The Case for Legalization

At the risk of sounding like a zealot, I think that if there is no victim in an activity, then there is no sense in criminalizing that activity.  Drugs, Prostitution, “Crimes against Nature”, what have you – if you are an adult and you want to do something that isn’t going to hurt anyone else – why should the government care?  I know that some of you will want to argue that the moral fabric of our society needs protection – but that is not the purpose of the criminal code.

In early times, people came together to form pacts with one another for mutual protection.  If your family is attacked I will come to your aid and if my family is attacked, you will come to mine.  That was the seed that spawned the very existence of government – its called the social contract (for more on this principle – see the works of John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau).  We submit ourselves to a government because they provide us with services – they protect us from foreign invasions, they protect us from each other, and they protect us from natural disasters.

Of course, none of us have ever made a conscious choice about whether to submit to governmental control – we are all well past that.  Over time, government has gotten bigger and bigger, getting involved in facets of our lives that have nothing to do with protecting us.  Keep in mind that the point of government is to protect us from outside forces, not to protect us from ourselves.  Take a step back and think about this:  The government can currently lock me up in prison for being in possession of a plant that grows naturally on earth.  None of us signed up for that – nor would we if given a choice.