In what world can someone break the law, get caught breaking the law, admit to breaking the law, and have 50 million people say they did nothing wrong. Apparently in the ridiculous world of the current United States.
The United States is currently engaged in high stakes negotiations for the return of Brittney Griner from Russia where she was recently convicted in a Russian courtroom for illegally bringing cannabis in the form of a vape pen into the country. And here is where the absurdity gets real. The trade for Brittney? A fine Russian individual by the name of Viktor Bout. Now for context Mr. Bout is also known WORLDWIDE as the ‘Merchant of Death’. This isn’t a nickname his childhood friends or his MeeMaw gave him, nah this is what the CIA and every other intelligence agency in the world dubbed him as.
Plain and simple, Viktor sells guns to people who want to kill Americans. In 2008 Bout was caught on camera agreeing to sell undercover U.S. agents posing as representatives of Colombia’s leftist FARC guerrillas 100 surface-to-air missiles, which they would use to kill U.S. troops. Now I don’t know about you but I don’t know anybody that I can buy a surface-to-air missile from let alone one hundred of them. Told you he’s a fine individual.
And here we are….
In a country where we lock up families, take their children, leave them with no due process, etc… and their only crime is crossing an imaginary line to seek out a better life? A superstar who breaks the law gets our sympathy. Vape pens are illegal here in most states but we should accept her transgressions abroad? Maybe we should open our prison doors here at home and release all of those offenders serving prison sentences for drug possession? We all know that’s not going to happen.
In Brittney’s case, we’ll blame race, socioeconomics, social status, and a host of other bullshit to justify why the US government should make this trade but we won’t place blame where it should be, and that’s with Brittney Griner. She broke the law, got caught breaking the law, and admitted to breaking the law…in a judicial system that does not mirror ours.
