Non-Aggression Principle and Vice: Where's The Crime?

THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE
Number 543, November 1, 2009

Non-Aggression Principle and Vice: Where's The Crime?
by Russell D. Longcore, russlongcore@gmail.com

One of the tenets of individual liberty is the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP), which states that no person has the right to initiate force or fraud against any other person for any reason. When the NAP comes up against criminal law as it relates to vices, both should be tested honestly.

Societies have had an ongoing debate about Crime and Vice over centuries. Much of this perpetual conflict comes from the organized Church, which has formulated moral positions on various human behaviors. If you read Old Testament law, you'll find a lot of human acts listed with penalties for committing those acts. But you'll also find that Scriptural penalties are restorative, meaning that they require the perpetrator to make restitution, not incarceration for punishment.

So, in the times in which we live, how does this affect us? Should vices be crimes?

The dictionary defines "vice" as "an immoral or evil habit or practice." It defines "crime" as "an action or an instance of negligence that is deemed injurious to the public welfare or to the interests of the state and that is legally prohibited."

The first challenge is in the definition of "vice." Who makes the determination that any human action is immoral or evil? One man's vice could be another man's living. Each person must have the liberty to test every alleged vice to determine of his own judgment and conscience what may be good and what may be evil.

Some folks have a knee-jerk reaction to vices, and believe that they should be prosecuted by law enforcement and the courts. But is this belief founded in law, old traditions, habits or any desire for liberty?

Punishing crime is meant to guarantee to every person the fullest liberty he can realize that is also consistent with the full liberty of others. Government should exist only to protect the liberty of the individual, and protect his life and property from force and fraud. An individual must be free in the "pursuit of happiness," even to practice vices that others detest. An individual must be free to use his own judgment, his own body and his own property without restriction so far as the use does not interfere with another individual's quiet enjoyment of his own person and property.

Everyone wants to be protected against violations from other men. But no one wants to be "protected" from himself, since someone else is determining what "protection" is.

So the punishment of crimes can be justified, but the punishment of vices deprives every individual of his natural right to pursue his own happiness, the full use of his body and his own property. These two actions are polar opposites, directly opposed to one another. Criminalizing vice is absurd and a crime of itself. Governments should not be instituted and maintained that commit crimes and prosecute crimes simultaneously.

As the philosopher Sallust said in ancient Rome, "Most men do not desire liberty. Most only wish for a just master." But masters make the rules that their property live by. Living under such rules and regulations does not cause people to be more virtuous or more free. It makes them small-minded and vicious and eager to make their fellow man suffer. The minds of men are not elevated by such stupidity, but whipped into shape by superstition and the exercise of raw power.

Here is a list of various vices. You may argue that each is a sin, but you cannot argue successfully that any one of these vices should be a crime. That is, unless you are capable of Cognitive Dissonance, which is holding two opposing viewpoints in your mind at once.

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