I'VE BEEN WAITING YEARS for someone to write this book. If someone had, I wouldn't have had to.
I have simply never understood why people should be jailed for actions that do not physically harm the person or property of others.
I have thus always been distinctly in the minority. People I admired and people I abhorred all seemed to agree: on this point I was wrong. I filed my conviction away under "something I'll understand when I'm older." Now I am older. It makes even less sense than it ever did.
From the mid-sixties to the early eighties, although the subject of consensual crimes (mostly referred to as "victimless crimes") was occasionally discussed and a number of scholarly tomes were published (some of them quite good), a comprehensive view of the subject for "just folks" like me never appeared.
Once the "War on Drugs" was declared, however, all discussion stopped. One might as well have tried saying something good about Emperor Hirohito in 1942. ("Nice uniform!")
The image that outraged me into putting my childish notion on the front burner was the cover of a news magazine from the mid-1980s. Workers in a cocaine field were piled like firewood, their white peasant clothing red with blood. They had been gunned down in cold blood by American troops. The workers didn't own the field-they were brought in for the harvest, paid subsistence wages.
But was this cover an expos on the dangers of prohibition? A warning about what happens when rhetoric and prejudice become more important in setting national policy than logic and reason? A bold illustration of why "military solution" is the most destructive oxymoron of all?
____________________________________
| |
| I haven't voted since 1964, |
| when I voted for Lyndon Johnson, |
| the peace candidate. |
| |
| GORE VIDAL |
|__________________________________|
No. The headline blared: WINNING THE WAR ON DRUGS. Inside, the war on drugs was touted as though the magazine were covering the landing at Normandy. Page after page, article after article, arrest photo after arrest photo, diagrams, maps, bar graphs, pie charts-today they probably would have included a CD-ROM.
Like the one-sided reports about Vietnam two decades before, in this editorial orgy of support, not one word was written to defend the rights of those who wanted to take drugs. Not one voice was quoted crying in the wilderness, "So they want to take drugs. So what?"
I began researching the topic of this book, hoping desperately it had already been written. (Spending several weeks reading Supreme Court decisions is not my idea of a good time. And then there are those brilliantly written government reports-books, actually-with names such as Federal Recidivism Rates 1989-1990 or my bedtime favorite, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1994.) Alas, I couldn't find a book such as the one you hold in your hands, so I had to write it.
I explored every argument I could find opposing the legalization of consensual crimes. Not one of them held up to logical analysis; not one was supported by history; every solution was worse than the "problem" it was trying to solve.
Then came the dark part of the research-the terrible fact that laws against consensual activities were destroying lives, our society, our freedom, our safety, and our country.
The more I discovered, the more I was reminded of Remy de Gourmont's comment, "The terrible thing about the quest for truth is that you find it."
____________________________
| |
| Ye shall know the truth, |
| and the truth |
| shall make you mad. |
| |
| ALDOUS HUXLEY |
|__________________________|
I hope this new edition of the book causes the sort of controversy caused by asking in 1773, "Why don't we break from England and start our own country?" or, in 1833, "Aren't slaves human beings and therefore entitled to their freedom?" or in 1963, "Shouldn't Vietnam have the right to determine its own form of government?" It's all a variation of "Why isn't the emperor wearing any clothes?"
As Bertrand Russell observed, "Change is scientific, progress is ethical; change is indubitable, whereas progress is a matter of controversy." Throughout the controversy caused by the hardcover edition, I was buoyed by this from Herb Lock: "You say what you think needs to be said; if it needs to be said, there are going to be a lot of people who will disagree with it or it wouldn't need to be said."
One of the fears about discussing consensual activities is that if you defend a certain practice, you're often accused of being or doing that. Well, if you're wondering about me, why not assume that I do it all? Yes, you can safely presume that I am a drug-selling homosexual prostitute gambler who drunkenly loiters all day with my six wives and fourteen husbands, making and watching pornography while being treated by strange medical practices.
You can also assume my motives to be the darkest, most selfish, and pernicious you can imagine: I'm doing it for the money; I have a pathological need for attention; my mother didn't love me enough when I was three. No matter how many times I say that I'm not advocating any of the consensual crimes, someone will, of course, accuse me of "recruiting" for them all.
______________________________________
| |
| Until you've lost your reputation, |
| you never realize what a burden |
| it was or what freedom really is. |
| |
| MARGARET MITCHELL |
|____________________________________|
Although the subject is serious, this book is occasionally funny. I know if I lose my sense of humor about a subject, I am truly lost.
Call it a quirk in my personality, call it a defense mechanism, but in my mind things go from bad to worse to appalling to absurd to funny. Then they start all over again. This, for example, from the 1993 World Almanac and Book of Facts:
Dorothy Ries filed a $40 million lawsuit against Texas evangelist Robert Tilton, saying he continues to send solicitation letters to her dead husband, promising that God will restore his health.
Or take the Reverend Jimmy Swaggart. Every time he slammed his Bible on the pulpit, I knew a thousand more consensual "criminals" were going to prison. When he was caught with a prostitute, he insisted it was the devil's work and asked his congregation to forgive him. Pretty standard Christian-hand-in-the-cookie-jar response. Not very funny. When he was caught a second time, however, he told his congregation, "The Lord told me it's flat none of your business!" Amen, Brother Swaggart! I look forward to the day when I can be similarly amused by Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.
If one could only remind Reverend Swaggart of Hyman Rickover's advice, "If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won't."
_____________________________________
| |
| When we start |
| deceiving ourselves into thinking |
| not that we want something |
| or need something, |
| not that it is a pragmatic |
| necessity for us to have it, |
| but that it is a moral imperative |
| that we have it, |
| then is when we join |
| the fashionable madmen. |
| |
| JOAN DIDION |
|___________________________________|
That's the trouble, of course: we have taken sins out of God's domain, where they can be forgiven, and put them in the domain of law, where they can only be plea-bargained.
Not only do we attempt to drag personal morality into the public arena; we put it into the hands of the least efficient organization on earth: government bureaucracy. "The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency," Eugene McCarthy pointed out, "An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty."
How inefficient is the bureaucracy? Well, in sunny California the government spent four years and $600,000 to produce twenty-five drafts of a "wellness guide." Some bureaucratic suggestions for wellness? "Don't buy something you can't afford" and "Don't beat, starve, or lock up your kids." Or this letter, sent from the South Carolina Department of Social Services:
Your food stamps will be stopped effective March, 1992, because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances.
Increasingly, in utter desperation of a war lost, the enforcement of laws against consensual activities is being turned over to the military. You may recall then-Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay's 1965 comment:
My solution to the problem would be to tell [the North Vietnamese] they've got to draw in their horns and stop their aggression or we're going to bomb them into the Stone Age.
The problem with declaring war on personal behavior that does not harm the person or property of another is that the military is not just a bureaucracy; it's a heavily armed bureaucracy. The lighter side of the dilemma is illustrated by this news item:
When the army tested a new air-defense gun called the Sergeant York, which was designed to home in on the whirling blades of helicopters and propeller-driven aircraft, it ignored the chopper targets. Instead, the weapon demolished a ventilating fan on a nearby latrine.
_______________________________
| |
| I don't make jokes- |
| I just watch the government |
| and report the facts. |
| |
| WILL ROGERS |
|_____________________________|
In war, the first fatality is the truth. The second and parallel fatality is the civil rights of all "dissidents." How much farther can my jaw drop than it did as I listened to then-Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates testify before Congress that casual drug users should not be arrested, but taken out and shot? His reasoning? The country is at war, and all who use drugs are traitors. A good number of people agreed with Chief Gates.
The price of freedom is eternal-and internal-vigilance.
And an occasional laugh.
Copyright c 1996 Peter McWilliams & Prelude Press
Last Revision: December 2, 1996
Posted with permission
Subj: Nobody's Business 08
PART I: THE BASIC PREMISE
What Are Consensual Crimes?
___________________________________
| |
| A wise and frugal Government, |
| which shall restrain men |
| from injuring one another, |
| shall leave them otherwise free |
| to regulate their own pursuits |
| of industry and improvement. |
| |
| THOMAS JEFFERSON |
| First Inaugural Address |
| 1801 |
|_________________________________|
A CONSENSUAL CRIME IS any activity-currently illegal-in which we, as adults, choose to participate that does not physically harm the person or property of a nonconsenting other.
Does this mean that consensual crimes are without risk? No. Nothing in life is without risk. The fact is, we're all going to die. Life is a sexually transmitted terminal illness.
Consensual crimes are sometimes referred to as "victimless crimes." Alas, every scoundrel committing a real crime of extortion, fraud, or embezzlement declared it a victimless crime, attempting to argue that a crime without physical violence is also a crime without a victim. Everyone who has been robbed with a fountain pen-or computer terminal-rather than a gun knows that's not true. Another group claiming protection under the victimless crime umbrella are those, such as drunk drivers, who recklessly endanger innocent (nonconsenting) others. Just because no one actually got hit, it was okay to go seventy miles an hour through a school zone. Not so.
Meanwhile, all the intolerance mongers, attacking a bona fide consensual crime, maintain the crime does so have a victim. ("We're all victims!" is one of their favorite phrases.)
It's hard to find any activity in life that does not, potentially, have a victim. People who live in Florida may become victims of hurricanes; drivers of cars may become victims of traffic accidents; and each time we fall in love we may become the victim of someone tearing the still-beating heart from our chest and stomping it into the dust of indifference. (Sorry, it's been a hard month.)
____________________________________
| |
| A civilized society is one |
| which tolerates eccentricity |
| to the point of doubtful sanity. |
| |
| ROBERT FROST |
|__________________________________|
Does this mean we should outlaw Florida, automobiles, or falling in love? Of course not. It isn't whether we could be victims that puts such activities outside the realm of criminal law enforcement, but that we, as adults and knowing the risks, consented to take part in them. "Please know that I am aware of the hazards," Amelia Earhart wrote her husband before her last flight; "I want to do it because I want to do it."
Consent is one of the most precious rights we have. It is central to self-determination. It allows us to enter into agreements and contracts. It gives us the ability to choose. Being an adult, in fact, can be defined as having reached the "age of consent"-we become responsible for our choices, our actions, our behaviors. (Nothing in this book refers to children. Children have not yet reached the age of consent. This book discusses only activities between consenting adults.)
Sometimes we land on the sunny side of risk and get the reward. Sometimes we land on the dark side of risk and get the consequences. Either way, as responsible adults, we accept the results (sometimes kicking and screaming, but we accept them nonetheless).
Our governmental elders have decided, however, that some activities are just too risky, and that people who consent to take part in them should be put in jail (where, presumably, these people will be safe).
Ironically, many activities far more risky than the officially forbidden activities are not crimes. Why should cocaine be illegal and Drano not? Whether snorted, swallowed, or injected, Drano is far more harmful than cocaine. And yet Drano is available in every supermarket. Children can buy Drano. No one asks, "What are you doing with this Drano? You're not going to snort it, are you?") There is also no "Drano law" that prohibits us from ingesting Drano nor a Drano Enforcement Agency (DEA) to enforce the law. Nor is there an Omnibus Drano Act designed to reduce the international use and trafficking of Drano.
_____________________________________
| |
| Freedom is the right to choose: |
| the right to create for oneself |
| the alternatives of choice. |
| Without the possibility of choice |
| and the exercise of choice |
| a man is not a man |
| but a member, an instrument, |
| a thing. |
| |
| ARCHIBALD MACLEISH |
|___________________________________|
All the consensual activities the government makes illegal must have some up-side. People don't bother with things that have only a down-side. (In this way, consensual crimes are the government's way of writing a handbook for rebels, saying, in effect, "This is the latest thing we think should be illegal. Try it today.")
Another way of defining consensual activities is this from Hugo Adam Bedau:
Government should allow persons to engage in whatever conduct they want to, no matter how deviant or abnormal it may be, so long as (a) they know what they are doing, (b) they consent to it, and (c) no one-at least no one other than the participants-is harmed by it.
Why are some consensual activities considered crimes while others are not? The short answer is religious beliefs. Almost all of the consensual crimes find the basis of their restrictions and prohibitions in religion. Even the idea that one should take good care of oneself has a religious base. ("The body is the temple of the soul.")
___________________________________
| |
| Liberty exists in proportion to |
| wholesome restraint; |
| the more restraint on others |
| to keep off from us, |
| the more liberty we have. |
| |
| DANIEL WEBSTER |
| 1847 |
|_________________________________|
Prudent participation in consensual crimes, however, is not necessarily anti-God, anti-religion, or even anti-biblical. The prohibitions against certain consensual activities grew from a misinterpretation and misapplication of biblical teachings. (This is discussed in the chapter, "What Jesus and the Bible Really Said about Consensual Crimes.")
The fact is, however, that religious beliefs (or misbeliefs) are what most people use when choosing what is right or what is wrong for themselves. This is fine. It's when they try to bestow that system of right and wrong on others-by force-that consensual crimes are born.
The argument that society prohibits certain consensual acts to protect itself is almost instantly transparent. Any number of things that are far more damaging both to individuals and to society are perfectly legal. (These are discussed in detail in the chapters, "Putting the `Problem' in Perspective" and "Hypocrites.") Besides, society can protect itself just fine-it doesn't need the government's help. (Please see the chapter, "Separation of Society and State.")
________________________________________________
| |
| In framing a government, |
| which is to be administered by men over men, |
| the great difficulty lies in this: |
| you must first enable the |
| government to control the governed, |
| and in the next place, |
| oblige it to control itself. |
| |
| JAMES MADISON |
|______________________________________________|
Let us assume just for a moment, however, that it is the job of the government to protect people from themselves and to protect innocent wives and husbands from being emotionally hurt by the self-destructive behavior of their spouses. Let's assume we are our brothers' keeper-whether our brothers like it or not. Is the best way to protect a wayward brother by seizing all his property and putting him in jail? Is this helping either the "criminal" or the people who love him? Would a wife really feel more secure knowing that her husband is safe in jail and not running around with gamblers? Would a husband truly be happier living on the street, penniless, because the state accused his wife of selling marijuana and tossed her in jail after seizing the house, car, and all their joint assets?
"But what about the children?" some lament. "The children are the victims!" Children are too young to give their knowing consent; that, by definition, is why they are children. If children are genuinely being harmed, it is the job of the government to remove them from the harmful environment.
To put parents in jail, however, for things that they consent to do with other consenting adults, activities that do not directly involve children-their own or others-is counterproductive. Is a parent's possible "bad example" worse for the children than throwing the parents in jail, confiscating their money and property, and making their children wards of the state?
____________________________________
| |
| The United States ranks 13th |
| on the Human Freedom Index. |
| Twelve other countries are freer |
| than the United States. |
| |
| UNITED NATIONS |
|__________________________________|
Prenatal care in this country is a national shame; twenty-two other countries have lower infant mortality rates than the United States. Every day, children in this country die of malnutrition and preventable diseases.
These are enormous problems. Pretending that the enforcement of laws against consensual activities is making these problems any better, when it is only making them worse, is tragic.
Just because certain acts do not involve violence does not make them legal. The act of taking something that belongs to another-whether done with a knife or a deceptive smile-is a crime.
To avoid committing crimes, then, all we need to remember is what we were probably told when we were five: "If it's not yours, leave it alone."
Central to all this discussion of crimes and victims is the matter of innocence. Here I mean innocence in the sense of "not consenting" rather than "not guilty."
____________________________________
| |
| Do what's right for you, |
| as long as it don't hurt no one. |
| |
| ELVIS PRESLEY |
|__________________________________|
If you are walking down the street and get hit by a baseball that someone intentionally dropped from a tall building, you are innocent. The person who dropped the ball is guilty of a crime and is responsible for all damage. He or she may not have intended to hit you, but intentionally dropping a baseball from a tall building includes the possibility (in fact, the high probability) that the ball will physically harm the person or property of another. If you are playing second base, however, and get hit by a baseball, you are responsible, not the batter. When you consent to play second base, the possibility you might be hit by a baseball comes with the territory.
Batters do not hit balls with the intention of striking players. In fact, batters try to hit balls as far away from opposing team members as possible. Although being hit by a baseball while playing second base is unfortunate, you are at best (worst?) only a victim of Newton's First Law of Physics: "If a body is moving at a constant speed in a straight line, it will keep moving in a straight line at a constant speed unless . . . ouch!" The batter may feel very bad about it, but the batter has committed no crime.
Although the physical harm done is the same with either a dropped ball or a batted ball, in one situation you were innocent and another person was guilty of a crime; in the other situation, you were responsible because you gave your consent. (No, you didn't give the batter consent to hit you, but you consented to the risks of baseball.)
It is the law's job to protect innocent people from likely harm to their person or property. It is not the law's job to protect adults from the risks of their own consensual acts.
It is the law's job, for example, to reasonably insure that the food and drugs we purchase are pure and that the measurements are accurate. It is not the law's job to tell us when, where, how, why, or how much of this food or drug we can and cannot consume. It is the law's job to see that the gambling it regulates-from casinos to the stock market-is fair and that all players have an equal chance. It is not the law's job to determine how much we can bet, how skilled we are, or how much we can afford to lose.
_________________________
| |
| Heterosexuals don't |
| practice sodomy. |
| |
| SENATOR STOM THURMOND |
| May 8, 199 (sic) |
|_______________________|
As Arthur Hoppe wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle, September 2, 1992:
In a series of dramatic raids last week, police rounded up a number of hardened jaywalkers.obstructing traffic, then it becomes a crime. Until then, it's not.> They will undoubtedly claim they've broken the back of San Francisco's notorious jaywalking ring. . . .
Just as you might suspect. It's another case of creeping government paternalism. Even we most notorious jaywalkers endanger no one but ourselves. Once again, the government is out to protect me from me.
This isn't the function of government. The government is a fictitious entity created by us individuals to protect ourselves from each other. I agree not to murder them in return for their agreeing not to murder me. Fair enough. But if I want to kill myself, that's my business.
Unfortunately, this fictitious entity we created more and more takes on a life of its own. It pokes its nose into everything. . . . It tells me I'm too stupid to wear a seat belt and too careless to wear a motorcycle helmet. If I don't, it says, wagging its finger, I will be sent to bed without any supper . . .
The function of government is to protect me from others. It's up to me, thank you, to protect me from me.
_____________________________
| |
| Liberty is the only thing |
| you cannot have |
| unless you are willing |
| to give it to others. |
| |
| WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE |
|___________________________|
It may seem that if people were running around doing what they wanted, society would run amok. Wouldn't this lead to all sorts of immorality? No. The need to be social, to interact-to be part of a society-takes care of that.
Copyright © 1996 Peter McWilliams & Prelude Press
Last Revision: December 2, 1996
PART I: THE BASIC PREMISE
Separation of Society and State
_________________________________
| |
| All that is good |
| is not embodied in the law; |
| and all that is evil |
| is not proscribed by the law. |
| A well-disciplined society |
| needs few laws; |
| but it needs strong mores. |
| |
| WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR. |
|_______________________________|
IN DEFENDING THE LAWS against consensual activities, some ask, "Shouldn't the laws of the state describe-or at least reflect-what is acceptable and not acceptable to a broad segment of society?"
Absolutely not.
The government-which makes and administers the laws-is there to keep physical violence from being inflicted on its citizens, whether that violence comes from foreign governments, groups of citizens, or individuals. A government that provides a level playing field for commerce and keeps everyone's person and property relatively safe from the physical harm of others is doing a good job. As Thomas Paine wrote in his 1776 pamphlet, Common Sense,
Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
Society, on the other hand, determines acceptable and unacceptable social behavior. Many of society's rules are so thoroughly accepted we don't even think about them. That we speak primarily English in the United States is purely a matter of custom. That we eat certain animals and don't eat others (horse is very popular in France), sleep in a bed (the Japanese do not understand why we need a bedroom), bury our dead (cremation is the tradition in India), and so much more, are all purely matters of social cu stom. Although in this country one can speak Croatian, eat horse, sleep on a futon, and be cremated, the vast majority of people choose not to.
________________________________
| |
| It is hard to fight an enemy |
| who has outposts |
| in your head. |
| |
| SALLY KEMPTON |
|______________________________|
The reason? Our conditioning. "Society attacks early," B. F. Skinner pointed out, "when the individual is helpless." We do some things, don't do other things, and behave in certain ways because that's how we were trained. Much of the time we do what we do because (a) it's the only thing we know (are you fluent in any language other than English?), (b) it's what we're comfortable with (would you feel comfortable eating a horseburger?), or (c) we have to get along in society.
That last one-getting along in society-is what keeps us in place when cultural conditioning fails. Even as rebellious a rascal as George Bernard Shaw acknowledged the need for society-and its power:
Nobody can live in society without conventions. The reason why sensible people are as conventional as they can bear to be is that conventionality saves so much time and thought and trouble and social friction of one sort or another that it leaves them much more leisure time for freedom than unconventionality does.
The more we pull away from society's norms, the more society pulls away from us. We can, quite legally, be total renegades. The cost (or punishment, if you will) is that we become social outcasts. If we wore aluminum-foil clothing, never washed, communicated only with grunts and squeaks, walked backwards, and lived off live grasshoppers, we might occasionally find ourselves as a guest on daytime talk shows, but we would never be a guest at a dinner party, be rented an apartment, or offered much work (except, perhaps, for organic pest control during grasshopper infestations). If our behavior is sufficiently eccentric, society punishes without any help from the law.
_____________________________________
| |
| Never speak disrespectfully |
| of Society, Algernon. |
| Only people who can't get into it |
| do that. |
| |
| OSCAR WILDE |
| The Importance of Being Earnest |
|___________________________________|
Prior to complete isolation, however, any number of punitive societal responses keep us in line-sometimes literally. It is not, for example, illegal to cut in front of someone at an automated teller machine. And yet, very few people take cuts. Some wait their turn because they believe in fair play; others because they're afraid of disapproval. (In Los Angeles, we wait because we're afraid someone else in line might be carrying a gun.) The reason there are no laws against taking cuts is that most people understand the fairness of lines and agree to cooperate. Most of those who don't believe in fairness do believe in avoiding barrages of negative comments. The very small minority who do take cuts do not cause enough of a problem to warrant legal regulation.
Most of us want to fit into society. A cartoon appearing in The Realist many years ago showed a line of sack-clothed bearded men-one looking just like another-holding identical signs reading, "We protest the rising tide of conformity." Even the rebels follow certain counter-social mores in order to be accepted in the counterculture society. To get (or keep) a job, living arrangement, or lover, we will conform to any number of standards-without a police officer or legislature in sight.
Society has the means to change itself without anyone changing a single governmental law. Thirty years ago, for example, an earring on a man would mean that he was (a) a transvestite, (b) a pirate, or (c) Mr. Clean. Today, earrings are de rigueur as proof of machismo among certain groups of men. No one had to write a law, enforce a law, or repeal a law regarding earrings on men. As Lewis Thomas explained,
We pass the word around; we ponder how the case is put by different people; we read the poetry; we meditate over the literature; we play the music; we change our minds; we reach an understanding. Society evolves this way, not by shouting each other down, but by the unique capacity of unique, individual human beings to comprehend each other.
________________________
| |
| Justice is: JUST US |
| |
| RICHARD PRYOR |
| |
| Is Justice JUST ICE? |
| |
| JONI MITCHELL |
|______________________|
Imagine if every rule we have in society required a law, law enforcement, court time, and jail space. Several laws, for example, have been proposed to make English the national language of the United States. These laws have been dismissed, for the most part, because they were unnecessary. Not only were they unnecessary; they were unenforceable. Although the proposals sparked interesting debates (one congressman said, "Jesus spoke English, and that's good enough for me"), people realized such laws were futile. Why don't people come to the same conclusion about consensual crimes?
Not only is the law's help inappropriate; society doesn't need the law's help-society does just fine on its own. In fact, society has far more power over the individual than law enforcement does. "Order is not pressure which is imposed on society from without," Jos Ortega y Gasset wrote in 1927, "but an equilibrium which is set up from within."
Society, in fact, does not mind that some people flout its regulations: some people must be outside society in order for those inside society to know they're inside. If everybody were "in," then nobody would be "in." The very fact that some people are "out" makes being "in" worthwhile. Only certain religions live under the misguided notion that everyone must or should be "good."
From the government's point of view, which drug one uses recreationally should make no more difference than, say, whether or not one wears an earring. Both are primarily a matter of fad and fashion that the government has no business becoming involved in. The government has far more important issues to consider than the prevailing currents on earrings or drug choices.
________________________________________
| |
| He who is unable to live in society, |
| or who has no need because |
| he is sufficient for himself, |
| must be either |
| a beast or a god. |
| |
| ARISTOTLE |
|______________________________________|
This means not just a separation of church and state, but a separation of society and state. (Whether there should be a separation between church and society is for church and society to work out between themselves. This is a book about government intervention in private lives.) The government has no more business being the enforcer of social policy than it has being the enforcer of religious belief.
Both the church and society have lasted longer than any government. The people need the government to keep forced intrusions of both religion and society out of their lives.
As usual, Thomas Jefferson said it best. At the age of seventy-seven, he wrote,
I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion.
Copyright © 1996 Peter McWilliams & Prelude Press
Last Revision: December 2, 1996
PART I: THE BASIC PREMISE
Personal Morality Versus Governmental Morality
______________________________
| |
| Whether or not legislation |
| is truly moral |
| is often a question |
| of who has the power |
| to define morality. |
| |
| JEROME H. SKOLNICK |
|____________________________|
SOME PEOPLE BELIEVE that consensual crimes should remain crimes because they are "immoral." It's too easy to respond, "No, they're not immoral!" To the people who find them immoral, they are and may always be immoral. That is their personal morality. This is all well and good. The trouble arises when people confuse personal morality with governmental morality.
Personal morality is what we personally believe will make us happier, safer, healthier, more productive, and all-around better human beings. It includes all the personal "rights" and "wrongs" we choose to believe. It is everything we think will help us toward "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." In a free country, we should be free to explore, experiment with, discard, or adopt any belief or activity that might enhance our lives, unless we violate governmental morality.
Governmental morality is seeing to it that citizens are safe from physical harm.
Our personal morality comes from many sourcesreligion, philosophy, good advice, family, culture, society, ancient wisdom, modern scientific thought, and, of course, personal experience. From the many beliefs about how to live, we choose the ones we apply to our lives.
Sometimes we choose consciously. We read a book, like one of its ideas, try it, find that it works, and choose to make it part of our lives. Other times, we choose by default. Our family (church, club, tribe, school, gym, or whatever) has always done a thing a certain way and we continue doing it that way without any further exploration, investigation, or thought.
________________________
| |
| Moral indignation is |
| in most cases |
| 2% moral, |
| 48% indignation |
| and 50% envy. |
| |
| VITTORIO DE SICA |
|______________________|
Our culture conditions us to be "good," and we either go along with that programming or we challenge it and adopt other behavior that we personally find better. This collection of beliefs and practices forms our moralityour personal morality.
When individuals come together to form a government, however, there must be a way of deciding what is "right" and "wrong" within that society.
In a dictatorship or monarchy, the dictator, king, or queen decides what's what. The ruler's personal morality becomes the governmental morality. Hitler didn't like Jews and homosexuals? Get rid of them. King Henry VIII didn't like the way the pope treated him? Ban Catholicism and form the Church of England.
In a totalitarian state, a committee or ruling body decides what's best for everybody. The populace seldom, if ever, has a chance to decide who is part of that committee. The collective personal moralities of the committee members become the governmental morality. The result is very much like a dictatorship, except blander. ("A committee is a group of individuals who all put in a perfectly good color," Alan Sherman pointed out, "and it comes out gray.") In a totalitarian state, there is no one to blame-everything is done "by committee." To whom can one complain? Oh, there's probably a form to fill out, a line to stand in, or a government building to write to. Totalitarianism becomes tyranny by bureaucracy.
___________________________
| |
| Give me chastity |
| and self-restraint, |
| but do not give it yet. |
| |
| SAINT AUGUSTINE |
|_________________________|
Some governments are based on religious or spiritual beliefs. The person or group the society deems to be most in touch with God, spirit, nature (or whatever represents the highest collective belief) is put in charge.
In a democracy each person has one vote to cast and, hence, each person has an equal say in the way things are run. In the Declaration of Independence, however, there is a catch to the democratic process: each person is endowed with certain "unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." In other words, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness cannot be taken away (alienated) from an individual even by the democratic process. So, if 250,000,000 people agree that chartreuse is not the "right" color for hair, our form of democracy, nonetheless, guarantees the one individual who chooses chartreuse hair the freedom to go green. In this way, the collective personal moralities of even a majority of the people cannot dictate the personal moralities of the minority of people.
But where are the limits? If we say, "Hitting innocent people with a stick is an expression of our liberty to wave a stick around," or "Joy riding in other people's cars makes us happy," then we obviously have a conflict. Where does our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness end?
As the old saying goes, "Your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins." Another basic element of our government is the right to private property. Under communism, everything is communally owned. Under socialism, certain things are owned by the government and other things are not. Under capitalism, you own what you own until you sell it or give it away, at which point it is owned by someone else. Our property, then, becomes an extension of ourselves.
______________________________________
| |
| In a free society, standards |
| of public morality can be measured |
| only by whether |
| physical coercion |
| violence against persons |
| or propert occurs. |
| There is no right |
| not to be offended |
| by words, actions or symbols. |
| |
| RICHARD E. SINCERE, JR. |
|____________________________________|
Property represents a certain amount of energy we invested in something, or a certain degree of good fortune we may have had. The energy is ours, the good fortune is ours, and the symbol of that energy or good fortune is our property.
So, to paraphrase the above maxim, your right to swing your fist ends where my window (television, house boat, model airplane collection) begins.
Something else we own is our person, that is, our body and all things associated with it. One of the foundations of our form of government is that, after a certain age, your body becomes your own. Yes, your parents created it, fed it, clothed it, and educated it, but, after a certain age, you are not legally bound by the wishes of your parents. This idea is radically different from the beliefs of those cultures which hold that children are the property of their parents.
So, we own our bodies and we own our property, and what we do with them is our own business, as long as we don't physically harm the person or property of another. In exchange, we allow others the freedom to do with their person and property whatever they choose, as long as they do not physically harm our person or property. This is the fundamental agreement (government) under which everyone is guaranteed maximum freedom and maximum protection.
______________________________________
| |
| Without doubt the greatest |
| injury of all was done |
| by basing morals on myth. |
| For, sooner or later, |
| myth is recognized for what it is, |
| and disappears. |
| Then morality loses the foundation |
| on which it has been built. |
| |
| LORD HERBERT LOUIS SAMUEL |
|____________________________________|
To determine, then, whether or not something is moral on a governmental level, we need only ask, "Is it physically harming the person or property of another?" If the answer is no, it's moral. If the answer is yes, it's immoral.
On the personal level, however, we must ask of ourselves an even more intimate question: "Will this action harm my own person or property?" Answering this question-and then attempting to act accordingly-will keep us so busy we won't have time to worry about what other people (especially strangers) are doing with and about their personal morality.
As Hank Williams sang, "If you mind your own business, you won't be minding mine," or as Fats Waller wrote, "You run your mouth; I'll run my business."
Although at times we may seem to be physically harming ourselves, we know, in fact, we are simply sacrificing momentary happiness for future gain. People jogging, for example, usually appear to be in pain. A compassionate person, not familiar with the jogger's greater goal, might stop and offer the jogger a rideperhaps to the hospital. A person seeing a jogger might report to friends, "I saw this poor person running down the road wearing only shorts. There must have been some terrible accident."
Some caring souls, with the sincere goal of putting an end to pain, might suggest that jogging be outlawed. This group might show pictures of George Bush and Bill Clinton looking extremely unhappy jogging and compare them to pictures of a contented Eisenhower in a golf cart or a happy Reagan on a horse. As seemingly conclusive proof, the Anti-Jogging League could point out that the man who started it all, Jim Fixx, author of The Complete Book of Running, died at fifty-two while running. Jogging, obviously, is immoral.
_________________________________
| |
| The happiness and prosperity |
| of our citizens |
| is the only legitimate object |
| of government. |
| |
| THOMAS JEFFERSON |
| 1811 |
|_______________________________|
Joggers, however, know that jogging, for them, is perfectly moral. They believe they are trading present pain for future gain. While they may never convince the non-joggers of jogging's benefits (although, God knows, they try, they try), they're glad to live in a free country where their idiosyncrasy is tolerated. Although their scantily clad bodies and expensively shod feet are an annoyance to some, joggers take their freedom and allow others the freedom to sit in doughnut shops and consume their daily dozen.
The problem of postponing immediate pleasure to attain eventual satisfaction becomes even more pronounced when we enter the world of religion. People may routinely and systematically deny themselves earthly delights in order to gain eternal paradise. If this is the belief of certain people, should the government step in and insist they enjoy themselves more often? Conversely, if the believers become popular enough or powerful enough, should they be able to, by law, prohibit everyone from doing whatever the believers consider too (that is, sinfully) pleasurable? In order to preserve the rights of both the heathen and the holy, the answer to both questions must be "No."
I'm not asking that any new system of government be adopted; I'm merely suggesting that we try the system we already have. As United States Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson explained:
The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.
Copyright © 1996 Peter McWilliams & Prelude Press
Last Revision: December 2, 1996
PART I: THE BASIC PREMISE
Relationship
__________________________________________
| |
| Because of the diverse |
| conditions of humans, |
| it happens that some acts are virtuous |
| to some people, |
| as appropriate and suitable to them, |
| while the same acts are |
| immoral for others, |
| as inappropriate to them. |
| |
| SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS |
|________________________________________|
WHEN WE USE THE word relationship, we generally use it to describe how we relate to other people. When we want to really single someone out as special, we say, "We are in a relationship." That's the one that usually starts with "Some Enchanted Evening," and too often ends, "Another One Bites the Dust."
I'd like, however, to use the word relationship in the broadest possible sense: how we relate to everyone and everything-mentally, emotionally, or physically.
With some things, we have good relationships; with others, we have bad relationships. When most of our relationships are going well, we say life is good; when most of our relationships are going poorly, we say life is bad. Most things are neither good nor bad in themselves, but get a reputation for being good or bad based on how most human beings relate to them. Individually, we can have a good relationship with "dreadful" things, and we can have a bad relationship with "wonderful" things.
Iodine, for example, is neither good nor bad in itself. Taken in small quantities, iodine is an essential nutrient. Taken in larger quantities, iodine is a lethal poison. One could say people were in a good relationship with iodine if they had just enough but not too much; and one could say people were in a bad relationship with iodine if they had so little they had an iodine deficiency, or so much they had iodine poisoning.
We could have bad relationships with things that almost everyone agrees are good. Food, for example. Food is not only good, it's essential. Some people are in a good relationship with food: they eat enough to keep alive, but not so much that it endangers their health. Other people have a bad relationship with food: they eat so little, so much, or so much of the wrong foods, that it negatively affects their lives.
___________________________________________
| |
| I like white trash cooking. |
| Cheeseburgers. |
| The greasier the better. |
| Mashed potatoes served in a scoop, |
| a little dent in the top for the gravy. |
| Drake's Devil Dogs for dessert. |
| Pure pleasure; |
| no known nutrient. |
| |
| ORSON BEAN |
|_________________________________________|
Our lives are made up of both good and bad relationships: we may have a good relationship with our dog, a bad relationship with money, a good relationship with our health, a bad relationship with programming our VCR. There may be some things you have a good relationship with that most people have a bad relationship with (speaking in public, the IRS, airline food); and you may have a bad relationship with things that most people have a good relationship with (movies edited for television, lite beer, Nutra Sweet).
The idea behind laws against consensual activities is that if some people are in a bad relationship with something, then that thing should be banned. The problem is, that solution doesn't solve anything: the problem doesn't lie with the thing itself, but with some people's relationship to it.
Yes, there are some things with which it is easier to be in a bad relationship than others. Cigarettes practically beg for a bad relationship. But then, they were designed that way. For the several centuries prior to the Civil War, tobacco's use was primarily recreational: people would inhale it, choke, get dizzy, fall on the floor, roll around-typical Saturday night recreation. For the most part, people used tobacco (a botanical relative of deadly nightshade, by the way) once or twice a week and that was it.
After the Civil War, the South needed a cash crop less labor intensive than cotton. A special strain of tobacco was developed that allowed people to inhale deeply without coughing. This let people smoke almost continuously, if they liked. It also resulted in almost immediate addiction.
_____________________________
| |
| I have every sympathy |
| with the American |
| who was so horrified |
| by what he had read |
| of the effects of smoking |
| that he gave up reading. |
| |
| LORD CONESFORD |
|___________________________|
Almost everyone who smokes is addicted to tobacco. While there are many "social drinkers," there is almost no such thing as the "social smoker." Smokers begin smoking from the time they wake up in the morning and continue smoking regularly throughout the day until they go to sleep.
Addiction is a sure sign of a bad relationship. At first, the addictive substance (or activity) makes us "high." After a while, however, the body builds up an immunity to the substance (or activity), and more and more is needed to achieve the same euphoric effect. Unfortunately, the toxic effects of the substance (or activity) eventually counteract the elation. At that point, we take the substance (or partake in the activity) more to get by than to get high.
A perfect example is caffeine. At first, caffeine produces extra energy, alertness, and a sense of well-being. The body, however, becomes immune to caffeine faster than almost any substance. Soon people are drinking coffee or Coca-Cola or eating chocolate (an eight-ounce bar of chocolate has as much caffeine as a half a cup of coffee) to get them back to "normal." ("You know I'm not myself until I've had my morning coffee.")
People can become addicted to (that is, form bad relationships with) many of the things we usually think of as "good." Some people become addicted to romance-not love, but the initial rush of "falling in love." So many people become addicted to otherwise productive work that psychologists have coined the term workaholics. Even the highest forms of attainment and attunement are not immune to the dangers of addiction, as Father Leo Booth explains in his book, When God Becomes a Drug:
When, in the name of God, people hold black- and-white beliefs that cut them off from other human beings; when, in the name of God, they give up their own sense of right and wrong; when, in the name of God, they suffer financial deprivation; then, they are suffering from religious addiction.
__________________________________
| |
| Tolerance is the positive |
| and cordial effort |
| to understand another's |
| beliefs, practices, and habits |
| without necessarily sharing |
| or accepting them. |
| |
| JOSHUA LIEBMAN |
|________________________________|
No matter how good something is, it can become bad through a bad relationship. Conversely, no matter how bad most people think something is, some people can have a good relationship with it-without physically harming themselves or the person or property of others.
Many people would be surprised to learn that some prostitutes actually enjoy their work, consider the service they provide as valuable as that of any other professional, and are physically and emotionally healthier than some who claim, "All prostitutes are sick and spend their time spreading their sickness to others."
Cocaine is considered by many to be instantly and irreparably demoralizing, demeaning, and destructive. And yet, there are thousands upon thousands of people who have used cocaine regularly-albeit recreationally-for years (in some cases, decades) and have managed to create great art, business empires, and, yes, even grow healthy children.
Most people think heroin is the most addictive and destructive of drugs. It is addictive (although, according to former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, not as addictive as cigarettes) and bad relationships with heroin have destroyed lives, but a good relationship with heroin or its less potent brother, morphine, is not impossible. Dr. William Stewart Halsted, the father of modern surgery and one of the four doctors who founded the Johns Hopkins Medical Center-a responsible, productive, well-respected physician and educator-took morphine daily for almost his entire professional life. Forty-seven years after he died, his secret came out. The only thing that made his relationship with morphine potentially unhealthy was the fact he had to keep it so hidden. This is not a rare story in the medical community.
It is not heroin or cocaine that makes one an addict, it is the need to escape from a harsh reality. There are more television addicts, more baseball and football addicts, more movie addicts, and certainly more alcohol addicts in this country than there are narcotics addicts. REP. SHIRLEY CHISHOLM September 17, 1969 House Select Committee on Crime
And adultery is always wrong, right? Certainly no one in a position of social or political leadership-the one who sets an example for an entire people-should commit adultery. Right? Well, if history is anything to go on, that's not necessarily true. Accusations have been made, and some well documented by noted historians, that every United States president since FDR-with the possible exceptions of Harry S. Truman, Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford-have strayed from the sanctity of their marriage vows. Of the exceptions, Carter was doing it in his heart, Nixon was doing it to the country, and Truman was too busy playing either piano or poker.
___________________________________
| |
| The good that |
| Martin Luther King, Jr. did |
| remains undiminished. |
| He was great precisely because, |
| like other heroes, |
| he did not allow human weakness |
| to deter him from |
| doing great works. |
| |
| CARL MCCLENDON |
|_________________________________|
Kennedy's pre- and in-office escapades must be some kind of record. He had more skeletons in the closet than the gay catacombs. According to FBI files, in 1942 he had a torrid affair with Inga Arvad, generally believed to be a Nazi spy. The FBI bugging of their trysts revealed no spying, but a good deal of "sexual intercourse." (That's an FBI technical term.) FBI files also reveal that Kennedy was married briefly when he was twenty-two. His father, Joseph P. Kennedy, put pressure on two successive New Jersey governors (the state in which the wedding had taken place) to have the marriage removed from the records. He was successful. Cardinal Spellman, a family friend, arranged for an annulment in 1952. The following year, Spellman officiated at the wedding ceremony of Kennedy to Jacqueline Bouvier. Over the years, Kennedy was linked (so to speak) with Gene Tierney, Angie Dickenson, Jayne Mansfield (I am not making this up) and, of course, Marilyn Monroe. As Edie Adams wrote in her autobiography, "I may be the only shapely, blonde female then between the ages of fifteen and forty-five who said no to JFK, but it wasn't because I wasn't asked." The story about Kennedy's affair with Marilyn Monroe while he was in the White House is now famous. When she became too demanding and threatened to become a political liability, Kennedy, like all good presidents, turned the "matter" over to his attorney general, Robert Kennedy, who filled his brother's, um, who took his brother's place. The stories of JFK's infidelities became such common knowledge that Bette Midler said in her act, "Guess what? I slept with Jack Kennedy! Guess what else?" she would ask, gesturing to her back-up singers, the Harlettes, "They slept with Jack Kennedy." Few people in the audience needed to have the joke explained. It is also rumored that Kennedy was visited in the White House by Dr. Max Jacobson, who was later labeled by the tabloids "Dr. Feelgood" due to his propensity for giving his patients injections of amphetamines and other mood-elevating s ubstances to cure anything from a cold to a divorce. After an investigation, he lost his medical license. Who knows how many of Kennedy's staff were also "treated" by Dr. Jacobson while at the White House. Can you imagine? For three years, the trembling hand of an intravenous speed-freak might have been hovering over the great nuclear Button.
_____________________________________
| |
| If we cannot end our differences, |
| at least we can help |
| make the world |
| safe for diversity. |
| |
| JOHN F. KENNEDY |
|___________________________________|
President Clinton had not one, but two scandals revealed during his campaign, but he was elected anyway. This demonstrates either the maturing of the American electorate or the country's utter frustration with Bush. (I like to think the former, but I fear it's the latter.) It turned out that Clinton smoked marijuana and may have had an affair with a woman named Gennifer Flowers (not necessarily, but not necessarily not at the same time). People, for the most part, shrugged and repeated the phrase from the 1960s, "So what if he's smoking flowers?" Happily, the electorate decided that Clinton's behavior in the State House was more important than his behavior in his own house, and he was elected by a broad margin.
__________________________________
| |
| If you say a modern celebrity |
| is an adulterer, |
| a pervert, |
| and a drug addict, |
| all it means is that |
| you've read his autobiography. |
| |
| P. J. O'ROURKE |
|________________________________|
The wave of "tell all" biographies (and autobiographies) so popular in the last two decades has clearly shown that everybody's got a bad relationship with something. No matter how great, accomplished, successful, or magnificent a person may be in one area of life, there always seems to be that little dark corner he or she tries so desperately to keep hidden.
At first, these revelations about the heroes of our time seem as though they were written by editors of supermarket tabloids. "LORD LAURENCE OLIVIER AND DANNY KAYE WERE LOVERS!" After the initial shock and laughter die down, a surprisingly large number of these revelations turn out to be true. In his meticulously researched biography, Laurence Olivier, Donald Spoto revealed what Hollywood insiders had known for years: that for the entire decade of the 1950s, Kaye provided the nurturing, encouragement, and emotional support Olivier was no longer receiving from Vivien Leigh. (From 1939 to 1950, Scarlett O'Hara had become Blanche du Bois.) Did their indulgence in this "crime" negatively affect their careers? No. All indications are that their careers were mutu ally enhanced by it.
What if their "crime" had become public knowledge? That would have destroyed their careers-and just about every other part of their lives. Danny Kaye would never have had his TV series, which ran for four years in the early 1960s, nor would his exemplary work with the United Nations Children's Fund have been permitted. ("A homosexual with our children?!") Olivier's brilliant work in the last three decades of his life probably never would have happened; he never would have been made director of the National Theater, thus, it probably never would have gotten off the ground; he certainly wouldn't have been elected to the House of Lords. (Although there are certainly homosexuals in that august body, when the more-open-about-his-sexuality Sir John Gielgud was suggested for lordship, one person commented, "England already has a queen.") Spoto's book portrays Kaye as a deeply devoted admirer of Olivier and Olivier as, well, an actor. Like most performers, Lord Olivier's weakness was praise, which just happened to be Kaye's strength.
______________________________
| |
| I am an actor. |
| Of course |
| I can play a heterosexual! |
| |
| SIR JOHN GIELGUD |
|____________________________|
Even the silly books, where rumor is reported as fact (Kitty Kelley with her "Kitty Litter" being the reigning queen of that genre), also lead to a monumental "So what?" and a bit of tolerance for the variety of relationships of which human beings are capable. So what if Ron and Nancy smoked pot in the governor's mansion? Did Sinatra do it "his way" with Nancy in the White House? If so, so what?
The point is that people can have a bad relationship with some parts of their life (marital fidelity, for example) and still have a good relationship with other parts of their life (career, public service, and so on).
William F. Buckley, Jr., has taken daily, for thirty years, a psychoactive prescription drug known as Ritalin. Ritalin is prescribed for hyperactive children and lethargic adults. (It seems to calm kids down and pick adults up.) Mr. Buckley apparently has a good relationship with this drug. Anyone who knows him will tell you he has never, ever, experienced either of Ritalin's most common side effects: weight loss and irritability. Mr. Buckley, in his usual candor, freely admitted to his decades of daily usage. As Ritalin has for some people amphetamine-like effects, rumor got out that Buckley "took speed" every day. This is, of course, an exaggeration and oversimplification. When I asked him about this, Buckley wrote me:
I hope you will have a chance to mention that what the doc said, after I had fainted (first and last time) was that my blood pressure is so low that I should either take a quarter pound of chocolate in mid afternoon, or a Ritalin. Big deal! I doubt, by the way, that a doctor would nowadays say that because some people are affected adversely by Ritalin. But after 30 years, nobody has detected any change in me, haahaaaahaahahahhhaaaaaaa, eeeeeeee, oooooo-ooooooooo oooooo! Now I'm feeling uiqte [sic] fine, as you can see.
__________________________________
| |
| Our relations with a good joke |
| are direct |
| and even divine relations. |
| |
| G. K. CHESTERTON |
|________________________________|
Good relationships with drugs are possible without a doctor's prescription, and-as any doctor will tell you-bad relationships with drugs are possible even with a doctor's prescription. The point again: it is not the substance, but the relationship to the substance that causes problems.
Attempting to control the substance in no way helps control the problem-in fact, it only makes the problem worse.
If someone is in a bad relationship with a substance and you take the substance away, the person will find a new substance and enter into a bad relationship with it. There seems to be something in people who are in a bad relationship that requires-nay, demands-some sort of bad relationship. The substance is secondary-almost incidental-to the desire for the bad relationship. This transference of addiction can occur even when a substance is given up by choice. People who stop smoking, for example, will sometimes put on weight. They simply transfer their bad relationship with tobacco to a bad relationship with food. If you eliminate people's bookies, they'll take up with stockbrokers. Deprive people of coffee, and they'll turn to Diet Coke.
____________________________
| |
| Tolerance comes of age. |
| I see no fault committed |
| that I myself |
| could not have committed |
| at some time or other. |
| |
| GOETHE |
|__________________________|
Certain people with addictive personalities are giving some poor, innocent substances (and activities) a bad name. Most people who condemn currently illegal consensual activities know little or nothing about them. All they know are the sensationalized media accounts designed not to educate, but titillate. Unless they take part in the activities themselves-or have close friends who do-most people have bad relationships with the mere existence of these consensual activities. The primary emotions seem to be revulsion and fear, born of ignorance. Revulsion and fear keep one from investigating and learning that there is nothing much to be repulsed by or afraid of. It is a closed loop of ignorance (ignore-ance).
The unwillingness to see that "It is my judgment, based on my ignorance, that is causing the problem" is the problem. Bad relationships promote worse relationships. Worse relationships promote impossible relationships. Impossible relationships promote laws against consensual activities.
Most people, of course, do not intentionally set out to create a bad relationship. Most relationships initially start out good, and gradually-often imperceptibly-become bad. If, however, a formerly good relationship has turned bad and we don't realize it yet, no one has the right to throw us in jail for our lack of perception. If we do realize the relationship has become bad and we choose to continue with it for whatever reason, no one has the right to arrest us for our poor choices. As long as our relationships don't physically harm the person or property of another, we are free to choose what we relate to and how we relate to it.
People use all kinds of things for their corruption, but nothing corrupts everybody. Successful change takes place by changing the individual, not prohibiting activities or substances.
_____________________________
| |
| Fanaticism consists |
| in redoubling your effort |
| when you have |
| forgotten your aim. |
| |
| GEORGE SANTAYANA |
|___________________________|
Copyright © 1996 Peter McWilliams & Prelude Press
Last Revision: December 2, 1996
PART II: WHY LAWS AGAINST CONSENSUAL ACTIVITIES ARE NOT A GOOD IDEA
It's Un-American
________________________________________
| |
| Every effort to confine |
| Americanism to a single pattern, |
| to constrain it to a single formula, |
| is disloyalty to everything that |
| is valid in Americanism. |
| |
| HENRY STEELE COMMAGER |
|______________________________________|
THE UNITED STATES IS the most diverse country on earth. Nowhere else do so many people with differing ethnic, religious, racial, and cultural backgrounds live side by side in relative peace and harmony. The "melting pot" did not melt us into one, uniform people, but melted away a good portion of the intolerance, prejudice, and the notion that one group or another "shouldn't be here."
It happened over time. The prejudice of one generation became the toleration of the next generation, which became the fascination of the next generation and the norm of the next.
Drawn by the concept of a "new world" and, later, "the land of the free," settlers eventually realized that, in order to get the freedom they sought, they would have to give others freedom as well. This realization sometimes came through rational thought, but more often came as a compromise in settling bloody disputes.
The Europeans who first arrived in America fell into roughly three categories: (1) those seeking religious freedom, (2) those seeking fame and fortune, and (3) criminals. These three elements were at odds, and within each element was discord.
_______________________
| |
| I hate people |
| who are intolerant. |
| |
| LAURENCE J. PETER |
|_____________________|
On the religious front, the Catholics and the Protestants hated each other, and both despised the Jews. Protestants divided along the lines of those who were happy with the Church of England (the Anglicans) and those who wanted major reforms (the Puritans).
Those seeking fame and fortune vied for land, trading rights, transport routes, reserved parking places, and all the other material goodies entrepreneurs squabble over.
The criminals were anything from political dissidents and recalcitrant serfs to thieves and murderers. They had little in common except that they had broken England's common law or had offended someone in power.
The religious, ambitious, and malicious Europeans-all hating each other and made up of splinter groups that didn't get along-also had to contend with the Native Americans (and vice versa). When the Europeans arrived, there were as many as 4,000,000 Native Americans on the land now known as the United States. The natives who were, at first, friendly, or, at worst, had a live-and-let-live attitude toward the immigrants, eventually turned hostile. Spain, starting with Christopher Columbus's shipping natives back to Spain as slaves, had created a policy (by then over a century old and, therefore, a tradition) of enslaving, exploiting, and abusing the natives. The native North Americans would have none of this. Here began the most dramatic-and the most tragic-failure of the melting pot. As many differences as the European settlers had among themselves, they had more in common with each other than they did with "the redskins." The Native Americans were never officially included in the melting pot-even those who converted to Christianity, learned English, applied for statehood under the system prescribed by the newly formed federal government, and attempted to fit into the white man's ways. (The Native Americans' application for statehood was summarily denied.)
___________________________
| |
| He who passively |
| accepts evil |
| is as much |
| involved in it |
| as he who helps |
| to perpetuate it. |
| |
| MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. |
|_________________________|
Within the colonies, changes started when some of the children of the Puritans turned out to be not quite as religious as their parents. Conversely, the children of some of the criminals were more religious than Ma and Pa. In both cases, the older generation shook their heads and moaned, "What's the younger generation coming to?" When the slightly less religious children of the Puritans and the slightly more religious children of the criminals married (in wedding chapels set up by the entrepreneurs), the Puritan parents and the criminal parents discovered they had something in common after all: children who were positively out of their minds! Some children married Native Americans; others married new immigrants. They had children, and the first generation of Americans was born.
Soon, another group was added: slaves from Africa. They, as the Constitution euphemistically puts it, "migrated" to America-but much against their will. They weren't even included in the melting pot until after the 1860s, and significant melting did not take place until the 1960s.
After the Revolutionary War and the formation of "a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal," people seeking freedom of all kinds began flocking to America.
The French, who were our allies in the Revolutionary War, were welcome, but "spoke funny." The Chinese, imported as cheap labor to build the railroads, were despised, abused, but eventually accepted. The Irish, who came to escape the devastation of the potato famine and the tyranny of England, arrived at roughly the same time as the Italians. These two took an instant dislike to one another. It was nearly a century before the animosity dissolved. The Jews came from many countries, primarily Russia and eastern Europe. One pogrom after another forced them to try the religious freedom promised by the Constitution. They did not immediately find it. Strong antisemitism and "restricted" hotels, clubs, restaurants, and neighborhoods caused the sort of ghettoizing the Jews had unfortunately become accustomed to in their native lands. This discrimination would not decrease until after World War II, when Hitler demonstrated to the world the ultimate result of intolerance. Six million concentration camp deaths later, America finally woke up in the late 1940s and began to refer proudly to its "Judeo-Christian" heritage.
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| |
| It gives me great pleasure indeed |
| to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible |
| nonconformist warmly acclaimed. |
| |
| ALBERT EINSTEIN |
|____________________________________________|
The philosophy that made the melting pot work was a belief both high-mindedly enlightened and street-wise practical: "You allow me my diversity and I'll allow you yours." It's an ongoing process-ever changing, ever growing, ever looking for the balance between the extremes.
Defenders of the status quo have always tried to keep their status, well, quo. "The way it is is the way it's meant to be, the way God wants it to be, and if you don't like it here, you can go back where you came from." Recently, for example, we have seen an influx of immigrants from "non-Christian nations" (India, other parts of Asia, and the Middle East), which has struck fear into the hearts of those who feel it their "duty" to protect "traditional American values"-their values. That these Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims are turning out to be perfectly good citizens is even more disturbing. ("They must be up to something.")
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| |
| So Mainline Christians allow |
| the television preachers |
| to manipulate their audiences, |
| most times to their own financial |
| gain, by making the most absurd |
| biblical claims without their being |
| called to accountability |
| in the name of truth. |
| |
| BISHOP JOHN SHELBY SPONG |
|_____________________________________|
So, a movement is afoot to declare the United States a "Christian nation." The plan is that, when all naturalized citizens swear allegiance to the flag, they will also swear allegiance to the specific interpretation of Christianity popularized by, among others, St. Patrick Robertson and St. Jerome Falwell. The new immigrants will have to abandon their native religions just as they must abandon allegiance to the country of their birth.
Ruling by religion, however, was tried in this country and it failed-miserably. Here, for example, is an early colonial law:
If any man have a stubborn or rebellious Son, of sufficient understanding and years, viz. fifteen years of age, which will not obey the voice of his Father, or the voice of his Mother, and that when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them; then shall his Father or Mother, being his natural Parents, lay hold on him, and bring him to the Magistrates assembled in Court, and testify unto them, that their Son is Stubborn and Rebellious, and will not obey their voice and chastisement, but lives in sundry notorious Crimes, such a son shall be put to death.
The law then states the specific biblical chapter and verse on which the law was based (Deuteronomy 21:18-21).
If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die.
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| |
| The ugliness of bigotry |
| stands in direct contradiction |
| to the very meaning of America. |
| |
| HUBERT H. HUMPHREY |
|_________________________________|
How many of us would be alive today if that law were still on the books? The founding fathers realized ruling by religion wouldn't work, and, wisely, prevented it. The United States opted for a government not dictated by any person's or group's interpretation of any religious text. (More on this in the chapter, "Laws against Consensual Activities Violate the Separation of Church and State, Threatening the Freedom of and from Religion.")
Diversity, not conformity, is America's true strength.
In nature, purebreds excel in certain characteristics, but at the expense of others: they may be beautiful, but stupid; gentle, but sickly; ferocious, but unpredictable. It's the crossbreeds that have the strength, flexibility, and multileveled instincts not only to survive, but to thrive in a broad range of conditions.
The United States is not just a crossbred; it's a mongrel-the most mongrel nation on earth. It's what gives us our strength, sensitivity, tenacity, flexibility, common sense, and spunk. ("You have spunk, don't you?" Lou Grant asked Mary Richards at their first meeting. Mary nodded proudly. Lou glared: "I hate spunk.")
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| |
| That at any rate is the theory |
| of our Constitution. |
| It is an experiment, |
| as all life is an experiment. |
| |
| JUSTICE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. |
|____________________________________|
Many citizens of the United States have stopped even trying to trace their national roots. When asked, "What nationality are you?" they respond, "American." And rightly so.
I have flowing in my veins Irish, Italian, a little Cherokee, and God knows what-all. I'm an American. The struggle between the Irish and the Italians came to an end with me and hundreds of thousands like me. How could the Italians hate me? I'm part Italian. How could the Irish hate me? I'm part Irish. How can I side with the settlers? I'm part Native American. How can I side with the Native Americans? I'm mostly settler. I have compassion for many sides. And I am one of millions who have the blood of many nations flowing through our veins: the wealth of many cultures, the wisdom of many generations-and many, many ways to love God.
As Bishop Fulton J. Sheen explained,
Democracy cannot survive where there is such uniformity that everyone wears exactly the same intellectual uniform or point of view. Democracy implies diversity of outlook, a variety of points of view on politics, economics, and world affairs. Hence the educational ideal is not uniformity but unity, for unity allows diversity of points of view regarding the good means to a good end.
"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation," said Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, "It is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein."
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| |
| I am determined |
| my children shall be brought up |
| in their father's religion, |
| if they can find out what it is. |
| |
| CHARLES LAMB |
|__________________________________|
America is a bold, dynamic, audacious, enthralling, and ongoing experiment. There have been many risks, many embarrassments (Richard Speck, John Hinckley, Jeffrey Dahmer) and many glories (Luther Burbank, Helen Keller, Thomas Edison, Liberace).
Where else but in America could we read this news item?
A De Kalb County, Georgia, Superior court ruled that Gary Eugene Duda, 35, could change his first name to "Zippidy." Duda said that he had already been called "Zippidy" by friends for most of his life.
The American experiment has seen its tragedies (the executions of Sacco and Vanzenti; the imprisonment of 110,000 Japanese Americans during World War II; the cold war with its nuclear arms race) and its triumphs (Lindbergh's flight to Paris, putting a man on the moon, the Human Genome Project).
The experiment continues.
There are some who want to call the experiment off, who want to roll back America to those happy, carefree, God-fearing pre-Constitutional times. Then, their God would rule. By force of law.
Let's not let them.
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| |
| Restriction of free thought |
| and free speech |
| is the most dangerous |
| of all subversions. |
| It is the one un-American act |
| that could most easily defeat us. |
| |
| JUSTICE WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS |
|___________________________________|
Copyright © 1996 Peter McWilliams & Prelude Press
Last Revision: December 2, 1996
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