6 ms·

> No, I meant what I said. Victimeless, and no it's not at all hard to define. Drugs, sex, gambling, bigamy, etc; basically laws based on Christian morality tha

by eqdw 13y ago

> No, I meant what I said. Victimeless, and no it's not at all hard to define. Drugs, sex, gambling, bigamy, etc; basically laws based on Christian morality that try and tell you it's wrong to do things that only involve consenting adults. I generally agree with you, and do not at all believe Christian morality is a good basis for laws. That said, I have to play devil's advocate > Drugs In a world where the government provides health care as a service (which is where we're trending, eventually), abusing your own health does have a victim: the taxpayer. Granted, we don't like to think about it this way, and when we do it's usually for political showmanship instead of a real reason. But in the same way, building/living in a house that isn't up to fire or earthquake standards is a 'victimless' crime..... until my house catches on fire and burns down the whole block > gambling Gambling is often predatory to the poorer classes of society. Depending on how you're defining victim, low-income-earners could be seen as victims of gambling > bigamy Bigamy is historically correlated with misogyny. Also, ironically, bigamy is not a violation of christian morality; there are myriad examples of one-man-many-woman relationships in the Bible

gnaritas 13y ago
> In a world where the government provides health care as a service (which is where we're trending, eventually), abusing your own health does have a victim: the taxpayer. An almost fair point... if and only if we get there, I'm not yet convinced we will, however drug use is not drug abuse. To call it a health issue it'd first have to affect your health negatively. If it does, that can be seen by the doctor and noted and then maybe you can be taxed higher to compensate, but use is not abuse. Also, serious abuse could save tax payers money by killing you. So just because something affects your health negatively doesn't mean it costs more over your lifetime. > Gambling is often predatory to the poorer classes of society. Depending on how you're defining victim, low-income-earners could be seen as victims of gambling I reject the notion that you can be your own victim. If you choose to make decisions that hurt you, you must suffer the consequences; it is not the state's place to protect you from yourself. Jumping out of a perfectly good air plane is legal, and has a very high chance of killing you compared to other hobbies but we don't outlaw that. > Bigamy is historically correlated with misogyny. Not a reason to make it a crime. I'm allowed to hate things. > Also, ironically, bigamy is not a violation of christian morality; there are myriad examples of one-man-many-woman relationships in the Bible It's a violation of modern Christian morality; times change and so do the church's sense of morals.
- Terr_ 13y ago
  > If you choose to make decisions that hurt you, you must suffer the consequences; it is not the state's place to protect you from yourself. 1. Not ever? Surely you don't think that the age of majority/consent is 0-years-old? 2. Taxation for Military defense falls under that same umbrella! Normally, people would never pay any taxes to support it until they feel threatened... And then it's too late, and they suffer from their own short-sighted penny-pinching. Are you saying the government should not collectively protect them from their own decisions?
  - gnaritas 13y ago
    > Surely you don't think that the age of majority/consent is 0-years-old? Need I preface everything I say with "between consenting adults?" > Taxation for Military defense falls under that same umbrella No it doesn't because taxation isn't a la carte; it's a fictional scenario.
    - Terr_ 13y ago
      > Need I preface everything I say with "between consenting adults?" No, because it wouldn't help your argument anyway: The point (which I think you've tacitly acknowledged) is that sometimes the government SHOULD protect non-competent humans from making bad decisions... the only question is which shade of grey you think society should draw the line on. > No it doesn't because taxation isn't a la carte; it's a fictional scenario. Please read it again. I'm describing the system we DO have, and explaining how it is already preventing the society from making quote-unquote-"wrong" choices with their money.
      - gnaritas 13y ago
        Yes we should protect those who can't make those choices for themselves, but that's already the norm, there'd be a legal age no matter what we come up with. The interesting debate is what we allow adults to do, I consider the children a red herring. Ok, I reread it, and I'd say providing for national defense was always a core job of government, it's in our constitution. The same is not true of these other things, we've not agreed by an amendment level of agreement that victimless crimes deserve jail. It's just wrong, there's no justification for jailing someone for anything related to what they ingest, who they marry and in what numbers, or anything else where the only direct victim is themselves. I own my body and no one has a right to claim otherwise.
com2kid 13y ago
> In a world where the government provides health care as a service (which is where we're trending, eventually), abusing your own health does have a victim: the taxpayer. Granted, we don't like to think about it this way, and when we do it's usually for political showmanship instead of a real reason. This is a very dangerous line of thinking. You end up with a totalitarian nanny state that doesn't let anyone go outside or do anything with any degree of risk. There have been science fiction stories written about that very future!
humanrebar 13y ago
> Also, ironically, bigamy is not a violation of christian morality; While the Old Testament contains many examples of polygamy, all of them are neutral or bad examples. Jesus strongly implies that a man should have one wife and Paul explicitly says so, at least for leaders of the church. From a practical standpoint, widespread polygamy (which usually means polygyny) can lead to imbalances in marriage opportunity between the rich and poor, men and women, young and old, etc. Banning bigamy is a way to regulate the marriage market, in a way. If tax evasion is harmful to society, polygamy is harmful to ugly, poor men.
- gnaritas 13y ago
  > If tax evasion is harmful to society, polygamy is harmful to ugly, poor men. It's less than desirable for ugly poor men, but doesn't mean victim. There is no victim involved in not being chosen as a mate by a women. If 5 women choose to marry the rich man, that's a choice between consenting adults and it harms no other party. No one is victimized by some other people getting married, whether it's because they're gay or because they're polygamists.
  - jiggy2011 13y ago
    In an age of mass communication and easy global travel I could see it scaling up far beyond a rich guy marrying 5 women. It wouldn't be surprising to see certain superstars building harems counted by the hundred.
    - gnaritas 13y ago
      Nothing wrong with that as long as the women agree.
      - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
        Where on Earth have we ever seen large-scale polygamy with all the women entirely agreed?
ignostic 13y ago
> abusing your own health does have a victim: the taxpayer. Both this and your gambling example lead us down a very scary path where the government is in charge of your health. I hate to use words republicans use when they don't apply, but that's a nanny state at best or a 1984-style dictatorship at worst. Perhaps we shouldn't be subsidizing poor choices in the first place. In any case, there are better solutions than the use of force and criminal penalties. As for bigamy, I think you'll agree that a historical correlation doesn't imply an inseparable causality.
joesmo 13y ago
"In a world where the government provides health care as a service" No need to dwell on hypotheticals. We can revisit this when the government starts paying for our healthcare. Regardless, this is a financial issue where the logical punishment is a fine, not prison.
- eru 13y ago
  Lots of countries do have public health care.
  - joesmo 13y ago
    This article is specifically about America, however.
    - eru 13y ago
      Yes, but we can learn from how other governments are dealing with problems like these. (Britain, for one, doesn't fine people for injuring themselves, I believe.)
joe_the_user 13y ago
Most people, even today, believe they own themselves rather than believing that the state owns them and they are merely paying rent on themselves. "Victimless crime" pretty much means a voluntary act which directly harms only the actor. Sure, you point to indirect harm from the actor harming themselves. But if I fricken own myself, you cannot claim that my harming myself is any sort of crime. And the people counting on others not to harm themselves better give them an incentive not to do it rather than imposing a prohibition.
philwelch 13y ago
All marriage is historically correlated with misogyny. Yet, the polyamorous folks I know are a lot less misogynistic than the ones who would want to keep polygamy illegal. (Needless to say, a woman should have the right to marry multiple husbands as well!)

by eqdw 13y ago

gnaritas 13y ago

> In a world where the government provides health care as a service (which is where we're trending, eventually), abusing your own health does have a victim: the taxpayer. An almost fair point... if and only if we get there, I'm not yet convinced we will, however drug use is not drug abuse. To call it a health issue it'd first have to affect your health negatively. If it does, that can be seen by the doctor and noted and then maybe you can be taxed higher to compensate, but use is not abuse. Also, serious abuse could save tax payers money by killing you. So just because something affects your health negatively doesn't mean it costs more over your lifetime. > Gambling is often predatory to the poorer classes of society. Depending on how you're defining victim, low-income-earners could be seen as victims of gambling I reject the notion that you can be your own victim. If you choose to make decisions that hurt you, you must suffer the consequences; it is not the state's place to protect you from yourself. Jumping out of a perfectly good air plane is legal, and has a very high chance of killing you compared to other hobbies but we don't outlaw that. > Bigamy is historically correlated with misogyny. Not a reason to make it a crime. I'm allowed to hate things. > Also, ironically, bigamy is not a violation of christian morality; there are myriad examples of one-man-many-woman relationships in the Bible It's a violation of modern Christian morality; times change and so do the church's sense of morals.

Terr_ 13y ago
> If you choose to make decisions that hurt you, you must suffer the consequences; it is not the state's place to protect you from yourself. 1. Not ever? Surely you don't think that the age of majority/consent is 0-years-old? 2. Taxation for Military defense falls under that same umbrella! Normally, people would never pay any taxes to support it until they feel threatened... And then it's too late, and they suffer from their own short-sighted penny-pinching. Are you saying the government should not collectively protect them from their own decisions?
- gnaritas 13y ago
  > Surely you don't think that the age of majority/consent is 0-years-old? Need I preface everything I say with "between consenting adults?" > Taxation for Military defense falls under that same umbrella No it doesn't because taxation isn't a la carte; it's a fictional scenario.
  - Terr_ 13y ago
    > Need I preface everything I say with "between consenting adults?" No, because it wouldn't help your argument anyway: The point (which I think you've tacitly acknowledged) is that sometimes the government SHOULD protect non-competent humans from making bad decisions... the only question is which shade of grey you think society should draw the line on. > No it doesn't because taxation isn't a la carte; it's a fictional scenario. Please read it again. I'm describing the system we DO have, and explaining how it is already preventing the society from making quote-unquote-"wrong" choices with their money.
    - gnaritas 13y ago
      Yes we should protect those who can't make those choices for themselves, but that's already the norm, there'd be a legal age no matter what we come up with. The interesting debate is what we allow adults to do, I consider the children a red herring. Ok, I reread it, and I'd say providing for national defense was always a core job of government, it's in our constitution. The same is not true of these other things, we've not agreed by an amendment level of agreement that victimless crimes deserve jail. It's just wrong, there's no justification for jailing someone for anything related to what they ingest, who they marry and in what numbers, or anything else where the only direct victim is themselves. I own my body and no one has a right to claim otherwise.

com2kid 13y ago

> In a world where the government provides health care as a service (which is where we're trending, eventually), abusing your own health does have a victim: the taxpayer. Granted, we don't like to think about it this way, and when we do it's usually for political showmanship instead of a real reason. This is a very dangerous line of thinking. You end up with a totalitarian nanny state that doesn't let anyone go outside or do anything with any degree of risk. There have been science fiction stories written about that very future!

humanrebar 13y ago

> Also, ironically, bigamy is not a violation of christian morality; While the Old Testament contains many examples of polygamy, all of them are neutral or bad examples. Jesus strongly implies that a man should have one wife and Paul explicitly says so, at least for leaders of the church. From a practical standpoint, widespread polygamy (which usually means polygyny) can lead to imbalances in marriage opportunity between the rich and poor, men and women, young and old, etc. Banning bigamy is a way to regulate the marriage market, in a way. If tax evasion is harmful to society, polygamy is harmful to ugly, poor men.

gnaritas 13y ago
> If tax evasion is harmful to society, polygamy is harmful to ugly, poor men. It's less than desirable for ugly poor men, but doesn't mean victim. There is no victim involved in not being chosen as a mate by a women. If 5 women choose to marry the rich man, that's a choice between consenting adults and it harms no other party. No one is victimized by some other people getting married, whether it's because they're gay or because they're polygamists.
- jiggy2011 13y ago
  In an age of mass communication and easy global travel I could see it scaling up far beyond a rich guy marrying 5 women. It wouldn't be surprising to see certain superstars building harems counted by the hundred.
  - gnaritas 13y ago
    Nothing wrong with that as long as the women agree.
    - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
      Where on Earth have we ever seen large-scale polygamy with all the women entirely agreed?

ignostic 13y ago

> abusing your own health does have a victim: the taxpayer. Both this and your gambling example lead us down a very scary path where the government is in charge of your health. I hate to use words republicans use when they don't apply, but that's a nanny state at best or a 1984-style dictatorship at worst. Perhaps we shouldn't be subsidizing poor choices in the first place. In any case, there are better solutions than the use of force and criminal penalties. As for bigamy, I think you'll agree that a historical correlation doesn't imply an inseparable causality.

joesmo 13y ago

"In a world where the government provides health care as a service" No need to dwell on hypotheticals. We can revisit this when the government starts paying for our healthcare. Regardless, this is a financial issue where the logical punishment is a fine, not prison.

eru 13y ago
Lots of countries do have public health care.
- joesmo 13y ago
  This article is specifically about America, however.
  - eru 13y ago
    Yes, but we can learn from how other governments are dealing with problems like these. (Britain, for one, doesn't fine people for injuring themselves, I believe.)

joe_the_user 13y ago

Most people, even today, believe they own themselves rather than believing that the state owns them and they are merely paying rent on themselves. "Victimless crime" pretty much means a voluntary act which directly harms only the actor. Sure, you point to indirect harm from the actor harming themselves. But if I fricken own myself, you cannot claim that my harming myself is any sort of crime. And the people counting on others not to harm themselves better give them an incentive not to do it rather than imposing a prohibition.

philwelch 13y ago

All marriage is historically correlated with misogyny. Yet, the polyamorous folks I know are a lot less misogynistic than the ones who would want to keep polygamy illegal. (Needless to say, a woman should have the right to marry multiple husbands as well!)