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Sunday, March 14, 2004
Las Vegas Review-Journal
VIN SUPRYNOWICZ: Repeal every law enacted since 1912
Michael writes in, asking: "I am a junior in high school, a member of the
Libertarian Party and I read your column every week. I am e-mailing you for
two reasons: 1) Your last article in response to that woman's letter was
great. ... 2) I'm not criticizing you, but I would like to know what
alternative you propose when saying we should do away with prisons."
I replied: Hi, Michael,
The problem with proposing "pragmatic" solutions that might help the
statists out of the hideous swamps in which they have bemired themselves is
that we're surrounded by proud government-school graduates with little
historical perspective, who therefore assume everything our government now
does is historically "normal," and who are equally likely to denounce as
either a failed comedian or a "nut" anyone who proposes anything radically
different.
Take Social Security. Point out that this Ponzi scheme is actuarially
bankrupt, and the Peanut Gallery shrieks "It's easy to criticize; what do
you suggest we do?!"
In good faith, we might suggest they do a pro-rated division of any money
the government wants to contend is actually in the "Social Security Trust
Fund" among those aged 50 and older, based on how much they paid in, while
telling workers under 50: "Sorry, you're out of luck. But at least you've
got 15 years to save for your retirement, and you'd better get started."
The screaming then begins: "But what about the starving oldsters who depend
on those payments? They were promised!" And is the target of this outrage
those who foisted this transparent socialist fraud on a befuddled nation?
No, it's those of us who have bravely assumed the role of bank examiners,
merely holding open the door to the empty vault and pointing out they've
created an unsustainable system.
The case is similar as we begin to examine why the United States has by far
the highest incarceration rate in the world. Take the case of Martha
Stewart. They couldn't charge her with selling her stock when her broker
told her it was going to fall in value, since that's not illegal. Instead,
they convicted her of telling the FBI that's not the reason she sold her
stock. This is the kind of thing for which Americans now go to prison.
So if you find a sucker to buy your used car for twice the Blue Book value,
you can't go to jail because it's not a crime. If a cop asks you whether
you sold your car for twice its Blue Book Value and you say, "Sure I did.
Whatcha gonna do about it?" you can't go to jail, because that's not a
crime. But if you tell a federal cop, "No; I sold that car for exactly
what's it's worth" ... you can go to jail for 20 years.
(While, in the meantime, the cops can lie to you with impunity, and bribe
other suspects to testify against you by promising them lesser punishments,
with no penalty to the cops or prosecutors if that testimony turns out to
be a pack of lies.)
And this is the set-up that our critics will tell us is sane, while they
can easily be predicted to tell us any radical changes we propose are
"nuts."
That said, a few modest proposals:
Today's "penitentiaries" are a weird invention of the modern "hygienic"
movement. Peaking in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this is the
same movement that assured us society could be "cleaned up" by banning the
legal commerce in alcohol and other plant extracts ("drugs"); aborting and
sterilizing the retarded and those of "inferior races"; putting the
government increasingly in charge of child-rearing; coming up with "modern,
humane" methods of execution such as the electric chair, etc.
In short, these people were dangerous nuts.
For starters, we could reduce our prison populations by about two-thirds
simply by retroactively repealing every law enacted since 1912.
Was murder illegal by 1912? Of course. Rape? Of course. Kidnapping, armed
robbery, bunko fraud? All serious criminal behaviors had been outlawed by
1912. So why have the number of lawbooks on the shelf multiplied tenfold in
the past 92 years?
Release everyone jailed on a drug law (unknown before 1916), for income tax
evasion (impossible before 1913), for any kind of illegal possession of or
commerce in firearms (laws unimagined a century ago), or for violating any
kind of regulatory scheme or edict erected since 1912, and the federal
prisons would be virtually empty, while even the state pens would probably
see their populations cut in half.
Now declare that -- instead of having their guns taken away and being
considered for prosecution -- any law-abiding citizen who shoots and kills
(or at least permanently cripples) a felon during his commission of a
felony will be given a free Browning Automatic Rifle and a $30,000
government reward (the current cost of jailing the culprit for a year while
he awaits trial), be declared immune from any civil lawsuit, and will
additionally be given a tickertape parade and a medal.
Add to any (substantially reduced) criminal sentence a realistic order that
the felon must compensate the victim or his family with current assets or
future earnings. (This would lend itself quite well to being enforced by
private collection outfits, who could follow the "former" felon around,
attaching the bulk of his wages.)
These things would make real, violent crime far less attractive, with the
added benefit of shifting a lot of the "punishment" to established
private-sector institutions. It's also a method that worked for millennia
in cultures that never even invented the soul-eroding job of "prison guard."
Next time: Whoops! What did we do with our welfare state? It was here a
minute ago.
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Review-Journal
and author of the books "Send in the Waco Killers" and "The Ballad of Carl
Drega." His Web site is www.privacyalert.us.
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R. A. Hettinga