Laws breed lawlessness. Without "vice" laws and their social apparatus, people live or die based on their capacity for self-governance. Thus, people with integrity survive, prosper, and form communities of like-minded individuals according to the level of indulgences which they will tolerate.
Vice laws stunt our cultural evolution and actually reward the behavior they seek to ban by making the rewards for purveying vice even higher.
When this country was founded, there were no laws prohibiting morphine, opium, tobacco or whiskey. Beer was the beverage of choice for lunch and even breakfast. Nitrous oxide was inhaled at parties, which was where Georgia's Crawford Long got the idea for anesthesia. Yet, as you point out, most people were godly and community-minded.
Laws breed lawlessness. Without "vice" laws and their social apparatus, people live or die based on their capacity for self-governance. Thus, people with integrity survive, prosper, and form communities of like-minded individuals according to the level of indulgences which they will tolerate.
Vice laws stunt our cultural evolution and actually reward the behavior they seek to ban by making the rewards for purveying vice even higher.
19 posted on 8/2/02 5:14 PM Eastern by SteamshipTime
BUMP:
The greater the number of laws and restrictions,
the poorer the people who inhabit the land.
The sharper the weapons of battle and war,
the greater the troubles besetting the land.
The greater the cunning with which people are ruled,
the stranger the things which occur in the land.
The harder the rules and regulations,
the greater the number of those who will steal.