Fun With Consensual Crime

Marijuana, opium, prostitution, mushrooms, adultery, statutory rape, sodomy, etc. All these are things which are illegal, and typically there is no direct victim. Should any or all be legal or illegal? Should all laws be followed regardless of their harm or benefit? Let’s have fun and discuss!

To-Shin Do

Marijuana should be, at least if alcohol is legal. I’ve never felt like a danger when I was high, but a lot of people can be when drunk.

While not all, some of those crimes have a social cost and in that sense society is the victim.

But I’m not about to sugest that anything with a social cost should be a crime. If you go down that path you would have to outlaw alcohol, tobacco and obesity among many other things. And frankly I don’t want to live in a county where a man can’t be a fatass smoker who drinks too much.

Interesting.
Is adultery illegal? I hope not!
I’m in favor of legalising most of those things but statutory rape is a bit different. Even if a 13 year old consents to sex with a 20-year old, she’s still only 13 and not really able to make the best decisions for herself.
Soft recreational drugs should be legal but closely regulated. The government could make a profit. Of course, driving under the influence would be illegal. Yes this would lead to some individuals losing the plot, but don’t we have that with booze now? With food? With tobacco? With prescription drugs?

I’ll echo deano on pretty much everything. Children do not need to be having sex. That is an extraordinarily bad idea. It’s hard enough to get adults to have sex responsibly, let alone their kids. Also I’d like to chime in with something from the late great Bill Hicks about legalizing pot, mushrooms, etc.:

“Pot grows naturally on the planet. Mushrooms grow naturally on the planet. Doesn’t making Mother Nature against the law seem…well… a bit unnatural?”

I agree with loth and dean here, Most “soft” drugs are perfectly fine and many people do them anyways. when was the last time you heard a negative news story about a stoner or a guy tripping on shrooms doing anything bad? I have never really heard anything.

I would however be supportive of a change to make the legal consenting age for sex like 17? That would bring many high school seniors into play and well not like i’d have a chance anyways but a man can dream right?

Vegita ~ Prince of all Sayajins

I also forgot seat belt laws, helmet laws and steroids!

I agree, most kids shouldn’t be having sex. The age of consent is 16 in Ohio, but it can be as low as 13 in Maine and as high as 19 in Wyoming. A couple years ago an 18 year old and a 16 year old were dating. She (16) got pregnant. They planned to get married and both sets of parents were supportive of them. The state charged him anyway, and I believe he went to prison. Consider this: if you have sex at 16 (most places) it’s illegal because you’re not aware of the consequences of your actions. Now if you kill somebody, you can be charged as an adult. Why the discrepancy? I just find it odd that age that you’re considered responsible for yourself varies so much depending on the situation, i.e. driving, sex, drinking, legal contracts, voting, crimes, etc.

I think adultery is illegal in some states, I’m not sure which ones.

As for drugs, the Dutch model has worked well so far, despite the Drug Czar blatantly lying about it. Besides, isn’t it weird that you can be put in jail longer than a rapist for giving someone flowers?

To-Shin Do

Oh yeah! I got a take on those laws too, Toshindo.

Seat belt laws: Good idea. Just because it makes parents buckle their kids up, use child seat restraints, etc. I approve of this just for the children. Because some people are extraordinarily dumb and would not buckle their dang kids up otherwise. Trust me on this.

Helmet laws: Not such a good idea. There’s no innocents involved here, so this is an example of Government acting like my friggin’ nanny. I do NOT need you to hold my hand when I pee… honest. Besides, the helmet laws detract from the organ donor pool. Let me explain: guys who wind up in my ER from drinking and biking are idiots. Many times, they got away from paying the price for their stupidity because of the helmet. Maybe a year later, maybe more, maybe less, they will be back. But THIS time, they die. Why? Because of massive trauma to the abdomen, where a helmet did no good. All of their internal organs are mush. So we toss the body in the morgue and say “what a damn shame”. If they had died originally from the crack to the skull they took last year, we would at least be able to salvage their heart, kidneys, etc., and save someone else from a degenerative disease or whatever. A healthy adult liver can be sectioned into four parts, and possibly save four children with end-stage liver failure.

Steroid laws: As I mentioned above, I can pee just fine all by myself. I do not need a government to protect me from myself. If you feel like it, protect me from other shit, but do not pretend that I am incapable of being responsible for my own actions.

I agree with most here, but I do have a couple comments.

A previous poster said he was for seatbelt laws to protect children, but against helmet laws. Children can ride on bikes, you know. I read and understand your reasoning that the helmet only protects the head, but I tend to think you would agree that helmets should be mandatory for children motorcycle passengers; even if they are optional for the driver.

As far as statutory rape, first, I’ll admit, I didn’t know there were different ages of consent in different states. I’ve lived in three states and thought the age was 18 there and everywhere; it may or may not have been where I lived(WI, NV, CA) I don’t know now. But for the sake of argument I will use 18 as the age since one poster asked for it to be 17. You can’t really lower the age of consent because someone will always ask for it to be one year lower since they are so close anyway. And we don’t need people in their mid-twenties convincing 13 and 14 year old that it’s ok.

I do, however, know of two instances of statutory rape where nothing was done after charges were filed. In one case where the male was 19 and the female 16, the judge ruled that the small age difference and the fact that these two people had sex when the were both minors were grounds to dismiss the case. Keep in mind that I am not a lawyer and might not totally understand the process, here. But in any event, nothing happened to the “offender.”

I think that helmet and seat belt laws are useful in the fact that they can protect kids. Ohio has a good helmet law for motorcycles. For a year after you get your license, you’re considered a novice and must wear a helmet and I don’t think you can ride at night. After that, do whatever. Maybe laws could be altered to have all drivers/riders under 18 or your first year of driving/riding, you must wear belts or helmets. After that period, you know how to drive and you’rte an adult, so make your own choices. I say, you don’t want to wear a belt? Good, takes your dumbass out of the gene pool.

To-Shin Do

[quote]ToShinDo wrote:
Marijuana, opium, prostitution, mushrooms, adultery, statutory rape, sodomy, etc. All these are things which are illegal, and typically there is no direct victim. Should any or all be legal or illegal? Should all laws be followed regardless of their harm or benefit? Let’s have fun and discuss!

To-Shin Do[/quote]

Okay here it goes… As long as alcohol and tobacco is legal marijuana and opium should be too. Alcohol is far worse of a drug then marijuana. And tobacco is almost as addictive as opium. If people can choose to be drunk they should be able to choose if they want to get high. This however would have to be regulated to an extent, just like alcohol. You can’t go to work drunk, you can’t drive drunk, you need to be a certain age to obtain alcohol and you need a license to sell alcohol. If the same rules applied to pot and opium I do not forsee and increase in crime at all and alot of drug dealers would be out of jobs. The government could stop spending so much money filling the jails with people on possesion of marijuana, and they could make money by taxing it like tobacco or booze.

Mushrooms… You can argue thier legality on the fact that they grow naturally. However, in higher doses not everyone can handle themselves when using it. I’ll leave this for someone else to debate.

Prostitution… Make the whore houses have an expensive license (like a liquor license) to be legal and require regular STD tests for the employees. It should be highly regulated and taxed. This way if I have a long day at work and I don’t feel like looking for pussy I can get a quicky and have a good night sleep, for a price of course.

Adultery… to me this is just crazy, why would it be illegal?

Statutory rape… See this one is tricky. Because when I was 15 I was banging 15 year old girls. This to me is not wrong. When I was 15 I was banging 18 year old girls, this to me was also not wrong. When I was 18 I was scared to bang 15 year old girls who looked 20 and have already been banged by other 15 year old guys because of statutory rape. I don’t know, I think if a girl is already sexually active does it matter if your 17 or 19?? I mean there are definitely girls I meet who look around 18-19 and find out they are 15-16 which is my cue to walk away. I guess people think that thier children are preyed upon and that’s why they need these laws, but the truth is that thier 15 year old daughter is out looking for sex and probably having it with 17-18 year old guys already. If you tack on a few months to thier age it’s now illegal? If anything there should be a National age rather then by the State so we don’t have to try and figure it out everywhere we go. And if anything there should be exceptions, like if the girl is a whore, or if she looks 20 years old, or something like that.

Sodomy… This one is so much fun! Legal as long as your not a priest.

I believe that as long as you’re not infringing on anyone else’s rights, you should be free to do whatever you wish.

As long as alcohol and tobacco are legal, EVERY drug should be legal.

As far as seat belt laws, I am in favor of them simply because in car accidents people often become 70mph projectiles that can cause terrible damage and death.

Nick

Helmet laws, well they saved my life once, so I am okay with them. But wha tis worse than that is seatbelts on motorbikes. Some state a few years back tried to put that law into effect, so the local bikers rigged up a bike with a seatbelt and put the senator/congressman/whatever he was, on the bike, belted him in, got him all ready to ride, then pushed him over. That law didn’t pass.
But what is the problem with seatbelts in cars? what annoyance do they actually cause? I have been wearing mine for years, it feels awkward to not wear one.

As for people and soft drugs, well you may not have heard reports of bad things happening to people on 'shrooms and pot, but I have seen these bad things happen, and I have taken these people to the hospital. I agree that they should be in the same boat as tobacco and alcohol, but to say that nothing bad happens is just plain wrong, plus pot just makes a person stupid as hell.

The age of consent in Canada is 14, so if anybody younger than that is having sex, that just seems wrong to me.

-Dave

Shortdave,
That’s a great story about the seat belt on the motorcycle!

I liked lothario’s point. But it’s true that–in the case of helmet laws, for instance–perhaps we should protect those under the “age of consent” (too bad it changes from stte to state, muddying things).

So…maybe helmets for children, but beyond 18 it becomes a choice; just like buying cigarettes and drinking.

It would be ineteresting to pull back on laws re: marijuana and steroids and see what happens. Reminds me of the line in “West Wing” during the debate about a constitutional amendment against flag-burning: “Is there some epidemic of flag-burning that I haven’t noticed?” Let’s see if giving people freedom really endangers society, and then act accordingly.

Everything done to oneself should be legal.

It should be legal to have sex with any person who has gone through puberty(has their period, and is fully sexually developed) and wants to have sex. People should not be protected from their supposed “lack of ability to make the right choices” because of age. People are responsible for their own choices, at any age.

I especially hate the idea that because I’m nine months older than a girl, and I turn 18, it’s suddenly illegal to have sex. To hell with all that shit.

[quote]Tadpole wrote:

It should be legal to have sex with any person who has gone through puberty(has their period, and is fully sexually developed) and wants to have sex. [/quote]

I taught a lot of 4th graders (9 year olds) who had their period.

[quote]ShortDave wrote:
plus pot just makes a person stupid as hell.
[/quote]

ahahahaha, so true… so true…

[quote]Tadpole wrote:
People are responsible for their own choices, at any age.

[quote]

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I think our legal system is confused over when we’re responsible. Sex? Usually not until 18. But you can drive a 2 ton vehicle 65 miles per hour at 16. Determine the course of our country by voting? 18, but don’t touch a beer until 21. Can’t own a handgun until 21, but you can join the army and kill professionally at 18, sometimes 17. Kill someone at 14 and you can be charged with murder as an adult, do it at 16 and you can be sentenced to death for it, before you can even see an R-rated movie
So when are we responsible for our own actions? 14 or 21?

To-Shin Do

Sorry, gang. I despise most laws that have as their basis “for the children”. This canard is used for too many civil liberties restrictions. If it takes a seatbelt LAW for parents to buckle up their children, then they are not good parents. Do it because it is right, not because DC says you gotta. Too many right are taken away from law abiding citizens under the guise of protecting “the children”. How about this, make it a law to buckle up your kids. But for adults, leave it up to the individual. We used to revere the right of the individual in this country. But now, the people are treated as stupid sheep who have to be told want to do for their own safety. It is the terrible rise of the Nanny state. I don’t need that. We shouldn’t determine the freedoms of our citizens based on the weaknesses and frailties of our weakest citizens. I want to drink. I don’t smoke, but I respect the right of those who do. I want my porn. I want to ride in the car without my seatbelt. I want my freedom.

That was exactly my point Jayhawk! Don’t friggin’ coddle me! And to whoever pointed out the discrepancy I made between seat belt laws vs. helmet laws for the children’s sake – my bad. I was referring to helmet laws as in motorcycles. And yes, children should have to wear protective devices, dammit. They are reckless enough as it is, and I see them in my ER all the time for doing stupid shit. No one should have to be a Darwin Award winner just because they are too young to know any better. The other day I had to watch a nine-year old die because he was hot-rodding around on a 4-wheeler and flipped the dang thing onto himself. A nine-year old. What the hell is a nine-year old doing on a friggin’ death machine like that? I wanted to go up to the parents and ask them, but as you might imagine, that was just a momentary thought. They have to live with this for the rest of their lives. What a damn shame.