[valuearb]

Buying drugs doesn't fund those actions. Making drugs illegal does, just like when Prohibition started murderous gang wars, gave us the highest murder rate in modern history, caused thousands of deaths from adulterated spirits, and funded the modern mafia.

[robotresearcher]

Murder is illegal. But somehow the profits from tens of millions of murders aren't injecting cash into a vast underground economy. It's the money that does that.

[TylerH]

Except for the small problem of money not being sentient.

[robotresearcher]

It's the (people choosing to inject their) money that does that.

Fixed.

[BearGoesChirp]

Buying drugs does fund those actions. Drugs being illegal are a major reason why, and why I support legalization. But that doesn't excuse anyone currently making a purchase today.

Think of it this way, illegal images could be produced by advanced CGI, but aren't because that tends to be just as illegal. That doesn't excuse anyone who consume images not produced by advanced CGI.

[valuearb]

People have the right to control what goes in their bodies. I don't have the ability to see if my weed is "violence free", because drug prohibition took that away. You can't hold me responsible for violence among marijuana cartels if you don't give me a clean source for my marijuana.

It's like saying encryption is used by terrorists, so if I buy encryption I'm indirectly supporting terrorism.

[Retra]

You can be held responsible. You don't have a right to obtain a substance just because you want it. It doesn't matter if it "goes in your body" or not. That's not how rights work. You have to justify the value to society.

[valuearb]

It's exactly how rights work. Freedom of speech doesn't have to justify it's value to society, it's an innate right that's not up for vote. Google the founding fathers and natural law.

[Retra]

If freedom of speech didn't have to justify its value, you wouldn't need legislators to enact it as a law. Legislators aren't going to legislate without justification, and they shouldn't.

[msla]

There isn't a country on Earth run on "natural law" or anything close to it.

[threeseed]

You need to stop with the metaphors because they are ridiculous and wrong.

Buying drugs directly funds people who manufacture drugs.

Buying encryption does not directly fund terrorists.

[msla]

If you can trace the money flow from the drug user to the cartel, that user funded the cartel.

There's no such flow from people who buy encryption software to terrorist groups.

[Garvey]

Buying "some drugs" from "some people", "might" fund those actions.

Bit of a generalisation to apply it to every drug sale ever...

[BearGoesChirp]

Doesn't this holds true of the other crimes we were talking about taking place on the dark-net as well? Maybe not at the same rates, but even weapon sells don't definitely mean someone is coming to harm by that specific sell.