Austin Improv

Agreed, agreed, and agreed. And yet . . . sooner or later, government is going to reflect cultural norms. There's no such thing as a rational government that exists separate from the environment that created it. I have a lot of sympathy with the libertarian strain running through this thread, but even a staunch advocate of personal freedom might see the necessity of preventing a crazy person from gaining access to a gun, or of removing a child from the custody of an obviously unfit parent. And both of these decisions require judgment calls.

So if you think (misguidedly, in my view) that homosexuality is BY DEFINITION wrong and bad and affects other people, it's not solely about personal consent any more.

I don't know why I'm continuing to flog this horse, except that it's been a long time since I've thought about the ethical basis of government and I find it interesting.

I have something of a mantra: a victimless crime is not a crime at all.

Proposed Constitutional Amendment:
"Any action that does not deprive another of life, liberty, or property through either force or fraud should not be considered a crime."
OK, I'm sure people with nitpick with little exceptions (such as environmental pollution without a clear victim), but the basic point is the same.


There's no such thing as a rational government that exists separate from the environment that created it.
You could have stopped after "There's no such thing as a rational government."
But you raise a good point--people think a thing is by definition wrong...but what is by definition wrong? Who's definition counts? Therein lies the rub. Again, my definition of wrong falls into two courts, morally wrong and legally wrong and the two are not one and the same. For example, I fully believe adultry is morally wrong, but I don't think that adulterers should suffer legal repercussions (save the behavior being a factor in their divorce trial) such as fines or imprisonments. I am, and I feel people MUST, be able to separate personal convictions from legal boundaries.
Back to the environment that creates a government...that's where I disagree with most governments. They loose their guiding principles and philosophies to appease an ever-changing populace. They pick and choose which "moral wrongs" are also legal wrongs (where's the call for the Constitutional ban on adultry from these same Christian defenders of marriage? Why pursue one and not the other except that one might get votes and the other not?)
A good government should be somewhat flexible, but also have very real and concrete guiding lines that it doesn't deviate from.