Controlling human behaviour

Dissident1's picture

It has long been the case that people have sought to use law to control the behaviours of other people.

Take alcohol prohibition, for instance. There was a mass appeal, particularly by religious zealots, to deter people from drinking alcohol. "I don't drink, so you can't drink either" was the line of thought. In order to get legislators to listen and enact the probationary laws, consumption of alcoholic beverages was presented as being the cause of crime and corruption.

Of course, such feeble connections rarely hold true. After the enaction of probationary laws, however, anyone who obtained and consumed alcoholic beverages were committing "criminal" activities. Thus, the connection between alcohol and criminal activity became standard.

Of course, the government was invariably forced to decriminalize alcohol. However, the failure of prohibition did nothing to deter people from attempting to control human behaviour and standard by force of law.

Forcing one groups standards and ideals on the members of another group only causes certain acts to be performed underground. It thus becomes inevitable that, by criminalizing a persons desires, people who would otherwise be upstanding members of the community get pushed into the criminal underworld. Once there, they become avowed enemies of society and government. What is typically referred to as antisocial activity soon follows.

To make criminal acts which should not be considered criminal makes the law itself a crime, and the government is then run by criminals and thieves. This is easily seen here in the United States. Given that, in order to be a Christian, one must lie to themselves and to others, and the Christian populace continues to hold political dominance, only lying politicians can use their stolen money to get into office. Once in office, they create legislation that is unarguably detrimental to the populace-at-large, yet convince the people they hurt that they are doing them a service.

And there are few who are willing to stand against them.

I am become death, destroyer of worlds

triften's picture

Another issue to consider

Another issue to consider is that law-abiding citizens are difficult to blackmail and manipulate, but if you make a bunch of laws that turn ordinary people into criminals, they can be pushed around all over the place.

Consider what you might have done that could be illegal?

-Triften