What is a Crime?

Legally speaking, a crime is “a violation of a statute.” This renders each of us, without exception, as criminal. There does not exist a single person who has never violated any statute.

This is a convenient fact, for some purposes. Among other things, it renders each of us below the ideal of “non-criminal.” This in turn is nice if you’re trying to make the argument that there are better things out there, than you. This is fatally false, but will be addressed later at rationalegoism.com.

Basically, it renders “non-criminal” as existing only outside of the set of extant humans. It gets us in the habit of thinking, “Well, I’m not a criminal but there is a higher standard of non-criminality than me.”

Speak for yourself. I tell you outright and unequivocally…there is no higher standard of non-criminality than me. And in all liklihood, than you.

Then what are we then, if we’re violating all these statutes? What could it mean for me to declare that I am the ultimate non-criminal when just the other day, I drove with a taillight out?

A crime is this. A crime is an action taken against another person, which degrades or inhibits his ability to act as he is, which is as a volitional creature. And yes, the only way to do this is with physical force; otherwise the person still has the ability to do as he wishes.

The simplest way to put this is, “There can be no crime absent a complainant.” Naturally, this includes a proxy and such. But the relevant point is that if we’re going to consider each other as criminals, then let’s at least get it right. The zoned-out heroin addict is not a criminal and couldn’t be. The heroin addict who steals someone’s stuff, is. But so is the non-heroin addict who does that, even if he’s wearing a uniform.

This is a very simple idea and was basically codified in the founding of this country with the idea that each person has an inalienable right to pursue his own happiness, which implies unencumbered by anyone else. Indeed, at one time the only sort of crime there was, was precisely the sort of crime I describe. But none of us remember that, of course.

Don’t sweat it, because in addition to a widespread misunderstanding of crime, there’s an even wider misunderstanding of what ought to be done about crime. The unanimous answer for a few thousand years has been, “Do something criminal too,” and down the road we’ll discover what an absurd fallacy this is.

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