Im not actually in support of killing these people but I have to say, people seem to
gloss over that each boatload of these drugs literally destroys multiple American families. People who have lost someone (either through death or just throwing their life away) to drugs will tell you these "poor fishermen" are murderers, who in no way extend the kind of empathy to us that we're expected to show them.
It does get very complicated when you consider they're probably under a lot of "carrot AND stick" from the cartels... but the damage they do is real.
I don't see how killing a lot of fishermen and destroying their families alleviates this pain.
There might have been drugs on the boats, but maybe not. No one bothered to check first.
The fishermen might have been part-time drug smugglers, maybe not. How do we know? What investigation was done?
And if we really believe that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"
then taking away people's lives without due process is murder. Cold blooded, premeditated murder. That's a worse crime than selling someone a drug that might kill them.
Friend, don't let your pain blind you to causing more pain. Ethics is hard.
I mean it is noble to act like you are some being of infinite sympathy and forgiveness. The reality of being alive though is that many people will 100% hurt you for their personal gain.
> That's a worse crime than selling someone a drug that might kill them
I am pretty sure the 14 people who died weren't smuggling in 14 doses of fentanyl, is killing someone a worse crime than selling 100,000 people a drug that might kill them, and will guaranteed fuck up their lives, their families lives, and their community?
The USA (and many countries) decided long ago to allow the sale of alcohol, a drug that ends many lives and ruins many, many more. I hope that once these fentanyl smugglers are dealt with, we can do something about the drug sellers that are operating out in the open with impunity.
> People who have lost someone (either through death or just throwing their life away) to drugs will tell you these "poor fishermen" are murderers
Just to be clear-- we're talking about a hypothetical family member of a potential future victim of drug overdose who was unwittingly saved based on fully trusting the federal government's claim that their extra-judicial killing stopped the international trade of illicit drugs as opposed to killing innocent fishermen.
Did I correctly label all the global mutable state in your example?
I get and agree with your non-sequitur that there's a clear difference between drug mules and fishermen, I just don't see the relevance of that to the danger of leveraging these post-9/11 counterterrorism laws (and secret interpretations of them) to carry out extra-judicial killings.
Edit: to be extra clear-- the whole point of meaningful democratic oversight in this case is to be able to meaningfully care, measure and review the difference between drug mules and fishermen. The entire modern history of secret interpretations of counterterrorism laws tells us that without this basic oversight, the government will always claim they only target the murderers. Worse, they'll use the veil of national security to hide the fact that innocent victims are jailed, tortured, and killed through the same counterterrorism programs.
This is not a useful conversation because there is no way to know that any drugs have been destroyed. The issue at hand is that the government is blowing up unidentified boats full of unidentified people. Talking about the harmful effects of drugs is a complete non-sequitur until there is some convincing reason to believe that drugs are involved.
Beyond this administration, the US government has a documented history of lying about the justification for military action. When people are being killed it is irresponsible to assume, with no evidence, that they are telling the truth this time.
I am not assuming the strikes are baseless, I am stating that there is no evidence for any basis, so discussing if they might be justified if some hypothetical evidence existed is pointless.
We've actually had multiple high profile intelligence leaks by the current admin because it's full of absolute idiots, and the leaks would indicate that they're about as smart as your average user on Twitter. Frankly if anyone believes their strikes have any sort of valid basis with all the leaks that have gone out then I would question their critical thinking ability.
> If you are smuggling large amounts of fentanyl or weapons into another country and they shoot you that seems pretty ok.
Assumes facts not in evidence.
Also, there's great reasons to have punishments for crimes that are not just summary executions. Even if you have a warped morality where all criminals of any sort should die, there's _still_ great reasons to not allow that to be chosen by the closest person with a gun. That way lies chaos and corruption.
So if China CLAIMS without evidence that Americans smuggle large amounts of fentanyl or weapons on international water then you are OK with them killing Americans? Would it include your family if it was claimed they are smugglers?
If other countries were bombing US boats in the Gulf of Mexico, closer to the US and hundreds or thousands of miles away from the country doing the bombing, would you be okay with that?
Why limit it to boats? Maybe he would support shooting down American civilian planes if claimed they had drugs on board. I’m sure he would support that.
How do you know that already doesn’t happen? Not necessarily blowing up but I’m sure there’s a gulf of dead people with US citizenship who have been killed by various states for participating in drug activities and illegal activity at large.
Singapore has given many foreigners the death penalty for drug smuggling and I couldnt care less actually
If youre implying the people being killed are innocent countrymen of the real criminals then of course I object. Everything I have said applies to people actually comitting crimes
"Penalty" is the key word here. Like, issued by a judge, after proper judgement according to the law of the land. Not random shooting people without any due process.
This will definitely get lost in the conversation but like I said right up front, I dont actually agree with killing them. It seems that we ought to be able to intercept these boats and process them as suspects of a crime. It just rubs me the wrong way how every issue gets written up as a one-sided narrative of good vs evil depending on who you support politically.
I'd argue a missing social safety net combined with grossly inadequate public education, no job opportunities, unaffordable healthcare and housing, and a prison system designed to punish all drive people to take drugs. Drug addiction is just the symptom. Let's focus on giving people real hope and value and meaning in their lives, from birth to death, instead of killing people, without trial, a world away.
> Im not actually in support of killing these people but I have to say, people seem to gloss over that each boatload of these drugs literally destroys multiple American families.
So does alcohol. (And a whole bunch of other domestically-produced stuff.)
How much effort is being put into the demand-side of the equation?
> people seem to gloss over that each boatload of these drugs literally destroys multiple American families
They also gloss over the fact that alcohol does the same. But I don't think it's bizarre to allow people to make their own decisions.
When alcohol was criminalized, many people would go blind from impurities in their own homebrews. Legalization and regulation are good things to prevent some of the unintended consequences, like deaths from adulteration with fentanyl, hotspots, and so on.
Many (possibly all) of the boats in question were not capable of making it to the U.S. from where they were hit without refueling multiple times. It is not possible that they were headed directly to the U.S..
If your barometer is 'thing destroying American families' does this mean you'd also be willing to excuse blowing up health insurers or does your logic only apply to things that aren't directly under the thumb of American businesses?
The pragmatic approach is that we're spending far too much money blowing up small boats which could be better invested in actually fixing our healthcare system and other domestic issues, with decent odds of going to war and spending even more money because of it. The empathetic side is that these are just fishermen that aren't even involved in this whole shitshow getting killed for political points by a bloodthirsty and stupid admin.
Even if you just assume guilt it doesn't make sense. You send the coast guard to capture the boat and then you have a person with knowledge and drugs and a boat which can be traced & used as evidence...
You mean the casual sense of "innocence", but they are literally innocent in they they've not been convicted of the crime they were killed for allegedly committing.
"The only real drug problem is scoring real good drugs. Haven't we learned our lesson? The corner store sells finer scotch. But who's got uncut powder?" - NOFX
It does get very complicated when you consider they're probably under a lot of "carrot AND stick" from the cartels... but the damage they do is real.