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PaperclipPerfector  21hr ago (text post)   2811 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 1, 2025

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anyone who thinks we should give drug smugglers free reign is not.

You know that's not the actual argument being made right? There's a lot of room between "just blow up boats because we said they had drugs" and "do nothing"

Most of the concern is whether or not they're even carrying drugs, something that the admin has not been forthcoming with evidence for to the extent that they even send back survivors instead of prosecuting them.

But ok, let's say that they are drug boats. Is the response to that calling them terrorists and murdering them anyway? People who sell drugs are not killing people, because drugs can not kill people in the same way guns can not just kill people. Drug deaths are suicides by the irresponsible drug users, whether on purpose or on accident. People may feel shameful if their father or brother or daughter or whoever ends up as a druggie and ODs, but blaming the person who sold them the drugs is like when leftists blame gun stores for shootings.

That doesn't mean we should or have to be legalizing them, there is no constitutional right to either use or sell drugs but the argument being used currently by the Trump admin is one of poor victims who aren't responsible for their own drug additions, and they need to be protected from the "terrorists" who provide the druggies the goods they want. An easier way to think about it is with a lesser harm, like if someone were to proclaim we should start rounding up Nestle and Coca Cola shareholders for victimizing poor Americans with obesity, because offering high sugar snacks and drinks is damaging their health. It's the same logic, they provide an addictive product that Americans use to hurt themselves with so are they not corn syrup terrorists?

We could ban high glycemic index products and we could punish people who kept selling them anyway because likewise there is no constitutional right to them. But calling the sellers terrorists for something the "victims" choose to do to themselves is nonsense. We ban those products so people can't hurt themselves from their own stupid decisions.

Most of the concern is whether or not they're even carrying drugs, something that the admin has not been forthcoming with evidence for to the extent that they even send back survivors instead of prosecuting them.

Is it? I mean I've seen that expressed from time to time, but isn't it generally indistinguishable from generalized anti-Trump complaints like opposition to law enforcement and immigration enforcement, being pro-nonwhite persons, etc? The Mark Kelly statement which some on the right are referring to as the "seditious six" seems to me to be something he's probably said before and seems to fit perfectly into statements made about basically every Trump action of all time.

If South American cartels were running guns into the US that were used in the deaths of over 100k Americans per years, would you be ok with the government using lethal force on the gun runners?

If South American cartels were running guns into the US that were used in the deaths of over 100k Americans per years, would you be ok with the government using lethal force on the gun runners?

Only in direct response to normal contraband-interception-operations being attacked with lethal force. Declaring war launching a Special Military Operation against smugglers "Narco-Terrorists" Foreign Terror Organizations is fucked up.

Most of the concern is whether or not they're even carrying drugs, something that the admin has not been forthcoming with evidence for...

There's not a ton of quad-outboard motorboats using that style of travel and large numbers of garbage-bagged wrapped cubic containers, as shown in the videos the administration has provided, and other countries have claimed to recover cocaine from the aftermath, but even if you don't trust either administration's assessments, from that Right-Wing Rag:

In dozens of interviews in villages on Venezuela’s breathtaking northeastern coast, from which some of the boats departed, residents and relatives said the dead men had indeed been running drugs but were not narco-terrorists or leaders of a cartel or gang.

to the extent that they even send back survivors instead of prosecuting them.

I'd be a little interest to understand what, exactly, that would work like.

Is the response to that calling them terrorists and murdering them anyway? People who sell drugs are not killing people, because drugs can not kill people in the same way guns can not just kill people.

The United States government ventilates the skulls of American citizens in predawn raids, while wearing masks and without clear 'police' markings and without any of the 'blaring messages saying to turn back' bullshit. I can't promise that absolutely every single person who suddenly cares about drug traffickers seems to have found their conscience, here. But if you've got an example, I'd like to see it.

Until then, that argument holds no water. That ship has sailed, exploded, and sunk to the seabed.

((That's doubly true given the common mix and mislabeling of various drugs by illegal sellers. Someone who decided to do cocaine only 'decided' to do fentanyl in the revealed preferences sense of not finding a better drug dealer.))

An easier way to think about it is with a lesser harm, like if someone were to proclaim we should start rounding up Nestle and Coca Cola shareholders for victimizing poor Americans with obesity, because offering high sugar snacks and drinks is damaging their health. It's the same logic, they provide an addictive product that Americans use to hurt themselves with so are they not corn syrup terrorists?

You're not presenting an argument, here.

the argument being used currently by the Trump admin is one of poor victims who aren't responsible for their own drug additions, and they need to be protected from the "terrorists" who provide the druggies the goods they want.

Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States.

There's an interesting strain of Latin American thought that goes something like: America blames us for the drug gangs, when we're stuck with the drug gangs because of American demand for cocaine.

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