It ought to be a crime!
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- Yachtee
- jerrib
- eurocrat_au
- Juju57
- cswitwer
- SCE
- SCE
- MFFJM2
This archived discussion is "read only".
» Yachtee - The consensus of fear
Su,I found your article very interesting. At first I questioned your assertion that all crimes became a crime because of fear. I took your point about levels of human behaviour falling on a continuum, but thought that to state: "So what does make something a crime? The consensus of fear." was surely too specific to cover a very broad area.
Surely there are some things considered/made crimes for reasons other than fear?
Then I began trying to think of examples to try to oppose you.
Tax laws? We have to pay tax, but surely not because we are afraid? Afraid of what? Then I thought oh, okay, perhaps the government would fear losing a substantial amount of revenue, then the people would fear the government's inability to provide services/infrastructure. Anarchy would ensue! Now that's a pretty good fear factor.
How about jaywalking? Surely not a law made through fear? Or perhaps someone feared having to clean up the mess of a splattered pedestrian.
In my country (Australia), it is illegal not to wear a helmet while riding a bicycle. Hmmmm. Same reason as the jaywalking, I suppose.
Yes, I must concede defeat. Thank you - they say you learn something new every day and, Su, today have taught me something.
Regards,
Mark
-- posted by Yachtee
» jerrib - Hi Sue
I worked in a probation and parole office for a while when I worked for WA State government. I have to say I was ever-ready to get out of there as soon as I could. Just not something I liked much, but a necessary evil, I guess.I find your bio very interesting. I think being a librarian is a much better life.
Very interesting topic. Excellent first article.
Welcome aboard.
-- posted by jerrib
» eurocrat_au - Fear ignorance and loathing
Fear is at the bottom of everything. I recognise no deviance, certainly not the categories that you have spoken of, and I am at best tolerant on crime. I think something can be a crime if it hurts a particular person, not society or a group in society. When we get into that en masse mindset we can be like sheep, not human beings.A lot of sexual behaviours I find deviant, and I admit I am frightened of the pain and consequences of sex. I am frightened also of the courage that it must take to explore your body, because that is not valued in society as much. Someone else would be scared of my intelligence and try to outlaw me knowing so much or studying to know more.
A question for you: Do you think James Bulger's death by two 10 year old boys was crime or deviance? It really opened up my eyes to see that children could do those things, but I don't think it was particularly deviant.
Adelaide La Blanche-Dupont
-- posted by eurocrat_au
» cswitwer - Welcome!
Welcome to Suite101, Dr. Epstein! I hope your stay here is as enjoyable as mine has been.I love your topic-- I've always been fascinated by crime & it's motivations. Like arson-- why on earth do people set things on fire? Makes no sense to me. One of my favorite books is Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy in which not even the book's narrator tells us if the main character committed a crime or not. The character himself doesn't know. Very intriguing.
OH-- and I wanted to mention homosexuality. I'm in Texas where our penal code still contains a statute against consensual oral sex. It's called the "sodomy" law, but most who've read the statute agree that even heterosexual oral sex would apply. The statute is rarely used of course, but when it is, it changes people's lives forever. There were 2 men in Houston arrested a few years ago for having consensual sex. A jilted lover called the police & reported a burglary in progress. The officers arrived, saw the men in "the act" and took them to jail. It's been in & out of appeals for years now. Fortunately, the individual who made the false report was prosecuted as well.
Well, I've gone off on a tangent. I really like your topic, and your writing is tight and informative. You'll do well here!
Best,
chris
-- posted by cswitwer
» SCE - Re: Fear ignorance and loathing
In response to message posted by eurocrat_au:It's an interesting question you raise: is murder deviant? (As in norm breaking?) I would say it is definitely criminal (against the law) and I would have to say deviant by definition, but that we could still find it understandable or even 'not wrong' in the justice sense - which is an uncomfortable thought, no?
su
-- posted by SCE
» MFFJM2 - Re: Re: Fear ignorance and loathing
In response to message posted by SCE:The idea that murder, which is the unlawful taking of a human life with malice aforethought, could be anything but deviant surprises me. After all the idea of deviance, or that which deviates from the norm suggests that somewhere it is the norm to commit this type of crime. Where would that be..? Even contract killers for the Mob realize that murder is deviant from the norm, that it may be necessary is unfortunate...but they think of themselves as soldiers. Murder is always wrong, in the legal and social sense. It may be justified based on the facts, which may mitigate or extenuate the penalty of the actual act of murder...but it's still wrong. I would like to take issue with your assertion that all laws are created out of fear. What about the law prohibiting the sale of razor-blades on Sunday (normally dubbed the "Blue Laws")? What was the fear which caused these laws to be enacted? What about the Mann Act, what was the fear in preventing black men "from crossing the state line with women for immoral purposes". Obviously there was another hidden agenda. Is the fear a real fear or is it just a smoke-screen to hide the real agenda. The Marijuana Tax law was originally created to protect white women from the advances of "intoxicated" blacks and Hispanics. This is the stated reason taken directly from the minutes of the Congressional discussion conducted at the time. However, was there an underlying agenda, which used fear to get the legislation passed. After all, with the exception of Harry Anslinger and a few of his cronies, few Americans had ever heard of marijuana. Harry Anslinger's father in law, Salmon P. Chase, was the Secretary of the Treasury and a partner to one of the largest banking firms in the US, the Chase Bank, later to become the Chase-Manhattan Bank. It was Mr Chase who recommended his son-in-law to the President to head up the new Bureau of Narcotics, destined to become the DEA. Was there a conspiracy among Mr Chase and his son-in-law..? What did they have to gain..? One needn't look too far to see that the two major depositors to the Chase Bank at the time were Dupont and William Randolph Hearst. Why would these two huge conglomerates be concerned with outlawing marijuana? It is a fact that the Hearst newspapers began a series of articles on the "devil-weed" based solely on the uncorroborated statements of Mr Anslinger, shortly before the legislation was proposed. It may be only coincidental that Dupont had just created the synthetic material nylon, and that Hearst had just purchased a method for turning wood pulp into paper; at the same time buying huge tracts of forested land. It is also a fact that hemp was the fabric of choice for a variety of products like paper, rope, twine, and clothing since it was much cheaper to produce than nylon or wood-pulp paper. It was also environmentally friendly and a completely renewable resource. Hemp was the only serious competitor to Hearst's paper-production monopoly and to DuPont's nylon monopoly. If the hemp industry wasn't curtailed several fortunes were in danger of being lost. Consequently, the Marijuana Tax Act and later legislation essentially destroyed the hemp industry which had existed in this country since before the Articles of Confederation (Thomas Jefferson grew hemp). It was largely through the efforts of Harry Anslinger, with the financial support of W.R. Hearst, DuPont, and Salmon P. Chase, that the hemp industry was destroyed and a harmless plant was classified as a narcotic when in fact it is not an opiate and cannot be a narcotic under any stretch of the imagination. Consequently, billions of dollars of income were made by DuPont and Hearst in their nylon and paper-making industries. Fear may be the root cause of law. But what is the root cause of fear...? I posit that the cause of fear is ignorance. The more we know about something, the less we will have an irrational fear of it.
-- posted by MFFJM2
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