Elon Musk Points Out the Hypocrisy of the US Trying to Free Brittney Griner When Our Jails are Full of Minor Drug Offenders, and There's No Flaw in His Logic

If decades of spy movies were telling the truth, being locked up in a Russian/Soviet prison is no joke, especially for Americans. (Unless the prisoners in question are Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds, in which case it's one hilarious one-liner after another, until they make an impossibly convoluted, madcap escape.) And if several seasons of Locked Up Abroad have taught us anything, it's that no American who gets sent to the Stoney Lonesome for violating another nation's drug laws ever thinks they did anything wrong. Sure, they'll cop to something vague like, "mistakes were made." Or claim a lack of understanding the laws they broke. But never will you hear something along the lines of, "Sure I knew the risks I was taking. But foreign laws and customs mean nothing to me. I'm a rebel who lives by my own rules. So piss off, Ivan. If I wanna get high on my own supply, I will. What are you and your kangaroo courts gonna do about it, hmm?" Or contrition, for that matter. 

Which doesn't make Brittney Griner's situation any less dire. Nine years in a Russian prison sounds every bit as draconian to me as it does to you. But then again, Putin didn't ask for our input when he approved a worse sentence for possession of cannabis oil than our judges impose for manslaughter. His dojo, his rules. 

And like I said a couple of weeks ago, when the US government started talking a prisoner exchange for Griner and offered up a man with the blood of countless thousands of people around the world as trade bait:

… if she were one of my loved ones, I'd be willing to give up anything to get her home. I'd offer Putin the entire West Coast and be willing to throw in Colorado, just for the cap relief. Because I'd be thinking out of love, and not any degree of rationality. 

One guy who is way more rational than practically anyone (except when it comes to using birth control) is Elon Musk. And The World's Richest Man [tm] is, as usual, making more sense than anyone in the government on this topic. 

Source - Elon Musk has waded into the federal government's efforts to free WNBA star Brittney Griner from Russian captivity, saying the Biden administration should also free anyone else jailed for weed offenses in the United States.

'If the president is working so hard to free someone who is in jail in Russia for some weed, shouldn't we free people in America?' Musk said in an episode of the Full Send podcast.

'There are people in jail in America for the same stuff, shouldn't we free them too?' he asked, adding: 'My opinion is that people should not be in jail for nonviolent drug crimes.'  

That's a harsh truth. But it IS a truth. Seriously, take a minute here and try to find a flaw in this argument. Even if you want to argue that our jails are better than Russia's, tell that to a guy who got caught with a dime bag of the Devil's Kale in 2014 that he's less incarcerated than she is. I'm sure that'll be comforting for him to know today as he's trying not to get assaulted in the prison yard. Just be sure and remind him his outlook would be a lot sunnier if he'd only developed a better jump shot in high school. 

Taking all the partisan politics out of it, it's a simple fact that every President is given absolute power to pardon anyone he wants by the Constitution. No matter who is sitting behind the Resolute Desk, if they're appalled by the idea of someone getting sentenced to the Graybar Hotel for marijuana possession, they can all be released this afternoon with the stroke of a pen.

Now to put the non-partisan politics back into it, this isn't about justice. It's about what's popular. And letting all the convicted potheads out of jail would go over big with half the country, and seen as a surrender in the War on Drugs by the other half, and cost you votes. Which is what this is all about.

Brittney Griner is one of God's children and entitled to mercy. But let's not kid ourselves that her conviction would be an issue with anyone in our Executive Branch if she was 5-foot-1 and worked in Human Resources for an insurance company. She's not only the not the only American behind bars for violations of marijuana laws, she's not the only American being held by the Russians for non-violent offenses. But those people were never on ESPN2, so they're invisible to the Feds. And by giving her case extra attention and trying to get her freed, they're just playing into the Russian's hands. There's no surer way for them to tell their own people that, while America talks a good game when it comes to all of us being equal in the eyes of the law, the fact is that we play favorites. And if you're a celebrity like a pro athlete, the decadent western capitalist pigs will move mountains to save you, while doing nothing for the downtrodden working classes. Karl Marx couldn't have dreamed up a better PR win in the darkest recesses of his authoritarian, Bolshevik heart. 

I'm sure Putin has a raging, post-Soviet boner over the entire scenario. That, and the fact that the one talking the most sense about the who is talking the most sense about it is a multi-multi-billionaire.