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
- Help make Americans safer by repealing victimless crime laws
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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