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To: The_Reader_David
A rather excellent point David! In the early Byzantine (using the most common name in the West) Empire, there were few laws dealing with prostitution and none that I know of dealing with drugs (I am correctable on that).

However, if you are implying that the Eastern Empire didn't have laws against sin, or get involved in what the State viewed as the moral issues of the day, I would point out the Iconoclast controversy, the expulsion of the heterodox (Arrians, Nestorians, etc), and if you want to wander to a more secular topic, usury and inheritance laws. The Eastern Empire used government forces to push dissenters out of churches and lands, and force able deposed and installed bishops.

They had few laws dealing with prostitution, but still the state looked after and dealt with “sin”.

Dcwusmc and JSNTN have stated that they don't believe that the law should have anything to do with what they term “sin”. In reality, both have stated that it means illegal drugs. Which is a different thing than saying “No laws against sin”. My point is that a moral code of some sort is the basis for all law. As David said, at times in Christendom things like drugs and prostitution, while still viewed as bad, were not heavily regulated by the State.

Now saying that you want some drugs (marijuana,etc) legalized is much different from saying you want the law to not deal with a moral code of any kind. You can make the arguement that the current drug war is failing and leading to the same abuses of power that Prohibition created. Which is true. You can even take the track that the drug code is not based much in science but only on feeling, which in cases is also true. But that is vastly different from saying the law can not deal with any sort of moral code.

That is what laws do. Why do we have a law against theft of property inside the society? Well, because it isn't right to take what isn't yours. If I formed Red's Merry Band of Maurders and went a Viking, the State in general and Dcwusmc in particular would obviously take offense to me doing that. For good reason. It is wrong, and few would argue that it isn't.

Now, can law enforce all of morality? Well, no. Going back to Blackstone, the Law is to set the outer bounds of what is acceptable. As David said, using Christian traditional Orthodox assumptions, it would be rather foolish to have laws against things like pride, envy, sloth etc. The Church traditionally handled some of those, or they were handled in part by the State, or as now with the case of Envy encouraged by the State. Having all of the seven sins turned into offenses is not my point. My point is that the law in a given State always has at its basis a moral code. We can discuss which things should and should not be included in it, but the fact that law has a basis in morals goes to the definition of what law is.

59 posted on 02/15/2012 10:07:20 AM PST by redgolum ("God is dead" -- Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead" -- God.)
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To: redgolum; dcwusmc
Dcwusmc and JSNTN have stated that they don't believe that the law should have anything to do with what they term “sin”.

I believe FR etiquette calls for pinging someone if you talk about them. As it applies to me your statement is false; please don't put words in my mouth.

62 posted on 02/15/2012 10:40:27 AM PST by JustSayNoToNannies (A free society's default policy: it's none of government's business.)
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