Perfectly True?
- Thread starter Rick
- Start date
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
The causes of crime are diverse, complex, and only dimly understood. Still, I don't think you're on the right track.zion said:
Many crime perpetrators and victims know each other very well. Trusting acquaintance is the essence of many crimes of fraud. Intimacy is the essence of many crimes of violence, especially domestic violence.
One thing that we should all understand, however, is that a significant percentage of crimes that are committed are the only slightly indirect results of government manipulation.
When a government makes a popular activity illegal, especially in a country like America where disrespect for authority is one of our founding traditions, it instantly creates a huge class of criminals which it can then both persecute and prosecute.
Inter-racial marriage, homosexual intercourse, use of alcohol and various other drugs, providing sexual services as a business, raising one's own food, terminating an unwanted pregnancy, selling food on Sunday, helping a painfully and terminally ill loved one die, even such mundane things as dancing, giving manicures without a license, keeping four dogs or four unrelated humans in a single residence -- all of these things have been illegal in America and many of them still are in some places. And the sad part is that the government, in most cases, is prohibited by the Constitution from passing these laws but they get away with it because most Americans have no idea what the Constitution says anymore.
Even worse, when you make something that people really like a lot illegal, it becomes difficult to obtain. Respectable businessmen are reluctant to sell it because if they're caught they could lose their entire business. Therefore the rarity of the product or service in the face of steady demand causes the price to rise, and people who are willing to take risks step in and become the dealers. These are generally people who are already criminals who are used to taking risks and evading police, people who don't share the values of the rest of us. They're willing to kill their competitors and anyone else who gets in the way of their profits. Innocent people get caught in the crossfire. Children get recruited to deliver the products because they're harder to catch and the law goes easy on them. Society begins to deteriorate.
Despite our deep tradition of disdain and suspicion of tyranny, there's a steady contingent of the American people who reflexively trust everything the government does, no matter how stupid -- a textbook case of cognitive dissonance, patriotism taken to such an extreme that it becomes as dangerous as religion. These people tend to be loudmouths -- just like those who evangelize their religions, the parallel is striking -- and they manage to convince other people that the laws are right and the people who break them are wrong. Add to that the fact that the criminals who are drawn by the forces of economics into the black market really are bad people who give the activity they facilitate a bad name, and bingo, "America is drowning in a sea of crime."
I guess what I'm saying is that there isn't nearly as much true "crime" as you might think, because, at least in America, most of it is simply people exercising rights that have been unconstitutionally deprived by a government that is too big for its britches.
A good deal of the rest of the genuinely true crime occurs only because the black markets that the government creates by its unconstitutional prohibitions give bad people more power to do evil things.
If all non-fraudulent, non-coercive activities by and between consenting adults were made legal, as the Constitution requires, you would see a magnificent drop in the "crime" rate.
I don't know how to prevent all crimes, but I know that the way to prevent the majority of them is to revert to the libertarian system of government as defined in our Constitution. Stop electing Democrat and Republican professional politicians, whose only goal is to acquire more power for the government. Call for the removal of judges who allow these unconstitutional laws to be made and enforced. Let people learn how to take control of their own destiny again. It will be painful at first and it will take a couple of generations for America to re-learn how to be America. But it will be worth it.
I think it would reduce crime, but if everyone is speaking the truth, then there will allways be someone who takes advantage of that (because of the trust that has to be amongst the people they will trust even him that do lie).zion said:
If sin is ruled out of the picture, then maybe we would be at peace. Humans just can't handle being honest when having temptations around them.
L
laughing weasel
Guest
Some people cannot handle the truth and get mad when you tell them unpleasant facts. I find that just omitting unpleasant facts is easier than dealing with these individuals. It is also sometimes very hard to say something tactfully so I just avoid the subject and hope that the unpleasant duty will fall on someone else.
What may be true to you might not be true to me. You might say that God exists but I say God doesn't exist. To you, you are true but to me I'm true and you are lying.
But its not a truth, its only a belief, and there lies the difference.
It may be a truth, who knows? But still he didn't lie to you, he expressed his belief. Though if you asked him "do you know this or do you believe this?" and he say he knows it, then he is lying - of course if it really is a belief. Though if he know it and say he knows it, then he obviously isn't lyingcosmictraveler said:
He would be lying to me because he stated that it was his belief and not a proven fact. Beliefs are abundant, like ghosts and werewolves. We all know, at least the ones with any sense, that they are only beliefs not real things.
My examples of people believing in ghosts is on the same premis. If you believed in ghosts then you would be telling yourself that it was true however to others it isn't a truth so that means it will remain a belief to all not the truth to all.