[ChartsandGrafs]

Originally Posted by MichaelJoeWilliamson

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.

So you think legislators and bureaucrats dictate reality? That they can declare anything they want a crime and it automatically becomes true?

Can they also dictate that the color blue is actually green?

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.

It doesn't matter what the original intent was. If the government says that eating cantaloupe is a crime, it doesn't automatically become true. They can punish you for it, but you haven't really committed a crime, as there would be no victim and no harm done to any other party.

We don't all become criminals just because a bunch of legislators and bureaucrats say so.

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.

Replace the word 'government' with the word 'Mafia' and read your response again.

You can't really change the "definitions of its existence". You can replace it and tweak it a bit, but it's still just a mechanism by which one group of people dominate and exploit another group of people.

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.

How are you able to so easily ignore reality? How can you call the behemoth we have in Washington a "decent job"? Look at it. Be honest with yourself. We're up against a nightmare, and it didn't just spring into being. The Constitution was written in such a way that this outcome was inevitable. I don't care if the Founders were hoping for a better outcome than this. This is what they created.

They also gave us codified rights.

Correction: Governments don't give rights, codified or not.

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."

Right, they knew what would happen. They knew they were creating a monster. But what did they care? Most of the Founders were quite wealthy and owned much land. They knew they would be dead before the whole scam unraveled.

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.

Of course, there's no such thing as government conspiracy. The government always tells us the truth. According to you, government also dictates reality.

Yes, the word 'delusion' is apt here.

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.

You're still somehow missing the point.

We have two problems here:

1. The unjust imposition of ubiquitous stupid, tyrannical laws.
2. Selective enforcement of ubiquitous stupid, tyrannical laws.

Why are you focused on the second problem and not the first? After all, even if you manage to solve the second problem, you still have the first to contend with.

You're essentially chasing a shadow.