[MichaelJoeWilliamson]

Originally Posted by ChartsandGrafs

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be under the impression that a crime is anything the government says it is. In other words, if the government says eating cantaloupe is a crime, and I eat cantaloupe anyway, that means I've committed a crime.

You are conflating moral behavior with crime. A crime is what legislators of a particular country say it is, no matter if they are elected, appointed or take that mantle by force.

Moral behavior can be and often is a different animal than a crime. I think original intent was for the two to be the same.

LOL, "limited government". There's no such thing and there never has been.

Perhaps. But government is nothing more than a collection of individuals. It is something we humans have created. As such, we can change the definitions of its existence, if we have the will. Just like the founders of our country did.

Government represents a monopoly on force. If a group of people have control of that monopoly while another group of people doesn't, who's going to limit the former group from using their monopoly to exploit the latter group? You think they are going to limit themselves? Of course not. It's fantasy.

Agreed. You describe the fundamental danger of government. Our forefathers tried to limit its powers. And by in large did a decent job. And where they could not limit powers, they separated the powers.

They also gave us codified rights.

All that said, they recognized that people in government have a tendency to want to do nothing more than grow the size, scope and power of the government. In fact, they almost recognized it was inevitable that would happen..

"What kind of government have you given us?"

was asked to Ben Franklin. To which he replied;


"A Republic Ma'am, if you can keep it."

You "limited government' people are frustrated because you've been living a delusion and can't figure out why the delusion doesn't produce the desired real-life results.

I find it funny I am being lectured on "delusion" by a guy that for all intents and purposes is a real life conspiracy theorists.

What are you saying here? That as long as stupid, tyrannical laws are enforced uniformly and consistently across society that you don't have as much of a problem with it? To focus on selective enforcement of stupid laws instead of the imposition of the stupid laws themselves is to miss the whole point, man.

So what am I wrong about, exactly?

When there are a lot of stupid laws on the books, then government officials seem to be wont to pick and choose which ones they will enforce and which ones they will not enforce.

In a very, very limited sense, that *might* work as long as EVERYONE agrees which laws are stupid and which ones are not. All citizens and especially all law enforcement. And then everyone acts accordingly.

However, if you are a guy that has a stupid law enforced against you and the next guys does not, perhaps because he is connected, then that is tyranny.