Heritage Foundation has a notion of … freedom

[cite as: F. Bi. 2009. Heritage Foundation has a notion of ... freedom. Intl. J. Inact., 2:94]

Brian D mentions a web site overcriminalized.com which was owned by another of those free-market ‘think-tanks’ — the Heritage ‘Foundation’. It protested against what it claims is the overuse of criminal law (in preference over civil law) in the prosecution of things like acts of negligence, and gives the following case study:

Every tragic story that garners public attention seems to be addressed by adding to an increasingly long list of criminal laws. To illustrate the problem, Judge Bing cited the “Careless Driving” law. After a young woman was tragically killed in a car accident where the other driver was at fault but was not intoxicated or otherwise driving dangerously, her father started a campaign to enact a criminal law against “careless driving.”

Yeah, someone died… big deal! Just another sob story that rational-minded people should simply ignore! So what will a real tragedy that requires criminal legislation look like? Let’s see: [cached]

The truth is, there is no difference between shoplifting a DVD from a store and illegally downloading a copyrighted movie from KaZaa. Stealing intellectual property is just as wrong as the theft of “real” property.

Hmm. I think I’m starting to understand why global warming is a non-problem and why we should do nothing about it. The key word here, my friends, is Property.

Repeat: the key word is Property.

You see, clothing and jewellery are property. The music on a DVD is property — it’s intellectual property, which is a very important kind of property indeed, and therefore deserves the protection of criminal law itself.

Is the earth’s climate a type of property? Is a person’s life a type of property? Of course not! Therefore, these things do not deserve the protection of criminal law. It’s as simple as that.