Depends on what you mean by ‘not harming’ someone else. In your OP you indicated (or seemed to indicate) that prison should only house “dangerous” criminals who “hurt” other people, and that it was inappropriate for any crime that didn’t hurt someone else.
So, how do you define hurt?
Again, you appear to be saying no one should go to prison unless they physically harm someone, and that everyone else who commits a crime should be “ignored”. Is this the case? And if so, what do you think should happen to someone who picks your pocket and makes off with your cash and credit cards? What if they break into your house when you aren’t home and make off with your possessions? What if they are fifty years old and have sex with a willing twelve-year-old? What if someone rents you a house they don’t actually own and makes off with your deposit and leaves you with nowhere to live? Etc., etc., ad infinitum.
On the other hand, if you are simply talking about so-called victimless crimes such as prostitution, gambling, pot-smoking, etc., why don’t you just come out and say so without all this talk about how no one deserves prison if they’re not hurting anyone?
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Because a lot conservatives that I know think of tacet violation of gun laws as minor/victimless crimes (similarly to the way a lot of my liberal friends feel about law-abiding marijuana smokers). If you don’t share this sentiment, you place a higher value on the ‘law and order’ tenet of conservative thought than you do on the ‘anti-government intrusion’ tenet which became more pronouncd in the years since the Reagan revolution.
If you believed Randy Weaver’s arrest was justified, you are the first self-identified conservative I’ve ever met who did so. And I’m talking here about the intial arrest on a weapons charge – the ATF overkill in response to Weaver’s failure to appear in court is a different matter.
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As I recall, there was some disagreement as to just what laws Weaver violated and whether or not he was set up by the ATF or FBI. If he was truly guilty as charged, then yes, I would view his arrest as being justified.
Having said that, I despise the things that were done by law enforcement agencies with regard to both Weaver and David Koresh. In each instance, I feel the federal authorities deliberately chose to provoke an unnecessary confrontation solely to crush people they viewed as unlawful upstarts who dared to challenge their authority and firepower. In other words, they just decided that they were gonna kick some ass, and many people died unnecessarily as a result. The people responsible for these atrocious assaults will never get what they deserve…not in this lifetime anyway.
However, I disagree with your assessment that this means I hew to the law-and-order segment of conservatism rather than to the less-government-intrusion segment. The one does not necessarily exclude the other and I view myself as a proponent of both.
