WE MUST DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN CRIMES AND VICES

To the Editor:

Greg Nidy in his letter to the editor ("Inmate: We should be held
accountable for our actions," Sunday, Aug. 6) engages in serf talk. He is no
longer capable of determining what is crime and what is vice.

Let me remind him what Lysander Spooner had to say in his essay, "A
Vindication of Moral Liberty," written in 1875. "Vices are those acts by
which a man harms himself or his property. Crimes are those acts by which
one man harms the person or property of another.

"Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own
happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no
interference with their persons or property.

"In vices, the very essence of crime - that is, the design to injure the
person or property of another - is wanting.

"It is a maxim of the law that there can be no crime without a criminal
intent; that is, without the intent to invade the person or property of
another. But no one ever practises a vice with any such criminal intent. He
practices his vice for his own happiness solely, and not from any malice
toward others.

"Unless this clear distinction between vices and crimes be made and
recognized by the laws, there can be on earth no such thing as individual
right, liberty, or property, and the corresponding and coequal rights of
another man to the control of his own person and property.

"For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such,
is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it
would be to declare truth to be falsehood, or falsehood truth."

I wonder what Greg Nidy would have to say if he were taught the difference
between vice and crime, a line that has been blurred by moralists keen on
living a so-called drug-free existence. By far the most harmful effect of
waging this scapegoat persecution is that muddled thinking becomes the norm
and independent critical analysis gives way to indoctrination.

Best not ever let Greg read any Thomas Jefferson; he just might stumble on
the 1776 address to the Virginia State legislature. "If the state were to
control our drugs and our diet, then our bodies would be in such keeping as
our souls are now," said Jefferson.

Americans have been on the road to serfdom for so long they are starting to
believe the lies that their government has legislated into truth. When that
happens, how much longer can you call yourselves the land of the free.

When the serfs think they deserve the punishment meted out by the
therapeutic state for engaging in their natural right to drugs, a right
owned by mankind since time began, the trumpets are sounding the death knell
for liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The therapeutic state has evolved
from the theologic state; it seeks medical-therapeutic solutions to
moral-social problems. The state is on a fool's errand.

Chris Buors
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada