Logic of Legal or Illegal

July 22, 2011

What would you say about a society where anybody is free to kill stray dogs or cute kittens? What if killing animals is perfectly legal in a free society?

Most of us would reject the idea of killing sweet dogs or cute kittens will not be a crime. Even the thought of slaughtering kittens is despicable and it becomes more appalling if you are a vegetarian. Your first reaction about legalizing animal killing will be a knee-jerk response of “Oh no, that will mean extinction of kittens and dogs, people must be stopped from killing cute puppies and sweet kittens, how despicable it is, there must be government to stop those killings.”¹

The simple example is potent enough to make you realize the root of irrationality that leads to socialism and collectivism. Even the idea of a free market libertarian society where killing cute kittens and sweet puppies or any other animal won’t be illegal is not acceptable. You will also realize that you have no right to imprison or punish a man for using his property in whatever way he wants. You may also accept that one should not be punished if he hasn’t harmed another human being or have violated his property rights or his freedom.

This simple argument will fail to make you accept the reasoning from your core of heart. And this is very common; no one is so cold heart to allow a man to kill their kitten. Right from our childhood, we are taught to be compassionate towards other human beings and animals. Throw a stone at a dog and there will be people to criticize you. And it is perfectly normal, you must not harm animals, we should have a compassionate feeling towards animals and it must be taught to little kids to not to harm cute puppies and sweet kittens. However, when this compassion, which is certainly right and logical, is applied as a base of legality, it causes immense amount of damage and suffering in the society.

Just like plants, animals are also for our consumption. We cannot survive without eating plants and animals. One should also realize that those animals which we do kill and eat regularly, such as hen and goat, are secured, however, those animals which the government tries to save through the laws to prevent cruelty to animals such as tigers, cheetah, elephants etc. are in danger.

I am a pure vegetarian and I do not support cruelty to animals. However, I am strongly against punishing those human beings who choose to do so. Furthermore, a human being who hasn’t harmed or exploited any other human being is more respectable and lovable for me than my pet kitten.

Everybody agrees that one must not harm other human beings and must not exploit their individual rights and if someone chooses to do so then he should be punished. However, if a person is suffering due to hunger and penury, should there be a law that other people must help him and provide food and shelter to them (as in socialism and in our current system)? Or if someone is dying because he cannot afford health-care then should it be legal to force other people to help and provide health care to that person on their own expense (as in case of Universal Health Program of UK, Canada, India, and many other countries).

I support the idea of helping poor. People must be asked to help poor people and take care of diseased. But this should be a voluntary action. Charity should not be legally enforced. If I choose not to feed a hungry man, I am not committing a crime. Crime would be to force me to offer less food to my kids so that some other person’s kids may get food. Many people will suggest that poverty must be reduced and it can be reduced by sharing poverty. They will say, “Oh if your kids are unable to eat a pizza because you provided food for someone else’ children who were about to die of hunger, then you and your kids should not complain.”² But it is not logic; it’s simply an emotional appeal. Can this be made a law? Feed and help poor and their kids rather than providing better life, education and health for your own kids? In fact, this is the law in our nation and most of the other nations and this law is enforced by means of taxation.

People fail to see that when I feed my kids at Pizza Hut, I attain satisfaction that I worked and earned money to provide best that I can for my kids. My family’s happiness is my satisfaction. And this happiness drives me to work harder and provide better. Also, by spending money at the Pizza Hut, I provide money for the Pizza Hut guys who will get paid for their labor. Since I fed my kids at Pizza Hut, many other people including the workers of Pizza Hut and all other associates, the baker got money to feed their children and feel the same satisfaction.

If I am forced to feed morsel to my kids so that the kids of other unemployed person may get fed, I won’t get the satisfaction. In absence of satisfaction, I won’t be compelled to work harder to produce and earn more. As a result, while that unemployed person’s kids may be fed, but hundreds of hard working deserving men who were working on the Pizza Hut and their families will be at the brink of hunger. They will realize that their work is less rewarding, how harder they work lesser their kids will get because you chose to force a person to feed the starving kids of that unemployed man rather than allowing him to provide a Pizza to his own kids.

Do you realize that sharing poverty will only increase poverty? People do not prevent men from gaining satisfaction by providing the best possible for their own self and their families because of hatred, racism, bigotry or jealousy. Rather, they do so because of their goodwill and misguided compassion towards the poor. In order to help the poor, they enforce laws to rob the hard working men through taxation. And the people who support such loot, are actually not the evil and bad person, rather they think good of the society. However, results come out to be negative and it increases poverty.

Let us concentrate again over the cute puppies and sweet kitten. If I say that in a Libertarian Free society, killing cute puppies and dogs won’t be a crime; people will feel their emotions being hurt. However, the concept of legal or illegal doesn’t depend on emotions, it is necessary for laws to establish themselves on the scale of logic and reason.

This post was not about killing cute puppies or sweet kittens. Nor it was about animal rights or taxation or altruism. This discussion was about the general knee-jerk emotional arguments that will be raised whenever someone will talk about Free society, Liberty, Objectivism or Anarchocapitalism. People often tend to oppose their own liberty for the sake of their emotional confusion and while doing so, they not only harm their own self, but those too to whom they want to support.

Now we will discuss about legality or illegality of various issues but will try to keep away the emotions. We will talk about animal rights, prostitution, pimping³ , guns, drugs, ways of animal welfare, poverty, Universal Health Care, right to education, and a lot more and the logical concept of the issues of their legalization or illegality.

Prostitution: Legal or Illegal Blackmail: Legal or Illegal

Pimping: Legal or Illegal Bribing:Legal or Illegal

Drugs: Legal or Illegal

Pornography: Legal or Illegal

Homosexuality: Legal or Illegal