I’m confused, according to the article this woman, at the age of 55, as a heroin addict, got life without parole for carrying heroin in a sock across town.
What a waste of taxpayers money and a complete shambles.
What a waste of taxpayers money and a complete shambles.
- No victim, no crime
- Legal != moral
Either directly or indirectly (degrees of separation), many simple acts of commerce fund things most would find abhorrent.
Diamonds are most definitely on that list still - despite all the noise and promises made; I am fairly certain so-called "blood diamonds" are still a part of the trade.
Gasoline (more concretely, oil) is another.
It wouldn't surprise me to find out that various renewables have their own problems in a similar vein...
You can probably think of others.
There is also the coffee industry, which at least has the fair trade program, that helps the small farmers get the money they deserve instead of being pressured to lower prices by the distributors.
So if I drive at at 100mph past a school bus where kids are getting off and I happen to not hit anyone the parents should be, like, "no harm, no foul!"?
So? That's a valid debate technique, not a logical fallacy.
I'd love to have this conversation in a suburban mall food where the average bmi is >30
My parent comment said (referring to speeding past a school bus without harming anyone):
> Just because they are not the victim of murder or assault doesn't mean they're not a victim. You threatened them. You endangered them. They are victims of being put in danger by you.
Pro drug-prohibitionists would argue: just because you can use heroin without hurting anyone does not mean it isn't generally hurtful. But it does lead to other crimes: theft, murder, child neglect, spousal abuse, rape, etc. and burdens society (medical, unemployment, homelessness). You don't have to agree with this justification of course.
'Your right to swing your fist stops where my nose begins' sounds simple. But what if people keep swinging their fists around and unintentionally hitting me? What if people are living on the street and stealing from me so they can spend all day swinging their arms around? What if my neighbour swings her arms around so much she gets dizzy then decides to drive-while-dizzy?
Stealing from you? Charge them with theft. Hitting you accidentally? Let's call that a misdemeanor. Driving while dizzy? Call it DWAI.
Your case does imply possible victims this therefore it is an incorrect analogy.
What if addiction makes me completely vulnerable to people willing to exploit that addiction for their own gain?
As I understand it, those are secondary effects of what is still a victimless crime. I believe this also reduces the need for any further what-iffing.
I posited some indirect victims.
Maybe my point is that reality is way more complex than just "no victim, no crime."
If it’s the former, reply and I’ll clarify my point. I definitely do not agree with what you wrote.
Because we live in a world where it is impossible to fully _not_ affect anyone directly or indirectly, by victims we should understand any party that has an injury caused by our actions and can claim it (but please note again that we expect all the parties involved to be consent)
Before folks would diving into the depths of sophism I would suggest to refer to the Wiki article that explains this in better details.
Secondarily, appealing to the moral aspect of this problem is meaningless, because again, we are talking about it strictly in a legal sense.
In the case of speeding past the school bus, the crime is putting lives in danger by the imminent threat of a high-speed collision with your car.
But now we've opened the can of worms of your actions posing a threat to someone else. Does this automatically lead back to total prohibition of any mind-altering substance, since you might be a threat to someone under the influence?
There certainly is a lot to argue about, but starting from the premise of "no victim, no crime" instead of "for your own good" should get us quite a ways toward a more just society.
This example isn't victimless. That someone has been terrified and will probably have psychological issues for the rest of their life.
It's easy to argue 'no' there, because the key word is "might." In those other examples, your action is putting them in direct danger. If you take drugs, you still need to take further unrelated action to endanger others. You still need to get behind the wheel or pick up a gun. The drugs in your system aren't going to hurt someone, and it's purely a matter of mind-reading to assume that you "might" decide to hurt someone because you're on drugs.
If we want to go down that route, we can just plug all our data into Google Judge and let it statistically decide who should be sent off to prison based on the likelihood that we might harm someone in the future.
The classic prohibitionist argument against "no victim, no crime" is that society is the victim when an individual uses drugs, because a productive, healthy, social individual who becomes a drug addict stops contributing to society, or even becomes a drag on it, making the world a slightly worse place for everyone. And for some drugs that may be the case... but it's beyond me how the solution to that problem should be to persecute the addicts rather than try to help them live up to their full potential.
Driving under the influence, domestic violence, aggression.
Speeding on the other hand is reckless endangerment, if you are to fast, your stopping distance will become to short for the given environment. As a result, you will run over a kid if one crosses the street at a dangerous position. You driving to fast at this position will have the effect of a run over kid, with the only variables being whether or not a kid is just crossing the street at this point. You already made the decision to drive to fast to have a sufficient stopping distance. Your similar decision of taking drugs doesnt have inherent consequences, it only has an influence of the decisions you make after that, for example a drunk barfight. The same could however also be said for other things which influence your mood.
Driving under the influence is a much better comparison to speeding than druguse itself. Not sleeping enough is not dangerous, however driving while dozing off is
Drugs don't pose an intrinsic danger anymore than cars pose an intrinsic danger.
Want to reduce driving under the influence? Have stiff penalties while making sure there is public transportation for all so that it can realistically be avoided.
Folks partake in domestic violence without substances. It should be punished and I don't think it matters if a substance was involved or not. Abuse is abuse and substances do not mean abuse. Sometimes, they are a bonding thing (MDMA especially).
Agression really depends. Teenagers can be quite aggressive. I can be quite aggressive depending on my hormones. A testosterone glitch can make folks aggressive. And so on. It really more depends on what the outcome of "aggression" is. Did you commit assault while aggressive? Charge for assault. Or whatever. If it just makes you an asshole, well. Don't be surprised if folks spend less time with you. Or maybe you instead feed that aggression into basketball or other sports so it doesn't matter at all.
The entire point is that drugs aren't necessarily dangerous beyond whatever physical dangers they do to the user. We can use the existing laws to punish things like assault.
Yet in both cases I would have started the day with the same disregard for peoples safety, it was only a matter of luck that changed the outcome.
You could be driving 30 on a bog standard road, a child could trip and fall under your car, and bam.
I’m sure you can work out the answer yourself.
This isn't a simple rule at all. How do you quantify this?
"If you imprison me my very large company will shut down and everyone there will lose their jobs. Guess you can't imprison me now, since that will cause more harm than letting me go" - any rich person