Hacker News Reader

Comment by forrestthewoods | Hacker News Reader

Yes, and the charter you just gave is is evil. Fundamentally evil. Pure evil even.

"...do everything it can to prosecute as many drug violations as they can." That makes no mention of improving society. Or protecting society. Or providing valuable services to the citizens of society. Nor does it even make mention of the validity of the violations in question. Who cares if the violations in question are actually true. Truth and justice have nothing to do with the charter!

So no, the DEA deserves to be perfectly square in the crosshairs of blame. Along with many other agencies and governmental organizations.

View on HN

It's called the "Drug Enforcement Agency." It's sole purpose is to enforce drug laws, not to make drug policy. Like other agencies, it was created to enforce the policies enacted by politicians (Congresscritters and Senators). Blame the politicians, not the agencies.

I'm happy to blame congress and others for creating the terrible policy, but that doesn't let the DEA off the hook for the practices they're describing here.

An agency or officer that's justifying their actions as "enforcing the law" had better be talking about the every bit as important and legitimate laws that limit their activities and powers, as well as the criminal statutes.

Otherwise, they're doing something else besides law enforcement.

Pardon my language, but fuck that. Members of the DEA are responsible for their own actions with respect to how they uphold those laws. They hold prosecutorial discretion and they may be rightly judged for how they exercise that privilege. Some judge may have ruled parallel construction, amongst other things, as legal but that doesn't mean it's moral or ethical.

  It's called the "Rape Creation Agency" It's sole purpose is to rape people, not to make rape policy. Like other agencies, it was created to enforce the policies enacted by politicians (Congresscritters and Senators). Blame the politicians, not the agencies.

I know it seems like a straw man but I just wish to show that your reasoning isn't quite sound.

> It's called "Vernichtungslager" / "Concentration Camps", their whole purpose is the legal killing of undesirables, you're really venting your anger at the wrong agency here. They're just doing the job they were hired for.

Unless you're meaning to imply that laws around drugs are categorically evil, I don't think you actually have a point.

The US laws around drugs right now are categorically evil, yes.

No, not the laws around drugs right now — the concept of laws around drugs. Because if it's just the current laws that are problematic, then it is indeed the laws that are the problem, not the agency.

This is not comparable to a hypothetical Rape Creation Agency, which is problematic in and of itself because we do not approve of rape under any circumstances and there are no laws that could be changed to make such an agency acceptable. The analogy is not valid for making that particular point.

The drug laws are Jim Crow laws, version 2.0 (now with added resiliency!) They were created for exactly the same racist reasons. The laws are evil, and those who voluntarily sign on to enforce them are evil.

The DEA isn't staffed by people who were drafted, they all chose to involve themselves. Each individual member of the DEA is free to refuse to participate, but they instead choose to participate. We can and should judge them for that.

I think you're letting your outrage overcome your sense, because this has very little to do with what I was talking about.

It has everything to do with what you are talking about.

You said: "Because if it's just the current laws that are problematic, then it is indeed the laws that are the problem, not the agency."

But it isn't just the laws that are problematic. The agency itself is problematic (being a construct that exists only because of the problematic laws), and the people who voluntarily work for the agency deserve every ounce of criticism that they get. There is no sense in which the agency is not problematic, both it as an abstract concept and it as a collection of free individuals are part of the problem.

Neither the agency nor the people that comprise are blameless just because they did not write the laws.

> we do not approve of rape under any circumstances

In the U.S. people actively encourage rape in prison as a form of revenge, even an inherent part of incarceration. Especially if the person being incarcerated did something that fits the common definition of "wrong", like robbing someone at gunpoint, carjacking, murder, drug trafficking, or rape. How much sympathy do people usually have for a rapist being raped in prison? Or a child molester?

That's approval waiting for a chance to surface, because someone "deserved it", and it's not even close to being isolated to prisoners or criminals either, that attitude is horrifically common.

This would be empty theorizing. May be you can create an agency and call it Rape Creation Agency and still have laws that would govern it that would not be evil (e.g., for example, for its agents to never do anything, never show up at work and just collect salaries - that'd be actually less evil than the substantial part of currently existing government agencies). But that's a theoretical exercise.

Drug War, on the contrary, is very practical evil existing right now in America. And no amount of theory would change that until the laws that create that evil would be removed and replaced with ones that are not evil.

I don't think you understand logic, the law, or modern society.

Rape is illegal, hence, the legislative branch could not and would not create a "rape agency" to rape people without also making rape legal. Obviously, if they were to do that, the problem is the politicians would make rape legal.

Our duly elected representatives made laws prohibiting drugs, and an agency to enforce those laws. We've had many chances to replace those representatives in the decades since, and have chosen not to replace them with representatives who would remove those laws or water down the enforcement provisions.

Is there a difference between morality and the law?

If our "duly elected representatives" made laws that made rape legal, would that be moral?

If there are 100 people in a room and 51 people vote for the other 49 to become their lunch, is that ok?

What if they made laws that made killing certain ethic groups legal, would that be moral?

What if both of the candidates in a race are for the drug war and I don't have a choice?

Does voting really imply consent? If it does, what if the candidate was lying during the campaign? What if he/she changed their mind about an issue? Do I still imply consent?

Nope, it's Drug Enforcement Administration

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_Enforcement_Administratio...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com