Rising GOP support for the U.S. taking unilateral military action in Mexico against drug cartels is increasingly rattling people on both sides of the border who worry talk of an attack is getting normalized.

Wednesday’s Republican presidential primary debate featured high-stakes policy disagreements on a range of issues from abortion to the environment — but found near-unanimous consensus on the idea of using American military force to fight drug smuggling and migration.

  • Techmaster@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    That’s completely out of the question in the Nanny States of America. The republicans want their “small government” to tell you what you’re allowed to put in or do to your own body, so free will would never be acceptable.

    • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      I’m sorry, but do you have the same position on gun laws (about nannies)?

      Cause we are talking about heavy narcotics, that usually don’t give you a second chance. Guns don’t make you physically, medically dependent and unable to reconsider.

      If that’s your point of view on narcotics, then in it one should also be able to own an Abrams tank with all the weaponry, legally.

      Now, light drugs are fine, but Mexican cartels don’t deal in that.

        • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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          1 year ago

          Under influence of drugs you can inflict any conceivable damage on others, which you wouldn’t without drugs.

            • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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              1 year ago

              What, that psychoactive substances make one inadequate while taking them? FFS, just encountering such people as yourself reinforces my belief that these should be controlled.

              • medgremlin@lemmy.sdf.org
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                1 year ago

                The drug most commonly implicated in acts of violence (particularly domestic violence) is alcohol, and there’s ads for that plastered all over the damn country. The violence associated with “hard” drugs like heroin or cocaine is usually tied to their acquisition or sale. Alcohol is the one that causes violence via consumption, and it’s one of the only drugs that its withdrawal can very easily kill you. Opiate withdrawal sucks, but it’s typically not lethal.

      • Madison420@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Taking a drug is a choice, getting shot is not. Stop being obtuse and conflating separate issues. Shame on you.

        • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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          1 year ago

          Yes, it’s a choice that you are going to possibly lose control of yourself and do various things you wouldn’t usually. If we are treating intoxication by cocaine or anything else as negligible while determining criminal responsibility for murders etc, that is, that every act under intoxication was intentional - then I’m fine with legalizing all drugs.

          • yawn@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Don’t know what you’re talking about, every act under intoxication is already legally intentional. “It’s not rape officer, I was drunk!” Doesn’t hold up in court

          • jscummy@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            Pretty sure the “I was super coked out” defense has yet to be tried in court, but I can’t imagine it would be effective

      • Techmaster@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Where I live (a red state), things like weed and mushrooms are still extremely illegal. I have a multiple AR’s that I built myself. And I respect those guns and would never use them in an irresponsible manner. But knowing how insanely stupid half the country is, it terrifies me that almost ANYBODY can legally own an AR. We need to have better control over who is allowed near these extremely dangerous weapons. And yes, they are extremely dangerous. If you’ve seen what high velocity rounds do to things, it’s understandable. But there’s no reason to restrict responsible gun owners from owning them. Ban AR’s and people will still have access to other weapons that are just as dangerous.

        But telling people what they’re allowed to do with their own bodies, whether it be weed, mushrooms, abortions, etc is a complete distortion of the spirit of the constitution. If we made safer drugs legal, people would be far less likely to use more potent and deadly drugs. Sometimes people just want to get high, and if they can’t get weed they get so desperate that they are making soda bottle meth. Or buying who knows what from some shady dude on a corner somewhere. If you legalize something, then we can regulate it, and people feel safer seeking help with their addictions.

        Put it this way. If there isn’t a victim, then it shouldn’t be a crime.

      • Phegan@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Drugs you put into your body. Bullets you put into someone else’s. They are not the same.

        • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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          1 year ago

          They are not the same, but they both affect the probability of bullets being put anywhere.

          I’ll formulate this differently - if a person taking drugs is legally fully responsible for everything done under their effect, then I’m all for full legalization. No excuses, like what a mental health problem would be, because taking drugs is a choice.

            • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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              1 year ago

              Well, then there’s nothing to argue about for us, but you’ll see various kinds of unofficial social discrimination of the users of such drugs through every loophole possible. Even being a person who takes medicine to not see hallucinations or not have impaired judgement is unpleasant socially. Nobody wants to live near a person who takes medicine in order to see hallucinations and get their judgement impaired to feel good. Except for other such people.

              EDIT: I mean, similar to alcohol, nothing really new here.

      • lingh0e@lemmy.film
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        1 year ago

        A) You should try to avoid fallacious arguments. Comparing drugs with guns is a terrible false equivalence. It’s also just flat out wrong.

        B) You’re “guns don’t make you unable to reconsider” is one of the dumbest takes possible. If you use a gun for it’s sole intended purpose, you could kill yourself or someone else. That’s absolutely something you can’t reconsider. Dead is dead.

        Drugs have the potential to kill ONE person, the person who made the decision to ingest them. Guns have the potential to kill many people.

        There are SO many other arguments you could have made against relaxing drug policy, you chose poorly.

        • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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          1 year ago

          It can be right or wrong depending on the set of criteria to compare them. Since I haven’t said anything as absolute as you did in your “A” statement, I’d say you’re the one to do fallacies here.

          Drugs make your judgement impaired, so by extension they have the potential to make you do anything, including killing any amount of people.

          I don’t think I choose my arguments poorly. Natural languages are fuzzy, and when you immediately start with dubious interpretations of what I wrote with a clear goal to prove that someone’s right and someone’s wrong and not reach the truth possibly by asking questions or having conditional logic in your answers, you just discredit yourself and not me.

          • lingh0e@lemmy.film
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            1 year ago

            What you just said, literally, is the textbook definition of a false equivalence fallacy.

            False equivalence is a common result when an anecdotal similarity is pointed out as equal, but the claim of equivalence does not bear scrutiny because the similarity is based on oversimplification or ignorance of additional factors.

            “If everything and everyone is portrayed negatively, there’s a leveling effect that opens the door to charlatans.”

            But that’s all irrelevant anyways since you’re basically just regurgitating DARE propaganda that has little basis in fact.

            The fact is that drugs won’t cause a normally reasonable person to suddenly go on a murderous rampage. There are people who have done terrible things under the influence of drugs, but there were always aggravating circumstances. Meanwhile there are millions of recreational drug users who go about their lives every day as productive members of society. You almost definitely know some personally.

            • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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              1 year ago

              What you just said, literally, is the textbook definition of a false equivalence fallacy.

              No, you just have a problem trying to understand what’s said to you, fighting some imagined war in text instead. For what?

              “If everything and everyone is portrayed negatively, there’s a leveling effect that opens the door to charlatans.”

              I’m equating equal things. There hasn’t been an argument here on a level above them.

              Also you are imagining a lot of what I’m saying instead of asking me when it’s unclear, I think this is deliberate but circumstances of upbringing made you think it’s not easy to notice, while it is and also discredits your argument.

              But that’s all irrelevant anyways since you’re basically just regurgitating DARE propaganda that has little basis in fact.

              Trying to present your opponent as a medium for some entity’s propaganda, thus attempting to diminish them as a subject of conversation, is something clearly incompatible with the image you are trying to create with that tone.

              The fact is that drugs won’t cause a normally reasonable person to suddenly go on a murderous rampage.

              A person who’d kill an attacker in self-defense - which is perfectly reasonable - can kill an innocent person under a drug causing hallucinations. That’s a very simple and a bit cinematographic example.

              Anyway, use of alcohol does that. Of course there are accompanying circumstances, there always are, that’s not a counterargument.

              Meanwhile there are millions of recreational drug users who go about their lives every day as productive members of society.

              The conversation is about cocaine, so irrelevant.

              You almost definitely know some personally.

              IRL - no, I live in a country where harmless weed gets you a sentence similar to one for heroine. Ex-Soviet laws and all that.

              Well, there was one guy, and yes, he’s normal morally, but I wouldn’t say adequate enough to entrust something important.