{"id":14713,"date":"2018-03-12T12:48:33","date_gmt":"2018-03-12T17:48:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=14713"},"modified":"2018-03-12T12:48:33","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T17:48:33","slug":"emotion-over-tradition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2018\/03\/12\/emotion-over-tradition\/","title":{"rendered":"Emotion Over Tradition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anything to whip up the voters, it seems. WaPo<\/strong><\/em> reports<\/a> on President Trump’s visit to Moon Township, PA, in support of Rick Saccone’s (R) special election run for the House of Representatives:<\/p>\n

Trump said that allowing prosecutors to seek the death penalty for drug dealers \u2014 an idea he said he got from Chinese President Xi Jinping \u2014 is \u201ca discussion we have to start thinking about. I don\u2019t know if this country\u2019s ready for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you think the drug dealers who kill thousands of people during their lifetime, do you think they care who\u2019s on a blue-ribbon committee?\u201d Trump asked. \u201cThe only way to solve the drug problem is through toughness. When you catch a drug dealer, you\u2019ve got to put him away for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was not the first time Trump had suggested executing drug dealers. Earlier this month, he described it as a way to fight the opioid epidemic. And on Friday, The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration was considering policy changes to allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty.<\/p>\n

But on Saturday his call for executing drug dealers got some of the most enthusiastic cheers of the night. As Trump spoke about policies on the issue in China and Singapore, dozens of people nodded their heads in agreement. \u201cWe love Trump,\u201d one man yelled. A woman shouted: \u201cPass it!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If it were only that easy.<\/p>\n

But, disregarding questions of whether a Christian would endorse this proposal and whether it would pass Constitutional muster, there are two problems with it.<\/p>\n

First, treating drug dealers as deliberate murderers ignores the fact that, like President Trump, drug dealers are businessmen<\/em>. And the first thing a businessman doesn’t want to do is kill off the customers. Thousands? Only by their own hands, in most cases.<\/p>\n

Second, it trashes the traditional role of redemption<\/em> in American society. While there are certain crimes, such as serial killing, which will draw death penalties or life in prison, generally Americans have always believed in punishment followed by a chance for redemption. This proposal trashes this tradition embraced by conservatives and liberals alike.<\/p>\n

Third, unlike murder, which is a deliberate act inflicted on an innocent person, and sometimes even planned, drug dealing involves two willing parties (disregarding the addiction the buyer may suffer from). Kill a drug dealer and someone will take his or her place. You want to stop the overdoses? Stop the demand – or satisfy it legitimately<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Executing drug dealers will be ineffectual for the real problem – it’ll only be effective for satisfying the emotional desires of people frustrated with reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anything to whip up the voters, it seems. WaPo reports on President Trump’s visit to Moon Township, PA, in support of Rick Saccone’s (R) special election run for the House of Representatives: Trump said that allowing prosecutors to seek the death penalty for drug dealers \u2014 an idea he said \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14713"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14714,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14713\/revisions\/14714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}