible as they may be.
- Lingster 10y ago
  Define "a warzone"..
sedachv 10y ago
> First of all, Duterte was elected overwhelmingly with a clear mandate of using brute violence to clear out drug dealers. And journalists too! Kill everyone you don't like! > “Just because you’re a journalist you are not exempted from assassination, if you’re a son of a bitch,” Duterte said when asked how he would address the problem of media killings in the Philippines, after a reporter was shot dead in Manila last week. > “Most of those killed, to be frank, have done something. You won’t be killed if you don’t do anything wrong,” Duterte said, adding that many journalists in the Philippines were corrupt. > “That can’t be just freedom of speech. The constitution can no longer help you if you disrespect a person,” > Duterte raised the case of Jun Pala, a journalist and politician who was murdered in Davao in 2003. Gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead Pala, who was a vocal critic of Duterte. His murder has never been solved. “If you are an upright journalist, nothing will happen to you,” said Duterte https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/31/philippine-president-elect-says-corrupt-journalists-will-be-killed https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/31/philippine-pre...
- jacquesm 10y ago
  Why am I not surprised that the person who sees the solution to a countries problems growing out of the barrel of a gun would not have a problem with journalists being killed. > “If you are an upright journalist, nothing will happen to you,” said Duterte Good. So we can rest assured that only those journalists that were not 'upright' will not remain upright.
aleh 10y ago
Do you think folks currently participating in murders will put their guns down once they run our of drug dealers/addicts? This policy is akin to starting fire in a house to get rid of rats.
flexie 10y ago
Even if 100 percent of the electorate had given the politicians a mandate to kill drug dealers it would not be okay. Democracy does not trump human rights and rule of law.
- epaga 10y ago
  I fully agree that it doesn't - but the million dollar follow-up question to that is: Why does it not?
  - t0rb3n 10y ago
    You're wrong in agreeing that it does not, democracy is a perverted form of government (see Aristotle). That's why most countries implement a constitutional republic or something similar instead.
Hasknewbie 10y ago
No offense, but you sound like an aging white man slamming his fist on the table and hectoring "what we need is a good war!" at family dinners. Human rights, and more specifically due process, are not 'Western', they've just been formulated there. Do you believe gravity is 'white' or 'jewish' because it was formulated by Einstein? And societies that 'get' due process objectively do better: tell me, who does better in social development and public safety, Nigeria or Mauritius? Nigeria or Cape Verde? Conversely, when were Latin American countries worse off, during their "military Dutertre" era, or now? Your position has never worked historically. You can't _claim_ guilt, you need proof, and to get proof you need due process.
- fmueller 10y ago
  > You can't _claim_ guilt, you need proof, and to get proof you need due process. You don't need it when you are at war. Killing people is normal during a wa even without evidence.
  - restalis 10y ago
    There is no war. There is nothing even close to a war zone. If you consider the society threatened on such a level there are steps to be taken, like declaring the martial law and such. But this... is just madness to me, covered by populist propaganda!
  - Hasknewbie 10y ago
    You are missing the scope of the discussion. My point is that abdicating proper law enforcement has historically always failed at improving society. Yes you can "declare war". This will certainly not improve your country (Cf Colombia before, Mexico now). Note that I'm not even making the argument that killing innocents is wrong, I'm just saying that due process works better, period.
- restalis 10y ago
  "Human rights, and more specifically due process, are not 'Western', they've just been formulated there." Not even that. I'm not sure to what do we refer exactly by (western) "human rights". Is it the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? That was not "western", as the United Nations General Assembly, which adopted it, had equal representation of all member nations, including Philippines. Is it something else, something older, like the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, passed somewhere in the French Revolution? Well, we can find less "western" versions before that all over the world and history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_human_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_human_rights
nl 10y ago
You know what works really well at getting radical progress? Make everyone rich. Look at the reduction in violent crime throughout Asia as people's income increased. Japan, Singapore, Korea.. The pattern is the same, and it isn't brutal law and order policies that made the difference.
norswap 10y ago
If your country is Nigeria as your nick seems to suggest, then I suggest you look at how "doing not so nice things" has worked out elsewhere in Africa, and in fact, in Nigeria itself. There is no easy path towards progress, and certainly not by killing whomever we think is the cause of the problem. Also let's be honest, there never was a society that went down the drain due to drugs. Not even close. They are just scapegoats. Society that went down the drain due to violence and mob-approved regimes? Loads.
rbanffy 10y ago
> Duterte was elected overwhelmingly with a clear mandate of using brute violence Democracy ensures a people gets the ruler most of them deserve.
- rbanffy 10y ago
  Why the downvote? I'm calling it a democracy, which is a very generous assessment for a place where the president directs the population to kill without due process.
douche 10y ago
Sounds like the Philippines is moving left on the J-Curve[1] [1] http://amzn.to/2a8EOCC http://amzn.to/2a8EOCC

joe5150 10y ago

hard for me to imagine how any of that makes it right....

zouhair 10y ago

Hitler was also democratically elected. What will happen in the Philippines now is that anyone who any grudge with anyone will just kill that person and label him a drug dealer.

nindalf 10y ago
Labeling him a drug dealer won't be easy because its difficult to prove that he dealt drugs. The logical thing to do would be to label your victim a drug user instead. Far easier to simply plant some drugs in their house, kill them and collect your medal for saving society.
- masklinn 10y ago
  > Far easier to simply plant some drugs in their house Isn't the normal procedure to just sprinkle some crack over their body?
- restalis 10y ago
  "simply plant some drugs in their house, kill them and collect your medal for saving society" Hmm.. No addict's blood testing confirmation necessary, huh?
rubber_duck 10y ago
You really think the main reason people aren't grudge killing each other because they are afraid of getting caught ? Look at the murder case % that goes unresolved even in the US - IIRC it was ~40% ? If you wanted to kill someone and were smart about it's probably not that hard to do - unless it's your spouse or something similar that makes you an obvious suspect - in which case it will also look suspicious to anyone investigating if you killed your wife because she was a drug dealer.
- thomasfoster96 10y ago
  I suspect that very few murderers study the murder case solve rate in their local area before murdering someone they hold a grudge against. On the other hand, if the President of a country says to kill drug dealers and addicts, quite a few people will go ahead and do that, thinking that it's now justified.
aedron 10y ago
So like the U.S. drone regime in the Middle East.
ralfd 10y ago
To be fair, after being elected Hitler made it impossible to unelect him. Election ballot 1936: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahlrecht_in_der_Zeit_des_Nationalsozialismus#/media/File:Wahlzettel-3.-Reich.jpg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahlrecht_in_der_Zeit_des_Nati...
- zouhair 10y ago
  Something tells me this guy will do the same.
fsloth 10y ago
"Hitler was also democratically elected. " Actually his final rise to power came through back room shenanigans with Hindenburg when the popular support of the national socialist party was way below 50% of the voters.
- spacecowboy_lon 10y ago
  And Extrajudical killing of opposing deputies as well as having socialist deputies arrested. Its easier to get a quorum if you can kill your opposition
tluyben2 10y ago
The article title says drug addict. Which is far easier. Drank 2 beers instead of one every day => shoot. "I loved my neighbor (not) but he was an addict." Sad face.

kristiandupont 10y ago

>But hey.. it's what life it. Once you start arguing like this, any political stance is valid as long as your group is not the one being killed.

thomasfoster96 10y ago

> The fact is, you do not get radical progress pandering to western styled hypocritical democracy or "human rights". It the reality. A harsh one. So what's the progress towards then? A totalitarian dictatorship that murders people? That's hardly progress of any sort. I'm quite happy to stay on my high horse if that means arguing for the rule of law and basic decency, both things which Duterte has thrown out the window in his quest to rid society of 'problems' by getting vigilantes to murder people. Hating on democracy and human rights because they're 'Western' (and usually by extension 'Imperial') really annoys me. It's a stupid, petty argument that is continuously peddled by figures in non-Western countries as a justification for doing whatever they like.

OoTheNigerian 10y ago
>It's a stupid, petty argument that is continuously peddled by figures in non-Western countries as a justification for doing whatever they like. Thomas, you may not not realise you have just written a one line thesis for the justification of colonialism. "You brutes have no idea to run a society. We'll come show you how" Of course, you most likely do not think in such nasty terms however, that is the translation. You're a 20 year old Aussie (I checked your website). You know the history of your country so I will not have to educate you on the result of preventing people "doing what they like" with regard to their culture and customs. Are you/your ways superior to the people that voted him to do EXACTLY what he is doing? You called his one week old government "totalitarian". Forgetting he was elected for a 6 year term. Is that system they like stupid and petty too? Or should they come take instructions from you? Your country?
- discordianfish 10y ago
  He doesn't talk about superiority or not letting people handle their shit. But that doesn't mean you can't criticize them.
- tomp 10y ago
  > "You brutes have no idea to run a society. We'll come show you how" That's quite an irrational leap from what he said... It could also be: "We've tried all this before, we know democracy works better, so we suggest you implement it as well."

jacquesm 10y ago

> As usual, mostly western commentators sitting on their high horses pointing and pontificating with no idea of local context or understanding. Or maybe they do understand but simply do not agree with either the methods or the goal. > First of all, Duterte was elected overwhelmingly with a clear mandate of using brute violence to clear out drug dealers. This goes well beyond drug dealers (and even then it is not the way). > He was clear about it and he is delivering on that mandate. Could not care less about whether or not he was clear about it. Wrong is still wrong. > He was clear about it and he is delivering on that mandate. I have to accept, he has made a PR error by not calling them terrorists. Hard to tell if you're sarcastic or not, going on the assumption that you're not. > The fact is, you do not get radical progress pandering to western styled hypocritical democracy or "human rights". No, you'll get progress by giving everybody a license to go out and kill anybody they don't like on a pretext. That's going to make life so much better. > It's the reality. A harsh one. Of course, I will not be so "logical" if I happen to be at the receiving end of such needed reform. But hey.. it's what life is. It need not be. And if you're already hedging your position then I guess you too understand that this is not a solution, only more trouble. > I am speaking like a man living in a country where some not so nice things will be needed to be done if we are going to ever progress. Mass murder of citizens is never 'progress'. Especially not if the context is a corrupt police force that makes other avenues less likely to work. Then you go and fix the police force, you don't hand out a 'license to kill' to the population at large.

OoTheNigerian 10y ago
If a people vote for autocracy, is that democratic? Should it be respected?
- jacquesm 10y ago
  That's a local affair as far as I'm concerned. But you're taking issue with us on our 'high horses' criticizing it and that should be respected. People have voted for dumb things many times in the past, in my opinion this is one of those times. Might or majority do not automatically make right. If you 'clean up' a city or a country by extra-judicial killings that makes the cure no better than the disease. If the country has a corruption issue the solution is not to go and kill people without due process. This is attacking a symptom, leaving the root cause un-examined and so will not solve the problem in the longer term.

pedalpete 10y ago

Ok, let's look at this on an even playing field, which should be very doable with the atrocities befalling the US and somewhat indiscriminate killing of African Americans. Note: I'm not American and don't live in the US. African Americans have been killed by police, imprisoned as almost a racial policy (often resulting from petty drug offenses). So let's say there are an equal number of people killed on each side. 30 African American's in the past week (not true, but let's just make it simple) and 30 Philippine Drug Dealers. Two wrongs. Why is America better? It is attempting to face the tragedy and stop the killing. In the Phillipines, what is preventing somebody from killing their neighbor, and saying "he was a drug addict" with no evidence? What 'radical progress' are you expecting from the killing of drug addicts? Unless, you consider a pile of dead bodies 'progress'. If the Phillipines were 'drug free', would that be 'radical progress'? If so, how? How would it change the rest of the country? The lives of the people?

tajen 10y ago
> Why is USA better? It is attempting to face the tragedy and stop the killing. Is America attempting to stop the killing? I must have missed a chapter. Last time I've checked Obama was mourning the police officers who were killed and no national mourning was declared for the 500-600 corpses left by the police. And last time I've checked there is also still no trial for which Arabs get to die in Middle East under drone strikes. And 95% inmates in USA have used a plea bargain, which means no trial has occurd to prove whether they were guilty or not. Did I mention the Civil Asset Forfeiture program? Did I mention that even if we right the 3 examples above, the financial imbalance means that the poorer people are not properly representated in legal situations, in votes, and in the economy? I'm flummoxed the we, in the age of the full information, still take USA as a mere candidate when we talk about human rights. We can't compare USA to anything, their track record is too low.
- obj-g 10y ago
  No national mourning has been declared for "500-600 corpses" because we don't mourn criminals, thugs, people who reach for guns when confronted by police, people who resist arrest, etc. You act as if the police did a raid on Google and pulled all the black employees out and shot them execution style. That sort of thing is definitely not happening.

bubuga 10y ago

> As usual, mostly western commentators sitting on their high horses pointing and pontificating with no idea of local context or understanding. Pray tell, what context justifies arbitrary lynchings, summary executions, extrajudicial capital punishment, and an overall disrespect for human life? Perhaps it's the view from the high horse I'm sitting on, but when I look throughout europe I don't see nations with major drug problems, and they haven't fixed any problems they had with assassinations. Could you please provide any insight on what makes this sort of rampant uncivilized behaviour necessary or even remotely justified?

evgen 10y ago
Pray tell, what context justifies arbitrary lynchings, summary executions, extrajudicial capital punishment, and an overall disrespect for human life? Probably the same one that justifies invading countries on flimsy excuses, setting up your own local dictator, and then continuingto bomb the shit out of people when things do not go as you promised your subjects. Shall we roll the clock back a bit and talk about the wonderful "arbitrary lynchings, summary executions, extrajudicial capital punishment, and an overall disrespect for human life" that were the hallmarks of European colonialism? Perhaps it's the view from the high horse I'm sitting on, but when I look throughout europe I don't see nations with major drug problems, and they haven't fixed any problems they had with assassinations. Your high horse stands upon a hill of corpses. When I look throughout Europe I see nations that have spent millenia creating problems for other people outside Europe, then washing thier hands of the problem when no one is looking, moralizing to each other about those poor stupid brown people, and then repeating the process. Physician, heal thyself or STFU.

s_q_b 10y ago

Societal change, or "needed reforms" are accomplished regularly without indiscriminate use of force. See e.g. India, South Africa, the Civil Rights movement... This isn't even mentioning the regular and continuous reforms that happen as the institutions of mature democracies manage change.

fsloth 10y ago

Violence seldom leads to anything productive. Crime at the level in Philippines is not there because there are a few bad apples. It's because there are structural reasons which drive crime. Sadly, in Philippines case the only method to put a permanent end on the crimelords would be to petition legalization of drugs in UN.

jacquesm 10y ago
From TFA: > He (the new president) placed trust and confidence in friends and acquaintances who are outsiders of the traditional power and social blocs. That's one of the structural reasons right there.
- fsloth 10y ago
  I'm not savvy enough in philippine daily matters to figure out if that's a plus or minus. One could also describe many coups that way.

chatmasta 10y ago

The US military kills "terrorists" abroad, in a war zone. If the US were giving its citizens carte blanche rights to label fellow citizens "terrorists" and execute them on behalf of the government, then your analogy would make sense. But as it stands, this is a wholly different situation from drone strikes, as reprehensible as they may be.

Lingster 10y ago
Define "a warzone"..

sedachv 10y ago

> First of all, Duterte was elected overwhelmingly with a clear mandate of using brute violence to clear out drug dealers. And journalists too! Kill everyone you don't like! > “Just because you’re a journalist you are not exempted from assassination, if you’re a son of a bitch,” Duterte said when asked how he would address the problem of media killings in the Philippines, after a reporter was shot dead in Manila last week. > “Most of those killed, to be frank, have done something. You won’t be killed if you don’t do anything wrong,” Duterte said, adding that many journalists in the Philippines were corrupt. > “That can’t be just freedom of speech. The constitution can no longer help you if you disrespect a person,” > Duterte raised the case of Jun Pala, a journalist and politician who was murdered in Davao in 2003. Gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead Pala, who was a vocal critic of Duterte. His murder has never been solved. “If you are an upright journalist, nothing will happen to you,” said Duterte https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/31/philippine-president-elect-says-corrupt-journalists-will-be-killed https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/31/philippine-pre...

jacquesm 10y ago
Why am I not surprised that the person who sees the solution to a countries problems growing out of the barrel of a gun would not have a problem with journalists being killed. > “If you are an upright journalist, nothing will happen to you,” said Duterte Good. So we can rest assured that only those journalists that were not 'upright' will not remain upright.

aleh 10y ago

Do you think folks currently participating in murders will put their guns down once they run our of drug dealers/addicts? This policy is akin to starting fire in a house to get rid of rats.

flexie 10y ago

Even if 100 percent of the electorate had given the politicians a mandate to kill drug dealers it would not be okay. Democracy does not trump human rights and rule of law.

epaga 10y ago
I fully agree that it doesn't - but the million dollar follow-up question to that is: Why does it not?
- t0rb3n 10y ago
  You're wrong in agreeing that it does not, democracy is a perverted form of government (see Aristotle). That's why most countries implement a constitutional republic or something similar instead.

Hasknewbie 10y ago

No offense, but you sound like an aging white man slamming his fist on the table and hectoring "what we need is a good war!" at family dinners. Human rights, and more specifically due process, are not 'Western', they've just been formulated there. Do you believe gravity is 'white' or 'jewish' because it was formulated by Einstein? And societies that 'get' due process objectively do better: tell me, who does better in social development and public safety, Nigeria or Mauritius? Nigeria or Cape Verde? Conversely, when were Latin American countries worse off, during their "military Dutertre" era, or now? Your position has never worked historically. You can't _claim_ guilt, you need proof, and to get proof you need due process.

fmueller 10y ago
> You can't _claim_ guilt, you need proof, and to get proof you need due process. You don't need it when you are at war. Killing people is normal during a wa even without evidence.
- restalis 10y ago
  There is no war. There is nothing even close to a war zone. If you consider the society threatened on such a level there are steps to be taken, like declaring the martial law and such. But this... is just madness to me, covered by populist propaganda!
- Hasknewbie 10y ago
  You are missing the scope of the discussion. My point is that abdicating proper law enforcement has historically always failed at improving society. Yes you can "declare war". This will certainly not improve your country (Cf Colombia before, Mexico now). Note that I'm not even making the argument that killing innocents is wrong, I'm just saying that due process works better, period.
restalis 10y ago
"Human rights, and more specifically due process, are not 'Western', they've just been formulated there." Not even that. I'm not sure to what do we refer exactly by (western) "human rights". Is it the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? That was not "western", as the United Nations General Assembly, which adopted it, had equal representation of all member nations, including Philippines. Is it something else, something older, like the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, passed somewhere in the French Revolution? Well, we can find less "western" versions before that all over the world and history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_human_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_human_rights

nl 10y ago

You know what works really well at getting radical progress? Make everyone rich. Look at the reduction in violent crime throughout Asia as people's income increased. Japan, Singapore, Korea.. The pattern is the same, and it isn't brutal law and order policies that made the difference.

norswap 10y ago

If your country is Nigeria as your nick seems to suggest, then I suggest you look at how "doing not so nice things" has worked out elsewhere in Africa, and in fact, in Nigeria itself. There is no easy path towards progress, and certainly not by killing whomever we think is the cause of the problem. Also let's be honest, there never was a society that went down the drain due to drugs. Not even close. They are just scapegoats. Society that went down the drain due to violence and mob-approved regimes? Loads.

rbanffy 10y ago

> Duterte was elected overwhelmingly with a clear mandate of using brute violence Democracy ensures a people gets the ruler most of them deserve.

rbanffy 10y ago
Why the downvote? I'm calling it a democracy, which is a very generous assessment for a place where the president directs the population to kill without due process.

douche 10y ago

Sounds like the Philippines is moving left on the J-Curve[1] [1] http://amzn.to/2a8EOCC http://amzn.to/2a8EOCC