Sins Versus Crimes
An opinion on what constitutes a sin or a crime.
All that a truly free and liberty-loving society and nation needs to protect the public morals is to let each adult decide on his or her own personal moral beliefs, then pass laws to arrest and punish those whose behaviors violate, or directly and immediately threaten to violate, the rights of others. The vast majority of people are focussed on their families, their jobs and careers, and on getting to retirement intact, physically as well as financially.
You, as an adult, have the right to not gamble, to not have promiscuous sex or participate in the porn industry, to not use mind altering substance (including alcohol), among other things. You also have a right to expect the arrest and punishment of anyone who targets your minor children for those behaviors. However, once your minor children are no longer minors, once they are adults, they have the right to decide for themselves, whether for good or bad, what behaviors they will accept and participate in. If that is not true then there is no such thing as true personal liberty and inalienable rights. But, if you have taught them well, by example, not words only, then you should have little to worry about.
I will give you one cogent example of what I am talking about. To many people, smoking marijuana is a sin. However, the mere use of marijuana violates no one’s rights. Many religious people and groups condemn the use of marijuana by adults and condone the laws prohibiting this substance thereby making criminals of those who grow, sell, and use it. Smoking marijuana has been made a crime by proclamation–malum prohibitum.
There is almost no real criminal behavior associated with the use of marijuana. What real criminal behavior that is associated with marijuana has been caused by the religious-personal-moral-based laws prohibiting its use. (Look to the prohibition of alcohol and all the real crime, mayhem, and murder it caused.) At the same time, in comparison, many religious people condone the use of alcohol, yet the mere use of alcohol is associated with the majority of all violent crimes. That is not just my opinion. It has been proven in study after study.
Therefore, we have the obscene hypocrisy of religious people condemning the rights of honest, non-violent pot smokers while condoning the use of a known violence-causing drug, i.e., alcohol. If these people—and among them are preachers, politicians, policemen, presidents, prosecutors, and judges—want to stop being hypocritical they need to pass laws prohibiting the use of alcohol as a beverage. But of course that was tried once and was a dismal failure. Another alternative to ending their hypocrisy would be to repeal the religious-based laws that have nothing to do with real, rights-violating, criminal behavior.
That would be a novel approach, I admit. It seems that my neighbor—and through him or her, all the local, state, and national politicians—believes that he or she has the right to dictate my personal moral behavior where such behavior does not harm, or immediately and directly threaten to harm, the persons or property of others.
Let sins remain in the realm of religions and not in the realm of secular laws. Let the secular authorities in this nation only punish people for any rights-violating behavior that they may be guilty of. Remember, to govern means to control. How much control by someone’s personal morally-based religious beliefs do you what . . . and which religion should be the controlling one?
* * * * *
For a full dissertation on this subject, you can go to my political pamphlet, “The Myth of Inalienable Rights as Applied to the War on Drugs: The Tyranny of Legislating Morality,” at:
http://dowehaverights.blogspot.com.
Liked it
-
Post CommentBillHarris
On November 16, 2009 at 5:36 pm
One need not travel to China to find indigenous cultures lacking human rights or to Cuba for political prisoners. America leads the world in percentile behind bars, thanks to ongoing persecution of hippies, radicals, and non-whites under prosecution of the war on drugs. If we’re all about spreading liberty abroad, then why mix the message at home? Peace on the home front would enhance global credibility.
The drug czar’s Rx for prison fodder costs dearly, as life is flushed down expensive tubes. My shaman’s second opinion is that psychoactive plants are God’s gift. Behold, it’s all good. When Eve ate the apple, she knew a good apple, and an evil prohibition. Canadian Marc Emery is being extradited to prison for selling seeds that American farmers use to reduce U. S. demand for Mexican pot.
Only on the authority of a clause about interstate commerce does the CSA (Controlled Substances Act of 1970) reincarnate Al Capone, endanger homeland security, and throw good money after bad. Administration fiscal policy burns tax dollars to root out the number-one cash crop in the land, instead of taxing sales. Society rejected the plague of prohibition, but it mutated. Apparently, SWAT teams don’t need no stinking amendment.
Nixon passed the CSA on the false assurance that the Schafer Commission would later justify criminalizing his enemies. No amendments can assure due process under an anti-science law without due process itself. Psychology hailed the breakthrough potential of LSD, until the CSA shut down research, and pronounced that marijuana has no medical use, period. Drug juries exclude bleeding hearts.
The RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993) allows Native American Church members to eat peyote, which functions like LSD. Americans shouldn’t need a specific church membership or an act of Congress to obtain their birthright freedom of religion. John Doe’s free exercise of religious liberty may include entheogen sacraments to mediate communion with his maker.
Freedom of speech presupposes freedom of thought. The Constitution doesn’t enumerate any governmental power to embargo diverse states of mind. How and when did government usurp this power to coerce conformity? The Mayflower sailed to escape coerced conformity. Legislators who would limit cognitive liberty lack jurisdiction.
Common-law must hold that adults are the legal owners of their own bodies. The Founding Fathers undersigned that the right to the pursuit of happiness is inalienable. Socrates said to know your self. Mortal lawmakers should not presume to thwart the intelligent design that molecular keys unlock spiritual doors. Persons who appreciate their own free choice of path in life should tolerate seekers’ self-exploration.