Would you be willing to live in a country where.......

No

In a situation like that EVERYONE would be in jail.........even for jaywalking!

Setanta, my God, it's frightening how quickly you answered my question. I had just pressed "submit" when I found your answer. What if I said that you couldn't get away with murder?

I've no plans to murder anyone, nor want to live in a society in which murder is common. Nor do i wish to live in a society so given over to state control, that no "crime" goes unpunished. Given the vagueness of any definition of crime which cannot be shown to directly harm others, this sounds to me like a sure-fire recipe for civil rights disaster . . .

thought-crime doubleplusungood!

Setanta, I would have thought more of you. The act of murder is sometimes one of neglect. Instead of that double fudge large pizza you bought, you could have sent that money to Bangladesh and actually saved the life of someone. Even American law would consider an immediate but similar situation to be something like murder; just as that woman in Georgia was convicted of murder yesterday. I think that even the ancient Greek philosophers could not agree upon the definition of crime or responsibility-to-man. At this point it seems a good thing not to solve the problem; it might keep us free for now. I wonder who was saved and who was lost because of the life of the man we "lost" today, Strom Thurmond.

Think of me what you will, your latest post makes little sense to me . . .

What's your definition of a "crime?" c.i.

Are you talking about Good Samaritan laws? Because there is no requirement to stop if you see an accident, for example. The woman in Georgia was a hit-and-run driver, an entirely different matter. She caused a death, by setting into motion a direct chain of events (the collision and then not stopping to help the victim get treatment). But the courts eventually stop causation because that would make everyone guilty. Thing is, every action could conceivably cause everything else that happens afterwards, but what the courts are looking for is what's called proximate cause. See: Palsgraf vs. Long Island Rail Road.

Oh, and to answer the question at hand - no flippin' way would I want to live in a place that fancied itself to have perfect justice, even though imperfect justice sometimes results in wrongful convictions or perpetrators wrongly going free. It's a flawed system, but we are flawed beings. And, by the way, way back when, Plessy vs. Ferguson was though to be correct and true, but then Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, KS came along and Plessy was overturned. In your allegedly perfect justice society, cases like that wouldn't be overturned - they'd be in place forever.

I am confused about this issue which is somewhat an issue of moral relativism. I am trying to comprehend for myself what responsibility I owe to the larger human community. I am concerned about this because of my unrelenting resentment against a local church that insists on spreading their money around, and not a bit of it to the poor, the hungry or the homeless. I am not a Christian, but as an American in the 21st century, I know very well the emphasis that ideal Christianity places on these problems, which might be directly descended from the liberation theology of South America in the Catholic Church. It seems to me such a horrendous crime to leave people to their hunger, poverty and homelessness. This is related to the issue I posed of living in a society where it would be impossible to get away with a crime. The situation in my mind is so complicated as to leave the tenacles of this discussion unclear to me. It means a lot to me but I labor to find an answer.

If there was no law, there would be no crime and therefore no possibility of getting away with it.

At the opposite extreme, if every person declared their own law there would be six billion forms of law, with very few of them being adhered to by others. Law that has no influence on others is, in practical terms, not actually a law and therefore again, no crime would be possible.

If there were many common laws, but everyone suddenly decided to ignore them, it would cease to have any influence, so again both law and crime would cease to exist.


Therefore crime is defined by ones ability to change other people's lives. We pass a law to influence people. Crime exists only when an enforceable law is crossed, and thus not having the full effect that was hoped for.

The only two conditions where "it was impossible to get away with a crime" is if the law is 100% ignored, or 100% adhered to. When was the last time you saw anything that was 100%? Anyone claiming such a possibiliity would not be rational.

Any individual or group can create and enforce whatever laws they like. It's merely up to them to find the power and ability to enforce their own will on other people. Their law exists to the extent they have some form or power over others. It is whatever they can push onto someone else.

In our current society, if we look only at those few laws that are created and enforced by the government, we must realize that it is physically impossible to not break the law. In everyday life one cannot travel, work, and play without breaking many laws every day. It's simply not a realistic possibility. With these particular laws, everyone is continually getting away with breaking them. People don't actually sit down and decide each and every action based on whether it conforms to all known laws! Only a small percentage of laws are enforced on a small percentage of violations, at the human discretion of whoever works to enforce them.

It's too much to expect even one law to be enforceable everywhere. They are highly subjective, in accordance to the enforcement individuals, and certainly not absolute. Therefore, laws only exist to sway people a little bit in one direction. That's all they are for.



Long-winded way of saying "yes"! I would *love* to live in a society where no can get away with breaking the law. Because this is utterly impossible and ridiculous, at that very moment I would realize I'm either dreaming or insane. So then I'd just kick back and enjoy the ride.

From then on, I expect there would be many other impossible and ridiculous things I could find and play with -- reverse gravity, party with the Rolling Stones, have discussions with Plato. There's all kinds of fun stuff to do once the concept of reality has been freely altered or dismissed.

Seriously: What's law got to do with anything?
Right and wrong is a completely independent topic.
The freedom to do what's right is another unrelated topic.
Ethics, morality, and domination is another. Bullying is another.
So it still comes down to defining it: What's law got to do with anything?