> I hear the Prohibition example a lot. Under this school of thought, the cure to a lot of crime problems would be to make those crimes legal.

Well, not quite. It's more like, "Making crime X legal cures a lot of the secondary crimes caused while engaging in X illegally." In the USA's case, most crime is secondary to drug use: for example, theft to support an addiction, or murder to keep the racket going. The Prohibition example is a good one, what with the Mafia and speakeasies that it gave rise to. As far as I know, though, just relegalizing something *doesn't necessarily* cause its use to drop. Here's my case:

Holland legalized some drugs, BUT they immediately instituted regulation of it (similar to alcohol regulation). Holland's rate of drug usage subsequently fell to a third of the US's rate. There was another European city which I'll get flak for not remembering, but I swear it happened, where drugs were all of a sudden competely legal and unregulated within the bounds of a particular park. This caused a wave of crime and an increase in use as dramatic as Holland's decrease. The reason, I think, is essentially the same as why formerly communist economies continue to struggle after becoming more free: they lack the institutions a free market comes up with. When there weren't banks, investors, or sound currency, there was very little for the newly freed economies to build up from. When drugs were completely relegalized without any halfway regulation, there were no quality producers, no ethical wholesalers, no legitimate retailers; the only way people knew to use it was the old dangerous and illicit way. Holland essentially confined marijuana to coffee shops with its regulation, and in those it is sold according to safety and propriety guidelines. They made it boring, and normal enough to not be a problem anymore.

> The point is that people have different beliefs about morals. ... If anyone can come up with a better method of government (something new, please) I'd be very interested to see it.

Not a new one. Just about every bizarre twist has been thought of by someone, and there's probably a page advocating each somewhere on the Internet.

Try looking at it this way. I don't like arbitrary rule. The alternative to arbitrary rule is principled rule. The principles chosen must not contradict each other, and they must be carried out as fully as possible. The starting principle "Immorality should be illegal," because that must extend even to extremely private things, must mean that lust, bitterness, and uncharity should be among the many illegal things. [On a side note, I don't particularly like rights theory either.]

Now add this: Instead of thinking about the front end, "Should this be allowed?", think about the back end, "Do I want the kind of government that would be necessary to enforce this?"

> As a side note, does anyone else find it odd how societies seem to begin conservative and slowly get more liberal?

There'll be falls and revivals in any country. One thing you can count on is that the government won't start the revivals.

Gabe