Comments by "Mat Broomfield" (@matbroomfield) on "Why President Trump Should Free Ross Ulbricht" video.

Well said. Lawmakers need to remember they are SERVANTS of the people, not our fucking school teachers or parents.
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@johnromero7807 America "justice" is a joke.
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@PeterDivine Nobody wilfully chooses drug addiction, but like all the myriad things we daily do that are bad for us, it should be OUR choice to make.
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@PeterDivine Well you sound like a reasonable human being. Hope you're not in law enforcement or the judiciary.
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@PeterDivine There are SO many good reasons to legalise drugs and so very few to oppose them. You are looking at the worst case scenarios, and extrapolating that to every use of drugs. Conservatives have always done that; rock and roll music, movies, video games, sexual liberation, and drugs. And in every case, your slippery slope has been incorrect. Worse still, you look at the consequences of an ILLEGAL drug trade and assume that that is indicative of a legal but regulated trade. Once you take the illegality away, the vast majority of issues disappear too. Prohibition has NEVER worked to stop anything; only to create criminality surrounding its supply, and add danger to its consumption. It intrigues me though, usually conservatives fiercely support civil liberties and oppose big government, but on this issue they're fine telling you what you can do with your own body. I'm gonna take a guess that you're pro gun though.
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Did you watch the video? It addressed that accusation. And if he did, it was a scumbag uncle who tried to blackmail him and bring the whole scheme down.
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@ShankarSivarajan Half the planet has form of socialism and their citizens are happier, better educated and healthier than America. The irony is, America has socialism for corporations who don't need it.
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@LamiNalchor If others are to be believed, this is unproven, but of course, if he did, screw him.
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Radical Bear If this is the case, then he should be dead, not merely serving a life sentence. That said, again, were it not for the farcical "war on drugs" this situation would never have arisen.
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@PeterDivine Of course I didn't watch it Peter. It was produced by KOMO, a Sinclair Media station. In case you didn't know, Sinclair is LITERALLY a right wing, racist, anti-socialist propoganda network on a par with Alex Jones bank rolled by self interested billionaires. I wouldn't trust a word that came out of their mouths.
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@pipoca334 It's impossible to be free when we live in mega communities. The only way to be free is go live in the woods somewhere completely off-grid. If you live in a town or city, you need police, an army, a fire service, administration, and you're talking about taxation to pay for that and government to handlle it. It's simply unavoidable.
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@PeterDivine The credibility of a person making a statement matters in issues where you either lack the means or the will to fact check their every statement. For instance, if Donald Trump makes ANY claim, I just assume he's lying because he's a habitual liar. Likewise, when a channel is KNOWN for being a right wing propaganda mouthpiece, it is NOT an ad hominem to disregard that channel out of hand. I didn't disregard their arguments because I didn't waste my time watching them. But, while you're lecturing on terms of argumentation, try this one argumentum ab auctoritate Latin for "Appeal to authority" aka "Argument from authority" "a form of argument in which the opinion of an authority on a topic is used as evidence to support an argument." When the authority you appeal to is biased, ignorant, and a liar, then it is an invalid form of argumentation. If you want to make a case personally, make it, but if you're going to cite others as supporting your position, don't cite conservative media mouthpieces - cite impartial experts on the relevant subjects. And EVEN THEN, the fcat that you can cite a single example to support your argument but there are dozens of counter examples, you would not be convincing.
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@chiweenie96 Agreed. Losing your right to vote is despicable. As for freeing Ross, clearly if he killed or tried to kill to protect his sales, he deserves to be in prison. If all he did was supply, then I agree with you.
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@chiweenie96 I have no way of knowing if he was a stone cold killer, as many drug dealers are, or just an enterprising pothead. Not sure what admin access has to do with his willingness to kill to protect his business. Word is, someone threatened to expose his enterprise, he killed them. But it could be bullshit. You'll get no argument from me on making drugs legal. Half of America's one million, for profit, can't vote prisoners are there on drug offences, the majority of them victimless. but. its status DOES produce violent criminals as well.
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@chiweenie96 "Nobody is a good drug dealer, drugs sell themselves." That's not true. Scumbags selling to kids should have a bullet in their brains. Other than that, I generally agree with what you're saying.
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@LamiNalchor Laws have to be just for them to be worthy of complying with. Marijuana was made illegal to protect the financial interests of a hemp dealer, and has accounted for more prisoners than any other crime in America, mostly for victimless "crimes". The illegality of drugs is the absolute exemplification of big government involving itself in our lives in ways that it should stay out of.
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@LamiNalchor So we should be prevented, as adults, from doing things that harm us in large numbers? So your diet should be proscribed? No more coffee, cigarettes, fast food? or alcohol What about stressful work? What about low pay or limited healthcare access? Should the government take each of us by the hand like babies and force us to exercise? Or prevent us from taking risks? I often find that people who reduce complex issues to black and white dichotomies, especially with the words "it is that simple" have not fully considered the ramifications. "Fascists use freedom of speech to foment insurrection so we should prevent their freedom of speech it's that simple." Do you REALLY think it is the duty of the state to involve itself in the way that you run your private life? Just stop and think about that for a second because I'm CERTAIN that if we explored it for a minute, we could find activities you engage in that are sub-optimal to your health or life expectancy.
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@LamiNalchor "However, countries that have a few drugs legally accessible usually have an additional, huge underground drug scene," I'd like to see your citations for that. As I understand it, states that legalised marijuana found usage actually dropping. Also, the greatest number of drug deaths in modern America have been caused by legally overprescribe opiods. I agree, it's a multifaceted problem, but again, for me, it reduces do to your personal liberties. If the only victim is you, why SHOULDN'T you take drugs? The state should not exist to serve as a parent, ring-fencing how you can live your life. As you recognise, the associated criminality arises primarily due to the illegal status and resulting black market.
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@LamiNalchor "There's no doubt that the high street has been" No, absolutely not. When drugs are misprescribed, and addiction created in those who were unaware that they were taking an addictive substance, that's a totally different situation. I doubt that a single person ever used crack cocaine or heroin not already knowing that it was addictive and could ruin your life. "a society is a community that has to function as such?" So does that mean that from birth, each person on this planet is obligated, like some worker drone, to know their place and act accordingly? I'm sorry, but I just don't accept that premise. Every person on this planet, should have the right to live by their own standards insofar as they do not impinge upon the rights of others to do likewise, and even then, I would say that any impingement needed to be viewed as a significantly greater evil. When it comes to drugs, all anyone has is opinion. However, there are grander principles related to personal autonomy that are trampled in your perspective. I asked earlier where the limits of govermental oversight should end, yet you declined to answer this most critical and fundamental of questions.
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@LamiNalchor "The definition of when your freedom is causing harm for others can not be defined precisely." It may be slightly fuzzy at the borders, but not much. If it upsets a person to know that some people enjoy drugs, should the user stop taking them for instance? No, because the Karen's emotional issues are for HER to resolve, just as they would be if the Karen didn't think black people deserved to be treated equally. It primarily comes down to the definition of "harm." Off the top of my head, I consider harm to be only direct physical or social damage done as a direct result of drug use. For instance, if hospitals are overwhelmed with dying drug users, or drug users are consistently violent, or they die in such high numbers that families are traumatised. But even then, we don't apply that standard to smoking, drinking, eating bad food, or engaging in risky behaviour, so why should drug use be a special case? I think that you keep hiding behind "functionality of a society" to avoid addressing the real issues of civil liberties.To co-opt Milton Freedman “A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.” In this case, you are so preoccupied with what you perceive to be the social good of protecting it and the user, that ignore the far greater issue of personal liberty. I will concede one point you made - "Many people, especially less educated ones, know little about the effects of drugs, particularly party/designer drugs." I don't know if this is the case, but nor am I certain that it is not.
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The war on drugs is the single greatest abuse of human rights in America in the past century, and I include the racist court and police abuses in that. Millions of people losing their liberty, tens of millions having their reasonable freedom to do what they want to their own bodies infringed, all while cigrattes, alcohol and harmful food remain legal. Vote these old fucks out of power at every level NOW!
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Collectively, millions of man years wasted in jail - that's worth FAR more than one kingpin's life sentence.
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@okquentin I agree with your general principle, but when dealing becomes violence, then other crimes have been committed.
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@dannygillmusic Yes, that's reasonable.
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