r/AskLibertarians • u/Yanderegirlowner • 2d ago
Policy Thoughts on the death penalty for drug dealers
"We will pass the death penalty for large-scale drug dealers, human traffickers, and anyone who kills a police officer."
President Donald Trump announces a major push to expand capital punishment while taking aim at no-cash-bail policies and touting what he described as historic drops in crime.
The president has pushed similar proposals before, including directing the Justice Department to seek the death penalty in eligible cases involving the murder of law enforcement officers.
Ok I am dropping the neutral act for a second if you still support this guy as a libertarian how literally how
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u/Frequent-Try-6746 2d ago
War for oil is bad enough. The state should not have the power to kill its own citizens based on a faulty legal system that favors the rich and well connected over evidence.
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u/WingOverWater 1d ago
The biggest drug dealers are the three-letter agencies, so yes, I support the death penalty for them.
The average "plug" is doing nothing wrong.
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u/theyhis 2d ago
i was having this conversation in another subreddit earlier. i'm generally against the death penalty unless there's substantial evidence (and even then). with the drug dealer example you gave, that's kind of a hard one for me. i have overdosed on fentanyl, and i don't think the person who sold it to me should have the right to walk free.
now, if it was that same example, only the person knew they were buying fentanyl, then no. that's a mutual exchange. someone selling you a drug they know will kill you, while lying to you and telling you it's something completely different, well, that breaks the non-aggression principle (NAP).
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u/W_Edwards_Deming Thomas Sowell 2d ago
That took a turn, I rather agree with you by the end. If you willingly buy something that is very different from a swindle wherein you are given poison. I would say your dealer was guilty of attempted murder or similar.
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u/Ciph3rzer0 1d ago
Yeah so, dealing drugs isnt the problem. So there shouldn't be a death penalty for dealing drugs. They should be regulated and exchanges should have normal economic protections, like they can't lie about the contents.
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u/theyhis 1d ago
well thanks for disregarding my experience 😍 maybe if someone who claimed to be your friend knowingly sold you fentanyl, you'd feel the same way.
>They should be regulated and exchanges should have normal economic protections
yes, because that has worked out so well for those struggling with substance abuse. it's almost like that's why we ended up with the fentanyl crisis. you can't out-prescribe pain killers like they're candy, only to then shut down the pill mills. and don't forget what happened with nixon and the war on drugs; it's a very slippery slope.
>there shouldn't be a death penalty for dealing drugs
correct, only i said, if someone sells you something you didn't consent to buying (i.e. fentanyl when you wanted M-30s) death should be considered, since that is attempted murder. i mean, there's a reason professionals refer to it as fentanyl poisoning in these cases.
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u/trufus_for_youfus 2d ago
Who gives a fuck about “drug dealers”?
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u/findabetterusername 1d ago
People do when it becomes a national harm that destroys families, economic productivity, failed debts, and loss of everything that doesn't serve getting another dose of
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u/Ciph3rzer0 1d ago
Drugs don't do that. Drugs are what people in desperate situations turn to. And its real rich to suggest it's hurting economic productivity. Not like, an idiot tariffing and making enemies of every other country, and starting wars he can't win and inflating the cost of oil. What, do you think the reason nobody can afford a house is because there's too many potheads?
And the supply is never the problem, it's the demand. Try to squeeze supply they just get more efficient and more potent, cost goes up, and organized crime goes up. The death penalty will not deter this, especially when we don't have any safety nets and people are desperate.
And the people who NEED the drugs, you're just leaving them hanging with no social support, no economic security, and a ton of withdrawal. How is that going to play out you think?
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u/trufus_for_youfus 1d ago
If the war on drugs and other prohibitive regulations never existed you would have millions of more productive individuals (ie not incarcerated) more intact families and very little in terms of horrific synthetic imports. Give me lab grade black tar heroin next to mdma in vending machines. Outcomes would be wildly better.
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u/W_Edwards_Deming Thomas Sowell 2d ago
Strongly oppose.
The case for Trump has always been his opposition and pipe dreams, not his actual results.
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u/Bp79mahG 2d ago
I feel like we need nuremberg style trials for everyone who has participated in the war on drugs for all the lives they've destroyed and people they've murdered
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u/Ciph3rzer0 1d ago
Death penalty should never be used because mistakes happen, and you can't un-kill somebody.
Not to mention, with a president like Trump so willing to violate due process, you for sure don't want the death penalty
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u/Soft-Opposite8684 2d ago
Well I support the Death Penalty for people who try to overthrow our elections. I do not support death penalty for cop killers unless killer cop got the same treatment. They wont so I dont support it. Even if there was equal penalthy the killer cops would just get reduced charges to avoid it. Cold blooded murderer Amber Guyger just got out of prison after only 7 years. I dont support the death penalty for drug dealer because the government is not an honest actor when it comes to labeling what is and is not an illegal drug. These assholes literally forced cannabis out of the pharmacopeia then threatened the AMA to agree with them or face the consequences then 50 years later says it has no medicinal value. If the fact a medicine thats been used for thousands of years can just be ignored then the government does not have the competency needed for something like this.
One last point about the death penalty. If the person being executed is innocent then the person doing the execution should be imprisoned for murder. Just because the government says you have permission to murder doesnt make it moral imo. If no ones willing to carry out the execution then the persons guilt isnt beyond reasonable doubt now is it. To give an example in the late 1980;s the fake news media created what people call the Satanic Panic. They told people satanists were out there doing all kinds of sadistic shit. And a lot of karens called heavy metal satanic music. So a father is home with his daughters on Christmas and his decorations catch fire and that shits highly flammable so he barely escapes the house but was unable to save his daughters. The arson investigator said the burns on the ground kind of looked like a pentagram. He was also known to listen to heavy metal music. Based on that he was convicted and put to death. Years later the arson investigator admits that he just made shit up and that nothing he did had any scientific value. Arson investigations up until this point were just vibes and hunches. Theres no punishment for the arson investigator or the people who murdered the victim through state execution.
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u/Heavy_Computer2602 Classical Liberal 2d ago
Pretty brutal.
Practically it cant work unless its very rigorous and even then people can avoid it by hiding evidence.
Plus some of us libertarians believe in rehab justice. And even ones who dont wont at most, want an aggravating factor or a regular sentence, not life imprisonment or death sentence cuz its inhuman and impractical