Legalize everything that doesn’t involve a real victim:
All drugs
All gambling
Prostitution
Now. Immediately. Especially drugs, since I am absolutely mortified at the erosion of personal freedom in the name of the drug war.
Just thought I’d share that.
Stoidela
If all of those things were legalised, would you agree that regulations on them would be prudent? Such as AIDS testing for prostitutes, purity standards for the drugs?
Drugs? No victims? Ever been to a rehabilitation center? Obviously not.
Gambling? No victims? Ever talked to a compulsive gambler? Obviously not.
Prostitution? No victims? Ever spent a few hours with a prostitue? Obviously not.
Shouldn’t this be in the Great Debates forum? As, for that matter, should be the men and abortion thread?
-Melin
I’m a woman phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That’s me
(Maya Angelou)
“Vicimless” is a perfectly accurate word to describe these crimes, inasmuch as the only POSSIBLE victim is the criminal him/herself. And even then it’s somewhat rare for the criminal to be seriously harmed.
BIG IRON – I dont’ think the spouse/child/parent/friend of a drug addict (or a gambling addict) would say that the only victims of these addictions are the uses/gamblers. When a person has an addiction that he or she will neglect family obligations, drain bank accounts, and perhaps even commit crimes to support, the victims are many. It’s like dropping a pebble into a pool – you can’t say that conequences are limited to the person with the habit.
conSequences – damn!
Melin:
Well, people seem to end up getting pretty testy with each other, why not start here?
Big Iron: Right on.
Sly: Big Iron explained the obvious. If you choose to screw up your life, it ain’t my job to prevent you. There’s alot of perfectly legal things people do to destroy themselves and we don’t have laws against them, nor should we.
But to answer your queries specifically:
Rehab center:
I have several sober friends who nearly destroyed themselves with drugs. The illegality of their drugs of choice in no way stopped, helped, or prevented this from happening. It just created another layer of shame and fear.
Gambling:
I was in love with and living with a compulsive gambler/drug addict (when he was clean of one, he was deep in the other, never free of both simultaneously). He disappeared to Vegas and lost our rent more than once. He ended up killing himself because he was such a mess and could see no way out. It certainly would have been easier in some respects if he hadn’t had to leave town to indulge his habit.
Prostitution:
My stepmother is a prostitute. (Or was, she’s now the president of a non-profit organization dedicated to presenting the art, culture and history of sex workers.) She was proud and happy to do the work. My father supported it completely. The only thing about it that ever bummed her out was when she was set up to be busted ona pandering charge and got railroaded into jail.
So it would seem that of the two of us, I have a more intimate experience with all these things than you do, and I STILL want them all legalized.
Stoidela
Uhmm … seriously harmed? what the heck are you talking about?
Drugs can harm you physically … not to mention mixing with the wrong people.
Drugs, Gambling and Prostitution can ruin marridges, in which i would say other people are affected, not just the “Criminal”.
Sometimes i just wish people would “THINK” before they speak.
After your ridiculous position in the “Abortion for Men” debate, I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I completely agree with you, Stoidela. Glad to see you are advocating personal responsibility. Yes, it should all be legalized and it should all be regulated. Wait–I take that back. I do not think that hard drugs should be legalized (heroin, cocaine). I think the risk to society outwieghs the benefits in that case. As for everything else, bring it on.
Quote from Sly:
“Drugs? No victims? Ever been to a rehabilitation center? Obviously not.”
People keep rolling in to Betty Ford, too. There is a subset of the population which is always going to behave irresponsibly regardless of the law.
And again:
"Prostitution? No victims? Ever spent a few hours with a prostitue? "
The (legal) prostitutes in Amsterdam are much better off because of the legalization. They do not face half the problems of prostitites who work where it is illegal. I use Amsterdam as an example because I have been there many times. I would venture to guess that the situation would be the same in any place where prostitution is legal and well-regulated.
Last time:
“Gambling? No victims? Ever talked to a compulsive gambler?”
This is very similar to the drug example. Compulsive anything is bad. Some people have no self control. If we made illegal everything that SOME people can’t control their impulses about, we would have to outlaw food, shopping, watching T.V. etc.
“I think it would be a great idea” Mohandas Ghandi’s answer when asked what he thought of Western civilization
I was about to add a pro-libertarian post to the Abortion for Ment thread, when I lost contact with the server. I come back and Stoidela beats my to it with a new thread.
The harm of a “benevolent”, socialist leaning government is that, with its promises to solve social ills, it erodes personal responsibility. The government is going to fix the drug problem and prostitution and gambling by strictly regulating them. (Suggested topic: The lottery is good, but the Numbers are evil. Bigotry, greed or stupidity? )
Gambling never stopped, drugs never stopped and prostitution never stopped. And when they become a problem, it is not the addicts fault or responsibility. No it is the government’s Responsibility. Quick, dump more tax dollars into jails, law enforcement and the courts!
Talk about victims! How much money is taken from the pockets of law abiding citizens and funneled into the war on these vices? Enough to qualify as grand larceny I bet. Count me as an innocent victim created by the prosecution of victimless crimes by the government.
Big Iron:
By your definition, then, is suicide a victimless crime? A “victim” in a broad sense is an invidiual who is adversely affected by a force or agent. In this sense, the crime itself is the force.
I can look for and post some statistics of lives ruined by these “victimless” crimes if you wish.
My earlier post was not intended to be construed as an argument against legalizing anything. It was simply to point out the misnomer of “victimless” crimes.
Hey, Stoidela, is your stepmother coming out to Butte, Montana, this August for the big sex-workers convention? You want to talk about a town divided – whoa. You can imagine the editorials.
Can’t believe people are arguing in this thread about the terminology “victimless.” Sure, it’s been overused and even misapplied, but that doesn’t alter the point: for a crime to be a crime, there should be a “victim” who files a complaint against a perpetrator.
In the case of drugs, gambling, and prostitution, you have situations where no one is filing complaints, but the police go out and arrest people anyway.
And as far as the “harm” done by these activities–lots of things cause harm, but they aren’t necessarily against the law. Nor does criminalizing them decrease the harm; in fact, oftentimes, just the opposite happens (as during prohibition, which increased rather than decreased alcoholism, and brought in the element of organized crime).
Besides, you have to measure the harm against the supposed cure. If somebody takes drugs, he might (a) eventually outgrow the habit, (b) go into rehab or © overdose. Making drugs illegal decreases the chances of (b) and increases the chances of ©. Moreover, it adds a fourth possibility: (d) go to prison where you can be beaten up, raped, possibly killed. This is hardly much of an improvement over the other possibilities. In fact, if drugs were legal and regulated, it might cut down on © quite a bit.
Okay, let’s admit there is some potential harm in these activities. Nevertheless, undoing that harm is not a matter of bringing in the police. And if you dislike the term “victimless,” then let’s use “consensual crimes.”
And as for Krells, you’re right: people should think before they speak. Try it yourself next time. Yes, drugs, gambling, and prostitution can harm marriages, but should that be reason enough to make them illegal. Will prosecuting the “criminal” and putting him in jail save the marriage? Hardly. And should everything else that might harm a marriage be made illegal as well? How about mandatory prison terms for adultery? Maybe husbands and fathers should be outlawed from having dangerous jobs: after all, they might get killed at work and that would harm their families. And it should probably be illegal for them to have any interesting hobbies or outside activities, because that might deflect them from focusing on their home life, and thus again harm their families. They probably shouldn’t fly on business trips either, because the plane might crash, causing their spouses and children to undergo the harm of losing a husband and father. Also, it should probably be illegal for them to undergo any kind of religious conversion–you never know, they might decide to take a vow of celibacy, become a monk, and leave their families bereft. And the list goes on…
Jodih:
Of course she is, she is the one who made it happen!!! And she’s already there.
How did you know about it? Do you live there? (And the naysayers are quieting down…they will be drowned out completely after Butte gets flooded with $$$ in the wake of the bikers coming through!)
Stoidela
CFQ:
Oh man, you took all my words right outta my mouth!
kudos.
Stoidela
Yes, but if drugs were legal, what would teens do to rebel? Wear suits?
Gambling is illegal?? What about lotto? I really thought gambling was pretty much a-okay everywhere now except in a few areas where they’re trying to screw the indians.
Well, prostitution is practiced legally in most states…oh wait, you’re talking about sex acts. The only problem with making prostitution legal is too many people would assume that it includes children, especially their own. Some laws are good, after all.
But I have to agree that the War on Drugs has been one of the greatest failures in US domestic policy since prohibition. If nothing else, the tax revenue from making pot legal would pay for a lot of new… high ways. – that was a joke, son, a joke I say!
I love vice laws. They’re such a beautiful example of the conflict between society and individuality.
I live in southern New Hampshire, where we have State Liquor Stores open seven days a week. In Massachusetts, our neighbor to the south, blue laws prohibit sale of beer or liquor on Sunday… unless you are within 10 miles of the border with New Hampshire.
I just love the whole “This is illegal, except when it isn’t” sliding gray scale that vice laws exemplify. They should be taught in Junior High Civics classes so that kids learn the difference between Right and right and Wrong and wrong.
If ALL vice laws were eliminated, then maybe the stigmatizing of sex would be cut to such a low level that prostitution itself would be greatly reduced. If sex becomes a normal part of society, instead of a great sin/vice to be persecuted, more people might be willing to engage in it without shame, FOR FREE, thus reducing the need for paid sex.
As far as vices that harm society, generally the vices that government can make a profit on are o.k., such as smoking, drinking, and gambling. The are taxable and (somewhat) easily regulated. The vices that involve sex, drugs, and the like are hard to control, hard to tax, and therefore “wrong”.
“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
Hunter Thompson
Lcuky:
I almost forgot:
Really? What risks to society do heroin and cocaine pose that are so much greater than criminals and ridiculously expensive penal systems?
I dont’ know if it is Denmark, Swedne, the Netherlands, or some other country, but somewhere in Europe they are sanely and compassionately actually PROVIDING heroin to addicts. The result? Many of them are not only NOT committing crime and living on the street, they are actually productive members of society barely distinguishable from anyone else. (Once you reach a certain level of addiction with heroin, “getting high” isn’t really the goal. Simply preventing the pain of withdrawal is.)
Considering that the #1 life-destroying drug in his country is alcohol, and the second is nictine, I find it hilarious that anyone could try to make a case that any other drug is a so great a danger to society that it should be outlawed. All illegal drugs combined do not come CLOSE to the damage and pain caused by alcohol.
There is no justification for any drug being illegal. None. (Including alcohol and nictotine, by the way. If people wanna destroy their lives, that’s their business.)
Stoidela