From: Mix <mixmaster@remail.obscura.com>
Date: Sun, 24 Aug 1997 01:32:02 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Welfare Solution #389
Message-ID: <199708231711.KAA13141@sirius.infonex.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




Alex Le Heux (alexlh@yourchoice.nl) wrote:
> Unfortunately our own government is slowely succumbing under the 
> international pressure, and soon we'll have our own War On Drugs here.

I say, Lord help me if they outlaw hash bars. 

Anonymous wrote:
>   Many in the welfair class have their basic needs met by the government
> and then steal to buy heroin.

This is odd; I am sure that heavy drug dependents are more likely to
want money from welfare, but I query you: Does that necessarily mean 
that welfare recipients are more likely to be drug dependent?

> [Query: who is the victim in a drug case? -- but I digress...].

That's funny, I don't know who the victim is in this drug case you
fail to describe. I haven't read the decision writings. How should
I know?

I could imagine that a junkie who takes some old lady's purse to buy
heroin is victimizing the old lady, but is a student smoking marijuana
and drinking a beer victimizing anyone? What about a heroin junkie who
is rich, though unpopular, and never committed any other crime? Have
they made themselves a victim of something? Maybe so...the needle,
the darkness, the overwhelming Love Which Cannot Be Real. But the
state shouldn't recognize "mystical entities" like this as perpetrators.
The person in this case is making a choice; they will do no harm but
to themselves. Are they then a victim, or a perpetrator, or both?

> Also, if it was a crime where the victim suffered financial losses, the
> defendant not only has to pay the Crime Victim's Fee but also restitution
> to the victim.

Does not theft of belongings in any case deserve punitive and
recompensive financial damages? Like the U.S. Park Service theft
of the ranch on Santa Cruz Island?

-THE LIE