Indonesian Insanity
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 12:53 PM

Indonesia's cruelty in the name of the drug war is persistent but, alas, not unique. Here's an article concerning a 21-year old Australian whom the Indonesians hope soon to kill for carrying around an officially disapproved substance when he was 18 -- surely his impending death will be undertaken for the children. Another Indonesian court is showing dangerous leniency in the case of a repeat possessor (not trafficker), an American who has been sentenced to a mere three and a half years in prison. (More than ten years ago his failure to obey rules on what not to possess cost him a year in an Indonesian jail.) I am certain his (surely too merciful) punishment is for the children, because the judge said so: 'The defendant repeated his acts, which could cause the moral damage of Balinese youth.' Throwing people's lives away for a pin's fee, however, apparently is not morally damaging, to children or adults.

Indonesian idiocy is longstanding; it is also widely shared. What did Bertrand Russell say? “The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible."

Labels: Asia, drugs, heroin, sentencing