griner, whelan... and the Merchant of Death

[Mobius]

Griner made $200k a year playing in the WNBA. Quite normal for players to go over there during the WNBA off season.

Don't think these players are going back any time soon.

[Ruralguy]

I just through out the name "Aaron Judge" to make the point that if a  well-known male heterosexual ball player (and also now quite wealthy and influential) had been jailed for whatever reason, we'd have gotten him out by now (with much less blow back--but probably some).  He has a reputation for being pretty well behaved and all, so, yeah, I doubt the situation would have occurred with him in particular, but imagine a somewhat better male counterpart who has a rep for slipping up a bit (but is still well known and rich).

[Mobius]

Let's say Josh Hamilton or Ryan Leaf was in Russian prison on a drug charge.

[jimbogumbo]

Griner was in Russia as until recently it was THE country for WNBA stars to compete during their off season. Many made more money, and were treated better there in terms of housing while playing than they are in the US.

The whole thread is crazy to me. My beliefs are the same as Whelan's brother's.

[kaysixteen]

1) Whelan's brother (and the rest of his family) have absolutely *no incentive* to say anything negative or contrarian here.  Really, they do not, lest they risk a) Putin going harder on Whelan, perhaps including never agreeing to release him for anyone, and b) pissing off Biden
2) Griner and her apologists ask us to believe that she 'forgot' the hash was in her suitcase, which she had packed for her trip to a well-paid ($1.5m) off-season gig playing Rooskie pro ball.   This does not pass the smell test, unless she is a blithering idiot, which no one has accused her of being (and she is also no child, at 31).  She packed the suitcase, for the trip, and packed the stash in it, and obviously had to have been made well aware of the illegality of taking it to Mother Russia, and, esp since she also had to have known of the Rooskies' strong hostility towards homosexuals.  Obviously she thought her desire to vape up was greater than her need to obey the law of the country which was going to host her and pay her big dollars.  And there is no way that a white male jock/ slash junkie like Leaf or Hamilton would have been swapped for a bucket of balls in a similar circumstance-- just exactly who would have been the American constituency arguing for such an exchange?
3) WRT the rail strike aversion, as I said earlier, this is a bifurcation fallacy-- of course no US president of either party would have allowed the strike, and a GOP president would have done much the same as Biden did do.  But Biden did not have to do what he did.   He was well within his rights to force the railroads to give the unions the paid sick leave and a return to the pre-covid, much more humane scheduling policies that they had had before, and he, despite his protestations as to his being the most pro-labor POTUS ever, punted, lamely asserting that he and Pelosi trusted that the GOPers would pass a corresponding bill giving the union some of these things, which, of course, they laughed at doing.   It will be very interesting to see how Marty Walsh deals with unions going forward.

Now, as to the insulting, nonsensical, really genuinely disguisting assertion that my refusal to agree to the Griner-Bout deal is somehow indicative of my being a hypocritical sub-Christian, etc., words fail me.   Griner, whilst overpunished (assuming we buy the idea, likely true, that she was not actually a trafficker in dope in Rooskiestan), was a criminal, as is clear, and Viktor Bout is a disgusting mass-murdering war criminal who will almost certainly return to his activities safely in the bosom of Uncle Vlad (why else do you think he wanted Bout back, or did the Russian MP Boutina, formerly a US-incarcerated spy, praise him on state TV when he returned?)?   Where the hell is the 'Christian compassion' for his former victims, let alone his likely future ones?   But hey, a rich lesbian druggie is free, so it must be a sacrifice worth making.

[Wahoo Redux]

But hey, a rich lesbian druggie is free, so it must be a sacrifice worth making.

I cannot imagine why anyone would doubt your devotion to the Prince of Peace.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Kaysixteen, why are you so obsessed with her race and sexual orientation? If you think the US shouldn't make exchanges like this  as a matter of policy then you can say so, but it is hard to take you seriously when you keep obsessing about her race/sexuality, especially after we've cited numerous white men who were involved in exchanges just like this.

[kaysixteen]

Awright, I will say it: I hate drugs.   They suck.   Period and end of discussion.  Most of ye have probably not had the experience, at least not in recent years, of working a low-grade retail job in a drug-riddled decayed mill town, where a substantial percentage of the clientele are either folks who have ruined their own lives with drugs (yes, including whaccky tobaccky), or are family members caught in the netherworld of a loved one who has done this.  And these people are by-and-large poor, uneducated, casualties of the new economic America, not rich, entitled jocks whose very fame and popularity makes them role models, sadly, for people like the kids here in Rusty City.

And, of course, the Prince of Peace sends unrepentant homosexuals to Hell, as Paul, writing under the inspiration of that Prince's Spirit, makes clear enough, in Romans 1.  No one has died and authorized me to ignore this.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Seems like your own biases and hangups make it hard for you to look at this objectively.

The first point that we should all agree on is that people shouldn't be sentenced to do hard labor in a Russian gulag because they smoke pot. From there, reasonable people can disagree as to whether the exchange was good policy.

[marshwiggle]

Seems like your own biases and hangups make it hard for you to look at this objectively.

The first point that we should all agree on is that people shouldn't be sentenced to do hard labor in a Russian gulag because they smoke pot. From there, reasonable people can disagree as to whether the exchange was good policy.

What we think is irrelevant. What the laws are in a foreign country, especially an authoritarian one, is what matters. The stupid idiot who got in trouble for vandalism in North Korea was completely the author of his own fate. Most importantly, a sovereign state is able to do whatever the heck they want with someone within its borders, so anyone without enough brains to realize what that means shouldn't be allowed to travel on their own.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Seems like your own biases and hangups make it hard for you to look at this objectively.

The first point that we should all agree on is that people shouldn't be sentenced to do hard labor in a Russian gulag because they smoke pot. From there, reasonable people can disagree as to whether the exchange was good policy.

What we think is irrelevant. What the laws are in a foreign country, especially an authoritarian one, is what matters. The stupid idiot who got in trouble for vandalism in North Korea was completely the author of his own fate. Most importantly, a sovereign state is able to do whatever the heck they want with someone within its borders, so anyone without enough brains to realize what that means shouldn't be allowed to travel on their own.

Nobody is saying it is smart to put yourself in such a position or that Griner showed good judgement. But when a US citizen is unjustly locked in a penal colony abroad for a trivial infraction, the US government has every right and responsibility to try to bring them home. Whether this particular exchange was a good one (or whether exchanges like these in which the crimes are drastically different in severity, which are common, should be carried out or not) is a policy debate that reasonable people can disagree on.

[marshwiggle]

Seems like your own biases and hangups make it hard for you to look at this objectively.

The first point that we should all agree on is that people shouldn't be sentenced to do hard labor in a Russian gulag because they smoke pot. From there, reasonable people can disagree as to whether the exchange was good policy.

What we think is irrelevant. What the laws are in a foreign country, especially an authoritarian one, is what matters. The stupid idiot who got in trouble for vandalism in North Korea was completely the author of his own fate. Most importantly, a sovereign state is able to do whatever the heck they want with someone within its borders, so anyone without enough brains to realize what that means shouldn't be allowed to travel on their own.

Nobody is saying it is smart to put yourself in such a position or that Griner showed good judgement. But when a US citizen is unjustly locked in a penal colony abroad for a trivial infraction, the US government has every right and responsibility to try to bring them home.

I make a big distinction between fake charges, (where a foreign government makes them up to get leverage), and evidence-based charges on illegal activity in that country, even if it's legal elsewhere. I especially get annoyed at people who do these things knowingly, counting on their passport to get them out. If you don't like the laws somewhere, don't go there or don't break them when you're there. The government does have a legitimate role in helping people when there are questions about the legality of the charges.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Seems like your own biases and hangups make it hard for you to look at this objectively.

The first point that we should all agree on is that people shouldn't be sentenced to do hard labor in a Russian gulag because they smoke pot. From there, reasonable people can disagree as to whether the exchange was good policy.

What we think is irrelevant. What the laws are in a foreign country, especially an authoritarian one, is what matters. The stupid idiot who got in trouble for vandalism in North Korea was completely the author of his own fate. Most importantly, a sovereign state is able to do whatever the heck they want with someone within its borders, so anyone without enough brains to realize what that means shouldn't be allowed to travel on their own.

Nobody is saying it is smart to put yourself in such a position or that Griner showed good judgement. But when a US citizen is unjustly locked in a penal colony abroad for a trivial infraction, the US government has every right and responsibility to try to bring them home.

I make a big distinction between fake charges, (where a foreign government makes them up to get leverage), and evidence-based charges on illegal activity in that country, even if it's legal elsewhere. I especially get annoyed at people who do these things knowingly, counting on their passport to get them out. If you don't like the laws somewhere, don't go there or don't break them when you're there. The government does have a legitimate role in helping people when there are questions about the legality of the charges.

I agree that it is annoying. She made a dumb mistake and that the consequences are significant. But the dumb mistake of entering a foreign country with some pot should not result in someone spending a decade in a labor camp. When that someone is an American citizen, the US government should (imo) try to get them out.

That said, I doubt that she played this out in her mind in the way you suggest with the bolded.

[apl68]

Griner's "snowflakery," as Langue_doc so aptly put it, makes her a highly unsympathetic victim.  But a victim and U.S. citizen in need nonetheless.  The President didn't really have much choice about doing some kind of a deal for her release.  It is to be hoped that she and others learn from her example about things not to do when traveling abroad, or even where not to travel in the first place.

[marshwiggle]

Seems like your own biases and hangups make it hard for you to look at this objectively.

The first point that we should all agree on is that people shouldn't be sentenced to do hard labor in a Russian gulag because they smoke pot. From there, reasonable people can disagree as to whether the exchange was good policy.

What we think is irrelevant. What the laws are in a foreign country, especially an authoritarian one, is what matters. The stupid idiot who got in trouble for vandalism in North Korea was completely the author of his own fate. Most importantly, a sovereign state is able to do whatever the heck they want with someone within its borders, so anyone without enough brains to realize what that means shouldn't be allowed to travel on their own.

Nobody is saying it is smart to put yourself in such a position or that Griner showed good judgement. But when a US citizen is unjustly locked in a penal colony abroad for a trivial infraction, the US government has every right and responsibility to try to bring them home.

I make a big distinction between fake charges, (where a foreign government makes them up to get leverage), and evidence-based charges on illegal activity in that country, even if it's legal elsewhere. I especially get annoyed at people who do these things knowingly, counting on their passport to get them out. If you don't like the laws somewhere, don't go there or don't break them when you're there. The government does have a legitimate role in helping people when there are questions about the legality of the charges.

I agree that it is annoying. She made a dumb mistake and that the consequences are significant. But the dumb mistake of entering a foreign country with some pot should not result in someone spending a decade in a labor camp. When that someone is an American citizen, the US government should (imo) try to get them out.

That said, I doubt that she played this out in her mind in the way you suggest with the bolded.

What about when someone tries to smuggle drugs into (or out of) some country with harsher penalties? There are stories like this in the news every so often. Should government resources be spent on getting people out of jail in a foreign country when they knew they were doing something that is even illegal at home?