 Hi I'm James and I'm Anthony and this is Words and Numbers. So this weekend we're going to be talking about one of my all-time favorite things, VICE. VICE. What you got James? Well I mean look across the country we've got a couple of countervailing trends on the one hand as we all know we've got the legalization of marijuana sweeping forward at a pretty good speed. I think we've got another 14 states looking at this election cycle. Pennsylvania On the other hand we've got a very strange anti-pornography sort of regime for lack of a better I mean what I don't even know what to call it anti-pornography measures working their way through Utah my home state where I sit right now but also in South Dakota and Virginia so that's a movement gaining some steam and what you find is that they're a group of people in these states who find something to be rather repugnant they just don't care for it they think for lack of a better term that it's icky and they're going to impose their values on the rest of the people in the state given half a chance so you know on the one hand we've got this increasing freedom in terms of what a person might smoke as long as it's marijuana right which is treated better than tobacco for reasons right that I don't quite understand and on the one hand and anti-porn measures on the other which would have you understand that there are things that the people in government don't want you watching in the privacy of your own home yeah and I think it's important to underline here when we when we're talking about vice we we mean things that that people will call victimless crimes that is you know I decide take drugs for myself I'm not harming anybody else right put aside things like ancillary things I break into your house to steal your money so that I can buy my drugs now clearly that's a crime and that's something that the government should be concerned about but my taking the drugs myself this is not a this is not a crime or the pornography or whatever it is it's me making decisions for me right I think reasonable people agree almost wholesale that in order for something to legitimately be a crime you're going to have to locate a victim and the the nanny staters they would have you believe that all of society is indeed the victim here and that's the only way they can sell it yeah and this is interesting because I've often wondered about this I think it boils down to an inability to to appreciate that people have different preferences right so if I'm somebody who says yeah I think marijuana is bad it should be made illegal part of what's driving that is the fact that it just doesn't occur to me that anybody would would enjoy it or if you do appear to enjoy it it must be because you know it's gotten hold of you and you're now addicted or something right but deep down inside what these people are saying is I don't like this therefore you shouldn't be able to do it and that's the very definition of tyranny right when one person would seek to impose his will on everyone else just because he said so and whether it's it's drugs or pornography or or even sugary drinks as you're seeing in some cities right whatever it is that the government where when the government steps in and tells you how you're going to behave towards yourself we're no longer a nation of free people we're now a nation of pets that are overseeing by some master who knows better for us what's good for us than we do and you will know who the master is because it's the person who says won't someone think of the children this is the this is the argument that tugs at the heartstrings and you say well we need to do something because if it saves just one child absolutely positively we should care about the children but we also have to be aware on the other side of the ramifications of what we do for example look at the marijuana laws right so we say all right we're gonna make marijuana illegal and let's suppose we're gonna do it for the children so that children don't have parents who are drugged out what's the ramification the ramification is that we destroy families by taking people who are using drugs some of whom might you know actually be irresponsible parents but some of whom are very responsible parents they happen to use drugs we catch them we throw them in jail and we destroy the family so in fact in a sense the state is right doing drugs drugs will destroy lives it will destroy lives because if you're caught with them the state will destroy you well I mean the simple fact of the matter is is that we're free moral agents and as long as that's true then we have to be permitted I mean think about the language I'm using here we have to be permitted by our government I'm almost using the language of a supplicant right if you're a free human being you don't have to beg permission of your government for anything as long as you don't hurt anyone else you're free to do as you will now those who would control you would have you understand that you have to be controlled because all of society is being harmed but that they only say this because they can't locate a victim they can't they can't because there isn't one and as long as there is no victim there is no crime and if there is no crime government should take the day off so all right so what's the answer here because a reasonable person would also say all right fine suppose we did away with all all you know victimless crime laws there are going to be people who fall through the cracks right they're going to be people who get access to drugs who might not otherwise have had access to them and you know it's going to ruin their lives or lives of people around them how do you respond to that I respond to that by saying the same thing that any rational person person should say people ruin their lives in all number in any number of ways right people eat too much they jog too much right they do anything too much it's not up to government to save human beings from themselves it's up to government to umpire the system to make sure that we don't harm one another and as long as that's being facilitated government has done its job if people happen to ruin their lives with the choices they have made well those are the choices they have made and there's no way to save people from themselves without undermining the freedom that makes life worth living for the rest of us and that's really the beginning and the end of it so check out the links below because we've written a couple of things on this and I'm I'm sure they're gonna be down there um let us know whether you agree or disagree and we'll catch you next week see you next week James bye