It is an interesting time to be involved in politics. It’s even more interesting to consider the current theory of government. I’m not sure when government stopped being a punisher of criminals and became a protector of people. Some may even make the mistake of confusing the two. I wanted to start here because it is an important distinction.
What is the different between punishing criminals and protecting people? When punishing criminals you have clear lines drawn. When those lines are crossed you know it has happened. It is easy to tell when someone has had something stolen. It is easy to tell when an act of aggression has taken place. Though, it may not always be clear who initiated the act and who has used their natural rights of self defence. These are what I would call “easy” problems. Easy because even though they are complex problems they still pale in comparision to the difficulty of protecing people.
When you seek to protect people you find ways to “prevent” crime. You look at indicators and make correlations. When you find what looks like an indicator you say “This is it! If I outlaw this indicator this crime will go away with it!” Very short sighted. Imagine, if you will, that someone published a staistic saying that 75% of criminals drank hard liquor. It would be easy to make the assumption that drinking hard liquor leads to criminal activity. If you have any doubt that this leap in logic would be made I will refer you to the current war on drugs. It does not matter if that assumption is correct or not. This can lead (as seen with prohibition) to these indicators of crime being declared crimes in their own right. In the 20’s consuming alcohol was illegal in the name of preserving morality.
The real problem with this is that you go from having crimes against specific persons to having crimes against unnamed unenumerable persons that may or may not eventually be harmed. I refer to this as confusing liability for criminality. Take note also that I mean liability in the sense of personal risk, not in the sense of responsibility for actions.
I posit that once our government steps out of the role of punishing criminals (people who steal, aggress, and murder) it begins to chase after an ever widening scope of crimes and social injustices while becoming the very perpetrator of the aggression against persons and property. Doing that which it was tasked with punishing in the first place.
As I run for the seat of the 52nd House District I do so for the sole purpose of reducing our government’s involvement in everyones lives. I am not just in favor of states rights, but I am in favor of returning the natural rights of self, property, and the products of one’s labor back to the people of the state of utah who have slowly lost those rights one legislative session at a time.
Tags: crime prevention, property rights