This section on Crime includes the following issues:
Nobody favors crime. Both major parties are against crime. A
comparison of their platforms reveals only a couple of differences:
Both parties support the "war on drugs,"
capital punishment, "getting
tough," spending more, etc., etc. Both parties have been saying the
same things for 60 years. Neither party will "make America safe
again." Neither party understands why America was once safe.
America's Founding Fathers believed that "religion,
morality and knowledge" were "necessary
for good government and the happiness of mankind" (Northwest
Ordinance, 1787). Mankind can never be happy in a world torn by crime,
where it is unsafe to walk the streets at night. But the Founding Fathers
recognized that politicians and policemen could not eliminate crime. John
Adams warned:
We have no government armed with power capable
of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.
. . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.
It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Source: John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second
President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor
(Boston: Little, Brown, and Co. 1854), Vol. IX, p. 229, October 11,
1798. See
more quotations here.)
Our primary efforts to fight crime must come not from more
laws, more police, less rights, and more intrusive government. Crime is
best fought by parents, neighbors, voluntary associations of people,
such as churches, synagogues, non-profit organizations, etc., and
schools which reflect the moral values of parents, not the government.
Every person who signed the constitution believed that our schools
should teach religion and morality.
Any politician who proposes to arm the government with "power
capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and
religion" is a threat to the Constitution, our liberties, good
government and the happiness of mankind. In the long run, such a
politician is "soft on crime."
Criminals must be held responsible for their crimes. This does not mean
that victims must be held responsible for paying for long
prison sentences, with cable TV, weight rooms, and no moral and religious
structure. It
means restitution. Criminals must work to restore their victims.
- For Public
Safety, We Need Less Government (from The Great Libertarian
Offer)
- Free from the
Nightmare of Prohibition (from The Great Libertarian Offer)
- Ignorance Is Dangerous
, Harry Browne, January 17, 2002
- Top10
Misconceptions about Government, Harry Browne, June 26, 2001
- What
If All Drugs Were Legal? (gasp), Harry Browne, June 7, 2001
- Libertarian
Solutions: Help make Americans safer by repealing victimless crime
laws
- Victims on Trial: The Everyday Business of Courts
Only the Libertarian Party is willing to admit that the federal government
is probably the most dangerous criminal on the face of the earth.
Americans are concerned with theft and murder, yet governments across the
globe commit far more theft and murder than all the private criminals
combined.
Government sends a message to hoods and thugs everywhere:
- "Might makes right."
- "When things don't go the way you want, use violence to solve
your problems."
- "Thou shalt not
steal -- except by majority vote."
The crime problem is at root a religious problem. The government has
become a bizarre violence-worshipping cult, a "false religion"
(to use the words of James
Madison). A nation "under
God" must promote the "true
religion," and "challenge
the cult of the omnipotent state."
| next: "Hate
Crimes" |
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