Vices are not crimes

>For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be falsehood, or falsehood truth.
Wow so profound.
Too bad this guy has no power so it'll be enforced on him anyway, haha!

>It is now obvious, from the reasons already given, that government would be utterly impracticable, if it were to take cognizance of vices and punish them as crimes. Every human being has his or her vices. Nearly all men have a great many. And they are of all kinds — physiological, mental, emotional, religious, social, commercial, industrial, economical, etc., etc. If government is to take cognizance of any of these vices, and punish them as crimes, then, to be consistent, it must take cognizance of all, and punish all impartially.

>The consequence would be that everybody would be in prison for his or her vices. There would be no one left outside to lock the doors upon those within. In fact, courts enough could not be found to try the offenders, nor prisons enough built to hold them. All human industry in the acquisition of knowledge, and even in acquiring the means of subsistence, would be arrested: for we should all be under constant trial or imprisonment for our vices. But even if it were possible to imprison all the vicious, our knowledge of human nature tells us that, as a general rule, they would be far more vicious in prison than they ever have been out of it.

>A government that shall punish all vices impartially is so obviously an impossibility that nobody was ever found, or ever will be found, foolish enough to propose it. The most that any one proposes is, that government shall punish some one, or at most a few, of what he esteems the grossest of them. But this discrimination is an utterly absurd, illogical, and tyrannical one. What right has any body of men to say, "The vices of other men we will punish; but our own vices nobody shall punish. We will restrain other men from seeking their own happiness according to their own notions of it; but nobody shall restrain us from seeking our own happiness according to our own notions of it. We will restrain other men from acquiring any experimental knowledge of what is conducive or necessary to their own happiness; but nobody shall restrain us from acquiring an experimental knowledge of what is conducive or necessary to our own happiness"?

>Nobody but knaves or blockheads ever thinks of making such absurd assumptions as these. And yet, evidently, it is only upon such assumptions that anybody can claim the right to punish the vices of others, and at the same time claim exemption from punishment for his own.

Whether vice should be punishable by law fall under politics.

>that government would be utterly impracticable, if it were to take cognizance of vices and punish them as crimes
Yet it happens!
> then, to be consistent, it must take cognizance of all, and punish all impartially
Or it could just be inconsistent. That works, too.
>The consequence would be that everybody would be in prison for his or her vices.
But they aren't!

This old fuck can't seem to grasp that ideology doesn't determine reality.

>Every voluntary act of a man's life is either virtuous or vicious. That is to say, it is either in accordance, or in conflict, with those natural laws of matter and mind on which his physical, mental, and emotional health and well-being depend. In other words, every act of his life tends, on the whole, either to his happiness, or to his unhappiness. No single act in his whole existence is indifferent.

Furthermore, each human being differs in his physical, mental, and emotional constitution, and also in the circumstances by which he is surrounded, from every other human being. Many acts, therefore, that are virtuous, and tend to happiness, in the case of one person, are vicious, and tend to unhappiness, in the case of another person.

Many acts, also, that are virtuous, and tend to happiness, in the case of one man, at one time, and under one set of circumstances, are vicious, and tend to unhappiness, in the case of the same man, at another time, and under other circumstances.

>To know what actions are virtuous, and what vicious — in other words, to know what actions tend, on the whole, to happiness, and what to unhappiness — in the case of each and every man, in each and all the conditions in which they may severally be placed, is the profoundest and most complex study to which the greatest human mind ever has been, or ever can be, directed. It is, nevertheless, the constant study to which each and every man — the humblest in intellect as well as the greatest — is necessarily driven by the desires and necessities of his own existence. It is also the study in which each and every person, from his cradle to his grave, must necessarily form his own conclusions — because no one else knows or feels, or can know or feel, as he knows and feels the desires and necessities, the hopes, and fears, and impulses of his own nature, or the pressure of his own circumstances.

>Yet it happens!
Crime happens too. That doesn't make crime a good thing.
>Or it could just be inconsistent. That works, too.
Inconsistent is a not a desirable characteristic of law.
>But they aren't!
That's because the government is hypocritical, as established.
>This old fuck can't seem to grasp that ideology doesn't determine reality.
Just because reality is a certain way, doesn't mean that is necessarily how it should be. If so, Jow Forums needs to stop complaining about Jews right now.

This guy sounds super upset that his ideal autistically categorized version of reality isn't real. Sucks to be him.

>Inconsistent is a not a desirable characteristic of law.
Why not? Why aren't we allowed to pick and choose what we want to allow? Why should we be subservient to consistency?

That's the sort of system you would find a third-world Banana Republic. It leads to societal discontent. No one likes it when they are being punished for something while their neighbor is not being punished for similar behavior.

It's the sort of system you find everywhere. It's only shitty in third-world countries because they're niggers.

The state only has an obligation to protect the persons and property of its citizens. Possibly to provide basic public goods as well.

It has been an essential characteristic of the ideal rule of law for thousands of years. Consistency promotes harmony.

What's the threshold level of inconsistency that starts to bother people, then? True consistency would mean having only one law for every circumstance. This is obviously impractical, so some level of picking-and-choosing is always present.

"For to the just all the evils imposed on them by unjust rulers are not the punishment of crime, but the test of virtue. Therefore the good man, although he is a slave, is free; but the bad man, even if he reigns, is a slave, and that not of one man, but, what is far more grievous, of as many masters as he has vices"
- Saint Augustine of Hippo, City of God: IV, 3

Lysander Spooner is interesting. He was an abolitionist throughout his life but he also opposed the American conquest of the South (he called it political slavery).

When certain vices are punished over other vices by people with vices of their own.

Then you are not doing it right.

t. Middle-aged female church goer.

>From there the pietists concluded that it was everyone's moral duty to his own salvation to see to it that his fellow men as well as himself are kept out of temptation's path. That is, it was supposed to be the State's business to enforce compulsory morality, to create the proper moral climate for maximizing salvation. In short, instead of an individualist, the pietist now tended to become a pest, a busybody, a moral watchdog for his fellowman, and a compulsory moralist using the State to outlaw "vice" as well as crime.

>The liturgicals, on the other hand, took the view that morality and salvation were to be achieved by following the creed and the rituals of their church. The experts on those church beliefs and practices were, of course, not the State but the priests or bishops of the church (or, in the case of the few orthodox Calvinists, the ministers.) The liturgicals, secure in their church teachings and practices, simply wanted to be left alone to follow the counsel of their priests; they were not interested in pestering or forcing their fellow human beings into being saved. And they believed profoundly that morality was not the business of the State, but only of their own church mentors.

Yes, he was extremely principled.