6 ms·

If you really want, limit it to people in immediate knowing possession of the drugs. However the initial massacre is necessary to establish a precedent. If the

If you really want, limit it to people in immediate knowing possession of the drugs. However the initial massacre is necessary to establish a precedent. If the US government had not squandered its credibility in law enforcement matters, this would not be necessary. We could instead offer unconditional amnesty to current users and dealers. Give them some small time period (like a week or a month -- less than half a year) to clean up their act and then put these laws into effect. As it is, it is a recognized fact that the government will not take extreme action without the n to the nth-level of bureaucratic paperwork and thus to establish an effective deterrent, the punishment needs to be exercised.

unalone 18y ago
I'm going to assume that you're a younger guy? Back when I was in high school I might have thought the same way - this was before I actually made friends with some drug users and tried some myself in college. Drug users are not bad people. Most drug dealers are not bad people. On my floor in college, the kid who sells drugs is a pretty cool kid: good student, active in sports. There's some social problems he runs across because he's "the kid that sells drugs," but he's a pretty cool guy. He's a typical college student who just happens to sell drugs to the kids who want to buy drugs. That is not deserving of death. When you talk about killing somebody, you're talking about ending a life, unconditionally terminating a person's future. Some things are worth that (I will hold to my dying day that enjoying the Twilight book series is admitting your lack of will to live), perhaps, but drug selling and drug use? No. Not at all. As I said: I tried marijuana a handful of times, and I thought it was pretty relaxing. Nobody was harmed. (To go to the extreme, if you use a vaporizer, you're not even risking lung damage, which means that your body seriously is not injured in any way, even minute.) It was voluntary on the part of myself and some friends. We were okay with paying for those drugs; the kid who sold them was fine with trading them for money. Do I deserve to die because I voluntarily used chemicals? Does the dealer deserve to die because he gave a product to somebody who wanted it? Who is the criminal here? Enforcing drug rules is basically punishing people not for actually doing anything bad, but for doing something that the government is telling you is a no-no. If I told you that it was bad to, say, whistle, and you whistled, and I told you I'd kill you if you didn't stop, maybe you'd stop, but that doesn't solve the real problem, which is "unalone is a dick who's setting arbitrary, pointless rules". The problem isn't your whistling, it's me. It's fun thinking of things so black-and-white when you're young, but once you reach the ripe old age of 18, you'll start maturing a little bit.
- jimbokun 18y ago
  You seem to be saying, in essence, "except for the drug dealing he is a pretty good kid, so therefore he is a pretty good kid." Um, what if you include the drug dealing into the equation, and all of the possible damage to the lives of people he is selling drugs to, or perhaps even to their friends, families, and loved ones? (You didn't say the kinds of drugs, and maybe you believe that whatever he is selling is not bad, since you argue that marijuana is harmless and maybe he is selling only marijuana. But you did not say that and it is a pretty important caveat.) While not condoning or agreeing with newt0311's argument, I wonder if whether the difference is a fundamental idsagreement with the place of individual human rights? Because newt0311 cites China and Singapore approvingly, I wonder if he believes that the harmony of society (or some other group-level values) are so important that the wishes and desires of individuals merit little consideration? In other words, drug addiction is so bad in its costs to society in general that the very lives of the individuals taking drugs are insignificant compared to the interests of society as a whole? I only suggest this because if the disagreement is really at this level, arguing specifics and details will not be very fruitful.
  - unalone 18y ago
    I'm a big fan of individualism. I don't remember the last time anything great was made by anything other than individual will, so perhaps I'm biased. People who think we should be cogs in a big machine can feel free to disagree with me. You seem to be saying, in essence, "except for the drug dealing he is a pretty good kid, so therefore he is a pretty good kid." Not quite. It's more that I'm saying drug dealers aren't just drug dealers. The people who sell drugs are rarely more or less scummy than other people. Saying you want to kill them for drug sales is ridiculous, and it's vilifying a lot of people who are more than just drug dealers. "Um, what if you include the drug dealing into the equation, and all of the possible damage to the lives of people he is selling drugs to, or perhaps even to their friends, families, and loved ones?" If it's their choice to buy drugs, then if he wants to peddle, he should peddle. (I honestly don't know what else he sells. I don't buy drugs at all, so I've never asked.) You can argue over whether or not drugs are good for people, if they help them relax or if they're burning people out, but in the end it's the choice of the people who want to buy the drugs. And there's some complexity to that argument - I think that the only meaningful things worth doing are the things that actively help people, but that means that I dislike people who write slush stories or directors who are sloppy with camera work or pretty much most people, if I'm going to stand absolutely by that metric. But that's not a reason to incriminate somebody. It's their choice to sell and I think they have that right.
rms 18y ago
Don't you think that there is something wrong with, you know, killing people? Why not just castrate all the drug users instead? That would provide just as much of a disincentive without all the gratuitous violence. I find it hard to believe that you are actually serious and not trolling.
- newt0311 18y ago
  "Don't you think that there is something wrong with, you know, killing people?" Don'y you think that there is something wrong with, you know, addiction? "Why not just castrate all the drug users instead? That would provide just as much of a disincentive without all the gratuitous violence." Doubt that. Death != castration. Many people care more about being alive than sex. Also, use of the death penalty is not gratuitous violence. It is aimed at drug users and dealers, easily identifiable through empirical standards, and it is for a specific purpose: reduction of the drug trade to reduce the associated violence, organized crime, and rates if addiction. "I find it hard to believe that you are actually serious and not trolling." I really am not trolling. I am quite serious and as my many responses indicate, I am willing to provide arguments to back my case.

unalone 18y ago

I'm going to assume that you're a younger guy? Back when I was in high school I might have thought the same way - this was before I actually made friends with some drug users and tried some myself in college. Drug users are not bad people. Most drug dealers are not bad people. On my floor in college, the kid who sells drugs is a pretty cool kid: good student, active in sports. There's some social problems he runs across because he's "the kid that sells drugs," but he's a pretty cool guy. He's a typical college student who just happens to sell drugs to the kids who want to buy drugs. That is not deserving of death. When you talk about killing somebody, you're talking about ending a life, unconditionally terminating a person's future. Some things are worth that (I will hold to my dying day that enjoying the Twilight book series is admitting your lack of will to live), perhaps, but drug selling and drug use? No. Not at all. As I said: I tried marijuana a handful of times, and I thought it was pretty relaxing. Nobody was harmed. (To go to the extreme, if you use a vaporizer, you're not even risking lung damage, which means that your body seriously is not injured in any way, even minute.) It was voluntary on the part of myself and some friends. We were okay with paying for those drugs; the kid who sold them was fine with trading them for money. Do I deserve to die because I voluntarily used chemicals? Does the dealer deserve to die because he gave a product to somebody who wanted it? Who is the criminal here? Enforcing drug rules is basically punishing people not for actually doing anything bad, but for doing something that the government is telling you is a no-no. If I told you that it was bad to, say, whistle, and you whistled, and I told you I'd kill you if you didn't stop, maybe you'd stop, but that doesn't solve the real problem, which is "unalone is a dick who's setting arbitrary, pointless rules". The problem isn't your whistling, it's me. It's fun thinking of things so black-and-white when you're young, but once you reach the ripe old age of 18, you'll start maturing a little bit.

jimbokun 18y ago
You seem to be saying, in essence, "except for the drug dealing he is a pretty good kid, so therefore he is a pretty good kid." Um, what if you include the drug dealing into the equation, and all of the possible damage to the lives of people he is selling drugs to, or perhaps even to their friends, families, and loved ones? (You didn't say the kinds of drugs, and maybe you believe that whatever he is selling is not bad, since you argue that marijuana is harmless and maybe he is selling only marijuana. But you did not say that and it is a pretty important caveat.) While not condoning or agreeing with newt0311's argument, I wonder if whether the difference is a fundamental idsagreement with the place of individual human rights? Because newt0311 cites China and Singapore approvingly, I wonder if he believes that the harmony of society (or some other group-level values) are so important that the wishes and desires of individuals merit little consideration? In other words, drug addiction is so bad in its costs to society in general that the very lives of the individuals taking drugs are insignificant compared to the interests of society as a whole? I only suggest this because if the disagreement is really at this level, arguing specifics and details will not be very fruitful.
- unalone 18y ago
  I'm a big fan of individualism. I don't remember the last time anything great was made by anything other than individual will, so perhaps I'm biased. People who think we should be cogs in a big machine can feel free to disagree with me. You seem to be saying, in essence, "except for the drug dealing he is a pretty good kid, so therefore he is a pretty good kid." Not quite. It's more that I'm saying drug dealers aren't just drug dealers. The people who sell drugs are rarely more or less scummy than other people. Saying you want to kill them for drug sales is ridiculous, and it's vilifying a lot of people who are more than just drug dealers. "Um, what if you include the drug dealing into the equation, and all of the possible damage to the lives of people he is selling drugs to, or perhaps even to their friends, families, and loved ones?" If it's their choice to buy drugs, then if he wants to peddle, he should peddle. (I honestly don't know what else he sells. I don't buy drugs at all, so I've never asked.) You can argue over whether or not drugs are good for people, if they help them relax or if they're burning people out, but in the end it's the choice of the people who want to buy the drugs. And there's some complexity to that argument - I think that the only meaningful things worth doing are the things that actively help people, but that means that I dislike people who write slush stories or directors who are sloppy with camera work or pretty much most people, if I'm going to stand absolutely by that metric. But that's not a reason to incriminate somebody. It's their choice to sell and I think they have that right.

rms 18y ago

Don't you think that there is something wrong with, you know, killing people? Why not just castrate all the drug users instead? That would provide just as much of a disincentive without all the gratuitous violence. I find it hard to believe that you are actually serious and not trolling.

newt0311 18y ago
"Don't you think that there is something wrong with, you know, killing people?" Don'y you think that there is something wrong with, you know, addiction? "Why not just castrate all the drug users instead? That would provide just as much of a disincentive without all the gratuitous violence." Doubt that. Death != castration. Many people care more about being alive than sex. Also, use of the death penalty is not gratuitous violence. It is aimed at drug users and dealers, easily identifiable through empirical standards, and it is for a specific purpose: reduction of the drug trade to reduce the associated violence, organized crime, and rates if addiction. "I find it hard to believe that you are actually serious and not trolling." I really am not trolling. I am quite serious and as my many responses indicate, I am willing to provide arguments to back my case.