>From: Chuck Kuecker <ckuecker@mcs.net>
>
>At 03:50 PM 5/4/00 -0700, Zero wrote:
>
>>Surveillance has *nothing* to do with freedom. You are free now to do
>>anything that is legal. You would have that exact same freedom in a
>>completely transparent society. Your only loss of freedom would be the
>>freedom to commit a crime and get away with it. If you have a problem
>>with giving that up, I think that says more about you than it says about
>>society.
>
>The problem is the definition of "crime". When any action that has no harm
>to another person is labeled a "crime", then surveillance becomes
>tyrannical. We can look forward (for example) to smokers being fined by
>mail, and as was stated earlier, a final breakdown of the "innocent until
>proven guilty" principle.
Its not that I don't believe there are such things as victimless crimes
(sodomy between consenting adults comes to mind), but when you think about
the ultimate effect of many so-called victimless crimes, you begin to see
that society itself is the victim many times.
For instance, taking your example of smoking. No one is harmed by the fact
that you smoke cigarettes, right? Well, even putting aside the obvious
problem of second hand smoke, what happens when you come down with
emphysema? On the off hand chance that you have sufficient private
insurance (or money) to cover your own medical care, then the only victims
(besides your own stupid self) are those who care about you and suffer
seeing you suffering to death.
In the more likely scenario where some form of public insurance is needed to
supplement your medical care, the victims of your "victimless" crime are (1)
you, (2) those who care about you, and (3) taxpayers like me who are paying
for your expensive medical care.
-Zero
"I like dreams of the future better than the history of the past"
--Thomas Jefferson
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