Have you ever posted something critical of the administration? Were you attacked by dozens of online trolls calling you a drug addict or a yellowtard? Did you scratch your head when you got asked questions like "Why don't you grieve for their victims instead?!!"Well then this list is for you. Here are some of the most popular arguments/questions that have been used in this drug war so far deconstructed1.) It’s ok to kill drug users because they murder and rape: One problem with this argument is that unless you could prove that ALL drug users kill and rape, you’re saying that it’s ok to kill any member of a group because of the crime of some of its members. That’s like saying it’s ok to kill any Muslim because almost all terrorist attacks are committed by Muslims. Another mind altering substance, alcohol, is also responsible for a lot of crimes including murder, rape and a lot of car related deaths. In a lot of countries, alcohol related deaths actually outnumber drug related deaths but I don’t see anyone carrying banners saying “death to all lasengos”. What we do is we prosecute individuals for the specific crimes that they committed while under the influence of alcohol.
You’ll find plenty of documentation proving
that users of hard drugs like shabu or meth can be rehabilitated (Robert Downey Jr would be an example) and not all of them
commit rape and murder. We don’t prosecute people for the crimes members of
their group have committed or crimes that we think they are LIKELY to commit. If a
certain person was killed by a drug addict then that particular addict should
be charged with murder. Other addicts should be given punishment that's proportional to the crimes that they have committed.
Furthermore are we saying that it’s ok to
kill users of Hard drugs like shabu, or are we going to extend this to users of
other drugs like cocaine, LSD, marijuana and ectasy. (even dealers of ecstasy have been targeted recently) Because if you’d look at the
numbers, you’d be hardpressed to find a strong correlation between the use of
recreational drugs and violence. Some of the brightest minds in history experimented with drugs. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Richard Feynman did LSD, Thomas Edison and Sigmund Freud did Cocaine and if I may quote Bob Marley, a strong
proponent of the herb, “peace, love and hug all trees mawn” –Obviously a peace loving bloke, although I may be paraphrasing
him on that
2.) Extrajudicial killings are justified because our crime rate has reached national crisis levels. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a classic example of fear mongering. Not so dissimilar from how bush justified his war on Iraq or how Hitler justified the actions of his Nazi party. You make the populace think that there’s a grave and imminent threat and you can justify extraordinary measures to counter that supposed threat.- Duterte’s chief legal adviser even said that the drug problem is now enough grounds to declare martial law. I’d like to think that we’re smart enough not to fall for that. I hope we are. The murder rate in the US is higher than in the Philippines. Rape cases are higher in the UK. In terms of drug use, we’re not even in the top 10 list. We are being led to believe that we have an extraordinary situation but data will show that we’re nothing special.
3.) Why do you grieve for the criminals who are getting killed by the police and vigilantes? Why not grieve for their victims instead? Does it really have to be mutually exclusive? Can’t you denounce both? In the first place, you CAN'T even really say that victims of extrajudicial killings are criminals yet. They're only suspects and therefore innocent until their guilt is proven beyond reasonable doubt in a criminal court. Innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. Even if you were successful in arguing that murderers and rapists deserve death, it doesn't justify the killing of suspects unless you could prove that they are indeed guilty of murder and rape. Also, violent crime perpetuated by individuals happens in every country. It's a sad fact but it's a given. Violent crime that is openly perpetuated/encouraged by the government against its own people is a lot worse and it happens in states like North Korea and certain African countries that civilization has left behind.
4.) Unless youre a drug addict, you have nothing to fear. You can tell that to Roman Manaois, Roana Tiamson, Julius Rabina, Jefferson Bunuan and the thousands of SUSPECTS who got reduced to a statistic without getting to the chance to prove their innocence. As recent events have shown, “Top gear justice” aka trial by the mob is quite unreliable. Just because a lot of people think that a person is guilty doesn't mean that he is actually guilty.If we treat due process as something that can be skipped, anyone can be a drug addict or a pusher and anyone can be killed. The purpose of due process is to determine guilt through an objective evidence-based process, more or less. It can never be perfect but it will still be more reliable than a subjective process based on finger pointing and chismis mongering.
5.) The
US has no right to criticize the Philippines because they kill blacks. This
argument was not made by a teenage girl but by Mr Duterte himself after he was
asked by an American journalist a question regarding extrajudicial killings. It’s
like that argument with your girlfriend or bf where you try to dig up every bad thing
that you’ve done to each other in the past. It is true that there are plenty of cases
of white officers killing unarmed black suspects. If Obama endorsed these
killings like Duterte does, then we can say that these acts are state sponsored and we should condemn Obama. But Obama hasn’t praised any of these killings, has never
endorsed them and has even condemned some of them. The most that you can claim
is that there are a few bad seeds in the American police force (they exist in every country) and that they
should be tried. A lot of these killer cops have been tried and convicted.
6 Human
rights only protect drug coddlers not their victims:- Contrary to popular Dutertian belief, human rights were not invented by yellowtards or by drug coddlers.
These rights predated yellowtards actually. The Universal declaration of human
rights were agreed upon and ratified by most of the world’s democratic
countries including the Philippines back in 1948 so each individual person can
have a chance to stand against even the might of the state. A lot of the rights that you enjoy now are inspired by this declaration. It’s not the job of
human rights organizations to investigate every crime that happens in a
country. That is the government’s job. Now when governments trample on the
rights of individuals, such as the right to due process, that’s when they step
in. When duterte said that the UN
had no right to criticize the country’s policy on extrajudicial killigs,he was
a bit ill informed. Extrajudicial killings are crimes against humanity according to rules that
we are a signatory to. Violators can be tried in