Historically, prison was a place where people were detained until they were tried and, if not acquitted, sentenced to some punishment other than prison: a fine, a whipping, exposure in the pillory, time in the galleys, transportation to a penal colony, or execution. The idea of prison as being in itself a punishment and as a means of "rehabilitation" did not take off until the early 19th century. We would pobably do well to go back to the approach taken in our colonial days: far fewer things would be offenses and most of the remaining offenses would be punished with a fine, a flogging, the pillory, or the gallows. Why wreck a petty first offender's life by sending him to prison if three dozen lashes would be adequate punishment?

We used to refer to the men who did that as bounders or cads, epecially if a "good girl" was invoved--and, no, those terms were not meant as compliments.

You are correct. Paradoxically, it is almost certainly in Israel's real interest that the Assad regime survive, because Assad is sufficiently rational not to pick a (losing) fight with Israel, while the Jihadis and fundamentalists may not care. From Isreal's point of view, I suspect, better the devil whom you know and understand than the one whom you do not. It is perhaps a sign of how silly things have become that those who used to be pro-war out of their loyalty to Israel now seem to want war (and the replacemen of the Assad regime by an Islamist regime) even at what would turn out to be Israel's expense.

How about putting the money in a bank and letting it collect interest?

P3: And, in the meantime, until we reach this libertarian Elysium, what happens to the issue at hand? Do you think that legalizing same-sex marriage is an appropriate step on the road to getting government out of the marriage business?

Laws against murder do not take away the credit that we have in heaven for not committing murder. Laws against public drunkenness do not take away the credit that we have in heaven if we stay sober. Laws against smoking pot do not take away the crediut that we have in heaven if we we do not smoke pot. There ARE arguments in favor of legalizing pot. Your argument about free will is not one of them.

Are you obtuse by nature or did you have to work at it? I am not arguing in favor of continued criminalization of pot. I am saying that there is no intellectual merit in your blanket assertion that there is never any merit in not doing what the law says we should not do.

d13, It is possible to repent when one knows, or when one figures out, that one has done wrong. Repentance is all but impossible if one works long enough and hard enough to convince oneself that he has NOT done any wrong. Someone is not a worldling just because he sins. He is a worldling if he buys the world's message that his sins are really OK.

I believe that the Feds have no constitutional business trying to outlaw any mind-altering drugs just because they are mind-altering and that this should be a state matter. I am inclined to believe that, at the state level, pot should probably be pretty much legal, because it is not worth our while putting people in jail for frying their own brains. My argument with the millenials is not that they are entirely wrong about pot, but that they are right for a very, very wrong reason.

GL: Really, I think that you are the one not thinking about what I wrote. For purposes of the discussion here, it makes no difference whether X is victimless and Y is not. The question is whether laws that criminalize X and Y totally take away the moral merit of those who do not do X or Y. Obviously, they do not do so, at least not always and not entirely. There are perhaps good arguments to decriminalize or legalize this or that, but yours is not one of them.