El Crimen

Sorry for writing the title in Spanish. I though plain old "Crime" was just a little too boring. But that is not the point of this column. Instead, it is analogous to the cover of a book. My goal is to get you thinking. And I will stimulate your thinking by asking a fundamental question. What is crime?
Crime might seem like a vague concept to define, but in reality, it's a fairly simple concept. A crime is something that harms the person or property of someone else. When I provide some examples, you will see how this definition covers everything that is a real crime.
Crimes against someone's person are rather obvious. These are murder, rape, assault, kidnapping, child molestation and so on. You have no right to damage another person. Everyone owns their own body and no one else's, including babies (abortion will be covered sometime in the future, or read this article http://www.strike-the-root.com/51/weebies/weebies9.html entitled "The Free Market Case Against Abortion," also busting the myth that libertarians are all pro-abortion). God has given us our bodies which he created in his own image (Genesis 9:6), which is why harming other people is such horrible crime. No one can legitimately argue for murder, rape, assault, etc., because these things on a widespread scale prevent the establishment of civil society. Would you want to live with people who think it is acceptable to rape or murder others? Would you feel safe?
Likewise, you cannot have any economic development without property rights. A person must be able to own his property to have any incentives to provide it for himself or use it to render goods or services unto others. A society won't get very far without property. If you think that we don't have property rights, I demand your wallet or purse and all contents therein immediately! Everybody knows that stealing is wrong; no one who steals frequently will be tolerated by their neighbors. (Government and property will be discussed some other time) Theft also includes fraud, because property is taken based on intentional deception.
Maybe you think I didn't prove my points well enough. It shouldn't take much, though. These are universally recognized crimes. They are also the only real crimes. A real crime has a victim, someone whose person or property was damaged. Drug use, prostitution, tax evasion, and a host of other "illegal" things are victimless, i.e., not real crimes, since nobody or their property was directly harmed. Also, try this concept. We know the only way to stop crime sometimes is to use force, even deadly force. Do you support using deadly force on someone who is engaging in perfectly harmless behavior, like maybe smoking a joint. Maybe they even have a brain tumor. Maybe they don't want to give up that joint, which is their rightful property, and they won't give it up. At some point, the only way to take it from them is by committing a crime; you must assault or murder them. Is that OK? To prevent a victimless crime, you will actually create a victim of a real crime, because someone's person or property will be harmed in this process when before, nobody was being harmed. Congratulations, you just made the world worse. I won't even try and discuss thought crimes and speech crimes right here, that just makes my blood boil with righteous anger, and those will eventually be discussed in another column, anyways. Well, good night, I'm done writing and we could all use some sleep right now.