Do Law-makers go to far, to protect us from ourselves?

Do Law-makers go too far, to protect us from ourselves? Everything we own, do, or say has the potential of harm, or risk involved. Freedom assumes that risk exists, and demands that common sense dictate our notions of justice. Yet, it seems the ever-growing wave of zero-tolerance ( prohibition by another name ) has come to dominate our Legislatures in their efforts to protect us, from us.

 

Everyone knows that smoking tobacco is hazardous to your health, but it seems that no one knows how to actually enforce the recent ‘Smoking Ban’ in Illinois. The Journal Gazette - Times Courier of Mattoon IL interviewed Prosecutors, business owners, and citizens in this report that begins by saying;

“Almost three months after a new Illinois law made it illegal to light up in public places, the smoke still hasn’t cleared.”

 

Overcriminalized.com presented an article in Feb, of 2006 that illustrates how the changing sensibilities of a society can, if un-checked, lead us to the absurd consequences of ill-conceived and poorly crafted laws.

 

 

“In the effort to make schools safer, misguided school officials have established a disciplinary system that does more harm than good for students.”

 

It’s about a student, and a pocket knife. The same kind of knife many have in our pockets, and the same kind of students that we send from our homes, to school. ‘Normal kids’, with with normal sensibilities that they got from us ( and the pocket knives many got as Christmas gifts from us ).  

Blogging itself has been the subject of Legislative restrictions lately, and this freedom is certainly in jeopardy. Threatened by those who prefer security, over freedom.

In it’s ‘overview’ page, overcriminalized.com has a marvelous essay;

The Over-Criminalization of Social and Economic Conduct

It traces the changes in our changing sense of ‘criminality’ from it’s origens, to the present;

“In recent times the reach of the criminal law has been expanded so that it now addresses conduct that is wrongful not because of its intrinsic nature but because it is a prohibited wrong (malum prohibitum)–that is, a wrong created by a legislative body to serve some perceived public good.”

I don’t believe that laws of ‘zero-tolerance’ are practical, or enforceable. We read how the efforts of temperance movements brought the calamity of ‘Prohibition’ to America, and how it was eventually declared unconstitutional. Zero-tolerance is Prohibition, the name is the only thing that’s changed, and that change was made to ‘disconnect’ our common sense, from our political will.
I doubt very seriously if any of these types of laws could ever be passed, if they were presented honestly, to a sensible society. And we are a sensible society. Do you aggree?