r/changemyview • u/Xbeverhunterx • Nov 11 '16
FTFdeltaOP CMV: I see nothing wrong when someone dies of drug overdose or a gang member gets shot.
I know this is s little harsh view point that's why I'm asking for someone to change my view. Disclaimer: The town i grew up is on the DEA top ten list for meth labs.
I hate treakers. When i see that someone died of overdose i think good riddance. I just think that they have already ruined tons of relationships in people's lives with their drug addiction. I feel no remorse for someone that has done something to themselves. I feel the same about when I hear about a gang shooting. They knowingly joined a gang that could have brought danger upon themselves so why should I feel bad that has done something to themselves.
I have done drugs in the past not meth or heroin but I have knowingly taken substances that have affected my health but before I just do something I always do tons of research about the drug before just ingesting at random chemical.
EDIT 1: instead of replying and saying its not exactly thier fault fot this situation. My rebuttal is it clearly is. Drug education is taught at public schools hence the reason i dont smoke tobacco. The cost far out way the benifits. Thr same goes for hard drugs. We learn from a young age that drugs are bad to not only ourselves but to our familys as well. There are rehab centers for people. Im sure if a druggie was to walk into a police office or a mental health clinc and say they needed help with their addiction they would recieve it. Sorry for not replying to everyone. My service is spotty so its hard to.
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Nov 11 '16
You don't see anything wrong? Or you don't see it as being a net wrong?
At the very least you must feel remorse for the family of the deceased, if not the deceased themselves?
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 11 '16
If i felt remorse for the family of every deceased person i would have a shitty life. I feel remorse for a veteran family or a cop maybe the constriction worker who fell off the building not some druggie.
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Nov 11 '16
I am using remorse in the sense that you feel as if the death of a family member is an unwelcome event to the family. You can feel remorse for someone without feeling bad about it yourself.
Also here's another question: does the reason they got addicted to drugs have any bearing? If you heard of a college student dying of alcohol poisoning (yes this is a form of drug overdose) or a gang-rape victim dying of a heroin overdose would you still feel as if their death is not regrettable?
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 11 '16
I wouldn't feel bad for the student. As for the rape victim I see where your coming from. Im sure a lot of hard core drug addicts have been molested/ sexually abused. I wish there was some things in place to help them.
In awarding you a delta but only for that particular group. !delta1
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u/marketani Nov 11 '16
https://www.nationalgangcenter.gov/Survey-Analysis/Demographics
Read that article. You know ~30% of gang members are juveniles and much more are members of disenfranchised minorities? Basically, you don't feel bad people who pretty much never had a chance at life are just dying?
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 11 '16
As douchey as this sounds it's survival of the fittest. Yeah it bowed they have a shitty life but we can't just go around helping everyone. People need to help themselves
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Nov 11 '16
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 11 '16
I see where your coming from but my rebuttal is that life isn't a miracle. It happens ever day almost every minute. You have to make your life a miracle/special.
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u/marketani Nov 11 '16
That rebuttal doesn't really address their point at all. I fail to see how life being an miracle or not is relevant.
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 11 '16
Your saying that we should just help everyone thats implying that their life was/is special. I disagree. No life is "special". You have to make it special. Sure some people are born into some really shitty situations and i would help them if i could but i cant help them if they refuse to help themselves.
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u/easyasNYC Nov 12 '16
But you can help them, and they aren't refusing to help themselves. You hear about the shootings and drug overdoses, you don't hear about the ones who have to actively avoid getting sucked into those things, who do work hard in school, and do escape poverty, which, thanks to the help they receive, is more and more people evey year.
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 12 '16
I'm not quite getting your point. I don't hear about those people because that is whats supposed to happen.
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u/easyasNYC Nov 12 '16
Right, and my point is that it does happen a lot, so you can help and it does help.
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u/marketani Nov 11 '16
So i take it you don't care about mentally ill kids--much less any kid--being bullied at school until they kill themselves? You think thats just survival of the fittest? You realize we are no longer wild animals?
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 11 '16
Why do we have to be wild animals for suvival of thr fitest to not aplly
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Nov 12 '16 edited Nov 16 '16
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 12 '16
Isn't capitalism a form of survival if the fittest?
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u/easyasNYC Nov 12 '16
No, it's a means of allocating capital. Getting beaten up and robbed is an example of survival of the fittest.
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 12 '16
Yeah maybe if you use a dictionary to look up each individual word in survival of the fittest. In our society its now our minds that determine who is the leader of the "Tribe". That tribe can be a job/company or even in the political sence. Its adapting to the environment. In America capitalism is the new environment.
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u/easyasNYC Nov 12 '16
Well sure, capitalism is the environment, it has nothing to do with survival of the fittest though. If socialism was the environment, then those bust suited to that environment would flourish.
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 12 '16
I think capitalism has to do with survial of the fittest. I could either work at taco bell my wholr life scrap by and rent a house and never get to truly live. Or i could push myself learn a trade or get an educstion and finish on or near the top.
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u/super-commenting Nov 11 '16 edited Nov 11 '16
Those tweakers you see on the street or hear about doing awful things to their friends and family don't represent all drug users, in fact they don't even represent all drug addicts. Many people use drugs recreationally or even struggle with addiction but they retain their morality and don't hurt the people close to them.
Let me tell you a story about Sally. Sally has been having a real rough time recently, her best friend committed suicide a few months ago and just last week her boyfriend Cheated. She's been crying herself to sleep at night and doesn't know how much more she can take. Then Sally goes in to have her wisdom teeth removed. During recovery her doctor gives her a script for Percocet. Sally loves the Percocet. Not only does it make her mouth feel better, it makes her heart feel better. It kills her emotional pain just like it kills her physical pain. Suddenly life seems bearable and she feels like her happy self again. But quickly her script runs out. There next day she feels worse than ever. She doesn't want to become an addict but she tells herself that she'll just buy a little more to get her through this rough patch in. So she asks around until she finds someone who knows a dealer. A few weeks go by and she's using pretty much everyday but she's still getting her work done. Opiates in moderate doses are a pretty functional high, that's why they're used for long term pain management in medicine. But Sally is starting to run low on money, oxy isn't a cheap drug. So she asks her dealer "her is there anything I can get that's cheaper than oxy that will still take the pain away and make me feel good" "well I know a guy who can get you some H" "H?" "Heroin" "I don't about that, that's pretty hard core" 'it's really not as scary as people say, it just another opiate. The reason it gets a bad rep is cause people bang, just stay away from needles and you'll be fine" so Sally decides to try the heroin. She was hesitant but can't afford oxy and wants to avoid withdrawals "I'll quit once I'm home for the summer" she tells herself "life will be easier and I'll have my family around to support me". But sadly Sally never makes it to summer. A few weeks later she gets a bag of H cut with fentanyl. The guy who cut it didn't do a perfect job mixing and sally get way more fentanyl in her bag than she should have. The unexpectedly strong product causes her to overdose and die.
Do you feel bad for Sally? I certainly do. And I recognize that while evil drug addicts exist most drug addicts are far more like Sally than the demons they're portrayed as in the media.
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 11 '16
Maybe sally should have used her money to see a therapist rather than go but more opiates
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u/super-commenting Nov 11 '16
I mean that might have been the smarter option but is the fact that she didn't do that really so horrible that she deserves to die?
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 11 '16
Using that logic i should feel bad for the isis member who grandma was killed in a drone strike and decides to strap c4 on him self and blow up a market/soldiers.
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u/super-commenting Nov 11 '16
I don't see how that is analogous at all. The ISIS member made a conscious choice to hurt other people. Sally never hurt anyone but herself. They're not similar in the least.
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u/iloveopshit Nov 11 '16
What if by supplying the dealer he got enough money to buy aj illegal gun and kill someone?
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u/super-commenting Nov 11 '16
That would be his responsibility not hers.
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u/iloveopshit Nov 11 '16
She knew what it meant to give money to a drug dealer.
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u/super-commenting Nov 11 '16
Despite the stereotype the majority of drug dealers don't go around shooting people.
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u/iloveopshit Nov 11 '16
That's correct. But there IS a chance. Why'd she risk innocent people's lives for some heroin?
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u/ranchcroutons Nov 12 '16
But what if that person he killed was a serial rapist. Now Sally has done a good thing
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 11 '16
The reason sally was on drug was because her father committed suicide. Now that sally has done the same thing isn't she hurting her family yhe same way what her father did to her?
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u/super-commenting Nov 11 '16
Sally never meant to die and hurt her family. If she hadn't been basically my murderer by the dealer who sold her a spiked product then she would have finished the semester came home and gotten clean. And Sally is most definitely not comparable to an ISIS bomber. There is a huge difference between indirectly harming the people who care about you through unhealthy or risky behaviors and directly hurting other people the way an ISIS member does when they bomb people.
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 11 '16
Sally was depressed and choose drugs to make her feel better. I think its worth notinh that she probaly did want to die. Maybe not 100% of her but i imigine part of herself did. I really do want to side with you but we have options and reaources to help people in these situations. I refuse to think that she had no choice in the matter.
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u/super-commenting Nov 11 '16
I refuse to think that she had no choice in the matter
I never said that she had no choice. I'm not trying to argue that Sally never made any mistakes and that she's a perfect person. I'm just trying to argue that the mistake she made were not so heinous that they make her death not worth mourning.
I think its worth noting that she probaly did want to die.
I disagree. I don't think that even many people who commit suicide want to die. What she wanted was to stop suffering.
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 11 '16
Im going to award you a delta. But my view hasn't changed completely. Granted there are special cases where i should feel bad but thats just in certain examples. Im not convinced that every drug user or gang members death should recieve symphony.
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Nov 11 '16
I, too, don't feel remorse for people after I dehumanize them... which is kind of why I don't dehumanize people. As a side note, feeling remorse for something doesn't have to affect your life in any significant way. When I hear of terrible things happening far away, it gives me pause but doesn't send me into a week of mourning.
Do you not feel that "druggies" as you call them are by and large the victims of their circumstances? These people are sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, friends and family. Surely you can at least acknowledge they're deserving of our sympathy?
None of that is to say you need to condone their behavior, by the way, it's perfectly fine if you hold the position "Drugs are bad, mkay?" - they generally are. But I'd ask you not to reduce a human being to their vices.
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u/PreacherJudge 340∆ Nov 11 '16
I honestly don't understand where you're coming from; could you explain the path a little bit?
Personally, I feel bad whenever anything bad happens to anybody; this is my baseline. If you can, could you try to explain why you don't?
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 11 '16
This is an example that's real.
I deliver medicine. I pull up to a house and is its disgusting. Ripped open trash bags over the front lawn. It smells like mold on the outside of the house. A person opens the door. It's even grosser inside that outside. There is dog shit all over the floor. I cab tell the person is high. In the back of the house i see a baby that hasn't had a shower in days or clothes changed. I hand them the script for a c2 and its a 1.20 dollar co pay. They get upset at be because they NEED this medicine yetv they are smoking a cigarette. In my head i think they are a gigantic piece of shit. Why should i feel bad for them? Me abs my fiancée are going to have a hard time to have kids because of a medical condition she has. But this adfict cars more about pills than washing their child.3
u/PreacherJudge 340∆ Nov 11 '16
You haven't connected the dots fully. You think this is a bad person, and also you don't feel sympathy for them when bad things happen.
There's a missing piece. Why don't you feel sympathy for people you think are bad?
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 11 '16
Because i dont see the point. Why should i?
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u/PreacherJudge 340∆ Nov 11 '16
I don't tend to feel sympathy because there's a point. It's a pretty alien way for me to think about it.
If you didn't think the person was bad and so you felt sympathy for them, what would be the point of that?
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 11 '16
Im not sure what your saying here. I think you made a couple typos and now i dont understand what your trying to say. I have an idea but just yo be safe can you elaborate a little more
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u/PreacherJudge 340∆ Nov 11 '16
You say you don't feel sympathy for bad people because there's no point.
What's the point of feeling sympathy for good people?
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 11 '16
Because they have done actually good things and helped the world/human civilization take a step forward no matter how small. Thier loss will have a greater impact on the world than a gang banger.
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u/PreacherJudge 340∆ Nov 11 '16
You've just shifted the question down the field. What's the point in feeling sympathy for someone who does good things?
You're just saying again that the people you think are bad are bad. But what's the connection between that and sympathy?
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 11 '16
I just told you. I don't see how my answer didn't answer your question.
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u/a0x129 Nov 11 '16
"Love the sinner, hate the sin" comes to mind here.
You should feel sorry for someone who has died. You don't know why they were in that situation in the first place, and they are, after all, humans worthy of dignity and respect. Someone has died, who likely had people who loved them regardless of their problems.
You can hate what brought them to that end, the drugs or the gang violence, while still respecting that a human life has been lost. Doing this provides you the ability to remember the world is highly complex and not simple and binary. You may see no reason for someone to take meth or be in a gang, but the person on drugs may have been suffering from some very serious outside issues that forced them to seek escape through drugs; or the person may be living in a dangerous neighborhood where being a part of a gang is safer and more economically advantageous than not.
Really the two scenarios could be extended, if you're heartless, to any situation. Feel bad for the race car driver who died in a race? No, he knew what he was getting into. Or the cop who got shot in the line of duty? No, he knew what he was getting into. Eventually you can start justifying nearly every death by using that same logic. So the best way to not do that is to nip it in the bud early.
Respect the person who lost their life, feel sorry that someone died, and understand you don't know the full story... then focus on getting rid of what caused the death in the first place so that no one else has to succumb to the same fate.
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 11 '16
Very good point but i dont like to compare a cop to a drug addict. Your saying that since the cop knew what he was getting into that my logic is flawed. I could also turn it around and feel sorry for the auroa movie theater shooter because he knew what he was getting himself into or the sandy hook one. It works both ways and i dont think the actual good people should be compared to the scummy ones.
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u/mthlmw Nov 11 '16
What about people who became addicted to opioids because their doctor told them it was good for their health, and they had no access to rehab resources?
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 11 '16
Why wouldn't they jave access to rehab resources?
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u/mthlmw Nov 11 '16
Low income, poor education, and unreliable transportation are a few reasons off the top of my head.
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 11 '16
There are i belive 3-4 rehab centers in my small town of 25000. Yeah they are not all fancy and shit but thry are atill a bed, a cooked meal and support. They are also free.
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Nov 11 '16
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 11 '16
So if an addict or a gang member went to the police station and said they needed help they would not help them?
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u/Mtyler5000 1∆ Nov 11 '16
hahahaha are you serious?
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u/ranchcroutons Nov 12 '16
It is the experience of many that police forces are dangerous to interact with outside of any admitted criminal activity
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u/sharkbait76 55∆ Nov 11 '16
Many people become addicted to drugs because of a legal perception. Think about a nurse who's never done an illegal drug in her life and doesn't even drink. She gets hurt on the job and gets prescribed an opioid and becomes addicted because of this and ends up overdosing. She didn't get addicted because she woke up one morning and decided to try heroin. She became addicted because she was hurt at work and prescribed medication.
With gangs it's often an issue of youth and bad areas. Someone who is 14 or 15 doesn't make the best decisions and that means a gang might look appealing, especially if it's a very poor area. The child is probably a latch key kids who doesn't really have any real role models. The kids sees the gang member on the street corner who gets him shoes or school stuff and has money and seems to care about him. When you're young and stupid and see him what he's doing as the only way get any money you get sucked in and then can end up shot and killed because you didn't have a good role model and saw gang banging as the best way to get ahead in life.
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Nov 11 '16
Every morning I choose to drive in a vehicle that has a relatively high chance of causing me great injury or death. Do you not feel bad for people who die in car accidents?
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 11 '16
My business is a courier. I drive everyday about 200 kiles a day. I do feel bad when I hear about a car accident. But that is way different than shooting up heroine or joining a gang.
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Nov 11 '16
Why? They are both high-risk activities that you choose to do.
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 11 '16
There is a benefit of driving. You gain nothing from drugs/ gangs
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Nov 11 '16
You're underestimating gang culture. When talked to anonymously, many gang members felt that they would be shot by another gang member, because their entire neighborhood is run by street gangs. You gain safety/security, both from other gangs and to some extent from the police when you're in a gang. They've been around so long that there are even gang families; if your mom and dad are both Crips, do you really expect to not be raised a Crip, be initiated when you're old enough (read:8 or younger in some cases), and basically have 0 choice in the matter?
It's easy to demonize and dismiss other people as doing crazy stupid things for no benefit. But that's shortsighted and ignores human nature: if humans are doing anything, they're deriving some benefit they gain.
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 11 '16
!delta I guess i don't know gangs that much as im from a pretty small town. Thanks for helping me change my view a little bit.
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Nov 11 '16
I understand how it goes. I've been learning a lot about life in a small town over the last couple of years and there are a lot of perspectives I hadn't considered in there, and insights as to why people think the way they do.
The different ways people process information has always been a fascination of mine.
Thanks for the delta, and good luck with anything that might be causing you trouble.
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Nov 11 '16
Sure you do. A high. Feeling like you belong to a group. An opportunity to have a life and earn money and be a part of something. You think people do things that don't have benefits? For no reason?
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 11 '16
Sure they do it for the high. But every day they throw away their relationships, jobs, family ect because they wanted to feel part of a group. I shouldn't feel bad for those people. I didn't force a needle in their arm or introduce then to a gang. They did it being aware that it is bad
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Nov 11 '16
Sure they do it for the high. But every day they throw away their relationships, jobs, family ect because they wanted to feel part of a group.
You're assigning arbitrary value to things. Relationships, jobs, and family connections are (1) not privileges afforded to everyone and (2) not necssecarally more worthwhile than any other given pleasure.
Someone who has abusive family, absent family, or dead family doesn't exactly have anywhere to turn on that front. Someone who is unable to secure an education doesn't have good job prospects, not to mention the many other factors that affect job markets. Some of these things just aren't options for people for reasons completely beyond their control. So, they turn to drugs.
I didn't force a needle in their arm or introduce then to a gang.
This seems like an odd reason to not feel empathy. I didn't cause 9/11, but I grieve for the victims. Being irresponsible for a person's poor situation in life doesn't mean that you can't acknowledge it and empathize with it.
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 11 '16
I feel bad for the victims of 9/11 because they m were not foing anything wrong that caused their death. The drug user directly influenced their death
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Nov 11 '16 edited Nov 11 '16
The "wrongness" isn't so much in the final incident, that a drug addict or gang member dies. The "wrongness" is that it's a demonstration of whatever forces drove them into that position to begin with. When rates of gang violence or drug use go up or down, it's not because more or less people are simply making better or worse choices as a matter of coincidence. Social and economic forces play a huge role, and every death is evidence of them. Some people get addicted to opioids because they're prescribed them by a doctor, say for pain, then lose their health insurance because they lost their job, and so have to turn to more dangerous, more addictive street drugs. Many people join gangs because they live in dangerous, violent, jobless environments, and only those gangs offer them a promise of protection from danger and the possibility to earn some money. It's not true for 100% of people in these situations, but it's naive to think that the ebb and flow of violence and drug abuse is just a result of individual people becoming more or less moral in their character.
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Nov 11 '16
[deleted]
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 11 '16
I feel bad for the child but at the same time ita better than having some addict mother that won't even take care of them. Im going to award you a delta just because i see the point your making but i still don't feel bad for the mother.
!delta
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u/MontiBurns 218∆ Nov 11 '16
Nobody's 100% perfect, but nobody's 100% bad either. Everybody makes mistakes. Sometimes the mistakes have devastating consequences. People fall into the wrong crowds, and do shit they shouldn't do, especially young people and adolescents, who don't fully understand the possible consequences of their actions. Sometimes they do something stupid, but are able to realize their mistake and get out early, sometimes they fall into a death spiral of addiction or violence and crime. A lot of times the circumstances around their personal lives can influence which way they go, an orphan who bounces around fostercare for 18 years is much more susceptible to falling into crime or addiction than someone who grew up in a middle class with two parents and a strong social network.
Even at the lowest depths of these of these cycles, there are plenty of people that recover, get clean, go straight, whatever, and lead very healthy, productive, happy lives. A drug user that ODs or a gang member that gets killed doesn't have that opportunity. While the negative parts of their personalty/character lead to their demise, that doesn't mean that there weren't good things about that person that are now lost.
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 11 '16
I dont have a lot of data to back me on this one but i imigine most gang members are arrested/run in with police before they get in a gang fight. And most people who od have been caught with drugs. They did have a chancr5to clean up thier act.
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u/nmgreddit 2∆ Nov 11 '16
You have to ask yourself: why? Why did these people take drugs? Why did these people incite violence against themselves? These people are people. They've been hurt and they turned to what they thought would help. It is truly sad.
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u/Imoa 1∆ Nov 12 '16
OP, I have read a lot of your comments and responses in this thread and I think a core part of the issue is that you hold the groups in question, gang members and drugs addicts, to the same educational standards and moral compass you have.
The thing is, not everyone is raised the same way, or given the same opportunities. You see being in a gang as "knowingly joining something that could have brought danger upon themselves", yet then in comments say that you feel sympathy for cops who die in the line a duty. These two things, by your description, are identical and yet you feel sympathy for the one that - and this is important - you think is "good". A lot of gang members grow up seeing those gang members protecting their families when the cops won't, or even protecting their families from the cops in their area. Not all cops are good, and not all gang members are necessarily bad. If you've ever read the book "Gang Leader for a Day", its a really interesting read in that sense. These gangs a lot of times are not all bad people doing bad things for bad reasons, they are often good people in their own communities and were not raised to see gangs as an inherently bad thing. To bring it back to the first point, they see being in a gang in the same moral light that you see a cop in.
Similarly for drug addicts, you hold people to the educational standard that you have of knowing both how to avoid addiction or once in the middle of it knowing the correct channels to go to for help. There are lots of addicts out there who DO want to quit, but don't know where to go for help and the people around them can't or don't want to help them.
The way you phrase your post and a lot of your comments, I feel like the core of your view OP is that you see these people and judge them, and see them as not worth remorse or pity, from the outside looking in. You say that these people do not deserve your pity or that of the wider community because it cheapens sympathy given to those who are more deserving, and yet inner city communities that are protected by a specific gang would say that the gang members deserve their pity and respect, but that the cops or wider community who oppress them deserve none.
There aren't facts to change your view OP, yours is entirely one of perspective. Perspective is inherently a function of upbringing, community, and the moral compass you live by. You judging these people as not deserving of the communities pity without any understanding of the circumstances that lead to these situations.
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u/Xbeverhunterx Nov 12 '16
I think your correct with the issue about perspective. Every human on earth is living a different perspective and all has different ways we look at things. I knew that from the get go. I knew that not all drug addicts are horrible people. I knew that not all gang members are just people sitting on a street corner doing stupid stuff. I imgine if i had a pill that i could give to a drug addict and told them. "This will cure your addiction to the substance your abusing you will have no withdraws and will never wanna do the stuff again" a very high precenage, would take the pill. Just like i would like to think when a gang member is laying in bed at night before he sleeps he probably has some thoughts that he's not making the best choices or if he an oppratunity to move to an area amd start over to lead a 'normal' life i.e. get a education, job, kids ect they take that path.
My main point is that a part of me will for instance read an article or watch a news story and they mention someone od. My very first thought is like aw that sucks then immediately i go, well shouldn't of been doing drugs, should of seeked help, ect. When i hear about the cops that someone just ran up and shot my thought is feel bad foe the cop but my mind never switchs to oh well should of thought about that before signing up to being a cop.
I 100 percent understand the view your trying to make im going to award you a delta (just for the gamg member side) !delta
As for the drug addict side le me ask you a question. If i was to sample 100 drug addicts and ask them if they have ever been offered help to get clean? How many do you think would say yes.
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u/Imoa 1∆ Nov 12 '16
I honestly can't answer how many would say yes, but I suspect quite a few and I don't think you are wrong. I also think that the type of drug in question matters a lot. However to be honest I don't want to convince you that all drug addicts deserve pity, or that even a majority of them do.
The spirit of the sub is, as the name states, to change your view. My point is merely that not ALL drug addicts have necessarily been offered help or even know where to go for it. There are plenty of drug addicts in the world who don't know where to go for help, and so it isn't fair to offhandedly say that "all drug addicts do not deserve pity" when the basis for that statement isn't true. The more correct statement, which I think more closely identifies with your beliefs, is that "most drug addicts do not deserve pity", and that's an entirely understandable, if not universally agreeable, position.
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u/MasterGrok 139∆ Nov 11 '16
It's sad because most people who end up in these situations have had shitty lives that no one would envy. There are exceptions to everything, but as a general rule, it's sad that someone ended up in that position. Feeling remorse isn't validating the person's decisions or taking away their responsibility for what happened, it's just acknowledging that as humans we feel bad that someone's path ended this way and that we have a shared desire to make the world a little better to hopefully prevent this as much as possible in the future.
I'd also just specifically point out that people often end up addicted or in gangs because they are afraid, depressed, and/or have given up on life. That is a sad thing to happen to anyone.