I am having a hard time picturing your crime prevention utopia. Perhaps some examples will help me understand.
How would you protect people from being murdered?
How would you protect people from being raped?
How would you protect people (and animals) from domestic violence (or cruelty towards animals)?
The snap answer is to say that none of these are really done now: people ARE being murdered, raped and robbed from. You only PRESUME that the rule-of-law is protecting--but it isn't. The
theory is that people fearing the reprisals will, refrain from the crime. That's not working overly well right now (if it ever really did) and as I discussed on the topic of 'Virginia Tech', the rule-of-law reduces the effectiveness of the very best crime prevention tool there is--the human conscience.
The aparatus for having a better system is already in place--we just need to restructure it and give it a better mandate.
1. We already have police who claim a desire to 'serve and protect'. They don't. All they really do is to defend the rule-of-law. So change their job description, Police should serve and protect PEOPLE.
2. We already have courts. Unfortunately, they are also only interested in proping up a defunct system of laws--expressly for the enrichment of lawyers, but to the ruination of all lives--on both sides of the crimes.
3. There are already jails and supposedly rehabilitative facilities. We should use them as that--instead of in retributions.
How would you protect people from being murdered?
The 'crime' of murder ceases to exist. Immediately, the means to commit a killing only to make a political statement against the government is effectively gone. How many wrongful deaths does that alone prevent? There's no way of knowing, but another Virginia Tech or Columbine High, probably wouldn't happen.
Further, an aspiring killer would have to overcome his conscience before he could kill and the rule-of-law wouldn't be helping him to do so. How many more would this protect? Again, we can't say but I suspect it'll be a significant number. FBI profilers know that serial killers attempt to de-humanize their victims--they think of them as things--specifically so they can override their consciences.
Just on the theory alone, we've substancially reduced the 'murder' rates. Now let's factor in an improved justice system where 'punishment' is NOT the goal.
People who feel they are going crazy will often seek therapy and even check themselves into the institutions that can help them. With prisons that were attempting to rehabilitate and with no public humiliation attached, couldn't a troubled individual seek some help? "I've been having murderous thoughts (or fantasies of rape), can you help me before I act on them?" Hey, haven't we just installed a system where even more 'crimes' have just been prevented?
Round this out with a continuation of the actions that are currently being undertaken in response to 'crimes' already committed. In other words, the people who have shown a murderous intent are already behind bars and we keep putting them in jail--but not in 'punishment'--it is because we are 'protecting' other people from them.
As for the tax issue, passing the burden up to the employer just doesn't seem like it would work. If taxes are based on how much an employer pays its employees, employers would have no incentive to offer their employees a higher wage.
Doesn't the rule of supply and demand set the wages? Doesn't the money going to the government already originate from the company and doesn't making an attractive 'take-home-pay' already cost the company the tax portion as well? There is essentially no change.
All that is modified is the public's perception of what the government does, and similarly there is a correction in the government's attitude toward the citizens. People are not treated as slaves and the bureaucracy truly become 'public servants'.
Sparkchaser, I've carried these lines of thinking far beyond what we've been talking about. I'm convinced that a few relatively minor changes philosophical in the way we order society, can solve almost ALL societal problems. We don't really have to work too hard at them either, if a system is structured to actually work--right from the roots, the ills will simply vanish, becuse the causes would be gone. (If you could cure the cold--the sneezing and runny-nose would disapear.)
<<<The simple cure for our civilization's sniffles>>>>
Rx - Un-sophisticate the society.
Sohisticated -
1 : to alter deceptively; especially : ADULTERATE
2 : to deprive of genuineness, naturalness, or simplicity; especially : to deprive of naïveté and make worldly-wise : DISILLUSION
3 : to make complicated or complex
The 'Sophists' were a reason why Aristotle invented the science of logic. They were a school that taught orators how to win arguments with specious manipulations of lies--to appear as truths. Much like barristers do today.
The rule-of-law is a fundemental LIE. It does NOT have a 'right' to rule, it only has a self-granted 'power' to do so and that is backed up with armed might--not with logic.
Suppose that a legislative body passed a rediculous law - 'When people jump up, it is illegal for them to come down.' Obviously, the law of gravity would make everyone lawbreakers, but this illustrates my point that there is NOTHING in the law to prevent such a ludecras enactment because at it's very base, the law is resting on a falsehood. People cannot be made utter slaves. Regardless of what law is passed, it doesn't overwhelm the greater law, 'that souls have complete freedom over their body's actions'. So why try to fight reality with sohpisticated mumbo-jumbo. Recognise that freedom will always exist, as does gravity, and work forward from there to achieve a well-ordered and TRUE society.
Cure the society by overthrowing the wrongful ruler --the law. Before you panic, almost all the 'laws' can be still used to the betterment of society. We just have to install the democratic people as above.
IE. A 'law' stating that 'Murder is AGAINST THE LAW', now becomes a 'governing statement' that 'Murder is AGAINST PEOPLE and unacceptable.
