Laurence makes a most important point on “virtual” crime. In this case, we have the state creating a “crime” that never really existed, the state attempting to make someone commit “crime,” all to promote the fiction that the state keeps us safe.

Where I work, a faculty member recently was arrested for having child pornography on his computer. No doubt, from what I have been told by people very close to this investigation, the man did download the stuff, and I am sure that it is nasty.

However, I would wonder who he harmed, as harm used to be the criterion for determination of a crime. Today, a “crime” simply is saying, acting, or thinking in a way that the state forbids.

Yes, I believe child porn is evil, and those who take pictures of children in these situations or lure them into pornography ARE guilty of harming people, and need to face the law. However, I do not think we can make the same application for people who look at the stuff, as awful and creepy as it may be.

In his book, Tyranny of Good Intentions, Paul Craig Roberts (and his co-author, Lawrence Stratton) point out the effect of Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarian philosophy on crime, in which people are locked up before they ever commit any crime because they might be future criminals. Also, Bentham deplored the “harm” issue of crime, and instead emphasized that crime should be anything that one does in disobedience of the state, and that would include thinking the wrong way.

No doubt, I will receive emails from people who tell me that I either must be a pornographer or that I support child porn. That is not true; instead, I am pointing out the greater danger of being subservient to a state that can choose to lock any of us up for any reason it decides. That is MUCH more dangerous and frightening than the nastiest dose of child porn.