Vices vs. Crimes

[Lefty Dave]

Greetings
Am hoping to get some feedback on this treatise brought forth by Lysander Spooner well over 100 years ago... this is audiobook that takes about an hour to hear....
This topic is so important...here in USA our prisons are half filled with people who are doing time for vices...or being in support of vices...i.e. conspiracy charges...
Hope some will participate by leaving comments ...or arguments against this stance...
Blessings.....end of line.

https://archive.org/details/vicesnot...03_spooner.mp3

[gord]

Lysander Spooner must have been one of the last real lawyers in the US. I first came across his essays about 20 years ago and read everything I could find by him.

Anyway, here's the first part of Vices Are Not Crimes: A Vindication of Moral Liberty (1875) [pdf]:

I.

Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property.

Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another.

Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons or property.

In vices, the very essence of crime --- that is, the design to injure the person or property of another --- is wanting. It is a maxim of the law that there can be no crime without a criminal intent; that is, without the intent to invade the person or property of another. But no one ever practises a vice with any such criminal intent. He practises his vice for his own happiness solely, and not from any malice toward others.

Unless this clear distinction between vices and crimes be made and recognized by the laws, there can be on earth no such thing as individual right, liberty, or property; no such things as the right of one man to the control of his own person and property, and the corresponding and coequal rights of another man to the control of his own person and property.

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.

And here's some off topic Lysander Spooner, but it's my favorite Spooner quote, and I think it dovetails the previous quote nicely. I find it and much of what he wrote to be unnassailable.

From No Treason No. VI The Constitution of No Authority (1870) [pdf]:

Inasmuch as the Constitution was never signed, nor agreed to, by anybody, as a contract, and therefore never bound anybody, and is now binding upon nobody; and is, moreover, such an one as no people can ever hereafter be expected to consent to, except as they may be forced to do so at the point of the bayonet, it is perhaps of no importance what its true legal meaning, as a contract, is. Nevertheless, the writer thinks it proper to say that, in his opinion, the Constitution is no such instrument as it has generally been assumed to be; but that by false interpretations, and naked usurpations, the government has been made in practice a very widely, and almost wholly, different thing from what the Constitution itself purports to authorize. He has heretofore written much, and could write much more, to prove that such is the truth. But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.

www.lysanderspooner.org

[pyrangello]

very interesting explanation of the law by definitions, unfortunately the courtrooms are so packed now you are just another cattle call number running thru the system . Was talking to a friend yesterday that we both know another friend who is married to a judge, was really surprised to hear about how many death threats these judges get on a monthly basis.

[Lefty Dave]

Greetings Gord
Thanks for your reply and links...
I truly believe if folks would just consider Spooners' positions...we could change a lot about our current structure of governments around the world...
Having said that, not too sure the 'average guy' here in usa would give it much thought...attention span is lacking !!
Blessings...end of line

[Lefty Dave]

Greetings pyrangello

I can understand why judges would get threatened...everything seems so one sided in courtrooms...and most judges don't speak truth to juries...and can always be seen to favor the state position...so they bring it upon themselves...if they were honest and non biased... people would respect their decisions...sadly...that's not the case.
Blessings...end of line